This 2006 book provides a fully annotated discussion of the ethical universe surrounding state-mandated and private legal disputes involving the custody and best interest of children. It surveys thousands of court cases, statutes, state bar ethics codes, Attorney General opinions and model codes regarding ethical constraints in family and dependency proceedings. The book not only analyzes ethical rules in terms of the chronology of these proceedings, it also surveys those principles for each of the primary participants - children's counsel, parents' counsel, government attorneys and judges. The book contains chapters on pre-hearing alternative dispute resolution, motion and trial practice, appellate procedures and separation of powers. Finally, the book provides a complete child abuse case file with a comprehensive analysis of the inherent ethical issues.

Both lionized and vilified, Claire L'Heureux-Dube has shaped the Canadian legal landscape - and in particular its highest court. Only the second woman on the Supreme Court of Canada, L'Heureux-Dube anchored her approach to cases in their social, economic, and political context. This compelling biography takes a similar tack, tracing the experience of a francophone woman within the male-dominated Quebec legal profession - and within the primarily anglophone world of the Supreme Court. In the process, Constance Backhouse enhances our understanding of the Canadian judiciary, the creation of law, the Quebec socio-legal environment, and the nation's top court.

This book is about the role of lawyers in constructing a just society. Its central objective is to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between lawyers' commercial aims and public aspirations. Drawing on interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives, it explores whether lawyers can transcend self-interest to meaningfully contribute to systems of political accountability, ethical advocacy and distributional fairness. Its contributors, some of the world's leading scholars of the legal profession, offer evidence that although justice is possible, it is never complete. Ultimately, how much - and what type of - justice prevails depends on how lawyers respond to, and reshape, the political and economic conditions in which they practise. As the essays demonstrate, the possibility of justice is diminished as lawyers pursue self-regulation in the service of power; it is enhanced when lawyers mobilize - in the political arena, workplace and law school - to contest it.

Daniel Sperling discusses the legal status of posthumous interests and their possible defeat by actions performed following the death of a person. The author first explores the following questions: Do the dead have interests and/or rights, the defeat of which may constitute harm? What does posthumous harm consist of and when does it occur, if at all? This is followed by a more detailed analysis of three categories of posthumous interests arising in the medico-legal context: the proprietary interest in the body of the deceased, the testamentary interest in determining the disposal of one's body after death and the interest in post-mortem medical confidentiality. Sperling concludes that if we acknowledge the interest in one's symbolic existence and legally protect it, not only do some interests survive a person's death but we should also enjoy a peremptory legal power to shape in advance our symbolic existence after death.

Employability Skills for Law Students is designed to help you: * identify the academic, practical and transferable skills that can be developed whilst studying for a law degree; * recognise the value of those skills to employers (within both law and non-law professions); * identify any gaps in your skills portfolio; * maximise opportunities to develop new skills through participation in a range of activities; * effectively demonstrate your skills to potential employers; * improve your employability prospects on graduation from university. Whether you are in your first year or your last, this book will ensure you make the most of your time at university, developing skills inside and outside the lecture theatre, so that you are in the best possible position to pursue your chosen career on graduation - as a solicitor, barrister, or a completely different profession. An interactive Online Resource Centre provides a range practical activities designed to give you opportunities to practise and receive feedback upon the skills you are developing.

Legal practitioners operate in an environment of seemingly endless ethical challenges, and against a backdrop of diminishing public opinion about their morality. Based on extensive research, Assessing Lawyers' Ethics argues that lawyers' individual ethics can be assessed and measured in realistic frameworks. When this assessment takes place, legal practitioners are more likely to demonstrate better ethical behaviour as a result of their increased awareness of their own choices. This book advocates a variety of peer-administered testing mechanisms that have the potential to reverse damaging behaviours within the legal profession. It provides prototype techniques, questions and assessments that can be modified to suit different legal cultures. These will help the profession regain the initiative in ethical business practice, halt the decline in firms' reputations and reduce the risk of state-sponsored regulatory intervention.

