Digital Commons Network^™

Outsourcing Self-Regulation, Marsha Griggs

Washington and Lee Law Review

Answerable only to the courts that have the sole authority to grant or withhold the right to practice law, lawyers operate under a system of self-regulation. The self-regulated legal profession staunchly resists external interference from the legislative and administrative branches of government. Yet, with the same fervor that the legal profession defies non-judicial oversight, it has subordinated itself to the controlling influence of a private interest. By outsourcing the mechanisms that dictate admission to the bar, the legal profession has all but surrendered control of the most crucial component of its gatekeeping function to an unregulated industry that profits at …

Contingent Fee Conflicts: Attorneys Opt For Quick-Kill Settlements When Their Clients Would Be Better Off Going To Trial, Chryssa Deliganis, Steve Calandrillo, Neela Brocato

Faculty Articles

Despite the checkered history of contingency fees in the practice of law,

attorneys often claim that such fee arrangements perfectly align the interests of

lawyer and client. After all, contingency fee lawyers proclaim in TV ad after TV

ad, “we don’t get paid unless you win.” That superficial logic does not withstand

economic scrutiny. Utilizing a behavioral economics lens, this Article

demonstrates that contingency fee arrangements give attorneys excessive

incentives to settle cases that their clients would be better off taking all the way

through trial. In addition to highlighting this undertheorized problem in law, we

offer normative recommendations to …

Talking Foreign Policy: "Foreign Policy And Climate Change" November 20, 2023 Broadcast, Cwru Law School

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Regulating The "Unregulated": The European Union And United Kingdom Have Put In Place Anti-Money Laundering Directives For The Art Market. Should The United States Follow?, Lauren A. Turner

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The Seven Elements Of Dispute Systems Design, Lisa K. Dicker, Neil Mcgaraghan

Faculty Publications

In this article, clinical instructors at the Harvard Law School Dispute Systems Design (“DSD”) Clinic propose adapting an old analytical framework — The Seven Elements of Interest-Based Negotiation — for a new context, dispute systems design (“DSD”). A relatively young field, DSD is the “applied art and science of designing the means to prevent, manage, and resolve streams of disputes or conflict.” DSD can feel broad and opaque to newcomers and thus is in need of a foundational framework, especially for beginners. The Seven Elements of DSD — alternatives, interests, options, criteria, communication, relationship, and commitment — can serve a …

“The Times They Are A Changin’”: Generational Comparisons Of The Civil Rights Movement With The Current-Day Climate Movement, Robin Boyle-Laisure

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Bob Dylan’s famous song lyric, capturing the spirit of the 1960s, is just as apropos today: “The times they are a changin’” (1964). The civil rights movement changed history by securing legislation and court decisions advancing the constitutional rights of black people (Dalton 2008, 7). The movement took flight at a time when the Baby Boomer generation was politically active and seeking social change. As outlined in the introduction to this book, the generations and their birth years are as follows: Silents (1925–45); Baby Boomers (1946–64); Gen X (1965–80); Millennials (1981–95); and Gen Z (1996–2013). Baby Boomers “experienced the …

Indian Country Lawyers: A South Dakota Survey, Bryce Drapeaux, Hannah Haksgaard

Faculty Publications

South Dakota’s reservations are rural and suffer from a shortage of lawyers. Relatedly, there are very few Native American licensed attorneys in South Dakota. This essay confronts the rural lawyer shortage on South Dakota’s reservations by documenting the lawyers practicing on South Dakota’s reservations. In addition, this essay addresses the access to justice crisis amplified on South Dakota’s reservations by this lawyer shortage. The essay provides some insight into the difficulties of placing more lawyers onto the reservations, while also offering potential pathways to remedy this crisis.

Corporate Retreat In Asia: A New Era Of U.S. Law Firm Globalizations, Jocelyn Zhao

Emory Business Law Review Perspectives

No abstract provided.

