Digital Commons Network^™

Asking The Lost Question: What Is The Purpose Of Law School?, Bethany Rubin Henderson

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

I Don't Have Time To Be Ethical: Addressing The Effects Of Billable Hour Pressure, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the unintended consequences of the billable hour derby and suggests changes to address the deleterious effects of increasing billable hour requirements. A brief introduction identifies law firms’ recent tendency to increase the billable hour requirements to fund the heightened salaries of associates. This article analyzes the results from an empirical study focused on the effects of billable hour expectations and firm cultures. Part I generally reviews the study findings. Part II discusses the work and report of the ABA Commission, while Part III indentifies those issues and approaches that the ABA and firm managers should explore. Recognizing …

The Evolution Of Mjp, Irma S. Russell

Faculty Works

This article examines the ABA revision to Model Rules 5.5 and 8.5 in light of today's legal world where representing clients in states outside the lawyer's state of licensure is commonplace, particularly in areas of practice that involve federal law, such as environmental law, and clients with far-flung property or business transactions in numerous jurisdictions. The article notes that although the revision to these rules represents the first step in a necessary liberalization of ethical rules and statutes to permit competent lawyers to service client needs efficiently and encourages more uniformity of approach, the rules and UPL statutes still create …

Resolving The Title Vii Partner-Employee Debate, Kristin Nicole Johnson

Michigan Law Review

In January of 2001, a New York court issued an order affirming a plaintiff's ability to bring suit against a law firm partnership for discriminatory acts that occurred during her tenure as an associate at the firm. The plaintiff, Stacy Ballen-Stier, joined Hahn & Hessen, L.L.P. as an associate and, on January 1, 1997, the firm invited her to join the partnership. According to Ms. Ballen-Stier's complaint, the words and actions of a fellow partner, Mr. Blejwas, created a hostile and abusive work environment and continued to plague her "even when [she] was away from the office." Ms. Ballen-Stier alleged …

Salt On The Lsat, Society Of American Law Teachers

Statements

In 2003, Society of American Law Teachers issued a statement in which SALT expressed a concern with over-reliance on the LSAT and provided proposals for reform.

Clinical Reflections: Looking Ahead Toward The Past, Roger S. Haydock

William Mitchell Law Review

What were we planning? What were we thinking? What were we daring to do? Oh, so many questions and answers for everything, or so we surmised. Are we any wiser three decades after we thought we knew what we were doing? And, another question, who were the “we”? The real hope in looking back is to help illuminate, a bit, the future for legal education. Recreating time past--and training students to recreate time past for clients in court and hearing rooms--is what helped propel many of us into legal academia. Predicting the future--and helping law professors predict the future--is what …

Volume 70

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Multijurisdictional Practice: An Emerging Issue For A Changing Profession, Donald L. Burnett Jr.

Articles

No abstract provided.

But What Will The Wto Disciplines Apply To - Distinguishing Among Market Access, National Treatment And Article Vi:4 Measures When Applying The Gats To Legal Services, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

One of the issues currently facing World Trade Organization (WTO) Member States is whether to extend to the legal profession and other service providers the WTO Disciplines for Domestic Regulation in the Accountancy Sector [Accountancy Disciplines]. The Accountancy Disciplines document applies to regulatory measures that would be considered domestic regulations under Article VI:4 of the GATS, rather than market access or national treatment measures under Articles XVI or XVII of the GATS. This paper argues that in order to meaningfully discuss whether to extend the Accountancy Disciplines to the legal profession, U.S. policy-makers and stakeholders need to understand the type …

Transnational Legal Practice: Cross-Border Legal Services: 2002 Year-In-Review, Carole Silver, Robert E. Lutz, Philip T. Von Mehren, Laurel S. Terry, Peter Ehrenhaft

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Lawyers And Domestic Violence: Raising The Standard Of Practice, John M. Burman

