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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Word Is "Humility": Why The Supreme Court Needed To Adopt A Code Of Judicial Ethics, Laurie L. Levenson Apr 2024

The Word Is "Humility": Why The Supreme Court Needed To Adopt A Code Of Judicial Ethics, Laurie L. Levenson

Pepperdine Law Review

The Supreme Court is one of our most precious institutions. However, for the last few years, American confidence in the Court has dropped to a new low. Less than 40% of Americans have confidence in the Court and its decisions. Recent revelations regarding luxury trips, gifts, and exclusive access for certain individuals to the Justices have raised questions about whether the Justices understand their basic ethical duties and can act in a fair and impartial manner. As commentators have noted, the Supreme Court stood as the only court in America that was not governed by an ethical code. The question …


Judicial Fidelity, Caprice L. Roberts Jan 2024

Judicial Fidelity, Caprice L. Roberts

Pepperdine Law Review

Judicial critics abound. Some say the rule of law is dead across all three branches of government. Four are dead if you count the media as the fourth estate. All are in trouble, even if one approves of each branch’s headlines, but none of them are dead. Not yet. Pundits and scholars see the latest term of the Supreme Court as clear evidence of partisan politics and unbridled power. They decry an upheaval of laws and norms demonstrating the dire situation across the federal judiciary. Democracy is not dead even when the Court issues opinions that overturn precedent, upends long-standing …


Employment Arbitration Agreements: The Case For Ethical Standards For Dispute Resolution System Designers, Michael L. Russell Apr 2021

Employment Arbitration Agreements: The Case For Ethical Standards For Dispute Resolution System Designers, Michael L. Russell

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Dispute resolution design is an emerging field, both academically and professionally. Attorneys, mediators, and arbitrators, the other roles in the alternative dispute resolution process, have codes of ethics which guide their conduct. Dispute resolution designers, however, have no such guidelines. This article uses the example of mandatory arbitration agreements in the employment context to illustrate why this lack of ethical guidelines for dispute resolutions designers is problematic. In recent years, mandatory arbitration agreements significantly impacted employment law and litigation. The two most problematic provisions that often appear in mandatory arbitration agreements in the workplace context are cost sharing provisions and …


Ethical Implications Of Forensic Genealogy In Criminal Cases, Solana Lund May 2020

Ethical Implications Of Forensic Genealogy In Criminal Cases, Solana Lund

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

The use of forensic genealogy to solve criminal cases is likely to increase in the coming years, especially given its success in solving cold cases. While its potential for good is impressive, there are also legitimate ethical concerns that need to be addressed. As society sees an increase in the use of forensic genealogy and DTC databases in criminal investigations as well as an increase in the media attention it garners, there will be more discussion regarding ethical implications. Legal scholars say that it is only a matter of time before courts weigh in on the privacy of DNA and …


"Agape" And The Life And Work Of Robert F. Cochran, Jr., Angela C. Carmella Mar 2020

"Agape" And The Life And Work Of Robert F. Cochran, Jr., Angela C. Carmella

Pepperdine Law Review

The life and work of Robert Cochran can be summed up in one word: discipleship. Professor Cochran’s work reflects deeply on Jesus’s words and ministry—His agapic love for all humanity—as they relate to the substance of law and its administration. Professor Cochran’s work establishes two important principles: the need to focus on Jesus’s love as the starting place for analysis and the need to reclaim justice as a central Christian concept. His many volumes help us to understand how it is possible to comprehend lawmaking as an act of agapic love. Further, they provide a roadmap for the Christian’s journey, …


Drawing The Line: Can Lawyers Invest In Their Client's Business Without Crossing An Ethical Line?, Ali Ghassemi Jan 2020

Drawing The Line: Can Lawyers Invest In Their Client's Business Without Crossing An Ethical Line?, Ali Ghassemi

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

I will begin with a look inside the history of entrepreneurship and its rise and decline throughout various times in our country’s history. I will then shift the focus towards the history of startup companies and what the modern trend is today in startups. After laying the foundation for startups, I will look into the complexities of creating a startup company and looking at the role that attorneys play in the lifetime of startups. From there, I will dive into the history and trend of lawyers who have invested in their client’s companies - through direct investment or bartering by …


Financial Misconduct, Ethical Theory, And Regulatory Ethics— Promoting Accountability, P. M. Vasudev Apr 2016

Financial Misconduct, Ethical Theory, And Regulatory Ethics— Promoting Accountability, P. M. Vasudev

