Law Commons^™

Testing Privilege: Coaching Bar Takers Towards “Minimum Competency” During The 2020 Pandemic, Benjamin Afton Cavanaugh

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

“The More Things Change, The More They Remain The Same:” Lawyer Ethics In The 21st Century, Gregory C. Sisk

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

At an accelerating pace since the recession, our legal profession has been undergoing structural changes in the delivery of many legal services. At the same time, longstanding principles of ethics continue to govern the day-to-day lives of practicing lawyers.

This article lays out four examples of how meaningful change in lawyer practice has been accomplished since the turn-of-the-century with continued adherence to bedrock professional concepts. First, the rules now embrace the multi-jurisdictional practice of law, while the disciplinary authority of each jurisdiction is emphatically confirmed and strengthened. Second, rules on lawyer advertising are streamlined to grant largely open-ended permission for …

Women In The Legal Profession From The 1920s To The 1970s: What Can We Learn From Their Experience About Law And Social Change?, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Maine Law Review

I work in a law school building that is named for Jane M.G. Foster, who donated the money for its construction. It’s a lovely building, and my office overlooks a gorge so that I can hear the water fall as I write. So I’m grateful to Jane Foster. And curious. Who was she? Jane Foster graduated from Cornell Law School in 1918, having served as an editor of the law review and being elected to the Order of the Coif. But no law firm wanted her services. She obtained employment not as a lawyer but as a legal assistant in …

Ethics And The “Root Of All Evil” In Nineteenth Century American Law Practice, Michael Hoeflich

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

This Article discusses the bifurcated notions on the purpose of working as an attorney—whether the purpose is to attain wealth or whether the work in and of itself is the purpose. This Article explores the sentiments held by distinguished and influential nineteenth-century lawyers—particularly David Hoffman and George Sharswood—regarding the legal ethics surrounding attorney’s fees and how money in general is the root of many ethical dilemmas within the arena of legal practice. Through the texts of Hoffman and Sharswood, we find the origins of the ethical rules all American attorneys are subject to in their various jurisdictions.

On Being A Second: Grace Wambolt, Legal Professionalism And 'Inter-Wave' Feminism In Nova Scotia, Elizabeth Legge

Dalhousie Law Journal

Grace Wambolt was the fifth female graduate of Dalhousie Law School and the second woman to practise law in Nova Scotia. She was one of the relatively few female lawyers in Canada (up to the influx of the nineteen-seventies) who practiced law following the push by the first female lawyers for the elimination of formal barriers to practice. This paper examines the similarities and differences between the "firsts" and those who followed them, primarily by looking at the life of Wambolt and her letters and speeches preserved in the Wambolt fonds located in the Nova Scotia Archives and donated by …

A Rejoinder To The Rejoinder To On The Theory Class's Theories Of Asbestos Litigation, Lester Brickman

Pepperdine Law Review

This short essay is a partial response to an essay by Professor Charles Silver contesting assertions I set forth in an article titled, "On The Theory Class's Theories of Asbestos Litigation: The Disconnect Between Scholarship and Reality", 31 Pepp. L. Rev. 33 (2003-04), in which I responded to several personal attacks against me by Professor Silver. Since Professor Silver was permitted to substantially add to his essay after I submitted my Rejoinder and I was not provided with these extensive additions, my response is necessarily incomplete. Professor Silver's essay is titled, "A Rejoinder to Lester Brickman", 32 Pepp. L. Rev. …

Cravath By The Sea: Recruitment In The Large Halifax Law Firm, 1900-1955, Jeffrey Haylock

Dalhousie Law Journal

The traditional view is that regularized, meritocratic hiring in Canadian law firms had to wait until the 1960s, with the rise in importance of Ontario university law schools. There was, however, more regional variation than this view allows. After an overview of the rise of large firms in the U.S. and Canada, and of the modern hiring strategies (the "Cravath system") that developed in New York in the early twentieth century, the author considers whether Halifax firms were employing these strategies between 1900 and 1955. Nepotistic hiring continued unabated; however, the three large firms of the period recruited young students …

