Legal Profession Commons^™

A Dissenter's Commentary On The Professionalism Crusade, Rob Atkinson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Sneaking Around In The Legal Profession: Interjurisdictional Unauthorized Practice By Transactional Lawyers, Charles W. Wolfram

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The quiet clubbiness that once characterized the practice of law in the United States is rapidly disappearing as new realities announce their clamorous arrival. Evaporating at a great rate—judging speed of change in historical terms—are many traditionally accepted and functionally important features of the legal profession of another day. Disappearing or dead are such sturdy former fixtures as the exclusivity of traditional bar self-policing. Also gone is the at-one-time widely acknowledged hegemony of the American Bar Association as the exclusive source of lawyer code pronouncements on lawyer disciplinary regulation. Courts, under the thrall of bar associations, at one time claimed …

A New Standard For Disbarments: Misappropriation Through Gross Negligence - North Carolina State Bar V. Ford, Michael J. Dayton

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Clark Memorandum: Fall 1995, J. Reuben Clark Law Society, J. Reuben Clark Law School

The Clark Memorandum

• Soldiers of the Spirit (Lance D. Wickman)
• The Profession Everyone Loves to Hate (James D. Gordon, III)
• Selected Letters (Woody Deem)
• The Atonement—Infinite and Eternal (Merrill J. Bateman)
• Out of Kindergarten, Out of Law School (Marilyn V. Yarbrough)

Nonrefundable Retainers: A Response To Critics Of The Absolute Ban, Lester Brickman, Lawrence A. Cunningham

Articles

In the short span of time since the New York Court of Appeals banned nonrefundable retainers, numerous other courts have joined in prohibiting this widespread practice of lawyers charging a fee for services in advance and keeping the fee even if the services are not performed. The alacrity with which the New York rule is being embraced may reflect increased judicial recognition of the effect of egregious fee practices on the image of the bar and the role such practices play in the declining esteem in which the legal profession is held. Not only has there been a sharp decline …

Lawyers As Strangers And Friends: A Reply To Professor Sammons, Thomas L. Shaffer, Robert F. Cochran Jr.

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rank Strangers To Me: Shaffer And Cochran's Friendship Model Of Moral Counseling In The Law Office, Jack L. Sammons

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lawyers, Clients, And Money, John M.A. Dipippa

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Jacob's Blessing: A Review Of Shaffer's And Cochran's Model Of Moral Counseling, John M.A. Dipippa

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Review Of "Constitutional Torts" By Sheldon H. Nahmod, Michael L. Wells, Thomas A. Eaton, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

The most interesting issues in the field of constitutional torts, involving the legal and moral bases for the government's responsibility for injuries it causes, are the most difficult ones for lawyers to explore. The question whether, as a moral or social policy matter, governments and government officials should enjoy immunities or other defenses not available to private individuals is rarely confronted directly in judicial opinions or in scholarship on constitutional torts, yet it lurks behind many of the doctrinal issues that come up in constitutional tort litigation.¹ A slight scratch on the surface of doctrines as disparate as official …

Mass Torts -- Messy Ethics, Charles W. Wolfram

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Towards An Inclusive Professionalism, Peter Margulies

St. Thomas Law Review

The landscape of lawyering seems bewilderingly chaotic today, compared with images of practices past, replete with country clubs and white male practitioners.' Despite their exclusiveness, corporate law firms of old at least had some shared values, and some commitment to norms other than those generated by the market. Our society, as well as the legal profession, is more diverse than it was. The present-day invocation of professionalism is one reaction to the increased diversity of the legal profession, and to the vaulting prominence of market forces, which has reduced many lawyers in major firms to a race to the bottom …

Practiced Moral Activism, Paul R. Tremblay

St. Thomas Law Review

Readers of legal ethics literature frequently encounter the following question: "Can a good lawyer be a good person?" This Article addresses a variation of that question: "Can a good lawyer be a good person if that person is not a good philosopher?" This new question confronts a perplexing realization about most moral exploration of lawyering-that it takes place amidst a language and an intellectual world with which most practicing lawyers are not familiar or conversant. Of course, the philosophers inhabiting that world and using that language aim to affect the lives of working attorneys in some concrete way,but reading the …

Professionalism And Life In The Trenches: The Case Of The Public Defender, Rodney Thaxton, Lida Rodriguez-Taseff

St. Thomas Law Review

I would like to start with a little story. This actually happened during my employment at the Dade County Public Defender's office, when I was in juvenile court. There was this very bright young man who, having been arrested for stealing bicycles, was in detention. He had figured out an ingenious way to steal bicycles. He would go into the bicycle section in department stores, get a bicycle, and start riding it around. An employee would invariably say, "Oh, you can't ride that bicycle in here. Take it out," and would escort him to the door with the bicycle. He …

New York Attorney Malpractice Liability To Non-Clients: Toward A Rule Of Reason And Predictability, Lucia A. Silecchia

Scholarly Articles

This 1995 Article addresses the question of attorney liability in New York. It begins with a brief introduction to the history of the privity requirement nationally to place the New York question in context. It then traces the scope of attorney liability in New York and examines the state of that law - with its contradictions and inconsistences. This Article proposes a rule for New York courts to consider that centers on the “adversariness” of the client and the third party as the touchstone for determining if expanded liability is appropriate.

