Law Commons^™

Place-Based Versus Practice-Based Norms For American Lawyers: "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", James E. Moliterno

Scholarly Articles

This Article acknowledges the growing trend toward practice-based lawyer norms, points out how it allows interaction between the existing place-based norms and the new practice-based norms, and compares this movement with the existing regulatory conditions outside the US. If there is movement from the world as we know it (place-based norms) to a world as it may come to be (practice-based norms), is the change tragic, inevitable, risky, in line with the rest of the global legal profession, or all of the above and more? Specifically, how would such an evolution affect the core duty of lawyer-client confidentiality?

Changemakers: 'You Have To Adapt To Survive', Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Outsourcing Self-Regulation, Marsha Griggs

All Faculty Scholarship

Answerable only to the courts that have the sole authority to grant or withhold the right to practice law, lawyers operate under a system of self-regulation. The self-regulated legal profession staunchly resists external interference from the legislative and administrative branches of government. Yet, with the same fervor that the legal profession defies non-judicial oversight, it has subordinated itself to the controlling influence of a private corporate interest. By outsourcing the mechanisms that control admission to the bar, the legal profession has all but surrendered the most crucial component of its gatekeeping function to an industry that profits at the expense …

Law School News: 'You Have To Adapt To Survive' 11-11-2021, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Regulating And Disciplining Judges In Nigeria, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The disciplining of judges is a sensitive and complex challenge. In Nigeria, the complexity is heightened because the process is complicated by socio-political factors and public views about the motivations for disciplining some judges, including claims of political interference by the ruling government. This Chapter argues that both judicial discipline and the work of the National Judicial Council (NJC) – the body responsible for judicial regulation in Nigeria – are caught up within Nigeria’s peculiar socio-politics, a reality that a strictly legal analysis will miss. The Chapter analyzes contemporary challenges and controversies associated with the complaints and discipline procedure in …

Global Networks And The Legal Profession, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

The importance of networks and the power of exponential growth within networks have become much more apparent to the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This Article addresses the topic of global legal profession networks. The introductory section provides information about our global economy and society that helps explain why global legal profession networks are valuable. It argues that global networks are beneficial for clients, lawyers, and other legal services stakeholders.

After introducing some of the scientific literature about networks in general and legal profession networks specifically, Section II identifies ways in which lawyers participate in global legal …

Law Library Blog (March 2017): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Not For Free: Exploring The Collateral Costs Of Diversity In Legal Education, Spearit

Articles

This essay examines some of the institutional costs of achieving a more diverse law student body. In recent decades, there has been growing support for diversity initiatives in education, and the legal academy is no exception. Yet for most law schools, diversity remains an elusive goal, some of which is the result of problems with anticipating the needs of diverse students and being able to deliver. These are some of the unseen or hidden costs associated with achieving greater diversity. Both law schools and the legal profession remain relatively stratified by race, which is an ongoing legacy of legal education’s …

Newsroom: Horwitz On Legalizing Marijuana 04-10-2016, Andrew Horwitz, Peter Kilmartin

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

When It Comes To Lawyers, Is An Ounce Of Prevention Worth A Pound Of Cure, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This 3-page blog post addresses the topic of proactive lawyer regulation, which is also known as proactive management-based regulation or PMBR. This blog post reviews Professor Susan Fortney's article entitled "Promoting Public Protection through an “Attorney Integrity” System: Lessons from the Australian Experience with Proactive Regulation System," and summarizes some of the impressive data that Professor Fortney collected in Australia, including her finding that sixty-two percent of the respondents reported that they agreed or strongly agreed with the following statement: the self-assessment process ‘was a learning exercise that enabled our firm to improve client service.’” The article also reports that …

The Power Of Lawyer Regulators To Increase Client & Public Protection Through Adoption Of A Proactive Regulation System, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This Article focuses on those who regulate U.S. laywers. The Article argues that the lawyers who head regulatory bodies in the United States have the ability to adjust the focus of the regulator for which they work in a way that will increase client and public protection. The Article further argues that it is appropriate for lawyers in these positions to exercise this power and that they should do so. The Article concludes by offering two concrete recommendations.

The first recommendation is that those who are in charge should, upon reflection, adopt a mindset in which they recognize that the …

Transnational Legal Practice, Laurel Terry, Carole Silver

Faculty Scholarly Works

This 2015 Year-in-Review article continues the tradition of collecting and publicizing the developments that occurred during the year related to transnational legal practice (TLP). This year’s article builds on the work set forth in the 2014 Year-in-Review.

