Law Commons^™

How Not To Lie: A Don't-Do-It-Yourself Guide For Litigators, Leonard Niehoff

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Over the past few years, a number of high-profile attorneys have been sanctioned or suspended from the practice of law because they lied. The instance that probably received the greatest media attention came in June of 2021, when the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York ordered the immediate suspension of Rudy Giuliani’s license because he had made demonstrably false statements to the courts, lawmakers, and the public at large concerning the 2020 presidential election. In a 33- page opinion, the court considered the arguments Giuliani raised in his defense but concluded that his pants …

A Study Of Tax Lawyers Discussing Duties, Michael Hatfield, Michelle Kwon

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This Article reports the first qualitative empirical study of U.S. tax lawyers. We interviewed women lawyers who were tax planning specialists. Though this is the first such study of U.S. tax lawyers, this methodology has been used often to study the professional ethics of other tax practitioners around the world. We had three research questions that we sought to answer through dynamic conversations on topics such as the distinctions between good and bad tax plans and good and bad tax lawyers and also the joys and stresses of tax practice. Our first research question was as to the make-up of …

The Rise Of Law And The Fall Of Circular 230: Tax Lawyer Professional Standards, 1985-2015, Michael Hatfield

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This third article focuses on the two issues that dominated discussions of professional responsibility standards for tax lawyers in the 1985-2015 period: return position standards and tax shelter opinions. It opens with consideration of the ABA’s 1965 opinion providing “reasonable basis” as the standard for undisclosed return positions, and then traces the response to that opinion as the response prods the development of the 1985 replacement with its “realistic possibility of success” standard. The Article documents the extensive interaction between Congress, the Treasury Department, and the tax bar over the next 30 years during which penalties are studied and revised …

Addressing Cultural Bias In The Legal Profession, Debra Chopp

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Over the past two decades, there has been an outpouring of scholarship that explores the problem of implicit bias. Through this work, commentators have taken pains to define the phenomenon and to describe the ways in which it contributes to misunderstanding, discrimination, inequality, and more. This article addresses the role of implicit cultural bias in the delivery of legal services. Lawyers routinely represent clients with backgrounds and experiences that are vastly different from their own, and the fact of these differences can impede understanding, communication, and, ultimately, effective representation. While other professions, such as medicine and social work, have adopted …

Mindful Ethics And The Cultivation Of Concentration, Scott L. Rogers, Jan L. Jacobowitz

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No abstract provided.

Committee Opinions And Treasury Regulation: Tax Lawyer Ethics, 1965-1985, Michael Hatfield

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This first section of the Article highlights the themes and tones of the 1945-1965 tax ethics literature, and then provides the political context and an overview of the legal changes in 1965-1985 that frame the tax ethics literature of that period. Section II begins in 1965, documenting the history of the first Formal Opinion (Opinion) on tax lawyer ethics issued by the American Bar Association's (ABA) Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (PR Committee), which after considerable criticism in the ensuing years was substantially revised by a second Opinion in 1985. Section III is focused on 1980-1985, investigating the first …

The Role Of Mindfulness In The Ongoing Evolution Of Legal Education, Scott L. Rogers

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No abstract provided.

Mindful Ethics - A Pedagogical And Practical Approach To Teaching Legal Ethics, Developing Professional Identity, And Encouraging Civility, Jan L. Jacobowitz, Scott L. Rogers

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Aristotle spoke of virtue and ethics as a combination of practical wisdom and habituation-an individual must learn from the application of critical reasoning skills to experience. Perhaps one of the earliest proclamations of the value of experiential learning, the Aristotelian view, reappears throughout history and is captured once again by the Carnegie Foundation's Report on Legal Education, which includes a call for instruction that provides practical skills and ethical grounding to complement the teaching of legal analysis. The Carnegie Report continues to play a role in the ongoing discussion of the need to reform legal education; a debate that is …

Cultivating Professional Identity & Creating Community: A Tale Of Two Innovations, Jan L. Jacobowitz

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No abstract provided.

The Mindful Law School: An Integrative Approach To Transforming Legal Education, Scott L. Rogers

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No abstract provided.

Legal Ethics And Federal Taxes, 1945-1965: Patriotism, Duties, And Advice, Michael Hatfield

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This article is devoted to exploring the legal ethics writings by tax lawyers in a pivotal period of income tax history: 1945-1965, the first two decades of the federal income tax as we now know it. Although the income tax began in 1913, it was World War II that created the modem mass income tax: in 1939 there were 3.9 million individual income tax taxpayers but by 1945 there were 42.6 million. This period was also one of significant progress in the administration of the income tax: the Internal Revenue Code was re-organized in 1954 and, following widespread corruption scandals, …

Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, And The Ethics Of Casual Conversation,, Michael Hatfield

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This essay is to help tax lawyers decide how to handle casual conversations centered on denying, defying, or destroying the tax system. One option is to walk away, ending the conversation and silencing the dialogue. The next option is to engage. I want to persuade tax lawyers that they should usually engage in the conversation. I try to do this in Part III.

