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Full-Text Articles in Law

Incentivizing Lawyers To Play Nice: A National Survey Of Civility Standards And Options For Enforcement, Cheryl B. Preston, Hilary Lawrence Apr 2015

Incentivizing Lawyers To Play Nice: A National Survey Of Civility Standards And Options For Enforcement, Cheryl B. Preston, Hilary Lawrence

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the last decade, most commentators assume that lawyers’ behavior is now diving to new lows, notwithstanding a flurry of professionalism and civility creeds adopted in the 1980s and 1990s. Proponents of making such creeds enforceable argue that a return to professionalism may improve lawyers’ well-being, restore the public’s confidence in lawyers, and raise the expectations of behavior, not only with respect to civility but also with respect to violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct (hereinafter, as adapted in various jurisdictions, the Rules of Professional Conduct or the Model Rules)


Fiduciary Duties And Exculpatory Clauses: Clash Of The Titans Or Cozy Bedfellows, Louise Lark Hill Jun 2012

Fiduciary Duties And Exculpatory Clauses: Clash Of The Titans Or Cozy Bedfellows, Louise Lark Hill

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Centuries ago, when land represented the majority of wealth, the trust was used primarily for holding and transferring real property. As the dominant form of wealth moved away from family land, the trust evolved into a device for managing financial assets. With this transformation came the use of exculpatory clauses by both amateur and professional trustees, providing an avenue for these fiduciaries to escape liability for designated acts. With the use of exculpatory provisions, discussion abounded about whether fiduciary duties were mandatory or subject to modification. The latter view eventually prevailed, with the majority of jurisdictions viewing fiduciary duties as …


Reform That Understands Our Seniors: How Interdisciplinary Services Can Help Solve The Capacity Riddle In Elder Law, Thomas Richard Stasi Apr 2012

Reform That Understands Our Seniors: How Interdisciplinary Services Can Help Solve The Capacity Riddle In Elder Law, Thomas Richard Stasi

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note suggests an interdisciplinary approach to assist in determinations of legal capacity. It also urges an amendment to the Model Rules and current law firm business models, so attorneys can better approach capacity challenges. While this Note does not presume to resolve the problems faced by capacity determinations, the purpose is to offer functional alternatives to the current working models. Part I reviews the Model Rules' treatment of capacity issues, detailing attorneys' conflicting ethical duties and the ambiguous methodology for capacity evaluations. Part II examines the customary processes that attorneys presently follow for seeking diagnostic evaluations and highlights their …


A New Frontier Or Merely A New Medium - An Analysis Of The Ethics Of Blawgs, Justin Krypel Jan 2008

A New Frontier Or Merely A New Medium - An Analysis Of The Ethics Of Blawgs, Justin Krypel

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The purpose of this Note is to investigate those rules of ethics which interact with attorney blogs, placing a special emphasis on advertising rules. The central finding is that, under the Supreme Court's current First Amendment jurisprudence, attorney blogs (or, more cleverly, "blawgs") are not subject to regulation by the ethics codes of the ABA or the various state bars. Furthermore, if the Supreme Court were to, for some reason, construe blawgs as falling outside of First Amendment protection, evidence suggests that regulating this new medium would be neither desirable nor effective. Part II outlines the historical framework which underlies …


Conclusion: 'If You Don't Pull Up . . .'., James J. White Jan 2005

Conclusion: 'If You Don't Pull Up . . .'., James J. White

Other Publications

Today I am going to talk about a lawyer duty that is just as important as the duty to exercise warm zeal on behalf of a client, but it is a duty that is unknown to the popular culture and rarely touched on in law school. That is the duty to say no to your client, to step in front of a client who is determined to do something stupid, or in violation of the civil or criminal law.


Why Hard Cases Make Good (Clinical) Law, Paul D. Reingold Jan 1996

Why Hard Cases Make Good (Clinical) Law, Paul D. Reingold

Articles

In 1992, when the University of California's Hastings College of Law decided to offer a live-client clinic for the first time, its newly hired director had to make several decisions about what form the program should take.1 The first question for the director was whether the clinic should be a single-issue specialty clinic or a general clinic that would represent clients across several areas of the law. The second question, and the one that will be the focus of this essay, was whether the program should restrict its caseload to "easy" routine cases or also accept non-routine, less controllable litigation. …


Trumbull: Materials On The Lawyer's Professional Responsibility, Glenn R. Winters May 1958

Trumbull: Materials On The Lawyer's Professional Responsibility, Glenn R. Winters

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Materials on the Lawyer's Professional Responsibility. By William M. Trumbull.


Lay Tradition As To The Lawyer, Roscoe Pound Jun 1914

Lay Tradition As To The Lawyer, Roscoe Pound

Michigan Law Review

We all know the lay tradition as to the lawyer. Mike Monaghan rhymes lawyer with trier. He tells us that the Probate Court is instituted to see that "iviry mimber of the bair gits a fair chanct at phwat the dicaysed didn't take wid 'im." In the timeworn anecdote of the epitaph "here lies an honest lawyer" everyone is ready to say, "that's Strange."' Laymen, who, sitting as arbitrators, will insist on technicalities which the law would instantly reject, and in corner-grocery discussions will argue that a contract signed with a lead pencil is void for informality, are quite sure …


Legal Ethics, Charles A. Kent Apr 1908

Legal Ethics, Charles A. Kent

Michigan Law Review

Legal ethics is a branch of general ethics. Some consideration of the latter is necessary to an understanding of the former. It is a fundamental fact that men generally, if not all sane men, distinguish certain courses of conduct as right and wrong; just as they say particular objects are beautiful and others ugly. They feel a duty to do some things and to refrain from others. If savages do not feel distinctly the sense of duty, at least they are indignant at certain conduct in their associates, and approve of other acts, on moral grounds. This sense of duty …