Law Commons^™

Prosecuting Doctors For Trusting Patients, Deborah Hellman

Deborah Hellman

In an escalating phase of our country’s war on drugs, doctors treating patients in pain are being prosecuted for drug trafficking under the Controlled Substances Act. While doctors surely can be guilty of drug trafficking when they sell drugs for money, lately some doctors have been prosecuted for violations of a statute that requires knowingly distributing or dispensing controlled substances in an unauthorized manner for simply being willfully blind to the fact that their patients were reselling the drugs. While willful blindness may be an apt substitute for knowledge in the traditional drug courier scenario, doctors in these cases are …

Reconceptualizing Prosecutorial Misconduct Through Moral Disengagement Theory: A Social Cognitive Approach, Lawton P. Cummings

Lawton P Cummings

This Article argues that certain key structural factors within the prosecutorial system in the United States lead to prosecutorial misconduct by systematically encouraging “moral disengagement” in prosecutors. “Moral disengagement” refers to the social cognition theory developed by Albert Bandura and others, which identifies the mechanisms that operate to disengage an individual’s moral self-sanctions that would otherwise inhibit the individual from engaging in injurious conduct. Empirical studies have shown that a person’s level of moral disengagement, as a dispositional trait, is an accurate predictor of the person’s level of aggression and anti-social behavior, and that an individual’s level of moral disengagement …

Betraying Truth: The Abuse Of Journalistic Ethics In Middle East Reporting, Kenneth Lasson

Kenneth Lasson

In a world at once increasingly chaotic and historically interconnected, the news media have come to play unprecedented roles both in the virtually instantaneous recording of fast-moving events and in influencing the occurrence and evolution of those events themselves. The media, of course, are not beyond reproach. Freedom of the press does not mean immunity from criticism. Reputable journalists abide by standards which, though largely self-imposed, are presumed to be honestly applied. When these principles are abrogated, violators should be taken to task. Nowhere has this responsibility been more tested than in the Middle East, where for over a half-century …

Refashioning Legal Pedagogy After The Carnegie Report: Something Borrowed, Something New, Debra M. Schneider

Debra M Schneider

The Carnegie Foundation published in 2007 its ground-breaking book titled Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law, in which it pointed out significant pedagogical imbalance in legal education. In particular, the Carnegie report said that law schools should infuse their curricula with more practical and ethical training. How a law school ought to accomplish the Carnegie aim is another challenge, one that this paper squarely addresses.

Traditional legal education is sorely imbalanced. A law student receives rigorous training in legal doctrine and analytical skills—he learns to “think like a lawyer”—but is left with little training in practical skills or …

A Free Speech Right To Impugn Judicial Integrity In Court Proceedings, Margaret C. Tarkington

Margaret C Tarkington

Throughout the United States, state and federal courts discipline and sanction attorneys who make disparaging remarks about the judiciary and thereby impugn judicial integrity. In so doing, courts have almost universally rejected the constitutional standard established in New York Times v. Sullivan for punishing speech regarding government officials. While courts have imposed severe sanctions regardless of the forum where the speech has occurred, many of the cases involve speech made by attorneys in court proceedings. The existing scholarly literature generally supports the denial of First Amendment protection in such cases, indicating that attorney speech when made in court proceedings is …

Impeach Brent Benjamin Now!? Giving Adequate Attention To Failings Of Judicial Impartiality, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Jeffrey W Stempel

In Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc., 129 S. Ct. 2252 (2009), the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote vacated and remanded a decision of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in which Justice Brent Benjamin cast the deciding vote in favor of Massey, a company run by Don Blankenship, who had provided $3 million in support to Benjamin during his 2004 election campaign.

Despite the unsavory taste of the entire episode, the Court was excessively careful not to criticize Justice Benjamin. Overlooked because of this undue judicial civility and controversy about the constitutional aspects of the decision …

How Do College And University Leaders Organize And Implement Policies Of Risk Management To Prevent Or Mitigate Institutional Liability?, Robert A. Campo

Robert A Campo

The goal of this research is to identify the methods,policies and procedures used by public and private college and university leaders to resolve conflicts, avoid court action, and limit risk factors that lead to institutional liabilty.In-depth, structured interviews of 30 higher educational leaders, including nine college/university presidents,17 vice-presidents,two university foundation presidents, and two in-house counsel were conducted regarding their perceptions of risk,appropriate means for reducing risk,crime prevention techniques,insurance protection including choices of deductibles,views on self insurance, crisis management, views on faculty termination, thoughts on tenure, ways to prevent sexual harassment, ways to maintain student discipline, views on accounting methods including …

