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Litigation starts the second you receive a call from a potential new client. During these intake calls, you learn about your clients and their issues. Notwithstanding the information clients provide [...]

Trial lawyers know that misconduct comes in many forms. One of the most pernicious forms of misconduct for trial lawyers is to knowingly assist, permit, or induce a client or [...]

Digital and electronic discovery, sometimes referred to as e-discovery or discovery involving electronically stored information (ESI), can feel overwhelming for even the most seasoned practitioners. This is especially so for [...]

The Florida Bar performs many important roles for the legal profession, and arguably none is more important than lawyer regulation and discipline. One of the fundamental aspects of the legal [...]

As a former defense attorney, I can attest that some defendants and defense attorneys attempt to use obstruction as a litigation tactic. But defense attorneys, like all attorneys, have an [...]

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) large language models (LLMs) have burst onto the legal scene in recent months. These models are starting to disrupt how we research and find the law. [...]

Your website is often the first contact a prospective client has with your firm. Here are some ways to make it user-friendly and informative. It wasn't long ago that prospective [...]

At the outset, we need to be clear that the terms used for children's representatives and the statutes and rules that govern their roles vary greatly among jurisdictions, sometimes even [...]

TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. THE INTERSECTION OF THE LAW AND INFLUENCER CULTURE A. Why is My Lawyer an Influencer? III. THE NEW IDEA OF WHAT IT MEANS TO [...]

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION A. TRUTH TELLING AND TORTURE B. WHAT IS TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE? C. ARGUMENT D. OBSTACLES TO THIS PROJECT E. ROADMAP FOR THE REMAINDER I. TALK OF TORTURE [...], This philosophical paper harvests from international criminal legal theory and meta-ethics to reshape and reconfigure our"legal thought and talk," as David Plunkett and Tim Sundell term it, concerning alleged acts of torture authorized and executed under the United States government's watch in Afghanistan. The Rome Treaty authorizes the International Criminal Court's ("ICC") jurisdiction over such alleged war crimes, and the ICC Appeal's Chamber approbated an Article 15 prosecutorial propio motu investigation in March 2020 (later set aside in 2021). Nonetheless, critics of American conduct relative to Afghanistan suggest that the United States continues to minimize or trivialize the ICC's authority, aptness, capacity, and compass when it comes to the alleged post-9/11 CIA perpetration and legal rationalization of "torture." I adopt a meta-ethical approach to query what kind of meta-normative reframing would behoove transitional justice pursuits. This effort requires reevaluating some of the legalist axiomata of American criminal and evidentiary law, if not an exclusively and context-invariantly legalist strategy generally, for at least three reasons, all of which draw inspiration from legal ethicist David Luban's work, the ICC, truth-commissions, and various legal scholars and philosophers. First, as it is often noted, truth-commissions proper approach truth-seeking and fact-finding distinct from prosecution in criminal law: sourced from diverse community members, truth-commissions register grave atrocities by collectively upbuilding that truth through testimonial sharing and communal contribution. I resort to Catherine Elgin's notion of the" true enough" and Heidi Grasswick's conception of "epistemic trust," among others, to unpack this. Second, responsibility is not, as philosopher Iris Marion Young would say, solely framed in a conventionally legalist and causal manner culminating in individualized conviction, but also framed as an accountability forged in prospective political alliance against a "structural injustice." I adopt from Young and the philosophers Robin Zheng and Maeve McKeown to flesh out this nuance. Third, as I remark in conclusion, there is a link to human dignity in "having one's own story" be told and heard, as Luban puts it, that is not easily captured in our adversarial system of law, but which non-legal or legally adjacent for a might adjunctively foster.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. AN OVERVIEW OF BIRTH SURROGACY A. DEFINITIONS B. THE SURROGACY PROCESS C. SURROGACY LAW II. CASE ILLUSTRATION: STIVER V. PARKER III. LEGAL ETHICS OF BIRTH [...], The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provide a guidepost on how attorneys should behave in relation to their clients, the court, and the law. Among other things, attorneys must be competent, diligent, loyal, and avoid conflicts of interest. Family law--where attorneys must often deal with closely-related parties on matters of extreme personal significance--can be an ethical minefield. This is especially true in surrogacy law, an often-unregulated subfield that, at its best, helps create families--and at worst, leads to unethical treatment against pregnant persons. This article considers common ethical questions that arise in surrogacy law, viewed through the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Interviews from practicing surrogacy lawyers from three states help illustrate the challenges inherent to the field.