Author Biographies

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Margins To Center: Elevating The Voices Of Disadvantaged Families In Child Welfare, Jerron R. Wheeler

Faculty Articles

This essay sheds light on the systemic challenges faced by indigent, minority families within the child welfare system, using personal experiences from my time as a student at the University of Florida Levin College of Law as a lens. This essay aims to highlight the intersection of poverty, race, and the child welfare system, showing how these factors can hinder parents' ability to reunite with their children despite their best efforts. The essay seeks to underscore the urgent need for a more nuanced, multidisciplinary approach to child welfare advocacy that includes legal professionals, social workers, and health professionals working collaboratively …

Conflicting Goals: The Ethics And Accountability Of Law Firm Environmental, Social, And Governance (Esg) Policies, Todd D. Amaral

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Generative Ai In The Attorney-Client Relationship: An Exercise In Critical Revision And Client Management, Michael L. Smith

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

Discussions of generative AI in legal practice and education often assert that this technology will lead to a sea change in legal writing, research, and revision. While some of the more breathless proclamations deserve skepticism, there’s little doubt that this technology may generate new forms of headaches for those in the legal field—particularly once it’s in the hands of clients or opposing counsel who wish to use this technology to save the time, money, and effort required for complex legal tasks.

This essay proposes an exercise template for law students that illustrates how generative AI technology may be misused or …

Ethics Of Innovation: A Framework For Responsible Innovation Governance, Nicole Morris

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

Over the past several years, startups that once seemed destined for greatness have failed or collapsed because of fraud committed by the founders. Most notable are the Theranos and FTX business collapses, which culminated in the convictions of two infamous entrepreneurs, Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fired, respectively. Startup innovators are not alone when it comes to morally dubious behavior. According to Retraction Watch, nearly 5000 papers published in science & engineering journals were retracted in 2022. Research misconduct allegations eventually led to the resignation of Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne in July 2023. The research scandal at Stanford received lots …

Technology Competence As A Compass For Helping To Close The Justice Gap, Drew Simshaw

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Using State And Local Governments’ Purchasing Power To Combat Wage Theft, Courtlyn G. Roser-Jones

Washington and Lee Law Review

Regulatory efforts to curb wage theft are failing. And for good reason: these laws generally empower individual workers to pursue their rights when employers neglect to pay them what they are owed and deter employers with substantial penalties. But the vast majority of workers do not take formal action against their employers. So, when the penalties for committing wage theft are almost entirely triggered by claims workers do not bring, they do not deter employer behavior. Instead, because the likelihood of being penalized at all is so low, some employers make profit-maximizing decisions to commit wage theft on a large …

New York’S Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act: A Second Chance For Survivors Or An Unattainable Freedom?, Kaitlyn D’Onofrio

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Occupational Licensing And Labor Market Mobility: Evidence From The Legal Profession, Adam Chilton, Jacob Goldin, Kyle Rozema, Sarath Sanga

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

We study how state occupational licensing requirements shape labor mobility across U.S. legal markets. Drawing on newly collected data, we link variation in state bar exam waiver policies to lawyers’ license acquisitions, professional disciplinary records, and educational histories. We find that bar exam waivers increase the number of experienced lawyers obtaining a new license by 38 percent, but that the additional lawyers are subject to more professional discipline and tend to have graduated from less selective law schools. Our results suggest that state-level occupational licensing regimes can create a trade-off between the supply and quality of professionals in an industry.

Innovator Ecosystem Diversity As A Global Competitiveness Imperative, Margo A. Bagley

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

None

Access To Injustice: How Legal Reforms Reinforce Marginalization, Roni Amit

City University of New York Law Review

Marginalized individuals are largely excluded from making rights claims in the courts because their stories of rights violations fall outside of prescribed legal categories. Framing this exclusion as a lack of knowledge and access, proponents of the access to justice movement have sought to improve outcomes for unrepresented and marginalized litigants through measures that help them understand and navigate the system. The access to justice movement seeks to make the justice system more accessible to these litigants by focusing on procedural fairness. This Article draws on empirical data and observations from Tulsa’s eviction court to consider the limits of access …

Compensatory Preliminary Damages: Access To Justice As Corrective Justice, Sayid R. Bnefsi

City University of New York Law Review

The access to justice movement broadly concerns people’s ability to resolve legally actionable problems. To the extent that individuals seek resolution through civil litigation, they can be disadvantaged by their unmet need for legal services, particularly in high-stakes cases and complicated areas of law. In part, this is because legal services and litigation are cost-prohibitive, especially for indigent plaintiffs. As a result, these individuals are priced out of litigation and, by extension, unable to use law to seek justice

This Note proposes an innovative legal intervention to this problem called “compensatory preliminary damages.” This intervention builds from the work of …

