Law Commons^™

Incentivizing Lawyers To Play Nice: A National Survey Of Civility Standards And Options For Enforcement, Cheryl B. Preston, Hilary Lawrence

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the last decade, most commentators assume that lawyers’ behavior is now diving to new lows, notwithstanding a flurry of professionalism and civility creeds adopted in the 1980s and 1990s. Proponents of making such creeds enforceable argue that a return to professionalism may improve lawyers’ well-being, restore the public’s confidence in lawyers, and raise the expectations of behavior, not only with respect to civility but also with respect to violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct (hereinafter, as adapted in various jurisdictions, the Rules of Professional Conduct or the Model Rules)

The Transformative Potential Of Attorney Bilingualism, Jayesh M. Rathod

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In contemporary U.S. law practice, attorney bilingualism is increasingly valued, primarily because it allows lawyers to work more efficiently and to pursue a broader range of professional opportunities. This purely functionalist conceptualization of attorney bilingualism, however, ignores the surprising ways in which multilingualism can enhance a lawyer's professional work and can strengthen and reshape relationships among actors in the U.S. legal milieu. Drawing upon research from psychology, linguistics, and other disciplines, this Article advances a theory of the transformative potential of attorney bilingualism. Looking first to the development of lawyers themselves, the Article posits that attorneys who operate bilingually may, …

Lawyer As Emotional Laborer, Sofia Yakren

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Prevailing norms of legal practice teach lawyers to detach their independent moral judgments from their professional performance-to advocate zealously for their clients while remaining morally unaccountable agents of those clients' causes. Although these norms have been subjected to prominent critiques by legal ethicists, this Article analyzes them instead through the lens of "emotional labor," a sociological theory positing that workers required to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance mandated by organizational rules face substantial psychological risks. By subordinating their personal feelings and values to displays of zealous advocacy on behalf of others, lawyers, too, may …

The Higher Calling: Regulation Of Lawyers Post-Enron, Keith R. Fisher

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article discusses some of the inadequacies in the current ethical regulation of the legal system and proposes a new approach to crafting and contextualizing rules of legal ethics. The proliferation of specialties and subspecialties in law practice, together with the inadequacies of prevailing ethics regulation and the vagaries of ethics rules formulations from state to state have not served either the public or the legal profession well. Manipulation, motivated by politics and self-interest, of the ideology of the organized bar to adhere to ethical rules predicated on an antiquated and unrealistic model of a unified legal profession has likewise …

Main Street Multidisciplinary Practice Firms: Laboratories For The Future, Susan Poser

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article examines the debate over multidisciplinary practice in the wake of the collapse of Enron and Arthur Andersen. Part I addresses the history of the scholarly debate about multidisciplinary practice in the United States. It discusses the focus on large multidisciplinary firms, feared threats to independent professional judgment, and the current rule concerning lawyers and multidisciplinary practice.

Part II examines the reasons for allowing multidisciplinary practice. The author argues that client demand, lawyer demand, and policy reasons all provide valid reasons for permitting "one-stop" shopping. Part I also discusses existing forms of multidisciplinary practice. The author argues that the …

Professional Responsibility And Choice Of Law: A Client-Based Alternative To The Model Rules Of Professional Conduct, Colin Owyang

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Because of the increasingly interstate nature of legal practice during the past few decades, practitioners licensed in multiple jurisdictions have been forced more frequently to confront choice-of-law dilemmas in the area of professional responsibility. Although most states have adopted fairly uniform regulations on professional ethics, only the recently amended American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct contain a specific provision that addresses the choice-of-law problem in the professional responsibility context. This Note outlines certain ethical considerations facing the multistate practitioner and argues that the choice-of-law provision in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides insufficient clarity and predictability where …

Eyes To The Future, Yet Remembering The Past: Reconciling Tradition With The Future Of Legal Education, Amy M. Colton

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note explores the relationship between legal education and the legal profession, and what can be done to stop the two institutions from drifting farther and farther apart. Part I examines the history of the American law school, focusing on how the schools came into existence and what goals they intended to serve. Part II questions whether these goals have been reached, and dissects the present-day law school curriculum in search of both its triumphs and its failures. A necessary part of this curriculum analysis includes examining the evolution of the profession into a creature of both law and business, …

Clinical Legal Education: Is Taking Rites Seriously A Fantasy, Folly, Or Failure?, Steven D. Pepe

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article assesses the primary product of law schools-the practicing lawyer-and reviews the criticisms of the adequacy of the initial training for attorneys that law schools provide. After a brief. review of goals of legal education and goals of clinical teaching methods, the article argues that properly structured clinical programs are not based on flawed premises and that the nation's law schools, particularly the leading schools, should not abandon their clinical experiments without further efforts to help clinical legal education achieve its unfulfilled promises. The premises and assertions of this article are not new. Indeed, they are reiterations of a …

Lay Divorce Firms And The Unauthorized Practice Of Law, Arthur R. Miller

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Effective January 1, 1972, Michigan adopted a no-fault divorce law. Since that time, at least two firms in the Detroit area have gone into the business of providing assistance to people wishing to process their own divorces. These enterprises, which have been dubbed divorce firms or divorce kit firms, have come under heavy attack from the organized bar. The State Bar of Michigan has instituted court proceedings against one firm for the unauthorized practice of law, and a court on its own initiative has already issued an injunction against the other. These cases raise two important issues: whether the divorce …

The Law School's Role In Post-J.D. Specialty Education, Guy O. Kornblum

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As members of a profession which is largely self-policing, attorneys must find ways to protect the public by identifying the areas of practice that require special expertise and by ensuring that those who hold themselves out as specialists possess the necessary expertise. Simply because one claims a specialty or even practices a specialty does not mean that he has the requisite competence to practice in the field. Because one is presently competent in a specialty does not mean that he will continue to practice and maintain his competence and keep abreast of new techniques and developments. Certainly the profession should …