Law Commons^™

Cultivating Sense: Cultural Change In The Prosecutor’S Office, Shih-Chun Steven Chien

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Prosecutors exercise broad discretion. They are widely viewed as the gatekeepers of the criminal justice system. To date, studies on prosecutors in different jurisdictions have largely focused on how to conceptualize, manage, and eventually control the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Scholars have recently turned their attention to the importance of internal organizational management and leadership’s role in changing office culture as a means to regulate prosecutorial discretion. But we have limited empirical evidence as to how changes occur within a prosecutor’s office and what precise role organizational leaders play during this process.

This Article constructs a new paradigm for the …

Who Wants To Be A Prosecutor? And Why Care? Law Students’ Career Aspirations And Reform Prosecutors’ Goals, Shih-Chun Steven Chien, Stephen Daniels

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Often called “progressive” or “reform” prosecutors, a number of reform-minded prosecutors have been elected recently across the United States—promising a distinctive vision of criminal justice and signaling that their role will be more attuned to issues of race and equity than “law and order.” Furthering this vision requires dramatic changes to the working cultures—the norms, practices, and even personnel—of their offices. Diversity plays a major role.

One central challenge is identifying, attracting, and hiring newly-minted lawyers who can, over time, be socialized into and sustain a changing organizational culture. This article empirically examines that challenge, which involves two sides of …

Change At The Speed Of Leadership, Lee Fisher

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

“The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born—that there is a genetic factor to leadership. . . That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.”

“Lawyers are in the anomalous position of serving as leaders but generally lacking leadership training and skills. Competency in lawyering skills often functions as a proxy for leadership skills, despite the evidence that leadership skills are distinct and may take years to develop. Our neglect of leadership skills is reaching crisis proportions because nearly half of all current law firm partners will retire within the next ten …

Sociolegal Research, The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement, And Studying Diversity In Judicial Clerkships, Shih-Chun Steven Chien, Ajay K. Mehrotra, Xiangnong Wang

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) is an extraordinary asset for examining a vast array of topics related to the educational experiences of law students. By focusing on student-oriented surveys, LSSSE provides law schools and researchers an invaluable opportunity to delve into a wide range of issues dealing with the law student experience, including the career preferences and expectations of students throughout their law school years. In particular, there remains a wealth of opportunity for scholars interested in using LSSSE data to explore issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in legal education and the profession.

The American Bar …

Familiar Battles Yield Next Generation Victories, Karin Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Behind The Classroom: An Examination Of Law Schools In The 21st Century, Brandon Stump

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

No abstract provided.

Allowing Autistic Academics The Freedom To Be Autistic: The Ada And A Neurodiverse Future In Pennsylvania And Beyond, Brandon Stump

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article focuses on those Autistics who have the ability, in terms of intellect credential, and measurable skill, to enter the workplace. In particular, this Article addresses Autistics who are academics and teach at the collegiate level, specifically in the American legal classroom. I have chosen a narrow subset of a broad community to make a targeted argument for employment protection which can help expand the law for the entire Autistic community. While we are different than neurotypically developed persons, "[m]any with [Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)] have a high attention to detail and the ability to sustain intense concentration in …

Using Grit And Growth Mindset To Foster Resilience And Professionalism In Law Students And Attorneys, Carolyn Broering-Jacobs

Law Faculty Presentations and Testimony

The presentation introduced current research showing correlation between grit, growth mindset, and success in varied disciplines, then suggested several means for improving grit. Attendees discussed several problems that a young lawyer might experience and considered how grit and growth mindset might affect the lawyer's response to the problem.

Creating Assessment Tools For Students, Adjuncts, And Site Supervisors, Carolyn Broering-Jacobs, Carole O. Heyward

Law Faculty Presentations and Testimony

During this workshop, we plan to explore how clinicians can assess student performance at project, course, and program levels using self-evaluation, peer evaluation, and faculty evaluation (focusing on clinical adjuncts and site supervisors).

