Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Digging Into Algorithms: Legal Ethics And Legal Access, Carla L. Reyes, Jeff Ward

Faculty Scholarship

The current discussions around algorithms, legal ethics, and expanding legal access through technological tools gravitate around two themes: (1) protection of the integrity of the legal profession and (2) a desire to ensure greater access to legal services. The hype cycle often pits the desire to protect the integrity of the legal profession against the ability to use algorithms to provide greater access to legal services, as though they are mutually exclusive. In reality, the arguments around protecting the profession from the threats posed by algorithms represent an over-fit in relation to what algorithms can actually achieve, while the visions …

A Survey Of Legal Ethics Education In Law Schools, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Contributions to Books

This book chapter, which was published in 2000, provides an overview of legal ethics education in U.S. law schools. Since 1974, legal ethics instruction has been required in law schools by the major accrediting body for law schools. The methods by which this require­ment has been satisfied vary, but the result is a much richer ethics literature than existed previously and a variety of approaches to the topic. This book chapter begins with an overview of the regulation of U.S. lawyers. The second section discusses the history of the legal ethics course requrirement. This section includes data from surveys published …

The Politics Of Lawyer Regulation: The Case Of Malpractice Insurance, Leslie C. Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

This Article examines the politics of lawyer regulation and considers why some states will adopt lawyer regulation that protects the public, when others will not. It uses the debates over how to regulate uninsured lawyers as a lens through which to examine the question. Clients often cannot recover damages from uninsured lawyers who commit malpractice, even when those lawyers cause serious harm. Yet only two states require that lawyers carry malpractice insurance. This Article uses case studies to examine the ways in which six states recently have addressed the issue of uninsured lawyers to understand this regulatory failure. It uses …

Report To The Wisconsin Office Of Lawyer Regulation: Analysis Of Grievances Filed In Criminal And Family Matters From 2013-2016, Leslie C. Levin, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Articles and Papers

In many states, the highest number of docketed grievances arise out of criminal and family law matters. This report analyzes the 4,898 grievances filed with the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation (“OLR”) in family or criminal law matters during the period from 2013-2016. The OLR provided the data, enabling analysis of the grievances by gender, age, length of time since law school graduation, type of matter, prior experience with diversion or discipline, and geographical location. The data also revealed the frequency of allegations by practice matter, the types of allegations that led to discipline, and the frequency with which lawyers …

Ai Report: Humanity Is Doomed. Send Lawyers, Guns, And Money!, Ashley M. London

Law Faculty Publications

AI systems are powerful technologies being built and implemented by private corporations motivated by profit, not altruism. Change makers, such as attorneys and law students, must therefore be educated on the benefits, detriments, and pitfalls of the rapid spread, and often secret implementation of this technology. The implementation is secret because private corporations place proprietary AI systems inside of black boxes to conceal what is inside. If they did not, the popular myth that AI systems are unbiased machines crunching inherently objective data would be revealed as a falsehood. Algorithms created to run AI systems reflect the inherent human categorization …

Contracts: An Eight-Factor Test For Quantum Meruit Compensation For A Dismissed Contingency Fee Counsel—Faricy Law Firm, P.A. V. Api, Inc. Asbestos Settlement Trust, 912 N.W.2d 652 (Minn. 2018), Mitch Ohiwa

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Less Private Practice: Government Lawyers And Legal Ethics, Jennifer Leitch

Dalhousie Law Journal

Government lawyers are public servants and legal professionals. How they differ from private lawyers has much to do with whom they purport to represent and how they exercise power as a lawyer. I will look at a particular case-study—the St. Anne’s Residential school adjudication. This case study illustrates the challenges that government lawyers face in fulfilling their professional duty within a traditional private lawyer framework. St. Anne’s Residential School involved some of the most egregious physical, sexual and psychological abuse of Indigenous children between 1941 and 1972. St. Anne’s Residential School litigation is used as a cautionary (and truly tragic) …

The Implications Of Federalism For The Regulation Of Federal Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin

Dalhousie Law Journal

The implications of Canadian federalism for the regulation of lawyers for the federal government are largely overlooked in the literature and case law. This article argues that employees of the federal government can practice law without being licensed by the corresponding provincial law society (or any law society). However, if they happen to be licensed by a law society, they can be disciplined by that law society—unless and until Parliament adopts legislation immunizing them from law society discipline. The article also considers the possibility that Parliament could create a separate bar for federal government lawyers. It concludes that some form …

Legal Ethics, Patrick Emery Longan

Mercer Law Review

This Survey covers the period from June 1, 2018–May 31, 2019.1 The Article discusses attorney discipline, ineffective assistance of counsel, bar admission, judicial ethics, malpractice, several miscellaneous cases involving legal ethics, and actions of the Formal Advisory Opinion Board.

