Law Commons^™

Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, And The Ethics Of Casual Conversation, Michael Hatfield

Michael Hatfield

Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, and the Ethics of Casual Conversation Tax lawyers routinely navigate politically-charged waters when a tax topic is dropped into conversation. Increasingly, however, tax lawyers are confronted with comments that undermine the authority of the federal tax system itself. These comments may take several forms, including arguments that the income tax is unconstitutional. Regardless of form, this rhetoric differs from legitimate criticisms of the tax system because it encourages non-compliance as either a moral right or a political good . In the current environment, the tax bar should take up the call to be public educators with …

Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, And The Ethics Of Casual Conversation, Michael Hatfield

Michael Hatfield

Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, and the Ethics of Casual Conversation ABSTRACT Tax lawyers routinely navigate politically-charged waters when a tax topic is dropped into conversation. Increasingly, however, tax lawyers are confronted with comments that undermine the authority of the federal tax system itself. These comments may take several forms, including arguments that the income tax is unconstitutional. Regardless of form, this rhetoric differs from legitimate criticisms of the tax system because it encourages non-compliance as either a moral right or a political good. In the current environment, the tax bar should take up the call to be public educators with …

(Unfair) Advantage: Damocles’ Sword And The Coercive Use Of Immigration Status In A Civil Society, David P. Weber

David P Weber

This article argues that the coercive use of immigration status or “status coercion” in civil proceedings and negotiations is fundamentally unethical and potentially illegal. For attorneys attempting to take advantage of unauthorized immigration status, such conduct very likely violates an attorney's ethical obligations under the Rules of Professional Responsibility and wrongfully takes advantage of an overly vulnerable population. For the judiciary, the article argues for a more proactive approach in maintaining the perception of fairness and justice in civil proceedings for all parties, regardless of immigration status. Additionally, for both legal and lay persons, status coercion may constitute the crime …

(Unfair) Advantage: Damocles’ Sword And The Coercive Use Of Immigration Status In A Civil Society, David P. Weber

David P Weber

This article argues that the coercive use of immigration status or “status coercion” in civil proceedings and negotiations is fundamentally unethical and potentially illegal. For attorneys attempting to take advantage of unauthorized immigration status, such conduct very likely violates an attorney's ethical obligations under the Rules of Professional Responsibility and wrongfully takes advantage of an overly vulnerable population. For the judiciary, the article argues for a more proactive approach in maintaining the perception of fairness and justice in civil proceedings for all parties, regardless of immigration status. Additionally, for both legal and lay persons, status coercion may constitute the crime …

Averting The Captain Vere “Veer”: Billy Budd As Melville’S Republican Response To Plato, Robert E. Atkinson

Robert E. Atkinson Jr.

This article shows how Melville’s Billy Budd, rightly one of law and literature’s most widely studied canonical texts, answers Plato’s challenge in Book X of the Republic: Show how “poets” create better citizens, especially better rulers, or banish them from the commonwealth of reasoned law. Captain Vere is a flawed but instructive version of the Republic’s philosopher-king, even as his story is precisely the sort of “poetry” that Plato should willing allow, by his own republican principles, into the ideal polity. Not surprisingly, the novella shows how law’s agents must be wise, even as their law must be philosophical, if …

Assessing The Foundations Of Neo-Classical Professionalism In Law And Business: Remodeling The Temple, Phase I, Robert E. Atkinson

Robert E. Atkinson Jr.

Both the management of private enterprise and the practice of corporate law must be radically remodeled if they are properly to serve their correlate values: prosperity and justice. In that remodeling, the cornerstone of professional status would be appreciation of the deepest values of our common culture, gained through liberal education in the humanities and social sciences. Lawyers and managers need this appreciation because, under the best available institutional arrangements, they together must actively shape our public world, both in the law and in the market, for the common welfare.

The professional’s requisite cultural appreciation has two essential components, one …