Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Cultivating Professional Identity & Creating Community: A Tale Of Two Innovations, Jan L. Jacobowitz

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No abstract provided.

Lawyers Beware: You Are What You Post - The Case For Integrating Cultural Competence, Legal Ethics, And Social Media, Jan L. Jacobowitz

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No abstract provided.

Ethics Issues In Representing Intergovernmental Entities, Hugh D. Spitzer

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The creation and operation of intergovernmental entities raise special professional responsibility issues for the lawyers involved in the formation and the long-term activities of multi-governmental bodies. It is particularly important for attorneys to pay attention to conflicts of interest that arise from giving simultaneous assistance to several governments, or from representing one entity in negotiations with other governments the attorney or firm represents. This paper briefly reviews various categories of interlocal entities in Washington State, as an example. It points out the distinctly different dynamics during the formation period and the operations period of an intergovernmental body. It then analyzes …

Committee Opinions And Treasury Regulation: Tax Lawyer Ethics, 1965-1985, Michael Hatfield

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This first section of the Article highlights the themes and tones of the 1945-1965 tax ethics literature, and then provides the political context and an overview of the legal changes in 1965-1985 that frame the tax ethics literature of that period. Section II begins in 1965, documenting the history of the first Formal Opinion (Opinion) on tax lawyer ethics issued by the American Bar Association's (ABA) Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (PR Committee), which after considerable criticism in the ensuing years was substantially revised by a second Opinion in 1985. Section III is focused on 1980-1985, investigating the first …

From Citizen Suits To Conservation Easements: The Increasing Private Role In Public Permit Enforcement, Jessica Owley

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The past 40 years have seen an increase in the involvement of private actors in environmental law. One of the best-known (and arguably best-loved) methods for public involvement is the citizen suit. This popular method of public enforcement of environmental permits (among other things) has been joined by the use of conservation easements. Conservation easements are increasingly used to meet permit mitigation requirements. When private nonprofits hold these exacted conservation easements, they assume the role of permit enforcers. It is their job to ensure that conservation easement terms are complied with, giving them oversight and control over one of the …

The Critique Of Judgment: Introduction, Angelica Nuzzo, David G. Carlson

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No abstract provided.

Law Firm Malpractice Disclosure: Illustrations And Guidelines, Anthony V. Alfieri

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Fidelity Diluted: Client Confidentiality Gives Way To The First Amendment & Social Media In Virginia State Bar, Ex Rel. Third District Committee V. Horace Frazier Hunter, Jan L. Jacobowitz, Kelly Rains Jesson

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Procedure In Eclipse: Group-Based Adjudication In A Post-Conception Era, Myriam E. Gilles

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

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Endless Pursuit: Capturing Technology At The Intersection Of The First Amendment And Attorney Advertising, Jan L. Jacobowitz, Gayland O. Heathcote Ii

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The Framing Effects Of Professionalism: Is There A Lawyer Cast Of Mind? Lessons From Compliance Programs, Robert Eli Rosen, Christine E. Parker, Viveke Lehmann Nielsen

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Professionals working inside companies may bring with them frames of mind set by their professional experience and socialization. Lawyers, in particular, are said to "think like a lawyer"-to have a lawyer cast of mind. In seeking power within a company and in exercising the power that they obtain, professionals may draw on their professional background to frame, name, diagnose, and prescribe a remedy for the company's problems. In making decisions about their compliance with the law, companies are constrained not only by their environment, but also by their agents' understanding of whose (or what) interests the company should serve. In …

Support Of Non-Biological Children In Jewish Law, J. David Bleich

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Adoption as a legal institution is unknown in Jewish law. Suppression of parental identity, as generally occurs in closed adoption, is banned “lest the earth become filled with licentiousness” (Leviticus 19:29). Rabbinic tradition interprets that verse as expressing concern regarding the possibility of a future incestuous marriage. Nevertheless, raising an orphan in one’s home is regarded as highly meritorious. However, binding obligations of support and maintenance can be undertaken only by means of contract. Such a contract in favor of a stepchild may be verbal if entered into at the time of marriage. Otherwise, a formal kinyan, i.e., one of …

