Law Commons^™

The Making Of The Supreme Court Bar: How Business Created A Solicitor General For The Private Sector, Jeremy Pilaar

Michigan Law Review Online

This Essay tells a simple but important story about power and the law: that of the rise of the modern Supreme Court bar. Since 1985, a small cadre of private attorneys has come to dominate Court advocacy. While the share of lawyers making their first arguments before the justices fell from 76% to 43% between 1980 and 2007, the fraction with ten or more arguments under their belt rose from 2% to 28%. Similarly, while litigators with five or more previous arguments were responsible for 5.8% of the case petitions granted in October Term 1980, that quotient soared to 55.5% …

Incentivizing Lawyers To Play Nice: A National Survey Of Civility Standards And Options For Enforcement, Cheryl B. Preston, Hilary Lawrence

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the last decade, most commentators assume that lawyers’ behavior is now diving to new lows, notwithstanding a flurry of professionalism and civility creeds adopted in the 1980s and 1990s. Proponents of making such creeds enforceable argue that a return to professionalism may improve lawyers’ well-being, restore the public’s confidence in lawyers, and raise the expectations of behavior, not only with respect to civility but also with respect to violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct (hereinafter, as adapted in various jurisdictions, the Rules of Professional Conduct or the Model Rules)

The Higher Calling: Regulation Of Lawyers Post-Enron, Keith R. Fisher

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article discusses some of the inadequacies in the current ethical regulation of the legal system and proposes a new approach to crafting and contextualizing rules of legal ethics. The proliferation of specialties and subspecialties in law practice, together with the inadequacies of prevailing ethics regulation and the vagaries of ethics rules formulations from state to state have not served either the public or the legal profession well. Manipulation, motivated by politics and self-interest, of the ideology of the organized bar to adhere to ethical rules predicated on an antiquated and unrealistic model of a unified legal profession has likewise …

Main Street Multidisciplinary Practice Firms: Laboratories For The Future, Susan Poser

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article examines the debate over multidisciplinary practice in the wake of the collapse of Enron and Arthur Andersen. Part I addresses the history of the scholarly debate about multidisciplinary practice in the United States. It discusses the focus on large multidisciplinary firms, feared threats to independent professional judgment, and the current rule concerning lawyers and multidisciplinary practice.

Part II examines the reasons for allowing multidisciplinary practice. The author argues that client demand, lawyer demand, and policy reasons all provide valid reasons for permitting "one-stop" shopping. Part I also discusses existing forms of multidisciplinary practice. The author argues that the …

The Impact Of The Americans With Disabilities Act On State Bar Examiner's Inquiries Into The Psychological History Of Bar Applicants, Carol J. Banta

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that the use of any questions based upon an applicant's psychological history in the state bar application process violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Part I demonstrates that Title II of the ADA applies to state boards of bar examiners, and that the ADA definition of a person with a disability includes a person who has sought or received psychological counseling. Part II applies the ADA and accompanying regulations to the psychological history inquiries currently used by state bar examiners and argues that such inquiries violate the ADA because they inquire specifically about disabled status. Part III …

The Bar In America: The Role Of Elitism In A Liberal Democracy, Philip S. Stamatakos

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note argues that liberal democracy, the free market, and science have contributed to the increasing atomization of American society. When each person and her views are glorified, universal standards of good become undermined, values become relative, and a sense of community becomes evanescent. Part II argues that individualism is incapable of accounting for the commonweal and therefore is inherently amoral because morality is concerned largely with determining when an individual's will should be subservient to the will of others. Part III considers the nature of elitism and equality and attributes the demise of elitist institutions in …

The Sherman Act And Bar Admission Residence Requirements, Harvey Freedenberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article will focus on the restrictive aspects of residence qualifications for admission to the state bar. Such restrictions are significant in three cases: initial admission to the bar, relocation by a foreign attorney, and multistate practice by an attorney admitted to the bar in another state. An attempt will be made to determine whether these requirements might be invalid under the Sherman Act and to analyze the case for their abolition. The commercial counterpart of professional entry restrictions has been termed "the very essence of monopoly,” and on this basis it is submitted that further freedom from antitrust scrutiny …

The Constitutionality Of State Residency Requirements For Admission To The Bar, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

There has been controversy in the lower federal courts concerning durational residency requirements and one recent state court challenge of a simple residency requirement. This Note will discuss the constitutional validity of these requirements in the face of equal protection attacks, concentrating on the extent to which such requirements are justified by the interests of state courts in maintaining the integrity of their legal systems.

Lay Divorce Firms And The Unauthorized Practice Of Law, Arthur R. Miller

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Effective January 1, 1972, Michigan adopted a no-fault divorce law. Since that time, at least two firms in the Detroit area have gone into the business of providing assistance to people wishing to process their own divorces. These enterprises, which have been dubbed divorce firms or divorce kit firms, have come under heavy attack from the organized bar. The State Bar of Michigan has instituted court proceedings against one firm for the unauthorized practice of law, and a court on its own initiative has already issued an injunction against the other. These cases raise two important issues: whether the divorce …