The 2014 TLP Year-in-Review provided a departure from the Year-in-Review’s typical method of presentation by identifying two categories of what that article called “TLP-Nets.” One group of TLP-Nets is nationally based and the other is inherently transnational. The 2014 article identified examples of TLP-Nets and highlighted the meeting points and relationships that facilitate border-crossing for the variety of actors involved in TLP policy-making …

Something's Afoot And It's Time To Pay Attention: Thinking About Lawyer Regulation In A New Way, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Foreword To The Conference: The Law: Business Or Profession? The Continuing Relevance Of Julius Henry Cohen For The Practice Of Law In The Twenty-First Century, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Trends In Global And Canadian Lawyer Education, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

Globalization and technology have changed the practice of law in dramatic ways. This is true not only in the U.S. and Canada, but around the world. Global regulatory trends have begun to emerge as lawyer regulators have had to respond to new developments. In 2012, Australian regulators Steve Mark and Tahlia Gordon and the author, who is a U.S. academic, documented some of these global trends in lawyer regulation. See Laurel S. Terry, Steve Mark, & Tahlia Gordon, Trends and Challenges in Lawyer Regulation: The Impact of Globalization and Technology, 80 Fordham L. Rev. 2661 (2012), https://works.bepress.com/laurel_terry/95/. Their article concluded …

Transnational Legal Practice (International), Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This article covers three years of Transnational Legal Practice developments outside of the US. (It is the companion piece to 47 Int'l Law. 499 (2013) which discusses US developments.) This article discusses the approval of an Alternative Business Structure licensing system by the UK Solicitors Regulation Authority and its subsequent issuance of ABS licenses. The second section reviews the emergence of the “Troika” as a new regulatory influence in Europe, citing as an example the joint ABA-CCBE letter to the IMF. (The Troika refers to the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission.) The third section …

Reflections On Us Policies Regarding Effective Regulation And Discipline And Foreign Lawyer Mobility: Has The Time Come To Talk About The Elephant In The Room, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

The ABA has adopted four model policies that address, in one way or another, the issue of foreign lawyer mobility. These policies are the ABA Model Foreign Legal Consultant Rule, which is commonly known as the FLC rule, the ABA Model Rule for Temporary Practice by Foreign Lawyers, which is commonly known as the FIFO rule, ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 5.5, which permits foreign lawyers to serve as in-house counsel, and the ABA Model Rule on Pro Hac Vice Admission. All four of the ABA’s foreign lawyer mobility recommendations include a requirement that the mobile foreign lawyer is …

Trends And Challenges In Lawyer Regulation: The Impact Of Globalization And Technology, Laurel Terry, Steve Mark, Tahlia Gordon

Faculty Scholarly Works

Globalization and technology have changed the practice of law in dramatic ways. This is true not only in the United States, but around the world. In this article, author Laurel Terry, along with Australian regulators Steve Mark and Tahlia Gordon, documented some of these global trends in lawyer regulation. Their article concluded that regulators face issues in common regarding “who” is regulated, “what” or whom is regulated, “when” regulation occurs, “where” regulation occurs, “how” it occurs, and “why” regulation occurs.

This article uses this who-what-when-where-why-and-how framework to discuss events around the world. These developments include the 2007 UK Legal Services …

Preserving The Rule Of Law In The 21st Century: The Importance Of Infrastructure And The Need To Create A Global Lawyer Regulatory Umbrella Organization, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Regulation And Theory: What Does Reality Have To Do With It, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Burden Of Knowledge, Christian Turner

Scholarly Works

Sometimes we are better off not knowing things. While we often hear that "ignorance is bliss," there has not been a comprehensive consideration in the legal academy of the virtues of ignorance and its regulation. Though the distribution of knowledge, like the distribution of other goods, is affected both directly and indirectly by law, several characteristics of knowledge distinguish it from other kinds of property. Much has been written about the impact of the nonrival and nonexclusive nature of knowledge on its production and distribution. This Article centers around two other attributes of knowledge that combine to create a special …

The Future Regulation Of The Legal Profession: The Impact Of Treating The Legal Profession As Service Providers, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