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This paper examines developments in the financial sector and identifies a role for regulatory ethics in promoting integrity and accountability. In this effort, the paper also explores theoretical perspectives in ethics and how they can shape business behavior. Specifically, the article proposes corporate codes of ethics, a mandatory requirement under the New York Stock Exchange Listing Rules, as instruments to promote morality in corporate conduct. Ethics codes, which are internally generated, must be tailored to reflect the experience and made more effective. They can be amplified to specify standards to govern the fiduciary duty of care applicable to executives, personal …


The Glucose Model Of Mediation: Physiological Bases Of Willpower As Important Explanations For Common Mediation Behavior, Roy F. Baumeister, W. Scott Simpson, Stephen J. Ware, Daniel S. Weber Feb 2016

The Glucose Model Of Mediation: Physiological Bases Of Willpower As Important Explanations For Common Mediation Behavior, Roy F. Baumeister, W. Scott Simpson, Stephen J. Ware, Daniel S. Weber

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Success in life requires the ability to resist urges and control behavior. This ability is commonly called “willpower,” the capacity to overcome impulses and engage in conscious acts of self-control. Social psychologists believe willpower is a finite resource dependent on physiological bases including glucose (from food and drink), sleep and other forms of rest, and the absence of stress. In short, people who are hungry, exhausted, or highly stressed tend to have less willpower than those who are well-fed, well-rested, and relatively stress-free. In addition, a person who exerts self-control (uses willpower) tends to reduce temporarily the amount of willpower …


“Because That's Where The Money Is”: A Theory Of Corporate Legal Compliance, William C. Bradford Sep 2015

“Because That's Where The Money Is”: A Theory Of Corporate Legal Compliance, William C. Bradford

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

The study and regulation of firms per se as agents of compliance may be misguided. Firms are abstractions that exist only in the legal, and not the natural, sense, and, as such, utterly lack decisional capacity. Firms do not decide whether to comply with law; people, specifically officers who exercise decisional authority on their behalf, do. Any theory that would explain or predict firm compliance must account for the individual level of analysis. However, most corporate legal compliance research minimizes the salience of personality. Accordingly, Part II traces associations between personalities of CEOs and firm compliance with obligations arising under …


Uniform Alternative Dispute Resolution: The Answer To Preventing Unscrupulous Agent Activity, Scott Kestenbaum Sep 2014

Uniform Alternative Dispute Resolution: The Answer To Preventing Unscrupulous Agent Activity, Scott Kestenbaum

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This Note addresses whether there should be an arbitration and mediation section added to both the Uniform Athlete Agent Act (UAAA), and Sports Agent Responsibility and Trust Act (SPARTA) to establish a uniform dispute resolution process for dealing with unscrupulous acts of athlete agents. This issue is distinctive because while all four professional sports leagues’ players associations have specific arbitration procedures in their athlete agent regulations, the two statutes governing athlete agent conduct do not adopt a uniform policy relating to arbitration procedures. This Note addresses the prior history of state and federal legislation pertaining to an athlete agent, including …


Crisis On The Immigration Bench: An Ethical Perspective, Michele Benedetto Apr 2013

Crisis On The Immigration Bench: An Ethical Perspective, Michele Benedetto

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

The troubled status of the immigration court system has garnered much attention from scholars, appellate judges, and even the United States Attorney General. This article suggests a new lens through which to examine the acknowledged crisis in immigration courts: judicial ethics. Because the term judicial ethics encompasses a broad array of principles, the article narrows its focus to bias and incompetence on the part of immigration judges in the courtroom. Immigration judges operate as a unique judiciary under the Executive Branch of government. An examination of the modern immigration court system, including inadequate disciplinary procedures for immigration judges, reveals that …


Chasing The Atticus Code - Preserving Adjudication Integrity In Local Administrative Hearings , Michael N. Widener Mar 2013

Chasing The Atticus Code - Preserving Adjudication Integrity In Local Administrative Hearings , Michael N. Widener

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

In the United States administrative law realm, there purportedly exist more than 19 thousand municipal governments, 16 thousand town or township governments; three thousand county governments, 13 thousand school districts and 35 thousand special district governments. This essay argues that these local adjudicative loci largely neglect the ethical guidance or direction of lawyers serving in government-official capacities without holding elected nor judicial positions. I dub these decision-makers “Atticus.” Citizens support the notion of external codes of professional responsibility for such persons not necessarily because they believe that “lawyering rules” are well constructed or property enforced, but because they doubt lawyers …


