Legal History Commons^™

Ethics And The “Root Of All Evil” In Nineteenth Century American Law Practice, Michael Hoeflich

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

This Article discusses the bifurcated notions on the purpose of working as an attorney—whether the purpose is to attain wealth or whether the work in and of itself is the purpose. This Article explores the sentiments held by distinguished and influential nineteenth-century lawyers—particularly David Hoffman and George Sharswood—regarding the legal ethics surrounding attorney’s fees and how money in general is the root of many ethical dilemmas within the arena of legal practice. Through the texts of Hoffman and Sharswood, we find the origins of the ethical rules all American attorneys are subject to in their various jurisdictions.

Introduction To Section I: In The Beginning . . . Volume 1 And What It Means To Be A Lawyer, Kristina J. Kim

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

“The Lost Lawyer” Regained: The Abiding Values Of The Legal Profession, Robert Maccrate

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Section V: Facilitating Dialogue With And About The Profession, Maureen Weidman

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

College Graduation As An Entrance Requirement To Law Schools, W. Harrison Hitchler

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Law Firm Economics And Professionalism, Ward Bower

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Both Dean Kronman in The Lost Lawyer and Professor Glendon in A Nation Under Lawyers attribute some of the problems and challenges facing lawyers today to economic pressures and to a preoccupation with profits and fees. For Kronman, this economic focus interferes with the “moral detachment” necessary for achievement of the “lawyer-statesman” ideal. For Glendon, professional dilemmas caused by the deterioration of the legal economy, competition in the marketplace, lawyer-shopping by clients, early specialization, lack of mentoring and emphasis on the billable hour have created an unhappy generation of ethically challenged practitioners.

Both authors accurately assess the state of the …

Lawyers In The Mist: The Golden Age Of Legal Nostalgia, Marc Galanter

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No one watching the contemporary furor over the litigation explosion and lawsuits devouring America can fail to be impressed by the power of folklore to overwhelm workaday organized social knowledge. Time and again, the protestations of bean-counters and skeptics are vanquished by stories about perverse institutions peopled by malingering plaintiffs, greedy lawyers, capricious jurors, and arrogant judges, proving yet again that it is not what is so that matters, but what people—at least for the moment—think is so. Tenacious belief may not make it so, but can have powerful effects.

In this essay I address another cluster of folklore about …

The Changing View Of The “Bystander” In Holocaust Scholarship: Historical, Ethical, And Political Implications, Victoria J. Barnett

Utah Law Review

The role of “bystanders” has been a central theme in discussions about the ethical legacy of the Holocaust. In early Holocaust historiography, “bystander” was often used as a generalized catchall term designating passivity toward Nazi crimes. “Bystander behavior” became synonymous with passivity to the plight of others, including the failure to speak out against injustice and/or assist its victims. More recent scholarship has documented the extent to which local populations and institutions were actively complicit in Nazi crimes, participating in and benefitting from the persecution of Jewish citizens, not only in Germany but across Europe. This newer research has sparked …

Philosophical Legal Ethics: An Affectionate History, David Luban, W. Bradley Wendel

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The modern subject of theoretical legal ethics began in the 1970s. This brief history distinguishes two waves of theoretical writing on legal ethics. The “First Wave” connects the subject to moral philosophy and focuses on conflicts between ordinary morality and lawyers’ role morality, while the “Second Wave” focuses instead on the role legal representation plays in maintaining and fostering a pluralist democracy. We trace the emergence of the First Wave to the larger social movements of the 1960s and 1970s; in the conclusion, we speculate about possible directions for a Third Wave of theoretical legal ethics, based in behavioral ethics, …

Telling A Story, Changing The World: California Rural Legal Assistance, Jonathan J. Chavez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This capstone project attempts to provide an in-depth view of how stories influence change in our lives as well as in the field of law.

Poverty, The Great Unequalizer: Improving The Delivery System For Civil Legal Aid, Latonia Haney Keith

Catholic University Law Review

When individuals in the United States face civil justice issues, they are not entitled to legal counsel and therefore must secure paid counsel, proceed pro se or qualify for free legal assistance. As a result of the economic downturn, the number of Americans who are unable to afford legal counsel is now at an all-time high. In response to this ever-widening justice gap, the public interest community has launched multiple initiatives to supplement the underfunded legal aid system. Though valiant, this article argues that this approach has unfortunately created a complex, fragmented and overlapping delivery system for legal aid. This …

Creating Precedents Through Words And Deeds, Harold Krent

All Faculty Scholarship

Book review: Untrodden ground: how presidents interpret the Constitution. By Harold H. Bruff. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. 557 pages. Reviewed by Harold J. Krent

A Test For Freedom Of Conscience Under The Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms: Regulating And Litigating Conscientious Refusals In Health Care, Jocelyn Downie, Francoise Baylis

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Conscientious refusal to provide insured health care services is a significant point of controversy in Canada, especially in reproductive medicine and end-of-life care. Some provincial and territorial legislatures have developed legislation or regulations, and some professional regulatory bodies have developed policies or guidelines, to better reconcile tensions between health care professionals’ conscience and patients’ access to health care services. As other groups attempt to draft standards and as challenges to existing standards head to court, the fact that the meaning of “freedom of conscience” under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not yet settled will become ever more …

The Jewel In The Crown: Can India’S Strict Liability Doctrine Deepen Our Understanding Of Tort Law Theory?, Deepa Badrinarayana

Deepa Badrinarayana