Can We Talk (With Or Without Beer)? How Triggers For Unconscious Racism Strengthen The Importance Of Dialogue, Adjoa A. Aiyetoro

Adjoa A. Aiyetoro

This article is ultimately about healing the racial divide illustrated by the recent arrest of Henry Louis Gates. It expands on the scholarship of unconscious racism by exploring a trigger for unconscious racism that up to this point scholars have only alluded to: the language of race. It argues that society often censures an African descendant speaker who uses the language of race or racism. This censure occurs because many in American society have embraced the myth of a colorblind society. They believe that to assert otherwise and to question whether there are racial implications associated with a given action …

Recovery Of Interest On A Tax Underpayment Caused By A Tax Advisor's Negligence, Jacob L. Todres

Jacob L. Todres

OUTLINE/ABSTRACT

Page

Part I 2 INTRODUCTION

Part II 4 RECOVERABILITY OF INTEREST ON A TAX UNDERPAYMENT —THREE VIEWS

Presentation and explanation of the traditional, majority view, allowing the recovery of such interest; the minority view, prohibiting the recovery of such interest; and the modern, intermediate view, permitting the recovery of such interest only when the plaintiff paid more interest than the interest earned by the use of the tax underpayment.

Part III 20 THE DEVELOPMENT AND STATUS OF THE THREE VIEWS

History of the development of each of the views leading to a tally of the states currently following each …

A Crumbling Pyramid: How The Evolving Jurisprudence Defining “Employee” Under The Adea Threatens The Basic Structure Of The Modern Large Law Firm, Jessica Fink

Jessica Fink

Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, as well as other federal antidiscrimination laws, only “employees” as defined by the statute are permitted to sue. In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts have provided guidance regarding when partners in large law firms might be deemed “employees” protected by these laws. What has emerged from the courts’ decisions in these cases is a test that places significant emphasis on the amount of power and control that a partner has within a firm: Partners deemed to lack a sufficient amount of power and control within their firms may be …

Evidence, Belief, And Action: The Failure Of Equipoise To Resolve The Ethical Tension In The Randomized Clinical Trial, Deborah Hellman

Deborah Hellman

No abstract provided.

Bottom-Up: An Alternative Approach For Investigating Corporate Malfeasance, Susan B. Schwab

Susan B. Heyman

At least since the Enron scandal, the government has focused intensive efforts on developing a strategy to investigate and prosecute corporate malfeasance. The prevailing method has been a “top-down” approach: government agents provide companies with incentives to conduct internal investigations, coerce employee cooperation, and disclose privileged information. Although many have expressed concern about violations of constitutional rights and erosions of privilege, the current system faces another critical problem: the top-down strategy will become less effective at unraveling corporate fraud as employees learn that it is not in their interest to cooperate. Further, the approach aims deterrence at the wrong people …

The Economics Of The Attorney-Client Privilege: A Comprehensive Review And A New Justification, Keith A. Kendall

Keith A Kendall

The attorney-client privilege is one of the fundamental aspects of legal professional practice in the United States. Despite this central importance, there have been many calls over the centuries for the privilege’s abolition. A relatively recent trend is for such criticisms to be based on an economic analysis of the privilege’s mechanics, including incentives for rent seeking behavior, signaling problems faced by clients and incentives to overinvest in litigation. Responses to these criticisms that also utlize economic reasoning center on the economics of information production, recognizing that the privilege serves a useful function, notwithstanding the critiques. In addition to these …

Invigorating The Role Of The In-House Legal Advisor As Steward In Ethical Culture And Governance At Client-Business Organizations: From 21st Century Failures To True Calling, Ben G. Pender

Ben G Pender II

Invigorating the Role of the In-House Legal Advisor as Steward in Ethical Culture and Governance at Client-Business Organizations From 21st Century Failures to True Calling J.D., University of St. Thomas School of Law, 2009 M.A. Sociology, Organizational Effectiveness, Clark Atlanta University, 1996. B.S., Sociology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1988. All Rights Reserved. © 2009. This Article examines the need to invigorate the role of the in-house legal advisor from ‘mere legal technician’ to simultaneous legal advisory gatekeeper and ethical steward at client-business organizations. This article asserts that the often-acquiescent in-house legal advisor as ‘mere legal technician’ is partially …

