Digital Commons Network^™

Professionalism Paradigm Shift: Why Discarding Professional Ideology Will Improve The Conduct And Reputation Of The Bar, The, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

The Article explains how the Professionalism Paradigm distinguishes between self-interested businesspersons and altruistic professionals who place the public good above their own interests and those of their clients. The legal profession has used this Business-Profession dichotomy to obtain control of the delivery legal services, including a legislative monopoly on the practice of law. Today, the Professionalism Paradigm faces a crisis as leading lawyers, judges, and scholars complain that law has become a business and is no longer a profession. The Article “identifies this shift as a time for hope rather than as a cause for despair. Applying Thomas S. Kuhn's …

Ethics And The Settlement Of Mass Torts: When The Rules Meet The Road, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The settlement of mass torts through the class action device presents some difficult and troubling issues, including important questions of due process, fairness, justice, efficiency, equality, equity, and ethics. In this context, some of these foundational values conflict with each other and must be "resolved" by judges who must decide actual cases. In analyzing the applicable laws and rules (class action rules, constitutional provisions, and ethics rules) we find answers or suggestions that are often ambiguous or contradictory. All of these unresolved ambiguities raise the question of whether mass torts are any different from any number of difficult cases our …

Encouraging Personal Responsibility - An Alternative Approach To Teaching Legal Ethics, Christine M. Venter

Journal Articles

Largely as a result of prompting by the American Bar Association ("ABA"), most American law schools now require students to take a class called Professional Responsibility or Legal Ethics before graduation.

The ABA's campaign for a renewed emphasis on ethics stems from a desire that lawyers return to the "principles of professionalism."' How law schools should go about teaching their students these principles has never been as clear, for example, as how to teach students federal taxation. Does one try merely to teach students professional responsibility by covering the rules and tenets contained in the Model Rules and Code, or …

In Search Of Greener Pastures: Do Solicitation Rules And Other Ethical Restrictions Governing Departing Partners Really Make Sense Today, Judy Royer May

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Rediscovering Client Decisionmaking: The Impact Of Role-Playing, Mary Zulack

Faculty Scholarship

There are more things of importance to representing clients than are disclosed through a typical interview or counseling session, even a session undertaken by a lawyer earnestly attempting to hear rather than ignore the client. We lawyers are often vividly aware, when we pause to contemplate the point, that we do not know all we should about our clients. We may also believe that we have great gulfs of knowledge and experience to cross in order to hear and understand any particular client. Further, we fear that our ability to cross these gulfs is limited by the human, and lawyerly, …

Cooperating Clients, Daniel Richman

Faculty Scholarship

Indicted on serious narcotics charges, Jose Lopez retained Barry Tarlow to “vigorously defend and try the case.” Tarlow was up to the task but warned Lopez that it was “his general policy not to represent clients in negotiations with the government concerning cooperation,” and that he did not plan to make any exception for Lopez. As Tarlow later explained, he found such negotiations “personally[,] morally and ethically offensive.” This arrangement suited Lopez just fine, until he wavered in his resolution. Encouraged by a co-defendant, worried about his children, and hoping to obtain an early release from prison …

Legal Ethics, Jack L. Sammons

Mercer Law Review

The dominant event during this surveyed period' is not an event at all. It is instead a struggle so pervasive that its lurking presence is felt behind every important case and Formal Advisory Opinion ("FAO") decided this year. This struggle is between the two primary functions that the Georgia appellate courts perform in this area of law: the normal judicial function and the regulation of the legal profession. This second function is a legislative and an interpretative one. Appellate courts in Georgia perform the interpretive function in both an advisory capacity through FAO's and in a judicial capacity through case …

The Limits Of Compulsory Professionalism: How The Unified Bar Harms The Legal Profession, Bradley A. Smith

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Risk Management For Lawyers, William H. Fortune, Dulaney O’Roark

