Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Human-Machine Teaming And Its Legal And Ethical Implications, Jim Q. Chen, Thomas Wingfield

Military Cyber Affairs

Humans rely on machines in accomplishing missions while machines need humans to make them more intelligent and more powerful. Neither side can go without the other, especially in complex environments when autonomous mode is initiated. Things are becoming more complicated when law and ethical principles should be applied in these complex environments. One of the solutions is human-machine teaming, as it takes advantage of both the best humans can offer and the best that machines can provide. This article intends to explore ways of implementing law and ethical principles in artificial intelligence (AI) systems using human-machine teaming. It examines the …

Re-Thinking The Process For Administering Oaths And Affirmations, Colton Fehr

Dalhousie Law Journal

Courts around the world require witnesses to swear an oath to a religious deity or affirm to tell the truth before providing testimony. It is widely thought that such a process has the potential to give rise to unnecessary bias against witnesses based on their religious beliefs or lack thereof. Scholars have offered two main prescriptions to remedy this problem: (i) abolish the oath and have all witnesses promise to tell the truth; or (ii) require oath-swearing witnesses to invoke a non-specific reference to God. The former proposal is problematic as it rests on the unproven assertion that giving an …

Billing Without Bilking: Regulating Time-Based Legal Fees, Noel Semple

Dalhousie Law Journal

The billable hour is the most common method for calculating legal fees in Canada. Codes of conduct state that time-based fees must be “fair and reasonable” and “disclosed in a timely fashion,” but provide very little additional guidance. Throughout a time-based retainer, lawyers and clients are confronted with ethical ambiguity. This creates both opportunities for exploitation and conflicts of interest.

This article argues that clear rules and efficient procedures are required to determine what specific billing and disclosure practices are “fair,” “reasonable,” and “timely.” Detailed rules are already replacing vague standards for contingency fees, and time- based fees should move …

Legal Ethics, Patrick Longan

Mercer Law Review

This Survey covers the period from June 1, 2019, to May 31, 2020. The Article discusses developments with respect to attorney discipline, ineffective assistance of counsel, bar admission, disqualification of counsel, judicial conduct, malpractice and other civil claims, contempt, several miscellaneous cases, formal advisory opinions (State Bar of Georgia and the American Bar Association), and amendments to the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct.

Museum Exhibits Or Ill-Gotten Gains: A Legal And Philosophical Look At Cultural Property Law, Anthony E. Gambino

Fordham Undergraduate Law Review

The foundation of cultural property laws was laid at the Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The convention, which usually revolved around the discussions on former laws of warfare, had to switch gears to respond to the Nazi’s new tactic of intentionally stealing or destroying cultural property as a means to demoralize the enemy. The convention’s focus was inclusivity, which defined cultural property as any “movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people.”

However, that overly simplistic definition that intended to serve as a source of …

The Asylum Search: How The Supreme Court's Potential Ruling In The East Bay Sanctuary V. Barr Case May Change Our Interpretation Of Asylee Rights Through The Honduras Deal, Reeve Churchill, Wislande Francisque

Fordham Undergraduate Law Review

In this Note, the authors Reeve Churchill and Wislande Francique will examine the changing interpretation of asylee rights by analyzing the Honduras Deal, the 9th District Court case East Bay Sanctuary v. Barr (2020), and Trump v. Hawaii. The Honduras Deal is evidence of the Trump Administration’s harsh restrictions towards asylum seekers. This note will contextualize the Honduras Deal through the examination of two court cases: East Bay Sanctuary v. Barr and Trump v. Hawaii. In the latter case, the Supreme Court ruled that the President has the power to bar entry to any group of immigrants that he feels …

“Public Use” Or Public Abuse? A New Test For Public Use In Light Of Kelo, Taylor Haines

Seattle University Law Review

The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment has long been controversial. It allows the government to take private property for the purpose of “public use.” But what does public use mean? The definition is one of judicial interpretation. It has evolved from the original meaning intended by the drafters of the Constitution. Now, the meaning is extremely broad. This Note argues that both the original and contemporary meaning of public use are problematic. It explores the issues with both definitions and suggests a new test, solidified in legislation instead of judicial interpretation.

Preservation Requests And The Fourth Amendment, Armin Tadayon

Seattle University Law Review

Every day, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, ridesharing companies, and numerous other service providers copy users’ account information upon receiving a preservation request from the government. These requests are authorized under a relatively obscure subsection of the Stored Communications Act (SCA). The SCA is the federal statute that governs the disclosure of communications stored by third party service providers. Section 2703(f) of this statute authorizes the use of “f” or “preservation” letters, which enable the government to request that a service provider “take all necessary steps to preserve records and other evidence in its possession” while investigators seek valid legal process. …

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Government Tweets, Government Speech: The First Amendment Implications Of Government Trolling, Douglas B. Mckechnie

Seattle University Law Review

President Trump has been accused of using @realDonaldTrump to troll his critics. While the President’s tweets are often attributed to his personal views, they raise important Constitutional questions. This article posits that @realDonaldTrump tweets are government speech and, where they troll government critics, they violate the Free Speech Clause. I begin the article with an exploration of President Trump’s use of @realDonaldTrump from his time as a private citizen to President. The article then chronicles the development of the government speech doctrine and the Supreme Court’s factors that differentiate private speech from government speech. I argue that, based on the …

