Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

The Accidental Lawyer: A Law And Economics Perspective Of Inadvertent Waiver., Ido Baum

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The inadvertent waiver doctrine is part of the attorney-client privilege but its application lacks uniformity and thus is a major cause for distress for lawyers and clients. The concerns about an inadvertent waiver of the privilege intensify as technology changes the way attorneys and clients interact. Accordingly, seeking legal advice has become a dangerous activity. This Article first demonstrates that courts treat inadvertent waiver as a type of accident without duly attending to the implications of the concept. Drawing on economic analysis of tort law, this Article identifies how the liability regimes and unique harm rules applied by courts to …

Legal Ethics In A Time Of Change: An Assessment Of The American Bar Association's Ethics 20/20 Commission, Donald E. Campbell

Journal Articles

Bob Dylan sang "Times They are a-Changin'." A line from that song is "you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone." This could easily be the theme of the 2013 Law Review Symposium. The Symposium was about change. Change that has come, is coming, and will (or should) come to the world of legal ethics and professional responsibility-as well as the consequences of refusing to recognize and adapt to change. The Symposium was prompted by work of the American Bar Association's Ethics 20/ 20 Commission, established in 2009 by then President Carolyn B. Lamm. The Commission was tasked …

Law Firm Malpractice Disclosure: Illustrations And Guidelines, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

No abstract provided.

Law Firm Malpractice Disclosure: Illustrations And Guidelines, Anthony V. Alfieri

Hofstra Law Review

Lawyers err every day, in hard and easy cases, in trials and transactions, and in large and small firms. By turns commonplace and noteworthy, the errors fall in both the private shadow and the public light of for-profit, nonprofit, and government practice. The literature of lawyer and, by extension, law firm error spans common law doctrines, state ethics rules and opinions, federal rules, practitioner treatises, restatements, and academic casebooks and commentaries. Despite the breadth of this literature, the intertwined problems of lawyer or law firm error and client malpractice disclosure remain unresolved and surprisingly underappreciated.

Against the backdrop of widening …

The Relational Infrastructure Of Law Firm Culture And Regulation: The Exaggerated Death Of Big Law, Russell G. Pearce, Eli Wald

Hofstra Law Review

The Article debunks the highly publicized claim, within the academy and the legal profession, that the demise of Big Law is imminent. Critics have argued that large law firms face a near perfect storm that imperils their future. They argue that increasing sophistication and influence of in-house legal departments, and the exponential leap in legal technology, undermine large law firms’ claims to expertise, market power, and profitability. At the same time, they argue, the internal weakness of large firms makes them less likely to perform the very tasks essential to sustaining large law firms' reputational capital because the traditional partnership …

Applying The Revised Aba Model Rules In The Age Of The Internet: The Problem Of Metadata, Ronald D. Rotunda

Hofstra Law Review

When lawyers receive a document — whether hard copy or an electronic document — that they know the adversary sent them inadvertently (for example, a fax or email mistakenly sent to an adversary lawyer instead of to co-counsel), the black letter rule in Rule 4.4 requires the lawyer to notify the other side. However, this Rule does not require the receiving lawyer to return the document unread. Whether the receiving lawyer can use that document depends, in essence, on the law of evidence. If the court decides that the document lost its privileged status (perhaps because the sending lawyer acted …

The Case For Proactive Management-Based Regulation To Improve Professional Self-Regulation For U.S. Lawyers, Ted Schneyer

Hofstra Law Review

The article discusses the American Bar Association's (ABA's) Standing Committee on Professional Discipline and its review of the ABA's Model Rules for Lawyer Disciplinary Enforcement, focusing on proactive management-based regulation as a means of improving professional self-regulation for U.S. lawyers as of 2013. Other topics include attorney misconduct claims by clients, law firm management, and the roles of solicitors in assessing a law firm's ethical infrastructure in New South Wales.

What Do Clients Want From Their Lawyers?, Clark D. Cunningham

Faculty Publications By Year

This working paper assembles empirical data from England, Australia and the United States indicating that individual clients do not evaluate their lawyers - as attorneys frequently assume - primarily in terms of the outcomes achieved. Rather, clients place greater weight on the quality of communication with their lawyers and are often disappointed by failure to listen carefully and explain clearly. The paper concludes with suggestive survey data that organizational clients may have similar views about the large firm lawyers that represent them. The author is the director of the Effective Lawyer-Client Communication Project and the National Institute for Teaching Ethics …

The Canadian Legal System, Steve Coughlan, Dale Darling

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

To really understand the influence of law on any activity, one must first understand the influences on the creation of law. This chapter sets the context for that discussion of law, by explaining the structural aspects of the legal system. Those aspects include the sources of law in Canada, the forms that law can take, and the parties who are primarily responsible for creating and shaping the law. This chapter will be structured around the discussion of four things: constitutional law, non-constitutional law, decision-makers in the legal system and, finally, a case study illustrating those features in action.

Commentator’S Response To J. Goodwin 'Norms Of Advocacy', Camille Cameron

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Professor Goodwin makes a case for the normative complexity of advocacy. She makes this case in the contexts of courtroom advocacy and advocacy in the public relations industry. I am going to examine that conclusion by reference to one of her two chosen case studies – courtroom advocacy. I am also going to agree with her conclusion that courtroom advocacy is normatively complex, although I will part company with her on a few points.

