Law Commons^™

The Supreme Court, 1991 Term - Leading Cases, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

State Ethical Codes And Federal Practice: Emerging Conflicts And Suggestions For Reform, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

The standards for resolving putative conflicts between federal laws are not always clear, and neither for that matter is the standard for determining what constitutes a federal law capable of superseding effect. The technique of setting federal norms of professional conduct on a decentralized basis by borrowing or incorporating state norms is increasingly troublesome to the extent that the borrowed state norms are disuniform and that they are being put to multiple remedial purposes. Federal legislation preempting state law of professional conduct is conceivable but hardly likely, particularly as the norms are pressed into duty for purposes other than professional …

Fatal Assumption: A Critical Evaluation Of The Role Of Counsel In Mental Disability Cases, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Rediscovering The Republican Origins Of The Legal Ethics Codes, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

Many commentators wrongly assume that the hired gun ideal is the foundation of our legal ethics codes. This article explains that this assumption is based on an historical mistake that has consequences for interpreting the modern codes. Judge George Sharswood, the nineteenth century scholar whose work provided the basis for the 1908 A.B.A. Canons of Ethics, had a republican conception that rejected the adversarial ethic in favor of a more nuanced conception that combined loyalty to clients with a thick obligation to the public good that both bounded client representation and required lawyers to provide political leadership. Although the emphasis …

Jewish Lawyering In A Multicultural Society: A Midrash On Levinson Colloquy, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

When we acknowledge the contradiction between the project's goal and the reality of group influence, we are led to consider the alternative strategy of creating community. Such a strategy would invite lawyers to begin a community dialogue regarding how each of our group identities, and the responses of others to our identities, interfere with our efforts to realize the goal of equal justice. While significant to the understanding of group dynamics, consideration of Jewish lawyering probably has limited value as a predictor of an individual lawyer's professional conduct. The actual and potential influence of Jewishness on lawyering is quite diverse, …

Translation As A Mode Of Thought, James Boyd White

Articles

I think that Clark Cunningham's article, The Lawyer as Translator, is a wonderful piece of work, full of life and interest and originality. I especially admire: his ability to make vivid to the reader the ways in which languages do truly differ, and differ beyond our efforts to bridge them-as he shows when he imagines an attempt to translate our most common professional terms into Chinese; his recoguition of the kind of force that our languages have over our minds, both as we see the world and as we tell stories about it; his sense that what we think of …

Reflections On Recent Remarks Of "That Unnecessary And Dangerous Officer", Roger J. Miner '56

Flag Day & Law Day Ceremonies

No abstract provided.

On Retiring From A Deanship, John W. Reed

Other Publications

The reason for the italicized "from" in the title of my remarks is to distinguish it from the comments that I made at our meeting in Tucson four years ago, under the title "On Retiring to a Deanship." For those of you who were not there, I should mention that five years ago, as I was about to reach retirement age at the University of Michigan Law School-what the late William L. Prosser used to call the age of mandatory senility-Wayne State University in Detroit asked me to serve as its dean for a term of five years. Lobbied by …

The Legal Profession, Legal Education, And Change, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Faculty Publications

The accounts of how the legal profession has changed in recent years are as abundant as the changes themselves. The common message is clear: the magnitude of change is immense, and the pace is unprecedented.

Turning Online Time Into Quality Time: Searching Ohio Case Law On Lexis And Westlaw, Randy J. Diamond

Faculty Publications

This article discusses some of the lesser known complexities of LEXIS and WESTLAW and the necessity for evaluating these systems critically. Sample searches highlight the major differences between WESTLAW's and LEXIS's search protocols. Comparable features of each system are examined to show how users can improve the quality of their search results and to warn of unintended consequences when users misapply them. Strategies for formulating searches that retrieve relevant cases and prevent the exclusion of potentially relevant cases are considered, along with the economics of online searching. Although the searches presented are limited to Ohio case law, they are adaptable …

Finding A Suitable Lawyer: Why Consumers Can't Always Get What They Want And What The Legal Profession Should Do About It, Linda H. Morton

