Law Commons^™

Second-Best Criminal Case, William Ortman

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Combating Silence In The Profession, Veronica Root Martinez

Journal Articles

Members of the legal profession have recently taken a public stance against a wave of oppressive policies and practices. From helping immigrants stranded in airports to protesting in the face of white nationalists, lawyers are advocating for equality within and throughout American society each and every day. Yet as these lawyers go out into the world on behalf of others, they do so while their very profession continues to struggle with its own discriminatory past. For decades, the legal profession purposefully excluded women, religious minorities, and people of color from its ranks, while instilling a select group of individuals with …

The Myth Of The Country Lawyer, Judy Cornett, Heather Bosau

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Brandeis Thought Experiment: Reflection On The Elimination Of Racial Bias In The Legal System, Patrick C. Brayer

Faculty Works

This essay prompts the reader to engage in a thought experiment and consider their own limits in advancing the cause of; a legal system free from racism and bias, and lawyers are encouraged to use the experience of a young Louis Brandeis as a guide in this self-reflection. Specifically, this essay calls attention to the fact that Louis Brandeis started his legal career, at the same time when, and in the same place where thousands of African Americans were escaping persecution and traveling in search of economic and political freedom, yet he was publicly absent on issues of race. As …

The Clinical Law Review At 25 - What Have We Wrought, Robert Dinerstein

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

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

Faculty Scholarly Works

More than two hundred countriesin the world have agreed to abide by the anti-money laundering ("AML") recommendations developed by the Financial Action Task Force ("FATF"), which is an intergovernmental organization. This Article focuses on the potential impact on the legal profession of FATF's fourth round of mutual evaluations. During these mutual evaluations, which currently are underway, FATF-affiliated countries examine each other's compliance with the FATF Recommendations and recommend follow-up action. This Article first presents the legal profession-related results from the completed Mutual Evaluation Reports. A number of these FATF Reports recommend changes that include requiring lawyers to report suspicious client …

Shades Of Liberalism: Lawyers And Social, Political And Legal Transformations In Nineteenth Century Cuba, Ricardo Pelegrin Taboada

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1819, Ferdinand VII ordered the creation of two Colegios de Abogados in Cuba to prevent the expansion of the number of legal professionals, as well as the unauthorized practice of law. The strategy, however, failed, and lawyers increasingly became a force of political and social change in the island, being mostly inspired by the debates about the implementation of liberal agendas in and out of Cuba. Some Colegios de Abogados eventually became centers of anti-Spanish conspiracy and lawyers even led recurrent uprisings for Cuban independence. Ideas of reform among Cuban lawyers, however, were diverse, and different interpretations of liberalism …

The Settlement Problem In Public Interest Law, Susan Carle

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Public interest lawyers, of many types and political persuasions, play a vital role in pursuing '"public justice." For public interest (as for all) lawyers, settlement provides an important means of resolving cases. Yet a persisting ambivalence about case settlement in public interest law contributes to the difficulties public interest practitioners face in sustaining themselves in practice. Indeed, public interest lawyers identify case settlement as posing some of the most vexing legal ethics problems they routinely confront.

The trouble often stems from the fact that, in public interest law where clients do not pay for legal services, the economic incentives that …

Ethics And The History Of Social Movement Lawyering, Susan Carle

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Progressive Prosecutor: An Imperative For Criminal Justice Reform, Angela J. Davis

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Reform Of The Russian Legal Profession: Three Varying Perspectives, Susan Carle, Delphine Nougayrède

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This Article was co-authored by Susan Carle (American University Washington College of Law), Gayane Davidyan (Moscow State University), Thomas McDonald and Delphine Nougayrède. In the Article the four authors debate various approaches to reforming the legal profession in Russia. They start out with a historical introduction followed by a presentation and discussion of the status at present. A large number of legal practitioners, including the international law firms, are currently unregulated and practice within what is sometimes referred to as the "free sector". The Russian government has for a number of years attempted to introduce reforms that would require these …

A Reflection On The Ethics Of Movement Lawyering, Susan Carle, Scott L. Cummings

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This essay takes a new look at legal ethics issues salient to "movement lawyers" who maintain a sustained commitment to social movement goals and collaborate with social movement organizations over time to achieve them. The essay provides a historical overview of movement lawyering, tracing its development to current practice in which movement lawyers work in collaboration with mobilized social movement groups, though not always in traditional lawyer-client relationships. As this analysis reveals, contemporary movements employ a sophisticated array of strategies, which may pull lawyers away from traditional representation paradigms. We argue that the legal ethics literature on movement lawyering must …

