Law Commons^™

The Business Of Securities Class Action Lawyering, Jessica M. Erickson, Stephen J. Choi, Adam C. Pritchard

Law Faculty Publications

Plaintiffs’ lawyers in the United States play a key role in combating corporate fraud. Shareholders who lose money as a result of fraud can file securities class actions to recover their losses, but most shareholders do not have enough money at stake to justify overseeing the cases filed on their behalf. As a result, plaintiffs’ lawyers control these cases, deciding which cases to file and how to litigate them. Recognizing the agency costs inherent in this model, the legal system relies on lead plaintiffs and judges to monitor these lawyers and protect the best interests of absent class members. Yet …

Edward Barradall's Reports Of Cases In The General Court Of Virginia (1733-1741), William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

Edward Barradall was born in London, the son of Henry Barradall and Catherine Blumfield Barradall. He was baptized on 17 October 1703 in the parish church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Both of his brothers and two of his sisters came to Virginia in the 1730s. Edward Barradall was in Virginia by February 1731. From at least then until about 1733, he practiced law in the county courts of Caroline County and the Northern Neck. His law reports begin in 1733, and so it is to be presumed that that is the year he moved his practice from the county …

The Federal Law Clerk Hiring Pilot And The Coronavirus Pandemic, Carl Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Just when law students attained a comfort level with the arcane intricacies of the federal law clerk employment process, as increasingly exacerbated by the second year of an experimental hiring pilot plan, the coronavirus attacked the country and has been ravaging it ever since. To date, the virus has inflicted the most profound harm on the jurisdictions that comprise all of the “coastal elite circuits” that span the District of Columbia north to Maine, as well as the United States Courts of Appeals for the Seventh and Ninth Circuits, which apply the pilot. This piece examines impacts that the coronavirus’ …

"But I Know It When I See It": Natural Law And Formalism, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

Review of R. H. Helmholz's book, Natural Law In Court: A History of Legal Theory in Practice (2015); and David M. Rabban's book, Law's History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History (2013).

Human Capital Discrimination, Law Firm Inequality, And The Limits Of Title Vii, Kevin Woodson

Law Faculty Publications

This Article advances the legal scholarship on workplace inequality through use of evidence derived from interviews of a sample of black attorneys who have worked in large, predominantly white law firms. It does so by calling attention to the manner in which these firms operate as sites of human capital discrimination — patterns of mistreatment that deprive many black associates of access to the substantive work opportunities crucial to their professional development and career advancement. This Article identifies the specific arrangements and practices within these firms that facilitate human capital discrimination and describes the varied, often subtle harms and burdens …

Race And Rapport: Homophily And Racial Disadvantage In Large Law Firms, Kevin Woodson

Law Faculty Publications

Over the past two decades, clients and other constituencies have pushed large law firms to pursue greater racial diversity in attorney hiring and retention. Although these firms have devoted extraordinary resources toward better recruiting and retaining attorneys of color, and despite a proliferation of “best practices” guides and diversity policy recommendations, these considerable efforts have yielded only modest gains. With respect to black attorneys in particular, the tide of racial progress in these firms has moved forward at a glacial pace, even ebbing and receding in recent years.

Although large law firms now hire significant numbers of black attorneys as …

Dedication To Dean Timothy L. Coggins: "A Goodbye, And Thank You, To Tim Coggins", W. Clark Williams

Law Faculty Publications

At the close of the 2014-15 academic year, the law school will say goodbye to one of our most valued faculty colleagues and administrative leaders, as Associate Dean for Library and Information Services Timothy Coggins retires. Dean Coggins has made some of the most significant contributions in recent memory to the enhanced stature of the law school. His impact has been deep and profound, not only within the law library and the delivery of information services, but more broadly throughout the law school community.

Solving Your Ethical Conundrums: Researching The Rules Of Professional Conduct, Joyce Manna Janto

Law Faculty Publications

Ms. Janto provides a practical guide to researching issues of attorney professional responsibilities using both print and online resources, emphasizing Virginia rules and decisions.

