Digital Commons Network^™

Determining The Appropriate Time Limitations On Attorney Malpractice Lawsuits In West Virginia: A Brief Overview, Vincent Paul Cardi

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Developments: Ethics In Government Federal Advisory Committees, Foreign Conflicts Of Interest, The Constitution, And Dr. Franklin's Snuff Box, Gerald S. Schatz

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The American Rule On Attorney Fee Allocation: The Injured Person's Access To Justice, John F. Vargo

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Teaching Professional Responsibility In Law School, Leah Wortham

Scholarly Articles

I was pleased to be asked to write about teaching professional responsibility in law school. Ten years and sixteen classes of professional responsibility have allowed me to form many views. The following is organized in a variation of the journalist's standard five questions (who, what, when, where, and how). I consider WHAT to teach in professional responsibility courses, WHO should teach them, WHEN to teach the subject, HOW to teach it, and WHY it is hard to do.

Comments: The Ethics Involved In Representing Multiple Parties In A Business Transaction: How To Avoid Being Caught Between Scylla And Charybdis' Within The Confines Of The Maryland Disciplinary Rules, Gretchen L. Jankowski

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Your Money Or Your Life: A Modest Proposal For Mandatory Pro Bono Services, Mary I. Coombs

Articles

No abstract provided.

Impoverished Practices, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

No abstract provided.

The American Rule On Attorney Fee Allocation: The Injured Person's Access To Justice, John F. Vargo

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Financial Arrangements In Class Actions, And The Code Of Professional Responsibility, Daniel J. Capra, Thomas W. Jackson, John Koeltl

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The Rules of Professional Conduct impose various restrictions relating to attorney fees and the payment of litigation costs, which are designed to preserve the lawyer's role as a zealous but objective advocate. Class actions stand apart from other kinds of litigation in that they are designed to promote efficiency by their combining like claims into single actions, and individual justice by their vindicating claims that if taken individually might not be economically viable. In light of these special concerns, the courts have carved out several exceptions to ordinary attorney's fees, litigation expense, and disbursement rules that they routinely apply to …

Report On The Debate Over Whether There Should Be An Exception To Confidentiality For Rectifying A Crime Or Fraud, Maria Helen Bainor, Nancy Batterman

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct fail to provide lawyers with adequate guidance for dealing with situations in which a client has used the lawyer's services to perpetuate a fraud. He Model Rules do not discuss confidentiality in cases of client-committed fraud at all, and the provided exceptions to the confidentiality requirement do little to help attorney's deal with past frauds committed by a client with the unwitting aid of the attorney. The Model Rules should be amended to authorize disclosure of client confidences to rectify a crime or fraud when the lawyer's services have been used in the commission …

Directiveness In Clinical Supervision, Jon Bauer

Faculty Articles and Papers

This article, first published in 1993 but not previously available on SSRN, explores the attitudes and practices of clinical law teachers relating to issues of “directiveness” in their clinical supervision. The inquiry focuses on the tension between the educational value of student autonomy and clinicians’ professional interest in ensuring high quality client representation. The authors conducted a survey of clinicians teaching at law schools throughout the United States.

Nurturing The Impulse For Justice, Lynne N. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The North American Free Trade Agreemet And United States Employment., Roger W. Wallace, Max Scoular

St. Mary's Law Journal

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will create new opportunities for United States firms and workers while simultaneously protecting United States workers over a 15-year timeframe. The benefits of NAFTA include eliminating conditions that currently encourage or require United States firms to invest south of the border, establishing free trade in services, and eliminating non-tariff barriers which impede United States merchandise exports to Mexico. Furthermore, NAFTA would provide an improved and expanded regional trade and investment base resulting in a boost to the global competitiveness of US products. NAFTA would also increase trade liberalization with Mexico and maintain Mexico …

Legal Ethics, Roy M. Sobelson

Mercer Law Review

One of the traditional hallmarks of the American legal profession has been its virtual freedom from regulation. If there is any theme evident in recent developments in the legal ethics field, it is that this freedom is under increasing attack from clients, courts, the bar, and the legislature. The year 1992 was no exception, with a number of challenges made to the authority of individual lawyers and the profession itself. The Supreme Court of Georgia rejected one lawyer's challenge to mandatory court appointments and another's freedom to contract with a client for unlimited authority to settle cases.

The supreme court …

The Use Of Advance Fee Attorney Retainer Agreements In Bankruptcy: Another Special Law For Lawyers?, Lester Brickman, Jonathan Klein

Articles

From the time that the first lawyers set foot in what is now the United States, society has engaged in efforts to regulate lawyers' fees, including fees received from clients in bankruptcy proceedings. Lawyers, in turn, have been engaged in continuing efforts to: secure their self-interests, aggrandize their role in society, be free of societally imposed constraints on their fees and activities, and carve out an ever larger area of exclusive domain. Although lawyers have not fared as well in their recent efforts to extend the scope of their monopoly by the use of statutes that prohibit the unauthorized practice …

Client Fraud And The Securities Lawyer's Duty Of Confidentiality, Richard M. Phillips

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Government Attorneys And The Ethical Rules: Good Souls In Limbo, Maureen A. Sanders

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Suppressed V. Suppressed: A Court's Refusal To Remedy The Legal Profession's "Dirty Little Secret," Attorney-Client Sexual Exploitation, Robert H. Muriel

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Cocaine Addicted Lawyer And The Disciplinary System, Raymond P. O'Keefe

