Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

The Anatomy Of Emtala: A Litigator's Guide., Alicia K. Dowdy, Gail N. Friend, Jennifer L. Rangel

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) prohibits hospitals from inappropriately transferring or refusing medical care to persons with emergency medical conditions. EMTALA was passed in response to the practice of “dumping” seriously ill patients from private hospitals into public ones, to ensure all patients receive medical treatment in emergency situations. Plaintiffs have attempted to pursue EMTALA claims against non-hospital defendants, but courts have consistently disallowed such claims under the statute. By limiting the scope of its coverage to hospitals, EMTALA creates a situation unique from ordinary medical malpractice. Although hospitals may be held liable for negligent credentialing …

A Fair Day's Pay For A Fair Day's Work: Time To Raise And Index The Minimum Wage., William P. Quigley

St. Mary's Law Journal

Millions of people are working for a living but not receiving a living wage in return for their work. The value of the minimum wage continues to erode, with the Congressional Research Service estimating the minimum wage would have to rise to $6.75 per hour in 1996 to equal the purchasing power it represented in 1978. It is not in the common interest, nor in the interest of justice, for people to work full-time, yet remain mired in poverty. Reforming the minimum wage by raising it and indexing it for inflation is a critical step toward attaining Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s …

Intellectual Property Pirates: Congress Raises The Stakes In The Modern Battle To Protect Copyrights And Safeguard The United States Economy Comment., Timothy D. Howell

St. Mary's Law Journal

Intellectual property pirates menace the industry by hijacking audio recordings, movies, television broadcasts, and software—posing an economic threat and accounting for billions of dollars in losses annually. This Comment examines legislative attempts to combat information piracy through criminalization of copyright infringement—focusing on the proposed Criminal Copyright Improvement Act of 1995 (Improvement Act). The Improvement Act contemplates expansion of criminal copyright infringement law, attempting to close the legal “loophole” exposed by United States v. LaMacchia, and providing a more effective means for deterring copyright piracy. Part II of this Comment provides a historical overview of United States copyright laws and introduces …

Principles Of Governmental Immunity In Texas: The Texas Government Waives Sovereign Immunity When It Contracts - Or Does It Comment., Renna Rhodes

St. Mary's Law Journal

When the government causes injury through negligence or by breaching a contract, the injured party must face the obstacle of governmental immunity. The doctrine of governmental immunity can act as a total bar to recovery, especially in Texas. Over the years, governmental immunity increasingly has faced attack from courts and commentators. Some states, including Texas, have revised the common-law doctrine, allowing the government to be sued in certain situations. In Texas, principles of governmental immunity are often misconstrued. Which principles of governmental immunity apply to a particular situation in Texas depends on whether the defendant is a state entity or …

Scientific Evidence Under Daubert., John H. Mansfield

St. Mary's Law Journal

The controversy over the proper standard for the admissibility of scientific evidence is an argument over the value of a jury trial compared with a bench trial or decisions by scientists. The argument has both a constitutional dimension in the provisions relating to a jury trial, compulsory process and due process, and a nonconstitutional dimension in the ordinary law of evidence. In the recent case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the United States Supreme Court took a different approach, basing its decision almost entirely on an interpretation of the particular words used in Rule 702 of the Federal …

Speaking The Language Of Exclusion: How Equal Protection And Fundamental Rights Analyses Permit Language Discrimination Comment., Donna F. Coltharp

St. Mary's Law Journal

In the summer of 1995, the en banc Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Flores v. State upheld a lower court’s ruling to give a drunk-driving (DWI) offender a year in prison as opposed to probation. The trial judge denied the defendant probation due to his inability to speak English. The county in which the defendant was arrested and convicted did not provide a DWI rehabilitation program in Spanish, leading the judge to determine the defendant would not benefit from probation. In his appeal, Mr. Flores claimed the lower court violated his equal protection and due process rights under the …

Changing The Nature Of Corporate Representation: Attorney Liability For Aiding And Abetting The Breach Of Fiduciary Duty Comment., Stanley Pietrusiak Jr.

