Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

From Advocate To Party - Defenses For Lawyers Who Find Themselves In Litigation, Richard J. Wilson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Attorneys, like all professionals, face civil liability when their action or inaction causes harm to a client. When an attorney fails the client, the claim most often asserted, and the claim that is typically most appropriate, is a legal malpractice claim. A legal malpractice claim is based on negligence.' Thus, the elements of a legal malpractice claim are (1) a duty, (2) a breach of that duty, (3) the breach proximately caused injury to the plaintiff, and (4) damages occurred.

Still, attorneys find themselves in a different circumstance than the average litigant. An attorney is not responsible for the client's …

Capitalizing On Healthy Lawyers: The Business Case For Law Firms To Promote And Prioritize Lawyer Well-Being, Jarrod F. Reich

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is the first to make the business case for firms to promote and prioritize lawyer well-being. For more than three decades, quantitative research has demonstrated that lawyers suffer from depression, anxiety, and addiction far in excess of the general population. Since that time, there have been many calls within and outside the profession for changes to be made to promote, prioritize, and improve lawyer well-being, particularly because many aspects of the current law school and law firm models exacerbate mental health and addiction issues, as well as overall law student and lawyer distress. These calls for change, made …

Mandatory Legal Malpractice Insurance: Exposing Lawyers' Blind Spots, Susan S. Fortney

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The legal landscape for lawyers’ professional liability in the United States is changing. In 2018, Idaho implemented a new rule requiring that lawyers carry legal malpractice insurance. The adoption of the Idaho rule was the first move in forty years by a state to require legal malpractice insurance since Oregon mandated lawyer participation in a malpractice insurance regime. Over the last two years, a few states have considered whether their jurisdictions should join Oregon and Idaho in requiring malpractice insurance for lawyers in private practice. To help inform the discussion, the article examines different positions taken in the debate on …

“The More Things Change, The More They Remain The Same:” Lawyer Ethics In The 21st Century, Gregory C. Sisk

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

At an accelerating pace since the recession, our legal profession has been undergoing structural changes in the delivery of many legal services. At the same time, longstanding principles of ethics continue to govern the day-to-day lives of practicing lawyers.

This article lays out four examples of how meaningful change in lawyer practice has been accomplished since the turn-of-the-century with continued adherence to bedrock professional concepts. First, the rules now embrace the multi-jurisdictional practice of law, while the disciplinary authority of each jurisdiction is emphatically confirmed and strengthened. Second, rules on lawyer advertising are streamlined to grant largely open-ended permission for …

From Decoder Rings To Deep Fakes: Translating Complex Technologies For Legal Education, Jason Tubinis, Rachel S. Evans

Presentations

Technological developments are disrupting the practice of law” is a common refrain, but the last few years has seen some particularly complex pieces of technology become the hot new thing in legal tech. This session will look at blockchain, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and ‘Deep Fakes’ as examples of how instructors can stay abreast of technological developments and inform themselves about their impacts in the legal profession. Then we will look at how to translate the complexities and jargon of these examples into lessons for for-credit courses, one-off informational sessions, or meetings with stakeholders.

Learning outcomes:

• Participants will be able …

Rise Of The Robot Lawyers?, Milan Markovic

Faculty Scholarship

The advent of artificial intelligence has provoked considerable speculation about the future of the American workforce, including highly educated professionals such as lawyers and doctors. Although most commentators are alarmed by the prospect of intelligent machines displacing millions of workers, this is not so with respect to the legal sector. Media accounts and some legal scholars envision a future where intelligent machines perform the bulk of legal work, and legal services are less expensive and more accessible. This future is purportedly at hand as lawyers struggle to compete with technologically savvy alternative legal service providers.

This Article challenges the notion …

Online Resources To Enhance Your Job Search, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

There are a host of online resources to help you find jobs and prepare for interviews. Law students were invited to learn more about them in Classroom C of Hirsch Hall at 12 noon. For additional information including resource links visit the related guide online at: http://libguides.law.uga.edu/career

Email In 2019, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

Email is a primary means of communication within the legal profession. Law students were invited to learn about the etiquette of email, and about how to handle their email accounts efficiently and effectively. Presented at 12 noon in Classroom C of Hirsch Hall. For additional information including resource links visit the related guide online at: http://libguides.law.uga.edu/career

Civility, Courtesy, Professionalism And Behaving Responsibly In An Age Of Rudeness, Leonard Pertnoy

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

As members of the legal profession, we live out who we are by our actions, and it is time this includes good manners, disciplined behavior, and respect for each other and for the legal system. It is these requirements that are at the core of maintaining and preserving our democratic system. Perhaps it is time to supplement the code of professional responsibility with a code of personal behavior to ensure civility in courts. Toward this end, I propose the following: The Twelve Commandments of Professional Behavior

Licensing Paralegals To Practice Law: A Path Toward Bridging The Justice Gap In Minnesota, Conner Suddick

Departmental Honors Projects

There are few legal avenues for low-income and other marginalized groups in the United States to seek civil justice. A lack of legal assistance in civil issues can be detrimental to a person’s health and wellbeing. Given this reality, the legal profession must broaden its capacity to serve these needs, and one path is to embrace the aid of paralegals. In 2016, the legal community of Minnesota had conversations about whether the state should provide limited licenses to paralegals. To study models from across the country, the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA) formed the Alternative Legal Models Task Force. In …

Global Networks And The Legal Profession, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

The importance of networks and the power of exponential growth within networks have become much more apparent to the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This Article addresses the topic of global legal profession networks. The introductory section provides information about our global economy and society that helps explain why global legal profession networks are valuable. It argues that global networks are beneficial for clients, lawyers, and other legal services stakeholders.

