Law Commons^™

Legal Ethics, Code Of Conduct For Barristers And The Overriding Objective In Criminal Trials, Zia Akhtar

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The criminal lawyer has a duty to his client, to the court, and to the administration of justice. This must be accomplished within a framework of ethics comprised from codes of conduct regulating the legal profession. There are difficult ethical problems arising from conflicts between a lawyer’s responsibilities to clients, the legal system, and the disciplinary codes of the profession. In England, the barrister’s conduct is governed by the Bar Standard Board, and legal professionals must abide by the regulations that are imposed upon them when acting for their clients. The new Criminal Procedure Rules and …

Movement Lawyers: The Tension Between Solidarity And Independence, Catherine Fisk

Indiana Law Journal

Seeking to engage with scholars and activists who call for lawyer solidarity with social movements, this Essay considers professional ethics constraints on what a lawyer can justifiably do on behalf of clients in the name of solidarity with a movement. I consider whether the concept of solidarity, especially solidarity in the face of legal repression, justifies a movement lawyer in using tactics that would otherwise be grounds for legal prosecution, professional discipline, or moral condemnation. Drawing on the long history of legal repression of progressive activism, including repression of progressive lawyers, this Essay proposes a way to think about lawyers …

The Partnership Mystique: Law Firm Finance And Governance For The 21st Century American Law Firm, Maya Steinitz

William & Mary Law Review

This Article identifies and analyzes the de facto and de jure end of lawyers’ exclusivity over the practice of law in the United States. This development will have profound implications for the legal profession, the careers of individual lawyers, and the justice system as a whole.

First, the Article argues that various financial products that have recently flooded the legal market are functionally equivalent to investing in and owning law firms and create all the same governance challenges as allowing nonlawyers to directly own stock in law firms.

Second, the Article analyzes Arizona’s groundbreaking legalization of nonlawyer participation in law …

Reflections On Breen & Strang's A Light Unseen: A History Of Catholic Legal Education In The United States, Angela C. Carmella

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

In A Light Unseen: A History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States, Professor John Breen and Professor Lee Strang have undertaken a monumental task and have produced an impressive book, particularly with respect to the fascinating history of the development of Catholic legal education. They provide a thoughtful consideration of how Catholic law schools can be more distinctively Catholic and make a strong case for the critical need for more explicit curricular and scholarly integration of the Catholic intellectual tradition. In this Essay, I make suggestions in three areas: (1) on the record regarding failed efforts …

Tiptoeing Through The Landmines: The Evolution Of States’ Legal Ethics Authority Regarding Representing Cannabis Clients, Karen E. Boxx

Seattle University Law Review

Despite the continued federal classification of cannabis as an illegal drug, states have legalized the possession, use, production, and sale of cannabis. In order to do so, the states have created complex regulatory schemes to control and monitor the cannabis industry and satisfy the federal government concerns, such as use by minors and organized crime involvement. First, this Article presents the ethical dilemma of cannabis lawyering. Second, this Article describes the history, evolution, and current status of the various states’ pronouncements on a lawyer’s ethical duties with respect to the business and use of cannabis that may be legal under …

Contract Law And The Common Good, Brian H. Bix

William & Mary Business Law Review

In The Dignity of Commerce, Nathan Oman offers a theory of contract law that is largely descriptive, but also strongly normative. His theory presents contract law’s purpose as supporting robust markets. This Article compares and contrasts Oman’s argument about the proper understanding of contract law with one presented over eighty years earlier by Morris Cohen. Oman’s focus is on the connection between Contract Law and markets; Cohen’s connection had been between Contract Law and the public interest. Oman’s work brings back Cohen’s basic insight, and gives it a more concrete form, as a formidable normative theory with detailed prescriptions.

How Well Do We Treat Each Other In Contract?, Aditi Bagchi

William & Mary Business Law Review

One of the important contributions of Nathan Oman’s new book is to draw focus onto the quality of the relationships enabled by contract. He claims that contract, by supporting markets, cultivates certain virtues; helps facilitate cooperation among people with diverse commitments; and produces the wealth that may fuel interpersonal and social justice. These claims are all plausible, though subject to individual challenge. However, there is an alternative story to tell about the kinds of relationships that arise from markets--i.e., a story about domination. The experience of domination is driven in part by the necessity, inequality, and competition enjoined by markets, …

Happy Birthday Siri! Dialing In Legal Ethics For Artificial Intelligence, Smartphones, And Real Time Lawyers, Jan L. Jacobowitz

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Article explores the history of AI and the advantages and potential dangers of using AI to assist with legal research, administrative functions, contract drafting, case evaluation, and litigation strategy. This Article also provides an overview of security vulnerabilities attorneys should be aware of and the precautions that they should employ when using their smartphones (in both their personal and professional lives) in order to adequately protect confidential information. Finally, this Article concludes that lawyers who fail to explore the ethical use of AI in their practices may find themselves at a professional disadvantage and in dire ethical straits.

