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Full-Text Articles in Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility

Legal Lying?, Robert Angyal, Nicholas Saady Jun 2021

Legal Lying?, Robert Angyal, Nicholas Saady

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Mediation has become very common in the USA and Australia—at least partly because of court-mandated mediation initiatives. Lawyers often represent clients at mediations, so the increased use of mediation makes it important to understand how both jurisdictions regulate lawyers’ advocacy on behalf of their clients during mediation. This article comparatively analyzes how professional standards regulate the truthfulness of lawyers’ advocacy during mediation in Australia and the United States. It focuses on uniform regulation in those jurisdictions. Part One will comparatively analyze the relevant regulations in Australia and the United States, and the types of obligations contained in those regulations—for example, …


Employment Arbitration Agreements: The Case For Ethical Standards For Dispute Resolution System Designers, Michael L. Russell Apr 2021

Employment Arbitration Agreements: The Case For Ethical Standards For Dispute Resolution System Designers, Michael L. Russell

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Dispute resolution design is an emerging field, both academically and professionally. Attorneys, mediators, and arbitrators, the other roles in the alternative dispute resolution process, have codes of ethics which guide their conduct. Dispute resolution designers, however, have no such guidelines. This article uses the example of mandatory arbitration agreements in the employment context to illustrate why this lack of ethical guidelines for dispute resolutions designers is problematic. In recent years, mandatory arbitration agreements significantly impacted employment law and litigation. The two most problematic provisions that often appear in mandatory arbitration agreements in the workplace context are cost sharing provisions and …


Model Standards Of Conduct For Mediators, American Arbitration Association Apr 2013

Model Standards Of Conduct For Mediators, American Arbitration Association

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.


Collaborative Lawyering: A Closer Look At An Emerging Practice, William H. Schwab Mar 2012

Collaborative Lawyering: A Closer Look At An Emerging Practice, William H. Schwab

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

A critical analysis of collaborative law (CL) is only now beginning, and should be based on actual, not hypothetical information about the practice and its impact on clients as courts, the bar, and the public begin to digest the idea of CL. This Article intends to present a more comprehensive picture of collaborative practice than is currently available, to better inform the ongoing conversation about what role CL will play in the legal system. Toward that end, the following sketches some basic questions about CL, and provides some preliminary answers. Part I recounts the origin of CL and introduces the …


Collaborative Family Law, Pauline H. Tesler Mar 2012

Collaborative Family Law, Pauline H. Tesler

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Collaborative Law appears to meet significant needs both among family law clients and among the lawyers who assist them through divorce. As will be discussed more fully below, clients appear to want the advantages of a contained, settlement-oriented, creative, private, respectful process without sacrificing the benefits of having a committed legal advocate at their sides. For that reason Collaborative Law appeals to clients who may hesitate to commit to a dispute resolution process facilitated solely by a neutral mediator. And, while many family lawyers suffer considerable professional angst as a consequence of their awareness that family law courts are neither …


The Narrative Approach To Mediation, Toran Hansen Mar 2012

The Narrative Approach To Mediation, Toran Hansen

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Narrative Mediation is an approach and methodology that can offer mediators an innovative way to handle conflict intervention. It is important to note that "it is not a model that can be ransacked for techniques without damaging the intent and process it requires.. .because the foundational view is vastly different [from other approaches]." It may, however, particularly appeal to mediators with a postmodernist theoretical bent who prefer to work with the accounts of parties in conflict rather than attempting to get at "the truth" because they recognize that any truth brings with it implicit bias. The explicit role of mediator …


Defining The Ethical Limits Of Acceptable Deception In Mediation, John W. Cooley Mar 2012

Defining The Ethical Limits Of Acceptable Deception In Mediation, John W. Cooley

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

In a recent law review article I authored for the Loyola University of Chicago Law Review, Mediation Magic: Its Use and Abuse, I addressed the perplexing problem of the current lack of ethical guidance available to mediators and mediation advocates on the question of permissible uses of deception in mediation generally and in caucused mediation, in particular. This article is a sequel to that publication, offering the reader a condensation of some of the ideas contained in that article and some additional thoughts on criteria that might be appropriate to consider when designing a truthfulness standard for mediation.


The Neutral As Lie Detector: You Can't Judge Participants By Their Demeanor, Bruce Fraser Mar 2012

The Neutral As Lie Detector: You Can't Judge Participants By Their Demeanor, Bruce Fraser

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

As mediators we are often faced with sharply conflicting stories. One of the advantages of mediation is that we sometimes can solve the underlying problem without determining who did what, to whom, and when. Indeed, experience has shown that mediation is not a good process for finding the truth because it has none of the tools (such as testimony under oath) used for this purpose in the judicial system. Still, mediators often spend a good deal of time and effort trying to determine who is telling the truth.


