Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Front Matter

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Is The Use Of Artificial Intelligence In Alternative Dispute Resolution A Viable Option Or Wishful Thinking?, Samuel D. Hodge Jr.

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article delves into the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and the legal profession, particularly in the context of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). The introduction sets the stage by highlighting AI's transformative potential in reshaping legal practice through automation, efficiency, and data-driven insights. While acknowledging the uncertainty surrounding AI's long-term impact on the legal landscape, it emphasizes the need for investigation and adaptation as the technology evolves. Key considerations, such as AI technology's limitations, regulatory challenges, and ethical implications, are also addressed. Despite the promises of efficiency and accessibility, questions remain about AI's ability to replicate human reasoning and …

The Rule Of Law, The Lawyer’S Role As A Public Citizen, And Professional Identity: How Fostering The Development Of Professional Identity Can Help Law Schools Address The Crisis Facing American Democracy, Kendall Kerew

Mercer Law Review

American democracy is in crisis. The January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol must serve as a renewed wake-up call for the legal profession. We can no longer keep our heads down, focused solely or even primarily on serving our clients, without being mindful that what we do every day as lawyers starts and ends with our duty to uphold the rule of law and our system of justice. We must acknowledge that lawyers are the ones who have put democracy at risk. Lawyers are the ones who, in their role as zealous advocates, attempted to overturn the 2020 …

Confronting Algorithms: Conscience Catching In The Criminal Trial And Beyond, Sherman J. Clark

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Using the question of how to treat algorithmic evidence under the Confrontation Clause as an entry point, I argue that the use of AI in ethically salient situations presents a risk. It may cause us to avoid confronting our own responsibility. This matters because facing up to what we do, including what we delegate, can help us grow and thrive. Bearing responsibility can help us nurture vital capacities, including forms of empathy, honesty, and dignity. In the language of ethics, these are eudaimonist virtues—traits and capacities that can help us live well and fully. We should thus find ways of …

Washington Civil Jury Trials Via Zoom: Perspectives From The Bench, Marisa Pasnick

Washington Law Review

Many professions have felt the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, including the legal field. At the onset of COVID-19, many courthouses closed and trials halted, but as the pandemic continued, the need to resume judicial proceedings led courts to turn to virtual platforms to conduct civil jury trials. This Comment examines the response of judges in Washington State to the use of Zoom for conducting civil jury trials. Interviews with judges across Washington reveal a stark contrast in opinions among judges in different districts as well as within districts. This Comment answers the question of how judges feel about …

At The Intersection Of Environmental Justice And Sustainability Lies A More Equitable, Healthy Future For U.S. Communities, Alexandra Dapolito Dunn

UMKC Law Review

This Article offers a brief and recent history of the environmental justice and sustainability movements, with a decidedly U.S. focused approach necessary due to the breadth of the subject matter. This Article then offers examples of how the movements are coming together, in U.S. federal and state law and policy, judicial decisions, and in community applications. This Article then shows how the alignment of environmental justice and sustainability is serving to advance equity and a healthier future for many U.S. communities. This Article concludes that the continued intersection of these movements will serve to benefit our nation and its residents …

The Lawyer's Duty Of Competence In A Climate-Imperiled World, John C. Dernbach, Irma S. Russell, Matthew Bogoshian

UMKC Law Review

The United States has more than 1.3 million practicing lawyers. Under Model Rule 1.1 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and every state’s rules of conduct, each of these lawyers owes clients competent representation. Under the rule, “[c]ompetent representation requires the knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the services.” While law and rules will undoubtedly change in response to the climate crisis, the duty of competence does not await such change or legal reform. The ubiquitous nature of the duty of competence means it is applicable to each lawyer now and will continue to evolve as …

Purpose, Practical Wisdom, And The Formation Of Trustworthy Lawyers, Kenneth Townsend

Mercer Law Review

Lawyers have a “special responsibility for the quality of justice” in our nation and are expected to “further the public’s understanding of and confidence in the rule of law and the justice system” since “legal institutions in a constitutional democracy depend on popular participation and support to maintain their authority.” Upholding these and other commitments enables the profession to promote the “public interest,” according to the Preamble to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

Putting The Lawyer First: Framing Well-Being In Law As An Ethical Dilemma, Aric Short

Mercer Law Review

A disturbingly high percentage of our students continue to be unwell. In the most recent and comprehensive survey of law student well-being in 2021, almost 70% of law students responded that, in the past twelve months, they believed they needed to seek help for emotional or mental health problems. Embedded screening tools in the survey suggested that 34% of respondents were clinically depressed and 54% suffered from clinical anxiety. 44% of respondents reported being drunk in the past thirty days, 33% had engaged in binge drinking in the preceding two weeks, and 38% had smoked marijuana in the past twelve …

Reflections On Purpose And Professional Identity Formation, Harmony Decosimo

Mercer Law Review

I am very grateful to Professor Daisy Floyd for starting this important conversation about the role of purpose in professional identity formation, and for inviting me to participate in it. As I know my co-panelists agree, this is an important conversation not simply to us as lawyers, but as humans, trying to help each other figure out how to live good, meaningful lives.

