Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Law School Marketing And Legal Ethics, Ben L. Trachtenberg

Faculty Publications

Law schools have misled prospective students for years about the value of legal education. In some cases, law school officials have engaged in outright deceit, knowingly spreading false information about their schools. More commonly, they have presented statistics — especially those concerning the employment outcomes of law graduates — in ways nearly guaranteed to confuse readers. These deceptions and sharp practices violate the norms of the legal profession, a profession that scrupulously regulates the advertising of legal services. The deceptions also violate ethical rules prohibiting lawyers from engaging in dishonesty, misrepresentation, and deceit. This article exposes how pitches aimed at …

Regulators, Mount Up, Ben L. Trachtenberg

Faculty Publications

Since I began circulating drafts of an article arguing that certain law school officials have exposed themselves to professional discipline by engaging in dishonest marketing tactics, responses have varied considerably. Everyone seems to agree, however, that law school officials should not lie in their pursuit of students. There also appears to be broad consensus that misleading (albeit not intentionally false) marketing—such as systematically skewed salary statistics—is an unfortunate phenomenon, although disagreement remains on just how serious a problem it is and what level of corrective effort is appropriate. In their recently-published response pieces, Kyle McEntee of Law School Transparency (“LST”) …

Bad Briefs, Bad Law, Bad Markets: Documenting The Poor Quality Of Plaintiffs' Briefs, Its Impact On The Law, And The Market Failure It Reflects, Scott A. Moss

Publications

For a major field, employment discrimination suffers surprisingly low-quality plaintiffs' lawyering. This Article details a study of several hundred summary judgment briefs, finding as follows: (1) the vast majority of plaintiffs' briefs omit available caselaw rebutting key defense arguments, many falling far below basic professional standards with incoherent writing or no meaningful research; (2) low-quality briefs lose at over double the rate of good briefs; and (3) bad briefs skew caselaw evolution, because even controlling for win-loss rate, bad plaintiffs' briefs far more often yield decisions crediting debatable defenses. These findings are puzzling. In a major legal service market, how …

Professionalism And The New Normal, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of Scholars' Briefs: A Response To Richard Fallon, Amanda Frost

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In a thoughtful and provocative essay, Richard Fallon criticizes law professors for lightly signing onto 'scholars’ briefs,' that is, amicus briefs filed on behalf of a group of law professors claiming expertise in the subject area. Fallon argues that law professors are constrained by the moral and ethical obligations of their profession from joining scholars’ briefs without first satisfying standards similar to those governing the production of scholarship, and thus he believes that law professors should abstain from adding their names to such briefs more often than they do now.

This response begins by describing the benefits of scholars’ briefs …

Ethics In Legal Education: An Augmentation Of Legal Realism, Gerald R. Ferrera

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Practicing On Purpose: Promoting Personal Wellness And Professional Values In Legal Education, Gretchen Duhaime

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Mindful Law School: An Integrative Approach To Transforming Legal Education, Scott L. Rogers

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Clark Memorandum: Fall 2012, J. Reuben Clark Law Society, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law School

The Clark Memorandum

• Education Multipliers (Mehrsa Baradaran)
• Integrity and the Practice of Law (William A. Tilleman)
• He Answered Discreetly (Elder L. Whitney Clayton)
• On Becoming a Good Apple (Thomas B. Griffith)

Mission: Impossible, Mission: Accomplished Or Mission: Underway? A Survey And Analysis Of Current Trends In Professionalism Education In American Law Schools, Mary Ann Robinson

Working Paper Series

This Article identifies common characteristics of effective professionalism instruction to provide guidance in how to design innovative professionalism instruction. After introducing the topic in Part I, Part II of this Article describes the origins and development of the professionalism education movement in American Law schools. Part III of this Article explains our methods for collecting information and identifies and summarizes the predominant trends, and provides examples of noteworthy programs or initiatives. Part IV concludes by describing our method for assessing successful programs and identifying the characteristics of effective professionalism instruction.

