Law Commons^™

Movement Lawyers: The Tension Between Solidarity And Independence, Catherine Fisk

Indiana Law Journal

Seeking to engage with scholars and activists who call for lawyer solidarity with social movements, this Essay considers professional ethics constraints on what a lawyer can justifiably do on behalf of clients in the name of solidarity with a movement. I consider whether the concept of solidarity, especially solidarity in the face of legal repression, justifies a movement lawyer in using tactics that would otherwise be grounds for legal prosecution, professional discipline, or moral condemnation. Drawing on the long history of legal repression of progressive activism, including repression of progressive lawyers, this Essay proposes a way to think about lawyers …

A Typology Of Justice Department Lawyers' Roles And Responsibilities, Rebecca Roiphe

Articles & Chapters

President Trump’s administration has persistently challenged the legitimacy of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”). In the past, DOJ, like other governmental institutions, has been fairly resilient. Informal norms and practices have served to preserve its proper functioning, even under pressure. The strain of the past three years, however, has been different in kind and scale. This Article offers a typology of different roles for DOJ lawyers and argues that over time the institution has evolved by allocating different functions and responsibilities to different positions within DOJ. By doing so, it has for the most part maintained the proper balance between …

Stay In The Fight With Civility And Professionalism, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Virtue Of Vulnerability: Mindfulness And Well-Being In Law Schools And The Legal Profession, Nathalie Martin

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the role of vulnerability in transforming individual relationships, particularly the attorney-client relationship. In this essay, Martin argues that broadening our expressions can improve our client relations and decrease the likelihood that when that inevitable mistake occurs, we will be sued for it. Also, based upon virtue ethics, that practicing vulnerability is also virtuous and thus worthwhile in and of itself.

This essay starts by describing the traits people look for in lawyers as well as evidence that clients often feel that their lawyers are less than human. Then examines how legal education contributes to this problem by …

The Academic Expert Before Congress: Observations And Lessons From Bill Van Alstyne's Testimony, Neal Devins

Neal E. Devins

No abstract provided.

Between Brady Discretion And Brady Misconduct, Bennett L. Gershman

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The Supreme Court’s decision in Brady v. Maryland presented prosecutors with new professional challenges. In Brady, the Supreme Court held that the prosecution must provide the defense with any evidence in its possession that could be exculpatory. If the prosecution fails to timely turn over evidence that materially undermines the defendant’s guilt, a reviewing court must grant the defendant a new trial. While determining whether evidence materially undermines a defendant’s guilt may seem like a simple assessment, the real-life application of such a determination can be complicated. The prosecution’s disclosure determination can be complicated under the Brady paradigm because …

The Settlement Problem In Public Interest Law, Susan Carle

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Public interest lawyers, of many types and political persuasions, play a vital role in pursuing '"public justice." For public interest (as for all) lawyers, settlement provides an important means of resolving cases. Yet a persisting ambivalence about case settlement in public interest law contributes to the difficulties public interest practitioners face in sustaining themselves in practice. Indeed, public interest lawyers identify case settlement as posing some of the most vexing legal ethics problems they routinely confront.

The trouble often stems from the fact that, in public interest law where clients do not pay for legal services, the economic incentives that …

Can The President Control The Department Of Justice?, Bruce Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Articles & Chapters

As the investigation into President Trump's campaign ties to Russia grows increasingly intense, it is critical to understand how much control the President has over the Attorney General and the Department of Justice. Some critics claim that the President has absolute power to direct federal prosecutors and control their decisions. The President and his lawyers, joined by several scholars, take this claim one step further by arguing that the chief executive could not be guilty of obstruction of justice because his control over all prosecutorial decisions is absolute. This issue last arose during the Nixon Administration. The Department of Justice …

The Impact Of Global Developments On U.S. Legal Ethics During The Past Thirty Years, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This Essay is written to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. After exploring what the world of legal ethics looked like thirty years ago, this Essay analyzes how global developments have affected U.S. lawyer regulation and legal ethics dialogue since that time. It does so in several different ways. It begins by analyzing the growth pattern of articles publised in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics that have addressed or been influenced by global developments. The Essay continues by identifying global societal developments, global legal developments, and global dialogue that have contributed to the …

Symposium On A Free Press And A Fair Trial - Introduction, Donald W. Dowd

Donald W. Dowd

No abstract provided.