The Truth About Deception In Mediation, Jeffrey Krivis Mar 2012

The Truth About Deception In Mediation, Jeffrey Krivis

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Now that the court system has institutionalized the use of mediation in virtually all civil proceedings, trial lawyers are paying closer attention to their negotiation skills. While those skills involve less structured behavior than presenting a case to a jury, they nonetheless involve one common strategy that even the most skilled practitioners refuse to acknowledge: deception.


Mediation By Judges: A New Phenomenon In The Transformation Of Justice , Louise Otis, Eric H. Reiter Mar 2012

Mediation By Judges: A New Phenomenon In The Transformation Of Justice , Louise Otis, Eric H. Reiter

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article has three principal parts. In the first, we present an overview of judicial mediation and how it responds to some of the perceived problems with the classical model of adjudication. In this analysis, we draw especially on the experience with judicial mediation at the appellate level at the Quebec Court of Appeal. In the second part, we examine the unfolding of the mediation process itself, using an annotated guide to judicial mediation to address broader issues of both practical and theoretical concern. In the third part, we consider the crucial question of ethics in mediation, signaling some of …


California's Opportunity To Create Historical Precedent Regarding A Mediated Settlement Agreement's Effect On Mediation Confidentiality And Arbitrability , Susan Nauss Exon Mar 2012

California's Opportunity To Create Historical Precedent Regarding A Mediated Settlement Agreement's Effect On Mediation Confidentiality And Arbitrability , Susan Nauss Exon

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Confidentiality serves as a cornerstone of mediation. The public policy underlying confidentiality is the promotion of candid communications between disputing parties. As explained in this article, mediation confidentiality affects more than just communication. It affects other important mediation values, such as party self-determination and mediator impartiality. Mediation confidentiality affects parties' ability to enforce their mediated agreements. Finally, confidentiality affects multiple dispute resolution processes, as seen by the interrelated nature of mediation and arbitration in the seminal case of Fair v. Bakhtiari.


Adr Dharma: Seeking A Hindu Perspective On Dispute Resolution From The Holy Scriptures Of The Mahabharata And The Bhagavad Gita , Aalok Sikand Mar 2012

Adr Dharma: Seeking A Hindu Perspective On Dispute Resolution From The Holy Scriptures Of The Mahabharata And The Bhagavad Gita , Aalok Sikand

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita are both monumental pieces of Hindu literature. This paper seeks to analyze them in order to garner a Hindu perspective on dispute resolution. There will be five parts to this paper: Part I seeks to give an overview of certain Hindu concepts such as dharma, which will make it easier to understand the Mahabharata and the Gita. Part II will then give a brief summary of the basic plot of the Mahabharata. Then, Part III will zoom in on the section of the Mahabharata where Lord Krishna attempts to mediate peace between …


Lawyers, Faith, And Peacemaking: Jewish Perspectives Of Peace, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein Mar 2012

Lawyers, Faith, And Peacemaking: Jewish Perspectives Of Peace, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

We can only consider the role of peacemaking in Jewish law after examining the meaning and place of peace. Accuracy prevents me from opening with some platitude about how peace occupies a central, pivotal position in Jewish thought. It doesn't. Peace and peacemaking have a curious habit of not turning up in the middle of things, but all the way at the end. There are too many instances of this to be coincidental. There are nineteen blessings in the Amidah, the central (indeed!) prayer that Jews recite three times a day, every weekday of their lives. The very last …


The Negotiator-As-Professional: Understanding The Competing Interests Of A Representative Negotiator, Trevor C. W. Farrow Mar 2012

The Negotiator-As-Professional: Understanding The Competing Interests Of A Representative Negotiator, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article is about lawyers as negotiators, and in particular, it is about identifying and understanding the influential and potentially competing interests that are - or at least should be - in the minds of lawyers (and potentially other third party representatives) during the overall negotiation process. While there continues to be an increasing amount of literature on the mechanics and strategies of negotiation, the underlying interests that are typically at stake in representative negotiations from the perspective of representatives - particularly negotiations involving lawyers - have not been adequately studied. And until all interests are identified and placed squarely …


Style Vs. Model: Why Quibble? , Susan Oberman Mar 2012

Style Vs. Model: Why Quibble? , Susan Oberman

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article raises some of the questions necessary to address criticisms about quality and ethics of mediation practices: (Part I) Is there a "mandate" to provide informal justice through mediation? (Part II) Why challenge the generic mediation mythology? (Part III) Does naming differences as 'styles' result in greater clarity? (Part IV) Is mediation fulfilling its "mandate" to serve the court? (Part V) What are the obstacles to changing the dominant discourse on mediation? (Part VI) In answering these questions, an alternative framework is proposed to shift the current discourse about generic mediation based on artistry or style, to a discourse …


