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Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons™

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Articles 121 - 150 of 240

Full-Text Articles in Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility

Bob Dylan’S Lawyers, A Dark Day In Luzerne County, And Learning To Take Legal Ethics Seriously, Randy Lee Jan 2012

Bob Dylan’S Lawyers, A Dark Day In Luzerne County, And Learning To Take Legal Ethics Seriously, Randy Lee

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article examines the life of Bob Dylan and how his views can be used to improve legal ethics. Bob Dylan's views are applied to the legal ethics issues faced by the juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania’s Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice's call "to get serious" about legal ethics. "If we are, however, to get serious about legal ethics, then we will first have to see if we can “make any sense of it,” “pull it apart,” and see if any of it can fit back together in a meaningful way, in other words, do the kind …

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Dylan's Judgment On Judges: Power And Greed And Corruptible Seed Seem To Be All That There Is, David M. Zornow Jan 2012

Dylan's Judgment On Judges: Power And Greed And Corruptible Seed Seem To Be All That There Is, David M. Zornow

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article is presented in the form of an "Indictment" against judges brought by Bob Dylan, in the role of prosecutor. Indictment Part A contains a summary of Dylan's allegations against judges. Part B is background information. Part C alleges "Abuse of Power" as indictment count one. Part D alleges "Greed" as indictment count two. Part E alleges "Corruptible Seed" as indictment count three. Part F contains the indictments conclusion. Finally, the article concludes with a "Brady" letter.

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Making Good Lawyers, Eli Wald, Russell G. Pearce Jan 2012

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 …

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Rethinking Lawyer Regulation: How A Relational Approach Would Improve Professional Rules And Roles, Russell G. Pearce, Eli G. Wald Jan 2012

Rethinking Lawyer Regulation: How A Relational Approach Would Improve Professional Rules And Roles, Russell G. Pearce, Eli G. Wald

Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers both a way to understand emerging developments in the regulation of the legal profession in the United States and internationally, and an explanation for why these developments grounded in a relational perspective on lawyers and their work are likely to be more effective in encouraging lawyers to follow the legal ethics rules and to fulfill professional aspirations. The dominant United States approach to lawyer regulation is the command and control model that penalizes lawyers for failing to follow a lengthy set of prescribed rules. As the article explains, this approach assumes – and reinforces the idea – …

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Prosecutors And Professional Regulation, Bruce A. Green Jan 2012

Prosecutors And Professional Regulation, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

Prosecutors often express mistrust of professional regulators, their rules and their processes. This may have been more understandable twenty years ago, when prosecutors perceived that the organized bar had been captured by defense lawyers seeking to use professional regulation as a means of imposing limits on criminal investigative authority that the law did not otherwise recognize. Although that criticism no longer has much basis in reality, it has persisted in the rhetoric prosecutors employ in advocacy regarding their professional conduct. This article explores prosecutors’ public attitude toward professional regulation, beginning with a brief account of their responses two decades ago, …

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Patient Racial Preferences And The Medical Culture Of Accommodation, Kimani Paul-Emile Jan 2012

Patient Racial Preferences And The Medical Culture Of Accommodation, Kimani Paul-Emile

Faculty Scholarship

One of medicine’s open secrets is that patients routinely refuse or demand medical treatment based on the assigned physician’s racial identity, and hospitals typically yield to patients’ racial preferences. This widely practiced, if rarely acknowledged, phenomenon — about which there is new empirical evidence — poses a fundamental dilemma for law, medicine, and ethics. It also raises difficult questions about how we should think about race, health, and individual autonomy in this context. Informed consent rules and common law battery dictate that a competent patient has an almost-unqualified right to refuse medical care, including treatment provided by an unwanted physician. …

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Breaking Past The Parallax: Finding The True Place Of Lawyers In Securities Fraud, Marianne C. Adams Jan 2011

Breaking Past The Parallax: Finding The True Place Of Lawyers In Securities Fraud, Marianne C. Adams

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Lawyers often play an integral part in business transactions and securities offerings. This puts lawyers on the sidelines of not only great business successes, but also, every so often, tremendous failures. Because they are viewed by many as gatekeepers, and in that role provide a degree of assurance (with their reputational capital) that gross illegalities will not occur, a series of questions arise in the minds of many when illegalities do happen on attorneys’ watch. This Note analyzes the legal standards that are in play and those that should be imposed when lawyers aid or abet a fraud. Part I …

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Legal Ethics Scholarship Of Ted Schneyer: The Importance Of Being Rigorous, The Festschrift For Ted Schneyer Lawyer Regulation For The 21st Century: Foreword, Bruce A. Green Jan 2011

Legal Ethics Scholarship Of Ted Schneyer: The Importance Of Being Rigorous, The Festschrift For Ted Schneyer Lawyer Regulation For The 21st Century: Foreword, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

