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Articles 31 - 60 of 80
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Irony Of Lawyers' Justice In America, Thomas L. Shaffer
The Irony Of Lawyers' Justice In America, Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
Our pastor recently finished a pretty good sermon, on the Parable of the Good Samaritan, with a story of his own about a dangerous curve on the highway into town.
The Parable of the Dangerous Curve brought to my mind Deborah Rhode's thorough, thoughtful assessment of American lawyers in the twenty-first century, and Dean Kronman's eulogy for the lost lawyer. The good Samaritans who sought to straighten the dangerous road spoke of roadwork as Deborah Rhode speaks of what legislatures, judges, and bar associations should do about lawyers. Maybe they thought modern speed and paving had made it dangerous—yearning, as …
Divorce And The Catholic Lawyer, John J. Coughlin
Divorce And The Catholic Lawyer, John J. Coughlin
Journal Articles
On January 28, 2002, Pope John Paul II focused his annual address to the officials of the Roman Rota on the topic of the indissolubility of marriage. At the conclusion of this theological and canonical analysis, the Holy Father made a few short statements cautioning civil lawyers about divorces cases. The following day, a story in The New York Times carried the headline "John Paul Says Catholic Bar Must Refuse Divorce Cases." The article construed the pope's reference as a blanket prohibition against Catholic lawyers handling divorce cases. It further questioned whether the prohibition contradicted the Pontiff's prior emphasis on …
Jews, Christians, Lawyers, And Money, Thomas L. Shaffer
Jews, Christians, Lawyers, And Money, Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
Years ago, when I was the resident guru in legal ethics at Washington and Lee University, in the little mountain town of Lexington, Virginia, a reporter from the daily newspaper in Roanoke asked me to identify the most serious ethical issue for American lawyers. My answer: "Money."
Part of that answer reflected the fact that American lawyers make about twice as much money as lawyers in other "developed" countries. And American lawyers make, on the average, fifty percent more than average Americans do. (Reference to averages and means here do not reflect how steep the incline is from the middle …
Government Lawyers, Robert E. Rodes
Government Lawyers, Robert E. Rodes
Journal Articles
I am grateful to Professor Lee for the opportunity to comment on this fine set of papers regarding the ethical obligations of government lawyers. These papers shed light on many interesting aspects of serving the government. Professors Shaffer and Lee explore the peculiar challenges to integrity that a lawyer experiences when he has a client who can chop his head off. The challenges are less today, but a lawyer with large student loans to pay may not realize that they are. Professor Hazard points out that government lawyers are government employees with the responsibilities that government employment entails. Professor Green …
The Role Of The Law Review In The Tradition Of Judicial Scholarship, Kenneth F. Ripple
The Role Of The Law Review In The Tradition Of Judicial Scholarship, Kenneth F. Ripple
Journal Articles
This article explores one of the most important sources of judicial education, the law review. Part I first examines, by way of introduction, why continued intellectual growth is so important to the American jurist of today. It then sets forth the growth of the law review as an institution within the legal profession. Part II examines the various roles that law reviews play traditionally in the intellectual life of a judge and suggests, with respect to each, certain improvements in the judge-law review relationship designed both to enhance the effectiveness of the law review as an intellectual companion and to …
Competent Legal Writing - A Lawyer's Professional Responsibility, Debra R. Cohen
Competent Legal Writing - A Lawyer's Professional Responsibility, Debra R. Cohen
Journal Articles
The legal profession is constantly evolving to keep pace with our increasingly complex society.' Today, the legal profession "is larger and more diverse than ever before." Despite this transformation, "the law has remained a single profession identified with a perceived common body of learning, skills and values." This common body of learning, skills, and values constitutes the fundamental elements of competent representation. Writing is one of the essential skills of competent representation.
"Law is a profession of words." Lawyers use words, both written and oral, in a wide array of contexts-to advise, to advocate, to elicit information, to establish legal …
Meet My Mentors -- Janet Wallin And Caroline Heriot, Edmund P. Edmonds
Meet My Mentors -- Janet Wallin And Caroline Heriot, Edmund P. Edmonds
Journal Articles
In this article, Dean Ed Edmonds describes his relationship with two people who mentored him in his career as a legal librarian.