In the past fifty years, one has heard debates about whether law is a business, a profession, or both, what these terms mean and whether it matters. Regardless of what one thinks about these debates, there is a new paradigm that must be added to the mix, which is the paradigm of lawyers as "service providers." In the "service providers" paradigm, the legal profession is not viewed as a separate, unique profession entitled to its own individual regulations, but is included in a broader group of "service providers," all of whom can be regulated together. This new paradigm represents a …

The Professionalization Of Law Firm In-House Counsel, Elizabeth Chambliss

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the structural evolution of the "firm counsel" position from a volunteer, part-time position filled by an existing partner to a specialized, often full-time position increasingly filled by career in-house counsel. Based on focus groups and interviews with firm counsel, as well as participant observation at meetings and conferences aimed at firm counsel, I examine how the professionalization of the firm counsel position affects: (1) the definition of the firm as the client; (2) the authority of firm counsel with partners; and (3) firm counsels' professional commitments and attitudes about ethical rules. I find that, from a regulatory …

Expecting Too Much And Too Little Of Lawyers, Eugene R. Gaetke

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The regulation of lawyers' behavior remains a controversial topic. Over the past hundred years, the organized bar has engaged in a number of efforts to generate rules governing lawyers' conduct. Still, prominent lawyers and jurists, the public media, and legal scholars perceive an ongoing decline in the profession's ethics.

Bar leaders tend to respond to the problem by calling for greater "professionalism" among practicing lawyers. Drawing on professional images from earlier times, they urge lawyers to look beyond the rules and to be more virtuous, selfless, independent of clients, and dedicated to justice.

A number of commentators go further. These …

Regulating International Lawyers: The Legal Consultant Rules, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Enron, Watergate And The Regulation Of The Legal Profession, Arnold Rochvarg

All Faculty Scholarship

The most famous scandal of the twentieth century was the Watergate scandal, which most notably led to the resignation of Richard Nixon as President of the United States. The significance of Watergate, however, extends further than the resignation of Nixon. Because Watergate involved so many lawyers, it had a great impact on the regulation of the legal profession. Although the twenty-first century has just started, the strongest contender for this century's most famous scandal is the Enron scandal. Although the Enron scandal is identified mostly with misconduct by accountants and corporate officials, it too involved lawyers and has impacted on …

Regulatory Mismatch In The International Market For Legal Services, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The increasingly international reach of law owes part of its momentum to individual lawyers and law firms that function as carriers of ideas, processes and policies. U.S. lawyers are important participants in this expanding influence of law, as they educate, train and deploy individuals educated and licensed in the U.S. and abroad. This article examines the ways in which law firms internationalize, and considers the regulatory environment governing crucial interactions between U.S. and foreign-educated lawyers. It builds upon prior work that investigated the impact on U.S. law firms of the development of an international market for legal services and the …

Mdps, Spinning, And Wouters V. Nova, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This article is one of a series of articles by Professor Laurel Terry regarding the topic of MDPs of multidisciplinary partnerships. In February 2002, the European Court of Justice issued its opinion in Wouters v. NOVA (Case C-309/99), which addressed a Netherlands Bar rule that prohibited multidisciplinary partnerships (MDPs) between lawyers and accountants. Wouters decided: 1) that the bar was an “undertaking” that was subject to the competition (antitrust) provision in the EU Treaty; 2) that the Dutch MDP ban restricted competition and that this restriction on competition was appreciable and affected intra-community trade; 3) that the Dutch MDP ban …

German Mdps: Lessons To Learn, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This article is the third of four major articles or book chapters that I have written about MDPs. This article focuses on German multidisciplinary partnerships (MDPs) between lawyers and accountants. The German MDP experience is important because Germany is one of the few jurisdictions that expressly permits MDPs and because conferences about World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (the GATS) have cited to Germany when suggesting that other countries' MDP bans may be unnecessarily restrictive. After introducing common MDP regulatory issues, this article focuses on Germany. The article explains Germany's current regulation of MDPs and provides a …

An Introduction To The Paris Forum On Transnational Practice For The Legal Profession, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This article focuses on the 1998 Paris Forum on Transnational Practice for the Legal Profession and introduces the papers contained in the Paris Forum Symposium. The Paris Forum was the first meeting of lawyers from around the world devoted solely to the topic of transnational legal practice. Before the Paris Forum, some bar organizations had set aside time during their meetings to discuss the transnational practice of law and issues related to transnational legal services also had been included as topics in general conferences. The multi-day Paris Forum, however, was the first multi-day conference devoted to this topic. This paper …