Digital Commons Network^™

Changing Times, Changing Relationships For The Bench And Civil Bar, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

For the past century, the interests of the bench and bar in delivering justice to civil litigants were closely aligned. As civil litigants’ needs change, courts recognize they must lead the way on civil justice reforms both for their own sake and to encourage productive change in civil legal practice.

9 Strategies For Improving The Legal Internship Experience At Your Office, Nicole P. Dyszlewski

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Access To Consumer Bankruptcy, Pamela Foohey

Scholarly Works

This essay examines the state of access to justice in the context of consumer bankruptcy from two vantage points: (1) how people decide that their money problems are legal problems addressable by filing bankruptcy; and (2) the barriers people face in using the consumer bankruptcy system. To shed new light on how people decide to use bankruptcy to address their financial troubles, I analyze a sample of narratives accompanying consumers' complaints about financial products and services submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I also chronicle the evolution of research regarding consumer bankruptcy’s “local legal culture,” systemic racial bias, and …

Work Only We Can Do: Professional Responsibility In An Age Of Automation, Sherman J. Clark

Articles

Automation can help us do our work as lawyers; but in the process, it should also force us to be more thoughtful about what our work really is or ought to be.' The challenge for the profession, as I see it, is not simply to survive the advent of new technology, nor even merely to make effective use of new tools. While addressing those immediate concerns, we should also welcome the concomitant opportunity to develop and refine our understanding of what it means to be a good and ethical lawyer. As technological developments free us from and prevent us from …

The Ethical Practice Of Human-Centered Civil Justice Design, Victor D. Quintanilla, Haley Hinkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Over the past two decades, legal professionals have increasingly engaged in a new form of professional activity: civil justice design. In the past, legal professionals handled cases and transactions for clients or served as neutrals, including mediators and arbitrators, who helped to resolve disputes between parties. Today, legal professionals increasingly play a principal design role in creating systems that resolve streams of conflicts, disputes, and grievances between parties. Lawyers regularly now create internal grievance procedures, procedures for companies to resolve disputes with customers, and court-annexed alternative dispute resolution systems. The emergence of this new role raises difficult questions about the …

Ethical Issues In Robo-Lawyering: The Need For Guidance On Developing And Using Artificial Intelligence In The Practice Of Law, Drew Simshaw

Scholarly Works

As in many other industries, artificial intelligence ("AI") is poised to drastically transform the legal services landscape. "Bots, " automated expert systems, and predictive analytics are already changing the way consumers seek, and lawyers provide, legal services. Among other impacts, AI has the potential to increase access to justice in the self-help, individual, and corporate law firm markets by lowering costs and expanding services to untapped markets. A prominent question in early literature on AI in law is whether these services constitute the unauthorized practice of law. Threshold questions of whether and by whom such services should be regulated are …

Artificial Intelligence: Application Today And Implications Tomorrow, Sean Semmler, Zeeve Rose

Duke Law & Technology Review

This paper analyzes the applications of artificial intelligence to the legal industry, specifically in the fields of legal research and contract drafting. First, it will look at the implications of artificial intelligence (A.I.) for the current practice of law. Second, it will delve into the future implications of A.I. on law firms and the possible regulatory challenges that come with A.I. The proliferation of A.I. in the legal sphere will give laymen (clients) access to the information and services traditionally provided exclusively by attorneys. With an increase in access to these services will come a change in the role that …

Ethics, Law Firms, And Legal Education, Milton C. Regan Jr.

Maine Law Review

A rash of recent corporate scandals has once again put professional ethics in the spotlight. It's hard to pick up the Wall Street Journal each day and not read that authorities have launched a new investigation or that additional indictments are imminent. Stories of financial fraud and outright looting have galvanized the public and shaken the economy. What ethical lessons can we draw from these events? Two explanations seem especially prominent. The first is a story of individuals without an adequate moral compass. Some people's greed and ambition were unchecked by any internal ethical constraints. For such deviants, no amount …

The Lawyer As A Public Citizen, Cruz Reynoso

Maine Law Review

The Eleventh Annual Frank M. Coffin Lecture on Law and Public Service was held on October 17, 2002. Cruz Reynoso, Boochever and Bird Professor of Law at the University of California at Davis, School of Law and retired Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, 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. The Board and Staff of Volume 55 are honored to continue the tradition of publishing …

Turns Of The Contingent Fee Key To The Courthouse Door, Douglas R. Richmond

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Challenge To Lawyers, Robert F. Drinan, S.J.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

On Encouraging Lawyers To Serve The Poor, John F. Castellano

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Ethics In The Everyday Practice Of Law, Rev. Thomas J. Paprocki

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Personal Responsibility For Professional Actions, Simon Yeznig Balian

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Academic Law Libraries To Expand Access To Justice, Paul Jerome Mclaughlin Jr.

Library Faculty Publications

Academic law libraries are in a unique position to help citizens gain access to the court system and legal information. By creating clinics that focus on helping pro se patrons find and complete legal forms, academic law libraries would not only benefit their schools but also the justice system.

The Pro Bono Collaborative Project Spotlight: Increasing Access To Justice Just Got A Little Easier In Rhode Island 10-05-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Pro Bono Collaborative Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Ethics And Law School Admission, Anthony J. Scanlon

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Legal Ethics Education And The Dynamics Of Reform, Elizabeth D. Gee

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Professional, Fall 2017, Henry Latimer Center For Professionalism

The Professional Newsletter

The Professional is a publication of The Florida Bar Henry Latimer Center for Professionalism. It is published triannually and provides practical information regarding professionalism relevant to the practice of law in Florida.

