Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

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.

Solicitors' Right To Advertise: A Historical And Comparative Analysis, M. Catherine Harris

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Mitigating Foul Blows, Mary N. Bowman

Georgia Law Review

For nearly eighty years, courts have offered stirring rhetoric about how prosecutors must not strike foul blows in pursuit of convictions. Yet while appellate courts are often quick to condemn prosecutorial trial misconduct, they rarely provide any meaningful remedy. Instead, courts routinely affirm convictions, relying on defense counsel's failure to object or concluding that the misconduct was merely harmless error. Jerome Frank summed up the consequences of this dichotomy best when he noted that the courts' attitude of helpless piety in prosecutorial misconduct cases breeds a deplorably cynical attitude toward the judiciary. Cognitive bias research illuminates the reasons for, and …

Talk Don’T Touch? Considerations For Children’S Attorneys On The Physical Touch Of Clients, Andrea L. Dennis

Scholarly Works

Researchers focused on the representation of children and attorneys for children have taken great pains to explore issues surrounding the attorney-child client relationship and recommend strategies and policies supporting positive development of the relationship. Notwithstanding the breadth of available information, almost no attention has been aimed at whether attorneys should physically touch their clients. This article fills that gap.

This Article consists of three parts. Part I describes the literature commanding attorneys for children to develop quality relationships with their clients. These works recognize that young clients seek good relationships with their attorneys, but that barriers to creating quality relationships …

The Public Administrative Law Context Of Ethics Requirements For West German And American Public Officials: A Comparative Analysis, Mark Davies

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Legal Tech Audit, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

A brief introduction and discussion of the legal tech audit, why it matters and three mini tech lessons for Word, Excel, and Adobe Acrobat Pro.

The Challenge Of Seeing Justice Done In Removal Proceedings, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

Prosecutorial discretion is a critical part of the administration of immigration law. This Article considers the work and responsibilities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) trial attorneys, who thus far have not attracted significant scholarly attention, despite playing a large role in the ground-level implementation of immigration law and policy. The Article makes three main contributions. First, I consider whether ICE attorneys have a duty to help ensure that the removal system achieves justice, rather than indiscriminately seek removal in every case and by any means necessary. As I demonstrate, trial attorneys have concrete obligations derived from statutory provisions, …

Greasing The Wheels: British Deficiencies In Relation To American Clarity In International Anti-Corruption Law, Todd Swanson

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

New Technology And The Practice Of Law: Gear For Your Office And The Road, Maureen Cahill, Jason Tubinis

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Provides guidance to legal professionals about ways that technology can make their practices more efficient, secure, and mobile. Includes discussion of hardware gadgets, helpful websites, and tips for comparing legal databases., as well as ethics considerations of electronic files.

If You Can't Trust Your Lawyer, Who Can You Trust?: Why Conflicts Of Interest And Client Loyalty Require An Exception To The Intra-Firm Attorney-Client Privilege For Current Clients, Lindsey B. Sciavicco

Georgia Law Review

Until 2013, no court of last resort had ever addressed the issue of whether the attorney-client privilege shields communications between law firms and their in-house counsel regarding the potential liability to a current client. In that year, the Supreme Courts of Georgia and Massachusetts held that an intra-firm attorney-client privilege could shield such communications from discovery by a current client in a malpractice suit brought against the firm. Shortly after these holdings, the American Bar Association (ABA) adopted a resolution similarly advocating for courts to apply the attorney-client privilege to the intra-firm context. This Note contends that the recent case …

To Internet Or Not To Internet: Ethics Opinions On Internet Usage, Sharon Bradley

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Considers the ethical implications of using email to communicate with clients, using cloud storage for legal files, and tracking people related to a case via the Internet . Highlights recent state bar ethics committee decisions.

Keynote Address By Aimee R. Maxwell, Aimee R. Maxwell

Working in the Public Interest Conferences

No abstract provided.

A Higher Calling: The Importance Of Pro Bono Efforts In The Legal Profession, Emmet Bondurant, Andrew Vail, Mary Benton, Cynthia F. Adcock, Lonnie T. Brown

Working in the Public Interest Conferences

Cover the importance of incorporating pro bono work into every career, including those in the private sector.