This collection on "Lawyer Regulation for the 21st Century" celebrates Ted Schneyer's legal ethics scholarship. From my perspective as Ted's friend and colleague in the field of legal ethics, it is obvious how richly he deserves this festschrift, and it is my privilege to be invited to contribute its foreword. But to someone outside the field, many questions might be raised. Why celebrate legal scholarship? Why celebrate legal ethics scholarship? Why celebrate Ted Schneyer's legal ethics scholarship? And why celebrate it by collecting writings on the theme of Lawyer Regulation for the 21st Century? Though I have no desire to …

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Prosecutors' Ethical Duty Of Disclosure In Memory Of Fred Zacharias , Bruce A. Green Jan 2011

Prosecutors' Ethical Duty Of Disclosure In Memory Of Fred Zacharias , Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

In the spring of 2009, I sent Fred Zacharias an e-mail to let him know that the American Bar Association's (ABA) Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, on which I was serving, was working on an opinion on prosecutorial ethics and to suggest that once it was published, the opinion might be fodder for our next article. Over the preceding decade, Fred and I had coauthored five articles on the regulation of prosecutors,' and various others on the regulation of lawyers in general, but at that time, we had no work in progress and had been out of touch …

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You Do Have To Keep Your Promises: A Disgorgement Theory Of Contract Remedies, Steve Thel, Peter Siegelman Jan 2010

You Do Have To Keep Your Promises: A Disgorgement Theory Of Contract Remedies, Steve Thel, Peter Siegelman

Faculty Scholarship

Contract law is generally understood to require no more of a person who breaches a contract than to give the injured promisee the "benefit of the bargain." The law is thus assumed to permit a promise-breaker to keep any profit remaining from breach, after putting the victim in the position he would have been in had the promise been performed. This conventional description is radically wrong: across a wide range of circumstances, standard contract doctrines actually do require people to keep their promises, or to disgorge their entire profit from breach if they do not. Rather than protecting the expectation …

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"Whistle . . . And You've Got An Audience", Amanda C. Leiter Jan 2009

"Whistle . . . And You've Got An Audience", Amanda C. Leiter

Fordham Urban Law Journal

One of the questions for discussion today is whether public rights litigation is an effective means of social change. This Article does not attempt an answer but begins to explore a set of issues central to any answer: the extent, types, uses, and potential shortcomings of government whistleblowing. There is considerable sociological and legal literature on government whistleblowing, but little of it addresses the issue from the angle relevant to maximizing the efficacy of public rights litigation. This Article begins to fill that gap. Part I discusses the importance of whistleblowers in the vindication and enforcement of public rights. Part …

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Wilfulness Versus Expectation: A Promise-Based Defense Of Wilfull Breach Doctrine, Steve Thel, Peter Siegelman Jan 2008

Wilfulness Versus Expectation: A Promise-Based Defense Of Wilfull Breach Doctrine, Steve Thel, Peter Siegelman

Faculty Scholarship

Willful breach doctrine should be a major embarrassment to contract law. If the default remedy for breach is expectation damages designed to put the injured promisee in the position she would have been in if the contract had been performed, then the promisor's behavior-the reason for the breach-looks to be irrelevant in assessing damages. And yet the cases are full of references to "willful" breaches, which seem often to be treated more harshly than ordinary ones based on the promisor's bad/willful conduct. Our explanation is that willful breaches are best understood as those that should be prevented or deterred because …

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Physicians And Execution: Highlights From A Discussion Of Lethal Injection, Deborah W. Denno Jan 2008

Physicians And Execution: Highlights From A Discussion Of Lethal Injection, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Public Service Must Begin At Home: The Lawyer As Civics Teacher In Everyday Practice, Bruce A. Green, Russell Pearce Jan 2008

Public Service Must Begin At Home: The Lawyer As Civics Teacher In Everyday Practice, Bruce A. Green, Russell Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

Fifty years ago, the leading national representatives of the American legal profession, the American Bar Association (ABA), and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), issued a joint report (the Report) on the nature of lawyers' professional responsibility in the context of the adversary system. Principally authored by legal philosopher Lon Fuller, who co-chaired the joint conference that issued it, the Report's premise was that the legal profession's inherited traditions provided only indirect guidance to lawyers in light of their changing roles, and that a "true sense of professional responsibility" must derive from an understanding of the "special services" that …

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Do You See What I See - Reflections On How Bias Infiltrates The New York City Family Court - The Case Of The Court Ordered Investigation, Leah A. Hill Jan 2007

Do You See What I See - Reflections On How Bias Infiltrates The New York City Family Court - The Case Of The Court Ordered Investigation, Leah A. Hill

