Law Commons^™

Professional Identity: Comment On Simon, Daniel C. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

Lord Brougham – the icon of zealous advocacy, who saw it as his duty to “save [his royal] client by all means and expedients and at all hazards and costs to other persons and, among them, to himself” – would not last long in a Cuban criminal court today. The question is, how comfortable would he be in a drug treatment court? Could he do his job? How well would he do it? Would he want to? And should we care if he couldn't and wouldn't?

These are all questions raised by William Simon's trenchant exploration of the challenges that …

Punishment, Proportionality, And Jurisdictional Transfer Of Adolescent Offenders: A Test Of The Leniency Gap Hypothesis, Aaron Kupchik, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Akiva Liberman

Faculty Scholarship

In the past two decades, nearly every state has expanded its authority and simplified its procedures to transfer adolescent offenders from juvenile to criminal (adult) courts. As a result, the use of jurisdictional transfer has grown steadily. These developments reflect popular and political concerns that punishment in juvenile courts is too lenient for serious crimes committed by adolescents. Yet there is mixed evidence that expanded transfer authority has produced more certain or severe punishments for adolescents prosecuted in criminal courts. Some empirical studies show that adolescents transferred to criminal court are more likely to be convicted, sentenced to prison, and …

Why Defenders Feel Defensive, Jane M. Spinak

Faculty Scholarship

The newest version of problem-solving courts has scarcely reached adolescence. Many of these courts remain in the "model" stage, attempting to create a structure and vision that will have a transformative, systemic effect. Others, drug courts in particular, have proliferated across the country and are on the verge of going to scale in many states. Lawyers representing individual clients in these courts are struggling to identify, define and perform their professional duties, at the same time that the courts are being created. To understand why it is a struggle, we need to contextualize the lawyers' experiences: what is it about …