Legal Ethics And Federal Taxes, 1945-1965: Patriotism, Duties, And Advice, Michael Hatfield

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This article is devoted to exploring the legal ethics writings by tax lawyers in a pivotal period of income tax history: 1945-1965, the first two decades of the federal income tax as we now know it. Although the income tax began in 1913, it was World War II that created the modem mass income tax: in 1939 there were 3.9 million individual income tax taxpayers but by 1945 there were 42.6 million. This period was also one of significant progress in the administration of the income tax: the Internal Revenue Code was re-organized in 1954 and, following widespread corruption scandals, …

Hiring Teams, Firms, And Lawyers: Evidence Of The Evolving Relationship In The Corporate Legal Market, Michele M. Destefano, John C. Coates, Ashish Nanda, David B. Wilkins

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How are relationships between corporate clients and law firms evolving? Drawing on interview and survey data from 166 chief legal officers of S&P 500 companies from 2006-2007, we find that-contrary to standard depictions of corporate client-provider relationships-(1) large companies have relationships with ten to twenty preferred providers; (2) these relationships continue to be enduring, and (3) clients focus not only on law firm platforms and lead partners, but also on teams and departments within preferred providers, allocating work to these subunits at rival firms over time and following "star" lawyers, especially if they move as part of a team. The …

Anatomy Of An Aggregate Settlement: The Triumph Of Temptation Over Ethics, Lester Brickman

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In an aggregate settlement, usually of a mass tort claim, a defendant agrees to pay a specific dollar amount to be divided up by the lawyer among her multiple clients which may number in the hundreds and even thousands. Each client, therefore, is in competition with all of the lawyer’s other clients suing the same defendant for a share of the fixed sum. Rule 1.8(g) of the ABA Rules of Professional Conduct requires that each client give their informed consent to their allocation. To facilitate the settlement and the often quite substantial contingency fees to be earned, lawyers may mislead …

New Ways To Teach Drafting And Drafting Ethics, Karen J. Sneddon

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Good morning. My name is Karen Sneddon. Today, Sue Chesler and I are going to showcase a technique to incorporate issues of ethics and professionalism into a drafting course. And that technique is Teaching Drafting Ethics Using Video Vignettes. Of course we know at this point that Carnegie’s Educating Lawyers, CLEA's Best Practices have reinvigorated examination of law school curricula, mostly especially with the inclusion of transactional based skills increasing the awareness of issues involving professionalism and ethics. As those transactional focused courses are being added to the curriculum, professors are striving for a way to infuse those issues of …

Legal Ethics And Non-Practicing Entities: Being On The Receiving End Matters Too, David Hricik

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The symposium invited me to speak on the legal ethical issues that face counsel who represent non-practicing entities ("NPEs") in patent litigation as plaintiff patentees. My first reaction was that, although obviously the same common law, statutes, ethical rules, and procedural rules apply to such counsel as any other, owing to the tremendous costs of patent litigation, that counsel who represented such a "troll" necessarily would have enhanced obligations to court and opposing counsel to ensure that the suit was not brought in bad faith, nor so conducted.

Upon analysis, however, I came to the somewhat counter­intuitive conclusion that, although …

Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, And The Ethics Of Casual Conversation,, Michael Hatfield

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This essay is to help tax lawyers decide how to handle casual conversations centered on denying, defying, or destroying the tax system. One option is to walk away, ending the conversation and silencing the dialogue. The next option is to engage. I want to persuade tax lawyers that they should usually engage in the conversation. I try to do this in Part III.

There are two kinds of legal ethics essays, and one must choose which kind to write, and it is useful to the reader to know upfront which kind the author chose to write. One kind begins with …

Soft-Core Perjury, Leonard M. Niehoff

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Despite its greater pervasiveness, however, soft-core perjury has generated considerably less discussion and debate than hard-core perjury has. There are reasons for this, but they are not good ones. Indeed, we might summarize the matter this way: Lawyers tend to dismiss the soft-core perjury problem because they do not see it as a problem. They do not see it as an ethical problem, and they do not see it as a practical problem. They are wrong on both counts.