Scholastic Steroids: Is Generation Rx Cognitively Cheating? , Kelline R. Linton

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Leveraging The Dialectical Theory In Case Study Analysis: Genzyme's Ethical Dilemma, Andrei Duta

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This paper provides the theoretical framework for a case study that I share with students in my courses. The dialectical theory is used to analyze ethical conundrums pertaining to Genzyme, a successful bio-tech corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts that manufactures treatments for serious diseases such as kidney problems, immune diseases, and cancer. We discuss questions such as: is Genzyme acting unethically when averaging extremely high profit margins on drugs for rare diseases? Is the company taking advantage of the lack of pharmaceutical choices that patients have when addressing their ailments? The dialectical theory provides the framework and vocabulary for discussing, …

Motivations For Law Student Pro Bono: Lessons Learned From The Tuscaloosa Tornado, Kelly Alison Behre

Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal

After a tornado devastated Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on April 27, 2011, law students at the University of Alabama organized and engaged in substantial legal and nonlegal service. Narratives from these students in the midst of their volunteer efforts reveal detailed accounts of their experiences and motivations for their service. In a time in which national law student pro bono rates remain low and law students continue to lose interest in social justice issues during their time in law school, these student narratives offer insight into why law students chose to volunteer through the lens of students who rose to the occasion …

The Attorney-Client Privilege As An Obstacle To The Professional And Ethical Development Of Law Students, Ursula H. Weigold

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

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

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Teaching Professional Ethics to Lawyers and Mediators Using Active Learning Techniques will serve as the first article in a series of articles I have planned on the use of active learning techniques to teach the core values of mediation: mediator impartiality, party self-determination, confidentiality, and quality of the process/mediator competence. This article is the second article in that series. In Section III, I summarize the first article in the series. In Section IV, I describe the role of mediator impartiality as a core value of the mediation field. I evaluate the definitions of mediation found in several ethics codes as …

Legal Writing, The Remix: Plagiarism And Hip Hop Ethics, 63 Mercer L. Rev. 597 (2012), Kim D. Chanbonpin

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I focus on hip hop music and culture as an access point to teach first-year law students about the academic and professional pitfalls of plagiarism. Hip hop provides a good model for comparison because most entering students are immersed in a popular culture that is saturated with allusions to hip hop. As a point of reference for incoming law students, hip hop possesses a valuable currency as it represents something real, experienced, and relatable.

Significant parallels exist between the cultures of United States legal writing and hip hop, although attempting direct analogies would be absurd. Chief among …

Legal Ethics For The Millennials Avoiding The Compromise Of Integrity, Helia Garrido Hull

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Making Good Lawyers, Eli Wald, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

Today, the criticism of law schools has become an industry. Detractors argue that legal education fails to effectively prepare students for the practice of law, that it is too theoretical and detached from the profession, that it dehumanizes and alienates students, too expensive and inapt in helping students develop a sense of professional identity, professional values, and professionalism. In this sea of criticisms it is hard to see the forest from the trees. “There is so much wrong with legal education today,” writes one commentator, “that it is hard to know where to begin.” This article argues that any reform …

The Mindful Law School: An Integrative Approach To Transforming Legal Education, Scott L. Rogers

Articles

No abstract provided.

Resource-Based Learning And Course Design: A Brief Theoretical Overview And Practical Suggestions, Meg Butler

Faculty Publications By Year

Law librarians teaching legal research should follow resource based learning pedagogical strategies. This paper provides a background in constructivist educational theory and resource based learning before identifying useful instructional strategies regarding course design decisions related to goal-setting, assignments, rubrics, and assessment.

Standard Lawyer Behavior? Professionalism As An Essential Standard For Aba Accreditation, Nicola A. Boothe-Perry

Journal Publications

This article addresses the ABA as a source of pressure to encourage and foster professionalism education in law schools. The ABA holds a uniquely powerful position in the American legal community, and with it the ABA enjoys the attendant ability to influence professionalism training and awareness. The principal tool at the ABA's disposal considered in this article is the ABA's ability to promulgate standards for professionalism as a requirement for law school accreditation. This article argues that this is the proper time for the ABA to institute a specific standard in an effort to increase professionalism in the legal profession.