Angst, Technology, And Innovation In The Classroom: Improving Focus For Students Growing Up In A Digital Age, Karin Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Many professors in legal education have noticed increased angst in students, who fear that well-paying jobs are scarce. Often, that angst is manifested in the classroom. Some educators blame the phenomenon on the distractions of technology—but more specifically, the author finds that technology has brought all of our stressors to the fore, affecting concentration and the ability to absorb information. This article addresses the extent to which technology has changed the ways that people navigate the world within the span of only a few generations, and how the author continues to adjust her teaching techniques in her technology-oriented classroom in …

Abandoning An "Unethical" System Of Legal Ethics, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

It is time to abandon the pretense of "legal ethics" as an independent lawyer-run system and to design a civil liability system in which lawyers can be held accountable to wronged clients at reasonable costs with ready access and fair modes of proof. To the extent that the system of ethics actually caused lawyers to act "ethically" (which is a major and largely unsupportable supposition), the competitive dynamics of the legal profession, coupled with the significant decline in values, honesty, and accountability in American society, have rendered even that historically suspect system illegitimate. This does not mean that there are …

Simulations In Clinics, Contract Drafting, And Upper-Level Courses, Carole O. Heyward, David M. Epstein, Helen S. Scott, Daniel B. Bogart

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

I teach in a transactional clinic called the Urban Development Law Clinic. In my Clinic, we represent non-profit tax-exempt organizations that engage in real estate, economic, and community development. Some of our clients include Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity and Karamu House, which is a theater and community arts center. We serve as general counsel for some clients and provide legal advice on an as needed basis for others. The Clinic provides legal advice on real estate matters, corporate governance, transactions, and tax issues. The complexity of matters that we handle ranges from drafting a code of regulations to representing …

Book Review: For The Common Good: Principles Of American Academic Freedom, By Matthew W. Finkin And Robert C. Post, Lauren M. Collins

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (2009), law professors Matthew W. Finkin (University of Illinois) and Robert C. Post (Yale) "articulate basic principles of American academic freedom" (p.6) as a means of grounding the ongoing debate over the concept. The authors succeed in providing an account that is both comprehensive and surprisingly concise. Though slow starting, their book aptly sets the scene for all who wish to participate in a continuing conversation about the state of academic freedom.

What's In A Name? A Gen Xer And Gen Yer Explore What It Means To Be Members Of Their Generations In The Workplace, Lauren M. Collins, Elizabeth A. Yates

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the NextGen Librarian's Survival Guide by Rachel Singer Gordon, the author cites several reasons this time is different than times before in librarianship. Those that are most relevant to law librarianship include:

• Flattening workplace hierarchies and participative management increase the input of newer librarians in workplace decision making

• New technologies require changing skills that affect attitudes toward the integration of those technologies into our daily work

• Outside pressures, such as the prevalence of the Internet, impose a need for librarians to continually prove our relevance and improve relations with younger patrons

• The much talked about …

The Duty To Report Violations Of The Rules Of Professional Conduct: Alternative Views, Lloyd B. Snyder, Harry D. Cornett Jr.

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Thomas Horwitz wrote a thoughtful, provocative article in the November edition of this Journal critizicing Ohio Advisory Opinion 2007-1. That opinion offers the view of the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline on several features of Rule 8.3 of the Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct. Rule 8.3 requires lawyers to report certain violations of the Rules. Failure to report is itself a violation of the Rules. Horwitz not only criticized the advisory opinion, he also disapproved the procedures followed by the Board in formulating its advisory opinion. The authors of this article disagree with Howitz and offer their views …

Lawyer Deception To Uncover Wrongdoing, Lloyd B. Snyder

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

A Colorado district attorney used deception to get a man who had murdered three people and was threatening to kill again to surrender himself to the police. Following this, the Colorado Attorney Regulation Counsel charged the attorney with violating Rules 8.4(c) and 4.3 of the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct. This article discusses the Rule 8.4(c) charge. Colorado and Ohio have identical provisions in their Codes of Professional Conduct on dishonesty and violations of professional conduct rules.

A Frank & Honest Talk: Aall’S Diversity Symposium Takes On Hard Questions Of Creating And Maintaining Diversity In The Legal Community, Lauren M. Collins

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

"Getting a Rise Out of Diversity: Celebrating the Challenge" took on hard questions of diversity, while keeping the spirit of New Orleans alive through celebration. With speakers who work to maintain diversity in legal practice and education every day, participants engaged in a lively discussion of what diversity actually is and how to create and sustain it.

