American Bar Associations

The American Bar Association’s (“ABA”) practice of requiring students to purchase the Model Rules of Professional Conduct is exploitative and unethical. The ABA uses its role in training lawyers to create a situation which all but requires law students and bar applicants to purchase the organization’s own Model Rules.  The fact that the Model Rules constitute a substantial revenue stream for the ABA is due less to lawyers’ desire to brush up on Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which are not laws, than to the ABA's direct role in approving law schools and its indirect role in licensing lawyers.

Law schools must maintain ABA-approved status to remain in business.  The ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools require that students take a course in legal ethics.  Not only must law students take a course in legal ethics, but those courses must also include instruction in the ABA's ethics rules.  Furthermore, nearly all jurisdictions require bar applicants pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (“MPRE”) to become a licensed lawyer.  The MPRE is based substantially on the Model Rules.  The ABA has thus used its role in training lawyers to create a situation that essentially requires law students and bar applicants to purchase the organization’s own Model Rules.

The ABA’s decision to make its ethics rules a commodity, spanning twenty years, together with the National Conference Bar Examiners (“NCBE”) desire to nationalize testing by using the Model Rules, cultivates the dangerous view that testing checks for those inclined to unethical behavior.  In light of the ABA’s successful efforts to wring even more revenue from financially-burdened law students, the creation of an essay examination in ethics sounds less like a call to renewed professionalism than a pitch for another product for the NCBE to sell to state bar examiners.  It is a bureaucratic culture’s last-gasp effort, one that should be rejected firmly and finally.

Dean Ernest A. Raba was instrumental in establishing and building St. Mary’s University School of Law during his thirty-two year tenure as Dean of the Law School. He obtained accreditation for the law school from the American Bar Association and membership in the Association of American Law Schools. He obtained financing for three new buildings with the help of Governor John Connally, and then President Johnson. He also started the framework for $7.5 million grant from the Sarita Kenedy East Foundation for a new law library, and a new faculty building was named in his honor. In 1967, he helped establish the St. Mary’s Law Journal. By his singular efforts, he led the law school out of the wilderness into the promised land.

The increase in the interstate and international practice of law necessitates a review of the rules governing the admission of attorneys to practice before federal district courts.  By virtue of the sweep of their jurisdictional net, federal district courts are likely to be the fora for litigating most interstate or international disputes.  The present rules, based upon the antiquated notion that lawyers only rarely practice law in federal district court, and then only in the federal district court located in the state in which they practice, do not address this change in the practice of law. 

For these reasons, a new Rule concerning the admission to practice law in federal district courts, and designed to account for the recent changes in the practice of law, is worth serious consideration.  The Rule is based on the theory that lawyers will act ethically by handling only those legal matters within their competence and that clients will act intelligently when hiring a lawyer.  The Rule will not result in a system of perfect client representation by lawyers in federal courts, but will provide the federal district courts with some assurance of lawyer competence.  For these reasons, and because a single rule providing for the admission of lawyers to practice law before all federal district courts is more than a decade overdue, this Rule should be implemented as soon as possible.

This is the story of Judge Bernard S. Meyer’s exhilarating, exhausting, and highly productive first year on the New York Court of Appeals.  Based on a reputation for integrity and a record of professional accomplishment, Judge Meyer was chosen to the New York Court of Appeals in 1979, and the following seven-and-a-half years he spent there were highly productive.  While on the Court of Appeals, Judge Meyer was a progressive reformer, and it was clear he intended to use his office to make the world a better place and, whenever possible, remedy injustice.  He looked for ways in which the law could be improved and sought to identify important legal questions that had not yet been settled.  He was eager to resolve unanswered legal issues in ways that were consistent with progressive approaches to public policy and a liberal view of important constitutional principles.  Judge Meyer was not afraid to use the law to aid those who needed help most, and he did so often.  He was meticulous and precise in all things legal, and fully measured up to the best standards of the Anglo-American judicial tradition.  His performance was exactly what responsible citizens would have hoped for from the first merit appointee to the New York Court of Appeals.

