Legal Profession Commons^™

Coordinating Sanctions For Corporate Misconduct: Civil Or Criminal Punishment, David Yellen, Carl J. Mayer

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No abstract provided.

Setting The Fee When The Client Discharges A Contingent Fee Attorney, Lester Brickman

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The bold and precedent-setting case of Martin v. Camp endowed the attorney-client relationship with the legacy of the "client discharge rule"; it provides that a client can discharge his attorney at any time without cause and without penalty. The predicate of the rule is that trust and confidence are essential features of the attorney-client relationship. If that trust and confidence dissipate, the client should not be forced to continue to confide in and rely upon that attorney. Accordingly, the client should not be penalized financially if he elects to change attorneys. The discharged attorney, precluded from realizing the contingent percentage …

Stances, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Translation As A Mode Of Thought, James Boyd White

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I think that Clark Cunningham's article, The Lawyer as Translator, is a wonderful piece of work, full of life and interest and originality. I especially admire: his ability to make vivid to the reader the ways in which languages do truly differ, and differ beyond our efforts to bridge them-as he shows when he imagines an attempt to translate our most common professional terms into Chinese; his recoguition of the kind of force that our languages have over our minds, both as we see the world and as we tell stories about it; his sense that what we think of …

The Burdens Of Educational Loans: The Impacts Of Debt On Job Choice And Standards Of Living For Students At Nine American Law Schools, David L. Chambers

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American law students are borrowing large sums of money. For graduates at many schools, cumulative debts of $40,000 from college and law school have become the norm, and debts of $50,000, $60,000, and even more are common. The sums students are borrowing are much larger today than they were ten years ago, even after adjusting for increases in the cost of living. They have risen at a considerably faster pace than the starting salaries at small law firms and government agencies. They have even risen at a faster pace than the starting salaries in many large firms. The new pattern …

Evidentiary Rules And Rulings: The Role Of Treatises, Richard D. Friedman

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I have devoted large gobs of time to work on a multi-author treatise on the law of evidence.' And before even one volume is published, I will devote further multiple gobs of time to the project-which, perhaps audaciously and perhaps merely foolishly, but with heredity and precedent on our side,2 we are calling The New Wigmore. Accordingly, I found the question posed by this symposium-Does Evidence Law Matter?-rather disquieting. If it is doubtful even whether the law of evidence matters, then how much can a treatise on the law of evidence matter, and how worthwhile can such a work be? …

Identifying The Best Interests Of The Child In Protection Proceedings: Nine Guidelines For The Child Advocate., Donald N. Duquette

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Increasingly, judges appoint court appointed special advocates (CASAs) to represent children in child abuse and neglect proceedings. Like lawyers, CASAs are charged with looking out for the "best interests" of the child. Unfortunately, although the phrase "best interests" sounds noble, it provides little practical guidance for the child advocate.

The Fall And Rise Of The Criminal Contingent Fee, Peter Lushing

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The article argues that the ban on contingent fees for criminal defense attorneys, established by the American Bar Association in 1969, is outdated and should be repealed. It contends that the ban is rooted in historical prejudice and unfounded concerns about conflicts of interest, rather than empirical evidence. The author suggests that the Supreme Court's 1989 decision implicitly approving contingent fees in certain criminal cases presents an opportunity to reconsider this prohibition. Repealing the ban could benefit middle-class defendants and allow for regulation and data collection to address potential issues.

Generalization In Interpretive Theory, Joseph Vining

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There are arguments at large about the nature of legal interpretation, proceeding from an implicit proposition that interpretation is the same phenomenon or experience whatever its setting. An assumption that there is one phenomenon can be found in discussions among lawyers of interpretation and in discussions among nonlawyers of legal interpretation-and as often in the work of those who would deny there is any significance to theorizing about interpretation, as of those who think persuasion to a particular theory will have the utmost consequence for law and society. Proceeding from such a proposition, rather than toward it, raises the risk …

Attorney-Client Fee Arbitration: A Dissenting View, Lester Brickman

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No single issue between lawyer and client arises more frequently or generates more public resentment than fee problems. Ethical tenets urge lawyers to resolve fee 4isputes without resort to litigation. Where such procedures exist, attorneys are admonished to submit disputes to arbitration. In several jurisdictions, arbitration has gained endorsement from bar associations as the preferred method of fee dispute resolution.

