Law Commons^™

Toward More Robust Self-Regulation Within The Legal Profession, Veronica Root Martinez, Caitlin-Jean Juricic

Faculty Scholarship

The Trump Administration left reverberations throughout American life, and the legal profession was not insulated from its impact. The conduct of lawyers—both public and private—working on behalf of former President Trump was the subject of constant conversation and critique. The reality, however, is that the questions regarding the conduct of the Trump Administration lawyers, are rooted, in part, in more fundamental questions about the appropriate role of the lawyer within society. This Essay advocates for the adoption of a self-regulation scheme whereby lawyers regulate and oversee the conduct of other lawyers, to ensure that members of the legal profession are …

Three Models Of Adjudicative Representation, Margaret H. Lemos

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Essential Monroe Freedman, In Four Works, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Negotiator As Professional: Understanding The Competing Interests Of A Representative Negotiator, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Trevor C. W. Farrow

This article is about lawyers as negotiators, and in particular, it is about identifying and understanding the influential and potentially competing interests that are - or at least should be - in the minds of lawyers (and potentially other third party representatives) during the overall negotiation process. While there continues to be an increasing amount of literature on the mechanics and strategies of negotiation, the underlying interests that are typically at stake in representative negotiations from the perspective of representatives - particularly negotiations involving lawyers - have not been adequately studied. Current accounts of the representative negotiator do not paint …

Symposium: Client Counseling And Moral Responsibility, Robert F. Cochran Jr, Deborah L. Rhode, Paul R. Tremblay, Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

Cochran served as moderator and presented an introduction to this symposium titled "Client Counseling and Moral Responsibility". It is based on papers and discussion presented at the Professional Responsibility Section panel at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 2003. Members of the panel, Professors Deborah Rhode, Paul Tremblay, and Thomas Shaffer presented three different approaches to moral issues that arise in the client counseling relationship: the directive approach, client-centered counseling and the collaborative model. Under the directive model, a lawyer asserts control of moral issues that arise during legal representation. …

Why Civil Gideon Won't Fix Family Law, Rebecca Aviel

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explains why we should hesitate before throwing full support behind a civil Gideon initiative for family law, regardless of how wholeheartedly we embrace the proposition that parental rights are as important as physical liberty. The comparable importance of these interests does not necessarily mean that custody disputes should have the same procedural character as criminal matters, as becomes evident upon exploring some of the social, emotional, and structural qualities that differentiate the two contexts. Enhancing access to justice in family law requires that we design custody dispute resolution systems that honor the constitutionally significant interests at stake while …

Symposium: Client Counseling And Moral Responsibility, Robert F. Cochran Jr, Deborah L. Rhode, Paul R. Tremblay, Thomas L. Shaffer

Pepperdine Law Review

Cochran served as moderator and presented an introduction to this symposium titled "Client Counseling and Moral Responsibility". It is based on papers and discussion presented at the Professional Responsibility Section panel at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 2003. Members of the panel, Professors Deborah Rhode, Paul Tremblay, and Thomas Shaffer presented three different approaches to moral issues that arise in the client counseling relationship: the directive approach, client-centered counseling and the collaborative model. Under the directive model, a lawyer asserts control of moral issues that arise during legal representation. …

Absolute Immunity From Civil Liability: Lessons For Litigation Lawyers, T. Leigh Anenson

Pepperdine Law Review

The common law doctrine of absolute immunity provided to litigation lawyers is said to be "as old as law." This centuries-old doctrine protects litigators from lawsuits instigated by the adversaries of their clients. It is typically invoked, irrespective of any nefarious or malicious motives, so long as the course of action taken bears some reasonable relation to the lawsuit. This Article examines the historical antecedents of the litigation privilege as well as the policies motivating its creation. It also provides a comprehensive description of the doctrine of absolute immunity, explores the circumstances in which it has been applied, and discusses …

The Promise Of Client-Centered Professional Norms, Kate Kruse

Faculty Scholarship

In this year’s Saltman Lecture, Jennifer Gerarda Brown and Liana G.T. Wolf argue that restorative justice models have much to offer a broken attorney disciplinary system. While their specific proposals are problematic for reasons discussed more fully in this article, there is considerable merit to the authors’ larger point that the lawyer disciplinary system could benefit from incorporating a greater level of client participation. The authors point to a number of the benefits of a more client-participatory attorney disciplinary system, including the opportunity for lawyers to better appreciate the consequences of their misconduct, the opportunity to focus on repairing the …

