Legal Profession Commons^™

Creativity, Content, And Community In Evidence Online, Lynn Su

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Understanding And Lifting Up Our Quiet Students: Reimagining "Participation" In The Remote Classroom, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Bar Admission: Lessons From The Pandemic, Leslie C. Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Ordinary Clients, Overreaching Lawyers, And The Failure To Implement Adequate Client Protection Measures, Leslie C. Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

Every year, thousands of individual clients are victimized by overreaching lawyers who overcharge clients, refuse to return unearned fees, or steal their money. For more than forty years, the American Bar Association (ABA) has considered, and often proposed, client protection measures aimed at protecting clients from overreaching lawyers. These measures include requirements that lawyers use written fee agreements in their dealings with clients and rules relating to fee arbitration, client protection funds, insurance payee notification, and random audits of trust accounts. This Article examines what happened to these ABA recommendations when the states considered them and assesses the current state …

Thoughts On The Retirement Of Jim Stewart, Leonard M. Niehoff

Articles

At the end of April 2021, Jim Stewart - my friend and colleague of almost 40 years - retired from the practice of law. He will now be spending his time trying to win rounds of golf instead of cases and trying to win arguments with his three daughters instead of opposing counsel. I know Jim will enjoy retirement, but I'm skeptical that his win-loss record is about to improve.

An Innovative Approach To Movement Lawyering: An Immigrant Rights Case Study, Christine N. Cimini, Doug Smith

Articles

The role of lawyers in social change movements is more important than ever as communities mobilize around systemic racism, police killings, xenophobia, rising unemployment, and widening economic inequality. The immigrant rights movement is a critical part of these efforts to foment change. This Article leverages an in-depth case study – the rise and fall of the controversial immigration enforcement program known as Secure Communities - to explore how lawyers work as part of a community to challenge power and effectuate change. The dismantling of Secure Communities was widely credited to a relentless campaign to thwart the government’s then-expanding deportation strategy. …

Antiracism, Reflection, And Professional Identity, Monte Mills, Eduardo R.C. Capulong, Andrew King-Ries

Articles

Intent on more systematically developing the emerging professional identities of law students, the professional identity formation movement is recasting how we think about legal education. Notably, however, the movement overlooks the structural racism imbedded in American law and legal education. While current models of professional development value diversity and cross-cultural competence, they do not adequately prepare the next generation of legal professionals to engage in the sustained work of interrupting and overthrowing race and racism in the legal profession and system. This article argues that antiracism is essential to the profession’s responsibility to serve justice and therefore key to legal …

Should Justices Be Historians? Justice Scalia’S Opinion In District Of Columbia V. Heller, Todd B. Adams

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Academic Freedom To Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women In The Legal Academy, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

In 1988, Black women law professors formed the Northeast Corridor Collective of Black Women Law Professors, a network of Black women in the legal academy. They supported one another’s scholarship, shared personal experiences of systemic gendered racism, and helped one another navigate the law school white space. A few years later, their stories were transformed into articles that appeared in a symposium edition of the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal. Since then, Black women and women of color have published articles and books about their experiences with presumed incompetence, outsider status, and silence. The story of Black women in the legal …

Our Collective Work, Our Collective Strength, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

This essay considers the collective strength of women of color in two contexts: when we are well represented on law school faculties and when we contribute to accomplishing stated institutional diversity goals. Critical mass is broadly defined as a sufficient number of people of color. Though the concept has been socially appropriated, its origins are scientific. While much of the academic literature encourages diversity initiatives designed to reach a critical mass, social change is not a science. Diversity in numbers may positively benefit individual experiences for women of color, however, diversity alone will not change social norms at the root …

Biglaw: Money And Meaning In The Modern Law Firm, Milton C. Regan, Lisa H. Rohrer

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Great Recession intensified large law firms’ emphasis on financial performance, leading to claims that lawyers in these firms were now guided by business rather than professional values. Based on interviews with more than 250 partners in large firms, Mitt Regan and Lisa H. Rohrer suggest that the reality is much more complex. It is true that large firm hiring, promotion, compensation, and termination policies are more influenced by business considerations than ever before and that firms actively recruit profitable partners from other firms to replace those they regard as unproductive. At the same time, law firm partners continue to …

If You Build It, Will They Come? An Empirical Study Of The Voluntary Use Of Mediation And Its Implications, Dwight Golann

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

A generation ago, American litigants did not often go to mediation voluntarily. Advocates of the process predicted, however, that as lawyers and parties became more familiar with mediation, they would opt to use it more often. But, is this true? Virtually no data exists about how often litigants voluntarily choose to mediate legal disputes, whether use varies in different kinds of cases, and what motivates litigants' decisions whether to mediate or not. This Article presents data about each of these issues and analyzes its meaning.