Faculty Scholarship

That the Family Court is ill-equipped to address the needs of the hundreds of thousands of cases handled therein is not news. Exploding caseloads, complex problems, and minimal resources are just a few of the ingredients that combine to undermine the Court's ability to fulfill its promise. What has been given less attention until very recently is the extent to which the Family Court's failures disproportionately impact low-income families of color. Any analysis of the Court's impact or efficacy must consider the context I have described in my observations of the Court- the images of black and brown litigants hurrying …

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Large Law Firms And Their Role In The Educational Continuum Of Lawyers, Paula A. Patton Jan 2005

Large Law Firms And Their Role In The Educational Continuum Of Lawyers, Paula A. Patton

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article examines the ways in which large law firms have served as educators. Furthermore, the Author considers how law firm efforts as educators might be enhanced. The paper looks at the necessity for law firms to continue to educate their associates and the motivation for associate training. The author proposes that law firms must embrace comprehensive strategies that impart performance standards, benchmarks, and core competencies through experiential training.

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Should We Mandate Doing Well By Doing Good?, Lawrence J. Fox Jan 2005

Should We Mandate Doing Well By Doing Good?, Lawrence J. Fox

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article looks at Pro Bono work at the top large law firms. The Author examines the pro bono commitment of America's most financially successful firms. The Article describes the contradiction between how the firms present themselves on pro bono work and what they actually accomplish. The Author believes the solution to this situation is mandatory pro bono. The Article proposes that the rules of professional conduct should require pro bono work.

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Professional Challenges In Large Firm Practice, Bruce A. Green Jan 2005

Professional Challenges In Large Firm Practice, Bruce A. Green

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This foreword introduces the idea of Professional Challenges in Large Law Firm practice. The author discusses the culture of large law firm life. This Foreword focused on two goals. First, the author offered an overview of the Stein Center Conference that inspired this issue under the same title as the foreword. Second, the author introduces the writings in this issue that came out of the conference. Overall, it offers an introduction of the nature of large law firm practice.

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Intimidation And The Culture Of Avoidance: Gender Issues And Mentoring In Law Firm Practice, Elizabeth K. Mcmanus Jan 2005

Intimidation And The Culture Of Avoidance: Gender Issues And Mentoring In Law Firm Practice, Elizabeth K. Mcmanus

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Essay looks at gender issues in law firm practice. The author tries to dispel the notion that just women are gaining equal access to the legal profession at the ground level does not mean that they are achieving similar entrée to the upper echelons of law firm practice. The author considers the factors that challenge women's progress at law firms. The article also looks at the mentoring issue with law firm work and how that affects this the same issue.

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Profits And Professionalism, Deborah Rhode Jan 2005

Profits And Professionalism, Deborah Rhode

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article looks at the financial effect of ethics work. The author examines to what effect and under what circumstances “ethics pays,” and what can be done to increase the rate of return. The article studies this issue in three different contexts. First, it looks at workplace cultures and professional values. The author tries to find how the legal professional can create more organizational structures in which adhering to principles serves prudential interests. The second context is pro bono work. Here, the author looks at the pro bono benefits to, the lawyer, and legal employer, as well as the costs …

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The Nirvana Fallacy In Law Firm Regulation Debate, Elizabeth Chambliss Jan 2005

The Nirvana Fallacy In Law Firm Regulation Debate, Elizabeth Chambliss

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article addresses self-regulation in the legal industry. Lawyers have traditionally resisted the benefits of bureaucratic management. This Article highlights that many lawyers fear that centralized management controls with regard to regulation will undermine individual accountability. This article does not agree with that sentiment. This article uses data to suggest that centralized management, i.e. specialists in charge, may significantly improve individual accountability and compliance with professional rules. This article really reviews what it feels like are misconstrued assumptions about regulation at law firms. This Article argues that the nostalgia for an idealized collegial form has prevented legal scholars and regulators …

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The Billable Hours Derby: Empirical Data On The Problems And Pressure Point, Susan Saab Fortney Jan 2005

The Billable Hours Derby: Empirical Data On The Problems And Pressure Point, Susan Saab Fortney

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article addresses the frustration with billable hours in large law firms. The Author gathered empirical data to gauge the short and long-term effects of increases in billable hour expectations. An empirical study was conducted in 1999-2000 of associate satisfaction, law firm culture, and billing practices. The Article compares these findings to a 2005 NALP study on billable hours and a Work-Life split. The Article concludes by considering what forces and players will change the current course of conduct in which law firm leaders treat increases in billable hours expectations as a necessary evil. The studies show the costs and …

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How Law Firms Can Do Good While Doing Well (And The Answer Is Not Pro Bono), Russell Pearce Jan 2005

How Law Firms Can Do Good While Doing Well (And The Answer Is Not Pro Bono), Russell Pearce

