Law Commons^™

Evaluation Of Immigration And Citizenship Program (Icp), Wen Feng Yip

Master's Projects

There are many non-profit organizations which provide immigration and other legal services to immigrants in Santa Clara County. However, the capacity of legal services providers and their partners still face daunting challenges when trying to meet an overwhelming need that contrasts with limited resources (McAllister, 2015). Under these circumstances, the quality and effectiveness of immigration legal service providers in delivering their services is a subject of concern for immigrant groups. Community-based organizations are best suited to help immigrants with the legalization process (Cordero-Guzman, 2005) and their integration into the economic, political, and social mainstream in the long run.

The Immigration …

Alternative Business Structures: Good For The Public, Good For The Lawyers, Jayne R. Reardon

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

There has been a shift in consumer behavior over the last several decades. To keep up with the transforming consumer, many professions have changed the way they do business. Yet lawyers continue to deliver services the way they have since the founding of our country. Bar associations and legal ethicists have long debated the idea of allowing lawyers to practice in “alternative business structures,” where lawyers and nonlawyers can co-own and co-manage a business to deliver legal services. This Article argues these types of businesses inhibit lawyers’ ability to provide better legal services to the public and that the legal …

The Professional Prospectus: A Call For Effective Professional Disclosure, Benjamin P. Edwards

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Business Of Law: Evolution Of The Legal Services Market, Tyler J. Replogle

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The legal services market is changing. This change has been driven by various factors through the years: expansion of in-house legal departments, globalization (through mergers and outsourcing), technological advances, and the rise of alternative legal service providers. This paper explores these factors in isolation—i.e., discussing each factor separately and distinctly from other factors. Then, this paper seeks to understand these factors together, as products of a legal services market that is evolving from the growth stage into the mature stage.

Part I summarizes the early history of law firms, including the rise of the Cravath System through the Golden Era …

Poverty, The Great Unequalizer: Improving The Delivery System For Civil Legal Aid, Latonia Haney Keith

Catholic University Law Review

When individuals in the United States face civil justice issues, they are not entitled to legal counsel and therefore must secure paid counsel, proceed pro se or qualify for free legal assistance. As a result of the economic downturn, the number of Americans who are unable to afford legal counsel is now at an all-time high. In response to this ever-widening justice gap, the public interest community has launched multiple initiatives to supplement the underfunded legal aid system. Though valiant, this article argues that this approach has unfortunately created a complex, fragmented and overlapping delivery system for legal aid. This …

Addressing Cultural Bias In The Legal Profession, Debra Chopp

Articles

Over the past two decades, there has been an outpouring of scholarship that explores the problem of implicit bias. Through this work, commentators have taken pains to define the phenomenon and to describe the ways in which it contributes to misunderstanding, discrimination, inequality, and more. This article addresses the role of implicit cultural bias in the delivery of legal services. Lawyers routinely represent clients with backgrounds and experiences that are vastly different from their own, and the fact of these differences can impede understanding, communication, and, ultimately, effective representation. While other professions, such as medicine and social work, have adopted …

Medical-Legal Partnerships With Communities: Legal Empowerment To Transform Care, Tamar Ezer

Articles

Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) integrate legal services into health care settings to provide holistic care and address the social determinants of health. This article brings a legal-empowerment lens to MLP work, arguing for a stronger focus on communities. It examines the application to MLPs of bringing services to communities, investing in rights literacy, and partnering with community-based paralegals. It then outlines the potential for a transformation in health and legal services to a rights - rather than needs-based framework where communities are active partners in program design and development.

Increasing Diversity By A New Master's Degree In Legal Principles, Joni Hersch

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Students who leave their JD program before graduation leave empty handed, without an additional degree or other credential indicating that their law school studies had any professional, educational, or marketable value. The absence of such a credential combines with the substantial risks and costs associated with law school education to discourage risk averse students from applying. The adverse impacts of these risks may be especially great for lower income students who have fewer financial resources to draw on and less information about their fit with legal education and the legal profession. I propose that law schools award a master’s degree …