Law Commons^™

Making Civility Democratic, Amy R. Mashburn

Amy R. Mashburn

Historically, the concept of civility has been bound up with undemocratic notions of hierarchy and deference. Using insights from studies of civility by social psychologists, linguists, sociologists, historians, and political theorists, this article advances the theory that the legal profession’s self-consciously isolating professionalism ideology allows judges and disciplinary tribunals to apply deference-based notions of civility in their decisions to sanction lawyers. This theory would predict that the lawyers most likely to be sanctioned for incivility and rudeness are those from whom society expects the most deference. To test this theory, the author conducted an empirical study of every available case …

Admitting Foreign-Trained Lawyers In States Other Than New York: Why It Matters, Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

Professionalism For The 21st Century: Independence In Context, Rebecca Roiphe

Rebecca Roiphe

Most scholars condemn professionalism as self-serving, anti-competitive rhetoric. This Article argues that professionalism can be a positive and productive way of thinking about lawyers’ work. While it is undoubtedly true that the Bar has used the ideology of the professional role to support self-interested and bigoted causes, professionalism has also served as an important way of developing and marshalling group identity to promote useful ends. The critics of professionalism tend to view it as an ideology, according to which professionals, unlike businessmen, are concerned not with their own financial gain but with the good of their clients and the community …

Confronting The Peppercorn Settlement In Merger Litigation: An Empirical Analysis And A Proposal For Reform, Jill E. Fisch, Sean J. Griffith, Steven M. Davidoff

Steven Davidoff Solomon

Shareholder litigation challenging corporate mergers is ubiquitous, with the likelihood of a shareholder suit exceeding 90%. The value of this litigation, however, is questionable. The vast majority of merger cases settle for nothing more than supplemental disclosures in the merger proxy statement. The attorneys that bring these lawsuits are compensated for their efforts with a court-awarded fee. This leads critics to charge that merger litigation benefits only the lawyers who bring the claims, not the shareholders they represent. In response, defenders of merger litigation argue that the lawsuits serve a useful oversight function and that the improved disclosures that result …

The Monopoly Myth And Other Tales About The Superiority Of Lawyers, Leslie C. Levin

Leslie C. Levin

The legal profession’s control of much of the market for legal services is justified by the claim that only licensed lawyers can effectively and ethically represent clients. This article challenges that claim. A review of a number of studies suggests that experienced nonlawyers can provide competent legal services in certain contexts and in some cases, can seemingly do so as effectively as lawyers. There is also little evidence that lawyers’ legal training, the bar admission requirements, or lawyers’ psychological characteristics make them more trustworthy than nonlawyer legal services providers. The article considers some recent initiatives, such as Washington’s approval of …

The Folly Of Expecting Evil: Reconsidering The Bar's Character And Fitness Requirement, Leslie Levin

Leslie C. Levin

The bar’s character and fitness inquiry seeks to protect the public. As part of this inquiry, bar applicants are required to produce detailed information about their past histories. The rationale for this inquiry is that this information can be used to identify who will subsequently become a problematic lawyer. Bar applicants bear the burden of providing their “good” character even though there is little evidence that past conduct predicts who will become a problematic lawyer. This article looks at psychological and other research that attempt to identify factors that might predict future misconduct in the work place. It also reports …

Show, Don't Tell: Legal Writing For The Real World (Chapter Outline), Adam Lamparello, Megan E. Boyd

Adam Lamparello

Show, Don’t Tell is designed to help all members of the legal profession learn to effectively draft the most common litigation documents. Far too many books offer tips and advice about good writing, but don’t actually show the reader specific examples of good writing or show the reader why examples offered are effective. The authors have read many books on legal writing, but once we learned the basics of legal writing, we didn’t learn anything in those books to make us better writers. Why? We were exposed to the best theories, but never given practical, how-to tips to turn book …

Self-Interest And Sinecure: Why Law School Can’T Be “Fixed” From Within, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

The issue of how best to do a legal education is being approached as if it were an intellectual and pedagogical question. Of course in a conceptual sense it is. But from a political and human perspective (law faculty, deans and lawyers) it is a self-interested situation in terms of how does this affect me? The reality is that for law faculty and deans it is mainly a life style, status, economic benefit and political situation in which the various interests protected by the traditional faculty slot placeholders [as well as the non-traditional practice-oriented teachers) are being masked by self-serving …

Cracks In The Profession's Monopoly Armor, John Sahl

John Sahl

This article examines the legal profession’s long-held monopoly in the nation’s legal services market in the context of two recent developments. The first development concerns the Conference of Chief Justices’ (CCJ) recent adoption of Resolution 15, “Encouraging Adoption of Rules Regarding Admission of Attorneys Who Are Dependents of Service Members.” Resolution 15 urges state bar authorities to develop and implement rules permitting admission without examination of lawyers who are military dependents. The CCJ’s rule promotes competition by facilitating the movement of lawyers from one geographic market to another.

The second development is Washington Supreme Court’s new Admission to Practice Rule …

Globalization And The Aba Commission On Ethics 20/20: Reflections On Missed Opportunities And The Road Not Taken, Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

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 legal practice developments.” The thesis of this article is that the Commission was much more successful with the “technology” aspect of its work than it was with the globalization aspect of its work. This article offers an explanation for these differing levels of success and identifies an alternative path the Commission might have taken that might have led to greater success …