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Legal Professionalism: Utilizing Poverty Law’S Theory Of Client Empowerment For Elderly Clients With Diminished Capacity, Lauren E. Palmer

Lauren E Palmer

Legal Professionalism: Utilizing Poverty Law’s Theory of Client Empowerment for Elderly Clients with Diminished Capacity

Author: Lauren E. Palmer (J.D. Candidate 2011, Albany Law School)

Research shows that the elderly community in the United States is growing fast. In fact, people are living longer and requiring more diversified services as they age. As many are well aware, one problem that comes with advanced aging is the diminishment of cognitive ability.

This article will address several ethical questions that arise when attorneys attempt to balance their own interests with the interests of clients with diminished capacity. By using the theory of …

Legal Professionalism: Utilizing Poverty Law’S Theory Of Client Empowerment For Elderly Clients With Diminished Capacity, Lauren E. Palmer

Lauren E Palmer

Legal Professionalism: Utilizing Poverty Law’s Theory of Client Empowerment for Elderly Clients with Diminished Capacity

Author: Lauren E. Palmer (J.D. Candidate 2011, Albany Law School)

Research shows that the elderly community in the United States is growing fast. In fact, people are living longer and requiring more diversified services as they age. As many are well aware, one problem that comes with advanced aging is the diminishment of cognitive ability.

This article will address several ethical questions that arise when attorneys attempt to balance their own interests with the interests of clients with diminished capacity. By using the theory of …

Legal Professionalism: Utilizing Poverty Law's Theory Of Client Empowerment For Elderly Clients With Diminished Capacity, Lauren E. Palmer

Lauren E Palmer

Legal Professionalism: Utilizing Poverty Law’s Theory of Client Empowerment for Elderly Clients with Diminished Capacity

Author: Lauren E. Palmer (J.D. Candidate 2011, Albany Law School)

Research shows that the elderly community in the United States is growing fast. In fact, people are living longer and requiring more diversified services as they age. As many are well aware, one problem that comes with advanced aging is the diminishment of cognitive ability.

This article will address several ethical questions that arise when attorneys attempt to balance their own interests with the interests of clients with diminished capacity. By using the theory of …

A Few Inconvenient Truths About Michael Crichton's State Of Fear: Lawyers, Causes And Science, Lea B. Vaughn

Lea B Vaughn

Abstract: Although Crichton has lost the battle regarding global warming, his characterization of lawyers and law practice remains unchallenged. This article challenges his damning portrait of lawyers as know-nothing, self aggrandizing manipulators of various social and environmental causes. A more nuanced examination of “cause lawyering” reveals that lawyers are not part of a vast conspiracy to grab power through the causes for which many work; in fact, the rules of professional responsibility as well as the structure of “cause lawyering” limit their power and influence. Regardless, lawyers are nonetheless vital, and generally principled, participants in the debates and causes that …

Peer Editing: A Comprehensive Pedagogical Approach To Maximize Assessment Opportunities, Integrate Collaborative Learning, And Achieve Desired Outcomes, Cassandra Hill

Cassandra L. Hill

This Article examines an underused teaching strategy—collaborative peer editing—through the lens of student learning outcomes and assessment measures. The American Bar Association (“ABA”) recently proposed sweeping changes to law school accreditation standards that focus less on input measures, such as the school’s facility, faculty size and budget, and more on output measures, such as the school’s bar passage and employment rates. This shift will require law schools—and law professors—to articulate student learning goals and assess their achievement. To do so, law professors must find efficient techniques to assess students’ performance. Peer editing presents such an opportunity.

This Article shows how …

How The Global Crime Syndicates Fuel Planet Destruction, Global Alliance

Global Alliance

since 1945 more environmental planet destruction has been fuelled and financed with ever more leveraged debt than in the previous 60 million years - it's applied terrorism against the global life support system under the protection racket of a corrupt law profession

Corporate Attorney-Client Privilege In The Digital Age: War On Two Fronts?, Tom Spahn

Tom Spahn

Is the corporate attorney-client privilege under attack? Many attorneys and commentators contend not only that yes, it is, but also that this battle rages on two fronts. First, they argue that courts are engaging in a misguided erosion of the privilege when faced with expansive electronic discovery. And second, they insist that policies exercised by executive agencies are chilling compliance conversations within corporations by creating a coercive “culture of privilege waiver.”

