Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Triumphs Of Commission, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Willis L.M. Reese Prize commencement address to the Columbia Law School class of 2017.

Video: Happy Lawyers Make More Money: How To Achieve Financial Success, Fulfill Your Ethical Obligations, And Manage A Profitable Small Law Firm, How To Manage A Small Law Firm

NSU Law Seminar Series

How To MANAGE a Small Law Firm was founded by attorney RJon Robins. He quickly realized that despite having done quite well in law school, completing a prestigious 9 credit internship with the US Trustee’s Office and clerking for a Federal Bankruptcy Judge, he knew next to nothing about how to actually manage the business of a small law firm.

RJon did eventually discover how to manage a small law firm and was recruited by The Florida Bar’s Law Office Management Assistance Service (LOMAS) to teach his fellow lawyers how to find, fix and avoid the sort of marketing, sales, …

Limited License Legal Technicians: Non-Lawyers Get Access To The Legal Profession, But Clients Won’T Get Access To Justice, Julian Aprile

Seattle University Law Review

Washington Limited License Legal Technicians (LLLTs) are non-lawyers who will supposedly help to close “the wide and ever-growing gap in necessary legal and law related services for low and moderate income persons.” However, LLLTs will not close the access to justice gap because “[t]here are no protections . . . to ensure that legal technicians will actually provide services to the poor, as opposed to selling their services to those who can most afford them,” and LLLTs are “not going to have the competency to actually do for the poor what needs to be done.”

Additionally, the modifications of the …

Using Grit And Growth Mindset To Foster Resilience And Professionalism In Law Students And Attorneys, Carolyn Broering-Jacobs

Law Faculty Presentations and Testimony

The presentation introduced current research showing correlation between grit, growth mindset, and success in varied disciplines, then suggested several means for improving grit. Attendees discussed several problems that a young lawyer might experience and considered how grit and growth mindset might affect the lawyer's response to the problem.

Inward Bound: An Exploration Of Character Development In Law School, Heather D. Baum

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Monroe Freedman's Influence On Legal Education, Peter A. Joy

Hofstra Law Review

Monroe Freedman’s influence on legal education was profound by any measure. He was much more than a gifted scholar and teacher, though he was all of those, as well as an accomplished lawyer. He was also the antithesis of a law professor disconnected from the practice of law who produces scholarship that has little to no relationship to the practice of law. Instead, Monroe Freedman’s scholarship was singularly focused on the difficult ethical issues lawyers face in the practice of law, and he was fully engaged with the practicing bar. Much of his scholarship was on the leading edge of …

Mediation, Legal Clinic Program

Course Descriptions and Information

Students will learn and develop skills crucial to the role of mediators and legal professionals. By focusing and implementing mediation methodologies, students will learn skills of active listening and communications; conflict, issue and interests spotting, information gathering and negotiations techniques; problem-solving strategies and approaches; and effective mediation settlement agreement drafting.

When It Comes To Lawyers, Is An Ounce Of Prevention Worth A Pound Of Cure, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This 3-page blog post addresses the topic of proactive lawyer regulation, which is also known as proactive management-based regulation or PMBR. This blog post reviews Professor Susan Fortney's article entitled "Promoting Public Protection through an “Attorney Integrity” System: Lessons from the Australian Experience with Proactive Regulation System," and summarizes some of the impressive data that Professor Fortney collected in Australia, including her finding that sixty-two percent of the respondents reported that they agreed or strongly agreed with the following statement: the self-assessment process ‘was a learning exercise that enabled our firm to improve client service.’” The article also reports that …

Being Good Lawyers: A Relational Approach To Law Practice, Eli Wald, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

In response to past generations of debates regarding whether law is a business or profession, we advance an alternative approach that rejects the dichotomies of business and profession, or hired gun and wise counselor. Instead, we propose a relational account of law practice. Unlike frameworks grounded in assumptions of atomistic individualism or communitarianism, a relational perspective recognizes that all actors, whether individuals or organizations, have separate identities yet are intrinsically inter-connected and cannot maximize their own good in isolation. Through the lens of relational self-interest, maximizing the good of the individual or business requires consideration of the good of the …

Pro Bono At University Of Richmond School Of Law, Tara L. Casey

Law Faculty Publications

“Pro bono” is often the first legal Latin that a law student learns, before other courses come in with their res ipsa loquitur and in flagrante delicto. The reason for this primacy is the greater emphasis law schools have placed upon pro bono programming in the past ten to fifteen years.

