Legal Profession Commons^™

Introducing Students To Ethics And Professionalism Challenges In Virtual Communication, Katherine M. Koops, James E. Moliterno, Carol E. Morgan, Carol D. Newman

Scholarly Articles

As the practice of law, and the conduct of business generally, focuses increasingly on virtual communication, the ethics and professionalism challenges inherent in email, videoconference, text, and telephone communication continue to evolve. These challenges are particularly prevalent in transactional practice, which involves frequent communication with a variety of parties through a variety of communication channels. Exposing law students to these challenges through exercises and simulations contributes to the continued development of their professional identity as lawyers.

This article presents a variety of exercises that introduce students to client confidentiality, inadvertent disclosure, and other ethical issues that often arise in the …

A Study Of Tax Lawyers Discussing Duties, Michelle M. Kwon, Michael Hatfield

Scholarly Works

This Article reports the first qualitative empirical study of U.S. tax lawyers. We interviewed women lawyers who were tax planning specialists. Though this is the first such study of U.S. tax lawyers, this methodology has been used often to study the professional ethics of other tax practitioners around the world. We had three research questions that we sought to answer through dynamic conversations on topics such as the distinctions between good and bad tax plans and good and bad tax lawyers and also the joys and stresses of tax practice. Our first research question was as to the make-up of …

Libraries & Legal Research: Resources For Technological Competency, Virginia Neisler

Law Librarian Scholarship

At the time this article was written, Michigan was one of 39 states that included understanding relevant technologies as a part of the duty of attorney competence. In 2019, the Michigan Supreme Court formally adopted a new comment to MRPC 1.1. With respect to competence as covered under this rule, their comment made explicit that all Michigan attorneys should “engage in continuing study and education, including the knowledge and skills regarding existing and developing technology that are reasonably necessary to provide competent representation for the client in a particular matter” [emphasis added].

In February 2020, the State Bar of Michigan …

The Appearance Of Appearances, Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

The Framers argued judicial independence was necessary to the success of the American democratic experiment. Independence required judges possess and act with integrity. One aspect of judicial integrity was impartiality. Impartial judging was believed crucial to public confidence that the decisions issued by American courts followed the rule of law. Public confidence in judicial decision making promoted faith and belief in an independent judiciary. The greater the belief in the independent judiciary, the greater the chance of continued success of the republic.

During the nineteenth century, state constitutions, courts, and legislatures slowly expanded the instances in which a judge was …

The Fall Of An American Lawyer, Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

John Randall is the only former president of the American Bar Association to be disbarred. He wrote a will for a client, Lovell Myers, with whom Randall had been in business for over a quarter-century. The will left all of Myers’s property to Randall, and implicitly disinherited his only child, Marie Jensen. When Jensen learned of the existence of a will, she sued to set it aside. She later filed a complaint with the Iowa Committee on Professional Ethics and Conduct. That complaint was the catalyst leading to Randall’s disbarment.

Randall had acted grievously in serving as Lovell Myers’s attorney. …

Legal Liability For Artificially Intelligent "Robot Lawyers", Michael Loy

Lewis & Clark Law Review

This Comment discusses liability for the use of autonomous “robot lawyers” in the practice of law. A “robot lawyer” is an artificially intelligent (AI) software program that performs legal tasks traditionally handled by lawyers. Law firms currently use “non-autonomous” robot lawyers that operate under the supervision of a human attorney to assist in legal research, e-discovery, and contract drafting. In the future, “autonomous” robot lawyers that operate without human oversight may one day represent clients. However, courts and legislatures have not determined who will be liable for errors, omissions, malpractice, or other harms caused by autonomous robot lawyers. This Note …

How To Raise Disagreements With Senior Attorneys, Richard L. Heppner Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

As a new attorney, you may receive assignments from your supervising attorney like:

• find a case that stands for this legal argument,

• draft the section of the brief arguing that the court has no jurisdiction, or

• write a client memo explaining why this asset purchase is a good idea.

