Law Commons^™

Misunderstanding Lawyers' Ethics, Monroe H. Freedman, Abbe Smith

Michigan Law Review

The title of Daniel Markovits's book, A Modern Legal Ethics, gives the impression that it is a comprehensive treatise on contemporary lawyers' ethics. The contents of the book, however, are both more limited and more expansive than the title suggests. Markovits's treatment of lawyers' ethics concerns itself with what he conceives to be the pervasive guilty conscience of practicing lawyers over their "professional viciousness" (p. 36), and how lawyers can achieve a guilt-free professional identity "worthy of ... commitment" (p. 2). Markovits's goal in the book is to "articulat[e] a powerful and distinctively lawyerly virtue" (p. 2), one that …

Lawyering At The Intersection Of Public Law And Legal Ethics: Government Lawyers As Custodians Of The Rule Of Law, Adam M. Dodek

Dalhousie Law Journal

Government lawyers are significant actors in the Canadian legal profession, yet they are largely ignored by regulators and by academic scholarship. The dominant view of lawyering fails to adequately capture the unique role of government lawyers. Government lawyers are different from other lawyers by virtue of their role in creating and upholding the rule of law Most accounts of government lawyers separate public law duties of government from ethical duties of lawyers; for example, acknowledging the "public interest" role ofgovernment lawyers but asserting that this has no impact on their ethical duties as lawyers. Instead of this compartmentalized approach, this …

Placebo Ethics, Usha Rodrigues, Mike Stegemoller

Scholarly Works

While there are innumerable theories on the best remedy for the current financial crisis, there is agreement on one point, at least: increased transparency is good. We look at a provision from the last round of financial regulation, the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), which imposed disclosure requirements tailored to prevent some of the kinds of abuses that led to the downfall of Enron. In response to Enron's self-dealing transactions, Section 406 of SOX required a public company to disclose its code of ethics and to disclose immediately any waivers from that code the company grants to its top …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Winter 2010

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Teaching Public Citizen Lawyering: From Aspiration To Inspiration, Mae Quinn

Journal Articles

A longtime social justice activist and clinical professor, Douglas Colbert,2 recently sought information from colleagues across the country3 for the second part of an important project examining a lawyer’s ethical obligation to engage in pro bono work during a time of crisis, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina or 9/11.4 He sent out surveys to learn which schools actually taught the Preamble to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct in ethics or other courses.5 As Professor Colbert’s letter explained, the Preamble states: “A lawyer, as a member of the legal profession, is a representative of clients, an officer …

What Scribner Wrought: How The Invention Of Modern Dialysis Shaped Health Law And Policy, Sallie Thieme Sanford [email protected]

Articles

In March 1960, Clyde Shields, a machinist dying from incurable kidney disease, was connected to an "artificial kidney" by means of a U-shaped Teflon tube that came to be known as the Scribner shunt. By facilitating long-term dialysis, Dr. Belding Scriber’s invention changed chronic kidney failure from a fatal illness to a treatable condition. This medical advance has, in turn, had a profound impact on key areas of health law and policy. This paper focuses on the historical roots and current context of three interrelated areas: ethical allocation of scarce medical resources; public financing of expensive health care; and decisions …

The Ethic Of High Expectations, Jean Galbraith

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contraception, Abortion, And Health Care Reform: Finding Appropriate Moral Ground, Dena S. Davis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In this essay, I make the argument that abortion and contraception are fundamentally different actions that occupy fundamentally different moral space, and that justify fundamentally different political action. I conclude that, while it is morally licit, even morally obligatory, for people who believe that embryos are people like us, to attempt to impede access to abortion, it is morally illicit to attempt to block access to contraception (including sterilization).

Entertainment Law - The Specter Of Malpractice Claims And Disciplinary Actions, Jack P. Sahl

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Plagiarism: The Legal Landscape, Robert Berry

Librarian Publications

In Chapter 10, Robert Berry discusses legal issues regarding plagiarism and academic cases of intellectual dishonesty.

