Law Commons^™

Where's Rudy?, James E. Moliterno

Scholarly Articles

Choice of law in lawyer discipline matters, and the language among the popular choice of law rules in use matters. The core goals of choice of law principles should not limit the choices to the states in which a lawyer has a full, formal license. Doing so undermines the modern choice of law interests analysis by eliminating jurisdictions that may have the greatest interest in the conduct.

Lawyers cross borders physically and electronically on a daily basis. Accordingly, choice of law rules are critical, especially when a lawyer engages in missions that are targeted at particular jurisdictions, as Rudy Giuliani …

The Trump Administration Should Have Attorney Whistleblowers, Carliss N. Chatman

Scholarly Articles

In the Godfather trilogy, lawyers do most of their work outside of the courtroom. The family’s lawyer, Tom Hagen, has the title of consigliere, serving as the boss’s right-hand man. He is legal counsel and also assists with business management and planning. This includes operation of the family’s criminal enterprise. In The Godfather, a lawyer is a fixer, an enforcer, and a collaborator. This conceptualization of the attorney role is not only unethical, it is illegal. Yet, it is the role currently assumed by our Attorney General, William “Bill” Barr, and White House Counsel, Pasquale “Pat” Cipollone. Although both …

Reshaping Third-Party Funding, Victoria Sahani

Scholarly Articles

Third-party funding is a controversial business arrangement whereby an outside entity—called a third-party funder—finances the legal representation of a party involved in litigation or arbitration or finances a law firm’s portfolio of cases in return for a profit. Attorney ethics regulations and other laws permit nonlawyers to become partial owners of law firms in the District of Columbia, England and Wales, Scotland, Australia, two provinces in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and other jurisdictions around the world. Recently, a U.S.-based third-party funder that is publicly traded in England started its own law firm in England. In addition, some U.S. …

Why Lawyers Do What They Do (When Behaving Ethically), James E. Moliterno

Scholarly Articles

Since the early 1990s, when David Wilkins published his influential paper “Who Should Govern Lawyers” in the Harvard Law Review, legal ethics scholars and professors have paid attention to the range of processes and devices that govern lawyer behavior. This Article will report on the results of a study currently underway that seeks to provide empirical evidence to answer the question posed in this Article’s title: Do lawyers train staff in confidentiality preservation because they fear bar discipline? Because they fear malpractice liability? Because they must comply with malpractice liability carrier demands? Because they honor client confidences for their own …

Ethics 20/20 Successfully Achieved Its Mission: It "Protected, Preserved, And Maintained", James E. Moliterno

Scholarly Articles

The legal profession tends to look inward and backward when faced with crisis and uncertainty. The legal profession could make greater advances by looking outward and forward to find in society and culture the causes of and connections with the legal profession’s crises. Doing so would allow the profession to grow with society, solve problems with rather than against the flow of society, and be more attuned to the society the profession claims to serve.

Exporting American Legal Ethics, James E. Moliterno

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Candor, Zeal, And The Substitution Of Judgment: Ethics And The Mentally Ill Criminal Defendant, John D. King

Scholarly Articles

This Article explores the tension between autonomy and paternalism that characterizes the attorney-client relationship when a criminal defense attorney represents a mentally impaired client. Specifically, the Article analyzes the ethical frameworks that constrain the discretion of the attorney in this situation and proposes a new paradigm for ethical decisionmaking when an attorney represents a marginally competent client.

The criminal defense attorney is both a zealous advocate for her client and an officer of the legal system. In representing a marginally competent client, the initial ethical dilemma facing the attorney is whether she has an obligation to alert the court to …

The Audit Committee's Ethical And Legal Responsibilities: The State Law Perspective, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Scholarly Articles

This paper provides a state law perspective on the post-scandal, post-reform audit committee. Federal law, along with NYSE and Nasdaq (together, "SRO") rules, recently have made sweeping changes in corporate governance, including numerous provisions that bear on audit committees. These changes are unprecedented and dramatic, and rightly have received wide attention and careful study. Certain basic principles underlying the governance functions and duties of audit committees, however, originate in, and are still determined by, state law. Moreover, state law applies to all corporations; federal law and SRO rules on audit committees apply only to those companies coming under federal law …