The Impact Of Global Developments On U.S. Legal Ethics During The Past Thirty Years, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This Essay is written to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. After exploring what the world of legal ethics looked like thirty years ago, this Essay analyzes how global developments have affected U.S. lawyer regulation and legal ethics dialogue since that time. It does so in several different ways. It begins by analyzing the growth pattern of articles publised in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics that have addressed or been influenced by global developments. The Essay continues by identifying global societal developments, global legal developments, and global dialogue that have contributed to the …

The Power Of The Public Defender Experience: Learning By Fighting For The Incarcerated And Poor, Patrick C. Brayer

Faculty Works

This Essay discusses how public defender apprenticeships impact law students and help mold their future careers. Brayer discusses the tangible advantages that the apprenticeship imparts on students as well as the transferable skills that students gain. Brayer then analyzes the internal and professional growth of students that participate in this apprenticeship. Brayer situates this growth within the context of Chief Justice John Marshall’s own similar experience, arguing how the public defender experience focuses and matures aspiring lawyers.

Transnational Legal Practice, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This Transnational Legal Practice (TLP) Year-in-Review article continues the tradition of collecting and publicizing the developments that occurred during the past year. It focuses on developments that occurred during 2016.

The 2014 TLP Year-in-Review provided a departure from the Year-in-Review’s typical method of presentation by identifying two categories of what that article called “TLP-Nets.” See Laurel S. Terry and Carole Silver, Transnational Legal Practice [2014], 49 ABA/SIL (n.s.) 413 (2015). One group of TLP-Nets is nationally based and the other is inherently transnational.

This article uses the TLP-Nets structure set forth in the 2014 TLP Year-in-Review article by dividing its …

Looking For Competencies In All Of The Right Places, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Legal Services Regulation In Canada: Plus Ça Change?, Noel Semple

Law Publications

In common law Northern Europe and in Australasia, a wave of reform has been transforming legal services regulation since roughly 1980. Old structures and approaches, based on the principles of professionalism and lawyer independence, are being replaced in these jurisdictions by new ones that prioritize competition and consumer interests. In the United States this has conspicuously not happened, leaving intact a regulatory approach whose broad outlines have changed little in the past 100 years.

Thus, I have argued that the legal services regulatory regimes of the common law world today are bifurcated into (i) a competitive-consumerist paradigm apparent in the …

The "Rabbi's Daughter" And The "Jewish Jane Addams": Jewish Women, Legal Aid, And The Fluidity Of Identity, 1890-1930, Felice Batlan

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The "Rabbi's Daughter" And The "Jewish Jane Addams": Jewish Women, Legal Aid, And The Fluidity Of Identity, 1890-1930, Felice Batlan

All Faculty Scholarship

This symposium article discusses an unexamined area of legal aid and legal history—the role that late nineteenth and early twentieth century Jewish women played in the delivery of legal aid as social workers, lawyers, and, importantly, as cultural and legal brokers. It presents two such women who represented different types and models of legal aid—Minnie Low of the Chicago Bureau of Personal Service, a Jewish social welfare organization, and Rosalie Loew of the Legal Aid Society of New York. I interrogate how these women negotiated their identities as Jewish professional women, what role being Jewish and female played in shaping …

Introduction: What We Know And Need To Know About The State Of 'Access To Justice' Research, Elizabeth Chambliss, Renee N. Knake, Robert L. Nelson

Faculty Publications

Ongoing, systematic research on civil legal needs and services is an essential component of improving the quality and availability of such services. Collaboration among researchers, legal services providers, and regulators will only become more important as innovations in the delivery of legal services progress. This volume brings together sixteen white papers by subject matter experts who assess "what we know and need to know" about various aspects of civil legal services delivery. The product of a partnership between the South Carolina Law Review and the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services, the collection is intended to serve as …

Four Reasons Why Readers Hate Go Set A Watchman (And One Reason Why I Don't), Judy Cornett

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

When It Comes To Lawyers, Is An Ounce Of Prevention Worth A Pound Of Cure, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This 3-page blog post addresses the topic of proactive lawyer regulation, which is also known as proactive management-based regulation or PMBR. This blog post reviews Professor Susan Fortney's article entitled "Promoting Public Protection through an “Attorney Integrity” System: Lessons from the Australian Experience with Proactive Regulation System," and summarizes some of the impressive data that Professor Fortney collected in Australia, including her finding that sixty-two percent of the respondents reported that they agreed or strongly agreed with the following statement: the self-assessment process ‘was a learning exercise that enabled our firm to improve client service.’” The article also reports that …

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

Faculty Scholarly Works

This Article focuses on those who regulate U.S. laywers. The Article argues that the lawyers who head regulatory bodies in the United States have the ability to adjust the focus of the regulator for which they work in a way that will increase client and public protection. The Article further argues that it is appropriate for lawyers in these positions to exercise this power and that they should do so. The Article concludes by offering two concrete recommendations.

