Legal Profession Blog

Call for Papers: International Journal on the Legal Profession

[Posted by Bill Henderson]

The International Journal on the Legal Profession has issued a call for papers on the topic "Impact of Legal Change on Legal Practitioners."  Here are the details:

The International Journal of the Legal Profession invites submissions for a symposium on how legal changes impact the day-to-day work of legal practitioners. The types of issues that would be appropriate for articles includes how legal change impacts such things as the market for specialized legal practices, lawyers’ decision making practices about which cases to pursue, the way lawyers handle specific types of cases, or how lawyers work with experts; these topics are meant to be suggestive not exhaustive. More specific examples in the U.S.context would include the impact of tort reform, the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005, changes in immigration law in the wake of 9/11, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and the Class Action Fairness Act 2005. Examples of legal changes in the UK that might be considered are The Companies Acts, Charity Act 2006 and Legal Services Act 2007. While the examples are drawn from the U.S.and the U.K., submissions dealing with the impact of legal change on legal practice in other countries is strongly encouraged.

The symposium editor will be Professor Herbert Kritzer, William Mitchell College of Law (herbert.kritzer@wmitchell.edu). Authors who have questions about whether their work would be appropriate for the symposium should contact Professor Kritzer.

More information after the jump:

All manuscripts should be submitted electronically to the general editor, Professor Avrom Sherr, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, Avrom.Sherr@sas.ac.uk. Either Word or PDF format is preferred. Manuscripts should be double-spaced, and authors should insure that all identifying information (including that embedded by software) is removed prior to submission. Because it is a peer-reviewed journal, the International Journal of the Legal Profession requires that manuscripts submitted for consideration not be under simultaneous consideration by other journals.

Manuscripts will be evaluated for publication as submitted; the deadline for submission to insure consideration is February 1, 2009. Anticipated publication is late 2009.

The International Journal of the Legal Profession is an academic journal addressing the organization, structure, management and infrastructure of the legal professions of the common law and civil law world. The journal encompasses studies of the work, work practices, skills and ethics of the legal profession as well as the internal management of law firms and chambers. It also considers the methods and extent of provision of legal services. A range of socio-legal information is included involving inter-disciplinary interest from academic and professional lawyers, economists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and business academics interested in the world of law and lawyers.

Debriefing on the ISBA Solo & Small Firm Conference

[posted by Bill Henderson]

Last week, I attended the Indiana State Bar Association (ISBA) Solo & Small Firm Conference.  I first started attending this event back in 2004 when I was preparing to teach my course on The Law Firm as a Business Organization.   (In fact, the first year I attended the "boot camp" for lawyers who want to open their own practice.)

It is often said by practicing lawyers that law school does not prepare students to practice law.  Within the law school environment, this is commonly interpreted as lack of practical skills training.  Thus, externships, clinics and skills courses are often cited as the solution. Yet, my regular attendance at the  ISBA Solo & Small Firm Conference has given me a different gauge to understand where we come up short. And frankly, I think the gap between law school and practice is often about something much more fundamental and human.   

For example, this year (like every year), some touchstones of success included: 

1. Listening to clients--it is amazing (a) how unnatural this skill is for most lawyers and (b) how it can revolutionize your career if you learn how to do it.
2. Updating your client monthly with a (free) status report--well-informed clients are usually more satisfied, less likely to complain, more likely to pay the bill, and more likely to refer business.
   
3. Leveraging technology to increase office efficiency, including the importance of paying for high-quality training--few people are more tech-savvy than the solo and small firm crowd.  Why?  It is really a matter of financial survival.   
4. Learning to say "no" to matters outside your area of competency or to a client who has unrealistic expectations--which is extremely hard to do when you are experiencing cash flow problems.  Yet, in small firm practice, poor judgment has serious and potentially irreversible financial consequences.
5. The importance of networking, reputation, and not being a jerk--the most successful small firm lawyers enjoy relationships with people as an end in themselves.  And from these relationships flow tremendous referral business.

