Legal Profession Commons^™

Starting Out: Changing Patterns Of First Jobs For Michigan Law School Graduates, Terry K. Adams, David L. Chambers

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In the early 1950s, the typical graduate of Michigan Law began his career working as an associate in a law firm with four other lawyers and earned about $5,000 in his first year. Surprising to us today, in his new job he would have earned slightly less than other classmates whose first jobs were in government. Fifty years later, in the early 2000s, the typical graduate still started out as an associate in a law firm, but the firm she worked for had more than 400 lawyers. She earned about $114,000 in her first year, about three times as much …

Who We Were And Who We Are: How Michigan Law Students Have Changed Since The 1950s: Findings From 40 Years Of Alumni Surveys, David L. Chambers, Terry K. Adams

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For 40 consecutive years, from 1967 to 2006, the Law School surveyed its alumni regarding their lives and careers. The project began in 1967 with the mailing of a questionnaire to the class of 1952 shortly before their 15th reunion. The results proved interesting enough that surveys were sent each year thereafter to the class 15 years out. In 1973, the classes 5 years out were added to the survey.

John C. H. Wu At The University Of Michigan School Of Law, Xiuqing Li

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The following is an English language translation of a 2008 Chinese language article on John C.H. Wu, Soochow Law School LL.B. 1920 and Michigan Law School, J.D. 1921, by Professor Li Xiuqing of Shanghai's East China University of Political Science and Law. Li is a specialist in Chinese and foreign legal history, with a focus on the transplant of Western and Japanese law into China during the late imperial and modern era. She also serves as the Secretary-General of the China Foreign Legal History Association. In 2006-07, Li was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Michigan Law School, where …

Failed Lawyers And The Sources Of Satire, Charles M. Yablon

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Most of those reading this Essay have ample reason to appreciate the benefits of a good legal education. There is pride in becoming a member of an ancient and learned profession, intellectual challenge in wrestling with complex questions of equity, power and social justice, and satisfaction in the sense of superiority you feel towards your loser friends who did not get into a decent law school.

(Un)Covering Identity In Civil Rights And Poverty Law, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Navigating The Interstate Compact On The Placement Of Children: Advocacy Tips For Child Welfare Attorneys, Vivek Sankaran

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Legal advocates across the country confront hundreds of cases like Samira's each year. Many of those cases end with arms raised in frustration due to what appears to be a lack of options after the receiving state either fails to complete the home study or denies a placement. That frustration is understandabkle given the absence of language in the Compact outlining any process to compe states to complete home studies or to permit judicial review of placement denials. Yet, as advocates, we must move beyond this initial state of paralysis and develop creative ways to vindicate the rights of our …

Advocating For The Constitutional Rights Of Nonresident Fathers, Vivek Sankaran

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Months after a child welaare case is petitioned, a nonresident father appears in court and requests custody of his children who are living in foster care. Little is known about the father, and immediately, the system-judge, caseworkers, and attorneys view him with suspicion and caution, inquiring about his whereabouts and his prior involvement in the children's lives. Those doubts, in turn, raise complicated questions about his legal rights to his children. As a practioner working in the child welfare system, you're likely to face this scenario. The largest percentage of child victims of abuse and neglect come from households headed …

Establishing Relations Between Law And Other Forms Of Thought And Language, James Boyd White

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The law does not, and could not, exist in an intellectual or linguistic vacuum. No one believes that the law is or should be impervious to other languages, other bodies of knowledge. In this sense the argument about the 'autonomy' of law is an empty one: law cannot be, should not be, perfectly autonomous, unconnected with any other system of thought and expression; yet it plainly has it own identity as a discourse, it own intellectual and linguistic habits, which it is our task as lawyers to understand and develop. It follows that an essential topic of legal thought is …

Kiddie Law Is Growing Up: Board Certification In Child Welfare Law, Donald N. Duquette

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Few areas of the law are as personally rewarding as child welfarethat is, representing children, parents, or a government agency in cases of alleged child abuse and neglect. Few areas of the law provide a greater opportunity to make a tremendous difference in the lives of individuals. Few areas of the law are as intellectually challenging, fast developing, and dynamic as child welfare. Until recently the child welfare field was demeaned as "kiddie law"-not worthy of the intellectual and advocacy talents of the best of America's lawyers. The field is steadily being transformed, however, from a sleepy, assembly-line processing of …

The Paradox Of Hierarchy - Or Why We Always Choose The Tools Of The Master's House, Zanita E. Fenton

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No abstract provided.