Attorney Advice And The First Amendment, Renee Newman Knake

Washington and Lee Law Review

An attorney’s advice for navigating and, when necessary, challenging the law is essential to American democracy. Yet the constitutional protection afforded to this category of speech is not clear; indeed, some question whether it should be protected at all. While legal ethics scholars have addressed attorney speech in other circumstances, none has focused exclusively on the First Amendment protection for attorney advice, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s recent attention to the matter. Nor have constitutional law scholars given this issue the attention it deserves, though they acknowledge that it presents an important and unresolved question within First Amendment …

Engaged Client-Centered Representation And The Moral Foundations Of The Lawyer-Client Relationship, Kate Kruse

Faculty Scholarship

The field of legal ethics, as we know it today, has grown out of thoughtful, systematic grounding of lawyers’ duties in a comprehensive understanding of lawyers’ roles and the situating of lawyers’ roles in underlying theories of law, morality and justice. Unfortunately, the field of theoretical legal ethics has mostly lost track of the thing at the heart of a lawyers’ role: the integrity of the lawyer-client relationship. The field of theoretical legal ethics has developed in ways that are deeply lawyer-centered rather than fundamentally client-centered. This paper, which was delivered at Hofstra Law School as the Lichtenstein Distinguished Professor …

Beyond Cardboard Clients In Legal Ethics, Kate Kruse

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the construction of cardboard clients in legal ethics has disserved legal ethics by obscuring what is arguably a more central problem of legal professionalism: the problem of legal objectification. The problem of legal objectification is the tendency of lawyers to "issue-spot" their clients as they would the facts on a blue-book exam, overemphasizing the clients' legal interests and minimizing or ignoring the other cares, commitments, relationships, reputations and values that constitute the objectives clients bring to legal representation. This Article proposes an alternative ideal of legal professionalism for "three-dimensional clients" based on helping clients articulate and …

Military Lawyering And Professional Independence On The War On Terror : A Response To David Luban, Charles J. Dunlap Jr., Linell A. Letendre

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Human Dignity Of Clients, Kate Kruse

Faculty Scholarship

This essay reviews David Luban's forthcoming book, Legal Ethics and Human Dignity. At the heart of this new book is an argument that interactions between lawyers and clients ought to be at the center of jurisprudential inquiry. Pointing out that most cases do not go to trial and that much transactional work occurs outside the litigation context, he argues that law's defining moments occur when a "client sketches out a problem and a lawyer tenders advice," rather than when a judge decides a litigant's case. This review essay examines how Luban might elaborate a new "jurisprudence of lawyering" by examining …

Does Civility Matter?, Alice Woolley

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Recent discussion of legal ethics in Canada has focused on the importance of "civility" as a fundamental value and goal of ethical conduct. This comment questions that focus. After defining the content of "civility' and reviewing its treatment in these initiatives by both the law societies and the courts, the author suggests that the emphasis on civility is misplaced. Focusing on civility has the undesirable tendency to impede lawyer reporting of misconduct by other lawyers and potentially undermines the effective representation of client interests. It also shifts emphasis away from the ethical values that should be the focus of our …

The Negotiator-As-Professional: Understanding The Competing Interests Of A Representative Negotiator, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Negotiator As Professional: Understanding The Competing Interests Of A Representative Negotiator, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Comparative Research in Law & Political Economy

This article is about lawyers as negotiators, and in particular, it is about identifying and understanding the influential and potentially competing interests that are - or at least should be - in the minds of lawyers (and potentially other third party representatives) during the overall negotiation process. While there continues to be an increasing amount of literature on the mechanics and strategies of negotiation, the underlying interests that are typically at stake in representative negotiations from the perspective of representatives - particularly negotiations involving lawyers - have not been adequately studied. Current accounts of the representative negotiator do not paint …

Someplace Between Philosophy And Economics: Legitimacy And Good Corporate Lawyering, Donald C. Langevoort

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay deals with the demands of responsible lawyering when one's client is a corporate or other business entity. I suspect that to most business clients, many of the laws they encounter are mundane and, worse, suspicious in their origins. We would be naive to think that laws always do more good than harm, or even that they are intended to do so. Too often, law in economic and commercial settings is the product of special interest haggling, political grandstanding, or bureaucratic sloth. In its totality, the bulk of commercial and regulatory law probably is mediocre at best. If this …