The first recommendation is that those who are in charge should, upon reflection, adopt a mindset in which they recognize that the …

The Lawyer As Public Figure For First Amendment Purposes, Alex B. Long

Scholarly Works

Should lawyers be treated as public figures for purposes of defamation claims and, therefore, be subjected to a higher evidentiary standard of actual malice under the Supreme Court’s decision in New York Times v. Sullivan? The question of whether lawyers should be treated as public figures raises broad questions about the nature of defamation law and the legal profession. By examining the Supreme Court’s defamation jurisprudence through the lens of cases involving lawyers as plaintiffs, one can see the deficiencies and inconsistencies in the Court’s opinions more clearly. And by examining the Court’s defamation cases through this lens, one can …

Training For Bargaining, Jenny M. Roberts, Ronald F. Wright

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

While plea bargaining dominates the practice of criminal law, preparation for trial remains central to defense attorneys’ training. Negotiation is still peripheral to that training. Defense lawyers enter practice with little exposure to negotiation techniques and strategies in the plea bargaining context, the most significant skills they use every day.

Empirical research on plea negotiations has concentrated on outcomes of negotiations rather than the process itself. Our multi-phase field study examines the negotiation techniques that attorneys use during plea bargaining, as well as their preparation and training for negotiation. This Article explores the data on the training aspects of our …

#Lawyeringpeace: The Role Of Lawyers In Peacebuilding, Paul Williams, Christin Coster

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Based on the Public International Law & Policy Group’s (“PILPG”) two decades of experience assisting countries and clients in conflict situations, it is clear there are a number of ways for lawyers and international law to promote peacebuilding. This article condenses information shared during the International Law Weekend panel, “International Law and States in Emergency: Responses and Challenges.” The focus of the presentation was how lawyers can and should make a difference in peacebuilding and post-conflict constitution drafting. The world needs more lawyers to “lawyer peace” by assisting countries and clients involved in ongoing conflicts or in peace negotiations. In …

Information Overload, Multi-Tasking, And The Socially Networked Jury: Why Prosecutors Should Approach The Media Gingerly, Andrew E. Taslitz

School of Law Faculty Publications

The rise of computer technology, the internet, rapid news dissemination, multi-tasking, and social networking have wrought changes in human psychology that alter how we process news media. More specifically, news coverage of high-profile trials necessarily focuses on emotionally-overwrought, attention-grabbing information disseminated to a public having little ability to process that information critically. The public’s capacity for empathy is likewise reduced, making it harder for trial processes to overcome the unfair prejudice created by the high-profile trial. Market forces magnify these changes. Free speech concerns limit the ability of the law to alter media coverage directly, and the tools available to …

Legal Education In Disruption: The Headwinds And Tailwinds Of Technology, Jon M. Garon

Faculty Scholarship

By harnessing improvements on communications and computational systems, law firms are producing a revolution in the practice of law. Self-help legal manuals have transformed into sophisticated interactive software; predictive coding can empower clients to receive sophisticated legal advice from a machine; socially mediated portals select among potential lawyers and assess the quality of the advice given; and virtual law firms threaten to distintermediate the grand edifices of twentieth century Big Law. These changes may profoundly restructure the legal practice, undermining the business model for many solo and small firm practices.

This paper focuses on the implications of these profound disruptive …

Transnational Legal Practice, Laurel Terry, Carole Silver

Faculty Scholarly Works

This 2015 Year-in-Review article continues the tradition of collecting and publicizing the developments that occurred during the year related to transnational legal practice (TLP). This year’s article builds on the work set forth in the 2014 Year-in-Review.

The 2014 TLP Year-in-Review provided a departure from the Year-in-Review’s typical method of presentation by identifying two categories of what that article called “TLP-Nets.” One group of TLP-Nets is nationally based and the other is inherently transnational. The 2014 article identified examples of TLP-Nets and highlighted the meeting points and relationships that facilitate border-crossing for the variety of actors involved in TLP policy-making …

Redefining Attention (And Revamping The Legal Profession?) For The Digital Generation, Lauren A. Newell

Law Faculty Scholarship

With computers, text messages, Facebook, cell phones, smartphones, tablets, iPods, and other information and communication technologies (“ICTs”) constantly competing for our attention, we live in an age of perpetual distraction. Educators have long speculated that constant exposure to ICTs is eroding our ability to stay focused, and recent research supports these speculations. This raises particularly troubling implications for the practice of law, in which being able to pay sustained attention to the task at hand is crucial.

Research also indicates that the brains of today’s young people, the “Digital Generation,” may function differently than the brains of their elders because …