None of these "skills" are taught or even signaled as important in law school.   Indeed, with the large tilt in law schools toward professors with large law firm experience--and virtually all as associates rather than equity partners--it is likely that we law professors undervalue the importance of commonsense and practical judgment in building a successful career.  (How many of us could meet a payroll twice a month?  What a daunting prospect!) Law schools supposedly teach students how to think like a lawyer, but this often takes the form of an appellate lawyer who manipulates the law under a fixed set of facts--with the most proficient having a shot at becoming a law professor. But in my observation, this is a extremely truncated view of how lawyers add value to clients and ultimately earn a living.   

In sum, I want to go on record with my admiration of many solo & small firm lawyers who juggle a wide array of difficult client problems with such good humor and grace.  They also provide concrete evidence that professionalism and integrity are the cornerstones of successful and happy careers.   That is a message I hope to convey to my students.  I am immensely grateful to the ISBA Solo & Small Firm Conference for once again giving me the opportunity to learn more about the lives of lawyers.

New Ethics Journal Edition Out

The Spring 2008 edition of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics is now available. Included are articles and a transcript of the Journal's 2007 symposium on corporate counsel. The articles are authored by Sarah Helene Duggin, Sung Hui Kim and Tanina Rostain. There are also articles from Dzeinkowski & Peroni on lawyer referrals to non-lawyer conflicts of interest, Lebovits, Curtin & Solomon on ethical judicial opinion writing, and (near and dear to me) an article on New Jersey's permanent disbarment rule by James R. Zazzali, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Special kudos to my former student and Journal Editor-in-Chief Tonio D. DeSorrento and Geoffrey R. Thompson for their conversation on derivatives-based innovation in the legal profession and capital markets. (Mike Frisch)

Gallagher to Present at L&S on How IP Lawyers Do Their Work

There will be many good panels on the legal profession and ethics that are set to appear at Law & Society Montreal next week, about which Legal Ethics Forum posted extensive guiding comments, including John Steele's talk on retainer agreements.  Also look for a paper to be presented May 29 by William T. Gallagher (Golden Gate, shown left as Clark Kent), reporting "the results of a study of the everyday lawyering practices of attorneys who enforce intellectual property rights in copyright and trademark cases." ..."perhaps over-enforce." Such devices as SLAPP suits and cease and desist letters will be considered.  The presentation is Strategic Intellectual Property Litigation in Copyright and Trademark Cases. 

Bill's panel on culture and IP practice also features the always-fascinating Susan Scafidi (SMU, visiting Fordham, shown right in always-apt pearls), whose blogging on culture and fashion including knock-offs [Counterfeit Chic] is widely read by both lawyers and fashionistas (Vogue-pawers and even accounting types who follow the big business of fashion production, marketing, and insignia).  Scafidi authored the book Who Owns Culture?  I wonder what her chic blog would say about my sister-in-law's dress design being knocked off by Forever 21...

[Alan Childress]

Suffolk Offers LLC Conference Live and Via Webcast

Posted by Jeff LIpshaw

Suffolk University Law School is hosting "Limited Liability Companies at 20:  Cutting Edge Issues," an all-day program on Friday, June 13, 2008, featuring such LLC luminaries as Larry Ribstein (Illinois, right - doesn't he look like the actor James Rebhorn, left?), Robert Keatinge (who graced Suffolk with a year-long visit in 2007-08), Daniel Kleinberger (William Mitchell), and Suffolk's own Carter Bishop.

If the idea of traveling, even to Suffolk's incomparable facility in the heart of downtown Boston, on Friday the 13th gives you the willies, you can still participate via webcast, courtesy of Suffolk's peripatetic Advanced Legal Studies office.  Check it out!

Griffith Univ. and Univ. of Queensland (Aus.) To Hold International Ethics Conference Mid-July 2008

"The Third International Legal Ethics Conference will be held on Australia's beautiful Gold Coast on 13-16 July 2008. ... The primary aim of the conference is to provide a forum for informed and lively debate within the various conference themes."  Detailed Information, speakers, and a call for papers are linked here.  Our prior link here to the colorful and printable conference schedule.

