Legal Profession Commons^™

Bill, Baby, Bill: How The Billable Hour Emerged As The Primary Method Of Attorney Fee Generation And Why Early Reports Of Its Demise May Be Greatly Exaggerated, Stuart L. Pardau

stuart l pardau

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of The Business Of Law, Judith Mcmorrow

Judith A. McMorrow

This article focuses on three current professionalism challenges in the U.S. legal profession: (i) the problem of neglect, poor client communication, and poor management of client funds; (ii) the need to improve the ethical infrastructures in practice settings to enhance both routine practice and ethical decision-making when lawyers confront ethical challenges; and (iii) the challenge of providing legal services to the poor and working class. For each, it turns out that improving adherence to core values requires not just training lawyers to internalize a model of professionalism, and a continuing commitment to self-regulation in some form, but also implementing improved …

Teaching Business Law Through An Entrepreneurial Lens, Michelle M. Harner

Michelle M. Harner

The legal market has changed. Although change creates uncertainty and fear, it also can create opportunity. This essay explores the opportunity for innovation in the business law curriculum, and the role of simulation to help create more practice-aware new lawyers.

The United States Constitution And Its History Through The Barristers And Political, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

No abstract provided.

Bad Briefs, Bad Law, Bad Markets: Documenting The Poor Quality Of Plaintiffs’ Briefs, Its Impact On The Law, And The Market Failure It Reflects, Scott A. Moss

Scott A Moss

For a major field, employment discrimination suffers surprisingly low-quality plaintiff’s lawyering. This Article details a study of several hundred summary judgment briefs, finding as follows: (1) the vast majority of plaintiffs’ briefs omit available caselaw rebutting key defense arguments, many falling far below basic professional standards with incoherent writing or no meaningful research; (2) low-quality briefs lose at over double the rate of good briefs; and (3) bad briefs skew caselaw evolution, because even controlling for won/loss rate, bad plaintiffs’ briefs far more often yield decisions crediting debatable defenses. These findings are puzzling; in a major legal service market, how …

Law And Negotiation: Necessary Partners Or Strange Bedfellows?, Nancy Schultz

Nancy Schultz

To what degree does legal authority dictate the outcomes of negotiations? Scholars have discussed the issue, and law students argue about it in their negotiation classes. A survey of practicing lawyers reveals that knowing the law is an important part of the preparation for negotiation, but that legal authority is not the primary determinant of negotiated outcomes in practice. Financial constraints, bargaining power, and negotiating skill are all reported as having a greater effect on negotiated outcomes than the law.

Developing Professional Skills: Business Associations, Michelle Harner

Michelle M. Harner

Incorporating skills training into a traditional Business Associations course is challenging. This creative and original book provides ten independent exercises designed to develop student skills in legal drafting, client interviewing and counseling, negotiation, and advocacy. Each exercise is based on fundamental legal rules and doctrines so that the book can be used on its own or as a supplemental text with any doctrinal casebook. Students are required to spend a manageable one to two hours on such tasks as outlining discussion points for major meetings and negotiations, drafting advisory letters to clients, crafting a demand letter to a board of …

The Future Of The American Law School Or, How The “Crits” Led Brian Tamanaha Astray And His Failing Law Schools Fails, Stephen Diamond

Stephen F. Diamond

Debate over the impact of the economic crisis on the future of the American law school has reached an exceptional level of intensity. Brian Tamanaha’s short book, Failing Law Schools, serves as the manifesto for those who believe the law school must undergo radical restructuring and cost cutting. While there is room for disagreement with almost all aspects of the reform argument no critic of Tamanaha has attempted to place his critique in the context of his pre-existing scholarly work on the rule of law. This review essay argues that only an appreciation for the dual nature of the modern …