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Essay looks at whether large law firm business lawyers can do good in today’s society. The author describes the change in the large law firm mentality since the 1960s – most specifically the shift to a focus centered solely on making money. The Article looks at the changes in the legal profession that facilitated this shift. The author proposes that instead of trying to separate making money and doing well, the legal profession should try to integrate the two. The Essay proposes specific suggestions to accomplish this goal, including the creation of a new Model Rule that would restore …

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The Professionalization Of Ethics, Margaret Raymond Jan 2005

The Professionalization Of Ethics, Margaret Raymond

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article looks at the importance of teaching law graduates to be ethical lawyers. The author hypothesizes that the current versions of the ethical rules and the structure of law firms have the potential to encourage the professionalization of ethics rather than connecting all practitioners to the values of professional responsibility. This Article sets out the factors that contribute to the increased professionalization of professional responsibility in large law firms. These factors are the need for lawyers to always be accessible, the pressure to specialize in a specific field, and the complexity of the ethics rules as written. The author …

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Marilyn & Ed Bellet: A Dedication, William Michael Treanor Jan 2005

Marilyn & Ed Bellet: A Dedication, William Michael Treanor

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Essay was a dedication to Ed and Marilyn Bellet, benefactors of Fordham Law’s ethics and professionalism programs. The Bellets created the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, which educates both the public and lawyers about the importance of the rule of law. The author examines the life of the Bellets and their commitment to Fordham Law.

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The Evils Of “Elasticity”: Reflections On The Rhetoric Of Professionalism And The Part-Time Paradox In Large Firm Practice, Amelia J. Uelmen Jan 2005

The Evils Of “Elasticity”: Reflections On The Rhetoric Of Professionalism And The Part-Time Paradox In Large Firm Practice, Amelia J. Uelmen

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Essay is an examination of part-time arrangements at large law firms. The author sets out to start a conversation about professional life and identity in a large firm context.. Part I looks at the commercialization of large law firm practice and how that has created a “crisis” in legal practice. Part II compares the “tyranny of the billable hours” with the dedication to “client service.” The author considers part time work with both of these elements. Part III confronts the cultural obstacles to part-time work. Here, the author acknowledges that even the analysis is accepted there are still cultural …

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Religious Lawyering's Second Wave, Russell G. Pearce, Amelia J. Uelmen Jan 2005

Religious Lawyering's Second Wave, Russell G. Pearce, Amelia J. Uelmen

Faculty Scholarship

Since the mid-1990s, the "religious lawyering movement" has expanded dramatically, receiving greater attention within the academy and the bar. As the movement enters what we term its "second wave" of development, this essay begins with a look back to its "first wave" of path-breaking scholarship and its gradual shift toward more institutionalized structures and programs. It argues that the predominant characteristic of first-wave religious lawyering scholarship was to claim a space within the professional conversation for lawyers to bring religious values to bear on their work. The essay then predicts that in the second wave religious lawyering conversations and scholarship …

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Leaders, Followers, And Free Riders: The Community Lawyer's Dilemma When Representing Non-Democratic Client Organizations, Michael Diamond, Aaron O'Toole Jan 2004

Leaders, Followers, And Free Riders: The Community Lawyer's Dilemma When Representing Non-Democratic Client Organizations, Michael Diamond, Aaron O'Toole

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article explores various aspects of the dissonance between the democratic ideal and the reality of groups in disenfranchised and disempowered communities. The authors discuss the intersection of democracy and community action by examining the sociology of groups and the social psychology of leaders and followers. They also examine the role of, and choices presented to, an attorney working in a community and for a local community group.

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Religious Lawyering In A Liberal Democracy: A Challenge And An Invitation William A. Brahms Lecture On Law & Religion, Russell G. Pearce Jan 2004

Religious Lawyering In A Liberal Democracy: A Challenge And An Invitation William A. Brahms Lecture On Law & Religion, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

At a time when many believe that law is no longer a noble profession, many lawyers see no reason to devote time and energy to promoting the public good. Religious lawyering may offer a powerful antidote: a robust framework for lawyers to integrate into their professional lives their most deeply rooted values, perspectives and critiques, and persuasive reasons to improve the quality of justice and work for the common good. At its best, religious lawyering echoes Martin Luther King's advice to the street sweeper. How wonderful it would be, indeed, if we practiced law so well that the host of …

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Ethical Deception By Prosecutors, Rebecca B. Cross Jan 2003

Ethical Deception By Prosecutors, Rebecca B. Cross

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Comment discusses the Colorado Supreme Court's suspension of Assistant District Attorney Mark Pautler for deceitful conduct in securing the surrender of an axe murderer on a killing spree. Although many thought Pautler's conduct was morally acceptable, disciplinary authorities found that he violated ethical rules governing attorney conduct. Using People v. Pautler as a case study, this Comment sorts through relevant, current interpretations of the ethnics rule and proposes an approach for future analysis.

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