Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

The Lawyer’S Professional Duty To Encourage Respect For—And To Improve—The Administration Of Justice: Lessons From Failures By Attorneys General, Andrew Flavelle Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The lawyer’s duty to encourage respect for the administration of justice remains largely amorphous and abstract. In this article, I draw lessons about this duty from historical instances in which Attorneys General inappropriately criticized judges. Not only are Attorneys General some of the highest-profile lawyers in the country, but they also face unique tensions and pressures that bring their duties as lawyers into stark relief. I focus on the two instances where law societies sought to discipline Attorneys General for such criticism of judges, as well as a more recent instance in which no discipline proceedings were pursued. I also …

Twenty Years After Krieger V Law Society Of Alberta: Law Society Discipline Of Crown Prosecutors And Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Krieger v. Law Society of Alberta held that provincial and territorial law societies have disciplinary jurisdiction over Crown prosecutors for conduct outside of prosecutorial discretion. The reasoning in Krieger would also apply to government lawyers. The apparent consensus is that law societies rarely exercise that jurisdiction. But in those rare instances, what conduct do Canadian law societies discipline Crown prosecutors and government lawyers for? In this article, I canvass reported disciplinary decisions to demonstrate that, while law societies sometimes discipline Crown prosecutors for violations unique to those lawyers, they often do so for violations applicable to all lawyers — particularly …

Toward National Regulation Of Legal Technology: A Path Forward For Access To Justice, Drew Simshaw

Fordham Law Review

Legal technology can help close the access-to-justice gap by increasing efficiency, democratizing access to information, and helping consumers solve their own legal problems or connecting them with lawyers who can. But, without proper design, technology can also consolidate power, automate bias, and magnify inequality. The state-by-state regulation of legal services has not adapted to this emerging technology-driven landscape that is continually being reshaped by artificial intelligence–driven tools like ChatGPT. Confusion abounds concerning whether use of these technologies amounts to unauthorized practice of law, leads to discrimination, adequately protects client data, violates the duty of technological competence, or requires prohibited cross-industry …

Exit Engineering, Rachel Landy

Articles

How do business lawyers create value? For nearly forty years, scholars have conceptualized the business lawyer as a “transaction cost engineer” who helps contracting parties efficiently break negotiation stalemates to create more valuable deals. This theory provides meaningful insights about sophisticated corporate law practice, where outside lawyers parachute in to make one-off deals happen. However, it fails to explain the behavior of startup lawyers, who develop long-term relationships with their clients and counsel them on seemingly routine matters, well before a major transaction materializes. These lawyers are not just transaction cost engineers, they are exit engineers. This Article offers a …

Public Defenders As Gatekeepers Of Freedom, Alma Magaña

Articles

Nearly half a million people are currently held in pretrial detention across the United States. Legal scholarship has explored many of the actors and factors contributing to the deprivation of freedom of those presumed innocent. And while the scholarship in these areas is rich, it has primarily focused on certain system actors—including judges, prosecutors, and profit-seeking sheriffs—structural concerns, such as the role race plays in who is being held in pretrial detention, or critiques of the failed promise of algorithms to deliver on bias-free bail determinations. But relatively little scholarship exists about the contributions of public defenders to this deprivation. …

Disparities On Judicial Conduct Commissions, Nino C. Monea

Marquette Law Review

Every state has a judicial conduct commission responsible for investigating complaints against judges and issuing sanctions where appropriate. But the judicial disciplinary system needs fixing. This Article examines 466 cases of public discipline from five states to illustrate the shortcomings of the present system. The status quo hides judicial misconduct from the public, fails to punish judges who abuse their office, and gives judges greater protections than criminal defendants, even when the stakes are lower.

When Machines Can Be Judge, Jury, And Executioner: Justice In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence (Book Review), Stacy Fowler

Faculty Articles

In When Machines Can Be Judge, Jury, and Executioner, former federal judge Katherine Forrest raises concerns over the pervasive use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the American justice system to produce risks and need assessments (RNA) regarding the probability of recidivism for citizens charged with a crime. Forrest’s argument centers on AI’s primary focus on utilitarian outcomes when assessing liberty for individual citizens. This approach leads Forrest to the conclusion that in its current form, AI is “ill-suited to the criminal justice context.” Forrest contends that AI should instead be programmed to focus on John Rawl’ 'concept of justice as …

Staff Matters: Supporting Employees After A Maternity Leave, Jodi Schafer Sphr, Shrm-Scp

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This article reviews federal law regarding employer obligations to new mothers, including the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act. The article contains suggestions for ways to support new mothers returning to work in a practice. This article is an installment of the MDA Journal’s monthly Staff Matters^® department.