Inside The Law: Canadian Law Firms In Historical Perspective, Douglas C. Harris

Dalhousie Law Journal

This collection of essays edited by Carol Wilton' chronicles the changing character of Canadian law firms from the "golden age" of the sole practitioner in the nineteenth century to the mega-firms of the late twentieth. Most of the essays describe the changing profession through a case study of a single lawyer or firm, and Wilton has collected a representative sample of firms from across the country. Some of the firms remained small or disappeared, while others grew into full-service corporate commercial law firms of several hundred lawyers. Most of the essays focus on the personalities of the lawyers involved, their …

Ideology And The Emergence Of Legal Aid In Saskatchewan, Jennie Abell

Dalhousie Law Journal

My work at Saskatchewan legal aid (from 1978 to 1982) generated questions for me about law and social change, and about the origins of legal aid in the context of the expansion of the welfare state. I examined the history of legal aid under the N.D.P. in Saskatchewan from 1974-1982 in an earlier work.' I concluded that the Saskatchewan N.D.P did not significantly differ from other provincial parties in its handling of legal aid during that period, and in that sense that legal aid as it was elaborated under a social democratic government was not fundamentally altered.

The Democratic Intellect: The State In The Work Of Madame Justice Wilson, Philip L. Bryden

Dalhousie Law Journal

It is a great honour to have been asked to provide an essay for this volume of reflections on the contribution Madame Justice Bertha Wilson has made to the development of law in Canada. To a certain extent, this is a matter of pride in finding my own name associated with that of the very learned and respected individuals who have set out their thoughts in this collection of articles. In the main, however, the honour comes from the opportunity to make a public statement of my own respect and admiration for Madame Justice Wilson and the significant role that …

Tribute To Madame Justice Bertha Wilson, Foreword, And Preface, A Kim Campbell

Dalhousie Law Journal

On behalf of the Government of Canada, I am pleased to convey my best wishes to all those participating in 'The Democratic Intellect" Symposium being hosted by Dalhousie Law School in honour of Madame Justice Bertha Wilson's contribution to the law and to the life of Canada.

The Origin And Evolution Of The Attorney And Solicitor In The Legal Profession Of Nova Scotia, Barry Cahill

Dalhousie Law Journal

D.G. Bell has observed that the torrent "of historical writing on Canadian legal education has yet to be matched by intensive study of the legal profession itself." The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate that, for eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Nova Scotia, the development of the legal profession was so closely linked to the evolution of the superior courts, especially the Court of Chancery, that the former cannot be studied in isolation from the latter. By the time Halifax was founded in 1749, the attorney at law and solicitor in equity had not only been statutorily entrenched as …

The Fiercest Debate: Cecil A. Wright, The Benchers And Legal Education In Ontario 1923-1957, W R. Lederman

Dalhousie Law Journal

In the dozen years after the end of the Second World War, long-standing conflicts about the nature of education for the legal profession in Ontario became especially acute. Fortunately, climax and successful compromise came in 1957. In that year the Law Society of Upper Canada, which had controlled legal education and admission to practice from the early days of the Colony of Upper Canada, gave up its monopoly of legal education and conceded an equal position in this respect to Ontario universities willing and able to enter the field. Several were, and promptly did so. Indeed the University of Toronto …

Particularism And The Struggle For Coherence In The Common Law Literary Tradition, E. P. Krauss

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Quebec Legal Education Since 1945: Cultural Paradoxes And Traditional Ambiguities, J Ec Brierley

Dalhousie Law Journal

Some remarkable things have occurred in Quebec legal education over the last forty years. All phases of the educational process have been the object of an official government enquiry (as a consequence of widespread student discontent that led to street demonstrations); a major sociological and futuristic study of the profession and of university studies has attempted to stimulate a major shift in the intellectual orientations of legal education to ready us for the year 2000; the loss by the Quebec legal professions of lawyers and notaries of substantial power to the profit of a government agency regulating all professions in …

A Review: Unequal Justice: Lawyers And Social Change In Modern America, Lawrence Mayberry

IUSTITIA

Unequal Justice is a social history of the legal profession from the emergence of The American Bar Association in the 1870's until the 1970's. Auerbach is a professional historian and not a member of the legal profession who writes history, nor is he a sociologist. But before his graduate work in history, the author entered and quickly left law school. The honesty with which he relates the experience and the competent research and analysis manifest in his work demonstrate that he writes this book from a perspective of understanding rather than of bitterness or indifference. In fact Auerbach's unique frame …