Goodwin has argued that the activity of arguing in court is normatively structured, in the sense that it is more than just persuasion, it is certainly …

Moving Forward With A Clear Conscience: A Model Conscientious Objection Policy For Canadian Colleges Of Physicians And Surgeons, Jocelyn Downie, Jacquelyn Shaw, Carolyn Mcleod

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In 2008, one of us (JD) together with the former Dean of Law at the University of Ottawa (Sanda Rodgers), wrote a guest editorial for the Canadian Medical Association Journal on the topic of access to abortion in Canada. In the editorial, we argued, among other things, that "health care professionals who withhold a diagnosis, fail to provide appropriate referrals, delay access, misdirect women or provide punitive treatment are committing malpractice and risk lawsuits and disciplinary proceedings." In response to a series of letters to the editor written about our editorial, we wrote that, under the CMA Code of Ethics …

Transnational Legal Practice (International) [In 2010-2012], Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This article covers three years of Transnational Legal Practice developments outside of the US. (It is the companion piece to 47 Int'l Law. 499 (2013) which discusses US developments.) This article discusses the approval of an Alternative Business Structure licensing system by the UK Solicitors Regulation Authority and its subsequent issuance of ABS licenses. The second section reviews the emergence of the “Troika” as a new regulatory influence in Europe, citing as an example the joint ABA-CCBE letter to the IMF. (The Troika refers to the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission.) The third section …

Transnational Legal Practice (United States) [In 2010-2012], Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This article covers three years of Transnational Legal Practice developments in the U.S. (It is the companion article to 47 Int’l Lawyer 485 (2013) which discusses transnational legal practice developments outside of the U.S.) This article begins by briefly reviewing the uncertainty about the future of U.S. legal education and legal services. The next section discusses the proposals and changes that emanated from the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20, which was tasked with evaluating what changes were needed in light of globalization and technology developments. The third section of this article discusses the Uniform Bar Exam and its implications for …

Trends In Global And Canadian Lawyer Education, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

Globalization and technology have changed the practice of law in dramatic ways. This is true not only in the U.S. and Canada, but around the world. Global regulatory trends have begun to emerge as lawyer regulators have had to respond to new developments. In 2012, Australian regulators Steve Mark and Tahlia Gordon and the author, who is a U.S. academic, documented some of these global trends in lawyer regulation. See Laurel S. Terry, Steve Mark, & Tahlia Gordon, Trends and Challenges in Lawyer Regulation: The Impact of Globalization and Technology, 80 Fordham L. Rev. 2661 (2012), https://works.bepress.com/laurel_terry/95/. Their article concluded …

Reflections On Us Policies Regarding Effective Regulation And Discipline And Foreign Lawyer Mobility: Has The Time Come To Talk About The Elephant In The Room, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

The ABA has adopted four model policies that address, in one way or another, the issue of foreign lawyer mobility. These policies are the ABA Model Foreign Legal Consultant Rule, which is commonly known as the FLC rule, the ABA Model Rule for Temporary Practice by Foreign Lawyers, which is commonly known as the FIFO rule, ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 5.5, which permits foreign lawyers to serve as in-house counsel, and the ABA Model Rule on Pro Hac Vice Admission. All four of the ABA’s foreign lawyer mobility recommendations include a requirement that the mobile foreign lawyer is …

The Disappearing Fourth Wall: Law, Ethics, And Experiential Theatre, Mary Lafrance

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The cutting edge of experiential theatre blurs the lines between performer and audience. Both the performer and the audience are vulnerable. Audiences may be subject to assaultive or disturbing behavior or images. The performance may take place in an unconventional venue that poses safety hazards. A single audience member may be alone with a performer, who may engage in provocative or shocking behavior, including verbal abuse or touching. The performer may invite similar conduct from the participant. Typically, the participant does not know in advance what will take place and does not sign a waiver. While the performer has a …

The Benefit Corporation: A Questionable Solution To A Non-Existent Problem., Justin Blount, Kwabena Offei-Danso

St. Mary's Law Journal

Throughout American history a continuous call for businesses to wield their power and influence in such a way as to not only create economic value for shareholders, but also to create value in an ethical manner that benefits society as a whole has existed. Currently, many businesses respond to this call by integrating social responsibility into their operations. A recent innovation on this front is the development of the “benefit corporation” by the non-profit organization “B Lab.” The benefit corporation is essentially a hybrid entity. It is designed to have characteristics of both non-profit and for-profit entities. The entity also …

To A Friend: The Honorable Will Garwood., Emilio M. Garza

St. Mary's Law Journal

William Lockhart Garwood died on July 14, 2011. In his thirty years on the court, Will would author numerous notable decisions, but his reputation would be solidified by two extraordinary cases: United States v. Lopez, in which, for the first time in recent judicial history, a court of appeals held that a congressional act was invalid as beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause; and United States v. Emerson, in which, a court of appeals first articulated the Second Amendment protects individual Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. Neither case was without controversy. Not surprisingly, the Supreme …

The Executive Right To Lease Mineral Real Property In Texas Before And After Lesley V. Veterans Land Board., Christopher S. Kulander

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Deceiving Law Students: Employment Statistics And Tort Liability., Angie Roberts-Huckaby

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.