Federal Data Privacy Regulation: Do Not Expect An American Gdpr, Matt Buckley

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Legal Representation And The Metaverse: The Ethics Of Practicing In Multiple Realities, Madeline Brom

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Badges Of Honor: Professional Conduct, Consumer Protection, And Accolades In Lawyer Advertising, Kiren Dosanjh Zucker, Bruce Zucker

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Ethics At The Speed Of Business, James A. Doppke Jr.

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

This paper discusses several ways in which the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct, and the Illinois Supreme Court Rules, construct barriers that prevent lawyers and businesses from accomplishing reasonable commercial goals. Often, those barriers arise from outdated concepts, or terminology that does not reflect current business realities. The paper argues for the amendment of specific Rules to enhance lawyers’ and businesses’ respective abilities to conduct their affairs more efficiently, without sacrificing public protection in the process.

Welcome Address, Lauren Mckenzie

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Place-Based Versus Practice-Based Norms For American Lawyers: "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", James E. Moliterno

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Borders Of Responsibility, The Democratic Intellect, And Other Elephants In The Room, Liam Mchugh-Russell

Dalhousie Law Journal

What can André Zucca’s photos, taken during the Nazi occupation of Paris, tell us about the law to come or the challenges it will pose to lawyers, legal scholars and legal educators? In short: Zucca’s photos serve not just as a cipher for a past in need of reckoning but as a caution about abiding a present in which crisis is always just out of frame. In the throes of slow-motion apocalypse, what should an intellectual be? And for whom? In 80 years, when someone is rifling through an attic shoebox of our history, will we appear like the subjects …

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

Connecticut Law Review

Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …

"They Don't Know What They Don't Know": A Study Of Diversion In Lieu Of Lawyer Discipline, Leslie C. Levin, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

Lawyer misconduct can have devastating consequences for clients. But what is the appropriate regulatory response when lawyers make less serious mistakes? For almost thirty years, jurisdictions have offered some lawyers diversion in lieu of discipline. Diversion is intended to help educate lawyers or treat those with impairments so that they do not reoffend. Yet remarkably little is known about how diversion operates, whether it is used appropriately, and how well it seems to work. This Article addresses these questions. It draws on the limited published data and on interviews with disciplinary regulators in twenty-nine jurisdictions about their use of diversion. …

Considerations In Selecting Venues For The American Thoracic Society International Conference: Balancing Competing Priorities Of The Society's Diverse Membership, Gregory P. Downey, M. Patricia Rivera, Lynn M. Schnapp, Irina Petrache, Jesse Roman, Karen J. Collishaw

Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine Faculty Papers

No abstract provided.

How To Alleviate The Repercussions Of Wrongful Convictions: Holistically Righting The Wrongs Of Inadequate Compensation Statutes, Marissa Cohen

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Juris Master: A Proposal For Reducing Excessive Public Defender Caseloads, Blake Comeaux

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

The US public defense system is underfunded, understaffed, and underdelivering on the Constitutional promises of the 6^th Amendment, the right to a fair and speedy trial. This state of our public defense system results in monstrous impacts for indigent defendants nationwide. Through indefinite delays in litigation, being abandoned in jail while sitting on waiting lists for public defenders, and being outright denied representation, indigent defendants are deprived of their rights. Beyond just defendant neglect, our current system puts immense strain on public defenders, prosecutors, and state budgets. In an attempt to combat this current state of affairs, this paper …

Black Lives Matter And The Push For Colonial-Era Cultural Heritage Restitution, Kathryn Speckart

Catholic University Law Review

The influence of the Black Lives Matter movement extends into U.S. museums in the form of calls for “decolonization” of collections comprised of art and artifacts from Africa and other colonized areas. As a result, the accompanying legal and ethical questions surrounding these artifacts now figure prominently in the museum industry. This Comment analyzes why the current U.S. cultural heritage law framework does not accommodate colonial-era African artifacts. This is due to few of these artifacts being subject to legal claims under current laws, African artifacts not having protection as a special classification, and the lack of enforcement mechanisms in …