Client-Centered Communication: How Effective Lawyering Requires Emotional Intelligence, Active Listening, And Client Choice, Heather Heavin, Michaela Keet

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

For the lawyer-client relationship to work effectively, lawyers need to provide clients with competent, understandable, and relevant legal advice. This proposition is so central to the lawyer's role that it is difficult to challenge. Yet, we suggest, this proposition belies the complexity of the responsibility, given the decision-making process that clients are going through (or should be going through) when deciding to litigate or to settle through negotiation or mediation. The educational literature contains much advice for lawyers on the benefits of dispute resolution processes, how to select and navigate through them, but much less on how lawyers should guide …

Religious Roots Of Corporate Organization, Amanda Porterfield

Seattle University Law Review

Religion and corporate organization have developed side-by-side in Western culture, from antiquity to the present day. This Essay begins with the realignment of religion and secularity in seventeenth-century America, then looks to the religious antecedents of corporate organization in ancient Rome and medieval Europe, and then looks forward to the modern history of corporate organization. This Essay describes the long history behind the entanglement of business and religion in the United States today. It also shows how an understanding of both religion and business can be expanded by looking at the economic aspects of religion and the religious aspects of …

The Small-Er Screen: Youtube Vlogging And The Unequipped Child Entertainment Labor Laws, Amanda G. Riggio

Seattle University Law Review

Family vloggers are among the millions of content creators on YouTube. In general, vloggers frequently upload recorded videos of their daily lives. Family vloggers are unique because they focus their content around their familial relationships and the lives of their children. One set of family vloggers, the Ace Family, has recorded their children’s lives from the day they were born and continue to upload videos of each milestone, including “Elle Cries on Her First Rollercoaster Ride” and “Elle and Alaïa Get Caught Doing What!! **Hidden Camera**.” Another vlogging couple, Cole and Savannah LaBrant, post similar content, including videos titled “Baby …

Of Sheepdogs And Ventriloquists: Government Lawyers In Two New Deal Agencies, Daniel R. Ernst

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

From the neo-Weberian literature on state-building and the political sociology of the legal profession, one might expect government lawyers to be sheepdogs, nipping at the heels of straying administrators, supplying their agencies with the bureaucratic autonomy so often missing in American government. In this contribution to “Serious Fun” a symposium in honor of John Henry Schlegel of the University at Buffalo School of Law, I report my preliminary findings for two agencies created during the Hundred Days of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the National Recovery Administration. I suggest that the neo-Weberian model tends to minimize …

Panel 1: The Scope And Strength Of Trademark Law, Megan K. Bannigan, Leah Chan Grinvald, Theodore H. Davis Jr., Mark P. Mckenna, Felix Wu

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The article examines the evolution and effectiveness of the Lanham Act, focusing on its impact on trademark law. It discusses how the Act's original goals, such as providing notice of trademark rights and ensuring uniformity in a national commerce context, have been partially met due to the lack of mandatory registration and judicial interpretations that have expanded trademark protections beyond initial intentions. The panelists highlight the tension between the procedural nature of the Act and the substantive changes introduced by courts, leading to both underenforcement and overenforcement issues.

Are We There Yet? Discovery For The New Litigator, Erin Rhinehart, Leonard M. Niehoff

Articles

If the road is life, then discovery is litigation. It is how we reach our destination. Unfortunately, discovery is like getting there with someone in the backseat.

Anyone who has ever traveled with passengers, especially children, knows how it plays out. In the beginning, everybody is excited. Everyone gleefully piles into the car, eager to launch. No one has any trouble amusing themselves. A couple hours in, a bathroom break and gas station snack later, it hits. The adrenaline wears off and the tedium kicks in. And then you hear the dreaded cry coming from the rear: Are we there …

Using Experiential Learning To Create An Inclusive Classroom, Promote Equity, And Develop Professional Identity, Tianna N. Gibbs

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Legal education is changing. As law schools diversify their student bodies, they are being more intentional about the creation of an inclusive and equitable learning environment. Law schools also are engaging in curricular and pedagogical reform to better prepare students for law practice. Incorporating experiential learning into the law school curriculum has been a significant component of these reform efforts. The development of students’ professional identity also has become a focus of preparation for practice.

Precedent As Rational Persuasion, Brian N. Larson

Faculty Scholarship

The ways that judges and lawyers make and justify their arguments and decisions have profound impacts on our lives. Understanding those practices in light of theories of reasoning and argumentation is thus critical for understanding law and the society it shapes. An inquiry that explores the very foundations of all legal reasoning leads to a broad, important question: How do lawyers and judges use cited cases in their legal arguments? It turns out there is practically no empirical research to suggest the answer. As the first step in a comprehensive empirical effort to answer this question, this article performs a …