Legal Profession Commons^™

Ordered Liberty And The Homeland Security Mission, James E. Baker

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper will start with a brief discussion of the terrorism threat because the threat remains predicate for any serious discussion of where we draw our legal lines. I will then suggest a legal model for looking at questions of homeland security called ordered liberty. The model is simple. First, given the nature of the threat, the executive must have broad and flexible authority to detect and respond to terrorism-–to provide for our physical security. Second, the sine qua non for such authority is meaningful oversight. Oversight means the considered application of constitutional structure, executive process, legal substance, and relevant …

Feminist Legal Writing, Kathryn M. Stanchi

San Diego Law Review

Because feminist legal advocates must use legal writing to persuade

their audience and push for change in the law, they must confront the dilemma of whether to follow legal writing conventions and risk altering or losing their feminist message or whether to break from convention and risk losing the legal audience. Feminist legal scholarship, in many different ways, has made great progress in dealing with this dilemma. The focus of this Article, however, is on several pieces of feminist legal scholarship that have confronted the dilemma by pushing the bounds of conventional legal language and legal writing. These pieces, by …

The Irony Of Lawyers' Justice In America, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Our pastor recently finished a pretty good sermon, on the Parable of the Good Samaritan, with a story of his own about a dangerous curve on the highway into town.

The Parable of the Dangerous Curve brought to my mind Deborah Rhode's thorough, thoughtful assessment of American lawyers in the twenty-first century, and Dean Kronman's eulogy for the lost lawyer. The good Samaritans who sought to straighten the dangerous road spoke of roadwork as Deborah Rhode speaks of what legislatures, judges, and bar associations should do about lawyers. Maybe they thought modern speed and paving had made it dangerous—yearning, as …

The Mdp Challenge In The Context Of Globalization, Carole Silver, Bryant G. Garth

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Case Of The Foreign Lawyer: Internationalizing The U.S. Legal Profession, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article contributes a new perspective to existing scholarship on internationalization of the legal profession by focusing on the increasing presence of foreign lawyers in U.S. law schools and law firms. It analyzes the interaction between foreign-educated lawyers and the legal profession in the U.S. based upon two sources of information: first, a series of interviews with foreign-educated lawyers and U.S. law firm hiring partners regarding experiences in law school and in firms, and second, a database comprised of biographical information for more than 300 foreign-educated lawyers who were working in New York during 1999 and 2000.

The various roles …

"We're All Consultants Now": How Change In Client Organizational Strategies Influences Change In The Organization Of Corporate Legal Services, Robert Eli Rosen

Articles

No abstract provided.

Lawyers, Non-Lawyers And Mediation: Rethinking The Professional Monopoly From A Problem-Solving Perspective , Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

Mediation is a big business today that is practiced by lawyers and non-lawyers, and is closely related to the business of law. Lawyers have a long-standing monopoly on the law business and do not look favorably on sharing their power with nonlawyers. This phenomenon is odd because it occurs at the same time that the legal profession is beginning to embrace a new ethic of problem-solving that honors the values of collaboration and power-sharing among professionals in multiple disciplines. Lawyers protect their professional monopoly through the unauthorized practice of law ("UPL") doctrine that limits the practice of law to licensed …

Faith In Legal Professionalism: Believers And Heretics, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

The prevailing trend within the legal community has been to associate the recent decline of professionalism in the practice of law with the emergence of increasing commercialism, indicating that law has become more a business than a profession. Despite the evidence apparently supporting the position that law has evolved into a business, some scholars have responded by reaffirming the professionalism model, arguing that legal practice remains true to its professional ideals. These scholars admit that the professional paradigm is not without its flaws, but argue that it is more likely to lead to a better practice of law than the …

When Lawyers Advise Presidents In Wartime: Kosovo And The Law Of Armed Conflict, James E. Baker

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The events of September 11 changed how we perceive national security as a society, a government, and as individuals. This is as true of national security specialists, who have been aware that America has been at war with terrorism sine at least the 1990s, as it is for those whose sense of geographic security was shattered in New York and Washington. There is talk of “new war” and “new rules,” and concern that we not apply twentieth-century lessons to a twenty-first-century war.

Over time, September 11 and its aftermath will test our interpretation and application of domestic law. It may …

What's Special About Meditation? Contemplative Practice For American Lawyers, William S. Blatt

Articles

No abstract provided.

Professional Discipline For Law Firms? A Response To Professor Schneyer’S Proposal, Julie R. O'Sullivan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Model Rule of Professional Conduct 5.1(a) requires individual partners to make "reasonable efforts" to ensure that their firm has measures in effect that give "reasonable assurance" that all lawyers in the firm conform to ethical rules. Similarly, Model Rule 5.3(a) imposes upon individual partners the obligation of making "reasonable efforts" to ensure that the firm has measures in place giving "reasonable assurance" that the conduct of non-lawyers affiliated with the firm is compatible with the partner's professional obligations. These rules were adopted to encourage firms to create firm cultures and institute prophylactic policies and procedures--an "ethical infrastructure"--that would prevent misconduct …

Who Cares? Why Bother?: What Jeff Powell And Mark Tushnet Have To Say To Each Other (A Review Of Christian Perspectives On Legal Thought, Edited By Michael W. Mcconnell, Robert F. Cochran, Jr., And Angela Carmella, William Brewmaker

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Hidden Costs Of Lawyer Mobility: Of Law Firms, Law Schools, And The Education Of Lawyers, Robert W. Hillman

Kentucky Law Journal

Randall Park Lecture delivered at the University of Kentucky College of Law, May 7, 2002.

