Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

An Empirical Study Of Associate Satisfaction, Law Firm Culture, And The Effects Of Billable Hour Requirements - Part One, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers billing practices, the effects of hourly billing pressure, and firm culture as reflected in a survey of associates in Texas law firms. Part I of this article reports the empirical information from the survey. This information includes insight into the toll an increase in billable hour requirements has taken on legal practitioners and the consequent affect on the legal field. Part II discusses what the data means and how it might be used to improve the outlook for attracting and retaining good associates.

Attorney Fact-Finding, Ethical Decision-Making And The Methodology Of Law, Robert Rubinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the significance, challenges, and complexities of attorney fact-finding in ethical decision-making. Almost all discourse about legal ethics, from the pedagogical to the scholarly to the practical, takes facts for granted in order to focus on issues about ethical rules. The factual dimension of ethical decision-making, however, is critical to the decision-making process and can be subjected to rigorous and systematic study. Indeed, it is lawyers in a situation who engage in ethical decision-making, and such a situation entails the assimilation and interpretation of many sources of information. Such a process necessarily includes the motivations and ambivalence of …

Nonlegal Regulation Of The Legal Profession: Social Norms In Professional Communities, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

What should be done about lawyers who persist in violating ethical norms that are not embodied in positive disciplinary rules? That question has been a recurrent theme in recent legal ethics scholarship. One response has been to propose, experiment, amend, tinker, draft, comment, and redraft, in an attempt to codify the standard of conduct observed to be flouted widely by the practicing bar. Bar associations and courts are seemingly engaged in a never-ending process of promulgating new codes of professional conduct or rules of procedure under which lawyers may be sanctioned for such conduct as bringing frivolous lawsuits, abusing the …

Lawyer Crimes: Beyond The Law?, Charles W. Wolfram

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Duty Of Confidentiality, Roger C. Cramton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Morality, Motivation, And The Professionalism Movement, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Aggregation, Auctions, And Other Developments In The Selection Of Lead Counsel Under The Pslra, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Character Of The Questions And The Fitness Of The Process: Mental Health, Bar Admissions And The Americans With Disbilities Act, Jon Bauer

Faculty Articles and Papers

During the decade since the Americans With Disabilities Act went into effect, mental health inquiries by bar examining committees have engendered intense controversy. Courts have reached no clear consensus as to what, if any, questions about mental illness or substance abuse may be posed by licensing agencies. The trend has been towards a form of relaxed scrutiny that authorizes inquiries as long as they are focused on serious conditions that may interfere with practice, and are reasonably tailored in scope and time. This article examines the implications of allowing disability inquiries in the lawyer licensing process. The Article begins with …

Preliminary Reflections On The Professional Development Of Solo And Small Law Firm Practitioners, Leslie Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

Solo and small law firm practitioners have long been regarded as marginal, unmentored, unethical and inadequately trained members of the legal profession. Yet technological advances and demographic changes in this segment of the bar suggest reasons for re-examining this view. In an effort to gain a clearer understanding of the current state of the professional development of these lawyers, 41 solo and small firm practitioners in the New York City metropolitan area were interviewed about their work lives and professional development. The questions posed were designed to explore how, if at all, office settings, mentors and other colleagues contribute to …

Toward A History Of The Legalization Of American Legal Ethics -- I. Origins, Charles W. Wolfram

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Legal Skills For A Transforming Profession, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The legal profession is undergoing dramatic changes that will drive a reformation in legal education. Legal educators must anticipate these changes to effectively prepare students for the practice of law in the twenty-first century. In order to be proficient practitioners, these students will require an expanded set of professional skills. Although the current legal skills paradigm was articulated by the American Bar Association MacCrate Task Force in 1991, it is time to reexamine legal skills with an eye toward preparing students to practice law in the new millennium. In Section II, this article examines trends in modern society and the …

The Ermine And Woolsack: Disciplinary Proceedings Involving Judges, Attorney-Magistrates, And Other Judicial Figures, David R. Cleveland, Jason Masimore

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Renewable Bar Admission: A Template For Making "Professionalism" Real, Jayne W. Barnard