Financiers As Monitors In Aggregate Litigation, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

This Article identifies a market-based solution for monitoring large-scale litigation proceeding outside of Rule 23’s safeguards. Although class actions dominate the scholarly discussion of mass litigation, the ever increasing restrictions on certifying a class mean that plaintiffs’ lawyers routinely rely on aggregate, multidistrict litigation to seek redress for group-wide harms. Despite sharing key features with its class action counterpart—such as attenuated attorney-client relationships, attorneyclient conflicts of interest, and high agency costs—no monitor exists in aggregate litigation. Informal group litigation not only lacks Rule 23’s judicial protections against attorney overreaching and self-dealing, but plaintiff’s themselves cannot adequately supervise their attorneys’ behavior. …

Civility And Collegiality—Unreasonable Judicial Expectations For Lawyers As Officers Of The Court?, Lonnie T. Brown

Scholarly Works

It is a well-settled and often-recited fact that lawyers are “officers of the court.” That title, however, is notoriously hortatory and devoid of meaning. Nevertheless, the Eleventh Circuit recently took the somewhat unprecedented step of utilizing the officer-of-the-court label to, in effect, sanction an attorney for the purportedly uncivil act of failing to provide defendant attorneys with pre-suit notice. While the author applauds the court’s desire to place greater emphasis on lawyer-to-lawyer collegiality as a component of officer-of-the-court status, the uncertainty the decision creates in terms of a lawyer’s role will potentially force litigators to compromise important client-centered duties. This …

Ethics On The Wing: Examination Of Opinions On Electronic Services And Cloud Computing, Sharon Bradley

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Reviews state bar opinions regarding electronic storage of and access to client records. Provides a chronological overview of these opinions and a handy checklist for how to assess cloud services and one's own competence to evaluate and monitor them.

Troy Davis: Does Focusing On Innocence Change Minds Or Distract From The Harder Moral Debate?, Philip Horton, Laura Moye, Lori A. Ringhand

Working in the Public Interest Conferences

The conversation will center on the lasting impact of the Troy Davis case, which focused national attention on problems with the use of capital punishment, including criticisms such as inadequate representation for the convicted, arbitrariness in sentencing, and public uneasiness with the risk of sentencing innocent individuals to death. At the same time, a majority of Americans (62%) support capital punishment.

Does a focus on innocence risks contribute to the discussion regarding the morality of the death penalty or does it distract? Six months later, has the Troy Davis case changed the way that Georgians and Americans feel about the …

Raising The Bar On Effective Assistance: Tackling Collateral Consequences Of Criminal Defendants After Padilla V. Kentucky, Russell C. Gabriel, Jessica French, Seann Riley, Gerry Weber

Working in the Public Interest Conferences

Discusses the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Padilla v. Kentucky on defense attorneys' holistic defense responsibilities. Explores the role of counsel to inform clients of direct and indirect consequences of convictions.

Internet Ethics: Complications Of The Digital Age And Web Sites To Help You Untangle Them, Maureen Cahill

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Computers and the Internet have profoundly changed at least the mechanics of the practice of law. Client communication, legal research, document drafting and transmittal, and record storage are increasingly paper free undertakings. As someone who began the practice of law long before the advent of the personal computer or the Internet, I can attest that the shift to computers and the Internet has greatly increased efficiency, productivity and convenience. At the same time, these tools can greatly complicate many traditional ethical considerations.

The paper is divided into two parts. In the first portion of this paper, I will try to …

The Panic Defense And Model Rules Common Sense: A Practical Solution For A Twenty-First Century Ethical Dilemma, Teresa M. Garmon

Georgia Law Review

The attorney-client relationshipremains one of the most
highly regarded associations in society and is of
indispensable importance for criminal defendants, but it
is not a relationship that lasts forever. The Model Rules of
Professional Conduct (Model Rules) not only allow
breaking this affiliation, but also sometimes demand it.
Yet, in other circumstances, the Model Rules and judicial
custom may force an attorney to proceed with a
representation-even in the face of fundamental
disagreement with the core defense in a criminal case.
Through the avenue of the gay panic defense, this Note
explores how attorneys can become trapped between their
own …

Ethics In An E-Environment, Maureen Cahill

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Computers and the Internet have profoundly changed the mechanics of the practice of law. Client communication; legal research; and document drafting, storage and transmittal are increasingly paper free. This electronic revolution has greatly increased efficiency, productivity and convenience in law offices. However, at the same time, this shift to digital tools has also complicated many traditional ethical considerations for those in the legal profession, and these advances in technology give rise to several issues that may be governed by rules of professional conduct.

Ethical Issues In Business And The Lawyer's Role, Carol Morgan, Robert Rhee, Tamar Frankel, Mark Fagan

Scholarly Works

This is a transcript of a panel discussion on teaching Business Ethics.

