Law Commons^™

Ms-291: Thomas P. Wolf Political Papers, Carly A. Jensen

All Finding Aids

The Tom Wolf Political Papers contains two very different sets of papers. Wolf donated Box One in 2008, and it has several autographed photos addressed to Wolf from Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Bush. Two letters thank Wolf for his dedication to Nixon and his papers. Additionally, there is a signed copy of the book John Chancellor Makes Me Cry by Anne Rivers Siddons.

There are also three boxes of papers relating to Nixon’s legal issues. Wolf donated these after he visited Special Collections in 1995. These papers are vastly different; they are mostly court documents relating to the Watergate Scandal. …

Prosecuting The Executive, Tiffany R. Murphy

San Diego Law Review

A special counsel is appointed to investigate and potentially prosecute any criminal activity involving those in the Executive Branch. When an attorney general makes such a decision, the individual should consider not only the scope of the appointment but whether the special counsel will protect the fundamental rules of law upon which the Constitution rests; no one person is above the law. Recent history illustrates the abuses of the special prosecutor’s role where it was used as a political weapon or for low level officials. Instead, a special counsel should be used only when the crisis is severe enough that …

A History Of Prosecutorial Independence In America, Rebecca Roiphe

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Slides: Flpma In Its Historical Context, John D. Leshy

FLPMA Turns 40 (October 21)

Presenter: John D. Leshy, Sunderland Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, U.C. Hastings College of the Law

36 slides

This session traces the history of FLPMA including, among other things, its legislative, administrative, and historical antecedents, including for example, the Public Land Law Review Commission’s 1970 report, One Third of Our Nation’s Lands. It then considers FLPMA’s unique public lands policies and requirements and how they are reflected in the BLM’s management of public lands today.

See: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/blm/history/contents.htm

The Last Hurrah: The Kutak Commission And The End Of Optimism, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Sorting: Legal Specialization And The Privatization Of The American Legal Profession, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

Beginning in the 1950s, legal specialization was promoted to the majority of the American legal profession, small firm and solo practice lawyers, by the elite of the bar as the future of legal professionalism. Legal specialization was a form of sorting lawyers, and sorting was contrary to the traditional understanding of an undivided legal profession. Over the course of the next thirty years, this effort succeeded. This new understanding of legal professionalism emphasized the idea of competence based on a deep but particularized knowledge of law. This resulted in a slipping away of the beliefs that law was a public …

Book Review: To Set The Record Straight By Judge John J. Sirica, Richard L. Aynes

Akron Law Review

One of the recent and more worthy accounts is that presented by Washington D.C. District Court Judge John Sirica in his To Set the Record Straight. Judge Sirica's sixteen chapters generally cover five topics: 1) a prologue outlining his early experiences and how he attained his position of federal district judge; 2) the first Watergate break-in trial; 3) Judge Sirica's attempt to "break" the silence of the cover-up following the initial proceeding; 4) the controversy over the production of the Presidential tapes; and, 5) the ultimate trials of Nixon administration officials for conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Brougham’S Ghost, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

In defending Queen Caroline in the House of Lords, Henry Brougham declared, “[a]n advocate, by the sacred duty of his connection with his client, knows, in the discharge of that office, but one person in the world, that client and none other.” Brougham’s ethic of advocacy has been cited repeatedly as stating the American lawyer’s duty of zealous representation of a client. It has often been called the “classic statement” of zealous representation and representing the “traditional view of the lawyer’s role.”

This essay challenges these conclusions. Brougham’s rhetoric was neither a classic statement of the duty of loyalty to …

The Agony Of Modern Legal Ethics, 1970-1985., Michael Ariens

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

When the American Bar Association (ABA) adopted its Code of Professional Responsibility at its annual meeting in August 1969, the American legal profession was a publicly respected and economically vibrant body. Lawyers, though always more feared than loved, became increasingly important in post-World War II America. The demand for their services exploded for a quarter-century, and lawyers assumed an increased role in the economic and political life of the United States. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the Cold War led American lawyers and other public figures to re-emphasize the rule of law as defining the difference between the United …

Lost And Found: David Hoffman And The History Of American Legal Ethics, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

David Hoffman was a successful Baltimore lawyer who wrote the first study of American

law in 1817 and authored the first maxims of American legal ethics. Yet for more than a century after his death, Hoffman was a forgotten figure to American lawyers. Beginning in the late 1970s, Hoffman was re-discovered, and his writings on legal ethics have been favorably cited.

