Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

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.

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 …

Breach Of Contract?: The New Economy, Access To Justice And The Ethical Responsibilities Of The Legal Profession, Richard Devlin

Dalhousie Law Journal

In the last several years, there has been a growing awareness within the legal profession that access to justice, that is, to legal advice and representation, is becoming increasingly difficult. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the cuts to legal aid programmes. The author argues that the response of the legal profession is inadequate because it remains trapped in a welfarist paradigm of legal aid that is insensitive to the impact of the new economy and the newly emergent social investment state. The author explores the possibility of an alternative response - the adoption of a mandatory pro bono …

Reconceptualizing Professional Responsibility: Incorporating Equality, Rosemary Cairns Way

Dalhousie Law Journal

Are legal professionals concerned with "doing good" or just with "doing well" financially? In an age of increasing and intensifying public scrutiny there is a need to examine and challenge the legal profession's conception of professional responsibility, and how it translates into practice. This paper expresses the concern that the profession has moved too far in the direction of a "billable hours" culture, a culture that is falling short of the legal profession's obligation as a self-regulated entity to consider and acknowledge the public interest at all points. The author calls for a broader conception of professionalism, one that encompasses …

Faith In Legal Professionalism: Believers And Heretics, Samuel J. Levine

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Mdp Challenge In The Context Of Globalization, Carole Silver, Bryant G. Garth

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Case Of The Foreign Lawyer: Internationalizing The U.S. Legal Profession, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article contributes a new perspective to existing scholarship on internationalization of the legal profession by focusing on the increasing presence of foreign lawyers in U.S. law schools and law firms. It analyzes the interaction between foreign-educated lawyers and the legal profession in the U.S. based upon two sources of information: first, a series of interviews with foreign-educated lawyers and U.S. law firm hiring partners regarding experiences in law school and in firms, and second, a database comprised of biographical information for more than 300 foreign-educated lawyers who were working in New York during 1999 and 2000.

The various roles …

Practicing Law In The Global Economy, Nancy L. Kaszak

Northern Illinois University Law Review

This essay is an edited version of a lecture given by Ms. Kaszak as part of the Francis X. Riley Lecture series at the Northern Illinois University College of Law. It begins by discussing the development of the global economy as resulting from technological developments, such as the personal computer, with the ability to connect globally via the internet, that combine with the relative ease of transporting goods and services across borders making the global economy a reality. It develops the global enterprise as the natural evolution of business in the redefined global economy. The piece then looks at the …

The Case Of The Foreign Lawyer: Internationalizing The U.S. Legal Profession, Carole Silver

Public Law and Legal Theory Papers

This article contriubtes a new perspective to existing scholarship on internationalization of the legal profession by focusing on the increasing presence of foreign lawyers in U.S. law schools and law firms. It analyzes the interaction between foreign-educated lawyers and the legal profession in the U.S. based upon two sources of information: first, a series of interviews with foreign-educated lawyers and U.S. law firm hiring partners regarding experiences in law school and in firms, and second, a database comprised of biographical information for more than 300 foreign-educated lawyers who were working in New York during 1999 and 2000. The various roles …

Briefs, University Of Michigan Law School

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

• Scholarship donors, recipients celebrate together
• Diller, Hessler win Campbell Competition
• What am I bid? SFF auction raises more than $62,000

Fear And Loathing Of Politics In The Legal Academy, William H. Simon

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Deja Vu All Over Again, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Why talk about the future at all? As a professor I am a student of change. But do forecasts about the future matter to the average practitioner. My answer is a resounding YES! To understand my attitude, it's important to look at the work of the Futurist Committee of the ABA Law Practice Management Section.

Legal Skills For A Transforming Profession, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The legal profession is undergoing dramatic changes that will drive a reformation in legal education. Legal educators must anticipate these changes to effectively prepare students for the practice of law in the twenty-first century. In order to be proficient practitioners, these students will require an expanded set of professional skills. Although the current legal skills paradigm was articulated by the American Bar Association MacCrate Task Force in 1991, it is time to reexamine legal skills with an eye toward preparing students to practice law in the new millennium. In Section II, this article examines trends in modern society and the …

Reflections On The Ethics Of Legal Academics: Law Schools As Mdps; Or, Should Law Professors Practice What They Teach Symposium: Ethics Of Law Professors, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

[A member of the House of Commons said in Samuel Johnson's presence] that he paid no regard to the arguments of counsel at the bar of the House of Commons, because they were paid for speaking. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, argument is argument. You cannot help paying regard to their arguments, if they are good, If it were testimony, you might disregard it, if you knew that it were purchased. There is a beautiful image in Bacon upon this subject: testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow; the force of it depends on the hand that draws it. …

Judgment Proofing The Profession, Poonam Puri

Articles & Book Chapters

In the law of business organizations, individuals have generally been unrestrained in choosing which legal form they will use to carry on productive endeavors. Professionals, however, have not been afforded such freedom. They have found themselves prohibited by their self-regulatory bodies from practicing their profession in a corporate form. As a result, members of professions have practiced either as sole practitioners or in partnership with other members of the same profession. Professionals practicing in partnership expose themselves to personal liability for the obligations of the partnership and wrongdoing by their partners. This Article analyzes the rise of limited liability partnerships …

Ethics Beyond The Horizon: Why Regulate The Global Practice Of Law?, Christopher J. Whelan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article explores whether global self-regulation of the legal profession is desirable. The Author explains that as global law practice has grown over the past decade, so has the desire to formulate global rules of professional responsibility. The Article focuses on large law firms offering transnational legal services in many countries. The Author addresses whether and for whom the aspiration to deliver core values at the global level is desirable. He does so by comparing the rhetoric of global self-regulation with the reality of global law practice. In reality, the global law practice has undermined the power of nation states …

Views On Multidisciplinary Practice With Particular Reference To Law And Economics, New York, And North Carolina, Sydney M. Cone Iii.

