Law Commons^™

Facing Ethical Issues With Law Students In An Adversary Context, Marjorie L. Girth

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Immorality Of Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article is the first of a two-part series critically examining the role of lawyers in assisting clients in denying responsibility for harms they have caused. If a person injures another, the moral response is for the injurer actively to take responsibility for what he has done. In contrast, the common practice within our legal culture is for injurers to deny responsibility for harms they commit. The immoral, in other words, has become the legally normal. In this Article, Professor Cohen analyzes the moral foundations of responsibility-taking. He also explores the moral, psychological, and spiritual risks to injurers who knowingly …

The Jurisprudential Foundation Of Law, Especially International Law: The Basis For True Progress & Reform, Morse Hyun-Myung 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 …

Drafting Attorneys As Fiduciaries: Fashioning An Optimal Ethical Rule For Conflicts Of Interest, Paula A. Monopoli

Faculty Scholarship

The American Bar Association recently revised the ethical rules that govern lawyers. Its Ethics 2000 Commission proposed a number of changes to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, including revisions to the rules that affect how the profession handles conflicts of interest in the area of attorneys who draft instruments that name themselves as fiduciaries. The intersection of these changes, with their subsequent clarification by an ABA opinion issued in May 2002, has broad implications for attorneys practicing in this area. Given the increasing elderly population, the trillions of dollars that they are transferring to their baby-boomer children, and the …

Grounding Normative Assertions: Arthur Leff's Still Irrefutable, But Incomplete, "Sez Who?" Critique, Samuel W. Calhoun

Scholarly Articles

The late Professor Arthur Leff believed that standard methods for grounding normative assertions fail to provide a solid foundation for moral judgment because none provides a satisfactory answer to what Leff called the grand 'sez who?' - a universal taunt by which a skeptic may challenge the standing/competency of the speaker to make authoritative moral assessments. Leff argued that as a matter of logic no system of morals premised in mankind alone ever could withstand the taunt. His provocative conclusion was that the only unchallengeable response to the grand 'sez who?' is God sez.

This Article demonstrates the continued relevance …

Legal Education After Law School: Lessons From Scotland And Englan, Clark D. Cunningham

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article addresses the issue of the needed collaboration between law schools and law firms about legal education after law school. The author proposes pilot projects be launched to increase collaboration between legal academics and law firms in the provision of legal education after law school. The Article suggests that the programs emulate the close partnerships that exist between the legal academy and legal profession in England and Scotland. The Article acknowledges why the training of lawyers is different now than in the past. The author compares the American law firm training programs with the post school education that takes …

Profits And Professionalism, Deborah Rhode

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article looks at the financial effect of ethics work. The author examines to what effect and under what circumstances “ethics pays,” and what can be done to increase the rate of return. The article studies this issue in three different contexts. First, it looks at workplace cultures and professional values. The author tries to find how the legal professional can create more organizational structures in which adhering to principles serves prudential interests. The second context is pro bono work. Here, the author looks at the pro bono benefits to, the lawyer, and legal employer, as well as the costs …

Old Legacies And New Paradigms: Confusing "Research" And "Treatment" And Its Consequences In Responding To Emergent Health Threats, Gail H. Javitt

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Teaching Enron, Milton C. Regan, Jr.

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Resistances To Reforming Corporate Governance: The Diffusion Of Qlccs, Robert Eli Rosen

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Nirvana Fallacy In Law Firm Regulation Debate, Elizabeth Chambliss

Faculty Publications

Most commentators would agree that large law firms have outgrown collegial management and self-regulation. Yet lawyers generally have been slow to recognize the benefits of bureaucratic management, and traditionally have resisted and lamented the move toward more bureaucratic forms. Many lawyers view the infrastructure of bureaucratic management - that is, formal policies and procedures and specialized managerial personnel - as necessarily undermining professional ethics and individual accountability within firms.

This article questions the empirical basis for such concerns. I argue that the fear that centralized management controls will undermine individual accountability rests on an implicit comparison to a nostalgic, collegial …

Therapeutic Jurisprudence - An Australian Perspective, George Hampel Qc

St. Thomas Law Review

At a recent conference in Crete on Ethics and Professional Responsibilities, I had the privilege of meeting David B. Wexler and hearing his presentation on Therapeutic Jurisprudence. I also had the advantage of reading his article entitled Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Rehabilitative Role of the Criminal Defense Lawyer. Over a cup of good Greek coffee, Mr. Wexler asked me about developments in this area in Australia and suggested I might contribute to a forthcoming publication. The short answer is that there has been little development in academic circles compared to the work being done by Mr. Wexler and others in …

Alleged Conflicts Of Interest Because Of The “Appearance Of Impropriety”, Ronald D. Rotunda

Law Faculty Articles and Research

No abstract provided.