A Hybrid Methodology For Seeking Attorney's Fees In The Eastern District Of Virginia's Rocket Docket, Timothy D. Patterson

Law Student Publications

As the costs of litigation continue to increase, in large part due to overly broad discovery, the skirmishes in motions to compel are taking on new importance as part of the strategy. Attorneys in large law firms are even developing a subpractice area known as “discovery counsel,” particularly with the explosion of e-discovery over electronically stored information. It is for another article to discuss whether discovery should become so large or complex that practitioners can specialize in it. Thus, it will not come as a surprise to anyone that parallel to this issue is the much sought after, but often …

Salvaging The 2013 Federal Law Clerk Hiring Season, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Ten years ago, the judiciary instituted the Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan, an employment system meant to regularize hiring in which most circuit and district court jurists voluntarily participated. Throughout the succeeding decade, this process operated effectively for innumerable trial judges, but functioned less well for appellate jurists. In early 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit revealed that all its members "will hire law clerks at such times as each individual judge determines to be appropriate," concomitantly explaining "the plan is [apparently] no longer working." With these statements, the D.C. Circuit explicitly acknowledged what …

Discovering E-Discovery: A Resources Guide, Timothy L. Coggins

Law Faculty Publications

E-discovery refers to discovery in civil litigation that focuses on the exchange of information in electronic form. Lainie Crouch Kaiser, a litigation attorney with McDermott Will & Emery, writes that “e-Discovery can be used as an umbrella term for both the legal and operational considerations related to how electronically stored information (ESI) is used in the modern day practice of law.”There are many types of ESI, including e-mail and office documents, voicemail, photos, video, and databases. Attorneys and others who write about e-discovery also include “raw data” as discoverable information. Ronald J. Hedges of Nixon Peabody writes that “[t]echnically, documents …

Educating New Lawyers, Tara L. Casey

Law Faculty Publications

In this article, the author discusses how law schools have been challenged recently to place greater emphasis on preparing students for the realities of legal practice through skills training and community-based learning.

Tribute To Professor Carroll "John Was Third", James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

In any law school, there are those of us-most of us, really who like to hear ourselves talk. We think that no conversation is complete until we have voiced our views. But then there are those rare few who do not feel that need, who instead have a talent for picking their moments and crystallizing an issue with a single, insightful observation. That was John Carroll. At a faculty meeting, in a colloquy with a visiting scholar, and of course in the classroom, John could be counted on to say the wise thing at just the right time. His quiet …

What We Didn't See Before, Allison Anna Tait

Law Faculty Publications

The essays in this Issue concentrate on a primary, and crucial, cluster of analytic concerns about the ways in which governments, artists, and architects have chosen to represent the concept of justice.

Legal Education Prepares Students To Weather Tough Times, Tara L. Casey

Law Faculty Publications

The author discusses how law students are facing a daunting problem—a competitive job market in the midst of an economic recession. But because of the training they receive both inside and outside of the classroom, law students are uniquely poised to weather this storm.

One Person's Junk, Another Person's Treasures: Dissolving A Small Law Book Collection, Gail F. Zwirner

Law Faculty Publications

Decisions to eliminate a book collection occur for various reasons, including retirement, downsizing a home library, or a sweet deal from an online vendor. Law librarians regularly receive inquiries about the purchase or donation of used law books. Many times these calls originate in a law school’s development office after an attorney school seeks his or her law school’s advice on eliminating a significant career investment. An attorney may turn to a law firm librarian for advice as well.

The Feedback Loop, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

The author discusses how the "feedback loop" exists in a great many areas of the law. The law frequently derives its content from the everyday practices of those it seeks to regulation.

Building A Law Firm Library, Joyce Manna Janto

Law Faculty Publications

Opening a law practice is a daunting task. Renting space, equipping an office, and hiring staff are obvious first steps.But what about assembling a library?