2006 and 2007 represented landmark years for the corporate attorney-client privilege. In those years, the District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana used methodology in In re Vioxx …

Teaching The Ethical Values Governing Mediator Impartiality Using Short Lectures, Buzz Group Discussions, Video Clips, A Defining Features Matrix, Games, And An Exercise Based On Grievances Filed Against Florida Mediators, Paula M. Young Prof.

Paula Marie Young Prof.

Discoverability Of Private Investigator Surveillance In South Carolina: Navigating The Work Product Doctrine Under Samples V. Mitchell, Bradford J. Gower

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Raising The Bar: Standards-Based Training, Supervision, And Evaluation, Adele Bernhard

Articles & Chapters

In this short Article, I sketch the methodology my colleagues and I at Pace Law School use to incorporate practice standards into our clinical teaching and reflect on how a standards-based teaching paradigm could be adapted to the training, supervision, and evaluation of public defenders. Then, I briefly consider how standards and standards-based teaching assist in the administration of assigned counsel plans and in the evaluation of the performance of public defender organizations. Although this Article does not cover any of these topics in depth, my goal is to introduce the reader to a standards-based approach to teaching and suggest …

Searching For The State’S Guilty Mind: Mens Rea Evidence Against The Authors Of The Torture Memos Under Federal Law And The Model Rules, Daniel Hornal

Daniel Hornal

This article analyzes the mens rea required for a criminal conviction of lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel (hereinafter OLC) under a theory that they aided and abetted torture when they wrote the so-called torture memos. It then speculates as to what form the evidence to prove that mens rea would take, if it exists. It then looks at the D.C. Bar’s Rules of Professional Conduct to see which rules the OLC lawyers may have violated, based on information in the public record. Finally, it analyzes each rule to determine the minimum mens rea necessary to violate that rule …

"Is It Legal?": An American Law Professor's Tribute To An English Lawyer Tv Sitcom, Robert M. Jarvis

Robert M. Jarvis

This paper introduces readers to a forgotten 1990s English TV sitcom called "Is It Legal?" and then compares it to a similar American TV sitcom called "Sparks." In the course of describing the show's characters and plots, the paper discusses the regulation of attorneys, the functioning of law firms, and the business aspects of the television industry.

Law Firms Competing On The "Edge Of Chaos": Pro Bono's Role In A Winning Competitive Strategy, Tom Spahn

Tom Spahn

My Article takes an interdisciplinary approach to arguing that robust pro bono practices can give law firms a strategic advantage in the modern economy. I use modern economic theories, from game theory to complexity theory, to consider a pro bono practice’s role in responding to both internal and external competitive pressures. This leads to several key insights, such as pro bono’s ability to offset the dead-weight loss incurred when oligopolistic firms merge, its power to cause a paredo improvement to a firm’s position by moving it away from a non-cooperative Nash equilibrium, and the iterative recombination effect that such a …

Shaping Professional Knowledge: The Intended And Unintended Consequences Of Fellowship Funding In Law Schools, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein

Cynthia Epstein

The development of knowledge in any profession is determined by many factors including the cultural receptivity to new ideas within the field and in the larger society, the interests and visions of the professions’ leaders, and the availability of resources for recruitment of talent, resource development and dissemination of knowledge. This paper examines the impact of resources within the legal profession, and particularly regarding the role of resources in determining public interest career options. It draws from a larger study of the factors that facilitate and deter the choice of legal careers in the public interest. I find that fellowships …

Why Shouldn't Attorneys Be Allowed To View Metadata?: A Proposal For Allowing Attorneys To View Metadata As Long As Extraordinary Measures Are Not Taken To Do So And Opposing Counsel Is Contacted Upon Discovery Of Sensitive Information, Michael W. Loudenslager

Michael W. Loudenslager

This article deals with the issue of receiving attorneys viewing what is termed the “metadata” of electronic documents transmitted by opposing counsel outside the context of litigation. Various ethics panels in the United States have come to differing conclusions on this issue. Metadata generally consists of data that computer word processing software creates in order for users to be able to access, store, and revise electronic documents and can include, among other things, information stored and retained in the “Comments” and “Track Changes” functions of word processing software. The article concludes that receiving attorneys should be allowed to view such …

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify – An Analysis Of Two Decades Of Judicial Review In The Veterans Benefits Adjudication System, Rory E. Riley