The Law Of Corporate Purpose, David Yosifon

David G. Yosifon

Delaware corporate law requires corporate directors to manage firms for the benefit of shareholders, and not for any other constituency. Delaware jurists have been clear about this in their case law, and they are not coy about it in extra-judicial settings, such as speeches directed at law students and practicing members of the corporate bar. Nevertheless, the reader of leading corporate law scholarship is continually exposed to the scholarly assertion that the law is ambiguous or ambivalent on this point, or even that case law affirmatively empowers directors to pursue non-shareholder interests. It is shocking, and troubling, for corporate law …

The Benefits Of Mindfulness For Litigators, Jan Jacobowitz

Jan L Jacobowitz

“I am calling for an all-out revolution.” These words reverberated through the federal district courthouse in Miami in the spring of 2012, but there was no one calling for security. In fact, it was eerily quiet in the conference room in which the call for revolution was sounded. How can that be? Well, the audience was a group of well-regarded litigation counsel and judges and the revolutionary leader a prominent federal district court judge. The revolution: Mindfulness in law as a vehicle for restoring civility, decreasing stress, and enhancing the fundamental fabric of the legal community.

Fidelity Diluted: Client Confidentiality Gives Way To The First Amendment & Social Media In Virginia State Bar, Ex Rel. Third District Committee V. Horace Frazier Hunter, Jan Jacobowitz, Kelly Jesson

Jan L Jacobowitz

Fidelity and confidentiality are hallmarks of the attorney-client relationship. However, as social media use permeates the legal profession, new challenges have arisen to the traditional interpretation of client confidentiality. The Virginia Supreme Court’s recent holding, which concludes that to deny attorney Horace Hunter the ability to blog about his clients’ cases without client consent, after the case concludes and based upon what is found in the public record, is to deny Hunter his First Amendment right of free speech has spurned controversy. The Hunter opinion arguably undermines the long standing legal ethics rule of confidentiality and strikes at the heart …

In Quest Of The Arbitration Trifecta, Or Closed Door Litigation?: The Delaware Arbitration Program, Thomas Stipanowich

Thomas J. Stipanowich

The Delaware Arbitration Program established a procedure by which businesses can agree to have their disputes heard in an arbitration proceeding before a sitting judge of the state’s highly regarded Chancery Court. The Program arguably offers a veritable trifecta of procedural advantages for commercial parties, including expert adjudication, efficient case management and short cycle time and, above all, a proceeding cloaked in secrecy. It also may enhance the reputation of Delaware as the forum of choice for businesses. But the Program’s ambitious intermingling of public and private forums brings into play the longstanding tug-of-war between the traditional view of court …

One Small Step For Legal Writing, One Giant Leap For Legal Education: Making The Case For More Writing Opportunities In The "Practice-Ready" Law School Curriculum, Sherri Keene

Sherri Keene

Legal writing is more than an isolated practical skill or a law school course; it is a valuable tool for broadening and deepening one’s knowledge and understanding of the law. If experienced legal professionals, both professors and practitioners alike, take a hard look back at their careers, many will no doubt remember how their work on significant legal writing projects advanced their own knowledge of the law and enhanced their professional competence. Legal writing practice helps the writer to gain expertise in a number of ways: first, the act of writing itself promotes learning; second, close work on legal writing …

It’S All About The People: Hierarchy, Networks, And Teaching Assistants In A Civil Procedure Classroom Community, Jennifer E. Spreng

Jennifer E Spreng

This article provides a blueprint for a “civic community in a law school classroom” that would better prepare many students for what is likely to be their professional future based on natural social hierarchy and network dynamics. It uses experiences from the author's own teaching career to illustrate hierarchy and network dynamics and how to use them to enrich the pedagogical and social experience of a first year course. It also roots those experiences in principles from social psychology, organizational behavior, transformative leadership and all levels of education literature.

Modern law school classrooms fall into two categories: the "polar model" …

When Socrates Meets Confucius: Teaching Creative And Critical Thinking Across Cultures Through Multilevel Socratic Method, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan