Legal Profession Commons^™

Lawyers As Gatekeepers, Fred C. Zacharias

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

Three recent legislative and regulatory initiatives -- the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the 2003 amendments to Model Rules 1.6 and 1.13, and the Gatekeeper Initiative – all seek to enlist the assistance of lawyers in thwarting crime. Outraged opponents have relied on flamboyant rhetoric. They challenge the notion that lawyers should act as gatekeepers – which some of the opponents deem equivalent to operating like the “secret police in Eastern European countries.” This article makes a simple, and ultimately uncontroversial, point. Lawyers are gatekeepers, and always have been. Whatever one’s position on the merits of the specific reforms currently being proposed, it …

Understanding Recent Trends In Federal Regulation Of Lawyers, Fred C. Zacharias

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

Federal lawmakers increasingly have taken actions that contradict, interfere with, or preempt state regulation of lawyers. Most of the commentary regarding the recent federal actions has focused on whether individual regulations are substantively justified. It is, however, worth considering more broadly whether and how the phenomenon of increasing federal regulation is symptomatic of changing views of appropriate professional regulation. This article considers a series of theoretical analyses of the increasing federal regulation -- themes and trends that the increasing regulation might represent or epitomize. Whenever the bar or other commentators criticize developments in professional regulation, it is important to place …

Strategic Judicial Lawmaking: An Empirical Investigation Of Ideology And Publication On The U.S. Court Of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit, David S. Law

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

Previous studies have demonstrated that, in a number of contexts, federal appeals court judges divide along ideological lines when deciding cases upon the merits. To date, however, researchers have failed to find evidence that circuit judges take advantage of selective publication rules to further their ideological preferences - for example, by voting more ideologically in published cases that have precedential effect than in unpublished cases that lack binding effect upon future panels. This article evaluates the possibility that judges engage in strategic judicial lawmaking by voting more ideologically in published cases than in unpublished cases. To test this hypothesis, all …

Appointing Federal Judges: The President, The Senate, And The Prisoner's Dilemma, David S. Law

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

This paper argues that the expansion of the White House's role in judicial appointments since the late 1970s, at the expense of the Senate, has contributed to heightened levels of ideological conflict and gridlock over the appointment of federal appeals court judges, by making a cooperative equilibrium difficult to sustain. Presidents have greater electoral incentive to behave ideologically, and less incentive to cooperate with other players in the appointments process, than do senators, who are disciplined to a greater extent in their dealings with each other by the prospect of retaliation over repeat play. The possibility of divided government exacerbates …

Prosecutorial Neutrality, Fred C. Zacharias, Bruce A. Green

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

This Article examines the ideal of prosecutorial neutrality in an effort to determine its value as a measure of prosecutorial conduct. Commentators often have assumed that prosecutors should be “neutral” in making discretionary decisions or have criticized prosecutors for decisions that purportedly demonstrate a lack of neutrality. The notion of prosecutorial neutrality recalls the traditional conception of prosecutors as “quasi-judicial” officers and emphasizes the distinction between prosecutors and lawyers for private parties. But the specific meaning attributed to prosecutorial neutrality has varied depending on the context. The term refers to diverse, and potentially inconsistent, views of appropriate prosecutorial conduct. The …

A Response To The Society Of American Law Teachers Statement On The Bar Exam, Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Rational Standard Setting In Lawyer Qualification: A Critical Look At The Proposal Of The New York Board Of Law Examiners To Increase The Passing Score On The Bar Examination, Frederick Link

Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Riner V. Newbraugh: The Role Of Mediator Testimony In The Enforcement Of Mediated Agreements, Joshua S. Rogers

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Model Definition Of The Practice Of Law: If Not Now, When? An Alternative Approach To Defining The Practice Of Law, Soha F. Turfler

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Will The Ninth Circuit Be Reversed In Banaitis V. Commissioner?, Richard Mason

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

'You'd Better Be Good': Congressional Threats Of Removal Against Federal Judges, Marc O. Degirolami

ExpressO

In the attached article, I argue that congressional threats of removal against federal judges are increasing in prevalence and forcefulness and that as a result the strained relationship between the judiciary and Congress – a topic of recent attention and debate – will continue to deteriorate in the coming years. I examine two bills, the Feeney Amendment to the PROTECT Act and House of Representatives Resolution 568 (in which Congress would disavow citation in judicial decisions to foreign law), to demonstrate this thesis.

I next ask what explains the phenomenon of congressional threats of removal, deploying first Thomas Hobbes’ state-of-nature …

Quid Pro Whoa!: An Exponential Fee Structure For Patent Applications, Peter L. Giunta

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Assessment Of Clinical Skills In Medicine And Law, Jayne W. Barnard

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Reading/Teaching Lawyer Films, James R. Elkins

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Implicit Racial Attitudes Of Death Penalty Lawyers, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Defense attorneys commonly suspect that the defendant's race plays a role in prosecutors' decisions to seek the death penalty, especially when the victim of the crime was white. When the defendant is convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, it is equally common for such attorneys to question the racial attitudes of the jury. These suspicions are not merely partisan conjectures; ample historical, statistical, and anecdotal evidence supports the inference that race matters in capital cases. Even the General Accounting Office of the United States concludes as much. Despite McCleskey v. Kemp, in which the United States Supreme Court …

Making Lawyers Compete, Lester Brickman

Articles

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.

Vol. 2, No. 07/08 (June/July 2004)

Indiana Law Update

No abstract provided.

