Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Civility And Collegiality—Unreasonable Judicial Expectations For Lawyers As Officers Of The Court?, Lonnie T. Brown

Scholarly Works

It is a well-settled and often-recited fact that lawyers are “officers of the court.” That title, however, is notoriously hortatory and devoid of meaning. Nevertheless, the Eleventh Circuit recently took the somewhat unprecedented step of utilizing the officer-of-the-court label to, in effect, sanction an attorney for the purportedly uncivil act of failing to provide defendant attorneys with pre-suit notice. While the author applauds the court’s desire to place greater emphasis on lawyer-to-lawyer collegiality as a component of officer-of-the-court status, the uncertainty the decision creates in terms of a lawyer’s role will potentially force litigators to compromise important client-centered duties. This …

Procedure In Eclipse: Group-Based Adjudication In A Post-Conception Era, Myriam E. Gilles

Articles

No abstract provided.

Message From The Chair, Margaret Butler

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Fiduciary Duties And Exculpatory Clauses: Clash Of The Titans Or Cozy Bedfellows, Louise Lark Hill

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Centuries ago, when land represented the majority of wealth, the trust was used primarily for holding and transferring real property. As the dominant form of wealth moved away from family land, the trust evolved into a device for managing financial assets. With this transformation came the use of exculpatory clauses by both amateur and professional trustees, providing an avenue for these fiduciaries to escape liability for designated acts. With the use of exculpatory provisions, discussion abounded about whether fiduciary duties were mandatory or subject to modification. The latter view eventually prevailed, with the majority of jurisdictions viewing fiduciary duties as …

Municipal Liability? Not So Fast: What Connick V. Thompson Means For Future Prosecutorial Misconduct, T. Owen Farist

Mercer Law Review

In Connick v. Thompson, the United States Supreme Court held that, under section 1983 of title 42 of the United States Code, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's actions failed to rise to the level of deliberate indifference required for municipal liability. The Court affirmed the possibility of "single-incident" municipal liability hypothesized in City of Canton v. Harris as an exception to the ordinary requirement of a pattern of similar violations necessary to prove the stringent standard of deliberate indifference to a known or obvious consequence. Despite upholding the validity of the exception, the Court found that Thompson's case did …

Trends And Challenges In Lawyer Regulation: The Impact Of Globalization And Technology, Laurel Terry, Steve Mark, Tahlia Gordon

Faculty Scholarly Works

Globalization and technology have changed the practice of law in dramatic ways. This is true not only in the United States, but around the world. In this article, author Laurel Terry, along with Australian regulators Steve Mark and Tahlia Gordon, documented some of these global trends in lawyer regulation. Their article concluded that regulators face issues in common regarding “who” is regulated, “what” or whom is regulated, “when” regulation occurs, “where” regulation occurs, “how” it occurs, and “why” regulation occurs.

This article uses this who-what-when-where-why-and-how framework to discuss events around the world. These developments include the 2007 UK Legal Services …

Regulating Conflicts Of Interest In Global Law Firms: Peace In Our Time?, Janine Griffiths-Baker, Nancy J. Moore

Faculty Scholarship

The phenomenon of the global law firm has transformed the face of international law practice. The practice of law has itself become global, as lawyers play their part in the growing international market for corporate and commercial services. The global expansion of legal practice has prompted several jurisdictions to consider how their own global legal service markets should be regulated. To date, only limited scholarly consideration has been given to the practicalities of regulating the day-to-day practice of law on an international scale.

This Article attempts to shed light on methods of regulating the conduct of lawyers in the context …

The Literacy Practices Of Law Enforcement, Leslie Eames Seawright

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates police report writing at the Jackson Police Department in Northwest Arkansas. It presents three primary research questions which are addressed through qualitative methods of interview, observation, and discourse analysis.

1) In what ways does police training address report writing?

2) What audience awareness do police officers have when writing reports?

3)How do actual report audience members read and evaluate reports?

The police academy in this study fails to spend the necessary time discussing report writing. This is not rectified by the in-house training program, which pairs officers with Field Training Officers that are often reluctant or unqualified …

“Strong Words, Gentle Deeds”: Evaluating The Effectiveness Of The Maryland Immigration Consultant Act Five Years On, Cori Alonso-Marsden

Legislation and Policy Brief

On February 7, 2005, legislators introduced in the Maryland General Assembly a bill entitled “Consumer Protection – Immigration Consulting Services.” Designated as House Bill 691, the legislation sought to protect Maryland consumers through a series of civil and criminal provisions targeting consultants for unauthorized immigration legal practice. Primarily, House Bill 691 limited the types of services an immigration consultant could offer and the claims she could make regarding those services. In addition, the law required that the consultant provide the client with a posted disclaimer regarding the scope of the service, and a written contract prior to the provision of …

Symposium: Client Counseling And Moral Responsibility, Robert F. Cochran Jr, Deborah L. Rhode, Paul R. Tremblay, Thomas L. Shaffer