Justification, Legitimacy, And Administrative Governance, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

Richard Stewart, in his classic article ‘The Reformation of American Administrative Law,’ argues that the demise of the ’transmission belt’ model of administrative governance creates a crisis of agency legitimacy, and he skeptically surveys a range of possible solutions to the legitimacy crisis. I claim that Stewart’s skepticism is misguided. It may be true that no feasible administrative structure is democratically legitimate; but it is also true, given the logic of moral justification, that in every choice situation confronted by agency decisionmakers, or by those who design agencies, there is some morally permissible and justified choice (perhaps a choice that …

U.S. Legal Ethics: The Coming Of Age Of Global And Comparative Perspectives, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This Article reviews the influence of comparative law during the past 100 years and then divides the last 100 years into three distinct comparative legal ethics eras. The first era consists of the time period between 1904 and 1973, during which there was both domestic and comparative legal ethics scholarship, although a relatively small amount compared to later years. The second time period, which dates from 1974, when legal ethics became a required course, to 1997, represents the coming of age of domestic legal ethics scholarship. This time period also included a significant amount of legal ethics scholarship employing a …

Professional Responsibility Redesigned: Sparking A Dialogue Between Students And The Bar, Lois R. Lupica

Faculty Publications

In recent years, there have been many public and private, formal and informal complaints about the behavior of lawyers. Moreover, lawyers' tenuous reputation for honesty and integrity has been tarnished by recent, well-publicized scandals. The public, as well as members of the bench and bar, have further decried a decline in attorney professionalism. More than once, it has been suggested that in some way, failings of law schools are to blame. In response to these observations about the professional behavior of lawyers and as a result of the author's experiences of teaching a traditional, Socratic-method Professional Responsibility class for many …

Ethics, Science, And The Law Of Capital Punishment, Fredrick R. Bieber

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: Toward A Model Death Penalty Code: The Massachusetts Governor's Council Report.

The Culture Of Legal Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen

UF Law Faculty Publications

The goals of this essay are twofold. The first is to examine critically the practice of lawyers assisting clients in denying harms they commit and suggest some ways of changing that practice. Lawyers commonly presume that their clients' interests are best served by denial. Yet such a presumption is not warranted. Given the moral, psychological, relational, and sometimes even economic risks of denial to the injurer, lawyers should consider discussing responsibility taking more often with clients. The second is to explore several structural or systemic factors that may reinforce the practice of denial seen day in and day out within …

Regulating International Arbitrators: A Functional Approach To Developing Standards Of Conduct, Catherine A. Rogers

Faculty Scholarship

Some scholars have protested that arbitrators are subject to less exacting regulation than barbers and taxidermists. The real problem with international arbitrators, however, is not that they are subject to less regulation, but that no one agrees about how they should be regulated. The primary reason for judicial and scholarly disagreement is that, instead of a coherent theory, analysis of arbitrator conduct erroneously relies on a misleading judicial referent and a methodologic failure to separate conduct standards (meaning those norms or rules that guide arbitrators' professional conduct) from enforcement standards (meaning those narrow grounds under which an arbitral award can …

The Nirvana Fallacy In Law Firm Regulation Debate, Elizabeth Chambliss

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article addresses self-regulation in the legal industry. Lawyers have traditionally resisted the benefits of bureaucratic management. This Article highlights that many lawyers fear that centralized management controls with regard to regulation will undermine individual accountability. This article does not agree with that sentiment. This article uses data to suggest that centralized management, i.e. specialists in charge, may significantly improve individual accountability and compliance with professional rules. This article really reviews what it feels like are misconstrued assumptions about regulation at law firms. This Article argues that the nostalgia for an idealized collegial form has prevented legal scholars and regulators …

The Professionalization Of Ethics, Margaret Raymond

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article looks at the importance of teaching law graduates to be ethical lawyers. The author hypothesizes that the current versions of the ethical rules and the structure of law firms have the potential to encourage the professionalization of ethics rather than connecting all practitioners to the values of professional responsibility. This Article sets out the factors that contribute to the increased professionalization of professional responsibility in large law firms. These factors are the need for lawyers to always be accessible, the pressure to specialize in a specific field, and the complexity of the ethics rules as written. The author …

Marilyn & Ed Bellet: A Dedication, William Michael Treanor

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Essay was a dedication to Ed and Marilyn Bellet, benefactors of Fordham Law’s ethics and professionalism programs. The Bellets created the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, which educates both the public and lawyers about the importance of the rule of law. The author examines the life of the Bellets and their commitment to Fordham Law.

Even Judges Don't Know Everything: A Call For A Presumption Of Admissibility For Expert Witness Testimony In Lawyer Disciplinary Proceedings The Fourth Annual Symposium On Legal Malpractice And Professional Responsibility., Timothy P. Chinaris

St. Mary's Law Journal

Today's practice environment is full of potential ethical pitfalls for even the most conscientious lawyer. The consequences of being found guilty of misconduct can include suspension or disbarment from practicing as a lawyer. Added to these concerns is the fact that the judge or hearing panel before whom the case is tried may not be intimately familiar with the particular ethics rules or how they are interpreted in different areas of practice. In order to mount an effective defense against the disciplinary charges, an accused lawyer may want to introduce expert testimony on his or her behalf. Unfortunately for the …

Rights And The Need For Objective Moral Limits, Charles E. Rice

Journal Articles

In this article, we will examine the natural law conception that rights are rooted in human nature, which nature itself is of divine origin through creation. We will compare this natural law concept to the premises and social consequences of the secular, relativist, and individualist approaches common to the jurisprudence of the Enlightenment. This article will offer the conclusion that only a grounding of right in the nature of persons as immortal beings created by God can offer moral and cultural security against the depersonalization characteristic of regimes premised on a relativist individualism.

Introduction: The Post-Enron Identity Crisis Of The Business Lawyer, William H. Simon

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Discrete Roles Of General Counsel, Deborah A. Demott

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Occupation Code 541110: Lawyers, Self Regulation, And The Idea Of A Profession, Jonathan Macey

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Banality Of Fraud: Re-Situating The Inside Counsel As Gatekeeper, Sung Hui Kim

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Club To Market: The Evolving Role Of Business Lawyers, Geoffrey Miller

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Model Of Time-Inconsistent Misconduct: The Case Of Lawyer Misconduct, Manuel A. Utset

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.