The New Lawyer analyzes the profound impact changes in client needs and demands are having on how law is practised. Most legal clients are unwilling or unable to pay for protracted litigation and count on their lawyers to pursue just and expedient resolution. These clients are transforming the role of lawyers, the nature of client service, and the principles of legal practice. In this fully revised edition of the now classic text, Julie Macfarlane outlines how lawyers can meet new expectations by committing to lawyer-client collaboration, conflict resolution advocacy, and revised financial structures so that the legal profession can remain relevant in this rapidly changing environment.

The New Lawyer analyzes the profound impact changes in client needs and demands are having on how law is practised. Most legal clients are unwilling or unable to pay for protracted litigation and count on their lawyers to pursue just and expedient resolution. These clients are transforming the role of lawyers, the nature of client service, and the principles of legal practice. In this fully revised edition of the now classic text, Julie Macfarlane outlines how lawyers can meet new expectations by committing to lawyer-client collaboration, conflict resolution advocacy, and revised financial structures so that the legal profession can remain relevant in this rapidly changing environment.

What should the people expect from their legal officials? This book asks whether officials can be moral and still follow the law, answering that the law requires them to do so. It revives the idea of the good official - the good lawyer, the good judge, the good president, the good legislator - that guided Cicero and Washington and that we seem to have forgotten. Based on stories and law cases from America's founding to the present, this book examines what is good and right in law and why officials must care. This overview of official duties, from oaths to the law itself, explains how morals and law work together to create freedom and justice, and it provides useful maxims to argue for the right answer in hard cases. Important for scholars but useful for lawyers and readable by anybody, this book explains how American law ought to work.

Combining her expertise in legal theory and judicial practice in a continental European civil-law system, Jeanne Gaakeer explores the intertwinement of legal theory and practice to develop a humanities-inspired methodology for both the academic interdisciplinary study of law and literature and for legal practice. This volume addresses judgment and interpretation as a central concern within the field of law, literature and humanities. It is not only a study of law as praxis that combines academic legal theory with judicial practice, but proposes both as central to humanistic jurisprudence and as a training in the conduct of public life. Drawing extensively on philosophical and legal scholarship and through analysis of literary works from Gustave Flaubert, Robert Musil, Gerrit Achterberg, Ian McEwan, Michel Houellebecq and Juli Zeh, Jeanna Gaakeer proposes a perspective on law as part of the humanities that will inspire legal professionals, scholars and advanced students of law alike.

This book explores the thesis that legal roles force people to engage in moral combat, an idea which is implicit in the assumption that citizens may be morally required to disobey unjust laws, while judges may be morally required to punish citizens for civil disobedience. Heidi Hurd advances the surprising argument that the law cannot require us to do what morality forbids. The 'role-relative' understanding of morality is shown to be incompatible with both consequentialist and deontological moral philosophies. In the end, Hurd shows that our best moral theory is one which never makes one actor's moral success turn on another's moral failure. Moral Combat is a sophisticated, well-conceived and carefully argued book on a very important and controversial topic at the junction between legal and political philosophy. It will be of interest to moral, legal, and political philosophers, as well as teachers and students of professional ethics in law.

Maria Isabel Medina's chronicle of Loyola University New Orleans College of Law examines the prominent Jesuit institution across its hundred-year history, from its founding in 1914 through the first decade of the twenty-first century. With a mission to make the legal profession attainable to Catholics, and other working-class persons, Loyola's law school endured the hardships of two world wars, the Great Depression, the tumult of the civil rights era, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to emerge as a leader in legal education in the state. Exploring the history of the college within a larger examination of the legal profession in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana, Medina provides details on Loyola's practical and egalitarian approach to education. As a result of the school's principled focus, Loyola was the first law school in the state to offer a law school clinic, develop a comprehensive program of legal-skills training, and to voluntarily integrate African Americans into the student body. The transformative milestones of Loyola University New Orleans College of Law parallel pivotal points in the history of the Crescent City, demonstrating how local culture and environment can contribute to the longevity of an academic institution and making Loyola University New Orleans College of Law a valuable contribution to the study of legal education.