Epistemology And Ethics In Relationship-Centered Legal Education And Practice, Susan L. Brooks, Robert G. Madden

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

New Roles To Solve Old Problems: Lawyering For Ordinary People In Today’S Context, Marsha M. Mansfield, Louise G. Trubek

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Legal Ethics In The Digital Age", Susan David Demaine

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Includes the chapter "Legal Ethics in the Digital Age" by Prof. Susan David deMaine.

Dichotomy No Longer? The Role Of The Private Business Sector In Educating The Future Russian Legal Professions, Philip Genty

Faculty Scholarship

In his 1916 work The Law: Business or Profession?, Julius Henry Cohen describes an American legal system in which uniform standards for regulating, disciplining, and educating the profession are just beginning to be developed, albeit unevenly. In discussing the differences between a business and a profession, he argues that a profession requires a uniform set of standards to guide it in matters of ethics, as well as a system of rigorous legal education that includes a firm grounding in these ethical principles.

Perhaps most surprising for a book written in the early twentieth century – long before the …

When Things Go Wrong In The Clinic: How To Prevent And Respond To Serious Student Misconduct, Robert L. Jones Jr., Gerard F. Glynn, John J. Francis

Journal Articles

This article documents the types of misconduct that students commit, explores why serious misconduct occurs, examines whether such conduct can be anticipated and reduced by prescreening and monitoring potentially problematic students, and suggests how misconduct might be addressed once it occurs. The authors' analysis thus encompasses both legal obligations and pedagogical considerations, and it takes account of the differing perspectives of clinical professors, law school administrators, and bar examiners. The authors operate from a "student centered" perspective that emphasizes the support and development of law students. This article is prescriptive, therefore, in the extent to which it emphasizes preventive actions …

Tiger Cub Strikes Back: Memoirs Of An Ex-Child Prodigy About Legal Education And Parenting, Peter H. Huang

Publications

I am a Chinese American who at 14 enrolled at Princeton and at 17 began my applied mathematics Ph.D. at Harvard. I was a first-year law student at the University of Chicago before transferring to Stanford, preferring the latter's pedagogical culture. This Article offers a complementary account to Amy Chua's parenting memoir. The Article discusses how mainstream legal education and tiger parenting are similar and how they can be improved by fostering life-long learning about character strengths, emotions, and ethics. I also recount how a senior professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school claimed to have gamed the U.S. …

Integrating "Alternative" Dispute Resolution Into Bankruptcy: As Simple (And Pure) As Motherhood And Apple Pie?, Nancy A. Welsh

Faculty Scholarship

Today, there can be little doubt that “alternative” dispute resolution is anything but alternative. Nonetheless, many judges, lawyers (and law students) do not truly understand the dispute resolution processes that are available and how they should be used. In the shadow of the current economic crisis, this lack of knowledge is likely to have negative consequences, particularly in those areas of practice such as bankruptcy and foreclosure in which clients, lawyers, regulators, and courts work under pressure, often with inadequate time and financial resources to permit careful analysis of procedural options. Potential negative effects can include: (1) impairment of a …

New Ways To Teach Drafting And Drafting Ethics, Lisa Penland, David I.C. Thomson, Susan Duncan, Karen J. Sneddon, Susan M. Chesler

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

As foreign as it can seem to not be in a physical classroom with bodies sitting in the chairs listening, it is a very different way of teaching but it can be very effective. If you go through this process of developing and dividing outcomes, dividing modules, and selecting the right technology, it can work. And that is kind of a scary thought to some people. Perhaps not people who have come to this section today or to this conference about What's Next, but for many of our colleagues, this is kind of a scary thought – that you might …

Clinical Professors' Professional Responsibility: Preparing Law Students To Embrace Pro Bono, Douglas L. Colbert

Faculty Scholarship

This article begins by examining the current crisis in the U.S. legal system where approximately three out of four low- and middle-income litigants are denied access to counsel's representation when faced with the loss of essential rights - -a home, child custody, liberty and deportation - - and where most lawyers decline to fulfill their ethical responsibility of pro bono service to those who cannot afford private counsel. The article traces the evolving ethical standards of a lawyer's professional responsibility that today views every attorney as a public citizen having a special responsibility to the quality of justice.

The author …