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Lawyers are under siege. We have become objects of scorn, ridicule, and occasional hatred. If you take your child to the Stephen Spielberg movie Jurassic Park, be prepared for the cheers when the cloned Tyrannosaurus Rex gobbles the lawyer—not a bad guy at all—cowering in the outhouse. In San Francisco a client burst into a California law firm and killed eight and wounded six persons before taking his own life. In response, the president of the California bar linked lawyer-bashing to hate crimes and prevailed on the Miller Brewing Company to withdraw a television commercial depicting a "lawyer-roping rodeo" …

A Dissenter's Commentary On The Professionalism Crusade, Rob Atkinson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Regulating The Airwaves: The Governmental Alternative To Avoid The Cellular Uncertainty On Privacy And The Attorney-Client Privilege, Jose L. Nunez

St. Thomas Law Review

This Comment will analyze the federal government's latest attempts to assure privacy and order in wireless communication in an effort to avoid the uncertainty prevalent during the early days of cellular telephony. First, Part II will examine the history behind present legislation designed to afford privacy to wireless communications. Part I will describe the judicial interpretation of this legislation. Part IV will then discuss the attorney-client privilege in the context of wireless communications. Finally, Part V will analyze the available options to assure privacy with an emphasis on a standard encryption code promoted by the government.

Multidisciplinary Representation Of Children: Conflicts Over Disclosures Of Client Communications, 27 J. Marshall L. Rev. 617 (1994), Gerard F. Glynn

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gross Profits? Questions About Lawyer Billing Practices, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Maintaining The Dignity Of The Profession: An International Perspective On Legal Advertising And Solicitation, Lauren Dobrowalski

Penn State International Law Review (1982 - 2011)

No abstract provided.

The Public Interest And The Unconstitutionality Of Private Prosecutors, John Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the history of private and public prosecution in the United States, including standards governing prosecutorial ethics. It argues that the use of private prosecutors is unethical and violative of defendants' constitutional rights. In particular, the article asserts that the use of such prosecutors violates due process principles and creates, at the very least, an unacceptable appearance of impropriety. The article contends that the public's interest in not having its members erroneously charged or convicted in the criminal process outweighs an interested party's right to retain a private prosecutor as set forth in some state laws. In addition …

Emperor's Clothes And Other Tales About The Standards For Imposing Lawyer Discipline Sanctions, The, Leslie Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Delivery Of Legal Services To Ordinary Americans, Roger C. Cramton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Testing The Radical Experiment: A Study Of Lawyer Response To Clients Who Intend To Harm Others, Leslie Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Lawyers Abroad: New Rules For Practice In A Global Economy, Kenneth S. Kilimnik

Penn State International Law Review (1982 - 2011)

No abstract provided.

Ethical Considerations In Medicaid Estate Planning: An Analysis Of The Aba Model Rules Of Professional Conduct, Eleanor Crosby Lanier, Ira M. Leff

Scholarly Works

The purpose of this article is to provide a starting point for discussion of ethical issues related to the practice of Medicaid estate planning. The authors explore the history of attorney involvement in planning and financing long-term care. They also analyze how the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct address the ethical dilemmas that arise in practice, using a case study to illustrate some of these issues. The individual authors' perspectives on this practice differ with respect to certain issues. One is a former Legal Services lawyer, and the other has a private practice which focuses on Medicaid estate planning.

The Dark Secret Of Progressive Lawyering: A Comment On Poverty Law Scholarship In The Post-Modern, Post-Reagan Era, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

In 1971, Stephen Wexler argued in "Practicing Law for Poor People" that what poverty lawyers should be doing was, in a word, organizing. I Wexler flaunted a tough-minded disdain, not only for individual claim assertion, but also for the purely individual concerns of particular clients. Instead, he advocated efforts to assist the poor to collective power.

In his 1977 diagnosis of the state of poverty practice, Gary Bellow argued that what legal services lawyers should be doing was "focused case pressure." He proposed aggregating small housing or welfare claims in order to generate pressure on institutions engaged in systemic misconduct …

"Artificial Conscience": Professional Elites And Professional Discipline From 1920 To 1950, James A. Smith

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Recent historical studies of the British and American Bars have identified their professional elites' willingness to define and enforce a concept of legal ethics which restricted less fortunate members' ability to practice and less fortunate individuals' ability to obtain legal assistance. This essay applies the thesis to the Canadian Bar's and especially the Law Society of Upper Canada's use of their increasing control over professional discipline from 1920 to 1950. Identifying similar trends in the Canadian profession's evolution, while emphasizing effects rather than intentions, it makes similar conclusions about the Canadian professional elite's use of such powers during this period.

