Law Commons^™

Moralizing In Public, Anita L. Allen

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Against Idols: The Court As A Symbol-Making Or Rhetorical Institution, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

Symbolic politics can be quite powerful. This article pursues the question of how the Supreme Court signifies itself, how it discovers and enacts the metaphors from which it will play its part in the American political drama aimed at containing some of the nightmares of human existence, while affirming and encouraging the possibilities for human flourishing. Embedded in this inquiry is the question of how the Court can signify itself while still preserving the truth-telling and humility necessary to legitimize Court decisions.

Prosecuting Judges For Ethical Violations: Are Criminal Sanctions Constitutional And Prudent, Or Do They Constitute A Threat To Judicial Independence?, Abraham Abramovsky, Jonathan I. Edelstein

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article examines the constitutional and practical issues surrounding the prosecutions of judges for ethical violations. The first part of this Article will focus on the Garson prosecution as an example of unwarranted prosecution of judges for violation of ethical codes. The second part examines cases elsewhere in the United States in which judges and other public officials have been prosecuted for violations of ethical codes. Finally, the third part discusses the threats to judicial independence that exist even under the current American legal Framework, as well as the growing tendency to blur the line between civil and criminal liability. …

Supplying Human Body Parts: A Jewish Law Perspective, Steven Resnicoff

College of Law Faculty

This article explores two related, but distinct, questions: (1) whether, under Jewish law, it is ethical for someone to buy or sell human body parts, and (2) whether, given Jewish law's perspective, it would be appropriate for the United States to adopt a distribution system that would give preference to people who volunteer to be prospective donors. These questions should interest three different kinds of people: (1) those who seek to abide by Jewish law and, therefore, need to know its rules; (2) those who respect Jewish law, who are curious about it, and who might be persuaded by its …

Power As A Factor In Lawyers' Ethical Deliberation, Susan Carle

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Pro Se Defendants And The Appointment Of Advisory Counsel, H. Patrick Furman

Publications

This article provides an overview of advisory counsel used to assist pro se criminal defendants, including the appointment and duties of advisory counsel, ethical obligations, and considerations for trial judges and prosecutors.

World Health Organization, Wendy Braun

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Over the past 60 years the World Health Organization (WHO) has succeeded in improving the general standard of health around the world. The WHO is an international agency within the United Nations and is comprised of 192 countries. The World Health Assembly, a 34 member elected board, meets annually to determine new regulations and budgetary needs for the organization. Rights-based policy is integrated throughout the World Health Organization’s programs. The WHO works with several entities, including non-governmental organizations, U.N. agencies and private organizations to achieve goals and implement new programs. Key topics for the WHO include gender rights, policy, and …

Is Forensic Computing A Profession? Revisiting An Old Debate In A New Field, Bernd C. Stahl

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Forensic Computing is a new and quickly developing field. It is in the process of becoming an academic discipline or sub-discipline with all the features from full undergraduate and postgraduate course provision to conferences and journals. An important question in this process of turning into an established discipline is whether it will coincide with the recognition of the graduates as professionals. This paper hopes to stimulate the debate as to whether forensic computing is or should be a discipline. In order to approach this question, the paper will discuss the concept of forensic computing including the most salient topics of …

Biotechnology Entrepreneurship And Ethics: Principles, Paradigms, And Products, Patricia C. Kuszler

Articles

Biotechnology, whether in the context of new drugs derived from DNA and genetic technology, genetically modified food, or biologics making use of living cells, raises ethical concerns at a variety of different levels. At the research level, there is concern that the very nature of research is being subverted, rather than enhanced, by entrepreneurship. This area of ethical concern has intensified in the United States as a result of the conflicts of interests resulting from the growing alliance between University academia and private industry in the research enterprise. As we travel down the research path into development of a drug …

The Limits Of Courage And Principle, Jedediah Purdy

Michigan Law Review

Michael Ignatieff, the director of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is not a lawyer. His work, however, treats issues of core concern to lawyers: nation-building, human rights, the ethics of warfare, and now, in his latest book, the proper relationship between liberty and security. The Lesser Evil is, in part, a book a legal scholar might have written: a normative framework for lawmaking in the face of the terror threat. It is also something more unusual: an exercise in an older type of jurisprudence. Ignatieff discusses law in the light of moral psychology …