St. Mary's Law Journal

In 1983, the American Bar Association (ABA) comprehensively defined corporate counsel’s ethical duties in situations where a corporate officer engages in conduct which could substantially harm the organization. In such cases, the nature of the corporate attorney’s duties depends on whether the officer’s conduct is illegal or whether the officer made a policy decision which falls short of illegality. Rule 1.13 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct imposes the duty on corporate counsel to take steps to stop corporate officers from engaging in illegal conduct which is likely to result in substantial injury to the organization. Conversely, counsel is …

Same-Sex Harassment - The Next Step Up In The Evolution Of Sexual Harassment Law Under Title Vii Comment., Regina L. Stone-Harris

St. Mary's Law Journal

Women sexually harassed by male co-workers are protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Yet, men are not protected because the federal courts in the Fifth Circuit do not protect men who are sexually harassed by other men. Male victims of sexual harassment are protected if they live in another district which does offer Title VII protection to same-sex victims. But should geography dictate protection? The federal courts are currently split as to whether a claim of sexual harassment between members of the same gender is actionable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In the absence …

Third World Texas: Nafta, State Law, And Environmental Problems Facing Texas Colonias Symposium - The Environment And The United States-Mexico Border - Comment., David L. Hanna

St. Mary's Law Journal

The horrendous conditions along the Texas-Mexico border stem from factors on both sides of the Rio Grande River, including maquiladoras, migrant farms, poverty, poor land development, and bureaucracy. The adverse living conditions in Texas’s third world border region have resulted in immense health and safety problems. The United States government promised the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would bring new environmental prosperity to the border region. Yet, aside from one sentence in the preamble, NAFTA does not directly address environmental protection. The United States and Mexico, as part of a series of environmental side agreements, created the Border Environmental …

Nafta And The Environment: Dealing With Abnormally High Birth Defect Rates Among Children Of Texas-Mexico Border Towns Symposium - The Environment And The United States-Mexico Border - Comment., Kelly L. Reblin

St. Mary's Law Journal

Along the 868-mile Texas-Mexico border thousands of young women live in fear as deadly birth defects with unknown causes threaten the lives of their unborn children. A total of ninety cases of the birth defect anencephaly, meaning the fetus has no brain, were reported in the fourteen Texas border counties between 1986 and 1991. The cause of these birth defects has yet to be determined officially; yet, researchers and residents along the Texas-Mexico border blame poor environmental conditions caused by the maquiladora industry and inadequate sewage facilities. The Texas Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control investigated the …

Giving Texas Lawyers Their Dues: The State Bar's Liability Under Hudson And Keller For Political And Ideological Activities., Ralph H. Brock

St. Mary's Law Journal

The State Bar must provide information for members to assess the propriety of mandatory dues and establish a procedure for members to challenge improper expenditures, however, the Texas State Bar provides no such procedure. Although most states have unified bars, opposition to compulsory bar membership is steady—due largely, to using membership dues to lobby state legislatures in favor of positions which some members may oppose. Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson and Keller v. State Bar of California are the culmination of labor union and unified bar cases which uphold compulsory membership but establish constitutional limits on the uses of mandatory …

Hopwood V. Texas: A Victory For Equality That Denies Reality Recent Development., Robert A. Lauer

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Attorneys: The Americans With Disabilities Act Should Not Impair The Regulation Of The Legal Profession Where Mental Health Is An Issue, Kelly R. Becton

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Motions For Sanctions, W. Hamilton Bryson

University of Richmond Law Review

For centuries, the legal profession has had rules of professional conduct. Although they were unwritten, they were well known. The rules covered honesty in pleading and practice and also required the general politeness expected of decent people. These rules were not always followed, nor were they always enforced when not followed. Sadly, in modern times, these rules are being disregarded more frequently and the costs to others, both within and outside the profession, are increasing dramatically.

Beyond Autonomy: Coercion And Morality In Clinical Relationships, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article considers the problem of line-drawing between autonomy-preserving and autonomy-negating influence in clinical relationships. The author’s purpose is not to propose particular boundaries, either with respect to reproductive decisions by HIV-infected women or for other clinical choices. Rather, he attempts to shed some light on what drives our disputes about whether one or another influence method is compatible with autonomous choice.

The author argues that such disagreements reflect underlying conflicts between normative commitments, and that resolving these conflicts is essential to settling controversies over whether particular influences unduly interfere with autonomous choice. Alternative understandings of the prerequisites for autonomous …

Rule 804(B)(1): Former Testimony

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Right To Counsel

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Right To Counsel

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Right To Counsel

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Right To Counsel

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Right To Counsel

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Union Lawyer's Obligations To Bargaining Unit Members: A Case Study Of The Interdependence Of Legal Ethics And Substantive Law, The Symposium: The Lawyer's Duties And Liabilities To Third Parties, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

One of the largest groups of purported nonclients to whom lawyers might have obligations are members of bargaining units represented by unions. Despite the much publicized decline of labor unions, they have almost 16.4 million members. In addition, many workers are members of bargaining units represented by labor unions, but are not union members. The relationship of union lawyers to these millions of bargaining unit members, whether members of the union or not, is unclear. An examination of how this relationship influences and is influenced by labor law offers a fascinating case study of the synergy between the substantive law …

Why Informed Consent? Human Experimentation And The Ethics Of Autonomy, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

Not long ago, the welfare reform debate took a provocative turn. New Jersey welfare recipients challenged the state's Family Cap rule, which denied additional cash aid to parents who conceive children while on welfare. Welfare rights activists argued that the rule "with[held] benefits to see if [this would] alter human behavior." They insisted that the innovative, but stern, Family Cap rules were effectively experiments on welfare recipients without their consent.