The "New Normal" For Educating Lawyers, Nicola A. Boothe-Perry

Journal Publications

This article examines who law professors are and what their roles consist of when educating law students. The article discusses the ethical and moral dilemmas that law professors can find themselves in while trying to be competent and trustworthy in their teaching. The article also discusses the role of mentor and counselor as they guide students’ in creating their professional identities.

Practicing Practical Wisdom, Deborah J. Cantrell, Kenneth Sharpe

Publications

Wisdom is not an innate character trait; no one automatically is wise; wisdom is learned and acquired. More importantly, one can learn and acquire wisdom intentionally and skillfully — one can practice it. And, if the practice is structured in particular ways, the practice will improve one’s capacities to act with wisdom. This article clarifies theoretical muddiness and pedagogical imprecision by bringing together two important and robust strands of legal ethics literature. The first strand focuses on what the appropriate role of a lawyer is in a just society, while the second focuses on how a lawyer learns to be, …

Ethical Challenges Of Using Law Student Interns/Externs To Expand Services To Low-Income Older Adults, Eleanor Lanier

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Meta-Mindfulness: A New Hope, Peter H. Huang

Publications

This Essay starts by tracing its humble origins to an earlier, related and unique law review article, namely, Tiger Cub Strikes Back: Memoirs of an Ex-Child Prodigy About Legal Education and Parenting. This Essay describes various professional responses to Tiger Cub Strikes Back, provides an update of some developments in research about parenting and legal education since Tiger Cub Strikes Back, and recounts a few personal stories about mindfulness and related to being an ex-child prodigy. This Essay then analyzes meta-mindfulness, defined as mindfulness about mindfulness. This Essay discusses how mindfulness about mindfulness can help facilitate the …

Insights From Psychology: Teaching Behavioral Legal Ethics As A Core Element Of Professional Responsibility, Tigran W. Eldred

Faculty Scholarship

The field of behavioral legal ethics—which draws on a large body of empirical research to explore how subtle and often unconscious psychological factors influence ethical decision-making by lawyers—has gained significant attention recently, including by many scholars who have called for a pedagogy that incorporates behavioral lessons into the professional responsibility curriculum. This Article provides one of the first comprehensive accounts of how law teachers can meet this challenge. Based on an approach that employs a variety of experiential techniques to immerse students in the contextual and emotional aspects of legal practice, it provides a detailed model of how to teach …

Assignments With Intrinsic Lessons On Professionalism (Or, Teaching Students To Act Like Adults Without Sounding Like A Parent), Beth H. Wilensky

Articles

There is little question that law schools ought to teach their students professionalism – indeed, they are required to do so to maintain accreditation. And there is little question that the required legal writing and research course is one of the places it ought to be taught. But teaching students to adopt the norms of professional behavior — both in law school and after graduation — is a challenge to law faculties, and particularly to the experiential learning faculty who frequently are on the front lines of teaching professionalism. While there are many ways to teach students what professional and …

Ethics: Informal Opinion 1151 - Lawyers And The Title "Doctor", Milard King Roper Jr.

Akron Law Review

The legal profession is the only professional group in the United States that has ever prohibited its practicing members with doctorates from using the title "Doctor." Now, with D.R. 2-102(F) of the Code and its interpretation in Informal Opinion 1151, lawyers have been given the opportunity to take advantage of the recognition of their education as being on a par with other doctoral training.