Notably for LPB readers:

The conference will be designed to cater for both scholars and legal practitioners, with a designated "practitioners’ day" which will include papers, presentations and discussions of particular relevance to practising lawyers.

The conference themes embrace international perspectives, and will provide delegates from Australia and abroad with opportunities to hear and share ideas and arguments that have implications for "lawyering" across jurisdictions.

[Alan Childress]

Andrew Perlman Opens LEF Coffers To Make New Friends

Posted by Alan Childress

Speaking of Suffolk and Legal Ethics Forum (intersected in this previous post), their own Andy Perlman has posted this generous invite to a Thurs. May 29 dinner in a Boston restaurant.  It is for interested bloggers and friends who are in town as part of the ABA meeting in Boston May 28-31. That is the 34th National Conference on Professional Responsibility. The conference is to be held at the Seaport Hotel in Boston.  You can approach him by face (<---) at the conference.

I wish I could join him then, especially since dinner is discounted via using LEF ad revenues.  One of the ironies of the google ad sense algorithm that generates some funds for LEF is that slogans for ads can appear randomly and incongrously right next to their substantive posts.  I note that right now displayed next to Andy's post on this dinner are the large words, "Best Kept Secret?"  But anyway that week is also the Law and Society Association's annual meeting; this year it is in Montreal, with several panels on lawyers and the profession.  I will be there and hope to meet some readers and old friends (dutch). 

But, seriously, this is actually very nice of Andy and we salute him.  I hope Jeff goes and blogs on it.

Law & Society Ass'n Conference (May 29-June 1, Montreal) Has Panels on Legal Profession

Posted by Alan Childress

The annual meeting of the Law & Society Association, this year in conjunction with the Canadian Law & Society Association, will be held in Montreal, Canada, from May 29-June 1, 2008 (with some events, particularly of the Canadian group, a few days after).  Here is program and hotel information, and a guide to the many interesting panels proposed: Download prog_4_10.doc.  Some of them deal with issues of legal business and practice, including trends in big firms and problems of prosecutorial misconduct.  One I look forward to is hearing Marc Galanter and Bill Henderson on "the [new, elastic] tournament of lawyers" and their study forthcoming in Stanford Law Review, as noted on at Legal Ethics Forum here, with a link to the SSRN version of their important paper.

UPDATE:  Other Law & Society panels on the legal profession, law firms, and global practice are listed in comments to this post at LEF, including a May 29 presentation (on biglaw engagement agreements) by one of its editors, John Steele.  That panel goes on my to-do list too.

Call for Papers - 2009 AALS Annual Meeting - Joint Program of the Professional Responsibility and Clinical Sections

CALL FOR AALS ANNUAL MEETING PRESENTATION PROPOSALS Joint Professional Responsibility and Clinical Sections 2009 AALS Annual Meeting Program, Jan.7-10, 2009;  Session Commemorating the Fortieth Anniversary of the Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility (CLEPR).

The Planning Committee for the 2009 AALS Annual Meeting Joint Program of the Professional Responsibility and Clinical Sections is seeking innovative proposals for presentations or posters related to the teaching of ethical reflection in law practice and related topics for possible inclusion in the 2009 annual meeting program.  Preference will be given to proposals involving interactive presentations.  Potential presentation topics might include: innovative methods of teaching reflective learning about professional values and goals through case rounds, simulations, case studies, or externship seminars; teaching of legal ethics and professionalism values through the pervasive method and/or by integrating ethics and professional reflection into substantive law courses and subjects; and assessment in course components addressed to the development of reflective, ethics and professionalism skills. 

The Planning Committee will consider proposals for possible oral or poster presentations.  Please submit proposals describing anticipated presentation, along with  any supporting materials, to Susan Carle at scarle@wcl.american.edu, by June 15, 2008.

[Jeff Lipshaw]

May 1 Conference in Chicago on the Business of Legal Practice: Death to Billables? Cynicism in Business Advising?

Posted by Alan Childress

I posted this announcement two weeks ago on a symposium by DePaul's law school, to be held on May Day in Chicago, about the ethics of the business of practicing law. One of the hot topics is on the issue of billable hours. Here is another blog post about it, from an interested party planning to go. The post is by our own blogeague Nancy Rapoport, on her own blog. 

