Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Modeling The American Lawyer Ethics System, James E. Moliterno

Scholarly Articles

None available.

New Ways To Teach Drafting And Drafting Ethics, Karen J. Sneddon

Articles

Good morning. My name is Karen Sneddon. Today, Sue Chesler and I are going to showcase a technique to incorporate issues of ethics and professionalism into a drafting course. And that technique is Teaching Drafting Ethics Using Video Vignettes. Of course we know at this point that Carnegie’s Educating Lawyers, CLEA's Best Practices have reinvigorated examination of law school curricula, mostly especially with the inclusion of transactional based skills increasing the awareness of issues involving professionalism and ethics. As those transactional focused courses are being added to the curriculum, professors are striving for a way to infuse those issues of …

Legal Ethics And Non-Practicing Entities: Being On The Receiving End Matters Too, David Hricik

Articles

The symposium invited me to speak on the legal ethical issues that face counsel who represent non-practicing entities ("NPEs") in patent litigation as plaintiff patentees. My first reaction was that, although obviously the same common law, statutes, ethical rules, and procedural rules apply to such counsel as any other, owing to the tremendous costs of patent litigation, that counsel who represented such a "troll" necessarily would have enhanced obligations to court and opposing counsel to ensure that the suit was not brought in bad faith, nor so conducted.

Upon analysis, however, I came to the somewhat counter­intuitive conclusion that, although …

Enlightenment Liberalism, Lawyers, And The Future Of Lawyer-Client Relations, Robert F. Cochran Jr.

Campbell Law Review

I am going to address, from a Christian perspective, liberalism's relationship to the role and responsibility of the lawyer. Whether a United States lawyer could define Enlightenment liberalism or not, it is likely that the role he or she plays as an attorney every day was in large part shaped by liberalism's focus on individual autonomy. At the request of the conference organizers, I am also going to reflect on the future of lawyerclient relations.

Developing A Master Data Sharing Agreement: Seeking Student-Level Evidence To Support A Collaborative Community Effort In Education, Neil E. Carlson, Edwin Hernández, Chaná Edmond-Verley, Gustavo Rotondaro

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

The authors, who represent a family foundation, a college, a university, and a public school system, describe the process of developing an agreement that allows student-level data to be shared for research and evaluation purposes. Keys to reaching the agreement included clear distinctions among roles and access to data, strict adherence to consent and confidentiality agreements, and a shared commitment to using data to improve student outcomes.

Pretrial Procedures For Innocent People: Reforming Brady, Lissa Griffin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this article, the author proposes that the prosecution’s obligation to disclose exculpatory information to the defense be formalized by statute, court rule, or internal protocol in ways that would reflect the current state of our knowledge of and experience with both Brady and wrongful convictions. This would improve on the current ineffective constitutional protection—and any existing statutory or rule-based regimes—in several ways. First, such a formalized regime would require disclosure of all materials that are reasonably helpful to the defense. Second, unlike the constitutional doctrine, which provides no reliable mechanism for monitoring police disclosure to the prosecution, an accompanying …

Brief Of Amica Curiae, Deborah A. Demott In Support Of The Petitioner, Maples V. Thomas, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Guy Lancaster On Genocide: A Normative Account. By Larry May. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2010. 283 Pp., Guy Lancaster

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Genocide: A Normative Account. By Larry May. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2010. 283 pp.

Paul Timmermans On Invisible War: The United States And The Iraq Sanctions. By Joy Gordon. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 2010. 359 Pp., Paul Timmermans

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions. By Joy Gordon. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. 359 pp.

Confidentiality And Claims Of Ineffective Assistance, Peter A. Joy, Kevin C. Mcmunigal

Faculty Publications

This column discusses what a defense lawyer should do when called upon to reveal client information in response to an ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

Investigative Deceit, Kevin C. Mcmunigal

Faculty Publications

Is it ever ethical for a lawyer to ask or assist another person to lie on behalf of a client? Despite ethical rules categorically banning both personal and vicarious deceit, prosecutors routinely supervise police officers and informants who use deceit in investigating drug and sex offenses, organized crime, and terrorism. May defense lawyers make use of investigative deceit in criminal investigations? In this Essay, the Author examines this issue, the ethical rules bearing on it, and the recent trend in a number of jurisdictions allowing the use of investigative deceit by the defense. Drawing on his participation in a series …

The Problems Of Plagiarism As An Ethics Offense, Peter A. Joy, Kevin C. Mcmunigal

Faculty Publications

This column questions the practices of labeling attorney copying, even without acknowledgement, as plagiarism, and treating it as a per se ethics violation. Instead, the column argues that analysis of copying in the litigation context should focus directly on the quality of the filing at issue and the competence and diligence of the lawyer who prepared it.

