Law Commons^™

A Personal Constitution, Michael Serota

NULR Online

Today’s law school graduates face two disturbing trends in the professional world. Each is well known, but neither is openly discussed in the law school setting. First, lawyers suffer from chronic professional dissatisfaction. Approximately one out of every four lawyers is dissatisfied with her job. Second, this dissatisfaction exacts an extraordinarily high price on lawyers, the legal profession, and society as a whole. Most startling, however, is the fact that the widespread dissatisfaction and the associated mental health-related problems prevalent in the legal profession actually begin in law school.

How Lawyers (Come To) See The World: A Narrative Theory Of Legal Pedagogy, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Even if one believes that law is not an autonomous discipline, few would dispute that it is a conservative institution and that its members are trained via a pedagogical method quite different from that of other professions. A central aspect of this training is the case method and — thus — the specialized narrative form that appellate opinions take. This essay examines the case method and suggests ways to crack it open — without discarding it — and thereby achieve one of the goals set forth in the Carnegie Report: namely, to supplement the analytical, rule-based mode of reasoning inherent …

A Tale Of Prosecutorial Indiscretion: Ramsey Clark And The Selective Non-Prosecution Of Stokely Carmichael, Lonnie T. Brown

Scholarly Works

During the height of the Vietnam War and one of the most volatile periods of the civil rights movement, then-Attorney General Ramsey Clark controversially resisted intense political pressure to prosecute Black Power originator and antiwar activist Stokely Carmichael. Taken in isolation, this decision may seem courageous and praiseworthy, but when considered against the backdrop of Clark’s contemporaneous prosecution of an all-white group of similarly situated anti-draft leaders (the so-called Boston Five), his exercise of prosecutorial discretion becomes suspect. Specifically, the Boston Five were prosecuted in 1968 for conspiracy to aid and abet draft evasion, a charge for which the evidence …

Advocacy In The Court Of Public Opinion, Installment Two: How Far Should Corporate Attorneys Go, Michele Destefano

Articles

Today, legal controversies are tried in the court of public opinion as much as in any court of law. Corporate lawyers' traditional tendency, however, has been to attempt to isolate legal activities from public relations activities. Accordingly, when providing legal advice, they have viewed media considerations as separate. Historically corporate counsels' typical media strategy often consisted of no more than, "no comment." Given today's saturated media culture, this is no longer a viable strategy. Indeed, it appears that some corporate lawyers are adapting to the new media environment and attempting to help their clients manage the public relations impact of …

September/October 2010 Newsletter

Ergo

No abstract provided.

Making Stuff Up, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Beginning with an article in this Journal almost thirty years ago, Professor Underwood continues to research and write about legal ethics and litigation. In this Commentary, he offers a witty look at several cases where, in his opinion, the judge allowed improper arguments to the jury.

The Class Of 2009: Recession Or Restructuring?, William D. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Hydra, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

Almost nobody favors long consent forms for prospective research subjects. Almost everybody thinks they interfere with informed consent's purpose-good decisions. Nevertheless, almost everybody believes consent forms have long been getting longer. Years ago, Paul Appelbaum lamented the "tendency to cram ever more information into consent forms." Weeks ago, Ilene Albala and her colleagues (one of them Appelbaum) reported in IRE: Ethics & Human Research that the length of one institutional review board's forms "increased roughly linearly by an average of 1.5 pages per decade. In the 1970s, the average consent form was less than one page long and often only …

Raising The Bar: Standards-Based Training, Supervision, And Evaluation, Adele Bernhard

Articles & Chapters

In this short Article, I sketch the methodology my colleagues and I at Pace Law School use to incorporate practice standards into our clinical teaching and reflect on how a standards-based teaching paradigm could be adapted to the training, supervision, and evaluation of public defenders. Then, I briefly consider how standards and standards-based teaching assist in the administration of assigned counsel plans and in the evaluation of the performance of public defender organizations. Although this Article does not cover any of these topics in depth, my goal is to introduce the reader to a standards-based approach to teaching and suggest …

Attorney Fees And Expenses In Class Action Settlements: 1993–2008, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

We report on a comprehensive database of 18 years of available opinions (1993–2008, inclusive) on settlements in class action and shareholder derivative cases in state and federal courts. An earlier study, covering 1993–2002, revealed a remarkable relationship between attorney fees and class recovery size: regardless of the methodology for calculating fees ostensibly employed by the courts, the class recovery size was the overwhelmingly important determinant of the fee. The present study, which nearly doubles the number of cases in the database, confirms that relationship. Fees display the same relationship to class recoveries in both data sets and neither fees nor …

My Conference Experience: Boulder & Aall, 2010, Meg Butler

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

The Inevitability Of Theory, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

I wrote this Article in response to an invitation to deliver the keynote address at Berkeley Law School’s Jurisprudence and Social Policy conference Building Theory Through Empirical Legal Studies. Lauren Edelman, the intellectual mother of the conference, gently brushed aside my suggestion that I present one of my own attempts to synthesize the results of empirical research to generate theory, and asked that I directly address the conference topic. I am glad that she did.

Helpful Smartphone Applications For Legal Professionals, Emily Janoski-Haehlen

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Imputed Liability For Supervising Prosecutors: Applying The Military Doctrine Of Command Responsibility To Reduce Prosecutorial Misconduct, Geoffrey S. Corn, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Spring 2010 Magazine

Ergo

No abstract provided.