This is a powerful argument. After all, consent enjoys talismanic—if not sacramental—status in modem life and thought; it is our "master concept." But why? Why should consenting mean so much …

The Presumption Of Innocence: Patching The Tattered Cloak After Maryland V. Craig., Ralph H. Kohlmann

St. Mary's Law Journal

Over one hundred years ago, the United States Supreme Court recognized the importance of the presumption of innocence in a criminal justice system which is based on due process. The Court declared the presumption of innocence is “the undoubted law, axiomatic, and elementary, and its enforcements lies at the foundation … of our criminal law.” The Court’s changing view of the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause is the most recent contribution to the reduction in the practical value of the presumption of innocence. In Maryland v. Craig, the Court decided that while face-to-face confrontation forms the core of values furthered in …

Why Hard Cases Make Good (Clinical) Law, Paul D. Reingold

Articles

In 1992, when the University of California's Hastings College of Law decided to offer a live-client clinic for the first time, its newly hired director had to make several decisions about what form the program should take.1 The first question for the director was whether the clinic should be a single-issue specialty clinic or a general clinic that would represent clients across several areas of the law. The second question, and the one that will be the focus of this essay, was whether the program should restrict its caseload to "easy" routine cases or also accept non-routine, less controllable litigation. …

Codes And Virtues: Can Good Lawyers Be Good Ethical Deliberators?, Heidi Li Feldman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Regardless of its specific contents, any black letter statutory codification regulating lawyers' conduct will be flawed as an instrument of ethics for lawyers. This is the central thesis of this Article. It is motivated by the idea that typical statutory prohibitions and permissions are likely to stunt sentimental responsiveness, a key feature of good ethical deliberation. Additionally, a certain technocratic mode of legal analysis heightens this tendency. Although other styles of lawyering might better engender sentimental responsiveness, statutory codes of lawyers' ethics do not invite this style as readily as a welldeveloped common law of lawyers' ethics would.

Introduction, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

As citizens, we ought to ensure that our criticisms of Congress are constructive, lest we damage ourselves. In that spirit, the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice created a special Congressional Process Committee to study selected aspects of congressional procedures and to recommend appropriate reforms. The Committee, which I chair, is composed of administrative lawyers who are experienced in legislative practice, or who have worked in Congress. We decided to address selected aspects of congressional structure and procedure for which we believe administrative lawyers possess relevant expertise.

The articles that form this Symposium grew out of …

Social Justice And Liberation, Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

Justice is the virtue we practice by giving people what is due them. Therefore, there is a problem of assignability when we consider an unjust social order: What is due from an individual beneficiary of that order to an individual victim? That question is answered by the concept of social justice: What all of us individually owe to each individual victim of the institutions now in place is our best efforts to reform those institutions. The first half of this paper analyzes the traditional arguments for and the conservative arguments against social justice as the answer to this problem of …

Bifurcation Of Undersecured Claims In Bankruptcy, David G. Carlson

Articles

The article examines the legal implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Dewsnup v. Timm on the bifurcation of undersecured claims in bankruptcy law. It critiques the ruling for creating confusion and potential inequities, arguing that it may diverge from the intent of the Bankruptcy Code. The analysis highlights the need for clearer guidelines to ensure consistent and fair treatment of secured and unsecured claims across different bankruptcy chapters.

Texas Private Real Property Rights Preservation Act: A Political Solution To The Regulatory Takings Problem Comment., George E. Grimes Jr.

St. Mary's Law Journal

Increasing environmental regulation has resulted in an antiregulation backlash and the growth of a property rights movement. Unable to successfully use the courts to protect private property from diminution in value due to government regulations, property rights advocates have looked to the federal and state legislatures for assistance. This has led to some states and the United States Congress to introduce private property rights protection. This protection generally takes one of two forms. The first requires the government to assess the possible effect on property rights before enacting regulations. The second requires the government to compensate property owners for the …