Address At The Annual School Of Law Dean's Club Dinner: Integrity, Stephen L. Carter

Akron Law Review

I would like to begin by saying how very pleased I am to be here for the Dean's Club Dinner, especially celebrating the 75th anniversary of the University of Akron School of Law. Someone is speculating today that this school may have a higher proportion of its graduates sitting on various courts than I suspect any law school in the country. That's a marvelous achievement and suggests that something very important is going on in the classrooms here. Students are learning the law; not simply being instilled with the love of learning, but are also learning a kind of moral …

Professional Responsibility In An Uncertain Profession: Legal Ethics In China, Judith A. Mcmorrow

Akron Law Review

This essay starts with two simple questions: Why do law schools in China have so little discussion of legal ethics? Why do students not press or seek more discussion of this topic? The essay then looks at the creation of norms of legal ethics from a topdown perspective and the inadequacy of that approach. Both a bottomup and top-down examination identify the tremendous challenges facing the Chinese emerging legal culture in building a coherent model of lawyering that can serve as the foundation for a system of legal ethics. This essay is intended as a contribution to the growing English …

What It Means To Be A Lawyer In These Uncertain Times: Some Thoughts On Ethical Participation In The Legal Education Industry, Susan Carle

Akron Law Review

I will first take a quick look in Part II at the basic data regarding employment statistics for recent law school graduates. This is the primary source of concern cited by those who argue that legal education is in profound crisis. What those statistics show, in a nutshell, is that large law firm hiring is down, but that small firm hiring is up by even more significant amounts, and that salaries for employed graduates continue to rise. What also continues to rise is the new law graduate unemployment rate, though not by the exaggerated dimensions some reports imply. New lawyers …

Further Reflections On Teaching Professionalism: A Thank You Note To Jack Sammons, Patrick Emery Longan

Mercer Law Review

In 2009, I published Teaching Professionalism in this Law Review to describe the content and methods of Mercer's first-year course on professionalism. Since then, we have made significant changes to the course, and it seems fitting to share some of those developments in the context of a Symposium that honors the scholarship and teaching of Jack Sammons. As I noted in the earlier article, the idea for the course came from Jack before I ever came to Mercer. It is also appropriate to use this occasion for another reason. I can trace the early design of the course, and most …

The Discursive Ethics Of Jack Sammons, David T. Ritchie

Mercer Law Review

Professor Jack Sammons has been a widely celebrated teacher, community activist, and distinguished member of the bar. He is also a prolific scholar; perhaps the most prolific scholar the Mercer University School of Law has ever seen. My interest in the body of Jack's work, and hence my focus here, is on what I consider to be the core of his scholarly agenda. I would like to caution that this is my reading of Jack's work as a corpus. I am not entirely sure that Jack would agree with this reading (especially later on when I will make some connections …

Addressing Access To Justice Through New Legal Service Providers: Opportunities And Challenges, Alice Woolley, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Articles & Book Chapters

Most informed observers of the Canadian and American legal systems accept the existence of a significant crisis in access to justice. One possible solution is to permit paralegals, notaries or other licensed individuals with training more limited than that enjoyed by a licensed attorney to practice in certain areas of law. This paper supports these developments, arguing for a regulated and incremental introduction of new legal service providers into the legal services market. It considers the appropriate training and scope of practice for new legal service providers, and some of the associated opportunities and challenges.

The Comprehensive Law Movement, Susan Daicoff

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lawyering And Its Discontents: Reclaiming Meaning In The Practice Of Law, Marjorie A. Silver

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Wanting To Do More But Bound To Do Less: A Law Librarian's Dilemma, Paul Jerome Mclaughlin Jr.

Library Faculty Publications

The role of the law librarian has changed from managing the contents of a library’s collection of books to knowing how to find information sources located around the world contained in a variety of formats, taking part in instruction, and participating in networking activities. Law librarians are constrained by legal and professional codes. If they are cautious, law librarians can assist, instruct, and reach out to public patrons and students while operating within the professional guidelines that govern them.

The Legal Tech Audit: Focus On Word, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

In addition to discussing the legal tech audit, these sessions focused on how-to skills for using Microsoft Word in the legal profession.

The Legal Tech Audit: Focus On Pdfs, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

In addition to discussing the legal tech audit, these sessions focused on how-to skills for using Adobe Acrobat in the legal profession.

The Legal Tech Audit: Focus On Excel, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

In addition to discussing the legal tech audit, these two sessions focused on how-to skills for using Microsoft Excel in the legal profession.

Tech Skills For Staff: Excel & Pdfs, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

This informal instruction session covered Microsoft Excel and Adobe Acrobat Pro. Staff were encouraged to bring their own computers and follow along as each program was explored. Practical tips for using both programs were shared and discussed.