Doing The Right Thing: An Empirical Study Of Attorney Negotiation Ethics, Art Hinshaw, Jess K. Alberts

Art Hinshaw

The code of ethical conduct for lawyers -- the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct (the “Model Rules”) -- legitimizes a certain amount of dissembling and misdirection in the negotiation realm, only prohibiting legal negotiators from making fraudulent misrepresentations about material matters. To determine if attorneys are meeting this low standard, the authors surveyed practicing lawyers and asked them if they would agree to engage in a fraudulent pre-litigation settlement scheme if a client requested them to do so. Nearly one-third of the respondents indicated they would agree to the client’s overtures, and only half indicated that they …

Completing Caperton And Clarifying Common Sense Through Using The Right Standard For Constitutional Judicial Recusal, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Jeffrey W Stempel

In Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a state supreme court decision in which a justice who had received $3 million in campaign support from a company CEO cast the deciding vote to relieve the company of a $50 million liability. The Caperton majority adopted a “probability of bias” standard for constitutional due process review of judicial disqualification decisions that differs from the ordinary “reasonable question as to impartiality” standard for recusal. Four dissenters objected to the majority’s limited supervision of state court disqualification practice, minimized the danger of biased judging presented by the …

Judging By Appearances: Professional Ethics, Expressive Government, And The Moral Significance Of How Things Seem, Deborah Hellman

Deborah Hellman

No abstract provided.

Pushing Drugs Or Pushing The Envelope: The Prosecution Of Doctors In Connection With Over-Prescribing Of Opium-Based Drugs, Deborah Hellman

Deborah Hellman

No abstract provided.

What Law Schools Should Teach Future Transactional Lawyers: Perspectives From Practice, Michael A. Woronoff

Michael A Woronoff

Since at least the 1980’s, law schools have been chided for doing a poor job at teaching skills. This criticism has been accompanied by pressure to increase their emphasis on skills training. The pressure increased with the publication of the McCrate Report in 1992, and then again with the publication of the Carnegie Report in 2007. This article is based on my remarks given on June 10 at the 2009 mid-year meeting of the AALS Conference on Business Associations. In those remarks, I respond to the questions “Are law schools teaching students adequate transactional skills?” and “From the standpoint of …

Inadvertent Commissions Of Fraud: How Far Does The Duty Of Candor Spread?, Benjamin J. Adams

Benjamin J Adams

This article examines the duty of candor to a tribunal after adjudication. New York, in particular, has recently changed their candor requirement. This article argues for disclosure and remediation.

Remodeling The Temple, Phase I: Assessing The Foundations Of Neo-Classical Professionalism In Law And Business, Robert E. Atkinson

Robert E. Atkinson Jr.

Abstract

Both the management of private enterprise and the practice of corporate law must be radically remodeled if they are properly to serve their correlate values: prosperity and justice. In that remodeling, the cornerstone of professional status would be appreciation of the deepest values of our common culture, gained through liberal education in the humanities and social sciences. Lawyers and managers need this appreciation because, under the best available institutional arrangements, they together must actively shape our public world, both in the law and in the market, for the common welfare.

The professional’s requisite cultural appreciation has two essential components, …

Beyond Cardboard Clients In Legal Ethics, Katherine R. Kruse

Katherine R Kruse

Historically, legal ethics has been preoccupied with the moral conflicts that arise when the pursuit of a client’s interests requires a lawyer to harm innocent third parties, undermine the truth-seeking norms of the legal system, or both. But is over-zealous loyalty to clients really the biggest problem in legal professionalism? This Article argues that it is not. Rather, the obsession in legal ethics with the problems of zealous partisanship dates back to the preference of early legal ethicists—many of whom were philosophers—to focus on conflicts between professional role morality and ordinary morality. To generate these conflicts, legal ethicists had to …

Sports In The Courts: The Role Of Sports References In Judicial Opinions, Douglas E. Abrams

Douglas E. Abrams

Sports In the Courts: The Role of Sports References in Judicial Opinions by Douglas E. Abrams Abstract In cases with no claims or defenses concerning sports, the Supreme Court and lower federal and state courts frequently publish opinions that draw analogies to the rules or terminology of sports familiar to broad segments of the American people. Sports analogies can help the court explain factual or legal points because today’s generation, including the lawyers and litigants who comprise the prime audience for written opinions, grew into adulthood amid an unprecedented saturation of professional and amateur sports in the broadcast and print …