This differs from the traditional analysis which bases the …

Greetings, Daniel J. Morrissey

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.

Be Just To One Another: Preliminary Thoughts On Civility, Moral Character, And Professionalism, Mark Neal Aaronson

St. Thomas Law Review

The premise of this Article is that the inability of lawyers to conduct themselves in a reasonable fashion has less to do with a lack of good manners or ignorance about what conduct is expected, but has more to do with not having the strength of character needed to exercise self-discipline when making practical or ethical choices. I focus on civility because it speaks to both the profession's present distress over an apparent deterioration in lawyer behavior and its ongoing interest in lawyers of high moral character. My main agenda is to reintroduce certain ancient, classical ideas about civility as …

Remarks: Professionalism And The Courts, Ursula Ungaro-Benages

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Professionalism: Do Ethical Rules Require Zealous Representation For Poor People, Michelle S. Jacobs

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.

How The Butler Was Made To Do It: The Perverted Professionalism Of The Remains Of The Day, Rob Atkinson

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Reception Of Foreign Law In The U.S. Federal Courts, Roger J. Miner '56

Bar Associations

No abstract provided.

Gladiators Be Gone: The New Disclosure Rules Compel A Reexamination Of The Adversary Process, 36 B.C. L. Rev. 479 (1995), Rogelio A. Lasso

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Proverbial Practice: Legal Ethics From Old Testament Wisdom, Gordon J. Beggs

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Old Testament book of Proverbs supplied foundational moral values for our nation's legal ethics. With the adoption and revision of formal codes, moral teaching has virtually disappeared from legal ethics. This essay suggests that the wisdom of Proverbs offers a timely challenge to the character of the legal profession by advocating values which include justice, purity, mercy, humility, honesty, candor, truthful testimony, and civility.

To Save A Life: Why A Rabbi And A Jewish Lawyer Must Disclose A Client Confidence Symposium: Executing The Wrong Person: The Professionals' Ethical Dilemmas, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

As adopted by courts and legislatures, lawyer's ethical codes have the force of law. They require a lawyer to keep information confidential unless the lawyer knows the client will commit a future crime. Jewish tradition generally forbids the disclosure of confidential information as "a terrible invasion of another person's privacy."This interdiction, rooted in the Torah's prohibition on talebearing, applies even when the information disclosed is true. The great medieval commentator, Maimonides, observed that gossip "ruins the world.” He further reproached "the evil tongue of the slander-monger who speaks disparagingly of one's fellow, even if the truth is told." Accordingly, the …

Progressive Lawyering And Lost Traditions, Peter Margulies

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Professional Responsibility And Choice Of Law: A Client-Based Alternative To The Model Rules Of Professional Conduct, Colin Owyang

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Because of the increasingly interstate nature of legal practice during the past few decades, practitioners licensed in multiple jurisdictions have been forced more frequently to confront choice-of-law dilemmas in the area of professional responsibility. Although most states have adopted fairly uniform regulations on professional ethics, only the recently amended American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct contain a specific provision that addresses the choice-of-law problem in the professional responsibility context. This Note outlines certain ethical considerations facing the multistate practitioner and argues that the choice-of-law provision in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides insufficient clarity and predictability where …

Professionalism Paradigm Shift: Why Discarding Professional Ideology Will Improve The Conduct And Reputation Of The Bar, The, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

The Article explains how the Professionalism Paradigm distinguishes between self-interested businesspersons and altruistic professionals who place the public good above their own interests and those of their clients. The legal profession has used this Business-Profession dichotomy to obtain control of the delivery legal services, including a legislative monopoly on the practice of law. Today, the Professionalism Paradigm faces a crisis as leading lawyers, judges, and scholars complain that law has become a business and is no longer a profession. The Article “identifies this shift as a time for hope rather than as a cause for despair. Applying Thomas S. Kuhn's …

The Profession Of Law: Columbia Law School's Use Of Experiential Learning Techniques To Teach Professional Responsibility, Carol B. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

Columbia Law School's ethics course, "The Profession of Law" ("POL"), is an interactive, experiential exploration of lawyer ethics. The course, required for all third-year students, is taught on an intensive basis during the first week of the fall semester. It begins on Monday morning, the first day of the semester, and runs through mid-afternoon on the following Friday. The course has five goals: to introduce students to the rules that govern professional conduct; to help them develop an analytic framework for making ethical decisions in those broad areas where the rules do not give clear answers; to provoke them to …

Proposed Legislation Concerning A Lawyer’S Duty Of Confidentiality, Roger C. Cramton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Rediscovering Client Decisionmaking: The Impact Of Role-Playing, Mary Zulack

Faculty Scholarship

There are more things of importance to representing clients than are disclosed through a typical interview or counseling session, even a session undertaken by a lawyer earnestly attempting to hear rather than ignore the client. We lawyers are often vividly aware, when we pause to contemplate the point, that we do not know all we should about our clients. We may also believe that we have great gulfs of knowledge and experience to cross in order to hear and understand any particular client. Further, we fear that our ability to cross these gulfs is limited by the human, and lawyerly, …