The Lawyer's Duty Of Public Service: More Than Charity?, Tigran W. Eldred, Thomas Schoenherr

Faculty Scholarship

The question of whether lawyers have an ethical duty to perform public service-and, in particular, whether the obligation requires that a percentage of time be devoted to providing free legal services to the poor'-has a disjointed and uneven history. Leaders of the bar, espousing various and often conflicting views of morality, compassion, noblesse oblige, and individual autonomy, have contributed to this state of affairs, creating a complicated web of vague ideals that today jeopardizes the legal profession's sense of its own public obligations. On the one hand, the legal profession remains dedicated to the traditional view that public service …

Nonrefundable Retainers Revisited, Lester Brickman, Lawrence A. Cunningham

Articles

Amidst widespread public attention to fee abuses, a court recently held for the first time that nonrefundable retainers violate professional ethics. The court in In re Cooperman essentially adopted the argument of Professors Brickman and Cunningham that nonrefundable retainers are against public policy because they impair a client's right to discharge his attorney at any time without penalty. Because declaring such agreements unethical is tantamount, in the eyes of the practicing bar, to declaring them void, In re Cooperman has sparked a national outcry from those who profit from enforcing nonrefundable retainers. In this Article, Professors Brickman and Cunningham analyze …

Jacob Burns, Simon J. Liebowitz

Cardozo Law Review

The demise of Mr. Jacob Bums is a great loss not only to his family but to his many friends. Folks who met him in the course of his manifold humanitarian activities were deeply impressed by his sincerity, kindness, and love for humanity. As a practicing lawyer his great ability served his clients well. Providing pro bono legal services to the poor was a way of life to him.

An Introduction To The European Community's Legal Ethics Code - Part Ii: Applying The Ccbe Code Of Conduct, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This article, which is Part 2 in a series, examines the CCBE Code of Conduct and continues where the prior article left off. See An Introduction to the European Community's Legal Ethics Code Part I: An Analysis of the CCBE Code of Conduct, 7 Georgetown J. of Legal Ethics 1 (1993). "CCBE" is the acronym used to describe the Council of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Community; the CCBE has been recognized as the official representative of the legal profession with the European Community. In 1988, the CCBE adopted a code of conduct that was intended to …

A Conflict Is A Conflict Is A Conflict: Fiduciary Duty And Lawyer - Client Sexual Relations, Matthew Certosimo

Dalhousie Law Journal

Does a lawyer breach his' fiduciary duty by engaging in sexual activity with a client?' The Nova Scotia Barristers' Society is attempting to answer this very question with a proposed Rule in the Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Handbook : Chapter 24 on Sexual Relation-ships with a Client. The purpose of this paper is to review the proposed Rule in the context of a lawyer's fiduciary duty to his client.

Clark Memorandum: Fall 1993, J. Reuben Clark Law Society, J. Reuben Clark Law School

The Clark Memorandum

• Becoming J. Reuben Clark's Law School (Marion G. Romney)
• Integrity, the Evidence Within (Neal A. Maxwell)
• Growing Up (Elaine L. Jack)
• Satisfaction in the Law (David C. Campbell)

Fines Under New Federal Civil Rule 11: The New Monetary Sanctions For The "Stop-And-Think-Again" Rule, Jeffrey A. Parness

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Introduction To The European Community's Legal Ethics Code - Part I: An Analysis Of The Ccbe Code Of Conduct, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This article, which is Part 1 of two articles, examines the CCBE Code of Conduct. CCBE is the acronym used to describe the Council of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Community; the CCBE has been recognized as the official representative of the legal profession with the European Community. In 1988, the CCBE adopted a code of conduct that was intended to apply to situations in which lawyers from one CCBE Member of Observer State were involved with lawyers from another CCBE State. This article summarizes the development of the CCBE Code of Conduct, explains who it applies …