The Architecture Of Accountability: A Case Study Of The Warrantless Surveillance Program, Kathleen Clark

Kathleen Clark

Several Democratic members of Congress and human rights organizations are calling for establishing a “truth commission” to investigate the Bush Administration’s interrogation and warrantless surveillance policies. Others advocate criminal investigation and even prosecution of Bush Administration officials who authorized these policies. Republican legislators and some commentators oppose any commission or criminal investigation of Bush Administration policies, arguing that they would constitute an attempt by those currently in power to criminalize their policy differences with their predecessors. Is it necessary or appropriate to hold Bush Administration officials accountable for their actions through a criminal or commission investigation? This article contributes to …

An Economic Justification For The Attoney-Client Privilege, Keith A. Kendall

Keith A Kendall

The attorney-client privilege is one of the oldest doctrines affecting legal practise. Notwithstanding its longevity, there have been regular calls for its abolition over the years. This paper reviews the literature calling for abolition and that favoring retention that utilize economic reasoning. Weaknesses on both sides are identified, with a new justification for retention put forward that addresses these weaknesses.

Deep Links: Does Knowledge Of The Law Change Managers’ Perceptions Of The Role Of Law And Ethics In Business?, Gavin Clarkson, Constance E. Bagley

Gavin Clarkson

Can knowledge of the law lead to a higher likelihood of ethical and legally compliant behavior? Our preliminary research suggests that it can. We surveyed 112 MBA students to determine the perception of law as well as to determine whether a course in law had any impact on their perceptions. Our findings suggest that knowledge of the law can prompt managers to become more legally compliant and more socially responsible. Deeper probing with the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique revealed three deep metaphors of the role of law in business: system, moral balance, and force. The results of both the quantitative …

Bad Medicine, Brian K. Pinaire, Milton Heumann, Simon Burger

Brian K. Pinaire

This article provides the first-ever examination of the collateral consequences of felony convictions for physicians in the state of New York. We collected data from 4,739 records of disciplinary actions from 1990 2007 and coded them according to the infraction and the punishment given by the Board of Physician Medical Conduct, or BPMC. We also conducted extensive interviews with elites involved in all facets—and on both sides—of the disciplinary process. Four major findings flow from this research: (1) Of all the disciplinary records in New York, 50% of infractions were felonies and 50% were non-felonies, generally professional infractions; (2) Physicians …

Chief William's Ghost: The Problematic Persistance Of The Duty To Sit, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Jeffrey W Stempel

In 1974, the duty to sit -- a doctrine positing that judges should recuse themselves only if the case for disqualification was compelling -- was abolished in federal courts. Then-Justice William Rehnquist's refusal to disqualify himself in Laird v. Tatum (1972) was a partial catalyst in this legal reform, which was consistent with the ABA position on the duty to sit, at least in what I term it's "pernicious" form. Notwithstanding the official abolition of the doctrine, it continues to be invoked, as does the problematic Rehnquist opinion defending his indefensible refusal to recuse in Laird v. Taturm. This article …

"Let's Do The Time Warp Again": Assessing The Competence Of Counsel In Mental Health Conservatorship Proceedings, Grant H. Morris

Grant H Morris

Thirty years ago, I wrote an article on mental health conservatorships in California and the role of counsel for persons for whom a conservatorship has been proposed. Data was gathered on the performance of attorneys in court hearings conducted in San Diego County Superior Court. The data revealed that lawyers representing proposed conservatees were inactive and ineffective in representing their clients’ interests. The lawyers did not consider themselves advocates in an adversary process in which conservatorship was to be avoided. A year after the article was published, the California Supreme Court, citing that article as authority for the “paternalistic attitude” …

The Reluctant Tattle-Tale: Closing The Gap In Federal Judicial Discipline, David Pimentel

David Pimentel

A 2006 report on the implementation of the federal judicial discipline system, issued by a special judiciary committee chaired by Justice Stephen Breyer, concluded that overall the system works quite well. We should not, however, take too much comfort in these conclusions, as serious problems persist beyond the Breyer Committee’s focus, in the judicial misconduct that attorneys are unwilling to report. Indeed, when federal judges go bad, attorneys are usually the first to know, but the last to register a formal complaint. There is, in fact, little incentive for attorneys to complain, and ample reason for them to keep quiet; …