Law Commons^™

Doing Well And Doing Good: The Careers Of Minority And White Graduates Of The University Of Michigan Law School, David L. Chambers, Richard O. Lempert, Terry K. Adams

Articles

Of the more than 1,000 law students attending the University of Michigan Law School in the spring of 1965, only one was African American. The Law School faculty, in response, decided to develop a program to attract more African American students. One element of this program was the authorization of a deliberately race-conscious admissiosn process. By the mid-1970s, at least 25 African American students were represented in each graduating class. By the late 1970s, Latino and Native American students were included in the program as well. Over the nearly three decades between 1970 and 1998, the admissions efforts and goals …

The African American, Latino, And Native American Graduates Of One American Law School, 1970-1996, David L. Chambers, Richard O. Lempert, Terry K. Adams

Articles

In the spring of 1965, only one African American student and no Latino students attended the University of Michigan Law School. At the time, Michigan, like most American law schools, was a training place for white males. In 1966, the law school faculty adopted a new admissions policy that took race into account as a plus factor in the admissions process. This policy of affirmative action has taken many forms over the years, but, across the decades of the 1970's, the 1980's and the 1990's, about 800 African Americans, 350 Latinos, 200 Asian Americans and 100 Native Americans have graduated …

British Masculinities, Canadian Lawyers, W. Wesley Pue

All Faculty Publications

This paper explores the construction of early twentieth century Canadian legal professionalism as the workings-out of Britishness understood through the lenses of cultural history, cultures of imperialism, and gender relations. It provides a case study in the histories of professionalism in a settler colony.

Courthouse Assistance Offices, Patrick D. Costello

Articles

No abstract provided.

(Er)Race-Ing An Ethic Of Justice, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

No abstract provided.

Cautionary Tale From The Multidisciplinary Practice Debate: How The Traditionalists Lost Professionalism, A The Phyllis W. Beck Chair In Law Symposium: New Roles, No Rules - Redefining Lawyers' Work - Redefining Lawyers' Work: Multidisciplinary Practice, Russell G. Pearce, Amelia J. Uelmen:

Faculty Scholarship

The author presents a fictional conversation among Lawrence J. Fox, other noted legal scholars, and himself concerning the ethics and changes in the legal profession.

Law Day 2050: Post-Professinalism, Moral Leadership, And The Law-As-Business Paradigm Symposium, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

Inspired by Ted Schneyer's future history of professional discipline' and Bob Gordon's descrption of "the hazy aspirational world" of the "Law Day Sermon,' I offer a vision of the legal profession 'a next fifty years in the form of a Law Day speech from the year 2050. Looking back on developments in the first half of the twenty-first century, this piece explores the implications of the analysis proposed in my earlier article, The Professionalism Paradigm Shift: Why Discarding Professional Ideology Will Improve the Conduct and Reputation of the Bar. The speech presents a projection of the moral leadership the bar …

Legal Aid And Public Interest Law In China, Benjamin L. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

This article describes the evolution of legal aid and public interest law in China and examines its implications for the legal profession and the law in the context of four intertwined developments: first, China's efforts to establish a nationwide system of government-run legal aid centers; second, China's attempt to expand the availability and improve the quality of legal representation for indigent criminal defendants; third, China's bid to force the legal profession to serve poor clients via mandatory pro bono requirements for lawyers; fourth, the development of non-governmental legal aid centers and the expanding incentives for profit-oriented lawyers to take on …

[Review Of] George Kaufman, The Lawyer’S Guide To Balancing Life And Work: Taking The Stress Out Of Success, Sherman L. Cohn

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In recent years there has been much self-examination within the legal profession. On the macro scale, Sol Linowitz, The Betrayed Profession, compares, not favorably, the profession of today with that which he knew in the early decades of his practice. Dean Anthony Kronman, The Lost Lawyer, and Mary Ann Glendon, A Nation Under Lawyers, use their skills as scholars to examine the profession on a more objective level. On the micro level, Deborah Arron led the way with Running from the Law, which tells of talented overachievers who stood out in law school and judicial clerkships, and then found large-firm …

