Law Commons^™

Reflections Of An Ethics Expert And A Lawyer Who Retains Him, M. H. Hoeflich, Bill Skepnek

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Clients Sue Their Lawyers For Failing To Report Their Own Malpractice, Benjamin P. Cooper

Hofstra Law Review

What consequences should befall the lawyer who fails to disclose a significant error to his client? In a previous article, I examined the lawyer’s ethical duty to report his own malpractice to his client, a topic that had previously received little attention from courts and commentators, and concluded that the duty is well-grounded in Rules 1.4 and 1.7. Therefore the lawyer who fails to disclose his error to his client is subject to discipline. This Article addresses the client's ability to state an independent claim against the lawyer for failing to disclose his own malpractice -- a topic that has …

Remarks At Monroe Freedman’S Memorial, Eric Lane

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Monroe Freedman: Friend, Role Model, And Colleague, Roy Simon

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Legal Malpractice Is No Longer The Profession’S Dirty Little Secret, Susan Saab Fortney

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Aggregate Settlements And Attorney Liability: The Evolving Landscape, Lynn A. Baker

Hofstra Law Review

This Article was prepared for the Hofstra Law Review conference on "Lawyers as Targets: Suing, Prosecuting, and Defending Lawyers." Over the past several decades, attorneys involved in mass tort settlements, especially those representing the plaintiffs, have faced an increasing number of large-dollar liability claims centered on the aggregate settlement rule: that is, the state equivalents to Rule 1.8(g) of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. During this period, courts have held that fee forfeiture, potentially totaling millions of dollars, is an appropriate remedy for violations of the Rule, even in the absence of any demonstrated economic harm to the …

Lawyers On Trial: Juror Hostility To Defendants In Legal Malpractice Trials, Herbert M. Kritzer, Neil Vidmar

Hofstra Law Review

In contrast to medical malpractice, legal malpractice is a phenomenon that has attracted little attention from empirically-oriented scholars. This paper is part of a larger study of legal malpractice claiming and litigation. Given the evidence on the frequency of legal malpractice claims, there are surprisingly few legal malpractice cases that result in jury verdicts. There are many possible explanations for this, one of which reflects the perception that lawyers are held in such low esteem by potential jurors that they risk harsh treatment by jurors when they are defendants in legal malpractice trials. Because we could find no empirical evidence …

The Litigation Privilege: Its Place In Contemporary Jurisprudence, Louise Lark Hill

Hofstra Law Review

Historically, lawyers have been immune from civil liability for statements related to litigation which may injure or offend an opposing party during the litigation process. This protection is referred to as the “litigation privilege,” which originated in medieval English jurisprudence and continues to be recognized in the United States today. The rationale supporting the litigation privilege is that the integrity of the adversary system outweighs any monetary interest of a party injured by her adversary. Remedies other than lawsuits are available to parties who feel they have been damaged “by malicious statements or conduct during litigation.” For instance, misconduct in …

The Law Of Unintended Consequences: Whether And When Mandatory Disclosure Under Model Rule 4.1(B) Trumps Discretionary Disclosure Under Model Rule 1.6(B), Peter R. Jarvis, Trisha M. Rich

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dealing With Conflicts And Disqualification Risks Professionally, James B. Kobak Jr

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Some Early Thoughts On Liability Standards For Online Providers Of Legal Services, Benjamin H. Barton

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Malpractice In International Business Transactions, Vincent R. Johnson

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why U.S. Jurisdictions Should Adopt ‘Regulatory Objectives’ For The Legal Profession, Laurel S. Terry

Howard Lichtenstein Distinguished Professorship in Legal Ethics Lectures

As a Lichtenstein Distinguished Lecturer, Professor Terry was asked to write an article for the Hofstra Law Review. Her article, cited below, may be downloaded from the link at the top of the page.

Laurel S. Terry, Globalization and the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20: Reflections on Missed Opportunities and the Road Not Taken, 43 Hofstra L. Rev. 95 (2014)

The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 was established in order to “perform a thorough review of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the U.S. system of lawyer regulation in the context of advances in technology and global …

Positivist Legal Ethics Theory And The Law Governing Lawyers: A Few Puzzles Worth Solving, Amy Salyzyn

Hofstra Law Review

Debates about the proper boundaries of a lawyer’s role are far from new. A fresh spin on this old debate, however, has emerged with the "positivist turn" in legal ethics theory. While in legal theory scholarship the label "positivism" carries various nuances and controversies, its use in the legal ethics context is, as a general matter, more straightforward and uniform. Broadly speaking, positivist accounts of legal ethics share a general view that the law owes its normative content to its ability to solve coordination problems and settle moral controversies. This view of the law, in turn, informs a particular view …

Jury Nullification: What It Is And How To Do It Ethically, Monroe H. Freedman

Hofstra Law Review

The article discusses the concept of jury nullification (JN) in America as of 2014, and it presents practical advice for U.S. attorneys on how to use the JN process in an ethical manner. The U.S. Supreme Court determined in the 1895 case Sparf v. United States that jurors, who have the power to nullify the law in rendering a general verdict, can also be kept ignorant of their power of nullification. U.S. constitutional laws and several other JN cases are examined.

