Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

David Hoffman's Law School Lectures, 1822-1833, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

The Baltimore lawyer and teacher David Hoffman (1784-1854), the father of American legal ethics, was also the first of the systematic American legal educators. He held one of the first appointments in this country as a university law professor (at the University of Maryland, 1814-43) and wrote the first American outline of the study of law. Joseph Story, in a contemporary review of the 1817 Course, called Hoffman's work "an honour to our country[,] . . . by far the most perfect system for the study of the law that has ever been offered to the public. " Chancellor James …

Henry Knox And The Moral Theology Of Law Firms, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

One of the reasons we modern American lawyers find the "golden age" of our 19th century forebears attractive is that it was morally unambiguous. It seems to have been an age of giants who were consistent. The "republican" lawyers who wrote our first statements on legal ethics were moral theologians as well as leaders—and they found no difficulty in being both. David Hoffman, who attracted as much applause from the conservative Calvinists at Princeton Theological Seminary as he attracted from the bench and bar, drew no distinction between the morals he practiced at home and the morals he practiced in …

The Moral Theology Of Atticus Finch, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Heroes are identified by the needs of those who choose them. In the case of Atticus Finch, heroism centered on his insistence in telling the truth. In this article, Thomas L. Shaffer explores the idea that this truth was (I) an expression of the person he was and of the community he sought for his children and neighbors; (II) an expression of the virtue of courage and also (and therefore) the expression of a theology; (III) a political act; and (IV) a professional act. As early as 1854, Judge Sharswood (chief justice, law dean and eminent lawyer) could draw a …

Serving The Guilty, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

My purpose here is to ask whether there is a moral way for a lawyer to serve the guilty. I think this is an issue Mr. Rightor would have enjoyed. He was devoted to the instruction of future lawyers, particularly those who studied law at this law school and were enrolled in his classes in professional ethics. He was equally devoted, in the midst of a busy and successful law practice, to care and compassion for the occasional professional colleague who had, as Mr. McDonald said in his eulogy, "through ignorance or . . . financial plight . . . …

Balzacian Legality, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

The study of law and literature is an area of growing interest to legal scholars in the United States. Honore de Balzac incorporated in his works a panoramic view of the social reality of nineteenth century France. In this context, the fidelity of Balzac's plots and characters to their external models has been well-documented in a number of fields, including sociology, commerce, and finance. In addition to this penchant for realism, however, Balzac laced his novels with an equally evident moral content. This commitment to accuracy and morality also influenced Balzac's novelistic treatment of the law and lawyers.

Balzac's work …

Christian Theories Of Professional Responsibility, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Consideration of the religious and moral significance of legal practice is a subject to which too little attention has been paid in American legal education. Louis M. Brown has been one of those few engaged in the teaching of law who has explored the ethical components of lawyering; his example has been a great influence on many of us. It seems appropriate, therefore, in this tribute to Louis M. Brown, to consider the role which Christian values may play in producing lawyers who are well-developed in interpersonal as in professional skills.

This essay will seek to relate Christian values to …

Natural Law And Everyday Law, Joseph O'Meara

Journal Articles

Like most terms "natural law" has had, and has, a variety of meanings. In most of its meanings it touches scarcely at all the professional concerns of the lawyer but moves, rather, on a plane widely separated from his daily cares and duties. Thus, for the most part, natural law stands aloof from the urgent here-and-now with which lawyer and judge necessarily are preoccupied; it inhabits a world apart.

In these remarks I hope to suggest an approach to natural law which will make it useful on a day-to-day basis in the perplexities by which practitioners and judges constantly are …

A.I.D.- An Heir Of Controversy, Charles E. Rice

Journal Articles

What is this thing called artificial insemination? Is it a menace to society? Or is it a fantasy of little moment beyond the precincts of 1984 and the "Brave New World"? Or does the fact lie somewhere in between? Whatever your view, you can readily bolster your position by citing respectable authority. For example, a respected advocate declaims that, "Nothing in modem times has so seriously challenged the basic concept of our society founded as it is on the biological tripod of father, mother and child which we call the family unit." Oppositely, a competent man of medicine notes that, …

Foreword, Joseph O'Meara

Journal Articles

The Natural Law Institute, a function of The Law School of The University of Notre Dame, was organized in 1947. Five annual convocations were held under its auspices, the last one in December of 1951. Thereafter a search was undertaken for a way in which the Institute could function effectively on a year-round rather than a once-a-year basis. After exploring many possibilities, it was decided to publish this journal, the Natural Law Forum.