Legal Profession Commons^™

Putting The Bar Exam To The Test: An Examination Of The Predictive Validity Of Bar Exam Outcomes On Lawyering Effectiveness, Jason M. Scott, Stephen N. Goggin, Rick Trachok, Jenny S. Kwon, Sara Gordon, Dean Gould, Fletcher S. Hiigel, Leah Chan Grinvald, David Faigman

Grantee Research

How well does bar exam performance, on the whole, predict lawyering effectiveness? Is performance on some components of the bar exam more predictive? The current study, the first of its kind to measure the relationship between bar exam scores and a new lawyer’s effectiveness, evaluates these questions by combining three unique datasets—bar results from the State Bar of Nevada, a survey of recently admitted lawyers, and a survey of supervisors, peers, and judges who were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of recently-admitted lawyers. We find that performance on both the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) and essay components of the Nevada …

Cultivating Sense: Cultural Change In The Prosecutor’S Office, Shih-Chun Steven Chien

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Prosecutors exercise broad discretion. They are widely viewed as the gatekeepers of the criminal justice system. To date, studies on prosecutors in different jurisdictions have largely focused on how to conceptualize, manage, and eventually control the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Scholars have recently turned their attention to the importance of internal organizational management and leadership’s role in changing office culture as a means to regulate prosecutorial discretion. But we have limited empirical evidence as to how changes occur within a prosecutor’s office and what precise role organizational leaders play during this process.

This Article constructs a new paradigm for the …

19th Annual Diversity Symposium Dinner 2023, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series: The Rule Of Law In Crisis: Talking About Core Legal Values, Human Rights, And Current Events In Us Law School Classes 2023, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series: The Rule Of Law In Crisis 3-28-2023, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series: The Rule Of Law In Crisis March 28, 2023, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Vol. 64, No. 10 (March 27, 2023)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

Decolonizing Legal Influence: China's Role In The Changing Landscape Of The Ethiopian Legal Profession, 2000-2018, Mekkonen Firew Ayano

Journal Articles

Over the last two decades, the legal profession in Ethiopia has changed fundamentally. The government has increased the number of law schools from one in 1993 to more than three dozen by 2021. It has introduced strict licensure rules to formalize and regulate legal services and, more recently, in 2022, it has proclaimed the creation of law firms and an independent bar association. The market for legal services has expanded, allowing lawyers to reach out to clients in the country’s peripheries and move onward to attract global clients. These changes are inextricably tied to global currents that have diffused Anglo-American …

Five Indiana Law Faculty Members Honored With Teaching Awards, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Great instructors are at the heart of any great school, and the Indiana University Maurer School of Law was proud to recognize five of its best at the school’s annual Teaching Awards March 24.

This year’s recipients include BestLawyers’ 2022 Indianapolis Corporate Governance Law Lawyer of the Year, a beloved clinical professor and director, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the intersection of law and globalization, a top U.S. tax scholar, and a professor known for flipping homemade pancakes to students.

Professor Jeff Stake was honored with the Leon H. Wallace Teaching Award, the highest teaching recognition a faculty …

4th Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Conflicts Of Interest At An Organization’S Highest Authority: How The District Of Columbia’S Rules Of Professional Conduct Can Fail To Protect Private Organizations, Christopher Deubert

Catholic University Law Review

This Article examines how the District of Columbia’s incomplete incorporation of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct into its own Rules of Professional Conduct has created a scenario in which wrongdoing inside a private organization can flourish. In 2002, following the Enron scandal, the American Bar Association (ABA) revisited and revised its Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The ABA nevertheless took a conservative route, rejecting rules long proposed by experts which would have permitted attorneys aware of corporate crimes, fraud, and other wrongdoing to report their concerns to individuals or entities outside the organization’s reporting structure. Additional scandals unfolded contemporaneous …

Vol. 64, No. 09 (March 20, 2023)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

Vol. 64, No. 09 Addition (March 20, 2023)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

Dean's Desk: Recognizing Iu Maurer Alumnae Who Have Made A Difference, Christiana Ochoa

Christiana Ochoa (7/22-10/22 Acting; 11/2022-)

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to welcome future law students as part of our annual Admitted Student Day. From their seats in the Kathleen and Ann DeLaney Moot Court Room, they look to the front of the room where they see the portraits of four trailblazing alumnae who have made indelible marks on the judiciary. Juanita Kidd Stout ’48, Sue Shields ’61, Linda Chezem ’71 and Loretta Rush ’83 all face out into the sea of newly admitted students who one day hope to forge paths of their own.As we celebrate Women’s History Month, I wanted to …

Vol. 64, No. 08 (March 6, 2023)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

Anchoring Lifeline Criminal Jurisprudence: Making The Leap From Theory To Critical Race-Inspired Jurisprudence, Danardo S. Jones

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article takes as a starting point the claim that anti-Black racism permeates Canadian society and finds expression in our institutions, most notably the criminal justice system. Indeed, anti-Black racism in criminal justice and its impact on Black lives are not credibly in dispute. Thus, what should concern legal scholars is the staying power or permanence of racism. In other words, should Canadian legal scholars ‘get real’ about the intractability of race? Or can anti-Black racism be effectively confronted by developing legal and evidentiary tools designed to fix, rather than dismantle, the current system? Put another way, this article aims …

The Fourth Industrial Revolution And Legal Education, Steven R. Smith

Georgia State University Law Review

A “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (4IR) will dramatically change current law students’ careers. Innovations in technology, business, and social structures will require different and more sophisticated legal services. Law school graduates will be responsible for harnessing, encouraging, and establishing legal controls that offer society the benefits of these new technologies while limiting the undesirable side effects. At the same time, the recurring, repetitive practice of law will begin to disappear as more work is done much cheaper and better by machines.