Legal prose is often a more pedestrian venture than a novel or a poem. However, even the pedestrian can be done well. The views of the professional writers considered in this book identify how lawyers can write legal prose well, and sometimes even beautifully. This book provides key lessons on legal writing that can be gleaned from various leading authors of the past and brought to bear in crafting more polished legal texts. Among the great authors considered are Joseph Conrad, Guy de Maupassant, E.M. Forster, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, D.H. Lawrence, Robert Louis Stevenson and Virginia Woolf. Central themes identified are: Legal writing should never be too difficult to understand; Great writers have much to teach the legal writer; Good writing requires hard work; Professional jargon is generally best avoided; and The truth is always pure, often simple, and generally best expressed in plain English. This book contains invaluable guidance to help all those involved in legal writing to hone their writing skills, while providing an engaging tour through the works of great authors from the past. All after-tax author royalties from this book will be donated to the Ukrainian relief efforts of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement.

Most people understand that regulations have a direct bearing on their access to things such as clean air and water and safe working environments. However, in the United States, few people make the connection between how legal services are regulated and how difficult it is for them to access legal services. Indeed, on the question of affordable and accessible civil justice, the World Justice Project ranks the US 94th out of 113 countries, behind Albania, Belarus, Myanmar, and Russia. For decades academics and others have debated whether the legal profession is self-regulated and, if it is, whether it should be. But is it the right debate? Self-regulation-or not-does not obviate the need for effective regulation. Independent, accountable, and transparent regulatory bodies, effective oversight of those bodies, the genuine engagement of citizens in the regulatory process, evidence-based research to fully assess the impact of regulation, and an approach to regulation that is proportionate and targeted to actual risks are essential for effective regulation. Through the lens of the adoption of alternative structures, this book explains how England, Wales, and Australia have, by embracing these essential elements, successfully modernized their regulatory environments for legal services, and how Canada has taken firm steps down its own path to the same. In contrast, by rejecting these elements, the United States remains paralyzed in an unproductive regulatory environment for legal services. This book provides a blueprint for how the US can take inspiration from its common law sisters to breathe new life into its regulatory environment for legal services. Ultimately, modernization will require more-and better-regulation that is financed publicly through equitable, progressive revenue sources.

This book provides the first fully annotated discussion of the ethical universe surrounding state mandated and private legal disputes involving the custody and best interest of children. It surveys thousands of court cases, statutes, state bar ethics codes, Attorney General opinions, and model codes regarding ethical constraints in family and dependency proceedings. The book is unique in two ways. It analyzes ethical rules not only in terms of the chronology of these proceedings, but it also surveys those principles for each of the primary participants - children's counsel, parents' counsel, government attorneys, and judges. The book contains chapters on pre-hearing alternative dispute resolution, motion and trial practice, appellate procedures, and separation of powers. Finally, the book provides a complete child abuse case file with a comprehensive analysis of the inherent ethical issues.

This book is the first formal, empirical investigation into the law faculty experience using a distinctly intersectional lens, examining both the personal and professional lives of law faculty members. Comparing the professional and personal experiences of women of color professors with white women, white men, and men of color faculty from assistant professor through dean emeritus, Unequal Profession explores how the race and gender of individual legal academics affects not only their individual and collective experience, but also legal education as a whole. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative empirical data, Meera E. Deo reveals how race and gender intersect to create profound implications for women of color law faculty members, presenting unique challenges as well as opportunities to improve educational and professional outcomes in legal education. Deo shares the powerful stories of law faculty who find themselves confronting intersectional discrimination and implicit bias in the form of silencing, mansplaining, and the presumption of incompetence, to name a few. Through hiring, teaching, colleague interaction, and tenure and promotion, Deo brings the experiences of diverse faculty to life and proposes a number of mechanisms to increase diversity within legal academia and to improve the experience of all faculty members.