The Ambulance Chasing Epidemic In Texas, Ronald Rodriguez

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Barratry and solicitation of professional employment is illegal and unethical. The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct define barratry as ethical misconduct and a serious crime. Unfortunately, for citizens and law-abiding attorneys of Texas, the criminal and ethical prohibitions against barratry have rarely been enforced. Consequently, barratry continues to proliferate rapidly throughout South Texas. For lawyers who engage in this unethical practice, the potential for large financial gain proves irresistible given the virtually nonexistent risk of prosecution. The lack of robust and successful prosecutions has created an optimal environment for barratry to proliferate. This Article discusses the current barratry epidemic …

Lawyers In The Mist: The Golden Age Of Legal Nostalgia, Marc Galanter

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No one watching the contemporary furor over the litigation explosion and lawsuits devouring America can fail to be impressed by the power of folklore to overwhelm workaday organized social knowledge. Time and again, the protestations of bean-counters and skeptics are vanquished by stories about perverse institutions peopled by malingering plaintiffs, greedy lawyers, capricious jurors, and arrogant judges, proving yet again that it is not what is so that matters, but what people—at least for the moment—think is so. Tenacious belief may not make it so, but can have powerful effects.

In this essay I address another cluster of folklore about …

“The Lost Lawyer” Regained: The Abiding Values Of The Legal Profession, Robert Maccrate

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Money Didn’T Buy Happiness, Lawrence J. Fox

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Alternative Business Structures: Good For The Public, Good For The Lawyers, Jayne R. Reardon

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

There has been a shift in consumer behavior over the last several decades. To keep up with the transforming consumer, many professions have changed the way they do business. Yet lawyers continue to deliver services the way they have since the founding of our country. Bar associations and legal ethicists have long debated the idea of allowing lawyers to practice in “alternative business structures,” where lawyers and nonlawyers can co-own and co-manage a business to deliver legal services. This Article argues these types of businesses inhibit lawyers’ ability to provide better legal services to the public and that the legal …

Law Firm Economics And Professionalism, Ward Bower

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Both Dean Kronman in The Lost Lawyer and Professor Glendon in A Nation Under Lawyers attribute some of the problems and challenges facing lawyers today to economic pressures and to a preoccupation with profits and fees. For Kronman, this economic focus interferes with the “moral detachment” necessary for achievement of the “lawyer-statesman” ideal. For Glendon, professional dilemmas caused by the deterioration of the legal economy, competition in the marketplace, lawyer-shopping by clients, early specialization, lack of mentoring and emphasis on the billable hour have created an unhappy generation of ethically challenged practitioners.

Both authors accurately assess the state of the …

Smu Pro Bono Centre’S New Premises Officially Unveiled, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

“Pro bono legal services represent the highest form of social work that the legal profession can perform in service to the public. Everyone needs some form of legal assistance or advice at one time or another. It is not just free work, but free work for our poor ‘neighbours’ without expectation of any kind of material reward – it is the work of the Good Samaritan. It is free work, given from the heart,” said Mr Chan Sek Keong, former Chief Justice and current Senior Judge at the Singapore Supreme Court, at the official opening of the SMU Pro Bono …

Professional Responsibility Of The Criminal Defense Lawyer Redux: The New Three Hardest Questions, Todd A. Berger

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

In 1966, Professor Monroe Freedman authored Professional Responsibility of the Criminal Defense Lawyer: The Three Hardest Questions, a work that occupies an important place in the cannon of legal ethics. Freedman believed that the three hardest questions facing a criminal defense attorney relate to whether it is ethical to discredit a truthful witness; whether it is proper to knowingly allow a client to testify falsely; and whether a lawyer may provide a client with legal advice when the lawyer suspects the client may use that advice to commit a crime. Beyond Freedman’s queries there are other important, yet largely unaddressed, …

Yikes! Was I Wrong? A Second Look At The Viability Of Monitoring Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, Celestine Richards Mcconville

Maine Law Review

When Albert Holland’s capital post-conviction counsel filed his state post-conviction motion in September 2002, twelve days remained in the one-year statute of limitations for filing a federal habeas petition. While Holland might not have known exactly how much time was left in the federal limitations period, he knew he wanted to preserve his right to federal review, that the limitations period was tolled during non-discretionary state post-conviction review, and that he would be under the gun to get the federal petition filed once the Florida Supreme Court issued its decisions. And he made no ones about his desire to file …

Lawyers Going Bare And Clients Going Blind, Leslie C. Levin

Florida Law Review

Many U.S. lawyers “go bare” and represent clients without maintaining malpractice insurance. Efforts to require these lawyers to carry lawyer professional liability (LPL) insurance have mostly foundered, due to bar opposition and concerns about the cost of insurance. As a compromise between protecting the public and protecting lawyers’ interests, many states now require lawyers to disclose whether they carry LPL insurance to clients, regulators, or both. This Article draws on survey data from Arizona, Connecticut and New Mexico lawyers that shed light on which lawyers go bare and the reasons why they do so. The Article then looks at states’ …

Video: Representing Charities: Profit V. Non Profit, Adam Goldberg

NSU Law Seminar Series

his particular seminar is designed to educate attorneys what to request prior to becoming a Board Member including but not limited to:

• Is there a Board Orientation?
• What is the Board's Liability?
• How to read IRS Form 990 and Financial Statements
• Legal Issues facing Charitable Organizations
• Best Practices

Learning Outcomes include:

1. Difference between Tax Exempt and Not-For-Profit & Calendar v. Fiscal Year
2. Serving as a Board Member
3. Representing Charitable Organizations/Tax Exempt Organizations as Legal Counsel
4. Ethical Considerations for Exempt Organizations Practitioners