• Lawyer Discipline
• Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
• Bar Admission
• Judicial Conduct
• Malpractice
• Miscellaneous Cases
• Formal Advisory Opinions

The Importance Of Doctor Liability In Medical Malpractice Law: China Versus The United States, Vincent R. Johnson

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Medical malpractice law in China does not work. Disappointed patients and their families, or the gangs they hire, frequently resort to physical violence, beating up doctors and disrupting hospital activities in order to extort settlements. This happens because Chinese law has failed to provide viable remedies to many victims of medical malpractice.

This dysfunctional situation (medical chaos or yinao) has persisted for more than two decades. Today, parents in China discourage their children from attending medical school because practicing medicine is too dangerous.

Reforming Chinese medical malpractice law will be difficult. Many factors contribute to the public’s lack of confidence …

The Voice Of The Gods Is Crippling: Law School For Helicoptered Millennials, Katerina P. Lewinbuk, Taci Villarreal, Elena Bolonina

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

As millennials dominate law school classrooms, many professors are recognizing the importance of altering the traditional methods of teaching law. Millennials act, think, and learn differently. Numerous factors are linked to why this new generation of law students is distinctively different than previous generations. This article examines these factors and how they influence millennials’ learning styles. Alternative methods of teaching millennial law students are also discussed and proposed, along with a specific example of a tailored professional responsibility textbook and course to the modern law student.

Ethical Considerations For Attorneys Researching Jurors On The Internet, Anthony M. Lapinta

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Common Interest Doctrine In Ip Transactions, John C. Reich, Sangki Park

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Professional Women Subjugated By Name-Calling And Character Attacks, Maritza I. Reyes

Journal Publications

The #MeToo Movement reminds us that women can begin movements through individual action. The #MeToo Movement also confirms that we are still dealing with the same old strategies that keep women in subjugated spaces, including in our workplaces. This Article analyzes how name-calling and character attacks continue to be used to put professional women in a gendered place. These strategies were used to defeat Hillary Clinton in her efforts to become the first female president of the United States. If we do not challenge their destructive effect, professional women will continue to be expected to put up with conduct that …

Sexual Exploitation And The Adultified Black Girl, Mikah K. Thompson

Faculty Works

A troubling legacy of American chattel slavery is the justice system’s continued failure to provide adequate protection to African-American crime victims. This piece focuses on the law’s historic unwillingness to shield Black girls from acts of sexual violence. During slavery, lawmakers refused to criminalize rape committed against Black girls and women based not only on the fact that they were considered property but also on stereotypes about their sexuality. Even though the law now criminalizes the rape of Black girls, African-American rape survivors encounter more skepticism and hostility when they come forward with their stories compared to their White counterparts. …

From The Legal Literature: Disentangling Prison And Punishment, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Incivility As Identity, Melissa Mortazavi

Faculty Articles

Incivility can undermine the legal profession’s work and effectiveness. However, existing scholarship, focused on explaining lawyer incivility as an overextension of zealous advocacy, poor training, or a business-driven model of lawyering, has misconceived a key facet of incivility. Prevailing wisdom largely neglects that lawyers use incivility to react and position themselves within the sociopolitical norms of society in which they live. Civility (or the lack thereof) in the legal profession, may be less about clients and economic pressures than about lawyers affirming their political, class, and gender identities. Once the legal profession recognizes that civility is significantly about lawyers affirming …

Avoiding Judicial Discipline, Veronica Root Martinez

Journal Articles

Over the past several years, several high-profile complaints have been levied against Article III judges alleging improper conduct. Many of these complaints, however, were dismissed without investigation after the judge in question removed themselves from the jurisdiction of the circuit’s judicial council—oftentimes through retirement and once through elevation to the Supreme Court. When judges—the literal arbiters of justice within American society—are able to elude oversight of their own potential misconduct, it puts the legitimacy of the judiciary and rule of law in jeopardy.

This Essay argues that it is imperative that mechanisms are adopted that will ensure investigations into judicial …

“Unusual Care”: Groupthink And Willful Blindness In The Support Study, George J. Annas, Catherine L. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The SUPPORT study of extremely premature newborns seems likely to go down as one of the most controversial studies of the 21st century (SUPPORT Study Group 2010). We previously suggested that the researchers in SUPPORT were "legally blind" in failing to understand that the "standard" that defines the content of informed consent is set by law, including the federal regulations, not by what physicians "usually" do or don't do (Annas and Annas 2013). Macklin and Natanson, also early critics of the SUPPORT study's failure to disclose the increased risk of death posed by the study, (Macklin et al. 2013) attack …

Capitalizing On Healthy Lawyers: The Business Case For Law Firms To Promote And Prioritize Lawyer Well-Being, Jarrod F. Reich

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is the first to make the business case for firms to promote and prioritize lawyer well-being. For more than three decades, quantitative research has demonstrated that lawyers suffer from depression, anxiety, and addiction far in excess of the general population. Since that time, there have been many calls within and outside the profession for changes to be made to promote, prioritize, and improve lawyer well-being, particularly because many aspects of the current law school and law firm models exacerbate mental health and addiction issues, as well as overall law student and lawyer distress. These calls for change, made …