What We Know And Need To Know About Pro Bono Service Delivery, April Faith-Slaker

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

What We Know And Need To Know About Online Dispute Resolution, Ethan Katsh, Colin Rule

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lessons Learned By An Interdisciplinary Research Team Evaluating Medical-Legal Partnership With The Department Of Veterans Affairs, Margaret Middleton, Jack Tsai, Robert Rosenheck

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

What We Know And Need To Know About Gamification And Online Engagement, Stephanie Kimbro

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

When It Comes To Lawyers, Is An Ounce Of Prevention Worth A Pound Of Cure, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This 3-page blog post addresses the topic of proactive lawyer regulation, which is also known as proactive management-based regulation or PMBR. This blog post reviews Professor Susan Fortney's article entitled "Promoting Public Protection through an “Attorney Integrity” System: Lessons from the Australian Experience with Proactive Regulation System," and summarizes some of the impressive data that Professor Fortney collected in Australia, including her finding that sixty-two percent of the respondents reported that they agreed or strongly agreed with the following statement: the self-assessment process ‘was a learning exercise that enabled our firm to improve client service.’” The article also reports that …

The Power Of Lawyer Regulators To Increase Client & Public Protection Through Adoption Of A Proactive Regulation System, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This Article focuses on those who regulate U.S. laywers. The Article argues that the lawyers who head regulatory bodies in the United States have the ability to adjust the focus of the regulator for which they work in a way that will increase client and public protection. The Article further argues that it is appropriate for lawyers in these positions to exercise this power and that they should do so. The Article concludes by offering two concrete recommendations.

The first recommendation is that those who are in charge should, upon reflection, adopt a mindset in which they recognize that the …

Revisiting Antigone's Dilemma: Why The Model Rules Of Professional Conduct Need To Become Model Presumptions That Can Be Rebutted By Acts Of Ethical Discretion, Gurney Pearsall

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Moral Lawyer And The Machiavellian Nature Of Law Practice, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

In Western culture the name Niccolo Machiavelli has become Machiavellianism, a pejorative signifying the willingness to do anything to achieve desired ends. American lawyers do have limits, however, and are expected to operate according to an ethical code that is at least intended to prevent the worst abuses. The effectiveness of this ethical code has often been questioned, as have the questionable efforts of the organized bar to enforce its rules, but on the surface it differentiates law practice from hand-to-hand combat and military struggles. Even though I have sometimes used the concepts of the warrior lawyer, the general and …

Dr Ethics Book Brings It All Together, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

Dispute resolution practice has changed dramatically over the past several decades. The traditional litigation model has increasingly given way to a “multi-door” vision of varied dispute resolution practices. With that functional change in how we process disputes has come a pressing need to address the varied ethical challenges of these varied practices. Dispute Resolution Ethics is a marvelous contribution toward that effort.

The Codification Of Professionalism: Can You Sanction Lawyers Into Being Nice?, Debra Moss Curtis

Debra Moss Curtis

On October 31, 2013, the Florida Supreme Court in The Florida Bar v. Norkin made it clear that “it wants the trend of escalating incivility among lawyers to stop.” With that decision, in which a lawyer was suspended and publicly reprimanded for his behavior, the court urged “Members of the Florida Bar, law professors, and law students should study” this case “as a glaring example of unprofessional behavior.” This article heeds the courts’ directive to do so, but also places it in the context of the movement to enhance professionalism statewide.At the heart of the professionalism movement is a conflict—between …

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

Using Occam’S Razor To Solve International Attorney-Client Privilege Choice Of Law Issues: An Old Solution To A New Problem, Nathan M. Crystal, Francesca Giannoni-Crystal

