Legal Profession Commons^™

Rewired: Reconceptualizing Legal Services For The Ai Age, Lev E. Breydo

Faculty Publications

The legal profession is at a crossroads, caught between intensifying fears of AI-driven displacement and a generational opportunity for transformation. This Article provides a practical framework for navigating the shifting terrain.

Situating legal innovation within a multi-century arc of technological change, the Article draws on management and strategy scholarship to develop two core organizing models: the Legal Services Value Chain and the Innovation Frontier. The value chain disaggregates the lifecycle of a legal matter into five distinct nodes of activity, providing a map for subsequent analyses

Building on that foundation, the Innovation Frontier traces LegalTech’s evolution from 2000s-vintage e-discovery to …

Learning By Doing: The Importance Of Thoughtful And Limited Generative A.I. Use In The Il Legal Writing Classroom, Luke Repici

Faculty Publications

Technological advances that impact lawyers day-to-day work are nothing new. From typewriters, dictaphones, and computers to electronic legal research, email, and e-discovery, new technologies have changed the nuts and bolts of how lawyers practice for decades. Previous technologies may have replaced the pen with the typewriter and supplanted the letter for the email, but the lawyer remained the one doing the work. For more junior lawyers, this meant assigned tasks – reading cases, drafting motions, dictating client updates, summarizing discovery, and creating deposition outlines – could not be outsourced to technology.

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (“Gen AI”) presents …

The Art Of Ai Prompting In Law And Dispute Resolution Practice, John Lande

Faculty Publications

This short article offers a practical guide for using AI tools to improve the judgment and efficiency of lawyers, mediators, and arbitrators.  It cites ABA Ethics Opinion 512, which describes lawyers’ ethical duty of technological competence under the ABA Model Rules.

The article encourages practitioners to begin by selecting AI tools appropriate to their tasks such as general-purpose platforms or specialized tools listed in the article.  It explains how to write effective prompts, use follow-up questions to refine outputs, and apply professional judgment when reviewing results.  It includes a list of suggested follow-up prompts.

Getting useful results from AI tools …

How Mediators And Lawyers Can Use Ai: A Practical Video Guide, John Lande

Faculty Publications

This article explains why mediators and lawyers increasingly need to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools in their work.  It introduces a video that offers practical guidance for mediators and lawyers on using AI to enhance planning, help clients make better decisions, and improve efficiency.  It includes a basic introduction to AI, guidance on getting good results and managing risks, and demonstrations of RPS Coach, a specialized AI tool.  The article provides links to the video, PowerPoint slides, and a transcript of the demonstrations.

What Small Law Firms Contribute To Rural Communities, Hannah Haksgaard

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Legal Academia's White Gaze, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

For Black law faculty, Blackness, the Black experience, and Black legal and social identity are not trends. Yet, there are inflection points where legal scholarship about race, particularly Blackness, is in vogue. The most recent rise in such legal scholarship came in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. When antiracist sentiment is high, the regard for scholarship central to the personhood of Black legal scholars is high. Even then, there is an expectation that Black authors write in ways that conform to the White norms of legal scholarship. Though central to …

The Prosecutor Vacancy Crisis, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

There is a prosecutor vacancy crisis in the United States. Prosecutors are quitting in droves and there are few applicants to replace them. In Houston and Los Angeles, more than 15% of prosecutor positions are open. In Detroit, the vacancy rate exceeds 20%. In Alameda, 25% of prosecutor positions are empty. And in Miami, a staggering 33% of prosecutor positions are unfilled. The situation is equally dire in many large and small counties across the nation.

Drawing on data and interviews from more than two-dozen district attorney’s offices, this Article documents how low salaries, massive caseloads, lack of remote work …

A Threshold Assessment: Is Technology Among The Competencies Tested By The Mpre?, Amy A. Emerson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Understanding Our Digital Fingerprints: Metadata, Competency, And The Future Practice Of Law, Stacey Lane Rowland

Faculty Publications

Metadata, often referred to as “data about data,” plays a crucial role in the digital world. It encompasses embedded information within electronic documents that reveals details about their creation, modification, and transmission. In legal proceedings, metadata can be both helpful and controversial, as it can expose sensitive information and potentially support or refute claims of fabricated evidence. With the widespread use of smartphones and other electronic devices, individuals generate vast amounts of personal data, including metadata, that can provide detailed insights into their lives.

This Article explores the significance of metadata in various contexts, such as digital photographs, and highlights …

Indian Country Lawyers: A South Dakota Survey, Bryce Drapeaux, Hannah Haksgaard

Faculty Publications

South Dakota’s reservations are rural and suffer from a shortage of lawyers. Relatedly, there are very few Native American licensed attorneys in South Dakota. This essay confronts the rural lawyer shortage on South Dakota’s reservations by documenting the lawyers practicing on South Dakota’s reservations. In addition, this essay addresses the access to justice crisis amplified on South Dakota’s reservations by this lawyer shortage. The essay provides some insight into the difficulties of placing more lawyers onto the reservations, while also offering potential pathways to remedy this crisis.