Book Review: For The Common Good: Principles Of American Academic Freedom, By Matthew W. Finkin And Robert C. Post, Lauren M. Collins

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (2009), law professors Matthew W. Finkin (University of Illinois) and Robert C. Post (Yale) "articulate basic principles of American academic freedom" (p.6) as a means of grounding the ongoing debate over the concept. The authors succeed in providing an account that is both comprehensive and surprisingly concise. Though slow starting, their book aptly sets the scene for all who wish to participate in a continuing conversation about the state of academic freedom.

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

Faculty Scholarly Works

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 …

Leaks, Lies, And The Moonlight: Fiduciary Duties Of Associates To Their Law Firms, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

This symposium article examines the fiduciary duties of law firm associates. After applying agency principles to the firm-associate relationship, the article analyzes specific duties and discusses cases involving alleged breaches of fiduciary duties by associates. It explores associate duties in the current legal, organizational, and socio-technological environment in which associates practice. The article closes with observations on the importance of firm principals considering the effect of firm culture on associate attitudes and conduct.

Not Since Thomas Jefferson Dined Alone: For Geoff Hazard At 80, Stephen B. Burbank

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

No abstract provided.

A Synergistic Pedagogical Approach To First-Year Teaching, Jamie Abrams

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The First “Colonial Frontier” Legal Writing Conference, held at Duquesne University School of Law, focused on Engendering Hope in the Legal Writing Classroom: Pedagogy, Curriculum, and Attitude. This conference built on the foundational work of Allison Martin and Kevin Rand in which these scholars call for educators to engender hope in law students to prepare them for practice. Martin and Rand conclude that hope is a predictor of students’ academic performance and psychological health during the first semester of law school and recommend that law professors “maintain and creat[e] hope in law students” by embracing five core principles. Martin and …

The Effect Of Legal Professionalization On Moral Reasoning: A Reply To Professor Vischer And Professor Wendel, Michael Hatfield

NULR Online

I am grateful to Professor Vischer and Professor Wendel for their responses to my essay, Professionalizing Moral Deference; I learned a great deal from each piece. I also appreciate their patience in enduring my finalization of the essay and am indebted to them both for their personal indulgence and intellectual stimulation.

The aim of my earlier essay was to open a new discussion of lawyers and morality through my reflections on the so-called “Torture Memo.” Specifically, my essay focuses on the effect of legal training and practice on lawyers’ moral reasoning. It explores the ways in which we, as …

Legal Education Prepares Students To Weather Tough Times, Tara L. Casey

Law Faculty Publications

The author discusses how law students are facing a daunting problem—a competitive job market in the midst of an economic recession. But because of the training they receive both inside and outside of the classroom, law students are uniquely poised to weather this storm.

A Statistical Analysis Of The Patent Bar: Where Are The Software-Savvy Patent Attorneys?, Ralph D. Clifford, Thomas G. Field Jr., Jon R. Cavicchi

Faculty Publications

Among the many factors that impact the declining quality of U.S. patents is the increasing disconnect between the technological education patent bar members have and the fields in which patents are being written. Based on an empirical study, the authors show that too few patent attorneys and agents have relevant experience in the most often patented areas today, such as computer science. An examination of the qualification practices of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) suggests that an institutional bias exists within the PTO that prevents software-savvy individuals from registering with the Office. This paper concludes with suggestions of …

Good But Not Great: Improving Access To Public Records Under The D.C. Freedom Of Information Act, 13 D.C. L. Rev. 359 (2010), Margaret B. Kwoka, Melissa Davenport

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Is Our Students Learning - Using Assessments To Measure And Improve Law School Learning And Performance, 15 Barry L. Rev. 73 (2010), Rogelio A. Lasso

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

'France' In An Encyclopedia Of Infanticide. Ed. Brigitte Bechtold And Donna Cooper Graves. Edwin Mellen Press, 2010. 105-107., Sara L. Kimble

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Finding The Middle Ground In Collection Development: How Academic Law Libraries Can Shape Their Collections In Response To The Call For More Practice-Oriented Legal Education, Leslie A. Street, Amanda Runyon

Librarian Scholarship at Penn Law

To examine how academic law libraries can respond to the call for more practice-oriented legal education, the authors compared trends in collection management decisions regarding secondary sources at academic and law firm libraries. The results of their survey are followed by recommendations about how academic and firm librarians can work together to best provide law students with materials they will need in practice.

Clear As Mud: How The Uncertain Precedential Status Of Unpublished Opinions Muddles Qualified Immunity Determinations, David R. Cleveland

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

International Bridges To Justice (Ibj) - Criminal Defence Training, Lien Centre For Social Innovation

Social Space

Criminal justice systems across the world continue to be plagued by problems such as arbitrary detention, torture and an inadequate knowledge of the rights of defendants. IBJ hopes to establish a legal resource hub for criminal defenders and justice practitioners across Asia by taking a collaborative and proactive approach with Asian governments and fostering leadership and innovation in the area of criminal justice reform.

Can Compassionate Practice Also Be Good Legal Practice?: Answers From The Lives Of Buddhist Lawyers, Deborah J. Cantrell

Publications

What does it mean to say that one is a "good lawyer" in the United States? The dominant view is that a lawyer is a zealous advocate owing loyalty to, and taking direction from, the client. The lawyer is singularly focused and hyper-rationality is prized. This article challenges that narrative. Using the real lives of a group of lawyers across the United States, this article offers rich and nuanced descriptive data about the possibilities of "good lawyering" through compassion, equanimity, and an expanded notion of honesty. This article contributes importantly to the debate about what it means to be a …