Law Commons^™

The Social Media Frontier: Exploring A New Mandate For Competence In The Practice Of Law, Jan Jacobowitz, Danielle Singer

Jan L Jacobowitz

Attorney Mark O’Mara’s use of social media as part of the defense strategy in the representation of George Zimmerman, who was prosecuted for the death of Trayvon Martin, highlighted the use of social media in the practice of law, and because of the tremendous media coverage of the trial, facilitated a robust conversation on whether the legal profession’s use of social media is the “new normal.” In fact, lawyers’ increasing use of social media is evidenced by a growing body of case law, ethics opinions, and journal articles discussing the propriety of using social media in areas such as investigation, …

Lawyers Beware: You Are What You Post! The Case For Integrating Cultural Competence, Legal Ethics And Social Media, Jan Jacobowitz

Jan L Jacobowitz

First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak. --Epictetus

Words used carelessly, as if they… do… not matter in any serious way, often allow… otherwise well-guarded truths to seep through. --Douglas Adams

Happy Mother’s Day to all the crack hoes out there. It's never too late to tie your tubes, clean up your life and make difference to someone out there that deserves a better mother. --Assistant State Attorney in Orange County, Florida

No thought left unspoken…social media networking -- ubiquitous in our society -- provides the opportunity for individuals to share their moment-to-moment thoughts and actions. …

Solicitation By Defense Counsel: Ethical Pitfalls When Corporate Defense Counsel Offers Representation To Witnesses, Barry R. Temkin, Michael H. Stone

Barry R. Temkin

The ban on solicitation by attorneys in ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 7.3, and its state counterparts, has generally been used to prevent ambulance chasing by plaintiffs’ attorneys. However, a recent New York decision has raised the possibility that a defense lawyer could be disciplined for solicitation when offering his services to a non-party witness employed by a corporate defendant, even when doing so for no additional fee. The court in Rivera v. Lutheran Medical Center, referred a prominent national law firm to the Departmental Disciplinary Committee and disqualified the firm from representing several current and former employees of …

Legal Ethics Versus Political Practices: The Application Of The Rules Of Professional Conduct To Lawyer-Politicians, Andrew Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Canadian legal ethics has paid little attention to how the rules of professional conduct for lawyers apply to lawyer-politicians – that is, politicians who happen to be lawyers. This article addresses this issue with reference to what Canadian case law and commentary do exist, supplemented by more plentiful American materials. It proposes a distinction between conduct that is politically expedient and conduct in which lawyer-politicians’ duties as lawyers come into apparent conflict with their duties of office. Canadian case law reveals three conflicting approaches to this latter category: that the duties of a lawyer prevail, that the duties of a …

Teaching Legal Ethics In A Program Of Comprehensive Skills Development, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

Professional Preparedness: A Comparative Study Of Law Graduates' Perceived Readiness For Professional Ethics Issues, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

Practice Setting As An Organizing Theme For A Law And Ethics Of Lawyering Curriculum, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

Legal Education, Experiential Education, And Professional Responsibility, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

Broad Prohibition, Thin Rationale: The Acquisition Of An Interest And Financial Assistance In Litigation Rules, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

Goodness And Humanness: Distinguishing Traits, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

Why Formalism?, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

Ethical Challenges To Legal Education And Conduct, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

Experience And Legal Ethics Teaching, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

Lawyer Creeds And Moral Seismography, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Ethics Teaching In Law Schools: Replacing Lost Benefits Of The Apprentice System In The Academic Atmosphere, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

The Federal Government Lawyer's Duty To Breach Confidentiality, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

The lawyer's duty of confidentiality springs from the lawyer-client relationship and its parameters are determined by the nature of that relationship. The federal government lawyer's client is like no other. The uniqueness of representing the United States calls for a unique approach to the duty of confidentiality. Unlike the private individual client, the government as a client does not speak with a single, unmistakable voice. Unlike the private entity client, the federal government has a paramount interest in the public good, including the public's right to know about government (the entity's conduct), especially its misconduct. The result is a client …

Fidelity Diluted: Client Confidentiality Gives Way To The First Amendment & Social Media In Virginia State Bar, Ex Rel. Third District Committee V. Horace Frazier Hunter, Jan Jacobowitz, Kelly Jesson

Jan L Jacobowitz

Fidelity and confidentiality are hallmarks of the attorney-client relationship. However, as social media use permeates the legal profession, new challenges have arisen to the traditional interpretation of client confidentiality. The Virginia Supreme Court’s recent holding, which concludes that to deny attorney Horace Hunter the ability to blog about his clients’ cases without client consent, after the case concludes and based upon what is found in the public record, is to deny Hunter his First Amendment right of free speech has spurned controversy. The Hunter opinion arguably undermines the long standing legal ethics rule of confidentiality and strikes at the heart …

Technology: A Motivation Behind Recent Model Rule Revisions, Louise L. Hill

Louise L Hill

No abstract provided.