The Electronic Workplace, Ann C. Hodges

Law Faculty Publications

The American workplace of the twenty-first century is in the midst of a vast transformation not unlike the Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century. The United States has moved from a manufacturing-based economy to a knowledge-based economy. This new era has been variously denominated the Technological Revolution, the Electronic Revolution, or the Digital Revolution. Thomas Friedman has described the transformative change as a flattening of the world. Historians will almost certainly have a name for this monumental change in the economy, which, of course, is affecting not only the United Sttttes but many other countries in the world as …

School Is In Session For Summer Associates, Joyce Manna Janto

Law Faculty Publications

Law students who are starting summer associate positions often need a “reality check.”

Whether these aspiring lawyers are moving from the casual summer employment of their college days, or switching professional fields, they will have to understand and adapt to the culture of a law firm.

New summer associates need to understand the mores of their own firm and the locale’s legal culture, and master practical matters such as the firm’s billing system. Legal research that is “more or less accurate” is not accurate enough, and may be too costly, for a law firm’s clients.

Reconciling Pinstripes And Pearls, Carl W. Tobias, Margaret L. Sanner

Law Faculty Publications

Review of Judith Richards Hope, Pinstripes & Pearls: The Women of the Harvard Law School Class of '64 Who Forged an Old-Girl Network and Paved the Way for Future Generations (2003)

Can Paralegals Replace Corporate Lawyers?, Porcher L. Taylor Iii

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

I predict that by 2010, expense will force many of the nation's largest law firm radically to alter the lawyer-paralegal ratio. Hundreds of corporate clients intent on controlling high legal fees will drive this change. Consequently, we may see a new kind of law firm gain popularity: firms with more paralegals than lawyers. Even today, the law of paralegal economics sing a soothing tune to corporate America.

Book Review, The Digital Practice Of Law: A Practical Reference For Applying Technology Concepts To The Practice Of Law, Timothy L. Coggins

Law Faculty Publications

A book review on Michael R. Arkfeld's 4th edition of, The Digital Practice of Law: a Practical Reference for Applying Technology Concepts to the Practice of Law.

Information Redlining: A List Of Selected Readings, Timothy L. Coggins

Law Faculty Publications

In earlier essays Henry Perritt, Marvin Anderson, Gary Bass and Patrice McDermott discuss the increasing use of computers to access information through the information superhighway, the Internet and online services, the increasing reliance on electronic formats by publishers and the federal government and the continuing debate about "information redlining." They indicate that information redlining is broader than just the availability and effects of technology and enhanced online services on lower income, minority and rural communities. It also deals with what information will be available to these groups. As more and more data comes in digital form and when some information …

Foreword: Law And The Library, Timothy L. Coggins

Law Faculty Publications

A Foreword for the North Carolina Libaries Journal on "Law and the Library."

Leon Jaworski, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

An encyclopedia entry on Lew Jaworski

The Virginia Bar, 1870-1900, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

An essay on the Virginia bar from 1870 to 1900 rnust begin with a definition of a Virginia attorney-at-law. In 1870 and for the next twenty-five years, a Virginia lawyer was "any person" over the age of twenty-one of "honest demeanor" who had been examined for fitness and licensed to practice law by any two judges of Virginia courts of record. Having been licensed, each attorney must have then "qualified" to practice in each court in which he wished to appear. This was done by swearing in that court to demean himself honestly in the practice of law and to …

Review Of Beverley Tucker: Heart Over Head In The Old South, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

A book review on, Beverley Tucker: Heart over Head in the Old South, by Robert J. Brugger.

Legal Malpractice: A Survey Of The Virginia Law, J. Rodney Johnson

Law Faculty Publications

A great deal has been written during the past several years about the increasing number of professional liability actions that are being brought against attorneys by their former clients. Indeed, some commentators have taken the position that a legal malpractice "crisis", similar to the medical malpractice crisis that has so adversely affected physicians in recent years, is imminent for the bar. This short note will turn away from the factual question concerning the existence of such a crisis and look instead at the legal issues that form the basis of an attorney's professional liability exposure in Virginia.