The Word And The Law, James Boyd White

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In this Article I shall first give a brief account of Milner Ball's book, The Word and the Law, saying something about the interesting and important way in which it connects theology, literature, and law. I shall then give a little more content to what I say about this achievement by engaging in a kind of reading of two texts, one theological and one literary, connecting both to the law. I mean this reading simultaneously to be my own and to reflect something of what I have learned from Milner. Another way to put this is to say that …

Structural Reform In Criminal Defense: Relocating Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel Claims, Eve Brensike Primus

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This Article suggests a structural reform that could solve two different problems in criminal defense representation. The first problem is that the right to effective trial counsel lacks a meaningful remedy. Defendants are generally not permitted to raise ineffective assistance of counsel claims until collateral review. Given that collateral review typically occurs years after trial, most convicted defendants have completed their sentences by that time and therefore have little incentive to pursue ineffectiveness claims. Moreover, there is no right to counsel on collateral review, and it is unrealistic to expect defendants to navigate the complicated terrain of an ineffectiveness claim …

Interdisciplinary Clinical Teaching Of Child Welfare Practice To Law And Social Work Students When World Views Collide, Kathleen Coulborn Faller, Frank E. Vandervort

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Because child welfare cases in the world of professional practice require interdisciplinary collaboration, it would seem to follow that graduate students, who will become child welfare professionals, should be trained together, both in the classroom and in clinical settings. However, the implementation of interdisciplinary training is far from straightforward. In this Article, we focus on law and social work students. First, we describe the roles of lawyers and social worker in child welfare work. Next we argue that interdisciplinary classroom teaching is easier than clinical teaching, proposing a series of topics to be covered in an interdisciplinary course. Finally, we …

Michigan's First Woman Lawyer: Sarah Killgore Wertman, Margaret A. Leary

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Sarah Killgore Wertman was the first woman in the country to both graduate from law school and be admitted to the bar. Thus, she was Michigan's first woman lawyer in two senses: She was the first woman to graduate from the University of Michigan Law School, and the first woman admitted to the Michigan bar. Others preceded her in entering law school, graduating from law school, or being admitted to the bar, but she was the first to accomplish all three. Her story illustrates much about the early days of women in legal education and the practice of law, a …

Abuse Prevention 2005, James J. White

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Today I do not debate the empirical question (what is the cause of the increase in bankruptcy filings?) nor do I address the buried moral question (who deserves the protection of bankruptcy law?). Rather, I speculate about the consequences of 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code and about the reasons it will achieve or fail to achieve the goals of its sponsors. Along the way I hope to learn something about how law changes, or fails to change behavior.

Two Distinct Roles/Bright Line Test, Donald N. Duquette

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It is a mistake to try to develop a single lawyer role for children in child welfare cases which tries to accommodate their developing capacities from infants to articulate teens. The older child needs a traditional attorney; the youngest child, incapable of directing counsel, needs a substitute to define and advocate for his or her best interests. We should adopt different standards for the different advocate roles. Trying to define a single lawyer role for children of all ages and all capacities is an impossible task. A better approach towards recognizing and accommodating the child's developing cognitive abilities and judgment …

A Comment On Nielsen's And Albiston's Sample Selection Methodology, And Implications For The 'Have-Nots', Laura Nyantung Beny

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Professors Nielsen and Albiston revisit the 1978 article, The Public Interest Law Industry, by Joel F. Handler, Betsy Ginsberg, and Arthur Snow, which presents an empirical study of the public interest law ("PIL") industry in the mid-1970s. At that time, there were only eighty-six PIL firms or public interest law organizations ("PILOs") in existence in the United States. Then, PILOs tended to be small, had relatively small operating budgets, received most of their funds from private sources, and tended to focus most of their effort in a single substantive area, among other characteristics noted by Professors Nielsen and Albiston. However, …

The Real Impact Of Eliminating Affirmative Action In American Law Schools: An Empirical Critique Of Richard Sander's Study, David L. Chambers, Timothy T. Clydesdale, William C. Kidder, Richard O. Lempert

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In 1970, there were about 4000 African American lawyers in the United States. Today there are more than 40,000. The great majority of the 40,000 have attended schools that were once nearly all-white, and most were the beneficiaries of affirmative action in their admission to law school. American law schools and the American bar can justly take pride in the achievements of affirmative action: the training of tens of thousands of African American (as well as Latino, Asian American, and Native American) practitioners, community leaders, judges, and law professors; the integration of the American bar; the services that minority attorneys …

Why Lawyers Are Unhappy, Martin E.P. Seligman, Paul R. Verkuil, Terry H. Kang

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[According to the authors of this article, the growing unhappiness of lawyers, particularly young lawyers, stems from three causes: (1) Lawyers are selected for their pessimism (or "prudence") and this generalizes to the rest of their lives; (2) Young associates hold jobs that are characterized by high pressure and low decision latitude, exactly the conditions that promote poor health and poor morale; and (3) American law is to some extent a zero-sum game, and negative emotions flow from zero-sum games....