Articles & Chapters

This Article-after describing analytical gaps in the work of the ABA Commission on MDP, and after criticizing the analysis of MDP by the law and economics school and the Big Five subset thereof-sets forth, with commentary, proposals relating to MDP developed by the New York State Bar Association and the MDP Task Force of the North Carolina Bar Association. It concludes by comparing these proposals in the context of the law governing lawyers in the United States.

Adventures In Comparative Legal Studies: Studying Singapore, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Why Lawyers Have Often Worn Strange Clothes, Claimed To Work For Free--And Been Hated, Hugh D. Spitzer

Articles

Why have lawyers and judges always adorned themselves in ancient regalia? Obviously, they must symbolically transform themselves from private individuals into "law speakers" for the community. They become tools of a longstanding legal system, and special clothes offer clues to others (and reminders to themselves) that they have special responsibilities, both to their clients and to the community at large. The "retro" clothes that lawyers and judges wear also remind everyone that law is old that it isn't meant to change rapidly, and that it offers stability and predictability in a changing world.

Globalization And The U.S. Market In Legal Services: Shifting Identities, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The article examines the international activities of various segments of the U.S. legal profession and analyzes the impact of these activities on the domestic market in legal services. It takes an empirical approach to the question of how international activities have shaped the profession by chronicling the foreign office activity of more than 70 of the largest U.S. firms. The data presented facilitates new insight into the ways in which U.S. lawyers participate in the international market in legal services. The article reveals that internationalization has resulted in the homogenization of the largest U.S. firms, as they increasingly compete for …

Legal Education, Professionalism, And The Public Interest, Alfred C. Aman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Cross-Examining The Myth Of Lawyers' Misery, Kathleen E. Hull

Vanderbilt Law Review

This comment will address one important aspect of Professor Schiltz's broader argument, namely his contention that the legal profession is afflicted with widespread job dissatisfaction. More specifically, Schiltz makes the following assertions about lawyers' unhappiness with their professional lives: (1) dissatisfaction is high; (2) dissatisfaction is increasing; and (3) dissatisfaction is highest among lawyers in private practice in large firms.' Using data from a recent survey of Chicago attorneys as well as other studies of lawyers' job satisfaction, including those cited by Schiltz, I will address each of these points in turn.

Lawyers, Accountants, And The Battle To Own Professional Services, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Competition between lawyers and accountants is not a new concept. At various times during the past century, these two professions have clashed over the scope and definition of their respective services. Lawyers traditionally have relied upon a professional monopoly to provide “legal” services as a device to exclude nonlawyers from the practice of law. Supported by statutes in many jurisdictions making the unauthorized practice of law a criminal offense and ethics rules prohibiting lawyers from assisting in the unauthorized practice of law, lawyers have always been able to identify some inner sanctum of professional services that only they could handle. …

Renewed Introspection And The Legal Profession, Eugene R. Gaetke

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

As the twentieth century draws to a close, the legal profession again immersed in a process of self-assessment, reflection, and reform. Operating on several fronts, various constituent elements of the bar have recently completed or have underway significant projects relating to the law of lawyering.

Two efforts stand out in particular. For more than a decade, the American Law Institute has labored in the production of a new Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, and the organization stands now on the brink of that monumental work's publication. Equally significant, the American Bar Association has again undertaken a comprehensive review of …

Pro Bono Service At The William S. Boyd School Of Law, Mary E. Berkheiser, Christine Smith

Scholarly Works

The mission of the William S. Boyd School of Law is to serve Nevada, and the legal and academic communities by developing and maintaining an innovative educational program that will train ethical and effective lawyers and leaders for Nevada and for the legal profession. To put the school’s mission in motion, we have begun by stressing community service, professionalism and the roles, responsibilities, skills and values of lawyers, and by involving students and faculty in community service projects in ways that will benefit our state.

[On The] Road Back In: Community Lawyering In Indigenous Communities, Christine Zuni Cruz

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law Day 2050: Post-Professinalism, Moral Leadership, And The Law-As-Business Paradigm Symposium, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

Inspired by Ted Schneyer's future history of professional discipline' and Bob Gordon's descrption of "the hazy aspirational world" of the "Law Day Sermon,' I offer a vision of the legal profession 'a next fifty years in the form of a Law Day speech from the year 2050. Looking back on developments in the first half of the twenty-first century, this piece explores the implications of the analysis proposed in my earlier article, The Professionalism Paradigm Shift: Why Discarding Professional Ideology Will Improve the Conduct and Reputation of the Bar. The speech presents a projection of the moral leadership the bar …

Is The Medium The Message? A Discussion Of Susskind's The Future Of Law, Edwin H. Greenebaum

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Legal Profession In A Globalized World, Salvador J. Juncadella

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.