Law Commons^™

Students With "Clas": An Alternative To Traditional Bar Examinations, Sally Simpson, Toni Massaro

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Aba, The Rules, And Professionalism: The Mechanics Of Self-Defeat And A Call For A Return To The Ethical, Moral, And Practical Approach Of The Canons, Benjamin H. Barton

Scholarly Works

In this Article I argue that there was once a single animating goal for American legal ethics - providing moral, ethical, and practical guidance on practicing law. Throughout the 20th Century lawyer regulators worked to bisect that goal, and we now have two quite distinct, and frequently conflicting goals. On the one hand, bar regulators pushed ceaselessly to narrow the regulations governing lawyer conduct to black-letter minimum, and eliminated the broadly moral from the Rules. On the other hand, bar regulators sought to raise lawyers' ethical and moral standards through professionalism and other non-mandatory efforts.

These bisected goals clash in …

Collaborative Navigation Of The Stormy E-Discovery Seas, Robert Douglas Brownstone

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Seventy years ago, when the world was still paper-based, a famous lyricist wrote: “Say, it’s only a paper moon [s]ailing over a cardboard sea. But it wouldn’t be make-believe [i]f you believed in me.” Jump to today’s digital world, and imagine those lines re-written in an e-mail from a litigator to a client: “Now, underneath each paper moon is a vast electronic sea. If you plot a realist’s course you’ll cruise e-Discovery.” In the twentieth century, while civil litigation often wallowed in discovery disputes, at least paper’s one-dimensional nature provided several boundaries. The expansive powers of …

Evidentiary Tactics: Selecting The “Best” Evidence To Simplify The Case, Edward J. Imwinkelried, David A. Schlueter

Faculty Articles

In the early 1990s, the American Bar Association Special Committee on Jury Comprehension released the results of surveys of jurors. These jurors had participated in complex federal and state cases. The researchers asked the jurors what complaints they had against the attorneys who had tried the cases. By a wide margin, the primary complaint was that the litigators went overboard and swamped the jury with information, particularly an excessive number of exhibits.

At trial, the attorney must exorcise the demons of complexity and confusion. There are strategies and tactics that should be employed to reduce cases to manageable portions that …

Multidisciplinary Business Planning Firms: Expanding The Regulatory Tent Without Creating A Circus, Anthony J. Luppino

Faculty Works

Students studying business planning in an American law school should be told up front that a twenty-first century transactional lawyer rarely encounters a truly simple business transaction. Legal educators acknowledge the need to emphasize the complex, multidisciplinary nature of advising modern business clients. Law students must be introduced to the reality that transactional attorneys routinely collaborate with accountants, engineers, and other types of specialists and consultants to properly identify issues and address their clients' needs. Businesses - particularly firms comprised of entrepreneurs on tight budgets in terms of both time and money - benefit greatly when relevant information is accurately …