Negotiations Goes To War, Charles J. Dunlap Jr., Paula B. Mccarron

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legal Ethics Must Be The Heart Of The Law School Curriculum Symposium: Recommitting To Teaching Legal Ethics- Shaping Our Teaching In A Changing World, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

Despite what seems to be far greater attention paid to the teaching of legal ethics than to any other law school subject, legal ethics remains no better than a second class subject in the eyes of students and faculty. This essay suggests that all efforts at innovation in legal ethics teaching are doomed to a marginal impact at best. Only recognition that legal ethics is the most important subject in the law school curriculum will lead to real and significant changes in the teaching of legal ethics. If the commitment of the legal profession and of legal academia to producing …

Maccrate's Missed Opportunity: The Maccrate Report's Failure To Advance Professional Values Symposium, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

The 1992 Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap (the "Task Force"), Legal Education Professional Development - An Educational Continuum, popularly known as the MacCrate Report (the "Report"), was the most ambitious effort to reform legal education in the past generation. Some commentators have described the Report as "the greatest proposed paradigm shift in legal education since Langdell envisioned legal education as the pursuit of legal science through the case method in the late 19th century.” Although the Report sought to promote education in both lawyering skills and values, its major influence has …

Justice For Interests Of The Poor: The Problem Of Navigating The System Without Counsel, Deborah J. Cantrell

Publications

No abstract provided.

Can Saints Negotiate? A Brief Introduction To The Problems Of Perfect Ethics In Bargaining, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Interpretation, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

"When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes": Myth And Reality About The Synthesis Of Private Counsel And Public Client, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

A recurring fallacy in any debate over legal ethics or public policy is to assume that the particular problem under examination is unique and unprecedented. Expand one's field of vision, and precedents and analogs quickly turn up. This rule applies with special force to the debate over retention by state attorneys general of private counsel to represent them on a contingent fee basis in the recent litigation against the tobacco industry. Because this litigation produced a highly successful outcome, while most private litigation against the tobacco industry has not, some are led to the conclusion that this combination of private …

An Empirical Study Of Associate Satisfaction, Law Firm Culture, And The Effects Of Billable Hour Requirements - Part Two, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers billing practices, the effects of hourly billing pressure, and firm culture as reflected in a survey of associates in Texas law firms. Part I of this article reports the empirical information from the survey. This information includes insight into the toll an increase in billable hour requirements has taken on legal practitioners and the consequent affect on the legal field. Part II discusses what the data means and how it might be used to improve the outlook for attracting and retaining good associates.

The Professional Responsibilities Of The Public Official's Lawyer: A Case Study From The Clinton Era, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

No one has sought more persistently to focus our attention on the relation of professional duty and personal integrity than Thomas Shaffer. Shaffer's work is the most powerful defense of integrity in the legal ethics literature, and it offers the most useful set of strategies for vindicating integrity in law practice. This Essay was conceived in the spirit of Shaffer's distinctive preoccupations and commitments, and it is a pleasure to present it in an issue dedicated to him.

Professor Frank R. Kennedy, Jack F. Williams

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Is There An Implicit Theology In The Practice Of Ordinary Law?, Joseph Vining

Articles

We should have a text to help us-lawyers and theologians almost always do. Consider this from Wordsworth, and ask whether it goes too far if Wordsworth were thought to be speaking to the practicing lawyer: Here you stand, Adore, and worship, when you know it not; Pious beyond the intention of your thought; Devout above the meaning of your will. -Yes, you have felt, and may not cease to feel. The estate of Man would be indeed forlorn If false conclusions of the reasoning Power Made the Eye blind, and closed the passages Through which the Ear converses with the …

How Theology Might Learn From Law (Symposium: The Theology Of The Practice Of Law), James Boyd White

Articles

I want to start today with an account of the way lawyers think and speak, and then ask whether it might be useful for the theologically minded to take these practices and procedures seriously as a ground of comparison from which to look at their own. In doing this I shall look at the practice of law with an emphasis not on its social effects or ethical difficulties but on the nature of the activity itself, viewed from the inside, asking in particular what kind of knowledge it requires and creates in its practitioner. What does the lawyer learn from …

Legal Knowledge, James Boyd White

Articles

What do we know when we know the law? I asked a rabbi I know how he would answer that question with respect to Jewish law. Does someone know the law when he can repeat the rules that tell him what to do? Or when he can engage in the activity of reading them, sepa­rately or in conjunction with each other, and applying them sensibly to new circumstances? Is even that enough? My friend said it was not: he must know who he is in relation to the law, both as an individual and as a member of a people; …

Cognitive Legal Studies: Categorization And Imagination In The Mind Of Law--Introduction, Lawrence M. Solan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.