Law Commons^™

Introductory Note: Symposium On Lawyering And Personal Values – Responding To The Problems Of Ethical Schizophrenia, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

In recent years, legal practitioners and scholars alike have identified a growing crisis in the legal profession. Increasingly, lawyers feel dissatisfied with the roles they are expected to play and the conduct demanded of them. In particular, many lawyers see a widening gap between their personal values and those employed in legal practice. In response to the dichotomy between personal and professional values, some lawyers attempt to develop a corresponding dichotomy in their personalities, separating the “professional self” from the “personal self.” Such a response, however, may lead to a kind of “ethical schizophrenia,” a condition in which an individual …

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

Samuel J. Levine

The prevailing trend within the legal community has been to associate the recent decline of professionalism in the practice of law with the emergence of increasing commercialism, indicating that law has become more a business than a profession. Despite the evidence apparently supporting the position that law has evolved into a business, some scholars have responded by reaffirming the professionalism model, arguing that legal practice remains true to its professional ideals. These scholars admit that the professional paradigm is not without its flaws, but argue that it is more likely to lead to a better practice of law than the …

"What Do You Crave?" Developing Young Lawyers' Ability To Know Themselves, Paula A. Monopoli

Paula A Monopoli

No abstract provided.

Teaching Transactional Skills In Partnership With The Bar, Carl J. Circo

Carl J. Circo

Who Wants To Be A Muggle? The Diminished Legitimacy Of Law As Magic, Mark E. Burge

Mark Edwin Burge

In the Harry Potter world, the magical population lives among the non-magical Muggle population, but we Muggles are largely unaware of them. This secrecy is by elaborate design and is necessitated by centuries-old hostility to wizards by the non-magical majority. The reasons behind this hostility, when combined with the similarities between Harry Potter-stylemagic and American law, make Rowling’s novels into a cautionary tale for the legal profession that it not treat law as a magic unknowable to non-lawyers. Comprehensibility — as a self-contained, normative value in the enactment interpretation, and practice of law — is given short-shrift by the legal …

Transnational Legal Practice 2009, Laurel S. Terry, Carole Silver, Ellyn Rosen

Laurel S. Terry

This article identifies some of the most important U.S. and international developments in transnational legal practice and provides citations for further research. The article begins by briefly reviewing the impact of the recession on legal services. The second section focuses on international developments. It identifies some of the ongoing efforts to implement the 2007 U.K. Legal Services Act, including the issuance of the influential Hunt and Smedley reports. It also provides information about law reform initiatives in France, Scotland and Korea. This section of the article also provides information about Canadian and Australian developments regarding admission of foreign applicants and …

Bad Apples, Bad Lawyers Or Bad Decisionmaking: Lessons From Psychology And From Lawyers In The Dock, Leslie C. Levin

Leslie C. Levin

Richard Abel’s book, Lawyers in the Dock: Learning from Attorney Disciplinary Proceedings, presents six detailed case studies of New York lawyers who engaged in serious misconduct. He uses these case studies to carefully explore the social, psychological and structural conditions of lawyer deviance that lead to betrayals of trust. This essay considers what additional light some of the psychological literature, in particular, might shed on the behaviors of Abel’s lawyers for the purposes of better understanding how to prevent lawyer misconduct. More specifically, it considers how social and psychological processes may help to explain the trajectory of lawyer misconduct and …

The Future Regulation Of The Legal Profession: The Impact Of Treating The Legal Profession As 'Service Providers', Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

In the past fifty years, one has heard debates about whether law is a business, a profession, or both, what these terms mean and whether it matters. Regardless of what one thinks about these debates, there is a new paradigm that must be added to the mix, which is the paradigm of lawyers as "service providers." In the "service providers" paradigm, the legal profession is not viewed as a separate, unique profession entitled to its own individual regulations, but is included in a broader group of "service providers," all of whom can be regulated together. This new paradigm represents a …

Building A Better Lawyer Discipline System: The Queensland Experience, Leslie Levin

Leslie C. Levin

In many jurisdictions, lawyer-run discipline systems are inefficient, overly lenient and insufficiently responsive to consumer's concerns. Queensland's Legal Profession Act 2004 (Qld) breaks away from that model by moving lawyer discipline out of lawyers' professional associations and into an independent agency. It articulates a decidedly consumer-oriented approach to lawyer discipline and gives Queensland's new Legal Services Commissioner the power to investigate and prosecute all discipline complaints. This article looks at Queensland's recent reforms, and considers how well the new system is meeting its twin goals of consumer protection and traditional lawyer discipline. Using interviews and other data, the article identifies …

Lawyers In Cyberspace: The Impact Of Legal Listservs On The Professioal Development And Ethical Decisionmaking Of Lawyers, Leslie Levin

Leslie C. Levin

This article explores the impact of trial lawyers' associations on the professional identities of its members, their professional development, their understanding of practice norms, and their ethical decision making. It does so by looking at the New York State Trial Lawyers Association (NYSTLA), and more specifically, the conversations that occur on its listserv. When these conversations are viewed in the context of the history and current operations of NYSTLA, it is possible to see how such listservs powerfully promote shared professional values and views within NYSTLA=s membership. The listserv extends the advice networks of trial lawyers far beyond the small …

Revisiting A Classic: Duncan Kennedy's Legal Education And The Reproduction Of Hierarchy The Ghost In The Law School: How Duncan Kennedy Caught The Hierarchy Zeitgeist But Missed The Point, Steve Sheppard

Steve Sheppard

In his manifesto, Duncan Kennedy aptly identified hierarchies within legal scholarship and the legal profession, but his conclusion--hierarchies in law are wrong and must be resisted--is misplaced. Kennedy’s Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy: A Polemic Against the System, claims law schools breed a hierarchical system, where rank plays an important part in how law schools relate to each other; how faculty members relate to each other and to students; and how students relate to other students. This system trains students to accept and prepare for their place within the hierarchy of the legal profession. According to Kennedy, such …

Lawyers, Gats, And The Wto Accountancy Disciplines: The History Of The Wto's Consultation, The Iba Gats Forum And The September 2003 Iba Resolutions, Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

This article addresses issues related to legal services and the General Agreement on Trade in Services or GATS. GATS Article VI:4 requires Member States to develop "any necessary disciplines." WTO Members currently are in the process of deciding whether to extend the WTO Accountancy Disciplines, S/L/64, to other service sectors, including legal services. In December 2002, the WTO sent the International Bar Association (IBA) (and other non-governmental organizations) a "consultation letter" requesting the IBA's views about changes it would like to see in the WTO Accountancy Disciplines. The IBA responded to the WTO consultation with the May 2003 IBA GATS …

An “Issue Checklist” For The Aba Commission On Multidisciplinary Practice, Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

Opening Remarks From The Salt Teaching Conference, Karen Czapanskiy

Karen Czapanskiy

No abstract provided.