Digital Commons Network^™

An All-Volunteer Force: Law Students And Pro Bono Lawyers Helping Veterans, Patricia E. Roberts

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Rise And Fall Of Social Trustee Professionalism, Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

Elite lawyers have long urged the private practice bar to account for the interests of more than their clients in their work. A lawyer who served merely as a "mouthpiece" or "hired gun" of clients failed to meet the standards of professionalism, of failing to act, in Roscoe Pound's words, "in the spirit of a public service." Pound's view, expressed in the mid-20th century, was premised on the ideal that the lawyer pursued a public calling that incidentally was remunerative. This ideal required the lawyer to serve as a social trustee, one encumbered by duties for the benefit of society. …

Can A Little Representation Be A Dangerous Thing?, Colleen Shanahan, Anna Carpenter, Alyx Mark

Faculty Articles

Access to justice interventions that provide a little representation, including nonlawyer representation and various forms of limited legal services, may be valuable solutions for low- and middle-income Americans. However, a thoughtful approach to improving access to justice efforts should recognize that a little representation may have risks. In particular, one potential risk of a little representation is that while it provides assistance with a discrete legal need in a specific moment, the nature of the assistance is incompatible with challenging the law. As a result, individual litigants do not have the benefit of legal challenges in their own cases and …

The Cfpb Anti-Arbitration Proposal: Let’S Just Give Arbitration A Chance, Ramona L. Lampley

Faculty Articles

In October 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced that it would propose a rule banning class action waivers in arbitration agreements for consumer financial services products. This proclamation came to fruition in May 2016 when the CFPB proposed 12 C.F.R. part 1040 and sought public comment on the proposed rule. The CFPB claims that the class-waiver, often imbedded in consumer arbitration agreements, gives companies a “free pass from being held accountable by their customers[,]” comparing it to the relief a consumer can obtain as being part of a class action. At the same time, the CFPB proposed reporting …

One Percent Procedure, Brooke D. Coleman

Faculty Articles

Political rhetoric about the one percent is pervasive, as those with the greatest concentrated wealth prosper and the remaining population stagnates. Because of their affluence, the one percent exercise disproportionate control over political and economic systems. This Article argues that federal civil procedure is similarly a one percent regime. The creme de la creme of the bench and bar, along with equally exclusive litigants, often engage in high-stakes, complex civil litigation. It is this type of litigation that dominates both the elite experience and the public perception of what civil litigation is. This litigation is not particularly common, however; while …

The "Director Preference" In Stockholder Litigation, Megan Wischmeier Shaner

Faculty Articles

Stockholders are widely viewed as the owners of and residual claimants to the assets of a corporation. Management of a corporation, by contrast, is entrusted to paid managers – the board of directors and executive officers. To prevent both directors and officers from managing the corporation for their personal benefit without regard to the interests of stockholders, stockholders have the ability to sue for such behavior as a breach of fiduciary duty. But in practice, directors are the primary focus of this type of stockholder litigation while officers are largely ignored – a phenomenon this paper labels the “director preference.” …

Case Watch: Royston, Rayzor, Vickery & Williams Llp V. Lopez, Ramona L. Lampley

Faculty Articles

The Texas Supreme Court effectively gave a “thumbs-up” to attorney-client arbitration agreements in Royston, Rayzor, Vickery, & Williams, LLP v. Lopez, 467 S.W.3d 494 (Tex. 2015), reh’g denied (Sept. 11, 2015). The plaintiff, Frank Lopez, hired Royston, Rayzor to represent him in a divorce. As part of the representation agreement, Lopez agreed to arbitrate any disputes arising out of the attorney-client relationship, but the law firm excluded from the arbitration agreement any claims it might have against Lopez for expenses or fees. Lopez later sued Royston, Rayzor and the firm moved to compel arbitration.

