Digital Commons Network^™

Usa: Regulating Non-Lawyers To Close The Access To Justice Gap, Laurel A. Rigertas

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

Despite the fact that many new lawyers are struggling today to find employment, there are a few regulators of the legal profession willing to consider how non-lawyers can help to close the gap in consumer access to legal services. One would expect strong resistance from the legal profession to any competition for legal work, particularly in these economic times. The willingness of a few states to explore non-lawyer options, however, signals some recognition that a change in the scope of the legal profession's monopoly is needed to meet the growing demand for legal services that cannot be met through pro …

How Do You Rate Your Lawyer?: Lawyers’ Responses To Online Reviews Of Their Services, Laurel A. Rigertas

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

With the proliferation of opportunities for consumers to review a variety of services on the Internet, it is probably only a matter of time until more clients review their attorneys’ services on the Internet. This raises a variety of potential ethical and public policy issues that will be discussed in this article. First, what can attorneys do to try to control their on-line reputations? Second, if a client posts negative comments about an attorney’s services on a public Internet forum, can the attorney respond on that forum without breaching the duty of confidentiality and, if so, how? Finally, when settling …

Mindful Ethics-A Pedagogical And Practical Approach To Teaching Legal Ethics, Developing Professional Identity, And Encouraging Civility, Jan L. Jacobowitz, Scott Rogers

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Aristotle spoke of virtue and ethics as a combination of practical wisdom and habituation—an individual must learn from the application of critical reasoning skills to experience. Perhaps one of the earliest proclamations of the value of experiential learning, the Aristotelian view, reappears throughout history and is captured once again by the Carnegie Foundation’s Report on Legal Education, which includes a call for instruction that provides practical skills and ethical grounding to complement the teaching of legal analysis. The Carnegie Report continues to play a role in the ongoing discussion of the need to reform legal education; a debate that is …

"Nudging" Better Lawyer Behavior: Using Default Rules And Incentives To Change Behavior In Law Firms, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

This article examines how incentives in law firms can affect lawyer behavior and suggests some possible changes to incentive structures and default rules that might improve the ethical behavior of lawyers.

In the changing landscape of law practice — where law firm profits are threatened by such changes as increased pressure from clients to economize and the concomitant opportunities for clients to shop around for the most efficient lawyers — are there ways to change how things are done in law firms so that firms can provide more efficient and ethical service? This article suggests that an understanding of cognitive …

Letting Go Of Old Ideas, William D. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

A Glass Half Full Look At The Changes In The American Legal Market, Benjamin H. Barton

Scholarly Works

The American legal profession finds itself in the midst of dizzying changes. What was once viewed as a brief downturn now looks like a much more substantial restructuring and downsizing. The main commentators on these trends have been those most likely to be affected: law professors and corporate lawyers, and they have largely presented these trends as disastrous. This Essay argues that while these changes will be painful in the near term, they will prove beneficial overall.

The obvious reason for optimism is that America will be significantly better off if we spend less on legal services. Whatever else the …

Rethinking The Law Firm Organizational Form And Capitalization Structure , Edward S. Adams

Missouri Law Review

The goal of this Article is to examine the partnership model and advocate for a change in the Model Rules that would allow for public ownership of law firms, and to make disclosure of firm financials a mandatory requirement for all firms with over 100 lawyers. Part II explores the history and evolution of limited liability and law firm structures in the United States. Part III discusses incorporated law firms and MDPs and how they might benefit U.S. law firms. Part IV looks at the developments in the United Kingdom and Australia and the forces of globalization that have an …

How To Make Rules For Lawyers: The Professional Responsibility Of The Legal Profession, Stephen Gillers

Pepperdine Law Review

When considering the professional responsibilities of American lawyers, two questions often arise: (1) whether a particular rule strikes the right balance among the multiple interests it purports to reconcile and (2) whether in a particular circumstance a lawyer's or law firm's behavior complied with the governing rules. This article explores a third question. What is the responsibility of the profession itself when, through its various institutions and especially bar associations, it asks courts, lawmakers, or agencies to adopt particular rules governing the conduct of lawyers? Rather than exploring the discussing the conduct of individual lawyers or the correctness of any …

Mandatory Pro Bono: The Path To Equal Justice, John R. Desteiguer

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Advance Health Care Directives: Problems And Solutions For The Elder Law And Estate Planning Practitioner, Brooke M. Benzio

St. Thomas Law Review

"Remember that what you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to some one else; but what you are, will be yours forever. "' -Henry Van Dyke.