How To Make Rules For Lawyers: The Professional Responsibility Of The Legal Profession, Stephen Gillers Feb 2013

How To Make Rules For Lawyers: The Professional Responsibility Of The Legal Profession, Stephen Gillers

Pepperdine Law Review

When considering the professional responsibilities of American lawyers, two questions often arise: (1) whether a particular rule strikes the right balance among the multiple interests it purports to reconcile and (2) whether in a particular circumstance a lawyer's or law firm's behavior complied with the governing rules. This article explores a third question. What is the responsibility of the profession itself when, through its various institutions and especially bar associations, it asks courts, lawmakers, or agencies to adopt particular rules governing the conduct of lawyers? Rather than exploring the discussing the conduct of individual lawyers or the correctness of any …


An Incompetent's Right To Withdraw From Treatment: Cruzan V. Missouri Department Of Health , Mary A. Watson Nov 2012

An Incompetent's Right To Withdraw From Treatment: Cruzan V. Missouri Department Of Health , Mary A. Watson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Ethics In Legal Education: An Augmentation Of Legal Realism, Gerald R. Ferrera Nov 2012

Ethics In Legal Education: An Augmentation Of Legal Realism, Gerald R. Ferrera

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Corporations As Ships: An Inquiry Into Personal Accountability And Institutional Legitimacy , Art Wolfe Nov 2012

Corporations As Ships: An Inquiry Into Personal Accountability And Institutional Legitimacy , Art Wolfe

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


According To An Unnamed Official: Reconsidering The Consequences Of Confidential Source Agreements When Promises Are Broken By The Press, Peri Z. Hansen Nov 2012

According To An Unnamed Official: Reconsidering The Consequences Of Confidential Source Agreements When Promises Are Broken By The Press, Peri Z. Hansen

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Scholastic Steroids: Is Generation Rx Cognitively Cheating? , Kelline R. Linton Sep 2012

Scholastic Steroids: Is Generation Rx Cognitively Cheating? , Kelline R. Linton

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Leveraging The Dialectical Theory In Case Study Analysis: Genzyme's Ethical Dilemma, Andrei Duta Sep 2012

Leveraging The Dialectical Theory In Case Study Analysis: Genzyme's Ethical Dilemma, Andrei Duta

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This paper provides the theoretical framework for a case study that I share with students in my courses. The dialectical theory is used to analyze ethical conundrums pertaining to Genzyme, a successful bio-tech corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts that manufactures treatments for serious diseases such as kidney problems, immune diseases, and cancer. We discuss questions such as: is Genzyme acting unethically when averaging extremely high profit margins on drugs for rare diseases? Is the company taking advantage of the lack of pharmaceutical choices that patients have when addressing their ailments? The dialectical theory provides the framework and vocabulary for discussing, …


A Fatal Loss Of Balance: Dred Scott Revisited , Daniel A. Farber Aug 2012

A Fatal Loss Of Balance: Dred Scott Revisited , Daniel A. Farber

Pepperdine Law Review

This essay focuses on three aspects of the Dred Scott opinion: its effort to ensure that blacks could never be citizens, let alone equal ones; its deployment of a "limited government" argument for a narrow interpretation of Congress's enumerated power over the territories; and its path-breaking defense of property rights against government regulation. These constitutional tropes of racism, narrowing of federal power, and protection of property were to remain dominant for another seventy-five years. Apart from the failings of the opinion itself, Dred Scott also represents an extraordinary case of presidential tampering with the judicial process and a breakdown in …


Lawyer As Peacemaker: A Christian Response To Rambo Litigation, L. Timothy Perrin Mar 2012

Lawyer As Peacemaker: A Christian Response To Rambo Litigation, L. Timothy Perrin

Pepperdine Law Review

This article examines and critiques Rambo lawyering. The practice of law has evolved so that the cornerstone principle of client loyalty, together with the economic incentives inherent in law practice, not only create strong motivations for lawyers to pursue their clients' causes vigorously, but also allow lawyers to easily absolve themselves of any moral obligation for their activities as their clients' representatives. Vigorous advocacy is an indispensible part of the modern judicial system, and it is generally believed that truth and justice will be served as long as there are vigorous advocates on both sides and the profession's code of …


The Lawyer's Humble Walk, Mark Osler Mar 2012

The Lawyer's Humble Walk, Mark Osler

Pepperdine Law Review

A growing body of literature addresses the role faith plays in the work of many lawyers. This article argues that humility is the defining characteristic of the lawyer of faith.