There are two kinds of legal ethics essays, and one must choose which kind to write, and it is useful to the reader to know upfront which kind the author chose to write. One kind begins with …

Deconstructing The Duty To The Tax System: Unfettering Zealous Advocacy On Behalf Of Lesbian And Gay Taxpayers, Anthony C. Infanti

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In this article, I consider how the tax lawyer's generally-acknowledged duty to the tax system should be applied in the representation of lesbian and gay clients. Due to the significant initial advantages that taxpayers are thought to have over the government in the tax compliance and enforcement process, this duty to the tax system requires a tax lawyer to avoid both questionable positions and the temptation to play the audit "lottery." The tax lawyer is asked to temper the zealousness of her advocacy in this way in order to preserve the integrity and, ultimately, the proper functioning of the tax …

Interdisciplinary Clinical Teaching Of Child Welfare Practice To Law And Social Work Students When World Views Collide, Kathleen Coulborn Faller, Frank E. Vandervort

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Because child welfare cases in the world of professional practice require interdisciplinary collaboration, it would seem to follow that graduate students, who will become child welfare professionals, should be trained together, both in the classroom and in clinical settings. However, the implementation of interdisciplinary training is far from straightforward. In this Article, we focus on law and social work students. First, we describe the roles of lawyers and social worker in child welfare work. Next we argue that interdisciplinary classroom teaching is easier than clinical teaching, proposing a series of topics to be covered in an interdisciplinary course. Finally, we …

Capturing The Dialectic Between Principles And Cases, Kevin D. Ashley

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Theorists in ethics and law posit a dialectical relationship between principles and cases; abstract principles both inform and are informed by the decisions of specific cases. Until recently, however, it has not been possible to investigate or confirm this relationship empirically. This work involves a systematic study of a set of ethics cases written by a professional association's board of ethical review. Like judges, the board explains its decisions in opinions. It applies normative standards, namely principles from a code of ethics, and cites past cases. We hypothesized that the board's explanations of its decisions elaborated upon the meaning and …

Ethics, Race, And Reform, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Race Prosecutors, Race Defenders, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Uni-State Lawyers And Multinational Practice: Dealing With International, Transnational, And Foreign Law, Ronald A. Brand

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This article addresses how a lawyer may ethically engage in a transnational practice given the current structure of state-by-state bar admission. Part II examines the ethical pitfalls of a transnational practice, including an examination of applicable APA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. This section also addresses different tests for determining whether a lawyer has committed the unauthorized practice of law. Part III makes use of examples to illustrate the legal framework for determining whether a lawyer has committed the unauthorized practice of law. In Part IV, the author concludes by making suggestions for how to better address the ethical dilemma …

Prosecuting Race, Anthony V. Alfieri

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Theoreticians and practitioners in the American criminal justice system increasingly debate the role of racial identity, racialized narratives, and race-neutral representation in law, lawyering, and ethics.

This debate holds special bearing on the growing prosecution and defense of acts of racially motivated violence. In this continuing investigation of the prosecution and defense of such violence, Professor Alfieri examines the recent federal prosecution of five white New York City police officers charged with assaulting Abner Louima, a young male Haitian immigrant, in 1997. Professor Alfieri presents a race conscious, community-oriented model of prosecutorial discretion guided by constitutional precepts, citizenship ideals, professionalism …

Race Trials, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

What About The Children? Are Family Lawyers The Same (Ethically) As Criminal Lawyers? A Morality Play, Robert H. Aronson

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A fictional account of a lawyer, representing a woman in a divorce case, who learns from her client that her live-in boyfriend has hit her and her five-year-old daughter. Is her ethical duty to protect the child greater than her responsibility to maintain the attorney-client privilege. She discusses the matter with two evidence professors in search of a solution.

The Myth Of Legal Ethics, Eric Schnapper

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The moral platitudes found in the Code of Professional Responsibility have little to do with legal ethics as actually enforced.

Legal Ethics And The Government Lawyer, Eric Schnapper

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All litigation presents to some degree, real though not always perceived, a conflict between each attorney's responsibility as a representative of his or her client and as an officer of the court. Winning the case and seeing that justice is done must be inconsistent goals for counsel on at least one side in a case, if not on both. However substantial this problem may be regarded, it is certainly more complex for counsel for the government. Unlike a private attorney subject to dismissal for ignoring a client's wishes, counsel for the government often has, subject to the variables of intragovernmental …

Professional Responsibility: Education And Enforcement, Robert H. Aronson

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The fallout from the Watergate scandals has had a profound effect upon the legal profession because many of the prominent offenders were attorneys. The severity of the conduct involved and the suspicion that the activities publicized represent merely the tip of the iceberg have caused the American Bar Association, state and local bar committees, and law schools to seek new ways of educating prospective lawyers with respect to their ethical duties, and to seek more effective sanctions against ethically deficient attorneys. It is ironic, however, that increased awareness and activity in the area of legal ethics should be motivated by …

An Inquiry Concerning The Functions Of Procedure In Legal Education, Edson R. Sunderland

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Procedure has always been the bete noire of the law school teacher. No other subject has developed such divergent opinions or such endless debates. None recurs with such periodic frequency and in no field of legal pedagogy has discussion seemed so barren of results. Three different general sessions of the Association of American Law Schools during the last ten years have been devoted largely or wholly to the subject of teaching procedure, and yet no substantial progress seems to have been made toward a standardized scheme of treatment. Individual teachers and schools have their individual views and policies, and they …