Since the modem movement for patient autonomy began gathering steam in the 1900s, individual concerns about the purpose, nature, and quality of medical care have become a larger component of the practice of medicine. However, state and federal law has been relatively slow to respond, and establishment of the relevant legal framework is relatively recent. New Jersey courts led the charge with their decision in …

Rethinking Men And Masculinities In The Contemporary Legal Profession: The Example Of Fatherhood, Transnational Business Masculinities, And Work-Life Balance In Large Law Firms, Richard Collier

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Legal Malpractice In A Changing Profession: The Role Of Contract Principles, Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

American legal ethics are based upon a set of legal principles that ensure clients are protected from unnecessary harm and that the provision of legal services is consistent with the public interest. However, the fabric of American legal ethics is threatened by a looming transformation of the legal profession. Such changes, if they come to pass, will undercut the foundations upon which the principles and law of modern legal ethics is founded.

The current model of American legal ethics is animated by three important assumptions, each of which is now under attack. The first is that legal services are ordinarily …

Law Firm Malpractice Disclosure: Illustrations And Guidelines, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

No abstract provided.

When Bad Guys Are Wearing White Hats, Catherine A. Rogers

Faculty Scholarship

Allegations of ethical misconduct by lawyers have all but completely overshadowed the substantive claims in the Chevron case. While both sides have been accused of flagrant wrongdoing, the charges against plaintiffs’ counsel appear to have captured more headlines and garnered more attention. The primary reason why the focus seems lopsided is that plaintiffs’ counsel were presumed to be the ones wearing white hats in this epic drama. This essay postulates that this seeming irony is not simply an example of personal ethical lapse, but in part tied to larger reasons why ethical violations are an occupational hazard for plaintiffs’ counsel …

Professionalism And The New Normal, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

No abstract provided.

Who's Eating Law Firms' Lunch? The Legal Service Providers, Law Schools And New Grads At The Table, William D. Henderson, Rachel M. Zahorsky

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Who Will Regulate Class Action Lawyers?, Nancy J. Moore

Faculty Scholarship

In 2003, I published an article entitled “Who Should Regulate Class Action Lawyers?”1 In that article, I defended the decision of the American Bar Association’s (“ABA”) Commission on Evaluation of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct (the “Ethics 2000 Commission”), for which I was Chief Reporter, not to propose any substantial amendments to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct (“Model Rules”) concerning the ethical conduct of class action lawyers.

There are many ethical issues that confront class action lawyers. In my 2003 article, I focused on conflicts of interest—an issue that courts and commentators have had difficulty resolving and …

Bridging The Law School Learning Gap Through Universal Design, Jennifer Jolly-Ryan

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Student-Friendly Model: Creating Cost-Effective Externship Programs, James H. Bachman, Jana B. Eliason

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Organizational Alliances By U.S. Schools, Elizabeth Chambliss

Faculty Publications

U.S. law schools increasingly are forming organizational alliances with other training providers in the interests of market expansion and/or consolidation. At the top of the market, U.S. law schools are seeking to brand their positions within the global economy by forming alliances with elite foreign law schools, business schools, and corporate law firms and clients. Schools outside of this market are moving to establish alternative niches through alliances with solo and small firm practitioners, CLE providers, and other organizations serving low-and middle-income clients, as well as through the development of accelerated and/or specialty degrees. Schools at all levels are increasingly …

A "Lawyer For All Seasons": The Lawyer As Conflict Manager, Michael T. Colatrella Jr.