The idea that soft-core perjury poses no ethical problem comes from the view that the lawyer's dilemma-or trilemma, if you will-arises …

The Effect Of Legal Professionalization On Moral Reasoning: A Reply To Professor Vischer And Professor Wendel, Michael Hatfield

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Responding to comments made on Professionalizing Moral Deference.

The Prosecutorial Ethic: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, Maureen Howard

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Although the American trial system has been likened to an arena in which mental combatants fight “to the death ” (the verdict ), each warrior similarly skilled and equally committed to vanquishing the other in a forum with formal rules of engagement enforced by a learned and impartial judge, the role of the criminal prosecutor is qualitatively different from that of other advocates. This is because, unlike any other lawyer, a criminal prosecutor has an affirmative duty to the opposing party.

Pathway Of Professionalism - The First Day Of Law School At The University Of Idaho, Donald L. Burnett Jr.

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No abstract provided.

When The Lawyer Knows The Client Is Guilty: Client Confessions In Legal Ethics, Popular Culture, And Literature, Michael Asimow, Richard H. Weisberg

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The article explores the ethical dilemma faced by criminal defense lawyers when they know their client is factually guilty but the client insists on a vigorous defense. It examines the tension between the lawyer’s duty of zealous representation and the duty of candor toward the court, proposing a compromise that allows lawyers discretion to choose between strong or weak adversarial approaches based on the context. The analysis draws on historical cases, such as the Courvoisier case of 1840 and the modern case of Steven Feldman, as well as insights from popular culture and literary sources, to argue that the discretionary …

The Two Faces Of Lawyers: Professional Ethics And Business Compliance With Regulation, Christine E. Parker, Robert E. Rosen, Vibeke Lehmann Nielsen

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Against Practice, Anthony V. Alfieri

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Advocacy In The Court Of Public Opinion, Installment One: Broadening The Role Of Corporate Attorneys, Michele Destefano Beardslee

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Sentence Reduction As A Remedy For Prosecutorial Misconduct, Sonja B. Starr

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Current remedies for prosecutorial misconduct, such as reversal of conviction or dismissal of charges, are rarely granted by courts and thus do not deter prosecutors effectively. Further, such all-or-nothing remedial schemes are often problematic from corrective and expressive perspectives, especially when misconduct has not affected the trial verdict. When granted, these remedies produce windfalls to guilty defendants and provoke public resentment, undermining their expressive value in condemning misconduct. To avoid these windfalls, courts refuse to grant any remedy at all, either refusing to recognize violations or deeming them harmless. This often leaves significant non-conviction-related harms unremedied and egregious prosecutorial misconduct …

Professionalizing Moral Deference, Michael Hatfield

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As I write this Essay, legal memoranda about torture, once again, are headline news. This Essay considers these memoranda. However, this Essay does not address the legality of torture or the legal limits of interrogation or even if lawyers who provide bad advice on these issues should be punished. Instead, this Essay uses what has come to light about the "torture memoranda" to consider broader issues about the contemporary state of becoming and being an American lawyer. With new memoranda being released, for the sake of convenience, this Essay refers only to the best-known example (at least as things currently …

Sentencing: Where Case Theory And The Client Meet, Kimberly A. Thomas

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Criminal sentencing hearings provide unique opportunities for teaching and learning case theory. These hearings allow attorneys to develop a case theory in a context that both permits understanding of the concept and, at the same time, provides a window into the difficulties case theory can pose. Some features of sentencing hearings, such as relaxed rules of evidence and stock sentencing stories, provide a manageable application of case theory practice. Other features of sentencing hearings, such as the defendant's allocution, require an attorney to contend with competing "case theories," and as a result, to face the ethical and counseling challenge of …