How and why was Hoffman “lost” to American law for over a century, and why he was “found”? Hoffman was lost to history because his view of ethics was premised on republican virtue, specifically the concept of honor. A …

The Agony Of Modern Legal Ethics, 1970–1985, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

When the American Bar Association (ABA) adopted its Code of Professional Responsibility at its annual meeting in August 1969, the American legal profession was a publicly respected and economically vibrant body. Lawyers, though always more feared than loved, became increasingly important in post-World War II America. The demand for their services exploded for a quarter-century, and lawyers assumed an increased role in the economic and political life of the United States. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the Cold War led American lawyers and other public figures to re-emphasize the rule of law as defining the difference between the United …

Legal Ethics After Babel, Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.

Law Enforcement And The Separation Of Powers, Gerard V. Bradley

Gerard V. Bradley

No abstract provided.

On Executive Clemency: The Pardon Of Richard M. Nixon , Michael K. Mckibbin

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tightrope: Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. During The Watergate Public Hearings, Christopher A. Borns

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Nixon V. Fitzgerald: Recognition Of Absolute Immunity From Personal Damage Liability For Presidential Acts, Craig B. Forry

Pepperdine Law Review

Although traditionally it has been recognized that the President is absolutely immune from personal damage liability for his official acts, there is no precedent for this rule in constitutional text or case law. However, in the case of Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the Supreme Court overruled lower federal courts in establishing a clear precedent for the President's absolute immunity from personal liability for civil damages. The author examines this decision in light of traditional principles of official immunity and analyzes the Court's holding from the standpoint of whether the President is indeed placed "above the law."

The Presidential Apology: Lessons From Tricky Dick And Slick Willy, Megan Morris

CMC Senior Theses

The concept of an apologetic president has only recently emerged in the United States. All presidents have made mistakes, but only recently have Americans come to expect apologies from them. The development of an increasingly critical media has necessitated that future presidents hone the art of apologizing. This thesis extrapolates lessons in this skill from the apologies of Presidents Nixon and Clinton. Watergate and Lewinsky-gate were cover-up scandals that rocked the nation in the 1970s and '90s. Although the presidential misconduct in both cases were similar, the way each president opted to navigate his controversy differed dramatically. Both presidents initially …

Putting Watergate Behind Us: Salinas, Sun-Diamond, And Two Views Of The Anticorruption Model, George D. Brown

George D. Brown

A central question in the ongoing debate over the future of the American political system is how to deal with public corruption. This Article first examines the dominant theme of the last thirty years: a relatively hard-line approach that Professor Brown refers to as the post-watergate concensus. In recent years, however, this approach has been subject to growing criminalization of government ethics; Professor Brown then turns to what can be viewed as the counterrevolutionary critique. Against this background, he considers the United States Supreme Court's contribution to the debate. Starting with the recent Sun-Diamond and Salinas cases, and drawing from …

Saturday Night With Elliot Richardson And Robert Bork: A Case Study In Exemplary Executive Branch Lawyering, Jason S. Harrow

Jason S Harrow

In the wake of both the “torture memos” written by the Bush Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel and the U.S. Attorney scandal that led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, a large literature appeared criticizing the performance of high-ranking Bush-era executive branch lawyers. But there is very literature highlighting incidents of good executive branch lawyering — especially under trying circumstances.

In this article, I try to buck this trend by examining the events surrounding the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre”: the extraordinary evening in October of 1973 when President Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Watergate Special …

In The Name Of Watergate -- Returning Ferpa To Its Original Design, Meg Penrose

Meg Penrose

The attached article, entitled "In the Name of Watergate: Returning FERPA to its Original Design" details the Watergate effect on federal privacy legislation, particularly the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Senator James L. Buckley, a one-term Senator from New York, served as the architect for what remains the most important education privacy law in existence. However, Senator Buckley recently discussed the reasons that this law should be "clarified" and returned to its original design. I wholeheartedly agree. In the digital era, we must zealously protect privacy with effective legislation that guards both the collection and release of personal …

In The Name Of Watergate -- Returning Ferpa To Its Original Design, Mary Margaret Meg Penrose

Meg Penrose

In The Name Of Watergate -- Returning Ferpa To Its Original Design, Meg Penrose

Meg Penrose

The attached article, entitled "In the Name of Watergate: Returning FERPA to its Original Design" details the Watergate effect on federal privacy legislation, particularly the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Senator James L. Buckley, a one-term Senator from New York, served as the architect for what remains the most important education privacy law in existence. However, Senator Buckley recently discussed the reasons that this law should be "clarified" and returned to its original design. I wholeheartedly agree. In the digital era, we must zealously protect privacy with effective legislation that guards both the collection and release of personal …