The …

“The Lost Lawyer” Regained: The Abiding Values Of The Legal Profession, Robert Maccrate

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Law Firm Economics And Professionalism, Ward Bower

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Both Dean Kronman in The Lost Lawyer and Professor Glendon in A Nation Under Lawyers attribute some of the problems and challenges facing lawyers today to economic pressures and to a preoccupation with profits and fees. For Kronman, this economic focus interferes with the “moral detachment” necessary for achievement of the “lawyer-statesman” ideal. For Glendon, professional dilemmas caused by the deterioration of the legal economy, competition in the marketplace, lawyer-shopping by clients, early specialization, lack of mentoring and emphasis on the billable hour have created an unhappy generation of ethically challenged practitioners.

Both authors accurately assess the state of the …

Lawyers In The Mist: The Golden Age Of Legal Nostalgia, Marc Galanter

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No one watching the contemporary furor over the litigation explosion and lawsuits devouring America can fail to be impressed by the power of folklore to overwhelm workaday organized social knowledge. Time and again, the protestations of bean-counters and skeptics are vanquished by stories about perverse institutions peopled by malingering plaintiffs, greedy lawyers, capricious jurors, and arrogant judges, proving yet again that it is not what is so that matters, but what people—at least for the moment—think is so. Tenacious belief may not make it so, but can have powerful effects.

In this essay I address another cluster of folklore about …

The Fault In Legal Ethics, Anthony T. Kronman

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Money Didn’T Buy Happiness, Lawrence J. Fox

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Lessons From Ferguson On Individual Defense Representation As A Tool Of Systemic Reform, Beth A. Colgan

William & Mary Law Review

This Article investigates the relationship between the decisions by lawmakers to use municipal and criminal systems to generate revenue and the lack of access to individual defense representation by using the Ferguson, Missouri, municipal court as a case study. The Article chronicles the myriad constitutional rights that were violated on a systemic basis in Ferguson’s municipal court and how those violations made the city’s reliance on the court for revenue generation possible. The Article also documents how the introduction of individual defense representation, even on a piecemeal basis, played a role in altering Ferguson’s system of governance. Using this case …

Establishing Best Billing Practices Through Billing Guidelines: Fostering Trust And Transparency On Legal Costs, Laura Johnson, Howard Tollin, Marci Waterman, Sarah Mills-Dirlam

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Remarks: The Declining Role Of Outside Counsel In Enhancing Ethical Conduct By Corporations, Jed S. Rakoff

Seattle University Law Review

Judge Rakoff’s remarks from the seventh annual Berle Symposium, held May 26–27, 2015 at Seattle University School of Law.

A Behavioral Theory Of Legal Ethics, Andrew M. Perlman

Indiana Law Journal

Behavioral insights have informed many areas of law, including the field of professional responsibility. Those insights, however, have had only a modest effect on the foundational theories of legal ethics, even though those theories are, at their core, prescriptions about human behavior. The reality is that lawyers’ conduct cannot be understood, theorized about, or used to produce the best possible regulations without an appreciation for the limits on human rationality and objectivity. A behavioral theory of legal ethics offers a way to incorporate those realties into the foundational debates on a lawyer’s professional role so that scholars can produce more …

Deflating Autonomy, Charles R. Mendez

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Duty To Advise The Lorax: Environmental Advocacy And The Risk Of Reform, Keith W. Rizzardi

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Lawyers have an ethical duty to advise their clients on moral, economic, social, and political matters. When applied to the changing field of environmental law, this abstract notion becomes provocative. Lawyers should advise their environmental advocacy clients of the possibility that their efforts to apply statutes or rules might initially succeed, but subsequent legislative reactions might defund, reform, or repeal the laws the client’s case relied upon. As a client’s sophistication decreases, or as the risk of adverse reactions to the client’s environmental advocacy increases, the lawyer’s duty to advise the client of these risks can shift from discretionary to …