Reflections On The Practice Of Law As A Religious Calling, From A Perspective Of Jewish Law And Ethics, Samuel J. Levine Mar 2012

Reflections On The Practice Of Law As A Religious Calling, From A Perspective Of Jewish Law And Ethics, Samuel J. Levine

Pepperdine Law Review

This Essay is based on introductory remarks Levine delivered at the inaugural conference of the Pepperdine Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics, "Can the Ordinary Practice of Law be a Religious Calling?," held on February 6-7, 2004 at Pepperdine University School of Law. In thinking about the practice of law as a religious calling, Levine argues that we should first consider the broader issue of the general relevance of religion to various areas of life, including work. From a perspective of Jewish law and ethics, moral conduct comprises an imperative at home and at the workplace no less than at …


Collaborative Lawyering: A Closer Look At An Emerging Practice, William H. Schwab Mar 2012

Collaborative Lawyering: A Closer Look At An Emerging Practice, William H. Schwab

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

A critical analysis of collaborative law (CL) is only now beginning, and should be based on actual, not hypothetical information about the practice and its impact on clients as courts, the bar, and the public begin to digest the idea of CL. This Article intends to present a more comprehensive picture of collaborative practice than is currently available, to better inform the ongoing conversation about what role CL will play in the legal system. Toward that end, the following sketches some basic questions about CL, and provides some preliminary answers. Part I recounts the origin of CL and introduces the …


Mediation By Judges: A New Phenomenon In The Transformation Of Justice , Louise Otis, Eric H. Reiter Mar 2012

Mediation By Judges: A New Phenomenon In The Transformation Of Justice , Louise Otis, Eric H. Reiter

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article has three principal parts. In the first, we present an overview of judicial mediation and how it responds to some of the perceived problems with the classical model of adjudication. In this analysis, we draw especially on the experience with judicial mediation at the appellate level at the Quebec Court of Appeal. In the second part, we examine the unfolding of the mediation process itself, using an annotated guide to judicial mediation to address broader issues of both practical and theoretical concern. In the third part, we consider the crucial question of ethics in mediation, signaling some of …


Illusory Ethics: Legal Barriers To An Ombudsman's Compliance With Accepted Ethical Standards, Scott C. Van Soye Feb 2012

Illusory Ethics: Legal Barriers To An Ombudsman's Compliance With Accepted Ethical Standards, Scott C. Van Soye

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

There are five general types of ombudsmen: classical, executive, corporate, educational, and newspaper. The first two types are appointed by governmental entities, while the last three are associated with private organizations. The American Bar Association has identified a sixth type of ombudsman, the advocate, whose responsibility it is to protect a vulnerable population, such as children or residents of long-term care facilities. But because the advocate ombudsman is appointed by the government, he or she is either a legislative or an executive ombudsman, and there is no reason to create a separate category. As the ombudsman concept has spread, professional …


The Strategic Relationship Between Ethics And Dispute Resolution: What Every Ceo Should Know, Mary L. Walker, R. Philip Deavel Feb 2012

The Strategic Relationship Between Ethics And Dispute Resolution: What Every Ceo Should Know, Mary L. Walker, R. Philip Deavel

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article advocates that there is a dynamic relationship between a values-based ethics program and a commitment to dispute resolution that can revolutionize the way we think about both. The United States Air Force is a global organization with many relationships, including those with other governments, other federal agencies, corporate contractors and its members and employees. Hence, these concepts are not academic to us-they are the lifeblood that allows us to successfully accomplish our mission. But they also have implications for our corporate partners. Why would we have an interest in how private corporations approach the subjects of ethics and …


Joining Forces In Search For Answers: The Use Of Therapeutic Jurisprudence In The Realm Of Mediation Ethics , Omer Shapira Feb 2012

Joining Forces In Search For Answers: The Use Of Therapeutic Jurisprudence In The Realm Of Mediation Ethics , Omer Shapira

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The Mediation process is part of the Alternative Dispute Resolution movement (ADR) whose modern history begins at the end of the 1970s. Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ) is a younger movement which has started to gain recognition in the 1990s. The two schools of thought share similarities, a fact which makes their study beneficial for both. This article explores some of those similarities in order to evaluate the possible contribution of TJ to mediation ethics. What is sought is a normative reading of the mediation process with the aid of the therapeutic lens. Such reading suggests, so it is argued, behavioral guidelines …