Ethical Considerations Of Clinical Research In Emergency Care Settings: A Review, Adith Velavan

Honors Scholar Theses

Emergency and acute care settings are some of the most volatile and high intensity areas of any healthcare operation. Better understanding of systems and treatments in these spaces are critical to improving outcomes for the high risk patients that are treated there. Clinical research serves as a cornerstone of modern medical research, and is critical to the further improvement of clinical care in these settings. This thesis serves to explore the ethicality of such research given the constraints of emergency medicine settings. Not only does this thesis provide a strong foundation regarding the history and current practices of clinical research, …

Private Sanctions, Public Harm?, Jon J. Lee

BYU Law Review

The legal profession has a secret. In response to widespread public distrust in the profession’s ability to regulate itself, disciplinary authorities have undertaken modest efforts over the last several decades to make their activities more transparent. They have opened up their formal proceedings, publicized the identities of sanctioned attorneys, and shared information about their work online. But at the same time, most have quietly continued to resolve cases of ostensibly “minor” and “isolated” misconduct through private sanctions, keeping the identities of disciplined attorneys – and their misconduct – hidden from view.

This Article takes a comprehensive look at private sanctions …

Giglio Feds: The Void Of Ethical Leadership Within Federal Law Enforcement, Christopher J. Boosey

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Governance Of Data Analytics In Healthcare, Andrew Harrington

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent literature and studies on data governance usually focus on data ethics and governance from a specific country or industry, which has been mostly business, without considering the larger global impact that is affected. Data is a worldwide asset; thus, its implications and considerations should be viewed as such. Hence, this dissertation attempts to incorporate this view by weaving together topics in healthcare, such as the blending of finance and delivery, data governance at the micro and macro levels, data analytics in healthcare, ethics of AI and information management, and technology’s impact on end-of-life practices. Through highlighting these areas of …

Arbitrariness And Accountability In Plea Bargaining, Emma Brewer

Honors Theses

Justice is supposed to be a consistent, fair ideal of our society. If an individual is going to face punishment, there should be reasons why they receive the punishment they do, and two people who commit similar offenses should be punished similarly. These societal ideals are also embraced by the legal profession. Unfortunately, the current practice of plea bargains creates potential problems for our ability to satisfy that ideal of justice. Prosecutors have significant discretion in offering plea bargains. This discretion opens the door for potential arbitrariness. One way for prosecutors to combat that arbitrariness is by having a structured …

The Sec Revolving Door And Comment Letters, Michael Shen, Samuel T. Tan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Government officials, advocacy groups, and the business press have raised concerns that former SEC employees may continue to influence the SEC after leaving the agency. Using hand-collected data on the characteristics of 1,384 lawyers who represented firms in responding to SEC comment letters between 2005 and 2016, we examine the impact of post-revolving SEC employees on the SEC comment letter process. Among other determinants, we find that older and larger firms with a history of litigation are more likely to hire former SEC lawyers over non-SEC lawyers. Relative to firms that involve only non-SEC lawyers, we find that firms that …

New Community Sponsorships For Humanitarian Immigrants: Guidance On Washington’S Practice Of Law And Immigration Services Fraud Prevention Rules, Megan J. Ballard, Zaida C. Rivera

Seattle University Law Review Online

Every state, including Washington, has enacted laws to protect the public from the harm caused when an unqualified person provides legal services. Each state defines the practice of law and generally limits that practice to members of the state bar association. In Washington, a complex collage of case law, statutes, and a Supreme Court rule attempt to define the practice of law, identify when the practice of law by a nonlawyer is unauthorized, and determine when public policy considerations allow such nonlawyer practice.

Protecting immigrants from unauthorized practice of immigration law is a particular concern. People who claim to be …

Elitism In The Legal World: A Comparison Between The U.K. And U.S.A, Michael Johnson Jr

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

In this paper I will be discussing the various ways that the United Kingdom has played an integral part in creating the way the world looks at and practices common law, while also addressing the systemic racism and elitism entrenched in the U.K. legal system. I will also be comparing the U.K. to the United States as American law was built on the influence of British law and share deep similarities to how minorities are treated due to constant and ongoing systemic disadvantages and legal elitism. I will be discussing how the U.K. and U.S. are trying to address the …