St. Thomas Law Review

This article will discuss cocaine addiction within the legal profession and its impact upon individual attorneys, clients, and the profession as a whole. It discusses different approaches that have been taken in Bar disciplinary proceedings and the need for professional sanctioning bodies to accept cocaine addiction as a disease, and recovery from it as a mitigating factor. It argues that admitting evidence of addiction and recovery as mitigation best serves the goals of the disciplinary proceeding, which are to 1) protect the public, 2) maintain the integrity of the legal profession,. and 3) preserve public confidence in the legal profession. …

Rethinking Attorney Conflict Of Interest Doctrine, Kevin C. Mcmunigal

Faculty Publications

This article focuses on conflict of interest doctrine dealing with concur- rent conflict of interest issues. Its thesis is that a primary source of confusion in conflict of interest doctrine is its failure to clearly articulate and answer the central questions which lie at the heart of the subject. In essence it argues that to remedy this confusion we need to rethink attorney conflict of interest doctrine so that it focuses more clearly on articulating and answering these central questions.

Money Laundering And Lawyers, Eugene R. Gaetke, Sarah N. Welling

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The federal government has recently enacted money laundering laws to track and discourage the use of money generated by crime. Because some of that money is used to pay legal fees, the laws have a direct impact on lawyers. The laws increase the risk of prosecution for lawyers, inhibit some methods of fee payment, and make some cases less attractive financially. Generally, the laws make law practice more complicated and risky.

The laws have been criticized for their impact on criminal defense lawyers. Critics have raised three broad objections. The first objection is constitutional. Critics have also objected to the …

Dances With Nonlawyers: A New Perspective On Law Firm Diversification, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, Professor Munneke continues the debate over ethical rules governing lawyers' professional affiliations with nonlawyers, arguing in favor of the adoption of uniform rules that regulate lawyers' conduct in the context of specific ethical issues, such as confidentiality and conflicrs of interest. In Professor Munneke's view, the retention of ethical rules that prohibit law firm diversification impedes the ability of lawyers to compete effectively in today's rapidly changing marketplace of professional services.

Professor Munneke moreover questions whether state bar association rules that prohibit law firm diversification are capable of withstanding judicial scrutiny under the federal antitrust laws and …

Lawyers In The Public Service And The Role Of Law Schools, Frank J. Macchiarola, Joseph Scanlon

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Law schools should recognize and maximize their opportunity to work in public service. Law schools have an obligation to recognize a causal link between legal education and value learned through the law school experience and the tremendous effect that this training can have on the community. This essay examines the history of the traditional law school curriculum and poses practical and philosophical suggestions for the improvement of existing course work towards the public good. Next, the essay examines the community beyond the walls of the school as a source of instruction and finally, argues that a more expansive definition of …

Ethical Issues In Representing Thrifts, Michelle D. Monse

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Personal Values And Professional Ethics, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

Cleveland State Law Review

My purpose on this occasion is to urge reexamination of personal values as a fundamental resource of professional ethics. The essential point is that rules of ethics, such as those embodied in the profession's ethical codes, are insufficient guides to making the choices of action that a professional must make in practice. I will suggest that the same is true of professional tradition and conventional ways of practice. This is not to say that rules of ethics and traditions are irrelevant. Rules of professional ethics frame the ethical problems that are encountered in a lawyer's life throughout practice. Moreover, professional …

Rediscovering The Republican Origins Of The Legal Ethics Codes, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

Many commentators wrongly assume that the hired gun ideal is the foundation of our legal ethics codes. This article explains that this assumption is based on an historical mistake that has consequences for interpreting the modern codes. Judge George Sharswood, the nineteenth century scholar whose work provided the basis for the 1908 A.B.A. Canons of Ethics, had a republican conception that rejected the adversarial ethic in favor of a more nuanced conception that combined loyalty to clients with a thick obligation to the public good that both bounded client representation and required lawyers to provide political leadership. Although the emphasis …

Colorado Rules Of Professional Conduct: Implications For Criminal Lawyers, H. Patrick Furman, Daniel A. Vigil

Publications

No abstract provided.

Alter[Ing] People's Perceptions: The Challenge Facing Advocates Of Ancillary Business Practices, Marjorie Meeks

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Examination Of The Iowa Bar's Approach To Regulating Lawyer Advertising, Jim Rossi, Mollie Weighner

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Since the Supreme Court held the prohibition of lawyer advertising unconstitutional in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona American lawyers have engaged in heated debate over the appropriateness of advertising for their profession. Although the debate over lawyer advertising-- especially as it applies to mass media-- raises relatively new issues for the profession, the concerns at the heart of the debate are the oldest that lawyers as a profession face. Lawyer advertising at its core is concerned with "professionalism": how lawyers, as an organized profession, ought to deliver legal service to the public.

Immediately following Bates, most state bar associations …

The Fall And Rise Of The Criminal Contingent Fee, Peter Lushing

Articles

The article argues that the ban on contingent fees for criminal defense attorneys, established by the American Bar Association in 1969, is outdated and should be repealed. It contends that the ban is rooted in historical prejudice and unfounded concerns about conflicts of interest, rather than empirical evidence. The author suggests that the Supreme Court's 1989 decision implicitly approving contingent fees in certain criminal cases presents an opportunity to reconsider this prohibition. Repealing the ban could benefit middle-class defendants and allow for regulation and data collection to address potential issues.