Nancy has also posted a thoughtful post on what a law school ideally wants in a faculty.  See it at Madisonian.net here, and the reaction to it by Michael Froomkin at Miami here. Froomkin gives her post "the biggest cheer" among Madisonian's mobblog on legal education.  Every law teacher should read it.

Finally, Nancy references, recommends, and links an excellent post on business ethics from our own Jeff Lipshaw, posted over at Concurring Opinions, entitled Realism and Idealism in Business Ethics: A Post-Bear Reflection.  Jeff fights the notion that the accurate message to law students about corporate legal advising is cynical, that "the corporate world is corrupting and essentially random and beyond your control, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it, except hope that your figurative airplane doesn't crash."

DePaul Offers Great Symposium May 1 on the Ethics of the BUSINESS of Law

Posted by Alan Childress

The DePaul Business and Commercial Law Journal, with the Commercial Law League of America (site is here), has announced its sixth annual symposium: Lawyers, Law Firms, & the Legal Profession: An Ethical View of the Business of Law. It is upcoming on May 1, 2008, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  "Leading experts, timely issues, and CLE credit are just a few of the reasons to come."  Topics include Lawyers in a Fee Quandary: Must the Billable Hour Die?, the Roberts Court, Ghosts from old law firms haunting a new firm, and lawyer discipline and professionalism.  It will be held at the Westin on Michigan Ave., Chicago.  Here is the program announcement: Download symp_article.doc.

Legal History Panel in D.C. Mar. 18, at GW Law's Institute for Constitutional Studies

Posted by Alan Childress

Here is a link to a public-is-welcome panel in Washington, D.C., of "author meets critics" on Charles Lane's new book The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction.   Lane is a reporter at the Washington Post.  Sad story out of reconstruction Louisiana that makes Jena seem like the rainbow coalition.

The panel will be held at 4:00 p.m. on Tues., March 18, 2008, at George Washington U. Law School (Faculty conference room); it is sponsored by its Institute for Constitutional Studies. Refreshments served!

Legal Ethics Conference in Australia in mid-July 2008

Posted by Alan Childress

Here is news about a conference on legal ethics, including international issues, in Queensland, Australia this summer (well, winter). 

The Third International Legal Ethics Conference will be held on Australia's beautiful Gold Coast on 13-16 July 2008. ... The conference will be designed to cater for both scholars and legal practitioners, with a designated "practitioners’ day" which will include papers, presentations and discussions of particular relevance to practising lawyers.

The conference themes embrace international perspectives, and will provide delegates from Australia and abroad with opportunities to hear and share ideas and arguments that have implications for "lawyering" across jurisdictions.

It is hosted by the TC Beirne School of Law (University of Queensland) and Griffith Law School (Griffith University).  Sounds like a great idea for U.S. scholars and lawyers, too.  And for the colorful conference brochure: Download legal-ethics-conference-brochure.pdf

D.C. Panel on Law Practice in the Internet Age, Jan. 24, Looks Like Fun

Posted by Alan Childress

The D.C. Bar is cosponsoring a mini-conference -- unfortunately with no CLE credit available -- but with a fun cast and interesting topic.  The panel talk will be held over a long lunch on Thurs., Jan. 24, 2008 (or by teleconference for those afar).  Its blurb is:

Practicing Law in the E-Court of Public Opinion:  How the Internet Can Make or Break a Lawyer's or Law Firm's Reputation and What You Can Do about It - WITH DAVID LAT of ABOVE THE LAW and other national speakers!

In the Internet Age, lawyers and firms are subject to unprecedented public scrutiny.  Popular websites like Above the Law provides gossip and behind the scenes news from large law firms, while Avvo allows clients to post their opinions about their attorneys.  You'll hear how the web can affect lawyers' reputations, for better or for worse, identify ways to respond to threats to reputation and use the Internet to your advantage and learn about relevant legal concepts like First Amendment, libel and privacy law that relate to your ability to protect your reputation.  We'll have a panel of nationally recognized speakers as well as law firm marketing personnel (TBD) who will offer practical tips on guarding and promoting your reputation on line.