A Proposal To Require Lawyers To Disclose Information About Procedural Matters, William H. Fortune

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the absence of a rule clearly requiring disclosure, a lawyer is obligated not to disclose information which is adverse to the interests of a client. However, judges should be able to expect lawyers to dislose information about procedural matters. This Article argues that Model Rule of Professional Conduct 3.3 should be amended to require disclosure of information about procedural matters. Part I describes the events in Potter v. Eli Lilly & Co., a case involving a secret settlement related to Prozac. Part II makes the argument for a rule requiring disclosure of procedural information. Part III describes how …

Renewed Introspection And The Legal Profession, Eugene R. Gaetke

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

As the twentieth century draws to a close, the legal profession again immersed in a process of self-assessment, reflection, and reform. Operating on several fronts, various constituent elements of the bar have recently completed or have underway significant projects relating to the law of lawyering.

Two efforts stand out in particular. For more than a decade, the American Law Institute has labored in the production of a new Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, and the organization stands now on the brink of that monumental work's publication. Equally significant, the American Bar Association has again undertaken a comprehensive review of …

The Fruits Of Our Labors: An Empirical Study Of The Distribution Of Income And Job Satisfaction Across The Legal Profession, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Kaushik Mukhopadhaya

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this study we undertake a simple empirical analysis to examine the distribution of pecuniary and nonpecuniary benefits across the legal profession. Using the University of Michigan alumni data set, we conduct a series of regressions to examine how the participants' self-reported income and job satisfaction vary across the legal profession according to type of practice, gender, and whether the respondent is black or Hispanic. Regression analysis allows us to undertake this analysis while correcting for the effects of several other variables, including years of practice, hours worked, law school grades, satisfaction with family life, and population of the respondent's …

Lawyers Seeking Clients, Clients Seeking Lawyers: Sources Of Contingency Fee Cases And Their Implications For Case Handling, Jayanth K. Krishnan, Herbert M. Kritzer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This paper examines the ways that Wisconsin contingency fee lawyers obtain clients. It draws upon a survey of Wisconsin practitioners, three months of observation in lawyers' offices, semi-structured interviews with practitioners, a survey of recipients of direct mail solicitations from Wisconsin contingency fee practitioners, and a survey of Wisconsin residents about whether they had predilections concerning which lawyer or law firm they would use should they have an injury claim. The analyses show that most lawyers draw the vast majority of their cases from a combination of referrals from prior clients, referrals from other lawyers (mostly uncompensated referrals), and repeat …

Is The Medium The Message? A Discussion Of Susskind's The Future Of Law, Edwin H. Greenebaum

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Inside The Aclu: Activism And Anti-Communism In The Late 1960s, Allen K. Rostron

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

A Primer On Mdps: Should The No Rule Become A New Rule, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This article is the second of four major articles or book chapters that I have written about MDPs. "MDPs" refers to multidisciplinary partnerships or multidisciplinary practices between lawyers and nonlawyers. Prior to 1998, virtually all U.S. states had lawyer discipline rules that prohibited a lawyer from sharing legal fees with a nonlawyer or practicing law in partnership with a nonlawyer. In 1998, however, the American Bar Association created a Commission on Multidisciplinary Practice to reconsider these rules. One impetus for the creation of this Commission was the increasingly large numbers of lawyers who were working for the Big 5 Accounting …

A Nightmare On Main Street (Part Mxl): Freddie Joins An Accounting Firm, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The subject of multidisciplinary practice (“MDP”) has intrigued me for well over a decade. The topic has led me into new areas of research, and sometimes into the cross hairs of colleagues in the legal profession. My views have not always represented the mainstream of thinking among lawyers, and that is reflected in the title of my talk today: “A Nightmare on Main Street (Part MXL): Freddie Joins an Accounting Firm.”

Taking Control Of Technology: What Small Firm Decision Makers Need To Know, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

For firms that want to take control of their technology, the first question to ask is what applications does the office need? This question should precede debates about what hardware and software to acquire, because the choice of applications will drive the choice of products. To start anywhere else is to allow the tail to wag the dog.