Lopez contended that the arbitration agreement …

Post-9/11 Veterans: Welcoming Them Home As Colleagues And Clients, Patricia E. Roberts

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Aba Got It Right: Veterans Need Our Help, Patricia E. Roberts

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Legal Malpractice In International Business Transactions, Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

International business transactions are often unavoidably linked to specialized areas of law. Lawyers increase their risk of committing legal malpractice when representing international clients in business transactions because they may find themselves in a precarious position by accepting work they are inexperienced to perform. Moreover, a client may expand into international waters and their lawyer may not be cognizant of the legal consequences. While malpractice may be asserted through negligence, fraud, breach of contract and other failures of standard of care, failure to know the law is no excuse. However, the standard of care depends on whether the defendant acted …

Vets Just Want Fair Benefits, Patricia E. Roberts

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Silliness Of Erisa: The Plan Is Not The Only Proper Party Defendant In An Erisa Benefits Claim, Don T. Bogan

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

A No-Fault Remedy For Legal Malpractice?, Melissa Mortazavi

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Improving The Law School Classroom And Experience Through Prayer: An Empirical Study, David A. Grenardo

Faculty Articles

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” There are approximately fifty religiously affiliated law schools in the United States. As faith-based communities, these law schools can integrate their faiths into the education they provide by, among other things, incorporating in the classroom a central characteristic of most religions – prayer.

This article includes anonymous survey responses from students at four different Catholic law schools across the nation concerning whether the students liked the fact that their professors prayed at the beginning of class. The …

International Financial Law: The Case Against Close-Out Netting, Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

In financial transactions today, a practice called “close-out netting” plays a key role in controlling and allocating risks. If anchored in the parties’ chosen contractual language and recognized by law, close-out netting can circumvent normal bankruptcy processes by providing for the acceleration of mutual obligations and the efficient calculations and settlement of the net balance. When correctly implemented, close-out netting can eliminate the risk that arises under ordinary bankruptcy principles.

Despite the support for close-out netting by lenders, scholars, regulators, and policy makers, a few attentive observers of financial law argue that close-out netting is unsound, and the argument against …

Internprofessional Education, Patricia E. Roberts

Faculty Articles

As legal educators consider how to improve the outcomes of legal education, maximizing the knowledge, skills, and values taught during the law school experience, consideration should be given to increasing interprofessional learning opportunities in the curricula. As Best Practices for Legal Education suggested, the creative thinking necessary for effective problem-solving includes an understanding of interprofessional dimensions of practice, but interprofessional opportunities are still the exception rather than the norm in legal education. Interprofessional legal education intentionally asks law students to blend the knowledge, skills, and values of two or more professions in order to address complex legal problems. Placing students …

Transformations In Health Law Practice: The Intersections Of Changes In Health Care And Legal Workplaces, Louise G. Trubek, Barbara Zabawa, Paula Galowitz

Faculty Articles

The passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act is propelling transformations in health care. The transformations include integration of clinics and hospitals, value based care, patient centeredness, transparency, computerized business models and universal coverage. These shifts are influencing the practice of health law, a vibrant specialty field considered a "hot" area for new lawyers. The paper examines how the transformations in health care are intersecting with ongoing trends in law practice: increase in in-house positions, collaboration between medical and legal professionals, and the continued search for increased access to legal representation for ordinary people. Three health law workplace sites …

Economic Conundrums In Search Of A Solution: The Functions Of Third-Party Litigation Finance, Joanna M. Shepherd, Judd E. Stone Ii

Faculty Articles

Despite a rapid increase in economic significance and substantial increase in international use, third-party litigation financing remains poorly understood. No academic consensus takes account of the multiple economic conundrums that third-party litigation financing arises to solve, nor do legal scholars adequately consider obvious public and private substitutes for litigation financing that society rightfully recognizes as innocuous or outright beneficial. In this Article, we explore the economic challenges driving both business plaintiffs and sophisticated law firms to seek external litigation financing. We examine closely the key elements of the litigation financing arrangement itself, focusing on eligible cases and clients, devices financiers …

Procedural Triage, Matthew B. Lawrence

Faculty Articles

Prior scholarship has assumed that the inherent value of a “day in court” is the same for all claimants, so that when procedural resources (like a jury trial or a hearing) are scarce, they should be rationed the same way for all claimants. That is incorrect. This Article shows that the inherent value of a “day in court” can be far greater for some claimants, such as first-time filers, than for others, such as corporate entities and that it can be both desirable and feasible to take this variation into account in doling out scarce procedural protections. In other words, …

