Law Commons^™

Collaboration And Teamwork (Weinstein/Morton), Linda Morton, Janet Weinstein

Linda H Morton

Below are a series of videos that illustrate the importance of teamwork and various stages in the teamwork process. These videos accompany a chapter written by Profs. Janet Weinstein and Linda Morton titled Collaboration and Teamwork in LEARNING FROM PRACTICE: A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TEXT FOR LEGAL EXTERNS. (Leah Wortham, Susan Brooks, Nancy Maurer, & Alexander Scherr eds., 3rd ed., forthcoming 2015).

The first three videos offer statements by a law firm attorney, a judge, and a non-profit attorney on the important roles teamwork and collaboration play in today’s law practice.

The next three videos, Forming, Norming, and Storming, illustrate the …

Chinese Courts' Role In Financial Reform: On The First "Vam Agreement" Case In China, Siyi Huang

Siyi Huang

Traditional belief is that courts in authoritarian regimes are only passive institutions and their authority and influence are extremely limited. Despite the conventional wisdom, it’s been noticed that Chinese courts have played a crucial role in China’s financial reform. Drawing on insights from the judgments of three Chinese courts at different levels on the first “value adjustment mechanism” case in China, this article attempts to explore the functional techniques and decision-making process of Chinese courts. The analysis of the court’ judgments suggests that Chinese courts have performed a policy-making function in deciding controversial economic cases, by transcending social and business …

Can A Single Masterpiece Sustain A Lawyer's Lifetime And Other Questions That Cross A Lawyer's Way, Randy Lee

Randy Lee

No abstract provided.

The Elephant In The Law School Assessment Room: The Role Of Student Responsibility And Motivating Our Students To Learn, Cassandra L. Hill

Cassandra L. Hill

THE ELEPHANT IN THE LAW SCHOOL ASSESSMENT ROOM:

THE ROLE OF STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY AND

MOTIVATING OUR STUDENTS TO LEARN

Cassandra L. Hill

The American Bar Association’s proposed new accreditation standards call for law schools to assess the effectiveness of their academic programs. Law schools are now doing so, quickly giving rise to an assessment movement that closely examines desired educational outcomes and professors’ efforts to attain them. But assessment has to date focused on the professor, who is just one part of the professor-student partnership. All but ignored are the contributions and motivation of the other critical component—the student.

This …

Law And Negotiation: Necessary Partners Or Strange Bedfellows?, Nancy Schultz

Nancy Schultz

To what degree does legal authority dictate the outcomes of negotiations? Scholars have discussed the issue, and law students argue about it in their negotiation classes. A survey of practicing lawyers reveals that knowing the law is an important part of the preparation for negotiation, but that legal authority is not the primary determinant of negotiated outcomes in practice. Financial constraints, bargaining power, and negotiating skill are all reported as having a greater effect on negotiated outcomes than the law.

Cloud Nine Or Cloud Nein? Cloud Computing And Its Impact On Lawyers' Ethical Obligations And Privileged Communications, Louise Hill

Louise L Hill

No abstract provided.

One Small Step For Legal Writing, One Giant Leap For Legal Education: Making The Case For More Writing Opportunities In The "Practice-Ready" Law School Curriculum, Sherri Keene

Sherri Keene

Legal writing is more than an isolated practical skill or a law school course; it is a valuable tool for broadening and deepening one’s knowledge and understanding of the law. If experienced legal professionals, both professors and practitioners alike, take a hard look back at their careers, many will no doubt remember how their work on significant legal writing projects advanced their own knowledge of the law and enhanced their professional competence. Legal writing practice helps the writer to gain expertise in a number of ways: first, the act of writing itself promotes learning; second, close work on legal writing …

Lessons From Positive Psychology For Developing Advocacy Skills, Nancy Schultz

Nancy Schultz

Advocacy skills are crucial to law students and lawyers. One of the ways law students develop those skills is in the context of lawyering skills competitions. This article explores whether there is any psychological research that might offer more systematic guidance for advocacy coaches and instructors. Positive psychology does offer some principles that suggest useful approaches to coaching and teaching advocacy. Taken together with instinct and experience, these principles can help coaches and advocacy instructors be more effective in training young lawyers for litigation and dispute resolution practice.

Shaping The Disclosure Tort: Scholars' Early Importance And Modern Impotence, Jared A. Wilkerson

Jared A. Wilkerson

Legal scholars guided the creation and development of the disclosure tort for about seventy-five years (1890–1965), a period in which most states recognized a common law or statutory right to privacy. Since then, however, scholarly attempts to curb or modify the tort have yielded nothing. This article—beginning with the formalism-realism debate won by such sages as Brandeis, Pound, and Prosser and ending with modern experts like Chemerinsky, Posner, and Solove—shows that notwithstanding enormous efforts by some of America’s most respected contemporary academics, would-be reformers of the disclosure tort have not budged it since Prosser’s definition in the Restatement (Second). This …

Civility And Professionalism At The Massachusetts Bar: The Heritage And The Challenge Today, Daniel Coquillette

Daniel R. Coquillette

Introductory section for course materials for the class titled "Practicing with Professionalism," which has been proposed to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts as a new requirement for newly-admitted attorneys.

