Digital Commons Network^™

Blind Spot: The Inadequacy Of Neutral Partisanship, Melissa Mortazavi

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Rwu Law: The Magazine Of Roger Williams University School Of Law (Issue No. 8) (2015), Roger Williams University School Of Law

RWU Law

No abstract provided.

The Zombie Lawyer Apocalypse, Peter H. Huang, Corie Rosen Felder

Publications

This Article uses a popular cultural framework to address the near-epidemic levels of depression, decision-making errors, and professional dissatisfaction that studies have documented are prevalent among law students and lawyers today.

Zombies present an apt metaphor for understanding and contextualizing the ills now common in the American legal and legal education systems. To explore that metaphor and its import, this Article will first establish the contours of the zombie literature and will apply that literature to the existing state of legal education and legal practice, ultimately describing a state that we believe can only be termed "the Zombie Lawyer Apocalypse." …

Cross-Boarder Teaching And Collaboration, Kimberly D. Ambrose, William H.D. Fernholz, Catherine F. Klein, Dana Raigrodski, Stephen A. Rosenbaum, Leah Wortham

Chapters in Books

Since the publication of Best Practices for Legal Education, the globalization of both legal education and law practice has exploded. Today’s lawyers increasingly serve border-crossing clients or clients who present with transnational legal issues. As law schools expand their international programs, and enroll increasing numbers of non-U.S. law students, law students transcend cultural and legal borders. As a result, they deepen their understanding of—and sharpen their critical perspective on—their own national systems. Similarly, U.S. law teachers are increasingly called to engage in border-crossing teaching and other academic pursuits. Best Practices did not address these issues. The primary aim of …

Taking Teaching And Learning Seriously: A Tribute To Professor Susan Martyn, Irma S. Russell

Faculty Works

Professor Susan Martyn is an inspiring and dedicated teacher. She inspires me by her teaching, her work with students in the classroom, as well as with lawyers in continuing legal education programs, and her writing for scholars and the public. The invitation to write in a law review edition honoring this amazing professor and scholar provided the opportunity to contemplate a topic that is central to my life and the lives of most who teach: What is good teaching, and how do we increase good teaching and good learning in legal education today? We are in a time of stunning …

J.K.C. V. T.W.C., Richard Pearsall

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Redefining Professionalism, Rebecca Roiphe

Articles & Chapters

Most scholars condemn professionalism as self-serving, anti-competitive rhetoric. This Article argues that professionalism can be a positive and productive way of thinking about lawyers’ work. While it is undoubtedly true that the Bar has used the ideology of the professional role to support self-interested and bigoted causes, professionalism has also served as an important way of developing and marshalling group identity to promote useful ends. The critics of professionalism tend to view it as an ideology, according to which professionals, unlike businessmen, are concerned not with their own financial gain but with the good of their clients and the community …

Tilting At Stratification: Against A Divide In Legal Education, Rebecca Roiphe

Articles & Chapters

Critics suggest we divide law schools into an elite tier whose graduates serve global business clients and a lower tier, which would prepare lawyers for simple disputes. This idea is not new. A similar proposal emerged in the early twentieth century. This article draws on the historical debate to argue that this simplistic approach cannot solve the myriad problems facing the legal profession and legal education. Supporters of separate tiers of law school rely on a caricature of the early history to argue that the Bar is acting in a protectionist way to ensure its own monopoly and keep newcomers …

Lawyers And Spoiled Identity, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Law School Culture And The Lost Art Of Collaboration: Why Don't Law Professors Play Well With Others, Michael I. Meyerson

All Faculty Scholarship

I have an Erdős number. Specifically, I have an Erdős number of 5. For the uninitiated, the concept of an “Erdős number” was created by mathematicians to describe how many “degrees of separation” an author of an article is from the great mathematician Paul Erdős. If you coauthored a paper with Erdős, you have an Erdős number of 1. If you coauthor a paper with someone with an Erdős number of 1, you have earned an Erdős number of 2. Coauthoring a paper with someone with an Erdős number of 2 gives you an Erdős number of 3, and so …

For Men Only: A Gap In The Rules Allows Sex Discrimination To Avoid Ethical Challenge, Michelle N. Struffolino

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

The billboard states: “Divorce: Men Only.” The reaction is one of confusion. Something just does not seem right. Isn’t this discrimination? Is the system willing to allow this message because the need to protect men’s rights in divorce outweighs the systemic and societal harms associated with the message?

Although this article focuses on the ethical issues associated with firms that exclude women from the pool of potential divorce clients, the existence of women only law firms is acknowledged. The analysis of the ethical issues raised by these gender specific firms is somewhat the same regardless of what gender is excluded. …

No Lawyer For A Hundred Miles?: Mapping The New Geography Of Access Of Justice In Canada, Jamie Baxter, Albert Yoon

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Recent concerns about the geography of access to justice in Canada have focused on the dwindling number of lawyers in rural and remote areas, raising anxieties about the profession’s inability to meet current and future demands for localized legal services. These concerns have motivated a range of policy responses that aim to improve the education, training, recruitment and retention of practitioners in underserved areas. We surveyed lawyers across Ontario to better understand their physical proximity to clients and how, if at all, that proximity promotes access to justice. We find that lawyers’ scope of practice varies based on a number …

Conceptualizing Student Practice For The 21st Century: Educational And Ethical Considerations In Modernizing The District Of Columbia Student Practice Rules, Wallace J. Mlyniec, Haley D. Etchison