Conceptualising Rural Access To Justice As Supply Chains Primed For Transformation, Hannah Haksgaard, Amanda Kool

Faculty Publications

This chapter is shared with express permission of Bloomsbury Academic. The full book is available at: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/access-to-justice-in-rural-communities-9781509951642/ The justice gap persists in many rural parts of the world due to a confluence of economic, cultural, and professional factors at play throughout the justice system and society at large. This justice gap means that people in rural areas experience institutions of justice – including access to lawyers and other legal advice – differently than people in urban areas. Travel, distance, the rural lawyer shortage, and other factors create this difference. No single factor or institution can be blamed for the rural …

Get Out: Structural Racism And Academic Terror, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

Released in 2017, Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed film Get Out explores the horrors of racism. The film’s plot involves the murder and appropriation of Black bodies for the benefit of wealthy, white people. After luring Black people to their country home, a white family uses hypnosis to paralyze victims and send them to the Sunken Place where screams go unheard. Black bodies are auctioned off to the highest bidder; the winner’s brain is transplanted into the prized Black body. Black victims are rendered passengers in their own bodies so that white inhabitants can obtain physical advantages and immortality.

Like Get …

The Merits Of Merit: Book Review, Neil Fulton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Stress Reduction: Mindfulness As A Skill For Developing Authentic Professional Identity, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

Mindfulness is often touted in the legal field for its capacity to help reduce stress and improve focus through the management of distractions. However, the potential contributions of mindfulness practice for the legal profession extend beyond stress reduction' and include great promise for helping lawyers understand who they are as members of the legal profession - that is, their professional identity. This knowledge is empowering because it allows lawyers facing ethical quandaries to make choices that better align their professional values with their personal values, rather than aligning their personal values with professional values and societal expectations of success. In …

A Place Of One's Own: How Law Libraries Support Democracy By Protecting Citizens' Right To Read, Amy A. Emerson

Faculty Publications

By offering places for private reading and contemplation, law libraries foster wellinformed citizens capable of independent thought. This process, in turn, provides a foundation for understanding the law, questioning the law, and ultimately challenging the legal status quo, all necessary elements of a well-functioning democracy.

From Academic Freedom To Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women In The Legal Academy, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

In 1988, Black women law professors formed the Northeast Corridor Collective of Black Women Law Professors, a network of Black women in the legal academy. They supported one another’s scholarship, shared personal experiences of systemic gendered racism, and helped one another navigate the law school white space. A few years later, their stories were transformed into articles that appeared in a symposium edition of the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal. Since then, Black women and women of color have published articles and books about their experiences with presumed incompetence, outsider status, and silence. The story of Black women in the legal …

Our Collective Work, Our Collective Strength, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

This essay considers the collective strength of women of color in two contexts: when we are well represented on law school faculties and when we contribute to accomplishing stated institutional diversity goals. Critical mass is broadly defined as a sufficient number of people of color. Though the concept has been socially appropriated, its origins are scientific. While much of the academic literature encourages diversity initiatives designed to reach a critical mass, social change is not a science. Diversity in numbers may positively benefit individual experiences for women of color, however, diversity alone will not change social norms at the root …

Court-Appointment Compensation And Rural Access To Justice, Hannah Haksgaard

Faculty Publications

Hourly rates paid to court-appointed lawyers impact access to justice. Court appointed lawyers provide necessary counsel in civil and criminal cases, yet hourly rates in many jurisdictions are so low that many lawyers cannot afford to take court-appointed cases. This article argues that low hourly rates cause problems: namely, appointed lawyers will be insufficient in number, inaccessible to their clients, and sometimes even ineffective. These problems are heightened in rural America where they are compounded by geographical distance and the rural lawyer shortage. This article concludes by suggesting a number of policy solutions.

The Life And Legal Legacy Of Justice Steven L. Zinter, Neil Fulton

Faculty Publications

Justice Steven L. Zinter was a vital part of South Dakota's legal landscape for decades. As a private practitioner, circuit court judge, supreme court justice, and in other official capacities, he forged a powerful legacy in South Dakota. Over the course of his time he worked on cases large and small in many areas of law. He was recognized as a brilliant legal mind, precise writer, and careful thinker. It is a challenge to capture the breadth and depth of such a career. This article takes a look at his personal formation, his legal work in several settings, and how …

Twenty-Five Propositions For The Practice Of Law, Jonathan Van Patten

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Conflicts Of Interest And Law-Firm Structure, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