Nested Ethics: A Tale Of Two Cultures, Milton C. Regan, Jr.

Hofstra Law Review

This article suggests that a law firm that desiring to promote ethical behavior by its lawyers needs to complement efforts to establish an “ethical infrastructure” and an “ethical culture” with attention to its broader organizational culture. Specifically, research indicates that the perception that an organization treats its members fairly–their sense of organizational justice--is an important factor in prompting members’ ethical behavior.

Many law firms in the last two or three decades have devoted attention to establishing what has been called an “ethical infrastructure” that reflects appreciation of the importance of organizational policies and procedures in encouraging ethical behavior. Such measures …

Foreword: Systematically Thinking About Law Firm Ethics: Conference On The Ethical Infrastructure And Culture Of Law Firms, Susan Saab Fortney

Hofstra Law Review

In 1991 Professor Ted Schneyer wrote a seminal article calling for discipline of law firms. In that article, he used the term “ethical infrastructure” to refer to a law firm’s organization, policies, and operating procedures that cut across particular lawyers and tasks. In questioning how lawyer regulation focuses on the conduct of individual lawyers, he described the dynamics of practice and how various ethical breaches stem from organizational concerns that relate to lawyering in groups. Increasingly, legislators and regulators, as well as bar and firm leaders, have recognized the role of ethical infrastructure and culture in influencing lawyer conduct. Scholars, …

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

Hofstra Law Review

Lawyers err every day, in hard and easy cases, in trials and transactions, and in large and small firms. By turns commonplace and noteworthy, the errors fall in both the private shadow and the public light of for-profit, nonprofit, and government practice. The literature of lawyer and, by extension, law firm error spans common law doctrines, state ethics rules and opinions, federal rules, practitioner treatises, restatements, and academic casebooks and commentaries. Despite the breadth of this literature, the intertwined problems of lawyer or law firm error and client malpractice disclosure remain unresolved and surprisingly underappreciated.

Against the backdrop of widening …

Ethical Decisionmaking And The Design Of Rules Of Ethics, John S. Dzienkowski

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Applying The Revised Aba Model Rules In The Age Of The Internet: The Problem Of Metadata, Ronald D. Rotunda

Hofstra Law Review

When lawyers receive a document — whether hard copy or an electronic document — that they know the adversary sent them inadvertently (for example, a fax or email mistakenly sent to an adversary lawyer instead of to co-counsel), the black letter rule in Rule 4.4 requires the lawyer to notify the other side. However, this Rule does not require the receiving lawyer to return the document unread. Whether the receiving lawyer can use that document depends, in essence, on the law of evidence. If the court decides that the document lost its privileged status (perhaps because the sending lawyer acted …

The Case For Proactive Management-Based Regulation To Improve Professional Self-Regulation For U.S. Lawyers, Ted Schneyer

Hofstra Law Review

The article discusses the American Bar Association's (ABA's) Standing Committee on Professional Discipline and its review of the ABA's Model Rules for Lawyer Disciplinary Enforcement, focusing on proactive management-based regulation as a means of improving professional self-regulation for U.S. lawyers as of 2013. Other topics include attorney misconduct claims by clients, law firm management, and the roles of solicitors in assessing a law firm's ethical infrastructure in New South Wales.

The Relational Infrastructure Of Law Firm Culture And Regulation: The Exaggerated Death Of Big Law, Russell G. Pearce, Eli Wald

Hofstra Law Review

The Article debunks the highly publicized claim, within the academy and the legal profession, that the demise of Big Law is imminent. Critics have argued that large law firms face a near perfect storm that imperils their future. They argue that increasing sophistication and influence of in-house legal departments, and the exponential leap in legal technology, undermine large law firms’ claims to expertise, market power, and profitability. At the same time, they argue, the internal weakness of large firms makes them less likely to perform the very tasks essential to sustaining large law firms' reputational capital because the traditional partnership …

Conference Registration

Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics Conferences

No abstract provided.

Conference Registraion

Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics Conferences

No abstract provided.

Conference Registraion

Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics Conferences

No abstract provided.

Conference Program

Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics Conferences

No abstract provided.

A Message From The Conference Director, Roy D. Simon

Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics Conferences

This is Hofstra’s sixth major conference on legal ethics. (We previously held conferences in 1996, 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2005.) By holding these conferences once every two or three years rather than annually, we can devote greater resources to each conference.

This conference differs somewhat from our past conferences in that we have invited many more practicing lawyers to speak than usual because the subject of this year’s conference, lawyering at the edge, is a subject that demands personal experience as much as academic theory. We need to hear stories and advice from people who have personally explored the outer …

Conference Registration

Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics Conferences

No abstract provided.

Conference Registration

Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics Conferences

No abstract provided.

Conference Registration

Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics Conferences

No abstract provided.