All the D.C. events this month are linked here, so look for Jan. 24 to register for this panel. (Many others do carry CLE credit.)  The moderator is MyShingle's Carolyn Elefant, and her post on the "star studded panel" and event is here.

Tevye's Question, the Myth of the Horizontal Organization (Again), Interdisciplinary Work, and Rob Kar's Great Idea

Posted by Jeff Lipshaw

Having just returned from the Midwestern Law and Economics Association conference, and having this morning read Rob Kar's great first post on PrawfsBlawg (what is he going to do for a follow up to that?), I was reminded again of the fundamental question Tevye the Dairyman, the protagonist of The Fiddler on the Roof, raised about interdisciplinary studies.  Tevye, in advising his daughter about the problems of inter-marriage, says "a fish could marry a bird, but where would they live?"

The myth of horizontal organization is that you can keep a business organization dynamic and growing merely by agglomerating value-creating specialties. But if that's the case, it's like fish and birds, and who sees the places where neither of them live? Either everybody is responsible for the gaps between specialties (which means nobody is responsible) or nobody is responsible.

My talk at MLEA dealt in the broadest sense of trying to use algorithmic economic models to map linguistic or moral models.  That is, can you draw legal policy conclusions by trying to cast what the parties mean in a contract into the equations of welfare economics so as to resolve disputes about contract interpretation in an economically efficient way?  While I'd say about 40% of my time on this over the last couple weeks has been devoted to refining the point I was trying to make, the other 60% was devoted to what is essentially translation.  My first attempts, thoughtfully critiqued by colleagues Eric Blumenson and Andy Perlman, were largely cast in terms of the jargon of philosophy of language and cognitive science, and I thought we made great strides in bringing the ideas to a common denominator of relatively plain English (albeit plain English with words I made up).  Nevertheless, I have reason to believe I was not entirely successful (nor unsuccessful) in communicating with the audience. 

On the flip side, there were portions of the conference - mostly those with complex equations - as to which I might as well as been have been listening to a talk in French.  I would have understood enough of the syntax and the occasional words or English cognates to be able to say, with about this level of specificity:  "they are talking, I think, about wine, and either about its price or the tannin levels."

Which brings me back to the subject of Rob Kar's post, about which I have great passion.  He's responding to the response by Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg to the recent convergence of law and evolutionary biology, which they criticized.  Now, again, we have a translation issue, but I read the Leiter/Weisman critique as saying evolutionary biology has yet to show it is capable of shedding light on the "non-plasticity" of behaviors, such that they might be the subject of legal policy.  I interpret non-plasticity as the behavior being fixed, or rigid, or hard-wired, or universal in a particular circumstance, as shown biologically, such that we might have confidence that the generalization in a legal rule is neither under-inclusive or over-inclusive.  I think Rob agrees with that (as do I), but his broader point goes back to how fish and birds, or sub-specialties, might learn to talk to each other, much less live together.

The point is the myth of the horizontal organization.  A new discipline that fits in between the cracks of the old ones needs to adopt its own rigorous standards, but they won't be the standards of any of the contributing disciplines.  I particularly took to heart Rob's inclusion of the philosophy of science and an analogy to meta-ethical thinking in the mix of disciplines that might inform this venture.   Particularly as to the latter, without a good dose of thinking about thinking, the project will never be more than the sum of its parts.

Live from the MLEA

Posted by Jeff Lipshaw

As I mentioned this morning, I'm at the University of Minnesota Law School for the Midwestern Law and Economics Association Annual Conference.   Myself excluded, the agenda includes an impressive group of speakers.

I spoke early today on Aboutness, Thingness, Models, and Understanding, and was not hit by a single tomato.  Somebody did pick up on my introductory reference to Stephen Stills at Woodstock.  He, of course, was ingesting recreational substances at the time; I was not.

The best thing about this has been the broad range of subjects, from financial services regulation to law school rankings to tissue transfer ("Gimme Some Skin:  When Tissue Banks Compete for Transplant Tissue, Who Wins?" by Robert Katz of IU-Indianapolis, which is going on right now).