A Tale Of Prosecutorial Indiscretion: Ramsey Clark And The Selective Non-Prosecution Of Stokely Carmichael, Lonnie T. Brown

Scholarly Works

During the height of the Vietnam War and one of the most volatile periods of the civil rights movement, then-Attorney General Ramsey Clark controversially resisted intense political pressure to prosecute Black Power originator and antiwar activist Stokely Carmichael. Taken in isolation, this decision may seem courageous and praiseworthy, but when considered against the backdrop of Clark’s contemporaneous prosecution of an all-white group of similarly situated anti-draft leaders (the so-called Boston Five), his exercise of prosecutorial discretion becomes suspect. Specifically, the Boston Five were prosecuted in 1968 for conspiracy to aid and abet draft evasion, a charge for which the evidence …

The Stupidest Lawyering Ever, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

Last Wednesday and Thursday, June 23 and 24, Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis finally got what he has been seeking for over a decade -- a court hearing allowing him to present newly discovered evidence he is innocent of the murder of off-duty policeman Mark MacPhail. That hearing was a disaster, however, because of the cataclysmic blundering of his own attorneys. As he sat in the federal district courtroom in jail garb and leg irons watching events unfold, Davis must surely have come to the sickening realization that his lawyers were guilty of some of the stupidest lawyering on …

A Prosecutor's Non-Negotiables: Integrity And Independence, David C. Iglesias

Georgia Law Review

I raised my right hand and I took an oath of office in a brand new federal courthouse that would eventually become . .. the Pete V. Domenici Courthouse, named after our senior senator who retired after thirty-six years of service and who, as the story goes, I will tell you more about. I didn't really fully realize the substance of what I was swearing to until years later when it became abundantly clear that the oath that I took was to the Constitution. It wasn't to my party, it wasn't to my senator, it wasn't to a specific ideology, …

Prosecutorial Sound Bites: When Do They Cross The Line?, Laurie L. Levenson

Georgia Law Review

Even good prosecutors can cross the line. This is particularly true when it comes to media sound bites in high-profile cases. The Supreme Court held in Gentile v. Nevada State Bar, 501 U.S. 1030 (1991), that while lawyers have the First Amendment right to make comments to the press, they do not have the right to make comments that have a "substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding." This broad standard gives little guidance to prosecutors as they try to frame their public remarks. A much better guide is found in 28 C.F.R. § 50.2. These federal regulations at …

Prosecuting Political Defendants, Anthony S. Barkow, Beth George

Georgia Law Review

Prosecutors are obligated to enforce the law without bias or prejudice. Prosecutors will face cases, however, where a prosecution has political overtones due to the substance of the underlying crime or the identity of the defendant. Maintaining public confidence in the impartiality of such prosecutions is vital to protecting the public's trust in the criminal justice system. This Article explores three recent federal cases where the defendant's identity added a political element to the prosecution. It then examines how the Department of Justice regulates prosecutors' release of information to the public, including its charging policy and its interactions with the …

Giving Unconscionability More Muscle: Attorney's Fees As A Remedy For Contractual Overreaching, Stephen E. Friedman

Georgia Law Review

This Article seeks to broaden the conversation about unconscionability. While most of the discussion has focused on the appropriate standard for determining unconscionability, this Article focuses on the appropriate remedy to be imposed when unconscionability is found. The current remedy for unconscionability is nonenforcement or limited enforcement of unconscionable contracts or contract terms. This remedy is inadequate and seriously undermines unconscionability's effectiveness as a tool for policing against contractual overreaching. The Article proposes that courts be given discretion to award attorney's fees to consumers who successfully establish the unconscionability of a standard form contract. Such a remedy would enable unconscionability …

Foreword, Lonnie T. Brown, Jr.

Georgia Law Review

In all types of law practice, attorneys are routinely called upon to make difficult ethical judgment calls. The ethical line-drawing that often takes place in the context of controversial or high-profile cases, however, can be uniquely challenging. Indeed, the very decision to undertake a representation of this nature is fraught with ethical and pragmatic concerns uncommon to typical legal matters. Usually, in assessing whether or not to accept representation of a client, lawyers must address such issues as competency, conflicts of interest, and fee structure. The character of these preliminary inquiries changes rather dramatically, though, when the prospective client is …

"How Can You Represent That Man?": Ethics, The Rule Of Law, And Defending The Indefensible, Ramsey Clark

Georgia Law Review

As we meet to discuss legal ethics, we should consider whether the subject as it is usually presented today adequately encompasses the ideal role of the lawyer, beyond zealous advocacy on behalf of clients. For the most part, legal ethics today, through codes of professional conduct, deals with prohibitions intended to protect the public from misconduct by lawyers, oftentimes criminal. Thou shalt not steal, conceal, lie, bear false witness, suborn perjury, or breach client trust. But is this all? Doesn't ethics promise more than this? Ethics-like morality, which has richer connotations in our culture-properly deals not only with what is …