Winning Through Integrity And Professionalism, Gerald Lebovits

Hon. Gerald Lebovits

No abstract provided.

A Call To Action: A Client-Centered Evaluation Of Collaborative Law, Alexandria Zylstra

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This paper will first examine the process of collaborative law, from deciding to hire a collaborative lawyer to the disqualification agreement, as well as identifying potential dangers for the client, including an analysis of collaborative law utilizing the negotiation theory of Roger Fisher and William Ury's book Getting to Yes. The second part of the paper will examine how collaborative law literature evaluates and critiques the costs and benefits of collaborative law. This paper ultimately finds that the cost-benefit analysis either stems from small, non-controlled studies or personal anecdotes, or discussions of whether collaborative law complies with ethics rules, …

The Disempowering Relationship Between Mediator Neutrality And Judicial Impartiality: Toward A New Mediation Ethic, Ronit Zamir

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The issue I shall discuss in this article is whether the concept of mediator neutrality advances the empowering and effective participation of parties from disadvantaged groups. Section II will deal with the relationship between the concept of neutrality in the adversarial legal process, in the mediation process, and the concept of procedural justice. I shall then present the meanings ascribed to the concept of mediator neutrality in the two prevailing models of mediation: the problem-solving model and the transformative model. The affinity between these meanings and the concept of judicial impartiality will be discussed and critiqued. Finally, I shall suggest …

The Truth Shall Set You Free: A Distinctively Christian Approach To Deception In The Negotiation Process, Al Sturgeon

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This paper examines whether the Christian religion offers a distinct position on the use of deception in the negotiation process. It is expected to be of primary interest to Christian negotiators, but combining the popularly understood theorem that "everyone negotiates on some level" with the fact that there are over 173 million Christian adherents in the United States alone, the topic may be of general interest to anyone who negotiates. There is apparently neither an official nor a widespread recognition of a distinct Christian position on the use of deception in negotiation at present. It is this article's proposal, however, …

Regulation And Theory: What Does Reality Have To Do With It, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

What Is A Lawyer? A Reconstruction Of The Lawyer As An Officer Of The Court, Deborah Hussey Freeland

Deborah M. Hussey Freeland

This paper engages with the central question in legal ethics concerning the lawyer's role, analyzing this fundamental question in terms of professional identity. Literature in this debate frames the lawyer either as a professional who exists entirely to serve her client (the "standard conception"), or as a professional whose primary duties are to the legal system. I reposit and examine the lawyer's professional identity as an officer of the court--an identity marginalized by those who favor the standard conception--noting that the phrase was coined to draw attention to a supplanting threat to legal professionalism. Providing a uniquely detailed examination of …

The John E. Schiller Chair In Legal Ethics Inaugural Lecture April 20, 2011 Program

Hannah Buxbaum (2011-2013 Interim)

No abstract provided.

Investigative Deceit, Kevin C. Mcmunigal

Faculty Publications

Is it ever ethical for a lawyer to ask or assist another person to lie on behalf of a client? Despite ethical rules categorically banning both personal and vicarious deceit, prosecutors routinely supervise police officers and informants who use deceit in investigating drug and sex offenses, organized crime, and terrorism. May defense lawyers make use of investigative deceit in criminal investigations? In this Essay, the Author examines this issue, the ethical rules bearing on it, and the recent trend in a number of jurisdictions allowing the use of investigative deceit by the defense. Drawing on his participation in a series …

Advocacy Revalued, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Dana A. Remus

All Faculty Scholarship

A central and ongoing debate among legal ethics scholars addresses the moral positioning of adversarial advocacy. Most participants in this debate focus on the structure of our legal system and the constituent role of the lawyer-advocate. Many are highly critical, arguing that the core structure of adversarial advocacy is the root cause of many instances of lawyer misconduct. In this Article, we argue that these scholars’ focuses are misguided. Through reflection on Aristotle’s treatise, Rhetoric, we defend advocacy in our legal system’s litigation process as ethically positive and as pivotal to fair and effective dispute resolution. We recognize that advocacy …

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 …

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.

Lawyers And Fundamental Moral Responsibility, R. Michael Cassidy, Daniel Coquillette, Judith Mcmorrow

R. Michael Cassidy

The materials in this book are organized around specific problems designed to encourage and focus class discussion. There are two other inherent organizing principles of the materials in this book. First, the philosophical materials are in the rough order in which the ideas themselves evolved in the history of philosophy. The materials have been revised since the book first was published in 1995 to address some of the burning ethical problems of our day, including terrorism, national security, and abuse of government power. The Second Edition also is reorganized to assist students to better appreciate philosophical theories underpinning discourse about …