After introducing some of the scientific literature about networks in general and legal profession networks specifically, Section II identifies ways in which lawyers participate in global legal …

Breaking The Silence: Holding Texas Lawyers Accountable For Sexual Harassment, Savannah Files

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Following the 2017 exposure of Harvey Weinstein, the #MeToo movement spread rapidly across social media platforms calling for increased awareness of the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault and demanding change. The widespread use of the hashtag brought attention to the issue and successfully facilitated a much-needed discussion in today’s society. However, this is not the first incident prompting a demand for change.

Efforts to bring awareness and exact change in regards to sexual harassment in the legal profession date back to the 1990s. This demonstrates that the legal profession is not immune from these issues. In fact, at least …

The Texas Standards For Appellate Conduct: An Annotated Guide And Commentary, Gina M. Benavides, Joshua J. Caldwell

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The legal profession is bound by ethical rules that govern and guide our conduct and actions as lawyers. One of the under-appreciated, but profoundly important set of guidelines is the Texas Standards for Appellate Conduct. These Standards serve as an excellent practice guide for appellate practitioners and appellate courts and as a model code of conduct for the Bar as a whole.

The goal of this Article is to dissect the Texas Standards for Appellate Conduct and provide useful commentaries for the readers to better appreciate and understand each element of the Standards. The commentaries provide direct case examples and …

Towering Figures, Enigmas, And Responsive Communities In American Legal Ethics, Thomas L. Shaffer

Maine Law Review

The Annual Edward S. Godfrey Lecture at the University of Maine School of Law was held on November 12, 1998. Professor Thomas L. Shaffer, Edward S. Godfry Professor of Law, presented “Towering Figures, Enigmas, and Responsive Communities in American Legal Ethics.”

The Ethical Practice Of Human-Centered Civil Justice Design, Victor D. Quintanilla, Haley Hinkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Over the past two decades, legal professionals have increasingly engaged in a new form of professional activity: civil justice design. In the past, legal professionals handled cases and transactions for clients or served as neutrals, including mediators and arbitrators, who helped to resolve disputes between parties. Today, legal professionals increasingly play a principal design role in creating systems that resolve streams of conflicts, disputes, and grievances between parties. Lawyers regularly now create internal grievance procedures, procedures for companies to resolve disputes with customers, and court-annexed alternative dispute resolution systems. The emergence of this new role raises difficult questions about the …

Deliberative Constitutionalism In The National Security Setting, Mary B. Derosa, Milton C. Regan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Deliberative democracy theory maintains that authentic deliberation about matters of public concern is an essential condition for the legitimacy of political decisions. Such deliberation has two features. The first is deliberative rigor. This is deliberation guided by public-regarding reasons in a process in which persons are genuinely open to the force of the better argument. The second is transparency. This requires that requires that officials publicly explain the reasons for their decisions in terms that citizens can endorse as acceptable grounds for acting in the name of the political community.

Such requirements would seem to be especially important in the …

Celebrating Mundane Conflict, Deborah J. Cantrell

Publications

This Article interrogates the dominant conception of conflict and challenges the narrative of conflict as hard, difficult and painful to engage. The Article reveals two primary framing errors that cause one to misperceive how ubiquitous and ordinary is conflict. The first error is to misperceive conflict as categorical — something either is a conflict or it is not. People make that error as a way of trying to avoid conflict. People falsely hope that there might be a category of “not conflict,” like disagreements, that will be easier to navigate. The second error is to misperceive the world and individuals …

The Ambulance Chasing Epidemic In Texas, Ronald Rodriguez

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Barratry and solicitation of professional employment is illegal and unethical. The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct define barratry as ethical misconduct and a serious crime. Unfortunately, for citizens and law-abiding attorneys of Texas, the criminal and ethical prohibitions against barratry have rarely been enforced. Consequently, barratry continues to proliferate rapidly throughout South Texas. For lawyers who engage in this unethical practice, the potential for large financial gain proves irresistible given the virtually nonexistent risk of prosecution. The lack of robust and successful prosecutions has created an optimal environment for barratry to proliferate. This Article discusses the current barratry epidemic …

Ethics And The “Root Of All Evil” In Nineteenth Century American Law Practice, Michael Hoeflich

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

This Article discusses the bifurcated notions on the purpose of working as an attorney—whether the purpose is to attain wealth or whether the work in and of itself is the purpose. This Article explores the sentiments held by distinguished and influential nineteenth-century lawyers—particularly David Hoffman and George Sharswood—regarding the legal ethics surrounding attorney’s fees and how money in general is the root of many ethical dilemmas within the arena of legal practice. Through the texts of Hoffman and Sharswood, we find the origins of the ethical rules all American attorneys are subject to in their various jurisdictions.