Sometimes you will discover that the initial assignment isn’t necessarily the best approach. This paper discusses how to engage your supervising attorney in a such situations.

Stopping The Spin: Reforming The Rhode Island State Ethics Commission And The Revolving Door Statute, Samuel Weathers

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Colloquium: Subversive Lawyering: Foreword, Bennett Capers, Bruce A. Green

Fordham Law Review

Is there such a thing as subversive lawyering? And if so, what is it? These are the questions that motivate this colloquium issue. To be sure, other, similar terms exist and have been explicated. Movement lawyering. Rebellious lawyering. Resistance lawyering. Indeed,we were particularly inspired by Daniel Farbman’s article Resistance Lawyering, in which he uncovers the stories of abolitionist lawyers who, confronting the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, “employed every means at their disposal to frustrate, delay, and dismantle the system within which they were practicing.” But still, we wondered if subversive lawyering might be something different. Something akin to resistance …

Bargaining For Abolition, Zohra Ahmed

Fordham Law Review

What if instead of seeing criminal court as an institution driven by the operation of rules, we saw it as a workplace where people labor to criminalize those with the misfortune to be prosecuted? Early observers of twentieth century urban criminal courts likened them to factories. Since then, commentators often deploy the pejorative epithet “assembly line justice” to describe criminal court’s processes. The term conveys the criticism of a mechanical system delivering a form of justice that is impersonal and fallible. Perhaps unintentionally, the epithet reveals another truth: criminal court is also a workplace, and it takes labor to keep …

Remarks On My Mentor, Robert Cover, Hon. Guido Calabresi

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Put Down The Phone! The Standard For Witness Interviews Is In-Person, Face-To-Face, One-On-One, Sean O'Brien, Quinn O'Brien, Dana Cook

Faculty Works

Professor and capital defense attorney Sean O’Brien, private investigator Quinn O’Brien, and mitigation specialist Dana Cook team up in this article to explain why the standard for competent defense investigation requires face-to-face, one-on-one, culturally competent client and witness interviews, and why short cuts to investigation, such as telephone calls or remote video links, are counter-productive, prone to failure, and constitute substandard work. Although the primary focus of this article is on standards that apply to capital mitigation work, the problems created by remote witness interviews are not unique to death penalty work; there are persuasive arguments and authority that the …

The Other Bar Hurdle: An Examination Of The Character And Fitness Requirement For Bar Admission, David L. Hudson Jr., Andrea Gemignani

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Apple A Day Keeps Educational Malpractice Lawsuits At Bay: Applying Principles Of Medical Malpractice's "Locality Rule" To Deconstruct The Academic Abstention Doctrine, Madeline Bergstrom

American University Law Review

Education serves as one of the most impactful and purposeful tools in American society. However, the United States education system suffers from many shortcomings and failures, and as a result, may occasionally lead to student harm from the actions of educators or academic institutions. These claims commonly allege that educators and academic institutions engaged in negligent behavior, and students or parents bringing these claims are often looking for legal relief through the judicial system. These claims are typically labeled as educational malpractice, and historically, courts have almost uniformly rejected these claims as non-cognizable actions.

This Comment argues that this judicial …

The Lawyers Justice Corps: A Licensing Pathway To Enhance Access To Justice, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

The idea for establishing a Lawyers Justice Corps emerged out of efforts to solve a problem: how to license lawyers at a time when COVID-19 had expanded the need for new lawyers while also making an in-person bar exam dangerous, if not impossible. We-the Collaboratory on Legal Education and Licensing for Practice'-proposed the Lawyers Justice Corps to provide a different and better way of certifying minimum competence for new attorneys while at the same time helping to create a new generation of lawyers equipped to address a wide range of social justice, racial justice, and criminal justice issues. When implemented, …

Foreword To The Symposium: The Life And Work Of Robert M. Cover, Samuel J. Levine

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Case For Pattern-Or-Practice Investigations Against District Attorney's Office, Rory Fleming

