Law Commons^™

A Study Of Tax Lawyers Discussing Duties, Michelle M. Kwon, Michael Hatfield

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This Article reports the first qualitative empirical study of U.S. tax lawyers. We interviewed women lawyers who were tax planning specialists. Though this is the first such study of U.S. tax lawyers, this methodology has been used often to study the professional ethics of other tax practitioners around the world. We had three research questions that we sought to answer through dynamic conversations on topics such as the distinctions between good and bad tax plans and good and bad tax lawyers and also the joys and stresses of tax practice. Our first research question was as to the make-up of …

Business Law And Lawyering In The Wake Of Covid-19, Joan Macleod Heminway

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The public arrival of COVID-19 (the novel coronavirus 2019) in the United States in early 2020 brought with it many social, political, and economic dislocations and pressures. These changes and stresses included and fostered adjustments in business law and the work of business lawyers. This article draws attention to these COVID-19 transformations as a socio-legal reflection on business lawyering, the provision of legal services in business settings, and professional responsibility in business law practice. While business law practitioners, like other lawyers, may have been ill-prepared for pandemic lawyering, we have seen them rise to the occasion to provide valuable services, …

Of Prosecutors And Prejudice (Or "Do Prosecutors Have An Ethical Obligation Not To Say Racist Stuff On Social Media?"), Alex B. Long

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Over the past few years, there have been numerous news stories about prosecutors posting racially inflammatory content on their social media accounts. There have also been several incidents in recent years in which prosecutors have commented on matters of public concern on social media in a way that is not overtly racist but nonetheless raises legitimate concerns over the prosecutors’ integrity and appreciation of the special role that prosecutors play. Concerns over the extent to which prosecutors bring their personal biases into the courtroom have only increased in recent years and have contributed to the doubts as to the overall …

Professional Responsibility In An Age Of Alternative Entities, Alternative Finance, And Alternative Facts, Joan Macleod Heminway

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Business lawyers in the United States find little in the way of robust, tailored guidance in most applicable bodies of rules governing their professional conduct. The relative lack of professional responsibility and ethics guidance for these lawyers is particularly troubling in light of two formidable challenges in business law: legal change and complexity. Change and complexity arise from exciting developments in the industry that invite — even entice — the participation of business lawyers.

This essay offers current examples from three different areas of business law practice that involve change and complexity. They are labeled: “Alternative Entities,” “Alternative Finance,” and …

The Lawyer As Public Figure For First Amendment Purposes, Alex B. Long

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Should lawyers be treated as public figures for purposes of defamation claims and, therefore, be subjected to a higher evidentiary standard of actual malice under the Supreme Court’s decision in New York Times v. Sullivan? The question of whether lawyers should be treated as public figures raises broad questions about the nature of defamation law and the legal profession. By examining the Supreme Court’s defamation jurisprudence through the lens of cases involving lawyers as plaintiffs, one can see the deficiencies and inconsistencies in the Court’s opinions more clearly. And by examining the Court’s defamation cases through this lens, one can …

Professionalism And Matthew Shardlake, Alex B. Long

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This Essay/Book Review examines the Matthew Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom. In particular, it examines the question of whether the sixteenth-century fictional lawyer Shardlake can serve as a role model for twenty-first-century lawyers, both in terms of his ethics and his professionalism. An examination of the Shardlake series as a whole yields some uncertain answers, both as to Shardlake and as to what it means to be an ethical and professional lawyer. This is ultimately part of what makes the series so enjoyable for lawyers.

The Tax Man's Ethics: Four Of The Hardest Ethical Questions For An Irs Lawyer, Michelle M. Kwon

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The traditional approach to legal ethics often is characterized to mean that lawyers must zealously advocate for their clients’ objectives tempered only by the bounds of the law. In contrast to the traditional approach, the public interest approach to legal ethics extends a government lawyer’s professional ethical duties from the agency client to the public at large to further the public interest. Commentators, in advocating either the traditional approach or the public interest approach to government lawyering, disagree about whether a government lawyer owes some sort of duty to the public and if so, the nature and scope of that …

Do Judges Systematically Favor The Interests Of The Legal Profession?, Benjamin H. Barton

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This Article answers this question with the following jurisprudential hypothesis. Many legal outcomes can be explained, and future cases predicted, by asking a very simple question: is there a plausible result in this case that will significantly affect the interests of the legal profession (positively or negatively)? If so, the case will be decided in the way that offers the best result for the legal profession.

The article presents theoretical support from the new institutionalism, cognitive psychology and economic theory. The Article then gathers and analyzes supporting cases from areas as diverse as constitutional law, torts, professional responsibility, employment law, …

The Business Of Law And Tortious Interference, Alex B. Long

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One frustrating feature of the interference torts is the difficulty in defining precisely when an intentional interference becomes "tortious." While there has been no shortage of proposals to better define the interference torts, there is widespread uncertainty and dissatisfaction concerning the current state of the law. Attorneys have not been spared from the confusion. However, it is on the business side of the practice of the law, rather than the practice side, that attorneys are more likely to actually be held liable for tortious interference. In general, a tortious interference claim is a viable option for an attorney who feels …

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

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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 …

An Institutional Analysis Of Lawyer Regulation: Who Should Control Lawyer Regulation - Courts, Legislatures, Or The Market, Benjamin H. Barton

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No abstract provided.