Contingent Fees Without Contingencies: Hamlet Without The Prince Of Demark?, Lester Brickman

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According to conventional wisdom virtually all contingent fee percentages exceeding fifty percent are illegal and excessive, but most lower percentages are valid. This Article challenges the conventional wisdom, an amalgam of the unassailability of the standard one-third rate, notions of fairness versus price gouging, lawyer effort versus lawyer' reward, and the right of a lawyer to contract freely for a fee. It advances instead two propositions for determining the legitimacy of contingent fees. The first is that for a contingent fee to be valid, there must be an actual contingency, which means a realistic risk of nonrecovery. Though this proposition …

Discipline Of Clear Expression, Donald L. Burnett Jr.

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No abstract provided.

The Inside Counsel Movement, Professional Judgment And Organizational Representation, Robert Eli Rosen

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No abstract provided.

Accommodation And Satisfaction: Women And Men Lawyers And The Balance Of Work And Family, David L. Chambers

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This study of graduates of the University of Michigan Law School from the late 1970s reports on the differing ways that women and men have responded to the conflicting claims of work and family. It finds that women with children who have entered the profession have indeed continued to bear the principalr esponsibilitiesf or the care of children, but it alsof inds that these women, with all their burdens, are more satisfied with their careers and with the balance of their family and professional lives than other women and than men.

Educational Debts And The Worsening Position Of Small-Firm, Government, And Legal-Services Lawyers, David L. Chambers

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Law school operating costs are up. Tuitions are up. The debts of law students are up. What is happening to the students who have borrowed large sums? Are their debts affecting their decisions about the jobs to seek? Once in practice, are they significantly affecting the standard of living they can afford to maintain? What, in particular, is the effect of debts on those who enter-or contemplate entering-small firms, government, legal services, and "public interest" work where salaries are lower than in most other settings in which lawyers work? In the preceding essay, Jack Kramer has performed another extremely valuable …

Nonlawyers In The Business Of Law: Does The One Who Has The Gold Really Make The Rules?, Thomas R. Andrews

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For at least sixty years nonlawyers have been prohibited from offering their nonlegal talents in a business combination with lawyers practicing law. Moreover, when the ABA's new model rules were adopted in 1983, the ABA considered carefully but rejected a proposal that would have lifted the traditional ban on nonlawyer ownership of a law business. Nonetheless, the point of each article was that the relevant restrictions in the ethical rules are on their way out.

Commentators have given considerable attention to the unauthorized practice of law by nonlawyers, and to the offering of legal services by nonprofit institutions. The focus …

First Person Singular, John W. Reed

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The hot topic in legal circles is the decline of professionalism. In this often negative age, it ranks right up there with "What's wrong with American schools?" and "Where will we live when the ozone is gone?" and "How can we get a handle on drugs?"-all those terrible things.

Legal Affinities, Joseph Vining

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Not long ago, any question of the kind "How may theology serve as a resource in understanding law?" would have been hardly conceivable among lawyers. When Lon Fuller brought out his first book in 1940, The Law in Quest of Itself, he could think of no better way of tagging his adversary the legal positivist than to note a "parallel between theoretical theology and analytical jurisprudence." Two decades later, in the name of realism, Thurman Arnold dismissed Henry Hart's non-positivist jurisprudence in harsh terms. A master of the cutting phrase, he confidently entitled his attack "Professor Hart's Theology." Two decades …

Postpetition Interest Under The Bankruptcy Code, David G. Carlson

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The article examines the legal ambiguity surrounding postpetition interest for undersecured creditors in bankruptcy proceedings, focusing on the Supreme Court's ruling in *Timbers of Inwood Forest*. It critiques the decision as unpersuasive and highlights the need for clearer legal frameworks to balance creditor and debtor rights, ensuring fairness and efficiency in bankruptcy cases.