Alternative Business Structures: Good For The Public, Good For The Lawyers, Jayne R. Reardon

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

There has been a shift in consumer behavior over the last several decades. To keep up with the transforming consumer, many professions have changed the way they do business. Yet lawyers continue to deliver services the way they have since the founding of our country. Bar associations and legal ethicists have long debated the idea of allowing lawyers to practice in “alternative business structures,” where lawyers and nonlawyers can co-own and co-manage a business to deliver legal services. This Article argues these types of businesses inhibit lawyers’ ability to provide better legal services to the public and that the legal …

Model Rule 5.7 And Lawyers In Government Jobs - How Can They Ever Be Non-Lawyers, Hugh D. Spitzer

Articles

This article focuses on the application of the Rules of Professional Conduct to licensed attorneys who serve in non-lawyer jobs in government. There is a fair amount of literature about members of the bar who serve as staff counsel in legislatures or executive agencies. There is also literature on Rule 5.7 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct (“Responsibilities Regarding Law-related Services”) in the context of practicing lawyers who participate in ancillary “non-lawyering” business activities. Model Rule 5.7 deals with “services that might reasonably be performed” or “are related to the provision of legal services” but which are permitted …

Peter Singer, Drowning Children, And Pro Bono, John M.A. Dipippa

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article uses the ethicist Peter Singer's principles to examine and critique the legal profession's pro bono efforts in the face of the persistent gap between the public's legal needs and their ability to meet them. Singer argues that adults should jump into a pond to save a drowning child. Using the drowning child as an analogy, this Article argues that lawyers are morally obligated to (1)increase the amount of their pro bono efforts, (2) be more selective in the cases they take, and (3) be significantly more generous in their financial support for legal services providers. These obligations are …

The Lawyer As Lover: Are Courts Romanticizing The Lawyer-Client Relationship?, Bruce A. Green

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Problems Concerning Litigating Custom And Practice Cases, Steve Ryals

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is Pro Bono Practice In Legal “Backwaters” Beyond The Scope Of The Model Rules?, Barbara Graves-Poller

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] "While many private sector attorneys offer pro bono legal services that reflect the same level of diligence and skill characteristic of the work done on behalf of their paying clients, the egregious failures described in the MC v. GC case and those that occur in many unreported matters highlight the dangers of pro bono initiatives designed to bridge the “access to justice gap.” As used here, the term “justice gap” refers to the chasm between the need for legal representation in civil disputes and public interest attorneys available to serve poor and working class clients. Justice gap pro bono …

Peer Review: Navigating Uncertainty In The United States Jury System, Anna Offit

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article examines American prosecutors’ approaches to uncertainty during voir dire. At different points during trial preparation— and during jury selection itself—lawyers draw on multiple interpretive systems to make sense of ordinary citizens. Taking Assistant United States Attorneys in a federal jurisdiction in the Northeast United States as a case study, and drawing on ethnographic research, I focus on three systems prosecutors alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) use to evaluate jurors: (1) probabilistic and evaluative analogies, (2) juror-types generated from the details of criminal cases, and (3) local knowledge stemming from prosecutors’ relationships and experiences outside of the courtroom. I show …

Love, Anger, And Lawyering, Deborah J. Cantrell

Publications

This essay explores how mindfulness practices helped one lawyer, now legal scholar, explore the roles of love and anger in lawyering.

Law Firm Ownership Of Ancillary Businesses In Ohio - A New Era?, Stephen R. Ripps

Akron Law Review

The seeds of controversy about ancillary businesses were planted in 1983 when the American Bar Association's House of Delegates approved Model Rule 5.4 prohibiting non-lawyer participation in law firm businesses. Ohio has adopted the ABA Code of Professional Responsibility, not the Model Rules, but the Model Rules may nevertheless have an impact on the interpretation and development of ethical guidelines in Ohio and other Code states. In order to determine the status of ancillary businesses in Ohio today, analysis must proceed in this dual context.

Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow: Ethics 20/20 Amidst A Changing Profession, Thomas Ross

Akron Law Review

In Part II of this paper, I will sketch briefly my sense of some of the important ways in which the practice of law seems to be evolving. Part III will revisit the work of the Ethics 20/20 Commission and suggest that the posture of the Commission and of the ABA elite in this initiative has been essentially one of accommodation and facilitation, rather than an oppositional stance. I will briefly note a historical instance of the organized bar taking such an oppositional stance and offer some hypotheses about why the organized bar has chosen these two different postures in …

The Legal Tech Audit: Focus On Word, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

In addition to discussing the legal tech audit, these sessions focused on how-to skills for using Microsoft Word in the legal profession.