Law Commons^™

Main Street Multidisciplinary Practice Firms: Laboratories For The Future, Susan Poser

Susan Poser

This Article examines the debate over multidisciplinary practice in the wake of the collapse of Enron and Arthur Andersen. Part I addresses the history of the scholarly debate about multidisciplinary practice in the United States. It discusses the focus on large multidisciplinary firms, feared threats to independent professional judgment, and the current rule concerning lawyers and multidisciplinary practice.

Part II examines the reasons for allowing multidisciplinary practice. The author argues that client demand, lawyer demand, and policy reasons all provide valid reasons for permitting "one-stop" shopping. Part I also discusses existing forms of multidisciplinary practice. The author argues that the …

Anti-Money Laundering (Aml) Legal Profession Related Resources (Updated March 2019), Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

Iclr 2019 Conference Handout: Resources Related To "Outside The Law Office: Where Do The Boundaries Of Regulation Lie?", Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

Legal Deserts: A Multi-State Perspective On Rural Access To Justice, Lisa R. Pruitt , Amanda L. Kool, Lauren Sudeall Lucas, Michele Statz, Danielle M. Conway, Hannah Haksgaard

Lisa R Pruitt

The Relevance Of Fatf’S Recommendations And Fourth Round Of Mutual Evaluations To The Legal Profession, Laurel S. Terry, José Carlos Llerena Robles

Laurel S. Terry

Lawyer Regulation, Aml, And Fatf's Mutual Evaluations, Laurel S. Terry, José Carlos Llerena Robles

Laurel S. Terry

The Path To Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations For Positive Change (The Report Of The National Task Force On Lawyer Well-Being), Part Ii, Recommendations For Law Schools, David Jaffe

David Jaffe

Business Lawyers, Baseball Players, And The Hebrew Prophets, Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

This article is a reflection on the ethics of practiving law for business, building on the career of Scott Boras, who acts as agent and lawyer for professional baseball players. The reflection wonders at the clout corporate lawyers have over their clients, mentioning, of course, some personal experiences (back before the invention of moveable type) from the author's two years in a large business-oriented law firm, as well as on Mr. Boras's significant influence in the baseball world. The object, finally, is ethical reflection on such things as the particular a lawyer has when she in in house rather than …

Do Lawyers Matter? The Effect Of Legal Representation In Civil Disputes, Emily S. Taylor Poppe, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J Rachlinski

With declining law school enrollments, rising rates of pro se litigation, increasing competition from international lawyers and other professionals, and disparaging assessments from the Supreme Court, the legal profession is under increasing attack. Recent research suggesting that legal representation does not benefit clients has further fueled an existential anxiety in the profession. Are lawyers needed and do they matter? In this Article, we review the existing empirical research on the effect of legal representation on civil dispute outcomes. Although the pattern of results has complexities, across a wide range of substantive areas of law (housing, governmental benefits, family law, employment …

The Negotiator-As-Professional: Understanding The Competing Interests Of A Representative Negotiator, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Trevor C. W. Farrow

This article is about lawyers as negotiators, and in particular, it is about identifying and understanding the influential and potentially competing interests that are - or at least should be - in the minds of lawyers (and potentially other third party representatives) during the overall negotiation process. While there continues to be an increasing amount of literature on the mechanics and strategies of negotiation, the underlying interests that are typically at stake in representative negotiations from the perspective of representatives - particularly negotiations involving lawyers - have not been adequately studied. And until all interests are identified and placed squarely …

The Power Of Lawyer Regulators To Increase Client & Public Protection Through Adoption Of A Proactive Regulation System, Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

The Fatf’S 4th Mutual Evaluations, The U.S., & Lawyers (2016 Ilec Slides; See Also Cited 2015 & 2010 Articles), Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

The Canadian Legal Profession: Clone, Hybrid, Or Mutant?, Philip Girard

Philip Girard

Philip Girard delivers the James L. Lewtas Lecture at Osgoode Hall Law School on November 21, 2011 on the topic, "The Canadian Legal Profession: Clone, Hybrid, or Mutant?"

Some Key Things Entrepreneurs Need To Know About The Law And Lawyers, Lawrence J. Trautman, Anthony Luppino, Malika S. Simmons

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

New business formation is a powerful economic engine that creates jobs. Diverse legal issues are encountered as a start-up entity approaches formation, initial capitalization and fundraising, arrangements with employees and independent contractors, and relationships with other third parties. The endeavors of a typical start-up in the United States will likely implicate many of the following areas of law: intellectual property; business organizations; tax laws; employment and labor laws; securities regulation; contracts and licensing agreements; commercial sales; debtor-creditor relations; real estate law; health and safety laws/codes; permits and licenses; environmental protection; industry specific regulatory laws and approval processes; tort/personal injury, products …

The Moral Lawyer And The Machiavellian Nature Of Law Practice, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

In Western culture the name Niccolo Machiavelli has become Machiavellianism, a pejorative signifying the willingness to do anything to achieve desired ends. American lawyers do have limits, however, and are expected to operate according to an ethical code that is at least intended to prevent the worst abuses. The effectiveness of this ethical code has often been questioned, as have the questionable efforts of the organized bar to enforce its rules, but on the surface it differentiates law practice from hand-to-hand combat and military struggles. Even though I have sometimes used the concepts of the warrior lawyer, the general and …

Judicial Rhetoric & Lawyers' Roles, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

Notwithstanding the rich scholarly literature debating the proper roles of lawyers and the precise contours of lawyers’ ethical conduct, as a descriptive matter, the American legal system operates as an adversarial system, premised in part upon clear demarcations between the functions of different lawyers within the system. Broadly speaking, prosecutors have the distinct role of serving justice, which includes the duty to try to convict criminal defendants who are deserving of punishment, in a way that is consistent with both substantive and procedural justice. In contrast, private attorneys have a duty to zealously represent the best interests of their clients, …

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

Lee’S Atticus Finch Represents A Will To Change, Mary Ellen Maatman

Mary Ellen Maatman

No abstract provided.