Family Feud: A Response To Robert Weisberg On Law And Literature, Richard H. Weisberg

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The article engages in a critical dialogue with Robert Weisberg's work on the intersection of law and literature, particularly his skepticism toward the field's potential for sentimentality and his resistance to the literary text as a primary source of legal insight. The author argues that literature provides a unique lens for understanding the irrationalities and ethical dimensions of legal discourse, challenging Weisberg's dismissal of its value. The article contends that Law and Literature must embrace its subversive potential to critique legal assumptions and institutional language, while also addressing the broader cultural and epistemological challenges facing interdisciplinary scholarship.

Nonrefundable Retainers: Impermissible Under Fiduciary, Statutory And Contract Law, Lester Brickman, Lawrence A. Cunningham

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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. This 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. Among the more provocative contributors to this ongoing debate, Professor Steven Lubet recently reviewed our work advocating the ban against nonrefundable retainers and posed …

Making Uncle Sam Pay: A Review Of Equal Access To Justice Act Cases In The Sixth Circuit, 1983-1987, Martin Geer, Paul D. Reingold

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Despite the recent admonition of the Supreme Court that a "request for attorneys' fees should not result in a second major litigation,"12 the courts have been frequently called on to interpret the often ambiguous language of the EAJA. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has not been spared this difficult chore. While the 1985 amendments have clarified some provisions of the Act and affected some major decisions in the Sixth Circuit, the recent changes have also left other previously settled areas in a state of flux. This article will review the Sixth Circuit's EAJA decisions from 1983-1987, …

Automatic Generation Of A Legal Expert System From A Normalized Interpretation Of Legal Rules, Layman E. Allen

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No abstract provided.

Law And Enchantment: The Place Of Belief, Joseph Vining

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The question I wish to raise is whether one must believe what one says when one makes a statement of law. The language of belief that we know, and from which moral discourse and the moral never stray far: do judges, lawyers, law participate in it? Any such question is but an aspect of a larger question, indeed issue, of what we may call the objectivity of legal language. It is raised perhaps most acutely by the broad claims now being made for artificial intelligence and in particular for the computer programming of legal advice (as a species of what …

Economics And Law: Two Cultures In Tension, James Boyd White

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I want to preface my remarks by saying something about the kind of talk this is going to be. As my title says, I shall speak mainly about economics and law, which I shall examine as forms of thought and life, or what I shall call cultures. With law, about which in fact I shall speak rather briefly, I am naturally familiar by training and experience. But with economics I am familiar only as an observer­ as a general reader who reads the newspaper, as a lawyer who has followed a little of the law and economics literature, and as …

Intellectual Integration, James Boyd White

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In this paper, I want to talk about the activity of intellectual integration itself: about what it can mean to integrate-to put together in a complex whole-aspects of our culture, or of the world, that seem to us disparate or unconnected; and what it can mean in so doing to integrate-to bring together in interactive life-aspects of our own minds and beings that we normally separate or divide from each other: I want to think of integration, that is-and of its opposite, disintegration-as taking place on two planes of existence at once, the cultural and the individual. For what is …

Thinking About Our Language, James Boyd White

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Except for one meeting, which I will describe below, I knew Bob Cover only through his writings. This circumstance was of course a disappointment to me, for our interests were similar, and his death now makes the loss irreparable. But perhaps this is less of a limitation than would normally be the case, for as much as anyone in the law Bob was, and is, actively present in his writing, both as a person and as a mind.-But that dichotomy of person and mind gets it wrong, for what I would like to catch is a sense of fusion or …

Law-The Last Of The Universal Disciplines, Soia Mentschikoff, Irwin P. Stotzky

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No abstract provided.

Judicial Criticism, James Boyd White

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Today I shall talk about the criticism of judicial opinions, especially of constitutional opinions. This may at first seem to have rather little to do with our larger topic, "The Constitution and Human Values," but I hope that by the end I will be seen to be talking about that subject too. In fact I hope to show that in what I call our "criticism" our "values" are defined and made actual in most important ways.

Doctrine In A Vacuum: Reflections On What A Law School Ought (And Ought Not) To Be, James Boyd White

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I have written earlier in these pages about the expectations-the fears and hopes-that one can appropriately bring to law school. In this paper I speak to those who are immersed in the process of legal education, on one side of the podium or the other, and wish to say something of what I think it is, and can be, all about.