Ethics And Professionalism In Non-Adversarial Lawyering, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Traditional notions and rules of professionalism in the legal profession have been premised on particular conceptions of the lawyer's role, usually as an advocate, occasionally as a counselor, advisor, transaction planner, government official, decision maker and in the recent parlance of one of this symposium's participants-a "statesman [sic]. '" As we examine what professionalism means and what rules should be used to regulate its activity, it is important to ask some foundational questions: For what ends should our profession be used? What does law offer society? How should lawyers exercise their particular skills and competencies?

Speaking Truth To Powerlessness, Howard Lesnick

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Architecture Of Judicial Independence, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Religion And The Public Defender, Sadiq Reza

Articles & Chapters

It takes a special breed to have the understanding, compassion

and dedication to do what criminal defense lawyers do .... As

for public defenders - they are doing God's work. If Christ had

been a lawyer, he would have been a public defender.

Virtually all public defenders fight a daily battle against burnout

and the creeping erosion of confidence that inevitably accompany

defending acts we cannot condone and protecting those who are

the source of so much harm and grief. . . . Whether the process

unfolds subtly or suddenly, all defenders must confront the disturbing

consequences of their zealous …

Blue-Chip Bilking: Regulation Of Billing And Expense Fraud By Lawyers, Lisa G. Lerman

Scholarly Articles

This study of recent cases of billing and expense fraud confirms the views of David Wilkins, Ted Schneyer, and many other scholars that the disciplinary system performs only one of several needed regulatory functions. The cases demonstrate the need for public and private regulatory responses that not only receive and investigate complaints, but also provide education, prevention, proactive monitoring, and remediation. Lawyers who engage in billing and expense fraud should be fired, disbarred, prosecuted on criminal charges, sued for malpractice. If the public and private organizations that can attend to this problem take it seriously, the norms in the legal …

Do They Practice What We Teach?: A Survey Of Practitioners And Estate Planning Professors, Wayne M. Gazur

Publications

This article presents the results of a 1998 mail survey sent to members of the American Bar Association Real Property, Probate & Trust Law Section and to law professors teaching estate planning. The principal goal of the survey was to compare the opinions of practitioners and law professors concerning the importance of 31 estate planning issues and techniques. The survey also included an open-ended solicitation of issues deemed significant by the participant.

The survey found consistency between practitioner and professor responses with respect to techniques such as Crummey planning. Legal education appears to be effective in dealing with core principles. …

Muddling Along With The Federal Wealth Transfer Tax: A Survey Of Practitioners And Law School Professors, Wayne M. Gazur

Publications

Recent efforts to repeal the wealth transfer tax system have prompted enormous discussion. In this Article, the author presents the results of his survey of members of the American Bar Association Real Property, Probate and Law Section about this issue and other reforms which have been enacted or suggested.

Lies And Law, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

Taking Problem Solving Pedagogy Seriously: A Response To The Attorney General, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Attorney General Janet Reno has taken seriously the notion that lawyers should make the world better than they find it, that problems should be prevented, where possible, before they occur, and that law should serve the needs of the people and deliver long-term justice. I want to suggest some concrete ways in which we can take her challenges seriously.

Meet My Mentors -- Janet Wallin And Caroline Heriot, Edmund P. Edmonds

Journal Articles

In this article, Dean Ed Edmonds describes his relationship with two people who mentored him in his career as a legal librarian.

Shareholder Derivative Litigation And Corporate Governance, Mark J. Loewenstein

Publications

In approving settlements of derivative actions that include fees for plaintiff's attorney, courts typically announce that attorney's fees are approved if a substantial benefit is obtained. In fact, courts, particularly Delaware courts, approve settlements in shareholder derivative actions that included substantial fees for plaintiff's attorney, despite the absence of a corresponding benefit to the corporation. Frequently, the "benefit" obtained is a reform in corporate governance, which is of dubious value to the corporation. To deter frivolous litigation, courts should resist the temptation to approve these settlements just to dispose of the litigation. The paper concludes that fees should not be …

What The Twins Saw, Paul F. Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.