Faculty Scholarship

This article criticizes the inadequacy of information available to consumers seeking an attorney compatible with their needs. The article describes why such inadequacy exists – in part because the legal profession distribute information to consumers through the narrow lens of attorney self-regulation rather than through the broader lens of consumer need. Yet, in striving to maintain their autonomy, lawyers have only perpetuated the enormous gap between information the public would like to have and that which they actually receive. The article explores sources of information consumers have access to, why such sources are so limited, and finally, how the problem …

Discretion And Rules: A Lawyer's View, Carl E. Scheider

Book Chapters

In modern society the law regulates the complex behavior of millions of people. To do this efficiently-to do this at all-broadly applicable rules must be used. Yet such rules are bound to be incomplete, to be ambiguous, to fail in some cases, to be unfair in others. Some of the drawbacks of rules can be minimized by giving discretion to the administrators and judges who apply them. Yet doing so dilutes the advantages of rules and creates the risk that discretion may be abused. Working out the proper balance of these considerations is both necessary and perplexing in every area …

Book Review. This Week On The Talk Shows: The Litigation Explosion, J. Alexander Tanford

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

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 …

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 …

The Burdens Of Educational Loans: The Impacts Of Debt On Job Choice And Standards Of Living For Students At Nine American Law Schools, David L. Chambers

Articles

American law students are borrowing large sums of money. For graduates at many schools, cumulative debts of $40,000 from college and law school have become the norm, and debts of $50,000, $60,000, and even more are common. The sums students are borrowing are much larger today than they were ten years ago, even after adjusting for increases in the cost of living. They have risen at a considerably faster pace than the starting salaries at small law firms and government agencies. They have even risen at a faster pace than the starting salaries in many large firms. The new pattern …

Lawyer Decision Making: The Problem Of Prediction, Marjorie Mcdiarmid

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines three competing models for lawyer decision making. Reviewing literature drawn from other disciplines, Professor McDiarmid applies each model to a particular lawyer decision task and provides a critique both of applicability and of the underlying assumptions of the models themselves. The Article concentrates on the problem of prediction in the face of uncertainty.

Notes Toward An Aesthetics Of Legal Pragmatism, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Third Man, Philip C. Bobbitt

Faculty Scholarship

Sandy is a divided man. On the one hand he is captivated by the notion of the theoretical and the explanatory, an idea that has captivated all of us since the 17th century. For Descartes, for Newton, for Freud, for Marx, for Levinson: theory is the foundation for understanding, and understanding for practice. How do they calculate the attraction among the planets? They apply the inverse square law according to the theories of Newton. How does Freud cure his patients: he explains to them why they've been behaving so peculiarly; he does this by expositing his theory. How does Marx …

The Judicial Prerogative, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

In John Locke's account of separation of powers, the executive is not limited to enforcing the rules laid down by the legislature. The chief magistrate also exercises the prerogative, a power "to act according to discretion for the public good, without the prescription of the law and sometimes even against it. "Locke explained that such a discretionary power is required because "it is impossible to foresee and so by laws to provide for all accidents and necessities that may concern the public, or make such laws as will do no harm, if they are executed with an inflexible rigor on …

Identifying The Best Interests Of The Child In Protection Proceedings: Nine Guidelines For The Child Advocate., Donald N. Duquette

Articles

Increasingly, judges appoint court appointed special advocates (CASAs) to represent children in child abuse and neglect proceedings. Like lawyers, CASAs are charged with looking out for the "best interests" of the child. Unfortunately, although the phrase "best interests" sounds noble, it provides little practical guidance for the child advocate.

State Ethics Rules And Federal Prosecutors: The Controversies Over The Anti-Contact And Subpoena Rules, Roger C. Cramton, Lisa K. Udell

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The U.S. Law Of Client Confidentiality: Framework For An International Perspective, Charles W. Wolfram

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Lawyering Theory: An Overview What We Talk About When We Talk About Law, Richard Sherwin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Alvin B. Rubin: Man Of The Law, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.