The 4IR presents extraordinary opportunities for law schools, the legal profession, and graduates, but it also presents significant challenges. To …

John Osborn's Enduring Words On Law & Learning, Walter Effross

Popular Media

When I started my first year at Harvard Law School, 17 years after Osborn did, I wasn’t looking for enlightenment. But I expected to be — and was — intimidated by Socratic taskmasters who, like the movie version of Osborn’s Professor Kingsfield (a role for which John Houseman won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award in 1973), were ready with “always another question, another question to follow your answer.”

Law Library Blog (March 2023): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

The Flag In My Drawer, Patrick Dawson

Mercer Law Review

This is my personal “Confederacy essay.” It is about my journey to understanding, and it was a long time coming. I write it for folks like me, namely those who have honestly not thought through this issue all that well. I write it also for my friends and anyone who cares. This essay’s roots are in a past Facebook discussion about the state of America, which I still think is a great nation. A friend of mine, far less convinced than I, told me bluntly to “get your Confederate flag out of the drawer.” I responded, truthfully, that I do …

Unbelievable: How Narrative Can Help Vulnerable Narrators Overcome Perceived Unreliability In The Legal System, Cathren Page

Articles

This article examines how advocates can champion vulnerable narrators’ truths. First, advocates must prime the audience by educating the audience about the ways the vulnerability manifests; this process helps to allay credibility questions. Second, advocates must reframe seemingly untrustworthy behavior by showing how the behavior is consistent with someone in the vulnerable narrator’s situation. Third, advocates must create what fiction writers call verisimilitude—a sense of reality—by including concrete details that logically fit together in the legal narrative. Finally, advocates must label the tactics commonly used to discredit vulnerable narrators so that the audience can see those tactics for what they …

Citation, Slavery, And The Law As Choice: Thoughts On Bluebook Rule 10.7.1(D), David J.S. Ziff

Articles

Today, more than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, lawyers and judges continue to rely on antebellum decisions that tacitly or expressly approve of slavery. This reliance often occurs without any acknowledgement of the precedent’s immoral and legally dubious provenance. Modern use of these so-called “slave cases” was the subject of Professor Justin Simard’s 2020 article, Citing Slavery. In response to Professor Simard’s article, the latest edition of The Bluebook includes Rule 10.7.1(d), which requires authors to indicate parenthetically when a decision involves an enslaved person as a party or the property at issue. Unfortunately, Rule 10.7.1(d) …

Chicken Or Egg: Diversity And Innovation In The Corporate Legal Marketplace, Michele Destefano

Fordham Law Review

Although their bank accounts might suggest otherwise, these are not the best of times for lawyers who work in the corporate legal marketplace. Instead, the trouble with lawyers in the corporate legal marketplace is that they are failing to answer two calls to action made by corporate clients, both of which are of great magnitude and importance for the future of the profession. The first call to action is one that Professor Deborah L. Rhode focused a lot of her scholarship on: the call to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in the profession. The second call to action is …

Why State Courts Should Authorize Nonlawyers To Practice Law, Bruce A. Green

Fordham Law Review

The unauthorized practice of law (“UPL”) is a crime in most states. Many scholars have criticized UPL laws as unnecessary impediments to low-income individuals’ ability to obtain legal help. Meanwhile, courts often defend these laws by analogizing the dangers posed by unlicensed legal practice to those posed by unlicensed medical practice. Chronicling two notable UPL suits to illustrate how nonlawyers may help low-income individuals seeking legal assistance and arguing that comparison to the medical profession in many ways favors liberalizing UPL enforcement, Professor Bruce Green concludes that state courts should allow nonlawyers greater freedom to provide legal assistance.

Grabbing The Bull By The Horns: Jurisprudential, Ethical, And Other Lessons For Lawyers And Law Students In The Immigration Labyrinth And Beyond, Mark L. Jones

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law School News: A Voice For Justice 3-1-2023, Janine L. Weisman, Roger Williams University School O Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Persuasion Principles For Lawyers, Jarome E. Gautreaux

Mercer Law Review

Lawyers spend a lot of time trying to persuade others. In this, they are not unlike most every other human being. Whether one spouse is trying to get the other to attend a sporting event they normally wouldn’t enjoy, or a car salesperson is trying to convince a potential buyer to buy the latest model convertible, or a doctor is trying to get their patient to stop smoking, all of us engage in persuasion a large portion of the time. It isn’t a stretch to say that persuading others, or at least trying to, is part of the fabric of …

Reconceiving Argument Schemes As Descriptive And Practically Normative, Brian N. Larson, David Seth Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

We propose a revised definition of “argument scheme” that focuses on describing argumentative performances and normative assessments that occur within an argumentative context, the social context in which the scheme arises. Our premise-and-conclusion structure identifies the typical instantiation of an argument in the argumentative context, and our critical framework describes a set of normative assessments available to participants in the context, what we call practically normative assessments. We distinguish this practical normativity from the rationally or universally normative assessment that might be imposed from outside the argumentative context. Thus, the practical norms represented in an argument scheme may still be …

Centering Students’ Rhetorical Knowledge: The Community Of Inquiry As Formative Assessment, Brian N. Larson

Faculty Scholarship

This essay describes an approach to peer review and classroom workshopping intended to develop a community of inquiry in the first-year law school classroom, center students’ own rhetorical knowledge, and establish the authority of students—especially minoritized students—as rhetorical agents. The technique described in this essay works from the presumption that each student who comes to law school comes with rich rhetorical experience. In other words, they have extensive experience constructing discourse suited to certain audiences and certain contexts. They use a variety of tools to construct such discourse, including linguistic registers (or styles) and rhetorical genres (such as the academic …

Vol. 64, No. 07 (February 27, 2023)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.