Professional Identity As Advocacy: The Good, The Bad, The Unseen, Robert Rubinson

Robert Rubinson

The legal profession adheres to a story of a unified profession. Nevertheless, the profession has distinct professional sub-groups which repeatedly represent clients with interests adverse to those represented by attorneys who identify with other sub-groups. The idea of “professional identity as advocacy” describes how such professional sub-groups accuse opposing sub-groups of greed, self-aggrandizement, or worse. This is most notable in two areas: personal injury litigation and criminal cases. This process has two seemingly contradictory consequences. First, it renders narrow areas extraordinarily visible, thus defining popular discourse and conceptions about lawyers and law. Second, it masks vast areas of litigation and …

How Do Roles Generate Reasons? On The Methods Of Legal Ethics, Stephen Galoob

Stephen Galoob

Debates about legal ethics should be oriented around the generative problem, which asks two fundamental questions. First, how does the lawyer’s role generate normatively compelling reasons for action? Second, what kinds of reasons can this role generate?

Every substantive theory of legal ethics is based on a solution to the generative problem. On the generative problem method, we should evaluate these theories based on their implicit solutions to the generative problem. None of the main theories of legal ethics is based on a solution to the generative problem that is both structurally valid and empirically verified.

The generative problem method …

Is The Attorney-Client Privilege A Privilege Of The Rich? Federal Hmis Database Reporting And Homeless Client Confidentiality, Jennifer Hammitt

Jennifer Hammitt

No abstract provided.

Is The Attorney-Client Privilege A Privilege Of The Rich? Federal Hmis Database Reporting And Homeless Client Confidentiality, Jennifer Hammitt

Jennifer Hammitt

The Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) is a new database reporting system mandated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to track the usage of HUD services by homeless people. The HMIS requires collecting identifiable personal information about the individuals who use the services and entering that information into a database that enables information sharing and referral services. This comment arose out of an investigation into the HMIS database and confidentiality issues that I did while working at Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc., as part of the Homeless Legal Assistance Project in the summer of 2009. As this …

The Financial Action Task Force Guidance For Legal Professionals: Missed Opportunities To Level The Playing Field, Louise Hill

Louise L Hill

No abstract provided.

An Interdisciplinary Framework For Understanding And Cultivating Law Student Enthusiasm, Emily Zimmerman

Emily Zimmerman

Anecdotal evidence abounds about the loss of enthusiasm experienced by law students. Law review articles too note this loss of enthusiasm and the demoralization of law students that occurs during their time in law school. However, although the loss of law student enthusiasm is frequently noted, little has been done to systematically analyze law student enthusiasm. Existing literature does not provide a definition of “law student enthusiasm” or a foundation of theory and research for understanding law student enthusiasm and its significance in legal education.

In an effort to fill the gap in our understanding of law student enthusiasm, this …

The First Amendment And The Legal Profession: Is Silence Golden?, Jan L. Jacobowitz Ms.

Jan L Jacobowitz

No abstract provided.

Stalking The Walking Wounded: An Empirical Study Of Lawyer Distress, Work Satisfaction, And Decisionmaking Preferences, Susan Daicoff

Susan Daicoff

Abstract: Attorney distress is an empirically-documented phenomenon. Depression and alcoholism, for example, occur among attorneys at about twice the rate found in the general population. Empirical research also suggests that certain personality attributes and decisionmaking preferences distinguish attorneys from the general population. Previous research had investigated the relationship of lawyer dissatisfaction to certain personality attributes and decisionmaking preferences, as well as the relationship of law student distress to values. Focusing on practicing lawyers, this empirical study investigated the relationship between attorney distress, work dissatisfaction, and two decisionmaking preferences. This study found no relationship between the two decisionmaking preferences and attorney …

Why Are Lawyers So Depressed?, Susan Daicoff

Susan Daicoff

No abstract provided.

Disparities Between Asbestosis And Silicosis Claims Generated By Litigation Screenings And Clinical Studies, Lester Brickman

Lester Brickman

In 2005, U.S. District Court Judge Janis Jack, presiding over an MDL proceeding involving 10,000 claims of silicosis emanating from litigation screenings, issued a 264 page opinion rejecting the reliability of thousands of medical reports generated by those screenings. Before issuing her opinion, she ordered a Daubert hearing to assess the reliability of these medical reports which had been issued by a handful of doctors. In furtherance of this unprecedented use of a Daubert hearing in a mass tort proceeding, she compelled the production of a large volume of evidence, under threat of contempt, that the screening companies and doctors …

Disparities Between Asbestosis And Silicosis Claims Generated By Litigation Screenings And Clinical Studies, Lester Brickman

Lester Brickman

In 2005, U.S. District Court Judge Janis Jack, presiding over an MDL proceeding involving 10,000 claims of silicosis emanating from litigation screenings, issued a 264 page opinion rejecting the reliability of thousands of medical reports generated by those screenings. Before issuing her opinion, she ordered a Daubert hearing to assess the reliability of these medical reports which had been issued by a handful of doctors. In furtherance of this unprecedented use of a Daubert hearing in a mass tort proceeding, she compelled the production of a large volume of evidence, under threat of contempt, that the screening companies and doctors …

Lawyer Personality Traits And Their Relationship To Various Approaches To Lawyering, Susan Daicoff

Susan Daicoff

No abstract provided.

The Well Balanced Lawyer, Susan Daicoff

Susan Daicoff

No abstract provided.

Arizona Bench And Bar Survey And Focus Group Results, Stephen Gerst

Stephen A Gerst

No abstract provided.

Lawyer, Know Thyself: A Psychological Analysis Of Personality Strengths And Weaknesses, Susan Daicoff

Susan Daicoff

No abstract provided.

Ethical Decision-Making By Attorneys, Susan Daicoff, J Mcguire, B Blau, D Abbott

Susan Daicoff

No abstract provided.

Judicial Federalism And Direct Interaction Between State And Federal Courts, Judith Mcmorrow

Judith A. McMorrow

No abstract provided.