Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Jurisprudence Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Coffin's Court: A Colleague's View, Levin Campbell Oct 2017

Coffin's Court: A Colleague's View, Levin Campbell

Maine Law Review

These reminiscences focus on the eleven years, from 1972 to 1983, that Frank M. Coffin of Maine was the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. While Coffin’s judicial career extended over more than forty years, I chose this period because it was a time when his influence over the court’s work was at its peak, as well as because he himself later singled it out as a “judicial Garden of Eden,” during which the First Circuit enjoyed its status as the last remaining three-judge federal court of appeals in the nation.


Civility And Collegiality—Unreasonable Judicial Expectations For Lawyers As Officers Of The Court?, Lonnie T. Brown Jul 2012

Civility And Collegiality—Unreasonable Judicial Expectations For Lawyers As Officers Of The Court?, Lonnie T. Brown

Scholarly Works

It is a well-settled and often-recited fact that lawyers are “officers of the court.” That title, however, is notoriously hortatory and devoid of meaning. Nevertheless, the Eleventh Circuit recently took the somewhat unprecedented step of utilizing the officer-of-the-court label to, in effect, sanction an attorney for the purportedly uncivil act of failing to provide defendant attorneys with pre-suit notice. While the author applauds the court’s desire to place greater emphasis on lawyer-to-lawyer collegiality as a component of officer-of-the-court status, the uncertainty the decision creates in terms of a lawyer’s role will potentially force litigators to compromise important client-centered duties. This …