Much of the history of the American law of evidence, including its most contentious issue, hearsay, is the story of stasis and reform.  The case of Hoffman v. Palmer represents one of few cases concerning hearsay known by name, and illustrates that “false” evidence has often been used to caution against efforts proclaiming “radical reform” of the law of evidence. 

In this case involving a collision between a car and a train, the critical question was: Is the defendant railroad permitted to introduce into evidence the transcript of a question and answer session made two days after the accident between the engineer of the train and another railroad employee?  If believed, a statement made in this session would exonerate the railroad from liability. 

Writing for a divided court, Judge Jerome Frank held that the absence of a motive to lie on the part of the declarant (the railroad engineer who gave the statement) was required in order for the statement to be admissible.  Because such a motive could reasonably be presumed present, the engineer’s statement was therefore determined not admissible.  Frank’s opinion was unanimously affirmed by the Supreme Court in an opinion written by Justice William O. Douglas.  However, Edmund M. Morgan, Jr., law professor and prior member of both the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Committee on the Model Code of Evidence, vehemently disagreed with both Frank and Douglas’s opinions.

Frank and Douglas’s decisions in this case, and Morgan’s opposition to the precedent those decisions set, incited considerable debate over the law of evidence and the issue of hearsay, and launched significant reform efforts.  For these reasons, Hoffman v. Palmer is emblematic of the history of the American law of evidence, law reform, and the history of twentieth century American legal thought.

Sections 424 and 429 of Title 7, Code of Alabama (1940), were the two general statutes governing the manner of proving the statutory and common law of sister states in the courts of Alabama.  These statutes provided that the testimony of an attorney, expert witness, or other recognized authority of the state in question, or official reports of the judicial decisions of that state, could all stand as evidence of the statutes or common law of that state.  The purpose of statutes like these was to lessen the burden of proof imposed on counsel and yet retain a necessary degree of reliability when the decision in Alabama would turn on the law of a foreign jurisdiction.

It is difficult to understand why the legislature would wish to enact ad hoc legislation like this where uniformity is needed, particularly when a uniform statute in point is at hand.  In 1936, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform Laws promulgated the Uniform Judicial Notice of Foreign Law Act.  The uniform act has the sanction of the American Bar Association and has been adopted by twenty-six states.

This act removes the requirement of proving the laws of other jurisdictions, though it may still be necessary to plead or present them.  Further, it requires judicial notice of the law of another state only when that law is pertinent and has been called to the attention of the court by counsel, though the court is free to inform itself of foreign law.  Finally, it is designed to insure that the foreign law be determined by the judge, not the jury, which would effect no change in Alabama law.  For these reasons, judicial notice as adopted by the Commissioners on Uniform Laws would be a preferable alternative to the statutes in use by the Alabama Legislature.

The American Bar Association’s (“ABA”) practice of requiring students to purchase the Model Rules of Professional Conduct is exploitative and unethical. The ABA uses its role in training lawyers to create a situation which all but requires law students and bar applicants to purchase the organization’s own Model Rules. The fact that the Model Rules constitute a substantial revenue stream for the ABA is due less to lawyers’ desire to brush up on Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which are not laws, than to the ABA's direct role in approving law schools and its indirect role in licensing lawyers. Law schools must maintain ABA-approved status to remain in business. The ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools require that students take a course in legal ethics. Not only must law students take a course in legal ethics, but those courses must also include instruction in the ABA's ethics rules. Furthermore, nearly all jurisdictions require bar applicants pass the Multistate Pro...

Recent years have seen a marked increase in the number of attorneys switching firms, many of whom seek to take with them the business of their former firm’s clientele.  While the contours of permissible departure-based solicitation were once clearly and narrowly circumscribed by the rules of legal ethics, the continued validity of those restrictions is seriously placed in doubt by the principles enunciated in Supreme Court decisions of the past decade dealing with commercial speech about legal services.