Shall - Take No. 2, Debra R. Cohen
On Living One Way In Town And Another Way At Home, Thomas L. Shaffer
On Living One Way In Town And Another Way At Home, Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
The title of this Lecture is from Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The occasion for the proposition is when the smalltown southern gentleman-lawyer Atticus Finch is given an opportunity to lie to protect his son from harm. He refuses. He says that the most important thing he has for his son is not protection but integrity. He says, "I can't live one way in town and another way in my home. "
The separation of town from home is an old one in the history of lawyers in America. When you trace the nineteenth-century development of legal ethics, …
Avocats Et Divorce Aux Etats-Unis: La Transformation Des Pratiques Professionnelles, Lynn M. Mather, Craig A. Mcewen, Richard J. Maiman
Avocats Et Divorce Aux Etats-Unis: La Transformation Des Pratiques Professionnelles, Lynn M. Mather, Craig A. Mcewen, Richard J. Maiman
Journal Articles
Les transformations sociales et les évolutions juridiques qui sont intervenues aux États-Unis depuis les années 60 ont eu de multiples effets sur le travail des avocats en matière de divorce. Le présent article analyse ces transformations en s'appuyant sur des entretiens avec des avocats et sur l'analyse de l'activité des tribunaux dans les États du Maine et du New Hampshire. Il souligne notamment l'importance que revêt l'accroissement du nombre des divorces parmi les couples ayant des ressources moyennes ou faibles. Il décrit aussi la féminisation rapide du barreau, une tendance qui se trouve particulièrement accentuée en ce qui concerne les …
On Teaching Legal Ethics In The Law Office, Thomas L. Shaffer
On Teaching Legal Ethics In The Law Office, Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
Edward J. Murphy, my teacher, colleague, and friend, was as devoted as anyone at Notre Dame could be, to a Christian law school on this campus. He announced a personal and institutional claim, and he expressed his hope as well, when he told our graduating law class, in 1994, that this is "a school which publicly and without apology proclaims its religious roots."
And he was as interested as anyone could be in identifying those religious roots, and exploring the implications of them for the practice of law at the end of the twentieth century in the United States of …
Closing Argument, James H. Seckinger
Closing Argument, James H. Seckinger
Journal Articles
To put closing argument in perspective, lawsuits are won or lost on the evidence and the law, not on the advocate's analytical and oratory skill. As pointed out by Broun and Seckinger: “This is not intended to minimize the importance of the closing argument. It is merely to relegate it to its proper position, which is a summation of the evidence that has preceded it and a relation of that evidence to the issues in the case.”
An effective closing is an argument, not a summation. An effective closing argument should attack the serious problems in a case and put …
Human Nature And Moral Responsibility In Lawyer-Client Relationships, Thomas L. Shaffer
Human Nature And Moral Responsibility In Lawyer-Client Relationships, Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
My interest here is ethics—whether observation, intuition, the ability to make appeals to human nature, and insight into the workings of the human heart are useful as guides for legal judgments in relationships between lawyers and clients. A modern American lawyer and her client use power as certainly as Solomon used power and, I suppose, are as manifestly subject to indirection in deciding how to use power as the kings of Israel were. In both cases the enterprise is undertaken, as W.H. Auden put it, on "a moral planet tamed by terror."
Lawyers, Mediation, And The Management Of Divorce Practice, Craig A. Mcewen, Lynn Mather, Richard J. Maiman
Lawyers, Mediation, And The Management Of Divorce Practice, Craig A. Mcewen, Lynn Mather, Richard J. Maiman
Journal Articles
Despite a widespread assumption that divorce mediation and divorce lawyers are incompatible, lawyers do play active-if largely unexamined-roles in many mediation programs. This article reports on the work of lawyers in a state with mandatory mediation. We find that lawyers in Maine have generally embraced mediation because it helps them manage problems inherent in divorce practice. Mandated divorce mediation facilitates both settlement negotiation and trial preparation, permits client participation in decisionmaking without requiring lawyers to surrender control, provides a forum for resolving both legal and nonlegal issues, and promotes efficient case management.
Growing Up Good In Maycomb, Thomas L. Shaffer
Growing Up Good In Maycomb, Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
"I am the sum total of those who preceded me," Elie Wiesel wrote recently, "and so are you. Am I responsible for what all of them have done before I came into this world? No. But I am responsible for what I am doing with the memory of what they have done."