Family law can be a physically, emotionally, and mentally demanding practice. But when a family law attorney's client, opposing counsel, or the family law attorney themselves are battling addictions, they [...]

Client communication is an essential part of any representation. Here are some ways to harness technology to do this effectively. The ability to communicate effectively is perhaps number one on [...]

By now, every lawyer has heard about the rise of AI--and specifically, about how it can perform complex tasks at a level of quality and speed far beyond anything we've [...]

INTRODUCTION As a law student, I was once asked to draft a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a confidentiality clause. I was tasked with clearly indicating what information would fall [...]

INTRODUCTION Scholars have long debated if and how liberalism can be balanced with multiculturalism; the use of a cultural defense in the courtroom illustrates the major issues of this conflict. [...]

INTRODUCTION Attorney-client privilege protects communications between attorneys and clients made to obtain or provide legal advice. (1) When a client engages in full and frank communication with their attorney, the [...]

INTRODUCTION Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for a majority of worldwide annual deaths. Common NCDs like heart disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, and diabetes cause decreased quality of life and premature [...]

I. INTRODUCTION In June 1981, the CDC published the first two articles on a surge of rare illnesses amongst gay men, which would later be identified as opportunistic infections linked [...]

INTRODUCTION It is a sunny day. You wake up and pick up your phone, planning to do some grocery shopping in preparation for the holiday season. You open Instacart, a [...]

A question defense counsel get throughout their career is, "How can you defend those people?" Certainly, there are occasions where we very much dislike our clients and detest the crime [...]