Nathan M. Crystal

The practice of law is increasingly becoming “delocalized.” Globalization and the use of technology are two important factors in this fundamental change in practice. Delocalization is affecting almost all areas of practice, including issues involving attorney-client privilege (ACP). To some extent the choice-of-law rules governing ACP are also – like other fields of the law - being “delocalized,” but in our view only partially. This paper discusses six approaches to choice of law issues governing ACP that are being used by the courts. Aside from the traditional lex loci approach (which simply applies the law of the forum to the …

Information Overload, Multi-Tasking, And The Socially Networked Jury: Why Prosecutors Should Approach The Media Gingerly, Andrew E. Taslitz

School of Law Faculty Publications

The rise of computer technology, the internet, rapid news dissemination, multi-tasking, and social networking have wrought changes in human psychology that alter how we process news media. More specifically, news coverage of high-profile trials necessarily focuses on emotionally-overwrought, attention-grabbing information disseminated to a public having little ability to process that information critically. The public’s capacity for empathy is likewise reduced, making it harder for trial processes to overcome the unfair prejudice created by the high-profile trial. Market forces magnify these changes. Free speech concerns limit the ability of the law to alter media coverage directly, and the tools available to …

The Hypocrisy Of "Equal But Separate" In The Courtroom: A Lens For The Civil Rights Era, Jaimie K. Mcfarlin

Jaimie K. McFarlin

This article serves to examine the role of the courthouse during the Jim Crow Era and the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement, as courthouses fulfilled their dual function of minstreling Plessy’s call for “equality under the law” and orchestrating overt segregation.

Water Law-Gged: The Muddy Relationship Between Water Law, The Environment, And Economic Development Introduction, Josh Eagle, Matthew W. Orville

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulating Mediators, Art Hinshaw

Art Hinshaw

Currently consumers engage mediators on a caveat emptor basis. The regulatory scheme for mediators is, at best, a disjointed patchwork of organizations that make mediation referrals which allows unscrupulous mediators to exploit consumers and hide in the system’s holes. One egregious example of abuse comes from Gary J. Karpin, a disbarred lawyer turned divorce mediator, who is believed to have used the mediation process to con hundreds of people into giving him an estimated $1 million before taking up residence in prison. His con was so successful in part because there was no natural place for his victims to turn …

Compensation Forfeiture: Stacking Remedies Against Disloyal Agents And Employees, George P. Roach

George P Roach

Compensation Forfeiture:

Stacking Remedies Against Disloyal Agents and Employees

Abstract

Four cases against outlaw CEO’s who defrauded their companies are reviewed to show the major impact that compensation forfeiture contributes to the total package of remedies awarded. The dual goals of remedies for breach of fiduciary duty of compensation and deterrence result in multiple remedies, generally including a remedy at law to compensate and a remedy in equity to disgorge any benefit from the breach. For claims that the fiduciary or agent breached her duty of loyalty, a third remedy of compensation forfeiture can be added or ‘stacked’ on top …

Virtuous Billing, Nancy B. Rapoport, Randy D. Gordon

Nancy B. Rapoport

Aristotle tells us, in his Nicomachean Ethics, that we become ethical by building good habits and we become unethical by building bad habits: “excellence of character results from habit, whence it has acquired its name (êthikê) by a slight modification of the word ethos (habit).” Excellence of character comes from following the right habits. Thinking of ethics as habit-forming may sound unusual to the modern mind, but not to Aristotle or the medieval thinkers who grew up in his long shadow. “Habit” in Greek is “ethos,” from which we get our modern word, “ethical.” In Latin, habits are moralis, which …

The American Law School And Nine Elements Of “Thinking Like A Lawyer”, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

The idea of “thinking like a lawyer” represents a form that combines strategic analysis, assessment and action. At this point my analysis takes an unusual step and seeks to enhance our understanding through use of a seemingly “exotic” framework. In A Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi describes nine points a strategist must master. I have long thought these points represent the true meaning and composition of what it means when we say “thinking like a lawyer” and am offering them here as a focusing device. Musashi’s nine elements are: 1). Do not think dishonestly; 2). Become acquainted with every …

Negotiator's Nook: The Ins And Outs Of Effective Negotiation, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.