Truth Or Consequences In Legal Scholarship?, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

There has been an erosion of the ideal of truth as a guiding force for what we do. This includes a dishonoring of the tradition of the truth-seeking function of scholars. For the university-based intellectual, including legal scholars, the problem with commitments to ends other than truth-seeking is that once we accept a mission distinct from the pursuit of truth and honest discourse, most of the remaining options are suspect - including falseness, hypocrisy, self-deception, subordination of self to a collective, profit, dogmatism, devotion to tradition, and propaganda.

Although what we intend by the idea of truth - legal, scientific, …

Bringing Ohio's Legal Ethics Into The 21st Century, Lloyd B. Snyder

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The time has come for Ohio to replace the Code of Professional Responsibility with a set of standards based on the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The author offers seven reasons for doing so.

Princes Of Darkness And Angels Of Light: The Soul Of The American Lawyer, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The increasing belief among many lawyers that life is comprised of "fear and greed and money" has altered the legal profession and helped make lawyers into one of the most feared and powerful groups in American society - and one of the most scorned. In the midst of the widespread contempt American society is showing lawyers, this article seeks to explain the special role the legal profession serves in our complex democracy. At the same time it condemns attitudes such as those reflected in Fritts' statement. The belief that life is driven by fear, greed, and money has created a …

Ethics, Loyalty And Harm To Third Parties: A Debate Based On Spaulding V. Zimmerman, Lloyd B. Snyder, Scott Rawlings

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This discussion poses the question: should an attorney ever provide information to an opposing party to prevent that party from suffering great harm if the information will have an adverse effect on the attorney's own client? The case that sets the stage for this discussion is Spaulding v. Zimmerman, 243 Minn. 346 (1962).

Reap What You Sow, Gordon J. Beggs

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Unfortunately, with the adoption and revision of formal ethics codes, moral teaching has virtually disappeared from American legal ethics. Law professors, generally, do not consider it their responsibility to teach morality, and our profession today lacks a common moral standard. The Judeo-Christian principles expressed in Proverbs, however, provide a timely challenge to lawyers by advocating values that include justice, purity, mercy, honesty and civility.

Proverbial Practice: Legal Ethics From Old Testament Wisdom, Gordon J. Beggs

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Old Testament book of Proverbs supplied foundational moral values for our nation's legal ethics. With the adoption and revision of formal codes, moral teaching has virtually disappeared from legal ethics. This essay suggests that the wisdom of Proverbs offers a timely challenge to the character of the legal profession by advocating values which include justice, purity, mercy, humility, honesty, candor, truthful testimony, and civility.

Ethics And The Settlement Of Civil Rights Cases: Can Attorneys Keep Their Virtue And Their Fees?, Lloyd B. Snyder

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Civil Rights Attorneys' Fees Award Act of 1976 authorizes an award of fees to the prevailing party in a civil rights action. The United State Supreme Court, in Evans v. Jeff D., has interpreted the Fees Act to authorize the parties in a civil rights action to negotiate settlement of fees and merits jointly. The Court did not determine whether joint fees-merits negotiation is ethical. The author of this article contends that joint negotiation is ethical. He further contends that it is ethical for plaintiff's attorney to reject an offer of settlement if the offer is coupled with a …

Wrongful Death Actions And Section 1983, Steven H. Steinglass

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article examines the use of 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 in cases in which violations of federal law by state or local officials result in a death and the rules that govern the existence of the cause of action and the available damages. State remedies for the protection of individual rights from official misconduct are often inadequate, and public protection is frequently unavailing. Thus, many plaintiffs seek alternative remedies, and in recent years the estates, personal representatives and survivors of victims of wrongful killings have increasingly turned to federal law and federal courts. Section 1983, however, is a threadbare statute, …

How To Write And Speak More Effectively As Advocate, Negotiator, Or Counselor -- Suggestions To The Budding Lawyer, Arthur R. Landever

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

How best to give you some ideas about legal communication? The traditional approach is to focus narrowly upon a particular type, for example, appellate oral argument. My approach is different. I view communication in its total aspect -- whatever its general nature (e.g. writing or speech), degree of formality (e.g. brief or office negotiation), or audience (e.g. lawyer or layman). My ideas proceed from a fundamental assumption: As a student you can gain insights about the subject, by first studying the broad canvas. As you then reflect upon any particular mode, it can be set against that background. The suggestions …