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE SEMINAL DECISIONS IN HALL AND IN RE STRATOSPHERE A. HALL V. CLIFTON PRECISION B. IN RE STRATOSPHERE CORPORATE SECURITIES LITIGATION II. FEDERAL COURTS HAVE [...], Civil depositions typically include periodic breaks, and many attorneys naturally want to discuss the testimony with their witness-clients during those breaks. With the increase in remote depositions during the COVID-19 pandemic, an attorney and witness-client may wish to communicate even more frequently, for example, by exchanging text messages during the questioning. Case law varies greatly by jurisdiction and does not provide clear guidance on what types of communications during a deposition are permitted. This Article reviews the existing authorities, policy rationales, and other scholarly proposals before recommending an amendment to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to provide greater clarity and predictability to attorneys and their witness-clients.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE STANDARD CONCEPTION OF RACE IN THE LAWYERING PROCESS II. RACE-NEUTRAL FORMALISM A. RACE-NEUTRAL FORMALISM IN PRACTICE B. RACE-NEUTRAL RULE FORMALISM 1. COMPETENCE 2. DILIGENCE [...], The recent, high-profile civil and criminal trials held in the aftermath of the George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery murders, the Kyle Rittenhouse killings, and the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" Rally violence renew debate over race, representation, and ethics in the U.S. civil and criminal justice systems. For civil rights lawyers, prosecutors, and criminal defense attorneys, neither the progress of post-war civil rights movements and criminal justice reform campaigns nor the advance of Critical Race Theory and social movement scholarship have resolved the debate over the use of race in pretrial, trial, and appellate advocacy, and in the lawyering process more generally. Spoken in archetypal tropes, seen in stereotypical images, and heard in stock stories, race infects the central lawyering roles of advocate and advisor, echoing inside and outside courthouses and resounding in the rules of professional responsibility and the norms of professionalism. By turns cast in colorblind, color-coded, and color-conscious oral, written, and symbolic forms, the meaning of racial identity, racialized narrative, and racially demarcated community is both constructed and contested in the lawyering process and in the regulation of lawyer conduct. In prior writings across the fields of civil rights, criminal justice, and poverty law, I mapped the intersection of race, representation, and ethics against the contours of the lawyering process, professional regulation, and legal education, especially within law school clinics and indigent civil and criminal justice systems. The purpose of this article is to revisit that body of writing and to reevaluate the continuing uses and the persisting stigma harms of race in contemporary civil rights and criminal justice advocacy, particularly in cases of racial violence. The goal of revisiting and enlarging this previous work is to grasp more fully how civil rights lawyers, prosecutors, and criminal defense attorneys use race to advantage or disadvantage Black litigants, victims, jurors, witnesses, and even other lawyers--and, moreover, how they use ethics rules and standards designed to regulate racial bias and prejudice to justify their conduct.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE LAWYER'S OATH: A TOOL TO BUILD A DIGNIFIED, RESPECTFUL AND INCLUSIVE LEGAL PROFESSION A. OATHS CAN PROMOTE ETHICAL GUIDANCE AND MORAL ASPIRATION B. OATHS [...], Each lawyer in the United States must take an oath to be licensed to practice law. The first time a lawyer takes this oath is usually a momentous occasion in their career, marked by ceremony and celebration. Yet, many lawyer's oaths today are unremarkable and irrelevant to modern law practice at best, and at worst, inappropriate, discriminatory, and obsolete. Drawing on a fifty-state survey of lawyer's oaths in the United States, this Article argues that it is past time to update lawyer's oaths in the United States and suggests drawing on human rights to make lawyer's oaths more accessible and impactful.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. PRE-BRADY JURISPRUDENCE II. THE BRADY DECISION III. THE SUPREME COURT'S EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE: DECISIONS AFTER BRADY A. THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE THAT QUALIFIES AS EXCULPATORY [...], Sixty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court announced the landmark decision Brady v. Maryland, which aimed to create a fairer justice system. Those charged with crimes were promised that the government would turn over evidence favorable to the defense, ensuring that trials would be a fair contest between the two sides. But six decades later, public confidence in our court system is at an all-time low. In this article, career prosecutor and criminal procedure professor David A. Lord argues that the best way to honor Brady on its sixtieth anniversary is to reinvigorate exculpatory evidence jurisprudence by aligning constitutional analysis with professional ethical guidance from the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. This Article traces the historical development of Brady principles over time, including the ways they have been expanded and contracted by the Supreme Court. The Court's decisions are then contrasted with the ethical mandates regarding exculpatory evidence that are contained in the Model Rules. The Article argues that by aligning constitutional principles with some of the professional ethical expectations of prosecutors, public confidence in the criminal justice system can be restored.

Summary * To be ethically compliant and protect confidential information, lawyers must read the Terms of Service of the software they use. * Lawyers should hire vendors that have Terms [...]

Summary * Attorneys often overlook the need for succession planning due to their focus on immediate legal matters. * Unforeseen events such as disability, death or sudden retirement can significantly [...]

How do you define "diligence"? When must a tax practitioner be diligent? A tax practitioner faces these questions daily. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "diligence" as a "steady earnest, and energetic [...]

Knowing when to fight a charge, or accept it when the evidence isn't great and you're offered a decent outcome, is a significant part of practicing law. Mike Mbanza, an [...]

Editor's note: The ABA Journal, in partnership with the ABA Young Lawyers Division, is launching Survival Guide, Esq., a new column offering advice for early-career lawyers. The authors of the [...]

When the so-called "Panama Papers" scandal broke in 2016, it cast an unpleasant spotlight on the potential role of lawyers across the globe assisting--knowingly or unknowingly--their clients in money laundering, [...]

On 10 April 2023, Colonel (Retired) Larry Morris delivered the Fiftieth Kenneth J. Hodson Lecture on Criminal Law. His remarks touched on challenges facing practitioners, some suggested approaches, and some [...]