Legal Profession Commons^™

Defeat Fascism, Transform Democracy: Mapping Academic Resources, Reframing The Fundamentals, And Organizing For Collective Actions, Francisco Valdes

Seattle University Law Review

The information we gathered during 2021–2023 shows that critical faculty and other academic resources are present throughout most of U.S. legal academia. Counting only full-time faculty, our limited research identified 778 contacts in 200 schools equating to nearly four contacts on average per school. But no organized critical “core” had coalesced within legal academia or, more broadly, throughout higher education expressly dedicated to defending and advancing critical knowledge and its production up to now. And yet, as the 2021–2022 formation of the Critical (Legal) Collective (“CLC”) outlined below demonstrates, many academics sense or acknowledge the need for greater cohesion among …

A Fireside Chat With A Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Law School News: A More Perfect Union Through A Diverse Judiciary 08-07-2023, Gregory W. Bowman

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Logan Article Central To Scotus Dissent, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Educating Antiracist Lawyers: The Race And The Equal Protection Of The Laws Program At Dickinson Law, Dermot M. Groome

Faculty Scholarly Works

The year 2020 has forced us, as a nation, to recognize painful realities about systemic racism in our country and our legal system. The fallacies in our founding documents and the vestiges of our slave past are so woven into our national culture that they became hard to see except for those who suffered their daily indignities, hardships, and fears. As legal educators, we must face the role we have played in helping build the machinery of structural racism by supplying generation after generation of those who maintain that machinery and prosper within it. In this critical moment of our …

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 …

Law Library Blog (September 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Lawyers Democratic Dysfunction, Leah Litman

Articles

As part of the symposium on Jack Balkin and Sandy Levinson’s Democracy and Dysfunction, this Article documents another source of the dysfunction that the authors observe—elite lawyers’ unwillingness to break ranks with other elite lawyers who participate in the destruction of various norms that are integral to a well-functioning democracy. These network effects eliminate the possibility of “soft” sanctions on norm violators such as withholding future professional advancement. Thus, rather than enforcing norms and deterring norm violations, the networks serve to insulate norm violators from any meaningful accountability.

Keeping Faith With Nomos, Steven L. Winter

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Ethics And The Political Activity Of Government Lawyers, Andrew Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The ability to engage in political activity is an essential feature of a democratic society. However, the ability of government lawyers to do so is unclear. While most governments have passed legislation identifying permissible political activity of their employees, it is unclear how the professional obligations of lawyers apply in this context and how these professional obligations interact with this legislation. This article answers these questions. The duty of loyalty to the client requires most government lawyers to refrain from all political activity at the same level of government. The special professional obligations of Crown prosecutors require these lawyers to …

Newsroom: 'You Can't Help Being In Awe' 1-30-2018, Michael M. Bowden, Edward Fitzpatrick

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Lottery Docket, Daniel Epps, William Ortman

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Strengthening Democracy: The Challenge Of Public Interest Law, Scott Harshbarger

Maine Law Review

The Twelfth Annual Frank M. Coffin Lecture on Law and Public Service was held in the fall of 2003. Scott Harshbarger, former President of Common Cause and Massachusetts Attorney General, delivered the lecture. Established in 1992, the lecture honors Judge Frank M. Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, an inspiration, mentor, and friend to the University of Maine School of Law.

Newsroom: Goldstein & Horwitz On 38 Studios Records 04-13-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: A True Original(Ist) 02-15-2016, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Shareholder Democracy In The Shadow Of The Financial Crisis, Alan Dignam

Seattle University Law Review

This Article argues that the U.K. regulatory response to the financial crisis, in the form of “stewardship” and shareholder engagement, is an error built on a misunderstanding of the key active role shareholders played in the enormous corporate governance failure represented by the banking crisis. Shareholders’ passivity, rather than activity, has characterized the reform perception of the shareholder role in corporate governance. This characterization led to the conclusion that if only they were more active they would be more responsible “stewards” of the corporation. If, as this Article argues, shareholder activity was part of the problem in the banks, then …

Democracy And Diversity, John Payton

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law, Economics, And Torture, James Boyd White

Book Chapters

This paper addresses three sets of questions, among which it wishes to draw connections: (1) Why has there been so little resistance to the recent massive transfer of national wealth to the rich and super-rich? It is the majority who are injured, and they presumably hold the power in a democracy: why have they not exercised it? (2) Why are law schools so dominated by questions of policy, with rather little interest in the intellectual and linguistic activities of the practicing lawyer and judge? Why indeed do judicial opinions themselves seem so often to be written in a dead and …

Private Practice, Public Profession: Convictions, Commitments, And The Availability Of Counsel, Barry Sullivan

West Virginia Law Review

I would like to start by stating a proposition that may strike you as either simple-minded or self-evident, but, more likely, will simply seem strange because of the way in which I state it. My proposition is this: In a democratic society, the legal profession, its rights and privileges, exist to serve public purposes. The legal profession serves two principal public purposes: to provide representation to those who lack the specialized training to represent themselves, that is, non-lawyers, and to promote justice in society. One might object that representing clients is not a public purpose, but that, I would suggest, …

Carrington, Cooley, Kennedy, Klare, Patrick O. Gudridge

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Right To Participate, Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela S. Karlan, Richard H. Pildes

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

The following essay is excerpted and adapted from The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process, © The Foundation Press, Inc., Westbury, NY (1998). Publication is by permission.

Constitutions are often viewed today as constraints on majoritarian power in the service of minority interests. But constitutional ground rules also create the possibility of ongoing democratic self-government; constitutions establish relatively stable and non-negotiable precommitments that enable generally accepted structures of political competition to emerge and endure.

Despite the centrality of this role for the American Constitution , however, there is paradoxically little that the text or its history offers …

Projecting The Washington College Of Law Into The Future, Claudio Grossman

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Bar In America: The Role Of Elitism In A Liberal Democracy, Philip S. Stamatakos

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note argues that liberal democracy, the free market, and science have contributed to the increasing atomization of American society. When each person and her views are glorified, universal standards of good become undermined, values become relative, and a sense of community becomes evanescent. Part II argues that individualism is incapable of accounting for the commonweal and therefore is inherently amoral because morality is concerned largely with determining when an individual's will should be subservient to the will of others. Part III considers the nature of elitism and equality and attributes the demise of elitist institutions in …

Book Review. Blueprint Of Deception: Character And Record Of The International Association Of Democratic Lawyers By V. Kabes And A. Sergot, Wencelas J. Wagner

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.