Eliminating Political Maneuvering: A Light In The Tunnel For The Government Attorney-Client Privilege, Patricia E. Salkin, Allyson Phillips

Scholarly Works

The long recognized common-law privilege afforded to certain conversations between attorneys and their clients has been the subject of troubling opinions when the lawyer and client are high ranking government officials. In a series of opinions from the 7th, 8th and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeals, the courts refused to recognize the existence of the attorney-client privilege for the government actors under the circumstances surrounding the cases. However, recent opinions from the 2nd Circuit state that these other courts were simply wrong, setting the stage perhaps, for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the issue. Whether this privilege is equally …

Ethical Considerations In Land Use Decision Making: 2006 Annual Review Of Cases And Opinions, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

This article reviews reported cases and opinions documenting allegations of unethical conduct involved in land use planning and zoning decision making in 2006.

A Look At American Legal Practice Through A Perspective Of Jewish Law, Ethics, And Tradition: A Conceptual Overview, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

Levine examines the roles of legislative and judicial bodies, in the context of a discussion of broader principles of legislation in the Jewish legal system. In recent years, American legal scholars have increasingly looked to Jewish law as a model of an alternative legal system that considers many of the issues present in the American legal system. In relation to the roles of legislative and judicial bodies, the Jewish legal system provides a particularly illuminating contrast to the American legal system, in part because in Jewish law, the same authority, the Sanhedrin, or High Court, serves in both a legislative …

Confronting Barriers To The Courtroom For Animal Advocates: Linking Cultural And Legal Transitions, Taimie Bryant, Una Chaudhuri, Dale Jamieson, Laura Ireland Moore, David J. Wolfson

Animal Law Review

Panelists: Taimie Bryant, Una Chaudhuri, and Dale Jamieson

Moderators: Laura Ireland Moore and David J. Wolfson

In this discussion, panelists explore the many viewpoints society holds with respect to nonhuman animals. The discussion broadly covers ethics and what constitutes ethical behavior in this regard. The question dealt with is, largely, what is the appropriate ethical model to use when arguing that animals deserve better treatment and expanded rights? Unlike parallel movements for human civil rights or women’s equality, the animal rights movement has much greater hurdles to overcome when it comes to arguing that animals deserve equal treatment under the …

Bankruptcy Ethics Issues For Solos And Small Firms, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

This chapter, in Corinne Cooper & Catherine E. Vance's book Attorney Liability in Bankruptcy, walks the reader through some of the traditional ethics issues triggered by representing consumers and small businesses. It also addresses some of the ethics issues that the recent Bankruptcy Amendments (BAPCPA) have created.

Theorizing Agency, Susan Carle

American University Law Review

Progressive legal scholars today exhibit contrasting views on the scope of legal actors' agency in making "choices" about how to lead their lives. Feminist legal scholar Joan C. Williams, for example, challenges claims that women who leave the paid workforce to stay home with children have made a voluntary choice to take this path. Critical race scholar Ian Haney López, on the other hand, argues that the social construction of racial identity occurs precisely through the many voluntary choices members of both subordinated and dominant racial groups make about matters that implicate racial meanings. Williams contests the idea of voluntary …

California’S New Ethics Standards: A Hot Bed Of Controversy, Rebecca Callahan

ExpressO

The article examines California’s new ethics rules and examines the cases which have been decided to date challenging and applying those rules. The stated goals of the New Ethics Rules are “to inform and protect participants in arbitration, and to promote public confidence in the arbitration process.” This is a laudable goal since arbitration is a private process that is dependent on public acceptance. The heart of the controversy concerning the New Ethics Rules revolves around the practical inconvenience and cost burden associated with compliance. The enclosed article concludes that such a burden goes hand-in-hand with the privilege of being …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Fall 2005-Winter 2006

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Law's Ambition And The Reconstruction Of Role Morality In Canada, David M. Tanovich

Dalhousie Law Journal

There is a growing disconnect and alienation between lawyers and the legal profession in Canada. One cause, which is the focus ofthe article, is philosophical in nature. There appears to be a disconnect between the role lawyers want to pursue (i.e., a facilitator of justice) and the role that they perceive the profession demands they play (i.e., a hired gun). The article argues that this perception is a mistaken one. Over the last fifteen years, we have been engaged in a process of role morality reconstruction. Under this reconstructed institutional role, an ethic of client-centred zealous advocacy has slowly begun …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Summer 2005

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Introduction – 21st Century Law, Technology And Ethics: The Lawyer’S Role As A Public Citizen Serving The Public Good, Irma S. Russell

Faculty Works

The lawyer's role as a "public citizen" also involves a duty to "seek improvement of the law." Changing technology has changed the way lawyers practice law. As public citizens lawyers have an affirmative commitment to the social goal of a just society. Ethical issues arise in the use of technology in society, and lawyers play a central role in social ordering. The idea that advocates in an adversary system have special responsibilities is not new.

