Law Commons^™

Federal Court Authority To Regulate Lawyers: A Practice In Search Of A Theory Of A, Fred C. Zacharias, Bruce A. Green

Vanderbilt Law Review

Federal courts regulate lawyers, including federal prosecutors, by enforcing various constitutional, statutory, and other legal constraints. Federal courts also adopt and enforce their own disciplinary rules pursuant to rule-making authority delegated by Congress. To what extent, however, do federal courts have independent power, in the absence of an explicit grant of authority, to regulate private lawyers and federal prosecutors? Although lower federal courts have long exercised power both to define and to sanction professional misconduct, the United States Supreme Court has never clarified the source and scope of this authority.

This issue is important for two reasons. First, most federal …

Contractual Choice Of Law And The Prudential Foundations Of Appellate Review, David Frisch

Vanderbilt Law Review

Within the past decade, professional organizations interested in making the law better suited to commercial transactions have begun to advocate the proposition that contracting parties should have almost unlimited power to choose the law to govern their relationship. The new choice-of-law framework resulting from these reform efforts will provide parties with an expanded menu of legal regimes from which to choose when drafting their contract and, in turn, will lead to a more frequent use of choice-of-law clauses. Indeed, some have even suggested that omitting such a clause may soon become malpractice for the commercial lawyer. Given both the trend …