Legal Profession Commons^™

On Being A Happy, Healthy, And Ethical Member Of An Unhappy, Unhealthy, And Unethical Profession, Patrick J. Schiltz

Vanderbilt Law Review

Dear Law Student: I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the profession that you are about to enter is one of the most unhappy and unhealthy on the face of the earth--and, in the view of many, one of the most unethical. The good news is that you can join this profession and still be happy, healthy, and ethical. I am writing to tell you how. I. THE WELL-BEING OF LAWYERS Lawyers play an enormously important role in our society. "It is the lawyers who run our civilization for us-our governments, our business, our private …

Complicity In The Perversion Of Justice: The Role Of Lawyers In Eroding The Rule Of Law In The Third Reich, Cynthia Fountaine

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

A fundamental tenet of the legal profession is that lawyers and judges are uniquely responsible—individually and collectively—for protecting the Rule of Law. This Article considers the failings of the legal profession in living up to that responsibility during Germany’s Third Reich. The incremental steps used by the Nazis to gain control of the German legal system—beginning as early as 1920 when the Nazi Party adopted a party platform that included a plan for a new legal system—turned the legal system on its head and destroyed the Rule of Law. By failing to uphold the integrity and independence of the profession, …

No, The Firing Squad Is Not Better Than Lethal Injection: A Response To Stephanie Moran’S A Modest Proposal, Michael Conklin

Seattle University Law Review

In the article A Modest Proposal: The Federal Government Should Use Firing Squads to Execute Federal Death Row Inmates, Stephanie Moran argues that the firing squad is the only execution method that meets the requirements of the Eighth Amendment. In order to make her case, Moran unjustifiably overstates the negative aspects of lethal injection while understating the negative aspects of firing squads. The entire piece is predicated upon assumptions that are not only unsupported by the evidence but often directly refuted by the evidence. This Essay critically analyzes Moran’s claims regarding the alleged advantages of the firing squad over …

How The Billable Hour Can Survive Generative Ai, Jonah Perlin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The legal profession is rapidly adopting generative AI technology. With this shift has come an increasingly common assumption that generative AI will significantly reduce or even bring an end to hourly billing. The logic underlying this conclusion seems intuitive: if AI reduces the time lawyers spend on certain tasks while eliminating others altogether, then the total number of billable hours will fall. That decline, in turn, could threaten the financial viability of hourly billing, despite its place as the dominant law firm compensation model over the past half century.

This Article challenges this assumption. It argues instead that the billable …

Use Of Force In Policing: Do Female Police Officers Use Unjustifiable Force As Often As Male Officers?, Carma Dobson

Theses

Use of force (UOF) is a common practice in policing. My study focuses on the disposition of the use of unjustifiable force in policing. Utilization of pre-existing data with 5,771 use of force incidents from the New Orleans, Louisiana police department in the years of 2016-2021 produces an answer to the research question: Do female police officers use unjustifiable force as often as male officers? The chi-square test of independence results in my study indicates that there is no statistical difference between males and females.

Storytelling For Oppositionists And Others: A Plea For Narrative, Richard Delgado

Michigan Law Review

This essay examines the use of stories in the struggle for racial reform. Part I shows how we construct social reality by devising and passing on stories - interpretive structures by which we impose order on experience and it on us. To illustrate how stories structure reality, I choose a single race-tinged event and tell it in the form of five stories or narratives. Each account is followed by analysis, showing what the story includes and leaves out and how it perpetuates one version of social reality rather than another. Part II deals with counterstories, competing versions that can be …

Judges And The Deregulation Of The Lawyer's Monopoly, Jessica K. Steinberg, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark

Faculty Scholarship

In a revolutionary moment for the legal profession, the deregulation of legal services is taking hold in many parts of the country. Utah and Arizona, for instance, are experimenting with new regulations that permit nonlawyer advocates to play an active role in assisting citizens who may not otherwise have access to legal services. In addition, amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct in both states, as well as those being contemplated in California, now allow nonlawyers to have a partnership stake in law firms, which may dramatically change the way capital for the delivery of legal services is raised as …

Client Science: Advice For Lawyers On Initial Client Interviews, Marjorie Corman Aaron

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

My intent is to offer an informed, wise, practical, and concise guide for initial lawyer-client meetings – meetings that are mostly an interview process for the client and the lawyer. It is written for the Client Science Course website to supplement my book, Client Science: Advice for Lawyers on Counseling Clients Through Bad News and Other Legal Realities (Oxford University Press, 2012), referred to here as Client Science. That book was intentionally focused on particular challenges of client counseling

The French Legal Profession: A Prisoner Of Its Glorious Past?, Tang Thi Thanh Trai Le

Journal Articles

In 1978 a French television poll queried 982 viewers as to their images of the French lawyer (avocat). Of those polled, less than five percent held a positive view of the avocat. Eighteen percent of the 940 persons who expressed a negative view of the avocat simply conveyed this impression in general terms, but the remainder were more precise. Forty-eight percent of the respondents felt that the avocat was a "money sucker"; fourteen percent saw him as a man without conscience; and another fourteen percent believed that he acted with impunity within his bar. Four percent considered the bar to …

Generative Artificial Intelligence And The Practice Of Law: Impact, Opportunities, And Risks, John Villasenor

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.