Retaining Color, Veronica Root

Veronica Root

It is no secret that large law firms are struggling in their efforts to retain attorneys of color. This is despite two decades of aggressive tracking of demographic rates, mandates from clients to improve demographic diversity, and the implementation of a variety of diversity efforts within large law firms. In part, law firm retention efforts are stymied by the reality that elite, large law firms require some level of attrition to function properly under the predominant business model. This reality, however, does not explain why firms have so much difficulty retaining attorneys of color — in particular black and Hispanic …

Buying Voice: Financial Rewards For Whistleblowing Lawyers, Nancy J. Moore, Kathleen Clark

Nancy J Moore

“Buying Voice: Financial Incentives for Whistleblowing Lawyers”

Kathleen Clark and Nancy J. Moore

Abstract

The federal government relies increasingly on whistleblowers to ferret out fraud, and has awarded whistleblowers over $4 billion under the False Claims Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform and Consumer Protection Act. May lawyers ethically seek whistleblower rewards under these federal statutes? A handful of lawyers have tried to do so as FCA qui tam relators. They have not yet succeeded, but several court decisions suggest that they might be able to do so under confidentiality exceptions to state ethics law, which several courts have …

Apps, Artificial Intelligence, And Androids: Beyond Schumpeter’S “Creative Destruction” To “Destructive Destruction” David Barnhizer, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

The analysis offered here is not a Neo-Luddite rage against “the machine”. As with the oft-stated reproach about paranoia, there sometimes really are situations in which people are “out to get you”. In our current situation the threat is not from people but from the convergence of a set of technological innovations that are and will increasingly have an enormous impact on the nature of work, economic and social inequality and the existence of the middle classes that are so vital to the durability of Western democracy. The fact is that developed nations’ economies such as found in Western Europe …

Success Secrets: Seven "Knows" For The New Year, Linda Ammons

Linda L. Ammons

No abstract provided.

Lawyers, Regulation Of, Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

This article was written for the second edition of the International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. It begins with a “Definitions” section that notes several reasons why it can be difficult to discuss the topic of the “regulation of lawyers.” First, there is no agreed-upon definition of the term “lawyer.” In jurisdictions that have a unified legal profession, the meaning of the term may be clear, but in jurisdictions that do not have a unified legal profession (e.g. solicitors and barristers in England or jurisdictions that do not permit in-house counsel to be licensed “lawyers”), one must specify …

Admitting Foreign-Trained Lawyers In States Other Than New York: Why It Matters, Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

The Monopoly Myth And Other Tales About The Superiority Of Lawyers, Leslie C. Levin

Leslie C. Levin

The legal profession’s control of much of the market for legal services is justified by the claim that only licensed lawyers can effectively and ethically represent clients. This article challenges that claim. A review of a number of studies suggests that experienced nonlawyers can provide competent legal services in certain contexts and in some cases, can seemingly do so as effectively as lawyers. There is also little evidence that lawyers’ legal training, the bar admission requirements, or lawyers’ psychological characteristics make them more trustworthy than nonlawyer legal services providers. The article considers some recent initiatives, such as Washington’s approval of …

The Folly Of Expecting Evil: Reconsidering The Bar's Character And Fitness Requirement, Leslie Levin

Leslie C. Levin

The bar’s character and fitness inquiry seeks to protect the public. As part of this inquiry, bar applicants are required to produce detailed information about their past histories. The rationale for this inquiry is that this information can be used to identify who will subsequently become a problematic lawyer. Bar applicants bear the burden of providing their “good” character even though there is little evidence that past conduct predicts who will become a problematic lawyer. This article looks at psychological and other research that attempt to identify factors that might predict future misconduct in the work place. It also reports …

Self-Interest And Sinecure: Why Law School Can’T Be “Fixed” From Within, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

The issue of how best to do a legal education is being approached as if it were an intellectual and pedagogical question. Of course in a conceptual sense it is. But from a political and human perspective (law faculty, deans and lawyers) it is a self-interested situation in terms of how does this affect me? The reality is that for law faculty and deans it is mainly a life style, status, economic benefit and political situation in which the various interests protected by the traditional faculty slot placeholders [as well as the non-traditional practice-oriented teachers) are being masked by self-serving …

Can A Single Masterpiece Sustain A Lawyer's Lifetime And Other Questions That Cross A Lawyer's Way, Randy Lee

Randy Lee

No abstract provided.

The Preclusion Of Nonlawyer Ownership Of Law Firms: Protecting The Interest Of Clients Or Protecting The Interest Of Lawyers?, Louise Hill

Louise L Hill

For the third time in as many decades, lawyers in the United States have sullied the notion of nonlawyer ownership of law firms. The most recent examination of alternative law practice structures was undertaken by Ethics 20/20, a Commission created by the American Bar Association [ABA] to conduct a plenary assessment of the ABA Rules of Professional Conduct and related ABA policies. A Working Group was formed which considered whether clients could be better served if law practice entities were restructured. To this end, issues were formulated and different law practice configurations were proposed, about which the public and members …

Crisis Regulation, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

The article presents information on the regulation of crisis in legal profession. It reflects on the legal profession of the U.S. that has engaged in regulatory reform in response to crisis. It explains that a few changes in the status quo may lead legal profession to react to crisis and discusses it with the help of immigration in the twentieth century, Watergate and globalization. It states that with the wake of the Watergate revelations there is an increase in the crisis in legal profession.