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rhode Was Right (About Character And Fitness), Leslie C. Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

Almost 40 years ago, Deborah Rhode chronicled numerous problems with the legal profession’s character and fitness inquiry in her seminal article, Moral Character as a Professional Credential. This essay, which is dedicated to her memory, assesses the current state of that inquiry. The essay notes a few areas of improvement in some jurisdictions, but finds the character and fitness inquiry remains problematic. Some jurisdictions continue to operate without published standards and most character and fitness committees—and even the courts— do not publish information about their decisions. It is still the case, as Rhode noted, that there is little evidence that …

Professionalism In Tribal Jurisdictions, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Articles

American Indian law is an important area of law. There are 12 federally recognized Indian tribes in the state of Michigan.1 Indian tribes throughout the United States do business in Michigan. Indian tribal governments and corporations employ hundreds of thousands of non-Indians and received billions in federal pandemic relief. Indian gaming generated nearly $40 billion in revenues nationally last year. Still, many lawyers ignore the field or claim ignorance about the basic precepts of federal Indian law.

This article will canvass several themes of professionalism in tribal practice, drawing from this author’s tribal law experience over the last few decades. …

What Happens Before The First Mediation Session? An Empirical Study Of Pre-Session Communications, Roselle L. Wissler, Art Hinshaw

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Mediator, lawyer, and party preparation in advance of the first formal mediation session is widely seen as important for the effectiveness of the mediation. Communications between the mediator and the mediation participants before the first mediation session, along with the submission of case information and documents to the mediator, are two primary means of information exchange to aid preparation. Few studies have looked at what occurs during these early stages, despite their centrality to mediation. The present Article reports the findings of a study of more than 1,000 mediators in different mediation settings and dispute types across eight states that …

Every Reasonable Chance Plus Two: How The Red Hook Community Justice Center Bridges The Gap Between The Community And The Justice System, Se Won Park

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

The following is excerpted from an article published by Fordham Law News:

Standing before Judge Calabrese is Sean Johnson (his name has been changed to protect his privacy). Over the years he has been in and out of Rikers Island and has been arrested multiple times, most recently for shoplifting.

Today, Johnson has come before Judge Calabrese not for arraignment or sentencing but to do his part to solve some of the problems that have kept him cycling in and out of prison. On this afternoon, he has tested drug-free after months of counseling and treatment.

"Mr. Johnson," Judge Calabrese …

Subversive Legal Education:Reformist Steps Towardabolitionist Visions, Christina John, Russell G. Pearce, Aundray Jermaine Archer, Sarah Medina Camiscoli, Aron Pines, Maryam Salmanova, Vira Tarnavska

Fordham Law Review

Exclusivity in legal education divides traditional scholars, students, and impacted communities most disproportionately harmed by the legal education system. While traditional legal scholars tend to embrace traditional legal education, organic jurists—those who are historically excluded from legal education and those who educate themselves and their communities about their legal rights and realities—often reject the inaccessibility of legal education and its power. This Essay joins a team of community legal writers to imagine a set of principles for subversive legal education. Together, we—formerly incarcerated pro se litigants, paralegals for intergenerational movement lawyering initiatives, first-generation law students and lawyers, persons with years …

Impeaching Legal Ethics, Bruce Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Articles & Chapters

In the investigations, hearings, and aftermath of President Trump’s first impeachment, lawyer-commentators invoked the rules of professional conduct to criticize the government lawyers involved. To a large extent, these commentators mischaracterized or misapplied the rules. Although these commentators often presented themselves to the public as neutral experts, they were engaged in political advocacy, using the rules, as private litigators often do, as a strategic weapon against an adversary in the court of public opinion. For example, commentators on the left wrongly conveyed that, under the rules, government lawyers had a responsibility to the public to voluntarily assist in the impeachment, …

Lawyers And The Lies They Tell, Bruce Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Articles & Chapters