Avoiding A "Nine-Headed Hydra": Intervention As A Matter Of Right By Legislators In Federal Lawsuits After Berger, Taylor Lawing

Vanderbilt Law Review

Heightened political polarization across the United States has resulted in the increased use of Rule 24(a) intervention as a matter of right by elected legislators in federal litigation concerning state law. Because states differ in their approaches to intervention, with only some states expressly granting intervention in state matters, lower federal courts have been tasked with evaluating motions to intervene by reconciling Rule 24(a)'s requirements with state statutes, which poses challenging questions concerning Rule 24. This Note aims to provide lower courts with a reimagined standard for evaluating motions to intervene from state legislators that considers the administrative, political, and …

Occupational Licensing And Labor Market Mobility: Evidence From The Legal Profession, Adam Chilton, Jacob Goldin, Kyle Rozema, Sarath Sanga

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

We study how state occupational licensing requirements shape labor mobility across U.S. legal markets. Drawing on newly collected data, we link variation in state bar exam waiver policies to lawyers’ license acquisitions, professional disciplinary records, and educational histories. We find that bar exam waivers increase the number of experienced lawyers obtaining a new license by 38 percent, but that the additional lawyers are subject to more professional discipline and tend to have graduated from less selective law schools. Our results suggest that state-level occupational licensing regimes can create a trade-off between the supply and quality of professionals in an industry.

Interpretive Divergence In The New York Court Of Appeals, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

This Article focuses attention on the New York Court of Appeals, which is decidedly formalist about contract interpretation but decidedly contextualist about statutory interpretation. It explores some recent exemplary cases to show where the New York Court of Appeals tends to land in what turns out to be, for this court at least, two different battlefields in the law of interpretation. Finding that there is “interpretive divergence” between statutory and contract cases, the Article then reflects on the practice of divergence more generally, revisiting assumptions about why anyone might have thought harmonization was sensible in the first place.

Entertaining And Embracing Professional Identity Development In The 1l Legal Writing Curriculum, Charles Oldfield

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Because of their already heavy workload, legal writing faculty sometimes resist taking on new curricular responsibilities, including calls to incorporate ethics and professionalism training in the first-year legal writing curriculum. But the ABA now requires law schools to provide students with opportunities to develop their professional identities throughout their time in law school. This requirement means that faculty will need to add professional identity development to their courses. Rather than resist this change, first-year legal writing faculty should embrace the opportunity by using the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to incorporate concepts of ethics and professionalism in their first-year courses. …

Lawyering In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence, Jonathan H. Choi, Monahan Amy, Daniel Schwarcz

Scholarship@WashULaw

We conducted the first randomized controlled trial to study the effect of AI assistance on human legal analysis. We randomly assigned law school students to complete realistic legal tasks either with or without the assistance of GPT-4, tracking how long the students took on each task and blind-grading the results. We found that access to GPT-4 only slightly and inconsistently improved the quality of participants’ legal analysis but induced large and consistent increases in speed. AI assistance improved the quality of output unevenly—where it was useful at all, the lowest-skilled participants saw the largest improvements. On the other hand, AI …

Do High School Students Understand Their Miranda Rights? A Preliminary Investigation, Emma K. Hinds

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Background: Numerous studies have established that the linguistic complexity of the Miranda warning often results in poor comprehension, particularly for adolescents. Several studies have shown that persons with language disorders are overrepresented in U.S. prisons. Additionally, a few studies have shown a strong positive correlation between language scores and scores on Miranda assessments. These findings suggest that individuals with language disorders are at risk for poor comprehension of their Miranda rights, placing them at greater risk of waiving those rights, which can lead to incarceration.

Aims: The goal of this preliminary investigation is to examine how well adolescents with typical …

Quantifying The Rural Legal Desert Problem: Assessing Access To Justice And Legal Services In Marginalized Communities, K. Aleks Schaefer, Andrew Van Leuven

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fostering A Law Student's Professional Identity: How Law School Field Placements And Online Programming Can Develop The Next Generation Of Rural Lawyers, Melissa L. Kidder

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sharing Elected Prosecutors, Quinn Yeargain

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Friends In Law Places- The Role For Medical-Legal Partnerships In Reshaping The Rural Bar And Bedside, Michael Sobol

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.