Gerald Ford, The Nixon Pardon, And The Rise Of The Right , Laura Kalman

Cleveland State Law Review

Perhaps more than the 1960s, the early 1970s marked the high water mark of the liberal consensus. Roe v. Wade, which grounded the right to abortion in the right to privacy, represented the apex of rights-based liberalism and perpetuated the division between public and private, a crucial facet to liberalism. As President, Nixon often governed liberally even though he talked conservatively, and thus many conservatives regarded him as a traitor. The rise of the modern Republican Party and the right was highly contingent: When Nixon resigned, both the Republican Party and conservatives seemed even more divided, endangered, and mired in …

Who Are The Good Guys? The Legacy Of Watergate And The Tangled Webs We Weave, Jeffrey A. Breinholt

ExpressO

This article examines the astounding revelation that Deep Throat, the anonymous source that brought down the Nixon Presidency, was Mark Felt, the man who ran the FBI during the Watergate Scandal. Was Mark Felt a hero or a villain? Thanks to the recent publication of Bob Woodward’s The Secret Man in combination with historical case law, we now have more historical evidence about what motivated Felt and how he reacted to his own legal misfortunes. This article examines this record and shows that categorizing Felt along the hero/villain continuum is not an easy task, but argues that this type of …

The Ethics Of Copyrighting Ethics Rules, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

The American Bar Association’s (“ABA”) practice of requiring students to purchase the Model Rules of Professional Conduct is exploitative and unethical. The ABA uses its role in training lawyers to create a situation which all but requires law students and bar applicants to purchase the organization’s own Model Rules. The fact that the Model Rules constitute a substantial revenue stream for the ABA is due less to lawyers’ desire to brush up on Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which are not laws, than to the ABA's direct role in approving law schools and its indirect role in licensing lawyers.

Law …

Wrongs Of Ignorance And Ambiguity: Lawyer Responsibility For Collective Misconduct, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Deliberate ignorance and calculated ambiguity are key recurring themes in modern scandals from Watergate to Enron. Actors, especially lawyers, seek to limit responsibility by avoiding knowledge and clear articulation. This essay considers this phenomenon from the point of view of both business organization and legal doctrine. Evasive ignorance and ambiguity seem endemic to a particular organizational model and to a traditional model of legal responsibility. Developments in both law and business, however, suggest that these models are being superceded. Many of the most dynamic businesses now emphasize practices of "transparency" designed to inhibit evasive ignorance and calculated ambiguity. A major …

Enron, Watergate And The Regulation Of The Legal Profession, Arnold Rochvarg

All Faculty Scholarship

The most famous scandal of the twentieth century was the Watergate scandal, which most notably led to the resignation of Richard Nixon as President of the United States. The significance of Watergate, however, extends further than the resignation of Nixon. Because Watergate involved so many lawyers, it had a great impact on the regulation of the legal profession. Although the twenty-first century has just started, the strongest contender for this century's most famous scandal is the Enron scandal. Although the Enron scandal is identified mostly with misconduct by accountants and corporate officials, it too involved lawyers and has impacted on …

Executive Privilege Since United States V. Nixon: Issues Of Motivation And Accommodation, Dawn E. Johnsen

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Cleaning Up The Legal Debris Left In The Wake Of Whitewater, Susan Low Bloch

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We have learned a lot in the twenty-five years since Watergate. During the scandal itself, we confirmed that the President is not above the law. We learned that executive privilege is constitutionally protected, but that it is not absolute. And, we learned that a need exists for an independent counsel, but that we don't necessarily need a statute to establish such an office.

Watergate and the Nixon era spawned several so-called "reforms": the establishment of the independent counsel statute, presidential immunity from civil damage suits for official action, and public ownership of the President's official papers. It is interesting and …

An Original Model Of The Independent Counsel Statute, Ken Gormley

Michigan Law Review

On Friday, October 19, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon took a risky step to de-fang the Watergate investigation that had become a "viper in the bosom" of his Presidency. The U.S. Court of Appeals had just directed him to tum over tape-recordings subpoenaed by Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox; these taperecordings might prove or disprove White House involvement in the Watergate cover-up. Rather than challenge this ruling, the President conceived a new plan. The White House would prepare summaries of the nine tape-recordings in question, which would be verified by Senator John Stennis, a seventy-two-year-old Democrat from Mississippi, working alone …