Pepperdine Law Review

Cochran served as moderator and presented an introduction to this symposium titled "Client Counseling and Moral Responsibility". It is based on papers and discussion presented at the Professional Responsibility Section panel at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 2003. Members of the panel, Professors Deborah Rhode, Paul Tremblay, and Thomas Shaffer presented three different approaches to moral issues that arise in the client counseling relationship: the directive approach, client-centered counseling and the collaborative model. Under the directive model, a lawyer asserts control of moral issues that arise during legal representation. …

Merging Roles: Mass Tort Lawyers As Agents And Trustees, Charles Silver

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lawyer Ethics On The Lunar Landscape Of Asbestos Litigation, Roger C. Cramton

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cosmetic Neurology: Enhancement Of The Mind And Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Medication Abuse Among College Students, Mary M. Huff

Senior Honors Theses

Cosmetic neurology is becoming increasingly popular, and it is not just sleep deprived, over worked college students who are interested. People are beginning to seek off-label prescriptions for medications that are typically used to treat disorders such as attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) or narcolepsy, while researchers are trying to create drugs used solely for mind enhancement purposes. Along with these drugs come many legal and ethical quandaries relating to the regulation of current use as well as the what ifs of future possibilities. A survey was conducted among college students regarding the diagnosis of ADHD, the abuse of ADHD …

Friending And Following: Applying The Rules Of Professional Conduct To Social Media, Andy Taylor

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Despite the strong tradition in the law of not advertising for legal services, the Model Rules of Professional Conduct as well as the Arkansas Rules of Professional Conduct recognize that the interest in expanding public information about legal services trump that tradition. However, that is not the case in many states where, in some cases, lawyers have been advised to avoid certain types of interactive websites or risk what has been dubbed a "one-click ethics violation."

This article seeks to explain how attorneys can use social networking sites without violating any rules of professional conduct. Additionally, the article proposes a …

Panel On Prosecutorial Immunity: Deconstructing Connick V. Thompson, Dane Ciolino, Gary Clements, Bennett L. Gershman, Adam M. Gershowitz, Kathleen Ridolfi, Samuel R. Wiseman, Stephen Singer

Faculty Publications

In November 2011, the Journal hosted a symposium on prosecutorial immunity at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. The symposium included an in-depth analysis of Connick v. Thompson. As part of the symposium, the Journal organized a Panel, the transcript of which follows. This transcript consists of the speakers' remarks along with audience participation and questions. The Journal has attempted to preserve the character and substance of the discussion. While this is not a traditional article, the Journal felt that it would be fitting to include it in its spring volume.

Reform That Understands Our Seniors: How Interdisciplinary Services Can Help Solve The Capacity Riddle In Elder Law, Thomas Richard Stasi

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note suggests an interdisciplinary approach to assist in determinations of legal capacity. It also urges an amendment to the Model Rules and current law firm business models, so attorneys can better approach capacity challenges. While this Note does not presume to resolve the problems faced by capacity determinations, the purpose is to offer functional alternatives to the current working models. Part I reviews the Model Rules' treatment of capacity issues, detailing attorneys' conflicting ethical duties and the ambiguous methodology for capacity evaluations. Part II examines the customary processes that attorneys presently follow for seeking diagnostic evaluations and highlights their …

The Role Of Ethics In Athletic Participation, Ryan Matthews

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine what role ethics plays in athletic participation and what intrinsic and/or extrinsic factors may influence the decision making process of athletes. Once identified, the information found in this paper can be used to help athletes understand their own thought processes concerning rules adherence and to assist them in making a conscious decision to follow the rules to achieve their goals.

Statement of Problem: The exploration of the literature will reveal the many factors and conditions that an athlete faces that will influence their decision to participate within the confines of the …

Lawyer As Peacemaker: A Christian Response To Rambo Litigation, L. Timothy Perrin

Pepperdine Law Review

This article examines and critiques Rambo lawyering. The practice of law has evolved so that the cornerstone principle of client loyalty, together with the economic incentives inherent in law practice, not only create strong motivations for lawyers to pursue their clients' causes vigorously, but also allow lawyers to easily absolve themselves of any moral obligation for their activities as their clients' representatives. Vigorous advocacy is an indispensible part of the modern judicial system, and it is generally believed that truth and justice will be served as long as there are vigorous advocates on both sides and the profession's code of …

The Lawyer As Truth-Teller: Lessons From Enron, Thomas G. Bost

Pepperdine Law Review

The teaching and practice of law assume and are shaped by the standard vision of lawyer conduct and ethical responsibility. Under the standard vision, which is reflected in the various codes of professional responsibility governing lawyers, the lawyer is a "neutral partisan" for his or her client: "neutral" in that he does not let his moral values affect his actions on behalf of his client; "partisan" in that she does whatever she can within the limits of the law to advance her client's stated interests. Because the standard vision is readily understood by most lawyers as imposing a code of …

The Lawyer's Humble Walk, Mark Osler

Pepperdine Law Review

A growing body of literature addresses the role faith plays in the work of many lawyers. This article argues that humility is the defining characteristic of the lawyer of faith.