Rory E. Riley

Prior to the Veterans' Judicial Review Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs existed in "splendid isolation" - meaning that the department was insulated from judicial review by statute. After the due process revolution of the 1960's and pressure from various veterans’ organizations after the Vietnam war, Congress passed the Veterans' Judicial Review Act in 1988. The Act created the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, an article I court with exclusive jurisdiction over decisions by the Board of Veterans' Appeals. This article argues that 20 years after the Veterans' Judicial Review Act was implemented, the system has become more …

Transnational Legal Practice 2009, Laurel S. Terry, Carole Silver, Ellyn S. Rosen

Faculty Scholarly Works

This article identifies some of the most important U.S. and international developments in transnational legal practice and provides citations for further research. The article begins by briefly reviewing the impact of the recession on legal services. The second section focuses on international developments. It identifies some of the ongoing efforts to implement the 2007 U.K. Legal Services Act, including the issuance of the influential Hunt and Smedley reports. It also provides information about law reform initiatives in France, Scotland and Korea. This section of the article also provides information about Canadian and Australian developments regarding admission of foreign applicants and …

Comparing Exceptions To Privilege And Confidentiality Relating To Crime, Fraud, And Harm -- Can Hard Cases Make Good Law?, Jean Fleming Powers

Jean F. Powers

The article begins by describing some scenarios – the hard cases – that illustrate the tension between the lawyer’s obligation to his client and what many would view as basic standards of decency and humanity. The cases include (1) the recent case of an innocent man who spent 26 years in jail for a crime he did not commit while the attorneys for the real perpetrator protected the information that their own client had committed the crime, (2) cases involving the extent of the exception to confidentiality to prevent death or substantial bodily harm, (3) a case in which attorneys …

Teaching Professional Ethics To Lawyers And Mediators Using Active Learning Techniques, Paula M. Young

Paula Marie Young Prof.

Deepening The Discourse Using The Legal Mind’S Eye: Lessons From Neuroscience And Psychology That Optimize Law School Learning, Hillary Burgess

Hillary Burgess

Research demonstrates that incorporating visual aids and exercises into learning environments improves learning with higher-order cognitive skills such as “thinking like a lawyer.” This article argues that because law school learning focuses on the highest order cognitive skills, professors optimize the learning environment by including visual aids and visual exercises.

This article begins by defining what higher order cognitive skills are by mapping common law school learning tasks onto a leading taxonomy of learning objectives. This article argues that the legal curriculum engages all six levels of learning by traditionally teaching the lowest four levels of learning and by traditionally …

Attitudes, Advocacy And Polarization: The New Iron Triangle Of American Public Policy, Roger L. Conner, Patricia Jordan

Roger L Conner

Electoral politics in the U.S. have always been nasty and brutish. Pervasive polarization in public policy disputes is a new an worrisome trend that has attracted considerable attention recently. Using insights gleaned from social psychology, this article finds that “strong", negative "attitudes," once attached to an “attitude object” such as the “other side” in a policy conflict, will operate subconsciously to distort cognition in ways that generate extreme and polarized thinking. Scholars from a different field, public policy studies, find that conversations about public policy increasingly occur inside of “advocacy coalitions,” vast and networks of people and groups that are …

Creating The Optimisitc Classroom: What Law Schools Can Learn From Explanatory Style Effects, Corie Rosen

Corie Rosen

If it is true that we are what we think, then in the law school environment, where depression is rampant, positive psychology may plan an especially important role. This article is primarily concerned with the implications that the attribution style studies and decision-making studies may have for student motivation in the law learning environment. Specifically, this paper will address optimism, the attribution style language associated with the presence of optimism in the brain, the methods for importing that language into the law school classroom, and the possible effects of such teaching.

The Hidden Costs Of Geography: Race, Place And The Fortunes Of African American Lawyers In A Midwest American City, Robert N. Strassfeld

Robert N. Strassfeld

This article examines the changing perimeters of professional opportunity and the professional choices made by Cleveland’s African American lawyers in the early twentieth century. At the turn of the century, the Cleveland bar could fairly be described as racially integrated. The openness of the bar and the response of African American lawyers shaped the day-to-day professional lives of those lawyers. This openness manifested itself in a number of interracial law practices, in a client base for black lawyers that was predominantly white, in the court appointment practices of white judges, and in the general openness of the institutions of the …

Lawyers Who Break The Law: What Congress Can Do To Prevent Mental Health Patient Advocates From Violating Federal Legislation, Amanda J. Peters

Amanda J Peters

In 1986, Congress enacted the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness Act (PAIMI). PAIMI created a national, federally-funded system of patient advocacy for individuals with mental illness. Patient advocates are lawyers who are charged with protecting individuals who have mental illness from abuse, neglect, and civil rights violations. Congress will review and revise PAIMI in 2011.