On Integrity: Some Considerations For Water Law, Christine A. Klein

UF Law Faculty Publications

Expanding upon the aspects of integrity protected under the Clean Water Act, this Article will explore the relevance to water law of chemical, physical, ecosystem, social, and ethical integrity. Just as the Clean Water Act intended to prevent unacceptable "perturbations" of ecosystems, so also this Article will consider the extent to which the law itself may work an unacceptable perturbation of fundamental hydrologic and social principles. In many instances, water policy compartmentalizes the law in ways that have little to do with hydrologic reality and in ways that are antithetical to wholeness and integrity. Examples include the legal bifurcation of …

Ethics In Government At The Local Level, Vincent R. Johnson

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

The Jurisprudential Foundation Of Law, Especially International Law: The Basis For True Progess & Reform, Morse Tan

ExpressO

This essay makes a unique case for the existence of justice, higher law and virtue by drawing on classic thinkers from both East and West. It asserts that no better jurisprudential foundation can be found. The need for this foundation emerges more clearly in the international context, but it applies to all legal systems.

After introducing the topic, explaining the relevance of this jurisprudence, responding to objections, and critiquing competing approaches, this essay presents pertinent sources from the East. Well-regarded in the East but less known to the West, writers such as Mencius, Tao, Hsuntze, and the Neo Confucianists from …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Spring 2005

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Attorney Liability For Tortious Interference: Interference With Contractual Relations Or Interference With The Practice Of Law?, Alex B. Long

Scholarly Works

Allowing individuals to bring tortious interference claims against opposing attorneys for conduct occurring during the representation of a client and that lies close to the core of what it means to practice law presents courts with particularly challenging policy choices. The defendant-attorney's conduct in such cases may involve the filing of a lawsuit, pre-trial settlement strategy, the use of the rules regarding conflicts of interest to disqualify opposing counsel, and questionable trial tactics. The primary concern with permitting interference claims in this context is the potential for such claims to chill legitimate advocacy. However, if properly defined, interference claims, and …

Faculty Ethics In Law School: Shirking, Capture, And "The Matrix", Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

The primary focus of this essay is the ethical dimension of the decisions faculty governance requires law professors to make. This essay is devoted to the proposition that conditions are ideal for most law schools to be governed for the benefit of the faculty at the expense of the welfare of students and others (stakeholders) who expect to be served by the law school. This section also suggests that faculty shirking, if it occurs, stems primarily from a lack of respect for those whom the law school serves. Section II addresses the second step. Having described shirking and capture in …

Can A Good Judge Be A Good Politician - Judicial Elections From A Virtue Ethics Approach, Marie A. Failinger

Missouri Law Review

In this Article, I argue that direct judicial elections, at least to the extent that they mimic other general elections, are not the wisest course for selecting judges, though not precisely for the usual reasons cited by commentatorse.g., that lawyers are in a better position to evaluate the merits of judicial candidates than the public because they are less likely to be swayed by singleissue politics or irrelevant matters.8 In fact, it seems to me that both the perspectives of the practicing bar and the public are necessary to hold judges accountable. For example, a lawyer may be in a …

Watch Out For Whistleblowers, Leslie C. Griffin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Cause Lawyering: An Examination Of Criminal Defense Lawyers As Cause Lawyers, Margareth Etienne

ExpressO

Criminal defense attorneys are often motivated by an intricate set of moral and ideological principles that belie their reputations as amoral (if not immoral) “hired guns” who would do anything to get their guilty clients off. Using empirical data from interviews with forty criminal defense attorneys I explore the motivations that inform their decisions to enter the field of criminal defense and the values that influence the manner in which they do their jobs. I conclude that many criminal defense attorneys are in fact cause lawyers who are committed to individual clients but also the “cause” of legal reform in …