Vol. 2, No. 06 (May 2004)

Indiana Law Update

No abstract provided.

The Higher Calling: Regulation Of Lawyers Post-Enron, Keith R. Fisher

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article discusses some of the inadequacies in the current ethical regulation of the legal system and proposes a new approach to crafting and contextualizing rules of legal ethics. The proliferation of specialties and subspecialties in law practice, together with the inadequacies of prevailing ethics regulation and the vagaries of ethics rules formulations from state to state have not served either the public or the legal profession well. Manipulation, motivated by politics and self-interest, of the ideology of the organized bar to adhere to ethical rules predicated on an antiquated and unrealistic model of a unified legal profession has likewise …

Can Law Firms Spam?, Kevin Michael

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 presents a compliance problem for law firms that issue periodic newsletters to clients or prospective clients. While the Act does not expressly include such newsletters, nor define commercial advertisement in a manner that suggests newsletters will be included, the advisory opinions from state ethics boards suggest that newsletters are advertisements. Arguments can be made that newsletters to current clients are not advertisements. However, given the low cost of compliance with the Act, firms should treat these newsletters as commercial advertisements and adhere to the provisions of the Act.

Clark Memorandum: Spring 2004, J. Reuben Clark Law Society, J. Reuben Clark Law School

The Clark Memorandum

• Unto This Very Purpose (Elder Neal A. Maxwell)
• Safe Passage (Scott W. Cameron)
• And With All Thy Mind (John W. Welch)
• The Men Who Created the Market (Jane Wise)

Volume 28, Issue 1 (Spring 2004)

Transcript

No abstract provided.

Lawyers, Gats, And The Wto Accountancy Disciplines: The History Of The Wto's Consultation, The Iba Gats Forum And The September 2003 Iba Resolutions, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

The article addresses issues related to legal services and the General Agreement on Trade in Services or GATS. The article begins by focusing on "Track #2" of the GATS and the obligation under GATS Article VI:4 to develop "any necessary disciplines." In 1998, WTO Members implemented GATS Article VI:4 by adopting "Disciplines" that apply to the accoutnancy sector. WTO Members currently are in the process of deciding whether to extend the WTO Accountancy Disciplines, S/L/64, to other service sectors, including legal services. In December 2002, the WTO sent the International Bar Association (IBA) and other non-governmental organizations a "consultation letter" …

Actions Founded On Statutory Liability: Adopting A Limitations Period For Attorneys' Fees Actions Brought Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Darren A. Craig

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Culture Of Quiescence, Carl Bogus

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Client Counseling, Mediation, And Alternative Narratives Of Dispute Resolution, Robert Rubinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article examines how litigation and mediation have distinct narrative structures and what these narratives say about counseling clients about mediation. In the narrative of litigation, parties struggle against one another in order to convince a decision maker of the truth of "what happened." This struggle is about more than designating liability; it is about enabling the decision-maker to restore social order and vindicate morality. In contrast, the narrative of mediation does not call upon the mediator to designate "truth" or "right" and "wrong." Rather, the mediator acts to enable parties to overcome and transform conflict through collaboration. In the …

Legal Malpractice Insurance: Surviving The Perfect Storm, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

This article serves as a practical guide to legal malpractice insurance. Part I introduces the topic of legal malpractice insurance with a brief overview of the changes that occurred in market conditions in 2000 and the subsequent effect on insurance premiums and coverage. Part II outlines the different types of insurance coverage that are available to legal professionals by describing common policy terms, exclusions, and conditions that affect coverage. Part III describes changes in law firms that may affect coverage. Part IV provides legal professionals with useful advice to consider when choosing an insurance policy. Part V reveals important factors …

Gentleman's Agreement: The Antisemitic Origins Of Restrictions On Stockholder Litigation, Lawrence E. Mitchell

ExpressO

A deeply ingrained, seemingly ineradicable, hostility to plaintiffs’ lawyers and especially to plaintiffs’ lawyers in stockholder suits seems to have existed for most of the past century. This hostility is manifest not only in the tone of judicial opinions but in law review articles, the popular press, and, often, in legislation. This article analyzes the circumstances under which the first security-for-expense statute was adopted in New York in 1944, including the contemporaneous justification for the statute, focusing on the demographics of the New York bar at the time and the ethnic sociology of New York. In so doing, it concludes …

Courts As Forums For Protest, Jules Lobel

ExpressO

For almost half a century, scholars, judges and politicians have debated two competing models of the judiciary’s role in a democratic society. The mainstream model views courts as arbiters of disputes between private individuals asserting particular rights. The public law or structural reform litigation emphasized the judiciary’s role in implementing social change and not simply ordering private relationships.

The ongoing debate between these two views of the judicial role has obscured a third model of the role of courts in a democratic society; a model that has been ignored by legal scholars and viewed as illegitimate by some courts. That …

Are You Experienced?: Examining The Need For Specialized Ethics Rules In Patent Litigation, Benjamin J. Sodey

ExpressO

Any attorney licensed to practice before a federal district court, regardless or his or her area of specialization, may file a patent infringement suit on behalf of a client in that court. The possibility exists, therefore, for an attorney having little or no intellectual property experience to represent clients in complex patent litigation matters. Due to this, infringement defendants and their counsel may find themselves on the receiving end of a dubious patent claim brought by attorneys lacking patent law experience. This article discusses whether the existing rules governing attorney conduct, such as professional responsibility, procedural, or statutory rules, are …