We Don't Want Dollars, Just Change: Narrative Counter-Terrorism Strategy, An Inclusive Model For Social Healing, And The Truth About Torture Commission, 6 Nw. J. L. & Soc. Pol'y 1 (2011), Kim D. Chanbonpin

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

In 2007, Professor Eric K Yamamoto acknowledged that reparations theory and practice had reached a crossroads and called for a new strategic framework that reparations advocates could utilize in working to achieve redress for social and historical wrongs. This Article attempts to answer Yamamoto's call. In it, I situate my proposal for a truth commission to redress the post-9/11 torture program in a new Inclusive Model for Social Healing. In the past, reparations advocates have relied on litigation-a strategic model that excludes participants other than the named parties-to

obtain redress. By increasing the number of stakeholders in a reparations scheme, …

Judges, Friends, And Facebook: The Ethics Of Prohibition, 24 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 281 (2011), Samuel Vincent Jones

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Contingent Rewards For Prosecutors?, Peter A. Joy, Kevin C. Mcmunigal

Faculty Publications

This column explores whether contingent reward plans for prosecutors are ethical. After weighing arguments in favor and against such plans, the column concludes that rewards for prosecutors contingent on trial convictions are unsound.

Probing The Legitimacy Of Mandatory Mediation: New Roles For Judges, Mediators, And Lawyers., Tracy Walters Mccormack, Susan Schultz, James Mccormack

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

This Article probes the fundamental assumptions behind the use of mandatory or court-ordered mediation. The authors question the predominant use of standing rules or judicial practices referring cases to mediation. These referrals are inconsistent with the traditional roles of judges and courts, exclude the public from the justice system, and allow repeat players to develop a private justice system with little to no oversight. The Article questions why judges allow and encourage mandatory mediation and calls for all participants to take a more active role in the process. Based on surveys of judges, mediators, and lawyers, the Article exposes troublesome …

An Article We Wrote To Ourselves In The Future: Early 21st Century Views On Ethics And The Internet., David Hricik, Prashant Patel, Natasha Chrispin

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Written from the viewpoint of the year 2050, this Article discusses the clash between legal ethics and the technological revolution of the early twenty-first century. As a result of ethics rules being applied to new technologies in ways never contemplated under traditional circumstances, lawyers had to be overly cautious when they used the Internet to correspond with or seek out clients, or otherwise promote their legal services. The lesson learned is that the legal community should reflect on the harm caused by over zealous regulation and take a more reasoned approach to the use of technology for the benefit of …

Shifting The Burden Of Proof On Causation In Legal Malpractice Actions., Jeffrie D. Boysen

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Legal malpractice suits, like any negligence claim, require the plaintiff to meet all of the elements of the malpractice claim. Texas malpractice claims are based on professional negligence. In Texas, the elements a plaintiff must prove in a legal malpractice claim are: "(1) the attorney owed the plaintiff a duty; (2) the attorney breached that duty; (3) the breach proximately caused the plaintiffs injuries; and (4) damages occurred." Most jurisdictions, including Texas, place the burden on the plaintiff to meet all elements of the claim, including causation. However, a significant minority of jurisdictions allow the burden to shift to the …

Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, And The Ethics Of Casual Conversation,, Michael Hatfield

Articles

This essay is to help tax lawyers decide how to handle casual conversations centered on denying, defying, or destroying the tax system. One option is to walk away, ending the conversation and silencing the dialogue. The next option is to engage. I want to persuade tax lawyers that they should usually engage in the conversation. I try to do this in Part III.

There are two kinds of legal ethics essays, and one must choose which kind to write, and it is useful to the reader to know upfront which kind the author chose to write. One kind begins with …

Issues Concerning Charges For Driving While Intoxicated In Texas Federal Courts., Brian L. Owsley

St. Mary's Law Journal

Each year numerous defendants appear in courts located in Texas, both state and federal, charged with offenses related to driving while intoxicated (DWI). Defendants appearing before state courts are prosecuted pursuant to Texas statutes, regulations, and binding case law. In certain circumstances, defendants appearing in federal courts face the same statutory elements of a crime and the same potential penalties as in a Texas state court. In many of the cases, however, statutory elements and potential penalties differ. Furthermore, certain rights and regulations afforded to Texas state defendants are unavailable to those charged in federal courts located in the state. …