Focusing On Children: Providing Counsel To Children In Expedited Proceedings To Terminate Parental Rights, Bridget A. Blinn

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ethical Versus Procedural Approaches To Civility: Why Ethics 2000 Should Have Adopted A Civility Rule, Christopher J. Piazzola

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Lawyer As Consensus Builder: Ethics For A New Practice, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this Article, I explore the roles of lawyers in alternative dispute resolution ("ADR"), including traditional roles in arbitration and "new" roles in mediation and facilitation. I also discuss how conventional ethics rules for lawyers fail to provide guidance and "best practices" for lawyers who serve in these new roles. State legislatures and professional associations, such as the American Arbitration Association ("AAA"), the Center for Public Resources Institute for Dispute Resolution ("CPR"), and the Association of Conflict Resolution, have adopted ethical codes for mediators and arbitrators. Select professional associations are also developing "best practice" guides for the provision of ADR …

The Bounds Of Zeal In Criminal Defense: Some Thoughts On Lynne Stewart, Abbe Smith

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

On April 9, 2002, a troop of armed FBI agents stormed the Brooklyn town house of sixty-two-year-old Lynne Stewart. A school librarian turned criminal lawyer, Stewart thought they had come for her life partner, longtime political activist Ralph Poynter. Flashing an arrest warrant, the agent in charge informed her otherwise, "We're not here for him, we're here for you." As her neighbors looked on, Stewart was handcuffed and taken off to jail.

Indicted under a federal law that prohibits providing "material support or resources" to organizations designated by the Secretary of State as engaging in terrorist activity, Stewart suddenly found …

When Lawyers And Law Firms Invest In Their Corporate Clients’ Stock, Donald C. Langevoort

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

I will state my conclusion at the outset. I am not convinced that lawyers' investments in clients in lieu of fees are problematic enough from a conflicts standpoint that the rules of professional responsibility should treat them as presumptively inconsistent with the lawyer's fiduciary responsibility. Lawyers' investments in their clients do raise interesting and unsettling issues, but these issues are not qualitatively different from issues raised by many other norms or practices within the legal profession that also threaten lawyerly objectivity. Indeed, in contrast to some other practices, these fee arrangements can, in some respects, enhance objectivity, or at least …

Defending The Innocent, Abbe Smith

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Of the legal scholarship examining the representation of the innocent accused, most has to do with guilty pleas, not trial or post-trial advocacy. Most of this literature is concerned with the pressure put on innocent defendants to plead guilty in order to receive a more lenient sentence than what they would get if found guilty at trial. This problem is compounded by the inability of poor defendants to make bail. Unfortunately, there are other, equally insidious ways to pressure innocent defendants to plead guilty. When addressing the question of defending the innocent at trial or in a post-conviction challenge, most …

Attorney-Client Relationships In Cyberspace: The Peril And The Promise, Catherine J. Lanctot

Duke Law Journal

Despite the legal profession's historical resistance to technological advances, the burgeoning world of cyberspace is bringing change to the practice of law. As laypeople flock to the Internet to seek help with their legal problems, lawyers are going online to provide such assistance. Yet, these exchanges are occurring without close consideration of whether they create attorney-client relationships-the source of weighty ethical and legal obligations. In many cases, lawyers seek to avoid the consequences of such relationships merely by disclaiming their existence. In this Article, Professor Lanctot examines the issue of lawyer-layperson communications in cyberspace from doctrinal and historical perspectives. The …

Seeking… The Faces Of Otherness…: A Response To Professors Sarat Felstiner And Cahn , Lucie E. White

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pluralizing The Client-Lawyer Relationship , John Leubsdorf

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Representing Environmental Clients, Owen Olpin, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Books, Reports, and Studies

11 p. ; 28 cm

The Agency Theory Of The Attorney-Client Relationship: An Improper Justification For Holding Clients Responsible For Their Attorneys’ Procedural Errors, William R. Mureiko

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Benign Solicitation Of Clients By Attorneys, Joe Wishcamper

Washington Law Review

The purpose of this comment is to discuss the social benefits offered by benign commercial solicitation, examine the weaknesses in the current ABA rules and court doctrine, and suggest arguments that could be presented to persuade a court to abandon the traditional doctrine and provide protection for such solicitation. An alternative approach is presented which suggests dealing with solicitation cases by applying a "circumstances" oriented test. The suggested test would avoid some of the infirmities of the present doctrine and would be more useful in predicting outcomes of such cases.