I think what might be most useful in my response to Professor Floyd is to turn at least initially from the theoretical to the personal and practical by offering some insight into my own experience with purpose …

Sustainability: A Legal Value And A Legal Principle, Irma S. Russell

UMKC Law Review

Introduction to the symposium issue, Sustainability as a Legal Value and a Legal Principle. This issue explores the concept of sustainability as a legal principle, presents food for thought about sustainability development, and provides inspiration for climate action.

Foreword: Symposium On Current Issues In Professional Identity Formation, Patrick Longan

Mercer Law Review

On March 8, 2024, the Mercer Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism, in partnership with the Mercer Law Review, held the 24th Annual Georgia Symposium on Ethics and Professionalism. These symposia rotate among Mercer University School of Law, Georgia State University College of Law, Emory University School of Law, and the University of Georgia School of Law. Funding for the symposia comes from endowments created by the settlement of claims of litigation misconduct against the DuPont Corporation and its counsel in litigation in the 1990s. The initiative for the structure of the settlement came from the late Judge Hugh Lawson …

What About Us? How Law Schools Can Help Historically Underrepresented Law Students Develop Their Professional Identities, David A. Grenardo

Mercer Law Review

Talking about race, gender, and sexual orientation can be painful, messy, and difficult. This country’s history of discrimination and violence against historically underrepresented, marginalized, excluded individuals—racial and ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQIA+, those living with disabilities, the socioeconomically disadvantaged/lower class—makes these topics fraught with controversy and risk. We can easily offend someone accidentally when we try to address these topics even with the best of intentions. For example, some people may get nervous trying to figure out whether to use the words African-American, Black, BIPOC, person of color, or all of the above when discussing these topics and referring to someone …

Judicial Discipline Through The Prism Of Public Law Values: A Critical Analysis Of Bill C-9, An Act To Reform The Judges Act, Richard Devlin, Sheila Wildeman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Bill C-9 is the first legislative reform to the Judges Act in five decades. The goal of the legislation is to enhance public confidence in the administration of justice by modernizing the complaints and discipline system for federally appointed judges. In a previous essay published in Volume ?? of the Advocates’ Quarterly we offered a normative framework for assessment of a complaints and discipline system and identified seven key strengths of Bill C-9. In this sequel, we continue to apply this normative framework and argue that the legislation is marred by five significant weaknesses. We conclude that because the reforms …

On Comprehensive Pluralism: Two Pluralistic Deficits, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado

Cardozo Law Review

A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice offers a powerful normative theory of liberal constitutionalism: comprehensive pluralism. This theory links liberal constitutionalism with distributive justice. Comprehensive pluralism requires that the three dimensions that compose this concept of justice—redistribution, recognition, and representation—drive the attempts to balance ethos and demos in liberal constitutional democracies, as well as the attempts to balance the singular, plural, and universal dimensions that constitute such political communities. The normative proposal offered by Michel Rosenfeld in his book has numerous strengths. Three of them, which cut across the entirety of his proposal, are particularly noteworthy. On the one hand, …

Breaking Down Siloes And Building Up Students: The Transformational Possibilities Of Professional Identity Formation, Lindsey P. Gustafson, Aric K. Short, Robin Thorner

Faculty Scholarship

Under the ABA’s sequenced approach to implementation of Standard 303(b)(3), schools should now have developed plans for providing opportunities for professional identity formation and should be implementing them. These plans must provide students with an “intentional exploration of the values, guiding principles, and well-being practices considered foundational to successful legal practice.” In addition, these plans should provide for frequent opportunities for development, “during each year of law school and in a variety of courses and co-curricular and professional development activities.”

Because Standard 303(b)(3) is necessarily tied to the unique character, existing
structures, and available resources of a law school, each …

A Theory Of Corporate Fiduciary Duties, Benjamin Johnson

BYU Law Review

Corporate law lacks a general theory of a board’s power as fiduciary, and consequently, the law governing corporate fiduciary duties is notably unstable. This Article offers a novel theory that grounds corporate fiduciary duties in stronger microeconomic and legal foundations. The theory, coined the Judicial Monitoring Model (JMM), shows that even imperfect judicial monitoring makes shareholders and boards better off, even when there is no claim of a breach of the duties of loyalty or care as currently understood. The JMM synthesizes the law governing corporate fiduciary duties and other doctrines that protect principals, beneficiaries, and creditors from the risk …

Draining Chicago’S Food Swamps: Legal Approaches, Sofia Fernandez

DePaul Journal of Health Care Law

Public health is a collective responsibility of society to improve the health and wellbeing of communities, focusing on preventing disease and promoting health as opposed to providing medical care for those already ill.1 The law consists of rules issued and enforced by government entities “through which populations organize their governments, regulate social and economic interactions, and guide behavior.”2 Public health law exists at the intersection of these two fields, comprising “the legal powers and duties of the state to identify, prevent, and ameliorate risks to the health of populations, as well as the study of legal structures that have a …

Ethical Algorithms: Navigating Ai In Legal Practice For A Just Jurisprudence, Bree'ara Murphy, Rachel Gadra Rankin, Joseph Rios

Law Review Blog Posts

Exploring the professional obligations practitioners may face in light of developing AI technology by examining state and federal model rule language, current judicial treatment of AI, and AI best practices.

Generative Ai, Plagiarism, And Copyright Infringement In Legal Documents, Amy B. Cyphert

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.