This article has been shared with practitioners as well as academics. It grows out of faculty seminars held at the …

The Intersection Of Evaluation Be Mediators And Informed Consent: Warning The Unwary, Lela P. Love, John W. Cooley

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No abstract provided.

Making Lawyers Compete, Lester Brickman

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The article argues that the market for contingent-fee-financed tort litigation is not price competitive, primarily due to uniform contingency fees charged by lawyers regardless of case-specific factors such as risk or effort required. This lack of competition leads to excessive costs for claimants and contributes to the expansion of tort liability. The author contends that the legal profession maintains this system through various barriers, including ethical rules and entry restrictions, which prevent competitive market forces from functioning effectively.

Enough: The Failure Of The Living Will, Angela Fagerlin, Carl E. Schneider

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Enough. The living will has failed, and it is time to say so. We should have known it would fail: A notable but neglected psychological literature always provided arresting reasons to expect the policy of living wills to misfire. Given their alluring potential, perhaps they were worth trying. But a crescendoing empirical literature and persistent clinical disappointments reveal that the rewards of the campaign to promote living wills do not justify its costs. Nor can any degree of tinkering ever make the living will an effective instrument of social policy. As the evidence of failure has mounted, living wills have …

Effective Hourly Rates Of Contingency-Fee Lawyers: Competing Data And Non-Competitive Fees, Lester Brickman

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The article critically examines the impact of contingency fees on the tort system, arguing that these fees have risen significantly over the past few decades without a corresponding increase in risk, leading to exploitative practices that harm clients and drive up costs. The author challenges Herbert Kritzer's research on contingency fees, asserting that Kritzer's data underestimates the true earnings of specialized contingency-fee lawyers and fails to represent national trends accurately. The article advocates for reforms to align contingency fees more closely with the actual risk and effort involved in cases, ensuring fairness for clients and reducing systemic inefficiencies.

The Uneasy Case For Department Of Justice Control Of Federal Litigation, Neal Devins, Michael Herz

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No abstract provided.

Partnerships And Facilitation: Mediators Develop New Skills For Complex Cases, Lela P. Love, Joseph B. Stulberg

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No abstract provided.

Multijurisdictional Practice: An Emerging Issue For A Changing Profession, Donald L. Burnett Jr.

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No abstract provided.

The Continuing Assault On The Citadel Of Fiduciary Protection: Ethics 2000'S Revision Of Model Rule 1.5, Lester Brickman

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The attorney-client relationship typifies a fiduciary relationship. At a minimum, attorneys are required to deal fairly and reasonably with their clients while avoiding any inclination to act in a selfinterested manner. Nowhere is the tension between a lawyer's selfinterest and their fiduciary obligations to a client greater than in the area of fee structures.

Contingency fees were developed to allow clients representation when they otherwise may not be able to afford such representation, while compensating a lawyer in a manner commensurate with the degree of risk presented by the case. Despite the inherent self-interest encountered by lawyers when presented by …

Learning To Trust: Thoughts From A Law Clinic, David A. Santacroce

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The State Bar Legal Education Committee is now the Legal Education and Professional Standards Committee. This marriage seems an apt occasion to raise, through the prism of students, the issue of trust in client relations, though not in the traditional sense of "getting the client to trust me." Rather, the more ignored "getting me to trust the client" is the focus.

Government Officials As Attorneys And Clients: Why Privilege The Privileged?, Melanie B. Leslie

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No abstract provided.

Encouraging Race-Based Advocacy In Legal Services Practice, Jonel Newman

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Every legal services program has a waiting room, some newly furnished, others with old sofas and tattered chairs. The families, children, and elderly sitting in these waiting rooms consistently are disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities. Despite this constant reminder that those seeking legal assistance for their perceived wrongs are disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities, legal services programs are bringing fewer and fewer affirmative challenges that incorporate race-based antidiscrimination claims.
/="/"> In this article we explore possible reasons for this lack of affirmative race- and national-origin-based discrimination claims and suggest some ideas for preserving or restarting this type of advocacy, ideas …