Blind Spot: The Inadequacy Of Neutral Partisanship, Melissa Mortazavi

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Toward A Clinical Pedagogy Of Externship, Elizabeth Ford

Faculty Articles

Externships offer a tantalizing experiential option for law schools. Students are hungry for the real-world experience, the networking potential, and the chance to take the skills they have learned in the classroom to the next level. Administrators love externships because of their high enrollment, low cost nature: externships leverage small amounts of resources from hundreds of outside organizations. Faculty appreciate these programs because they provide students with context and skills, inspire them in the doctrinal classroom, and require little diversion of resources from the more traditional faculty ranks. However, the danger of grasping too tightly to externships as the experiential …

Insuring Against Guns?, George A. Mocsary

Faculty Articles

This Article examines whether mandating liability insurance for firearm owners would meet its avowed goals of efficiently compensating shooting victims and deterring unlawful and accidental shootings without creating a net social loss by chilling socially beneficial gun use In the process the Article also examines whether nonmandatory liability insurance may enable socially desirable but potentially risky firearmrelated activitiesThe analysis indicates that a compulsory firearmliability insurance regime is unlikely to attain its goals and may in fact exacerbate the problems it seeks to solve by incentivizing firearm owners to take less care with their weapons It also shows that it is …

From The War On Poverty To Pro Bono: Access To Justice Remains Elusive For Too Many, Including Our Veterans, Patricia E. Roberts

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Agony Of Modern Legal Ethics, 1970–1985, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

When the American Bar Association (ABA) adopted its Code of Professional Responsibility at its annual meeting in August 1969, the American legal profession was a publicly respected and economically vibrant body. Lawyers, though always more feared than loved, became increasingly important in post-World War II America. The demand for their services exploded for a quarter-century, and lawyers assumed an increased role in the economic and political life of the United States. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the Cold War led American lawyers and other public figures to re-emphasize the rule of law as defining the difference between the United …

The American Legal Profession In The Twenty-First Century, Stephen M. Sheppard

Faculty Articles

Lawyers in the United States work in public service, private counseling, and dispute resolution, but many also work outside of traditional legal practice. The million-member American bar, second largest in the world, grows more diverse by gender, and ethnicity and older on average. All members of this learned profession must qualify by education or examination and by proof of good character and fitness before taking an oath to serve as an attorney. Thence, there are few limitations on the form of legal practice, though many law firms require an associateship before an attorney becomes an owner of the firm. Economic …

Silence Is Golden ... Except In Health Care Philanthropy, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

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

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Possibility Of Private Rights And Duties, Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

Is it possible for us to know what we owe others, or do we need the state to tell us? To ask the question this way could be understood as a provocation. It might suggest that the possibility of private rights and duties - a possibility that common law takes for granted and which lawyers witness in their daily practice threatens the foundations of the legal realist jurisprudential project and the liberal political project. But it is not my intention here to attack those projects. I simply want to consider the possibility that legal realism and liberalism might not be …

Punitive Damages, Chinese Tort Law, And The American Experience, Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

In a country such as China, with abundant consumer products and the inevitability of product defects, claims for punitive damages are sure to arise under Article 47 of the new Chinese Tort Law. Article 47 provides that “(w)hereany producer or seller knowingly produces or sells defective products, causing death or serious damage to the health of others, the injured party may request appropriate punitive damages.” As Chinese jurists and scholars interpret Article 47, they may wish to consider whether lessons can be drawn from the American experience. During the past two decades, few areas of American law have changed more …

Collective Or Individual Benefits?: Measuring The Educational Benefits Of Race-Conscious Admissions Programs, Deborah N. Archer

Faculty Articles

In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the United States Supreme Court ruled that colleges and universities could continue to consider race or ethnicity as one of several factors in an admissions policy that seeks to achieve broad diversity goals. To the relief of proponents of race-conscious admissions programs, the Fisher Court affirmed that the 'educational benefits' that flow from a diverse student body are a compelling government interest under strict scrutiny analysis. The Court further upheld the determination that Grutter mandates 'deference to the University’s conclusion, based on its experience and expertise, that a diverse student body would …