Testimony For Sale: The Law And Ethics Of Snitches And Experts, George C. Harris

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Call To Action: A Client-Centered Evaluation Of Collaborative Law, Alexandria Zylstra

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This paper will first examine the process of collaborative law, from deciding to hire a collaborative lawyer to the disqualification agreement, as well as identifying potential dangers for the client, including an analysis of collaborative law utilizing the negotiation theory of Roger Fisher and William Ury's book Getting to Yes. The second part of the paper will examine how collaborative law literature evaluates and critiques the costs and benefits of collaborative law. This paper ultimately finds that the cost-benefit analysis either stems from small, non-controlled studies or personal anecdotes, or discussions of whether collaborative law complies with ethics rules, …

The Disempowering Relationship Between Mediator Neutrality And Judicial Impartiality: Toward A New Mediation Ethic, Ronit Zamir

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The issue I shall discuss in this article is whether the concept of mediator neutrality advances the empowering and effective participation of parties from disadvantaged groups. Section II will deal with the relationship between the concept of neutrality in the adversarial legal process, in the mediation process, and the concept of procedural justice. I shall then present the meanings ascribed to the concept of mediator neutrality in the two prevailing models of mediation: the problem-solving model and the transformative model. The affinity between these meanings and the concept of judicial impartiality will be discussed and critiqued. Finally, I shall suggest …

The Truth Shall Set You Free: A Distinctively Christian Approach To Deception In The Negotiation Process, Al Sturgeon

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This paper examines whether the Christian religion offers a distinct position on the use of deception in the negotiation process. It is expected to be of primary interest to Christian negotiators, but combining the popularly understood theorem that "everyone negotiates on some level" with the fact that there are over 173 million Christian adherents in the United States alone, the topic may be of general interest to anyone who negotiates. There is apparently neither an official nor a widespread recognition of a distinct Christian position on the use of deception in negotiation at present. It is this article's proposal, however, …

The Temptation Of Martinez V. Ryan:Legal Ethics For The Habeas Bar, Lawrence Kornreich, Alexander I. Platt

American University Criminal Law Brief

No abstract provided.

A Child-Centered Response To The Elkins Family Law Task Force, Amy M. Pellman, Robert N. Jacobs, Dara K. Reiner

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In Elkins v. Superior Court, 163 P.3d 160 (Cal. 2007), California’s Supreme Court asked the Judicial Council to form a task force to make recommendations to increase “access to justice” in family court, because it was concerned about rules, policies, and procedures that put self-represented litigants at an unfair disadvantage in parentageand dissolution cases.

Neither the task force’s report in 2010 nor the legislation that the report inspired the same year addresses children’s due process rights, even though children ordinarily have no access to justice. This Article shows that due process sometimes requires the trial court to appoint counsel for …

Integrating "Alternative" Dispute Resolution Into Bankruptcy: As Simple (And Pure) As Motherhood And Apple Pie, Nancy A. Welsh

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Character Or Code: What Makes A Good And Ethical Lawyer, Donald James Hermann

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Should Bush Administration Lawyers Be Prosecuted For Authorizing Torture?, Claire Finkelstein, Michael Lewis

University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online

The February 19th, 2010 release of a memorandum by the Justice Department clearing former Bush Administration lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee of any professional misconduct for their roles in authoring the so-called torture memos may have closed the chapter on the case against Bush Administration lawyers for formal sanctions from the United States government. But the debate about the propriety of the lawyers’ actions and the proper repercussions for them is far from over. The DOJ memorandum has renewed debate in the press and the academy about the now-hypothetical just deserts for the two men, even while Spanish authorities …

Lawyers In Character And Lawyers In Role, Katherine R. Kruse

Nevada Law Journal

This essay explores the possibilities that Leonard Riskin's call for the development of the trait of mindfulness offers for the discussion of lawyers' roles and lawyers' characters in legal ethics. First, the article explains three ways that the problems associated with legal professionalism have been framed within legal ethics, and critique the underlying assumptions that animate the dominant framing of the problems of professionalism in legal ethics. Next, it expounds the work of the two most prominent legal ethicists who have proposed the development of distinctively lawyerly character traits: Anthony Kronman's call for the revival of a “lawyer-statesman” ideal in …

Embedded Federal Questions, Exclusive Jurisdiction, And Patent-Based Malpractice Claims, Christopher G. Wilson

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.