From the Introduction: Colleges and universities with plagiarism policies that are fundamentally fair—and that are applied consistently—enjoy three significant advantages over those that do not. First, these schools enjoy greater legitimacy in the eyes of the people who must live with their decisions. They exercise genuine moral authority in their decision making, which is much more consistent with the goals of education, and they avoid the exercise of raw power that often accompanies ad hoc decision making. Second, educational institutions with fair policies are …

Risks And Hedges Of Providing Liquidity In Complex Securities: The Impact Of Insider Trading On Options Market Makers, Stanislav Dolgopolov

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Baseless Pleas: A Mockery Of Justice, Mari Byrne

Fordham Law Review

This Note addresses the ethicality of the baseless plea, a guilty plea entered by a defendant for a crime that everyone in the courtroom—judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, and defendant—knows the defendant did not commit. Used in the interest of efficiency and leniency, the baseless plea allows a defendant to plead guilty to a crime that has no basis in the facts of the case. Though used by courts in numerous jurisdictions, baseless pleas have been largely unaddressed as courts have sought to conceal the practice and as commentators have therefore failed to detect it. This Note seeks to remedy that …

Debtor Counsel's Fiduciary Duty: Is There A Duty To Rat In Chapter 11?, Nancy B. Rapoport, C. R. Bowles

Scholarly Works

This article discusses what duties counsel to the debtor-in-possession owe (and to whom they owe these duties) when the debtor-in-possession wants to do something illegal or just plain dumb.

Navigating Tricky Ethical Shoals In Environmental Law: Parameters Of Counseling And Managing Clients, Kim Diana Connolly

Journal Articles

This article explores some of the ethical situations that environmental and natural resource lawyers can encounter when counseling clients. It begins by exploring the Model Rule of Professional Conduct (MRPC) 2.1, regarding counsel’s role as “advisor,” which provides that appropriate client counseling refers not only to law, but also to moral, economic, social, and political factors, when making decisions. It also explores the environmental lawyer’s ability to withdraw from representation pursuant to MRPC 1.16. It places the obligations and options under these rules and other mandates in the environmental and natural resource context, and encourages attorneys practicing in the area …

Whom Would Jesus Cover - A Biblical, Ethical Lens For The Contemporary American Health Care Debate, Jeffrey R. Baker

Journal of Law and Health

This paper attempts a view of the contemporary health care debate in America through the prism of Biblical scripture and proposes that people of faith should recognize the current state of the American health care system as a moral crisis of justice and charity. First, I provide a survey of the current state of American health care for the uninsured, describing the demographic and economic circumstances of the uninsured and the resources available to them when they need medical care. Second, I ask whether, in light of scripture, this state of affairs presents a moral question that should drive our …

Lines Of Communication: Advances In Stem Cell Policy, Dena Davis, Debra Grega

Journal of Law and Health

This is a transcription of the Journal of Law and Health's Speaker Series event held on November 17, 2009 at the Joseph W. Bartunek III Moot Court Room, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. The speakers discussed stem cell policy, ethics, oversight, funding restrictions and research restrictions.

Can Compassionate Practice Also Be Good Legal Practice?: Answers From The Lives Of Buddhist Lawyers, Deborah J. Cantrell

Publications

What does it mean to say that one is a "good lawyer" in the United States? The dominant view is that a lawyer is a zealous advocate owing loyalty to, and taking direction from, the client. The lawyer is singularly focused and hyper-rationality is prized. This article challenges that narrative. Using the real lives of a group of lawyers across the United States, this article offers rich and nuanced descriptive data about the possibilities of "good lawyering" through compassion, equanimity, and an expanded notion of honesty. This article contributes importantly to the debate about what it means to be a …

Mindfulness, Emotions, And Ethics: The Right Stuff?, Ellen Waldman

Nevada Law Journal

This essay celebrates Leonard Riskin's call to arms while suggesting some limits to what mindfulness can achieve in the ethical realm. I discuss recent developments in neuroethics that imply a prominent role for emotions in establishing ethical restraint. The Article also surveys a growing body of evidence that suggests the directive power of our emotions remains largely hidden from and impervious to the control of our “reasoning” selves. Lastly, the author examines what Riskin has, in an earlier work, described as the ethical hard case in light of recent explorations into the emotional wellsprings of deontological versus consequentialist thinking. Although …

The Ethics Of Melancholy Citizenship, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

As a body of work, the poetry of Langston Hughes presents a vision of how members of a political community ought to comport themselves, particularly when politics yield few tangible solutions to their problems. Confronted with human degradation and bitter disappointment, the best course of action may be to abide by the ethics of melancholy citizenship. A mournful disposition is associated with four democratic virtues: candor, pensiveness, fortitude, and self-abnegation. Together, these four characteristics lead us away from democratic heartbreak and toward political renewal. Hughes’s war-themed poems offer a richly layered example of melancholy ethics in action. They reveal how …

No Protectable Property Interest In Making Land Use Decisions And Other Ethics In Land Use Issues 2009-2010, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

This annual review of reported decisions and opinions focused on ethical considerations in land use planning and decision-making, continues to highlight the hotly litigated issues surrounding conflicts of interest of various players in the land use game.