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article traces the history of the amendment process. It provides a short history of student practice rules and then, using the student practice rule in effect in the District of Columbia prior to the 2014 amendments, describes the various components of those rules that courts and bars across the nation have implemented to assist courts, advance legal education, and preserve advocates’ ethical obligations to clients. It then describes some of the comments to the proposed amendments offered by the District of Columbia Bar and other D.C. lawyers during the public comment period and the modifications to the District of …

What The Jobs Are: New Tech, New Client Needs Create A New Field Of Legal Operations, William D. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Trial And Error: Lawyers And Nonlawyer Advocates, Anna E. Carpenter, Alyx Mark, Colleen F. Shanahan

Faculty Scholarship

Nonlawyer advocates are one proposed solution to the access to justice crisis and are currently permitted to practice in some civil justice settings. Theory and research suggest nonlawyers might be effective in some civil justice settings, yet we know very little, empirically, about nonlawyer practice in the United States. Using data from more than 5,000 unemployment insurance appeal hearings and interviews with lawyers and nonlawyers, this article explores how both types of representatives learn to do their work and what this means for their effectiveness. Building on recent research regarding the importance of procedural knowledge and relational expertise as elements …

Disruptive Innovation: New Models Of Legal Practice, Joan C. Williams, Aaron Platt, Jessica Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Class Counsel As Litigation Funders, Morris A. Ratner

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Morality Of Law Practice, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: A Top 10 Law School For Pro Bono, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Trending@Rwu Law: Veronica Paricio's Post: Exploring Your Options 1: Public Sector, Veronica Paricio

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The Folly Of Expecting Evil: Reconsidering The Bar’S Character And Fitness Requirement, Leslie C. Levin

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 47, No. 07 (October 20, 2014)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

In-House Counsel Should Implement Servant Leadership To Help Clients Make Values-Based Decisions, Chuck Barry, Kristin Kunz

Hamline Law Review

abstract

The Cost Of Avoidance: Pluralism, Neutrality, And The Foundations Of Modern Legal Ethics, Melissa Mortazavi

Florida State University Law Review

This Article offers an answer to key questions in modern American legal ethics: when and why did the legal profession stop talking about professional conduct in moral terms? Mining the history of current rules governing lawyer conduct, this Article reveals that while the 1969 Model Code of Professional Responsibility sought to revolutionize legal ethics by creating a professional code that was more transparent, democratized, and less hierarchical than the preceding 1908 Canons of Legal Ethics, that effort also excised a moral understanding of lawyering in order to facilitate a particular understanding of pluralism.

The drafters of the 1969 Model Code …

Drafting Agreements As An Attorney-Mediator: Revisiting Washington State Bar Association Advisory Opinion 2223, Caitlin Park Shin

Washington Law Review

This Comment argues that Washington State Bar Association Advisory Opinion 2223 (WSBA Advisory Opinion 2223) should be revisited. WSBA Advisory Opinion 2223 reaches the unqualified conclusion that an attorney-mediator violates the Washington Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC) when drafting legal documents such as Property Settlement Agreements, Orders of Child Support, or Parenting Plans for unrepresented parties. WSBA Advisory Opinion 2223 creates confusion because it contains two significant flaws: (1) an omission of relevant comments to the RPC, and (2) an inconsistent reliance on extra-jurisdictional authority. Given WSBA Advisory Opinion 2223’s practical ramifications, the opinion should be reconsidered. Reexamining this opinion …

Globalization And The Transformation Of Legal Practice: Implications For Jd Legal Education, Theresa Kaiser

Global Presentations

This presentation to the WCL faculty is focused on changes that have taken and are taking place in the business world and the practice of law. It addresses the profile of the US population and of WCL students.

Lost In The Weeds Of Pot Law: The Role Of Ethics In The Movement To Legalize Marijuana, Helia Garrido Hull

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Nebraska Transcript (University Of Nebraska College Of Law), Volume 47, Number 2, Fall 2014

Nebraska Transcript

Contents

2 Dean’s Message

Faculty Updates
3 Law Psych Program Celebrates 40 Years
4 Profile: Brian Striman
6 Faculty Notes
14 Telecommunications Conference
16 Sandy Zellmer Writes Mississippi River Tragedies
18 Alan Frank Retires After 42 Years
21 College to Host International Client Counseling Competition

Feature: 22 Client Counseling Team National Champions

Around the College
27 New Space Law Course
28 Professor Richard Epstein Delivers Pound Lecture
30 Student Accolades
32 ADC Clinic Travels the State
33 2014 Spring Commencement

Our Alumni
38 Library Archives Alumni Papers
39 Alumni Council Awards 40 Alums Assisted Civil Rights Act
41 Firms Help …

Admit That The Waters Around You Have Grown: Change And Legal Education, Mari J. Matsuda

Indiana Law Journal

Presented as the Addison C. Harris Lecture at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana, September 25, 2013.

The Role Of Ethics Audits In Improving Management Systems And Practices: An Empirical Examination Of Management-Based Regulation Of Law Firms, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

For decades, legal malpractice experts have urged lawyers to implement risk management measures. To assist law firms in doing so, legal malpractice insurers have provided audit services and self-audit materials. Under the Australian regulatory regime, incorporated legal practices are required to complete a self-assessment process and to report on the firm's compliance with ten objectives of sound law practice. Using management-based principles, this Article discusses steps to take to encourage ethics audits "to merge good ethics and good business" in the U.S.