In this Article, Professor Johnson endeavors to comprehensively chart and evaluate the myriad of aspects of the new jurisprudence on departure-based solicitation which is now emerging in piecemeal fashion from court decisions, ethics opinions, and legal scholarship.  The Article considers both the disciplinary ramifications of such conduct, and the closely related question of whether such solicitation may give rise to civil liability under the law of torts or the law of agency.  Concluding that certain varieties of departure-based solicitation are ultimately likely to be deemed permissible, Professor Johnson discusses the issue of whether, and by what means, a firm may endeavor to protect itself from loss of clients to an attorney who leaves the firm.  Finally, a model rule of ethics is proposed for the purpose of rectifying, in a manner consistent with Supreme Court precedent, the current precedential confusion in the field.

The Kenneth J. Hodson Chair of Criminal Law was established at The Judge Advocate General’s School on June 24, 1971. The chair was named after Major General Hodson, who served as The Judge Advocate General from 1967 to 1971. General Hodson retired in 1971, but immediately was recalled to active duty to serve as the Chief Judge of the Army Court of Military Review. He served in that position until 1974. General Hodson served over thirty years on active duty. During that time, he was active in the American and Federal Bar Associations, and he authored much of the military justice legislation existing today. He was a member of the original staff and faculty of The Judge Advocate General’s School in Charlottesville, Virginia. When the Judge Advocate General’s Corps was activated as a regiment in 1986, General Hodson was selected as the Honorary Colonel of the Corps.

On March 28, 1991, Professor Schlueter delivered the twentieth Kenneth J. Hodson lecture. Professor Schlueter received his B.A. from Texas A&M University in 1969, his J.D. from Baylor University School of Law in 1971, and an L.L.M from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1981. He served on active duty as a judge advocate from 1972 to 1981. Professor Schlueter is a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Reserve and is an individual mobilization augmentee to The Judge Advocate General’s School. He has published numerous books and law review articles on criminal law topics, and is currently the Reporter for the Federal Rules Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure. In addition, Professor Schlueter has held several prominent positions in professional legal organizations and currently is the Chairman of the ABA Standing Committee on Military Law.

Climb the Ladder  Determinedly  From the Begining  to be a  Sucessfull Lawyer in US
By Cigdem Yorgancioglu

Writing  a legal memorandum American Style , Fourth Amendment  , Fifth Amendment ,10 Commandment of Cross Examination  ,Impeachment of Witness and General Overview of  Career of Law School Student, starting  from the  stage of appication to Law School. Those were the basic outlines of the chapters covered by Prof Leslie Ann Burton Legal Writing professor and teacher of Introduction to US Legal Studies for foreign-trained lawyers,. in five days program at Bahcesehir University, Faculty of Law.  28 th July 2017 was the final day of the course on which  we attained our    Certificate of Completion as a remarkable acknowledgement of the participation to “Introduction to American Law Program” held between 24th-28th July 2017 organized by Bahcesehir University  Faculty of Law at Faculty venue .

Being elligible to be a lawyer is not an easy job in US since it requires a lot of  dedicated effort.  And its a long journey  reading  cases properly , to make  research appropriately,  writing citations, understanding  the court system and the value of precedent , all require the candidate lawyer put her/his labor patiently.

Prof.Leslie Burton covered General Overview of  Career of Law School Student from the  the stages of the application process for Law School  to  how to  track  the steps involved while applying to law school. Additionally, she gave hints about being a lawyer in US. In the US, law is a professional academic field, the equivalent of a graduate degree in other parts of the world. Law schools in the US are part of public or private universities that grant Juris Doctor (J.D.) degrees. The Juris Doctor program usually lasts three years for full-time students or four years for part-time students. The first year of law school is generally considered to be the most challenging because of the core classes, exams, plus must be due to the Socrates method that used in most law school classes in which the professor cold calls on students to state a case or respond to a case-based question which intimidates many students, predominantly international students, who might be anxious to speak up in class,
....The Law School Admission Test (LSAT)