Speaking of Stephen Stills and Woodstock, we are just now moving into medical marijuana exemptions, so I'm signing off.

AALS Professional Responsibility Section's Newest Newsletter Now Available

Posted by Alan Childress

Thanks to the generosity of Randy Lee (Widener) and Russ Pearce (Fordham), and many others who contribute to it, here is the recent quarterly newsletter of the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility.  It contains all sorts of case and rules summaries, article cites, announcements of conferences and meetings, career opportunities and updates, and editorials...in short, a wealth of info helpful to anyone interested in the field, not just law profs.  Retrieve it in PDF format here:  Download profrespnewsletter_sum07.pdf

Darian Ibrahim's Paper on Angel Investor Contracts

The Conglomerate Junior Scholars Workshop continues, with a neat paper from Darian Ibrahim on angel investors and a series of responses from luminaries like Larry Ribstein, Barbara Black, George Dent, and David Hoffman.

For the uninitiated, angel investors are those brave souls who put the first significant money into a start-up enterprise.  They overlap on the more developed end with venture capitalists, and on the less developed end with the holy triad known as "FFF:"  friends, family, and fools.

Being the hedgehog I am (wandering, I think, in the instant classic Solum sense - how does he do it?) about the lawyers' impulse toward a certain kind of rationality, and underlying (and autopoietic - look that one up!) presumption that the impulse is correct, I supplied a lengthy comment to Christine Hurt's intro to the discussion.

[Jeff Lipshaw]

Marquette to Host Dispute Resolution "Works in Progress" Conference

One of our favorite people, Andrea Schneider (Marquette, right) passes along the news that Marquette Law School will be holding its First Annual Dispute Resolution Works in Progress Conference on October 19-20, 2007.  "The Conference is an opportunity for scholars from all over the country to meet others who are teaching and researching in dispute resolution. Join us and present your recent scholarship or works in progress, get feedback from colleagues, and learn about other research projects underway. Although we encourage you to share your current endeavors, you do not need to be a presenter to attend."  More at the conference web page.

[Jeff Lipshaw]

ABA In Chicago

The 33rd annual ABA National Conference on Professional Responsibility will take place in Chicago this week. Here is the link to the schedule. A number of panels will address topics of interest. One session will deal with overbearing partners; another wiill consider the ethics of lawyers in an organizational setting.  There will also be a panel that will consider the ethical issues of lawyers who act as expert witnesses. A fourth panel will feature a retrospective on the famous New York "buried bodies" case with Frank H. Armani, one of the lawyers confronted with the ethical issue, Monroe Freedman and Thomas Morgan participating. (Mike Frisch)

California Ethics Symposium

The California State Bar is presenting an ethics symposium on May 19 at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. Among the panel topics are ethics issues in family law practice, transactional practice and an update on proposed revisions to the California ethics rules.  More here.  (Mike Frisch)

California Bar Ethics Symposium in L.A. at Southwestern on 5/19

The California bar website announces the 11th Annual Statewide Annual Ethics Symposium --- May 19, 2007, Southwestern Law School, Los Angeles.  "This year’s theme is 'Ethics Around the Edges' and will include sessions on transactional practice, Sarbanes-Oxley and other topics."  MCLE credit is available.  Call 415-538-2167.   [Alan Childress]

Call for Involvement and Discussion on Graying of the Bar

David Giacalone, who previously posted at f/k/a this great post on the ethics of the demographic changes -- tidal wave -- just ahead with the bar (plus see ours here), since updated his post with a request for more discussion (and links).  David is asking for CLE and symposium involvement in placing this subject on the agenda nationwide, and for LAPs to consider this reality.  Also see his announcement below the fold.  [Alan Childress]

David writes:

Important Request for Follow-up (March 26, 2007): If you agree that this topic deserves more discussion and the focused attention of bar leaders, law firms, and individual lawyers, please let your local, state and national bar groups know you would like to see Ethics and the Graying of the Bar on the agenda of Continuing Legal Education programs (on professional responsibility, office management, retirement planning, etc.), and to see Aging-Competence Intervention actively incorporated into Lawyer Assistance Programs.