On Respect, Authority & Neutrality: A Response, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

I owe a great debt to Professors Wall, Darwall, and Green for their willingness to challenge, develop, and question some of my publications, which forced me to confront a few of the shortcomings in my views and, I hope, to clarify and improve some of them. Given the diversity of the topics, I respond to each separately. I aimed to avoid minor points and to write only on matters which affect the cogency of my views or theirs on important issues.1 For that reason, as well as for reasons of space, not all the issues they raise are dealt …

Mapping The Issues: Public Health, Law And Ethics, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The field of public health is typically regarded as a positivistic pursuit and, undoubtedly, our understanding of the etiology and response to disease is heavily influenced by scientific inquiry. Public health policies, however, are shaped not only by science but also by ethical values, legal norms, and political oversight. Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (expanded and updated 2nd ed., 2010) probes and seeks to illuminate this complex interplay, through a careful selection of government reports, scholarly articles, and court cases together with discussion and analysis of critical problems at the interface of law, ethics, and public health. The …

Relationships, The Rules Of Professional Conduct And Land Use: Ethical Quagmires For Land Use Attorneys, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

This article begins to fill the void by introducing the application of the various Rules of Professional Conduct, as adopted by the specific opining jurisdiction, through a review of the relevant reported opinions of the various committees and sometimes courts, in the land use context. Part I discusses the challenges that arise for lawyers vis-à-vis their clients in the land use context. This is followed by a discussion in Part II of the ethics and professionalism issues that confront lawyers who serve on local boards.

Susan Wolf On The Meaning Of Life: A Review, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

The book comprises the two Tanner Lectures given by Susan Wolf at Princeton in 2007; helpful comments by John Koethe, Robert M. Adams, Nomy Arpaly, and Jonathan Haidt;Wolf ’s replies; and a brief introduction by Stephen Macedo. Wolf writes elegantly and thoughtfully, and the book, which seems to preserve in length and style its origins as two lectures, is full of sensible, suggestive ideas. The Tanner Lectures are meant to reach a nonspecialist audience, and some specialist readers may wish to have more on less, a desire likely to affect especially those who, like myself, share Wolf ’s basic approach …

Rethinking Professional Fees In Chapter 11 Cases, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

This article discusses the many ways in which professional fees can spiral out of control in chapter 11 bankruptcy cases and evaluates the possible ways to monitor and control those fees.

Through Gritted Teeth And Clenched Jaw: Court-Initiated Sanctions In Bankruptcy Opinions, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

This article discusses what types of behavior can trigger a bankruptcy court's initiation of sanctions against an attorney.

Focusing Your Firm On Ethics, Alex B. Long

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Fall 2009

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Langston Hughes: The Ethics Of Melancholy Citizenship, Robert L. Tsai

Working Papers

As a body of work, the poetry of Langston Hughes presents a vision of how members of a political community ought to comport themselves, particularly when politics yield few tangible solutions to their problems. Confronted with human degradation and bitter disappointment, the best course of action may be to abide by the ethics of melancholy citizenship. A mournful disposition is associated with four democratic virtues: candor, pensiveness, fortitude, and self-abnegation. Together, these four characteristics lead us away from democratic heartbreak and toward political renewal. Hughes’s war-themed poems offer a richly layered example of melancholy ethics in action. They reveal how …

Genetic Enhancements And Expectations, Kelly Sorensen

Philosophy and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Some argue that genetic enhancements and environmental enhancements are not importantly different: environmental enhancements such as private schools and chess lessons are simply the old-school way to have a designer baby. I argue that there is an important distinction between the two practices—a distinction that makes state restrictions on genetic enhancements more justifiable than state restrictions on environmental enhancements. The difference is that parents have no settled expectations about genetic enhancements.