Law School Admission Test- The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is an integral part of the law school admission process in the United States, Canada, and a growing number of other countries. It provides a standard measure of acquired reading and verbal reasoning skills that law schools can use as one of several factors in assessing applicants. The test consists of five 35-minute sections of multiple-choice questions. Four of the five sections contribute to the test taker’s score. These sections include one Reading Comprehension section, one Analytical Reasoning section, and two Logical Reasoning sections. The unscored section, commonly referred to as the variable section, typically is used to pretest new test questions or to perpetuate new test forms. The placement of this section will vary. Identification of the unscored section is not available until you receive your score report. The LSAT is designed to measure skills that are considered crucial for success in law school: the reading and comprehension of complex texts with accuracy and insight; the organization and management of information and the ability to magnet reasonable inferences from it; the ability to think critically; and the analysis and evaluation of the reasoning and arguments of others. LSAT can be taken twice a year .December and July. The Law schools  requirement for taking the LSAT by December for admission the following fall. Taking the test earlier either in June or September/October is mostly advised. The prospective candidate of law school student need to make sure schedule his /her LSAT date so that he/she will have plenty of time to obtain her score before her  first law school application is due. The test takes 4 hours.

Test consist of mainly 3 different categories of questions namely, Mathematics and analytical reasoning questions that measure the ability to understand a structure of relationships and to draw logical conclusions about that structure. Secondly Reading comprehension questions measure the ability to read, with understanding and insight, examples of lengthy and complex materials similar to those commonly encountered in law school and Thirdly, Logical reasoning questions assess the ability to analyze, critically evaluate, and complete arguments as they occur in ordinary language.

LSAT score is based on the number of questions answered correctly without deduction for incorrect answers. The scores are converted to an LSAT scale statistical procedure applied means curve. For a candidate student her/his LSAT score is an integral part of her law school application; In the meantime it is only one of numerous factors that law schools contemplate when determining which applicants to admit. Many unmeasurable qualities and traits also contribute to one’s ability to succeed in law school, including intelligence, motivation, obstacles overcome, past accomplishments, interaction with community, hobbies, interests, involvement in ....

The purpose of my essay Playing Chicken: An Instant History of the Battle over Exceptions to Client Confidentiality, is to offer a pointillist history of the recent battles between the ABA and the federal government concerning 1) when lawyers may or must disclose client confidences, and 2) claims that the federal government is attacking the attorney-client privilege. In doing so, I hope to explain how this battle is representative of the current drift in the American legal profession.

After the Introduction, the essay unfolds as follows: Section II traces the ABA’s often schizophrenic understanding of the duty of confidentiality and exceptions to that duty from the 1908 Canons of Ethics to the adoption by the ABA of the 1969 Code of Professional Responsibility, and the re-conceptualization of that duty found in the adoption in 1983 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The ABA’s expansion of the duty of lawyers to keep confidences, even confidences that concerning ongoing fraud by the client, occurred after the discussion of the attorney-client privilege and its exceptions proposed by the drafters of the Federal Rules of Evidence between 1969 and 1973. The consonance between the 1969 Code and the 1975 Federal Rules of Evidence concerning the limits of the duty of confidentiality was shredded in the reaction to the ABA’s Discussion Draft of the Model Rules in January 1980. The drafts and debates concerning what became Model Rule 1.6 offer an initial demonstration of “playing chicken” by assorted lawyer interest groups as well as by the ABA, as exceptions to the duty of confidentiality became more narrowed, a narrowing justified by a claim that lawyers owe a nearly unfettered duty of loyalty to clients. Section III examines why states largely rejected Model Rule 1.6 between 1983 and the late 1990s and describes several corporate scandals from the late 1980s involving lawyer (mis)conduct. Section IV offers an instant history of the debate over when a lawyer may or must disclose client confidences beginning in 2001.

My thesis is that when an ABA Task Force offered to make the disclosure of some client confidences mandatory, it did so not for reasons of principle, but for reasons of power. After succeeding in limiting the effect of SEC regulation of lawyer conduct in the aftermath of Sarbanes-Oxley, the ABA began in late 2004 a new effort, engaging in a concerted attack on the government’s alleged “erosion” of the attorney-client privilege. This concerted attack by the ABA, I assert, had little to do with presenting evidence that the government was eroding the attorney-client privilege, and everything to do with protecting the interests of their institutional clients and themselves. Section V offers a brief conclusion. I have also included an Appendix offering a timeline of the events discussed in this paper.