Law & Society Annual Meeting - Panel on The New Formalism

Posted by Jeff Lipshaw

I thought, particularly after taking the MPRE without too noticeable an increase in my heart rate, I was beyond getting too nervous about professional challenges any more.  But this one may test my aerobic condition.

Larry Solum (Illinois) has organized an otherwise luminous round table for Saturday afternoon (2:30 pm), July 28, at the Law & Society Association's annual meeting at Humboldt University in Berlin, and somehow  got confused and included me on it.  The subject is "The New Formalism," and in addition to Larry, the participants will be Dennis Patterson (Rutgers-Camden), Randy Barnett (Georgetown), and Mariah Zeisberg (Michigan - Political Science, left).  Here's the abstract of the planned discussion:

Formalist modalities of legal reasoning have recently come to the fore in a variety of contexts. In the theory of constitutional interpretation, the so-called “new originalism” or “original meaning originalism” has gained new prominence and transcended association with conservative judicial politics. In the theory of statutory interpretation, plain meaning or textualist approaches, once considered outre, are increasing dominant in both judicial practice and scholarly debates. Even in the realm of common-law judicial decision making, instrumentalist approaches are challenged by advocates of “strong stare decisis”. This roundtable will discuss the “new formalism,” from the a variety of perspectives, including jurisprudence, political theory, and the philosophy of language.

I will be making my first official appearance with "Suffolk Law School" on my badge.  If my voice does not quaver too much, I will offer some thoughts on formalism and neo-formalism in contract law.

Call 4 Papers: SOX, SEC Reforms, and Sec Reg for AALS in NYC 1/08

Posted by Alan Childress
This from the Legal Scholarship Network of SSRN, with submission info here below the fold:

CALL FOR PAPERS:
AN EVALUATION OF RECENT SECURITIES LAW REGULATORY REFORMS AND LITIGATION
AALS SECURITIES REGULATION SECTION MEETING--Jan. 2-6, 2008 in New York City

      After the collapse of Enron, Adelphia, Worldcom and other
      high flyers of the 1990s, there was a crisis of confidence
      in American business and securities regulators. Numerous
      federal and state enforcement and regulatory actions
       occurred in the wake of these scandals. These included: the
      passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002; the research
      analyst prosecutions by the New York Attorney General and
      the Securities and Exchange Commission and the reform of
      the regulation of analysts; and prosecutions of mutual
      funds and reform of mutual fund governance. A torrent of
      criminal prosecutions and civil litigation under Rule 10b-5
      and other securities law statutes also occurred.

      Numerous law review articles have been written, explaining,
      praising or criticizing these developments. Currently,
      several high-powered decision makers have asserted that the
      U.S. capital markets are becoming less competitive than
      overseas markets due, in part, to the U.S. regulatory and
      litigation environment. Further, there has been a push
      back in the courts as to expansive interpretations by the
      SEC of its authority and expansive district court opinions
      regarding the reach of the anti-fraud provisions.

      We are seeking papers for the January 2008 meeting of the
      AALS Securities Regulation Section in New York discussing
      any aspect of these developments. A broad range of topics
      is possible, and we hope to have a lively discussion on
       whether regulatory and litigation developments have gone
      too far, not far enough or have appropriately dealt with
      the problems which led to the 1990s stock market bubble and
      its collapse. A special issue of the Brooklyn Journal of
      Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law will be devoted to
      these papers.

      PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

      Please submit an abstract of any proposed papers and any
      available drafts by March 30, 2007, either by email or post,
      to:

      CONTACT:       Roberta S. Karmel
                     Brooklyn Law School
      Email:         roberta.karmel@brooklaw.edu
      Postal:        Brooklyn Law School
                     250 Joralemon Street
                     Brooklyn, New York 11201

Fordham Conference on International Arbitration & Mediation Offered June 18-19 in NYC By Stein Center on Ethics

The Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham will cosponsor its second annual conference on International Arbitration and Mediation, including substantial attention to ethics issues for both subjects.  It will be held in New York City on June 18-19, 2007.  CLE credit is also available.  The conference director is Fordham Adjunct Professor Arthur Rovine.    [Alan Childress]

Ethical Standards in Elder Mediation: Temple Symposium Apr. 19-20

Stephanie West Allen of idealawg blog has this post, including helpful links and her comments, about ethical standards and practices in elder mediation -- and specifically a symposium on this emerging subject to be held by Temple's law school on April 19-20, 2007.  [Alan Childress]

St. Mary's Symposium on Legal Malpractice & Ethics 2/23

The symposium link here, to update our previous post on the all-day symposium Fri., Feb. 23 in San Antonio.   [Alan Childress]

"Critical Lawyers" Conference in UK Feb. 24-25 Includes Critical Legal Ethics and Bar Reform Topics

Posted by Alan Childress

The National Critical Lawyers Group in the UK will hold its next conference, called "Human Rights and Human Wrongs," from Feb. 24-25, 2007, at the University of Kent in Canterbury.  (Its last was in 2004, on Justice.) The CLG organization "brings together academics, practitioners, politicians and students in an explosive forum which is designed to extend the critical teaching that is fostered at Kent and remains the main alternative to 'Black Letter' legal education."

Updated information on the 2007 conference is linked here.  Entrance is very affordable.  In addition to broader topics of critical studies, reproductive rights, and human rights, the scheduled topics and speakers include (particularly as to this blog's theme):

Critical Legal Ethics: Kim Economides, Peter Fitzpatrick, and Emilios Christodoulidis

Law Society and Bar Reform: Richard de Friend and Khawar Qureshi

Law & Medical Ethics: Barbara Hewson, Kenny Veitch, and Mary Ford

Law Clinics: Catherine Carpenter and John Fitzpatrick, plus law students at Strathclyde and Northumbria

ABA's National Conference on Professional Responsibility and Client Protection: Chicago May 30-June 2

Link here to the ABA conference, which is touted thusly:  "The American Bar Association National Conference on Professional Responsibility is the preeminent educational and networking opportunity in the field of ethics and professional responsibility."  It is held along with the annual forum on client protection.  This year's conference is in Chicago from May 30-June 2, 2007, at the Fairmont Hotel.  More schedule and speaker  information here.  Up to 15 CLE credits may also be available.  [Alan Childress]

ABA's National Conference on Legal Malpractice To Be Held in DC Apr. 25-27

Link here to information on this year's "Spring 2007 National Legal Malpractice Conference" by the ABA. It'll be held April 25-27, 2007, in Washington, DC.   Its full brochure in PDF is here.  Special events include the evening of Thursday, April 26: Special Ticketed Event at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. [Alan Childress]

Fordham Conference 3/15 on Advocacy for Children, Ethics, and Interdisciplinary Approaches

Link here to the Stein Center's upcoming symposium, co-sponsored with the Interdisciplinary Center for Family and Child Advocacy.  It is called "Interdisciplinary Child Advocacy for the 21st Century," and will be held Thurs., Mar. 15, at Fordham.  "The ethical and practical challenges posed by the unique feature of being a children’s attorney--that the client is a minor and part of a family--will be explored."  This conference builds on the successful Jan. 2006 event it co-sponsored with UNLV, on which we posted here.  [Alan Childress]

Minneapolis Conference 2/9 on Leadership, Ethics and Innovation

Stephanie West Allen has this post on Idealawg about a conference--Feb. 9 in Minneapolis--on leadership, ethics and innovation taught from a narrative or storytelling perspective.  Unrelated, I enjoyed the knock-down debate she posted between two legal writing teachers over the use of the passive voice and whether shorter is always better.  The debate was enjoyed by me.  [Alan Childress]

Road Trip: "Working in the Public Interest" Conference at UGA March 30-31 is Free and Loaded

[This is excerpted from information sent by UGA in Athens.  This conference is free to most registrants, and open to students/profs/practitioners.  Note that the link so far provides only 2006 information (and says it is "closed," but it is not), so watch it fr