When Mediation Confidentiality And Substantive Law Clash: An Inquiry Into The Impact Of In Re Marriage Of Kieturakis On California's Confidentiality Law, Annalisa L. H. Peterson Feb 2012

When Mediation Confidentiality And Substantive Law Clash: An Inquiry Into The Impact Of In Re Marriage Of Kieturakis On California's Confidentiality Law, Annalisa L. H. Peterson

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Mediation confidentiality laws play a critical role in allowing mediation to remain a viable process for parties to discuss the issues involved in their dispute, exchange information, and potentially reach a settlement before trial. Without certain guarantees as to the confidential nature of such a meeting, no savvy party or attorney would agree to provide information that could later be turned against him at trial, and many valuable opportunities (as measured in time, cost, reputation, relationship, etc.) for resolution would be lost. However, some parties to mediated disputes either do not reach resolution, or later contest a mediated agreement in …


Illusory Ethics: Legal Barriers To An Ombudsman's Compliance With Accepted Ethical Standards, Scott C. Van Soye Feb 2012

Illusory Ethics: Legal Barriers To An Ombudsman's Compliance With Accepted Ethical Standards, Scott C. Van Soye

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

There are five general types of ombudsmen: classical, executive, corporate, educational, and newspaper. The first two types are appointed by governmental entities, while the last three are associated with private organizations. The American Bar Association has identified a sixth type of ombudsman, the advocate, whose responsibility it is to protect a vulnerable population, such as children or residents of long-term care facilities. But because the advocate ombudsman is appointed by the government, he or she is either a legislative or an executive ombudsman, and there is no reason to create a separate category. As the ombudsman concept has spread, professional …


Joining Forces In Search For Answers: The Use Of Therapeutic Jurisprudence In The Realm Of Mediation Ethics , Omer Shapira Feb 2012

Joining Forces In Search For Answers: The Use Of Therapeutic Jurisprudence In The Realm Of Mediation Ethics , Omer Shapira

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The Mediation process is part of the Alternative Dispute Resolution movement (ADR) whose modern history begins at the end of the 1970s. Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ) is a younger movement which has started to gain recognition in the 1990s. The two schools of thought share similarities, a fact which makes their study beneficial for both. This article explores some of those similarities in order to evaluate the possible contribution of TJ to mediation ethics. What is sought is a normative reading of the mediation process with the aid of the therapeutic lens. Such reading suggests, so it is argued, behavioral guidelines …


A Call To Action: A Client-Centered Evaluation Of Collaborative Law, Alexandria Zylstra Feb 2012

A Call To Action: A Client-Centered Evaluation Of Collaborative Law, Alexandria Zylstra

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This paper will first examine the process of collaborative law, from deciding to hire a collaborative lawyer to the disqualification agreement, as well as identifying potential dangers for the client, including an analysis of collaborative law utilizing the negotiation theory of Roger Fisher and William Ury's book Getting to Yes. The second part of the paper will examine how collaborative law literature evaluates and critiques the costs and benefits of collaborative law. This paper ultimately finds that the cost-benefit analysis either stems from small, non-controlled studies or personal anecdotes, or discussions of whether collaborative law complies with ethics rules, …


The Disempowering Relationship Between Mediator Neutrality And Judicial Impartiality: Toward A New Mediation Ethic, Ronit Zamir Feb 2012

The Disempowering Relationship Between Mediator Neutrality And Judicial Impartiality: Toward A New Mediation Ethic, Ronit Zamir

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The issue I shall discuss in this article is whether the concept of mediator neutrality advances the empowering and effective participation of parties from disadvantaged groups. Section II will deal with the relationship between the concept of neutrality in the adversarial legal process, in the mediation process, and the concept of procedural justice. I shall then present the meanings ascribed to the concept of mediator neutrality in the two prevailing models of mediation: the problem-solving model and the transformative model. The affinity between these meanings and the concept of judicial impartiality will be discussed and critiqued. Finally, I shall suggest …


The Truth Shall Set You Free: A Distinctively Christian Approach To Deception In The Negotiation Process, Al Sturgeon Feb 2012

The Truth Shall Set You Free: A Distinctively Christian Approach To Deception In The Negotiation Process, Al Sturgeon

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This paper examines whether the Christian religion offers a distinct position on the use of deception in the negotiation process. It is expected to be of primary interest to Christian negotiators, but combining the popularly understood theorem that "everyone negotiates on some level" with the fact that there are over 173 million Christian adherents in the United States alone, the topic may be of general interest to anyone who negotiates. There is apparently neither an official nor a widespread recognition of a distinct Christian position on the use of deception in negotiation at present. It is this article's proposal, however, …


Teaching The Ethical Values Governing Mediator Impartiality Using Short Lectures, Buzz Group Discussions, Video Clips, A Defining Features Matrix, Games, And An Exercise Based On Grievances Filed Against Florida Mediators , Paula M. Young Feb 2012