On April 7, 1988, Albie Sachs, an activist South African lawyer and a leading member of the ANC, was car-bombed in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, by agents of South Africa's security forces. His right arm was blown off, and he lost sight in one eye. This intimate and moving account of his recovery traces the gradual recuperation of his broken body and his triumphant reentry into the world, where his dream of soft vengeance was realized with the achievement of democracy in South Africa. This book captures the spirit of a remarkable man: his enormous optimism, his commitment to social justice, and his joyous wonder at the life that surrounds him. A new preface and epilogue reflect on the making of Abby Ginzberg's documentary film titled "Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa." (For information about the film, see www.softvengeancefilm.org.)

For over three decades, the law has recognised the importance of encouraging Federal employees to come forward with reports of any violation of any law, rule, or regulation, or gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety. This book explores the extent to which Federal employees perceive wrongdoing, the extent to which they report the wrong-doing they see, and what factors influence their decisions to remain silent or to blow the whistle.

No right seems more fundamental to American life than freedom of speech. Yet well into the twentieth century that freedom was still an unfulfilled promise, with Americans regularly imprisoned merely for speaking out against government policies. Indeed, free speech as we know it comes less from the First Amendment than from a most unexpected source: Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. A lifelong skeptic, he disdained all individual rights, including the right to express one's political views. But in 1919, it was Holmes who wrote a dissenting opinion that would become the canonical affirmation of free speech in the United States.
Why did Holmes change his mind? That question has puzzled historians for almost a century. Now, with the aid of newly discovered letters and confidential memos, Thomas Healy reconstructs in vivid detail Holmes's journey from free-speech opponent to First Amendment hero. It is the story of a remarkable behind-the-scenes campaign by a group of progressives to bring a legal icon around to their way of thinking--and a deeply touching human narrative of an old man saved from loneliness and despair by a few unlikely young friends.
Beautifully written and exhaustively researched, "The Great Dissent" is intellectual history at its best, revealing how free debate can alter the life of a man and the legal landscape of an entire nation.

Sir Matthew Hale (1609-76) was the best-known judge of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, but he nonetheless rose to be Lord Chief Justice under King Charles II. His constitutional ideas are of interest both to lawyers and to historians of political thought; but he also wrote extensively on scientific and religious questions, in ways that illustrate the birth of early Enlightenment attitudes to both. This book surveys all aspects of Hale's work, and supplies fresh perspectives on revolutionary developments in science and religion, as well as politics.

The first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor has become an instant American icon. Now, with a candor and intimacy never undertaken by a sitting Justice, she recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a journey that offers an inspiring testament to her own extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself.
Here is the story of a precarious childhood, with an alcoholic father (who would die when she was nine) and a devoted but overburdened mother, and of the refuge a little girl took from the turmoil at home with her passionately spirited paternal grandmother. But it was when she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes that the precocious Sonia recognized she must ultimately depend on herself. She would learn to give herself the insulin shots she needed to survive and soon imagined a path to a different life. With only television characters for her professional role models, and little understanding of what was involved, she determined to become a lawyer, a dream that would sustain her on an unlikely course, from valedictorian of her high school class to the highest honors at Princeton, Yale Law School, the New York County District Attorney's office, private practice, and appointment to the Federal District Court before the age of forty. Along the way we see how she was shaped by her invaluable mentors, a failed marriage, and the modern version of extended family she has created from cherished friends and their children. Through her still-astonished eyes, America's infinite possibilities are envisioned anew in this warm and honest book, destined to become a classic of self-invention and self-discovery.

The Good Lawyer explores the ethical and professional challenges that confront people who work in the law - or are considering it - and offers principled and pragmatic advice about how to overcome such challenges. This book takes a holistic approach that begins with your innate humanity. It urges you to examine your motives for seeking a career in law, to foster a deep understanding of what it means to be 'good', and to draw on your virtue and judgement when difficult choices arise, rather than relying on compliance with rules or codes. The Good Lawyer analyses four important areas of legal ethics - truth and deception, professional secrets, conflicts of interest, and professional competence - and explains the choices that are available when determining a course of moral action. It links theory to practice, and includes many examples, diagrams and source documents to illustrate ethical concepts, scenarios and decision making.