Faculty Publications

The citizens of this country should expect no less than the highest degree of professionalism when they have entrusted administration of the rule of law-one of the fundamental tenets upon which our society is based-to the legal profession. Re-examination was not originally required of medical specialists, but [the American Board of Medical Specialties] quickly recognized that a lifetime certification, even with required continuing education provided little incentive for doctors to keep up with new medical knowledge and techniques. Similarly, continuing [legal] education requirements alone are not sufficient to assure the integration of new law and procedure into a lawyer's practice. …

In Memory Of Joni Cesta, Neil D. Levin, Thomas Crane Wales, Glenn J. Winuk, David Yellen

Articles

Volume 30 of the Hofstra Law Review is dedicated to members of the Hofstra community, including four graduates of the Law School, who were violently taken from us during the past year. Of the four Law School graduates, Joni Cesta '91, Neil D. Levin '81, and Glenn J. Winuk '87 were lost in the September 1 1th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Thomas Crane Wales '79 was murdered in Seattle, Washington on October 11, 2001. The Hofstra Law Review presents the following biographical sketches to honor the memory of these four distinguished alumni.

Lawyer And Public Service, The Historical Perspectives On Pro Bono Lawyering, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

Historically, the first way of viewing the lawyer's role was as a member of America's governing class. Second came cause lawyering on behalf of a particular issue. Third, and most recently, arose the idea of pro bono lawyering, a less ambitious incarnation of the governing class lawyer who contributes time to helping cause lawyers. These categories are not rigid: for each individual they may overlap to one degree or another. This framework is preliminary and requires further research and development. Nonetheless, it provides a useful tool for explaining how lawyers-and in particular the heroic lawyers described in this symposium-connect to …

Just Between Us - Aba Considers New Ethical Rules, Irma S. Russell

Faculty Works

This article briefly describes one of the proposed rule revisions (Model Rule 1.6) to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct that will be presented to the ABA House of Delegates in July 2001 by the Ethics 2000 Commission.

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.

Faith And The Lawyer's Practice Symposium: Law Religion And The Public Good, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

If there is a religious way to read, is there a religious way to be a lawyer? More and more lawyers, judges and scholars are answering yes to that question. We heard earlier from Cardinal Bevilacqua about the history of the Religious Lawyering Movement, which blossomed in the 1990s. There was writing about the law and religion before that time." We can date religious lawyering as a body of work in mainstream legal literature, as Cardinal Bevilacqua did, to the work of Professor Thomas Shaffer in the 1980s.Why did this movement take off in the 1990s? Again, what accounts for …

Taking Action Against Auctions: The Third Circuit Task Force Report, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Deja Vu All Over Again, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Why talk about the future at all? As a professor I am a student of change. But do forecasts about the future matter to the average practitioner. My answer is a resounding YES! To understand my attitude, it's important to look at the work of the Futurist Committee of the ABA Law Practice Management Section.

Jurisprudence Noire, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Lawyerland Essays: Introduction, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The Ethics Of Legal Academics: Law Schools As Mdps; Or, Should Law Professors Practice What They Teach Symposium: Ethics Of Law Professors, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

[A member of the House of Commons said in Samuel Johnson's presence] that he paid no regard to the arguments of counsel at the bar of the House of Commons, because they were paid for speaking. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, argument is argument. You cannot help paying regard to their arguments, if they are good, If it were testimony, you might disregard it, if you knew that it were purchased. There is a beautiful image in Bacon upon this subject: testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow; the force of it depends on the hand that draws it. …

Jews, Christians, Lawyers, And Money, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Years ago, when I was the resident guru in legal ethics at Washington and Lee University, in the little mountain town of Lexington, Virginia, a reporter from the daily newspaper in Roanoke asked me to identify the most serious ethical issue for American lawyers. My answer: "Money."

Part of that answer reflected the fact that American lawyers make about twice as much money as lawyers in other "developed" countries. And American lawyers make, on the average, fifty percent more than average Americans do. (Reference to averages and means here do not reflect how steep the incline is from the middle …