Noting that the First Amendment protects lies about the government made in the public square, this article explores whether lawyers’ free speech rights ought to be different from that of other speakers. The law holds lawyers to a more demanding standard of conduct than others when it comes to aspects of lawyers’ fiduciary relationships with courts and clients. But how much more demanding can the law be when it comes to lawyers’ speech — in this case, false political speech? Applying the current First Amendment framework, we question the bar’s assumption that lawyers’ speech outside of these contexts can be …

Lawyering Paradoxes: Making Meaning Of The Contradictions, Susan P. Sturm

Faculty Scholarship

Effective lawyering requires the ability to manage contradictory yet interdependent practices. In their role as traditionally understood, lawyers must fight, judge, debate, minimize risk, and advance clients’ interests. Yet increasingly, lawyers must ALSO collaborate, build trust, innovate, enable effective risk-taking, and hold clients accountable for adhering to societal values. Law students and lawyers alike struggle, often unproductively, to reconcile these tensions. Law schools often address them as a dilemma requiring a choice or overlook the contradictions that interfere with their integration.

This Article argues instead that these seemingly contradictory practices can be brought together through the theory and action of …

Courts Apply A Case-By-Case Analysis In Distinguishing A Meritorious Motion To Disqualify From A Delaying Litigation Tactic, Cathrena Collins

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

It is becoming increasingly rare for an attorney to remain at the same firm for an entire career. Lateral movements of lawyers coupled with large firms employing hundreds of attorneys creates ample opportunity for conflicts of interest to arise. The American Bar Association explains a conflict of interest is present when "there is a significant risk that a lawyer's ability to consider, recommend or carry out an appropriate course of action for the client will be materially limited as a result of the other lawyer's responsibilities or interest." Furthermore, Rule 1.10(b) dictates that a lawyer joining a new firm …

Legal Ethics For Government Lawyers: Confronting Doctrinal Gaps, Andrew Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Despite the recent growth in the Canadian literature on legal ethics for government lawyers, the leading conceptual models have yet to be applied to resolve many of the most important legal questions facing government lawyers. In this article, I identify four key situations where the obligations of government lawyers as lawyers appear to clash with their obligations as public servants. I provide both a doctrinal analysis of how the current law applies in those situations and proposals for how the law can be clarified and improved. This analysis both provides much needed guidance to government lawyers and promotes a greater …

Toward More Robust Self-Regulation Within The Legal Profession, Veronica Root Martinez, Caitlin-Jean Juricic

Faculty Scholarship

The Trump Administration left reverberations throughout American life, and the legal profession was not insulated from its impact. The conduct of lawyers—both public and private—working on behalf of former President Trump was the subject of constant conversation and critique. The reality, however, is that the questions regarding the conduct of the Trump Administration lawyers, are rooted, in part, in more fundamental questions about the appropriate role of the lawyer within society. This Essay advocates for the adoption of a self-regulation scheme whereby lawyers regulate and oversee the conduct of other lawyers, to ensure that members of the legal profession are …

The Other Bar Hurdle: An Examination Of The Character And Fitness Requirement For Bar Admission, David L. Hudson Jr., Andrea Gemignani

Law Faculty Scholarship

In The Other Bar Hurdle, published in the Mitchell Hamline Law Review, the authors examine the character and fitness requirement as a critical yet under-scrutinized component of attorney licensing. The Article surveys the historical foundations, purposes, and contemporary administration of character and fitness investigations, highlighting their dual aims of protecting the public and safeguarding the integrity of the courts. It then synthesizes extensive scholarly criticism, focusing on concerns about discriminatory origins, lack of transparency, inconsistent application, deterrent effects on prospective applicants, and the disproportionate impact on individuals with criminal records, financial hardship, or mental health histories. While acknowledging …

Roberta Karmel And The "Brooklyn School", Edward J. Janger

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In this contribution, Professor Janger describes Roberta Karmel’s extraordinary contributions to the intellectual, scholarly, and institutional life of Brooklyn Law School.