Teaching The Ethical Values Governing Mediator Impartiality Using Short Lectures, Buzz Group Discussions, Video Clips, A Defining Features Matrix, Games, And An Exercise Based On Grievances Filed Against Florida Mediators , Paula M. Young

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Teaching Professional Ethics to Lawyers and Mediators Using Active Learning Techniques will serve as the first article in a series of articles I have planned on the use of active learning techniques to teach the core values of mediation: mediator impartiality, party self-determination, confidentiality, and quality of the process/mediator competence. This article is the second article in that series. In Section III, I summarize the first article in the series. In Section IV, I describe the role of mediator impartiality as a core value of the mediation field. I evaluate the definitions of mediation found in several ethics codes as …


Collaborative Practice's Radical Possibilities For The Legal Profession:"[Two Lawyers And Two Clients] For The Situation" , Robert F. Cochran Jr. Feb 2012

Collaborative Practice's Radical Possibilities For The Legal Profession:"[Two Lawyers And Two Clients] For The Situation" , Robert F. Cochran Jr.

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article will consider the two dramatic changes that collaborative practice [CP] brings to law practice: a change in the mental attitude of lawyers and clients toward the conflict and a change in lawyers' counseling techniques. Part II defines CP and compares it to traditional negotiation-pending-litigation. Part III considers the change in attorney and client mental attitudes wrought by CP, where both lawyers and clients take responsibility for identifying a resolution that will meet the needs of all of the parties. Part IV considers the type of client-counseling that is often generated by CP-lawyers in CP may strongly encourage clients …


Some Too (Or Blessedly) Short Responses To Five Thoughtful Readers, Sanford Levinson Jan 2012

Some Too (Or Blessedly) Short Responses To Five Thoughtful Readers, Sanford Levinson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Levinson Is To Mr. Justice "Isaiah" As St. Paul Was To The Prophet Isaiah, Richard H. Weisberg Jan 2012

Levinson Is To Mr. Justice "Isaiah" As St. Paul Was To The Prophet Isaiah, Richard H. Weisberg

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Variable Morality Of Constitutional (And Other) Compromises: A Comment On Sanford Levinson's Compromise And Constitutionalism, Carrie Menkel-Meadow Jan 2012

The Variable Morality Of Constitutional (And Other) Compromises: A Comment On Sanford Levinson's Compromise And Constitutionalism, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Pepperdine Law Review

This comment to Sanford Levinson's Brandeis lecture at Pepperdine focuses on the role and types of compromises made during several stages of constitutional processes, formative and constitutive, interpretive and on-going, as negotiated by Constitutional meaning makers (drafters and Supreme Court 'deciders'), and post hoc justifications. This essay discusses recent work on compromise as institutional design, pragmatic or principled, and regime defining and sustaining. Both the pejorative (compromise is unprincipled) and more positive (compromise accounts for the 'reality' and moral existence of different sides of an issue or polity) understandings of compromise are reviewed, in light of Professor Levinson's scholarship on …


Lessons From Lincoln: A Comment On Levinson, Steven D. Smith Jan 2012

Lessons From Lincoln: A Comment On Levinson, Steven D. Smith

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Compromise And Constitutionalism, Sanford Levinson Jan 2012

Compromise And Constitutionalism, Sanford Levinson

Pepperdine Law Review

Professor Levinson explores compromises (1) that went into the making of the United States Constitution, and (2) that have occurred in the Supreme Court's constitutional interpretation. He explores these compromises in light of Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit's distinction between bad compromises and rotten compromises. "Rotten compromises" are indefensible except, perhaps, in the most exceptional of conditions. A "rotten political compromise" is one that agrees "to establish or maintain an inhuman regime, a regime of cruelty and humiliation, that is, a regime that does not treat humans as humans." Under this standard, Levinson identifies as rotten compromises the Constitution's protection of …


The Cost Of Compromise And The Covenant With Death, Paul Finkelman Jan 2012

The Cost Of Compromise And The Covenant With Death, Paul Finkelman

Pepperdine Law Review

This article is a rebuttal to the writings of those advocating the view that America was formed through compromise and that compromise in modern constitutional law is, therefore, necessary and beneficial. A recount of the “compromises” at the Constitutional Conventional that eventually led to the approval and protection of slavery begins the analysis establishing the danger of Americans compromising over constitutional protections. The article continues on, discussing the Compromise of 1850 and its drafters whom others have considered “passionately devoted to the Union”, like John Calhoun, who would later assert that the Constitution was expendable. The Compromise of 1850 did …


Introduction: Blessed Are The Compromisers?, Robert F. Cochran Jr. Jan 2012

Introduction: Blessed Are The Compromisers?, Robert F. Cochran Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.