San Diego Law Review

This interdisciplinary Article explores why interpersonal conflict management principles and skills are essential to good lawyering and, thus, why law schools should teach these principles and skills to all their students. In demonstrating the immense practical value an understanding of interpersonal conflict management principles and skills have in the practice of law, this Article examines case studies involving organizations that have dramatically reduced legal costs, among other benefits, by abandoning a solely legalistic approach to conflict and embracing conflict management principles. The lessons learned from these studies and the interpersonal conflict management principles that underlie them support the idea that …

The Challenges To Legal Education In 1973 And 2012: An Introduction To The Anniversary Issue Of The Hofstra Law Review, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

Atticus Finch Looks At Fifty, Michael L. Boyer

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Professional Identity As Advocacy, Robert Rubinson

All Faculty Scholarship

The legal profession adheres to a story of a unified profession. Nevertheless, the profession has distinct professional sub-groups which repeatedly represent clients with interests adverse to those represented by attorneys who identify with other sub-groups. The idea of "professional identity as advocacy" describes how such professional sub-groups accuse opposing subgroups of greed, self-aggrandizement, or worse. This is most notable in two areas: personal injury litigation and criminal cases. This process has two seemingly contradictory consequences. First, it renders narrow areas extraordinarily visible, thus defining popular discourse and conceptions about lawyers and law. Second, it masks vast areas of litigation and …

Nonlawyers Influencing Lawyers: Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen Or Stone Soup?, Michele M. Destefano

Articles

No abstract provided.

Sisters In Law: Black Women Lawyers' Struggle For Advancement, Carla Pratt

Faculty Articles

While the presence of women in law school and the legal profession has improved greatly, the uncomfortable reality is that women tend to occupy positions in the legal profession that subordinate them to men. This reality is even more glaring when the position of black women is examined. Black women carry the burden of multiple consciousness which influences every aspect of their professional lives. Multiple consciousness means that black women must be mindful of their professional identity, their gender and their race in navigating the pipeline to power. This paper will explore the multiple consciousness that intersecting identities invoke and …

Abandoning An "Unethical" System Of Legal Ethics, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

It is time to abandon the pretense of "legal ethics" as an independent lawyer-run system and to design a civil liability system in which lawyers can be held accountable to wronged clients at reasonable costs with ready access and fair modes of proof. To the extent that the system of ethics actually caused lawyers to act "ethically" (which is a major and largely unsupportable supposition), the competitive dynamics of the legal profession, coupled with the significant decline in values, honesty, and accountability in American society, have rendered even that historically suspect system illegitimate. This does not mean that there are …

Gaining From The System: Lessons From The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement About Student Development In Law School, Carole Silver, Louis Rocconi, Heather Haeger, Lindsay Watkins

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This paper considers the factors that influence law students' assessment of their professional and academic development during law school. It uses responses of 5,612 third- and fourth-year law students to the Law School Survey of Student Engagement to identify student activities and behaviors that relate to professional and academic gains; individual and law school characteristics also are examined. Four aspects of the law school experience emerge as integral parts of students' professional and academic development.

The Virtue Of Low Barriers To Becoming A Lawyer: Promoting Liberal And Democratic Values [With Sinna Nasseri], Russell G. Pearce, Sinna Nasseri

Faculty Scholarship

This article offers a new perspective on how to determine whether barriers to practicing law are appropriate. It identifies a connection between those barriers and the role of legal services providers (‘lawyers’) in permitting individuals to obtain their basic political and economic rights in a liberal democracy. Democratic values require making legal services as equally available as possible to all citizens, while liberal values dictate that each individual has access in order to enforce human rights, compete in a market economy, and engage in a legal system grounded in the rule of law. Liberal and democratic values therefore require the …

The Crisis Of The American Law School, Paul Campos

Publications

The economist Herbert Stein once remarked that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop. Over the past four decades, the cost of legal education in America has seemed to belie this aphorism: it has gone up relentlessly. Private law school tuition increased by a factor of four in real, inflation-adjusted terms between 1971 and 2011, while resident tuition at public law schools has nearly quadrupled in real terms over just the past two decades. Meanwhile, for more than thirty years, the percentage of the American economy devoted to legal services has been shrinking. In 1978 the legal sector …