Court-Packing In 2021: Pathways To Democratic Legitimacy, Richard Mailey

Seattle University Law Review

This Article asks whether the openness to court-packing expressed by a number of Democratic presidential candidates (e.g., Pete Buttigieg) is democratically defensible. More specifically, it asks whether it is possible to break the apparent link between demagogic populism and court-packing, and it examines three possible ways of doing this via Bruce Ackerman’s dualist theory of constitutional moments—a theory which offers the possibility of legitimating problematic pathways to constitutional change on democratic but non-populist grounds. In the end, the Article suggests that an Ackermanian perspective offers just one, extremely limited pathway to democratically legitimate court-packing in 2021: namely, where a Democratic …

Rising To The Covid-19 Challenge Together, Tracy Najera

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Contributors, The Contributors

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Talking Foreign Policy: The U.S.--Iran Crisis, Tfp Radio Broadcast (Jan. 20, 2020)

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Talking Foreign Policy: The Rohingya Genocide, Tfp Radio Broadcast (Oct. 1, 2019)

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The Power Of Mentorship, Jonathan Lee, Lisa N. Lindsay, Olivia Thomas, Grace Zhang

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Is It Ever Ethical For An Organization To Pressure Professionals To Violate Their Professions' Ethical Minimums?, David Ozar

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Can Soldiers Do ”The Decent Thing” In War? The Just War Tradition, The Laws Of War, And Saving Private Ryan, Ted Van Baarda

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

An African Theory Of Good Leadership, Thaddeus Metz

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

The Urgency Of Ethics In Political Leadership, President Vicente Fox

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Ethical Leadership In The Arts: The Power Of Storytelling And Representation, 2019 Academic Symposium

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

2019 Academic Symposium Transcript

Ethical Leadership in the Arts The Power of Storytelling and Representation

LeVar Burton actor-writer-director-producer, children’s literacy and AIDS/ HIV research advocate, and recipient of our 2019 Inamori Ethics Prize

Shannon French Inamori Professor in Ethics and Director, Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence

Joy Bostic Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, College of Arts and Sciences and Interim Vice President, Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity

Cara Byrne full-time lecturer in the Department of English and a SAGES Teaching Fellow

2019 Inamori Ethics Prize Speech: The Power Of Storytelling, Levar Burton

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Message From The Managing Editor, Beth Trecasa

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Message From The Editor, Shannon E. French

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

Front Matter (Masthead), Volume 7 2020

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

How To Fix Legal Scholarmush, Adam Kolber

Indiana Law Journal

Legal scholars often fail to distinguish descriptive claims about what the law is from normative claims about what it ought to be. The distinction couldn’t be more important, yet scholars frequently mix it up, leading them to mistake legal authority for moral authority, treat current law as a justification for itself, and generally use rhetorical strategies more appropriate for legal practice than scholarship. As a result, scholars sometimes talk past each other, generating not scholarship but “scholarmush.”

In recent years, legal scholarship has been criticized as too theoretical. When it comes to normative scholarship, however, the criticism is off the …

Congressional Securities Trading, Gregory Shill

Indiana Law Journal

The trading of stocks and bonds by Members of Congress presents several risks that warrant public concern. One is the potential for policy distortion: lawmakers' personal investments may influence their official acts. Another is a special case of a general problem: that of insiders exploiting access to confidential information for personal gain. In each case, the current framework which is based on common law fiduciary principles is a poor fit. Surprisingly, rules from a related context have been overlooked.

Like lawmakers, public company insiders such as CEOs frequently trade securities while in possession of confidential information. Those insiders' trades are …

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall—Biased Impartiality, Appearances, And The Need For Recusal Reform, Zygmont A. Pines

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The article focuses on a troubling aspect of contemporary judicial morality.

Impartiality—and the appearance of impartiality—are the foundation of judicial decision-making, judicial morality, and the public’s trust in the rule of law. Recusal, in which a jurist voluntarily removes himself or herself from participating in a case, is a process that attempts to preserve and promote the substance and the appearance of judicial impartiality. Nevertheless, the traditional common law recusal process, prevalent in many of our state court systems, manifestly subverts basic legal and ethical norms.

Today’s recusal practice—whether rooted in unintentional hypocrisy, wishful thinking, or a pathological cognitive dissonance— …

Same Grid, Different Results: Criminal Sentencing Disparities Between Arkansas Counties, Alexis Stevens

Arkansas Law Review

Abraham Davis is a resident of Fort Smith, Arkansas—and a convicted felon. In May of 2017, the Sebastian County Circuit Court, Fort Smith District, charged Davis with criminal mischief in the first degree, as a Class D felony, for purposely destroying the property of another. Davis’s charge resulted in a criminal sentence ranging from as little as probation to as much as 6 years jail time and/or up to $10,000.00 in fines. This sentencing determination is generally allocated to the judge and prosecutor. However, victim intervention persuaded the court to release Davis on probation, sparing him from a much harsher …

Capitalizing On Healthy Lawyers: The Business Case For Law Firms To Promote And Prioritize Lawyer Well-Being, Jarrod F. Reich

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.