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Lawyers and judges should be the vanguard of those working to end domestic violence and mitigate its effects, yet they are not. This article is an attempt to change that. It strives to shed some light on the profound effect domestic violence has on law and law practice, as well as the profound effect lawyers and the legal system can have on domestic violence. Part II of this article demonstrates the extent and pervasiveness of domestic violence. Part III describes how domestic violence will affect a lawyer's practice. Part IV provides guidance on what a lawyer should do to determine …

Turn Up The Volume: The Need For "Noisy Withdrawal" In A Post Enron Society, Ryan Morrison

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Subordinate Lawyers And Insubordinate Duties, Douglas R. Richmond

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Risks And Rewards Of Law Student Volunteer Service: A Supervisor’S Perspective, Julie E. Bennett, Sharon H. Fischlowitz

William Mitchell Law Review

During the 2002 academic year, law students in Minnesota contributed 16,078 pro bono service hours. This level of student pro bono activity is possible only because licensed attorneys take the time to supervise and guide students. Volunteer supervision, a task separate from the practice of law, requires time, patience, and teaching skills, and has no guaranteed outcome. One might conclude that the necessary investment is not worth the effort. However, year after year, supervisors and volunteers continue to give thousands of service hours, providing critical legal services to clients who would otherwise go unrepresented. This essay examines some of the …

The Healing Presence Of Clients In Law School, Angela Mccaffrey

William Mitchell Law Review

William Mitchell College of Law is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Law Clinic. As a beneficiary of clinical legal education at William Mitchell, I write this essay to reflect on the value of clinical legal education to law students, to the clients served, and to the community at large. In my view, clinical legal education is timeless--as valuable to law students today as it was thirty years ago when William Mitchell started its first clinic. Although many things combine to make clinical education valuable, three aspects are particularly noteworthy. First, clinics give law students the chance to represent clients …

The Law School Clinic As A Model Ethical Law Office, Peter A. Joy

William Mitchell Law Review

In this essay, I contend that all clinical teachers should explicitly acknowledge that they are legal ethics and professional responsibility teachers and role models of the “good lawyer” in everything they do. I argue that every in-house clinical teacher should strive to make her clinic a model ethical law office.

In Support Of A Unitary Tenure System For Law Faculty: An Essay, Nina W. Tarr

William Mitchell Law Review

[L]aw faculties are made up of diverse groups of people who contribute to the academic mission in a variety of ways. Given this, there is no reason to isolate one subset--those who teach in the clinic--and treat them differently when it comes to influence, power, autonomy, access to resources, security, or remuneration. In short, to give them a different “status” has become a historical anachronism.

Legal Scholarship For Equal Justice: Summary Of Panel Discussion, Sam Magavern

William Mitchell Law Review

In 2002, a group of professors, deans, equal justice practitioners, and a Minnesota Supreme Court justice formed a Legal Scholarship for Equal Justice committee (LSEJ) to explore ways to link the work of professors and students to the equal justice issues faced by the bench and bar in our state. Since then, LSEJ has become a formal project of the Minnesota Justice Foundation, a nonprofit group that works at the four Minnesota law schools to integrate public service into the law school experience. So far, LSEJ has created an issues list, a class, and an annual symposium. The issues list …

Regulatory Mismatch In The International Market For Legal Services, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The increasingly international reach of law owes part of its momentum to individual lawyers and law firms that function as carriers of ideas, processes and policies. U.S. lawyers are important participants in this expanding influence of law, as they educate, train and deploy individuals educated and licensed in the U.S. and abroad. This article examines the ways in which law firms internationalize, and considers the regulatory environment governing crucial interactions between U.S. and foreign-educated lawyers. It builds upon prior work that investigated the impact on U.S. law firms of the development of an international market for legal services and the …

Lawyering Process: My Thanks For The Book And The Movie, Leah Wortham

Scholarly Articles

The author's memories of "the movie version" of The Lawyering Process, two courses she took in Gary Bellow's first two years at Harvard Law School (1971-73), are compared to the text and problem supplements published in 1978. The author traces the influence of those courses and books on her externship course and textbook, written with others. She cites the value of Bellow & Moulton's pioneering employment of visual and kinesthetic learning modes and explicit statement to students about educational goals and methods. She identifies paradigms for lawyering tasks that have remained useful to her throughout her career. With twenty-one years …