Business and law are increasingly practiced on a transnational scale, and law firms are adopting new business structures in order to compete on this global playing field. Over the last decade, global law firms have merged into so-called “mega-brands” or “mega-firms”—that is, associations of national or regional law firms that join together under a single brand worldwide. For law firms, the most common mega-firm structure has been the Swiss verein, though the English “Company Limited by Guarantee” structure is growing in popularity as well, as is the similar “European Economic Interest Grouping.” All of these structures allow related entities to …

Technology In Legal Practice: Keeping Ethical Obligations In Mind, Teresa J. Verges, Christine Lazaro

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The use of technology in the legal profession is ubiquitous, expanding, and ever changing. Lawyers connect with their clients, co-workers, and others through email. Cloud computing has allowed lawyers to create virtual and mobile workspaces, providing them with accessibility to client files and resources anywhere in the world. Social media allows lawyers to showcase their expertise and build their practice. Technology has undoubtedly impacted how lawyers provide legal services to their clients. However, as lawyers, we remain subject to long-standing professional and ethical obligations that govern our practice. This article explores how commonly used technology in legal practice implicates …

Legal Deserts: A Multi-State Perspective On Rural Access To Justice (Forthcoming), Danielle M. Conway

Faculty Publications

Rural America faces an increasingly dire access to justice crisis, which serves to exacerbate the already disproportionate share of social problems afflicting rural areas. One critical aspect of that crisis is the dearth of information and research regarding the extent of the problem and its impacts. This article begins to address that gap by providing surveys of rural access to justice in six geographically, demographically, and economically varied states: California, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In addition to providing insights about the distinct rural challenges confronting each of these states, the legal resources available, and existing policy responses, …

Neuroscience Changes More Than You Can Think, Paul S. Davies, Peter A. Alces

Faculty Publications

In this Essay, we consider the contribution of a startling new book, Law & Neuroscience (L&N), by Owen Jones, Jeffrey Schall, and Francis Shen. It is a law school course book (a genre not often the focus of a scholarly review essay) that supports fundamental inquiry into the relationship between emerging neuroscientific insights and doctrinal conceptions in the law. We believe that the book shifts the paradigm and so may profoundly affect the course of normative evaluation of law. In this Essay, we trace and evaluate the “argument” of the book and suggest ways in which its contribution to the …

Technically Bankrupt, Brook E. Gotberg

Faculty Publications

What is the difference between a robot and a lawyer? The answer is not a joke, and may soon be a matter of great urgency for attorneys, as the legal field attempts to adjust to disruptive technologies that are likely to permanently alter the way that law is practiced throughout the United States. The consequences for failing to adjust to technological disruption for any industry, as demonstrated in recent years by big-name, bankrupt companies, can be disastrous. Legal tools found in chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code are largely intended to assist debtors in reorganizing their business affairs, preserving value …

The Apps For Justice Project: Employing Design Thinking To Narrow The Access To Justice Gap, Lois R. Lupica

Faculty Publications

The lack of available resources to make civil justice available to all, coupled with the fact that existing strategies fail to account for the research on cognitive capacity and other deployment challenges faced by the poor, explain in large part why a high percentage of low-income individuals facing legal problems fail to take action to respond to their legal problems. Such a failure to respond in a timely fashion to a nascent legal problem can lead to an escalation of the initial problem and the emergence of new ones.

The access-to-justice community has begun to respond to this intensifying crisis …

An All-Volunteer Force: Law Students And Pro Bono Lawyers Helping Veterans, Patricia E. Roberts

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Last Lecture: Tips For Lawyers Who Want To Get Good Results For Clients And Make Money, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

Lawyers often assume that they know what their clients want-to get as much money or pay as little money as possible. While clients usually are very concerned about their bottom line, they often have additional interests. In virtually any kind of case, parties may have an interest in being treated respectfully and fairly, minimizing the cost and length of the process, freeing time to focus on matters other than the dispute, reducing the emotional wear and tear caused by continued disputing, and protecting privacy and reputations. Plaintiffs may have interests such as obtaining favorable tax consequences, getting nonmonetary opportunities, and …

Yellow Flag Fever: Describing Negative Legal Precedent In Citators, Aaron S. Kirschenfeld

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Keeping Up With New Legal Titles; Introduction To Law Firm Practice By Michael Downey, Christine Iaconeta Dulac

Faculty Publications

The inner workings of a law firm is unknown territory for new lawyers. In fact, it is only recently that law schools have begun to teach classes that discuss law firm management, running a solo practice, or technology used by practicing attorneys. Michael Downey's Introduction to Law Firm Practice provides an in-depth examination of the structure and management of today's law firms, as well as many other aspects of law firm practice, including business development strategies, risk management, and professional responsibility, to name a few. ¶59 Before delving into the text, it is important to note the