Jean Louise Finch (Scout), her brother Jeremy, their summer friend Dill, who comes to them from Meridian, Mississippi, and their school friends from the town and the farms around Maycomb grew up in memory and learned, or failed to learn, and accepted, or refused to accept, responsibility for …
Making Way For A New Standard: Women Redefine The "Ideal Professor", Margaret F. Brinig
Making Way For A New Standard: Women Redefine The "Ideal Professor", Margaret F. Brinig
Journal Articles
Unfortunately for most women, the profile of an ideal law professor is a married man with a stay-at-home wife. A profile very like that of ideal workers in other legal settings.
It is common knowledge that women who teach law, including very able and committed women, do not achieve tenure and promotion at the same rate as their male counterparts. Although some institutions actually discriminate against women, in most, women lag behind because the committees and administrators deciding promotion and tenure view all applicants through the same lens. Their focus is driven by their law school's need to compete with …
Professionalism And Community: A Response To Terrell And Wildman, Robert E. Rodes
Professionalism And Community: A Response To Terrell And Wildman, Robert E. Rodes
Journal Articles
Professor Terrell and Mr. Wildman have earned our gratitude with their sober, thoughtful, lucid, and honest contribution to the ongoing discussion of professionalism. They have examined the problems with a sharp and critical eye, placed them in a social and historical perspective, and offered modest but genuinely helpful suggestions for solving them. They are quite free from the obfuscation and bombast that often appear when people address this difficult subject. Best of all, they have resisted the temptation to draw an invidious distinction between a profession and a business - a distinction that is often presented in ways that no …
The French Legal Profession: A Prisoner Of Its Glorious Past?, Tang Thi Thanh Trai Le
The French Legal Profession: A Prisoner Of Its Glorious Past?, Tang Thi Thanh Trai Le
Journal Articles
In 1978 a French television poll queried 982 viewers as to their images of the French lawyer (avocat). Of those polled, less than five percent held a positive view of the avocat. Eighteen percent of the 940 persons who expressed a negative view of the avocat simply conveyed this impression in general terms, but the remainder were more precise. Forty-eight percent of the respondents felt that the avocat was a "money sucker"; fourteen percent saw him as a man without conscience; and another fourteen percent believed that he acted with impunity within his bar. Four percent considered the bar to …
A Judicial Clerkship 24 Years After Graduation: Or, How I Spent My Spring Sabbatical, Joseph P. Bauer
A Judicial Clerkship 24 Years After Graduation: Or, How I Spent My Spring Sabbatical, Joseph P. Bauer
Journal Articles
The career path of many law professors includes a judicial clerkship - typically, right after graduation. Almost all law professors have extolled the clerkship experience and have written letters of recommendation for students applying for those positions. While I fall into the latter category, I did not fall into the former - at least not until my recent sabbatical.
When I was a law student, I gave no thought to a clerkship, and none of my teachers encouraged me to pursue that route. (In fact, graduating in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, I thought mainly - like …
Inaugural Howard Lichtenstein Lecture In Legal Ethics: Lawyer Professionalism As A Moral Argument, Thomas L. Shaffer
Inaugural Howard Lichtenstein Lecture In Legal Ethics: Lawyer Professionalism As A Moral Argument, Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
The recurrent movement to call or recall lawyers to professionalism is a moral argument. It is an argument made to individual lawyers, a claim among lawyers, that professionalism has to do with being a good person.
I see two aspects to the claim that professionalism is a moral value: one aspect says to a person "be professional." It is an admonition to virtue. The other aspect says to a person, "be in the profession—be of it," with an appeal that seems familiar from other admonitions we have heard to align ourselves with groups that are supposed to make us better …
Presenting Expert Testimony, James H. Seckinger
Presenting Expert Testimony, James H. Seckinger
Journal Articles
Mindful that the readers of this Commentary include both experienced advocates as well as lawyers embarking on new careers in the courtroom, this author has divided the Commentary into two parts. The first part considers the seven touchstones for a persuasive direct examination of an expert witness. This discussion should be useful for the experienced and inexperienced advocate alike. The second part of the paper is intended as a primer on practical matters surrounding the selection, preparation, and presentation of an expert as a witness at trial. Experienced advocates may find in these pages confirmation of their practice concerning the …
Lawyers And Liberations, Robert E. Rodes
Lawyers And Liberations, Robert E. Rodes
Journal Articles
The Jesuit educational tradition stresses the importance of service to the community and especially to its underprivileged members. Much of the discussion at the Ignatian Year celebration held at St. Louis University centered on the role of the law school in the Jesuit educational tradition. However, I would like to propose that this discussion take on a much larger focus.