Over the past twenty-four years, advocates have saved countless individuals from abuse and death. However, numerous federal Department of Justice investigations reveal that patient advocates are not always carrying out their PAIMI responsibilities. Instead, patient advocates frequently engage in activities that are …

Toward A Pedagogy For Teaching Legal Writing In Law School Clinics, Tonya Kowalski

Tonya Kowalski

One of the major legal skills students use in almost every law school clinic is advanced legal writing. Clinicians spend many hours every week triaging student writing and coaching their students to produce practice-worthy documents. Yet advanced legal writing is not routinely addressed in clinic seminars and there is no clear methodology for teaching advanced legal writing through clinical supervision. This Article is the first to propose a comprehensive pedagogy for teaching and supervising legal writing in clinic.

Moreover, clinicians commonly experience the frustration that students seem to come to the clinic deficient in many legal writing skills. This Article …

True North: Navigating For The Transfer Of Learning In Legal Education, Tonya Kowalski

Tonya Kowalski

As lifelong learners, we all know the feelings of discomfort and bewilderment that can come from being asked to apply existing skills in a completely new situation. As legal educators, we have also experienced the frustration that comes from watching our students struggle to identify and transfer skills from one learning environment to another. For example, a first-semester law student who learns to analogize case law to a fact pattern in a legal writing problem typically will not see the deeper applications for those skills in a law school essay exam several weeks later. Similarly, when law students learn how …

Victims, Lawyers, And Money: Legal Representation In The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Brian Bornstein

Brian H Bornstein

We surveyed claimants to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund about their experiences with legal representation in filing a claim. Most claimants used a lawyer and believed that they received more compensation than they would have without a lawyer. Nearly two-thirds did not pay their attorney, and claimants who paid their lawyer were less satisfied with their outcome. Nearly half of claimants felt pressured to file a claim with the Fund, and they were split on the likely outcome if they had filed a lawsuit instead of going through the Fund. These findings have important implications for public policy and …

How Should Lawyers Handle The Unintended Disclosure Of Possibly Privileged Information?, James M. Fischer

James M. Fischer

The inadvertently sent email that contains opposing counsel’s settlement strategy, the opposing party’s client opinion letter negligently included in a discovery response, and the opposing party’s work papers taken by a whistle blowing client all share a common theme – the materials were not intended to be disclosed by the opposing party to the recipient lawyer. Notwithstanding the similarities, case law, commentary, and ethics opinions have tended to treat the issues as separate. This separation has not, however, helped lawyers who are subjected to conflicting and inconsistent opinions as to how they should respond in situations when they have received …

The Ethics Of Willful Ignorance, Rebecca Roiphe

Rebecca Roiphe

In general, courts, legislatures, and regulators do not excuse individuals, including lawyers, from legal obligations because they turned a blind eye to the underlying facts. By defining knowledge as “actual knowledge,” the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, however, allow lawyers to avoid responsibilities to the community and the public by remaining ignorant of the relevant facts. For example, lawyers do not face disciplinary charges for assisting in client fraud as long as they avoid information that might lead them to know about the criminal conduct. David Luban, one of the leading scholars in the field, has defended the ABA’s …

Evaluating Children’S Competency To Testify: Developing A Rational Method To Assess A Young Child’S Capacity To Offer Reliable Testimony In Cases Alleging Child Sex Abuse, Laurie Shanks

Laurie Shanks

There are few crimes which elicit a response as emotionally charged as those involving an allegation of child sexual abuse. Given the paucity of physical and scientific evidence in many cases and the resulting need to rely almost exclusively on the testimony of a very young child, the cases present unique challenges for judges, prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys. While many scholars have addressed the dangers inherent in questioning children, such as creating false memories and improperly influencing testimony, there has been little exploration of the means employed by courts to evaluate a child’s ability to offer reliable testimony. Many …