The Lawyer As Public Citizen: Meeting The Pro Bono Challenge, Irma S. Russell

Faculty Works

This article examines the lawyer’s role as a public citizen through the lens of the professional responsibility to provide pro bono legal services. It explores the evolution and implications of the American Bar Association’s Model Rule 6.1, which defines pro bono service as a professional obligation rather than a discretionary act of charity. The discussion traces the historical foundations of lawyers’ duties to serve the public, the ethical considerations debated by the ABA’s Ethics 2000 Commission, and the tension between voluntary and mandatory service. The article also highlights the practical role of law firms and professional organizations in fostering a …

Almost Pro Bono: Judicial Appointments Of Attorneys In Juvenile And Child Dependency Actions, Barbara Glesner Fines

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

What Do Clients Want? What Do Lawyers Do?, Lynn Mather

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

What Successful Companies Know That Law Firms Need To Know: The Importance Of Employee Motivation And Job Satisfaction To Increased Productivity And Stronger Client Relationships, Theresa M. Neff

Journal of Law and Health

This note examines the importance of employee motivation and job satisfaction to increased productivity and stronger client relationships with law firms. In Part I, I discuss how the pressure of the legal profession can affect lawyers' relationships with their staff members. My analysis will center on recent studies on lawyer job satisfaction, the impact of stress on lawyers, and the public's perception of lawyers. In Part II, I discuss the law firm as a "service" organization and the implications of that orientation. In this section, I also emphasize the importance of building and maintaining relationships with clients and how law …

The Virtues And Vices Of Solidarity: Regulating The Roles Of Lawyers For Clients Accused Of Terrorist Activity, Peter Margulies

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Where Will Women Lawyers Be In 25 Years?, Frances E. Bivens, Joan Guggenheimer, Nancy Northrup, Susan Sturm, Judith Reinhardt Thoyer

Faculty Scholarship

Barbara Black said in her unbelievably moving remarks that Columbia has opened up its institutional heart to women. I thought that was a wonderful expression and, as a relative newcomer to Columbia, I have to agree. What does this mean? It means that women have become part of the cultural fabric of the Columbia Law School. We are not an accent. We are not an accessory. We are woven into the day-to-day fabric of the school. And this means being able both to participate in the old traditions and to reshape them to make some new traditions and then have …

Incremental Bar Admission: Lessons From The Medical Profession, Jayne W. Barnard, Mark Greenspan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Short History Of Poverty Lawyers In The United States, Deborah J. Cantrell

Publications

No abstract provided.

Cultural Projects And Structural Transformation In The Legal Profession, W. Wesley Pue

All Faculty Publications

This paper explores the history of professional formation amongst lawyers, pointing to the surprising conclusions that contemporary legal professionalism bears little continuity with supposed roots in British professionalism and that one of the major motors driving professionalism was related to a project of cultural transformation in state and society at large. Whilst legal professions appear exclusionary and xenophobic from an outside perspective, the desire to control difference has deeper, more fully cultural roots, than arguments from self-interest per se might suggest.

The Continuing Assault On The Citadel Of Fiduciary Protection: Ethics 2000'S Revision Of Model Rule 1.5, Lester Brickman

Articles

The attorney-client relationship typifies a fiduciary relationship. At a minimum, attorneys are required to deal fairly and reasonably with their clients while avoiding any inclination to act in a selfinterested manner. Nowhere is the tension between a lawyer's selfinterest and their fiduciary obligations to a client greater than in the area of fee structures.

Contingency fees were developed to allow clients representation when they otherwise may not be able to afford such representation, while compensating a lawyer in a manner commensurate with the degree of risk presented by the case. Despite the inherent self-interest encountered by lawyers when presented by …