The ideas of community service, solidarity with the poor and professionalism within an ethical context, although integral to the Jesuit tradition, are relevant to society as a whole. Furthermore, integration of these concepts into law school education is merely a …
Women In The Lawyering Process: The Complications Of Categories, Judy Scales-Trent
Women In The Lawyering Process: The Complications Of Categories, Judy Scales-Trent
Journal Articles
No abstract provided.
Character And Community: Rispetto As A Virtue In The Tradition Of Italian-American Lawyers, Thomas L. Shaffer, Mary M. Shaffer
Character And Community: Rispetto As A Virtue In The Tradition Of Italian-American Lawyers, Thomas L. Shaffer, Mary M. Shaffer
Journal Articles
Our project is to contemplate a discrete piece of applied ethics in the American legal profession, a piece of what one might call Italian-American legal ethics. We propose to describe a moral value for which we will use the Italian word rispetto. Our understanding of rispetto is that it is a virtue, a good habit, through which the person learns, practices, teaches, and remembers his place within the family. We will argue here that the practice of this virtue will allow a modern lawyer to be in and of his or her civic and professional community without loss of dignity …
Should A Christian Lawyer Serve The Guilty?, Thomas L. Shaffer
Should A Christian Lawyer Serve The Guilty?, Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
People who teach or practice law are in some ways like public executioners or the Air Force officers who watch over the buttons that will send nuclear missiles into action: Other people, ordinary people, want to know what we do to overcome what seem to ordinary people to be moral obstacles to doing what we do.
What ordinary people say to lawyers, and what my students say when they first come to law school, when they are still more ordinary people than they are law students, is this: How can lawyers lend their skills and talents to the representation of …
Lawyers As Assimilators And Preservers, Thomas L. Shaffer, Mary M. Shaffer
Lawyers As Assimilators And Preservers, Thomas L. Shaffer, Mary M. Shaffer
Journal Articles
The United States, more than most nation-states, has a history of confrontations between one culture and another, and of law as a means of ending cultural confrontations. Again and again in America, our dominant Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture has dealt with an alien culture and, as the story is usually told, overcome it. The dominant culture has used the law to bring the vulnerable culture into conformity to what we have referred to as "the American way."
We want to suggest that such a legal figure has two ways of using his legal power to deal between cultures—ways that are different …
Law, Time, And Community, David M. Engel
Law, Time, And Community, David M. Engel
Journal Articles
Research concerning law and social change has almost always treated time as a universal constant and a baseline against which variations in behavior can be measured. Yet a significant literature exists demonstrating that researchers can also regard time as a socially constructed phenomenon requiring analytic interpretation in its own right. This article explores two aspects of the human experience of time that were especially important for the residents of a rural American community: the sense of time's iterative character and its linear or irreversible quality. These two ways of experiencing and conceptualizing time played a significant part in efforts by …
Forfeiture Of Legal Fees: Who Stands To Lose?, G. Robert Blakey
Forfeiture Of Legal Fees: Who Stands To Lose?, G. Robert Blakey
Journal Articles
It is widely accepted that criminals should not benefit from the fruits of their crime. But it is equally accepted that the accused are innocent until proven guilty. There are three alternatives currently being evaluated for determining how legal fees shall be paid for organized crime—free market, political decisions, or judiciary determinations. This Article presents the argument that clients who might possess illicit assets should be able to pay them to a lawyer rather than forfeit them to the government. It discusses how legal forfeiture is handled within the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations statute (RICO) and the Continuing Criminal …
On Being A Professional Elder, Thomas L. Shaffer
On Being A Professional Elder, Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
The Professional Elder gives their wisdom to the young in the hopes that the wisdom will enable them to do better than the elders had done. This concept is exemplified through literature and films. However, the Professional Elder—elders in the profession who serve as moral teachers to the young—has diminished over time. This Article seeks to explain how the role of the professional elder has changed over time and the problems with the modern gentlemen’s ethic. He proposes that professional elders can return to serving as authoritative moral teachers through liberal learning and moral craftmanship.
Slippered Feet Aboard The African Queen, Thomas L. Shaffer
Slippered Feet Aboard The African Queen, Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
Milner Ball, a professor, has characterized property ownership as “the apparatus of bulwark law.” This Article argues that that characterization was premature. The Author suggests that the bulwark-like difficulties in property law are less the essence of ownership than a perversion of ownership.