Author: Anthony T. Kronman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674539273
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 452
Book Description
For nearly two centuries, Kronman argues, the aspirations of American lawyers were shaped by their allegiance to a distinctive ideal of professional excellence. In the last generation, however, this ideal has failed, undermining the identity of lawyers as a group and making it unclear to those in the profession what it means for them personally to have chosen a life in the law.
The Lost Lawyer
Author: Anthony T. Kronman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674539273
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 452
Book Description
For nearly two centuries, Kronman argues, the aspirations of American lawyers were shaped by their allegiance to a distinctive ideal of professional excellence. In the last generation, however, this ideal has failed, undermining the identity of lawyers as a group and making it unclear to those in the profession what it means for them personally to have chosen a life in the law.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674539273
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 452
Book Description
For nearly two centuries, Kronman argues, the aspirations of American lawyers were shaped by their allegiance to a distinctive ideal of professional excellence. In the last generation, however, this ideal has failed, undermining the identity of lawyers as a group and making it unclear to those in the profession what it means for them personally to have chosen a life in the law.
The Lawyer Bubble
Author: Steven J Harper
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465097634
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
A noble profession is facing its defining moment. From law schools to the prestigious firms that represent the pinnacle of a legal career, a crisis is unfolding. News headlines tell part of the story—the growing oversupply of new lawyers, widespread career dissatisfaction, and spectacular implosions of pre-eminent law firms. Yet eager hordes of bright young people continue to step over each other as they seek jobs with high rates of depression, life-consuming hours, and little assurance of financial stability. The Great Recession has only worsened these trends, but correction is possible and, now, imperative. In The Lawyer Bubble, Steven J. Harper reveals how a culture of short-term thinking has blinded some of the nation’s finest minds to the long-run implications of their actions. Law school deans have ceded independent judgment to flawed U.S. News & World Report rankings criteria in the quest to maximize immediate results. Senior partners in the nation’s large law firms have focused on current profits to enhance American Lawyer rankings and individual wealth at great cost to their institutions. Yet, wiser decisions—being honest about the legal job market, revisiting the financial incentives currently driving bad behavior, eliminating the billable hour model, and more—can take the profession to a better place. A devastating indictment of the greed, shortsightedness, and dishonesty that now permeate the legal profession, this insider account is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how things went so wrong and how the profession can right itself once again.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465097634
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
A noble profession is facing its defining moment. From law schools to the prestigious firms that represent the pinnacle of a legal career, a crisis is unfolding. News headlines tell part of the story—the growing oversupply of new lawyers, widespread career dissatisfaction, and spectacular implosions of pre-eminent law firms. Yet eager hordes of bright young people continue to step over each other as they seek jobs with high rates of depression, life-consuming hours, and little assurance of financial stability. The Great Recession has only worsened these trends, but correction is possible and, now, imperative. In The Lawyer Bubble, Steven J. Harper reveals how a culture of short-term thinking has blinded some of the nation’s finest minds to the long-run implications of their actions. Law school deans have ceded independent judgment to flawed U.S. News & World Report rankings criteria in the quest to maximize immediate results. Senior partners in the nation’s large law firms have focused on current profits to enhance American Lawyer rankings and individual wealth at great cost to their institutions. Yet, wiser decisions—being honest about the legal job market, revisiting the financial incentives currently driving bad behavior, eliminating the billable hour model, and more—can take the profession to a better place. A devastating indictment of the greed, shortsightedness, and dishonesty that now permeate the legal profession, this insider account is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how things went so wrong and how the profession can right itself once again.
Should You Really be a Lawyer?
Author: Deborah Schneider
Publisher: Gary Belsky
ISBN: 9780940675575
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Publisher: Gary Belsky
ISBN: 9780940675575
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Think Like a Lawyer, Don't Act Like One
Author: Aernoud Bourdrez
Publisher: BIS Publishers
ISBN: 9789063695354
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
This book provides strategies to solve conflicts. Co-developed by Harvard University, many lawyers, two kissing boxers, a cowboy, Mikhail Gorbatsjov.
Publisher: BIS Publishers
ISBN: 9789063695354
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
This book provides strategies to solve conflicts. Co-developed by Harvard University, many lawyers, two kissing boxers, a cowboy, Mikhail Gorbatsjov.
The Good Lawyer
Author: Douglas O. Linder
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199360235
Category : LAW
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
"Doug Linder and Nancy Levit combine evidence from the latest social science research with numerous engaging accounts of able attorneys at work to explain just what makes a good lawyer -- courage, empathy, integrity, realism, a strong sense of justice, clarity of purpose, and an ability to transcend emotionalism"--
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199360235
Category : LAW
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
"Doug Linder and Nancy Levit combine evidence from the latest social science research with numerous engaging accounts of able attorneys at work to explain just what makes a good lawyer -- courage, empathy, integrity, realism, a strong sense of justice, clarity of purpose, and an ability to transcend emotionalism"--
Humor of a Country Lawyer
Author: Sam J. Ervin Jr.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807875732
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Originally published in 1984, Senator Ervin's delightful collection of stories and anecdotes winds its way from his native Morganton through Chapel Hill and Harvard, the military, the North Carolina Supreme Court, the United States Senate, and Watergate. It represents a lifetime of wit and wisdom--told in the late Senator Ervin's inimitable style.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807875732
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Originally published in 1984, Senator Ervin's delightful collection of stories and anecdotes winds its way from his native Morganton through Chapel Hill and Harvard, the military, the North Carolina Supreme Court, the United States Senate, and Watergate. It represents a lifetime of wit and wisdom--told in the late Senator Ervin's inimitable style.
The Lawyer's Myth
Author: Walter Bennett
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226042561
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
Lawyers today are in a moral crisis. The popular perception of the lawyer, both within the legal community and beyond, is no longer the Abe Lincoln of American mythology, but is often a greedy, cynical manipulator of access and power. In The Lawyer's Myth, Walter Bennett goes beyond the caricatures to explore the deeper causes of why lawyers are losing their profession and what it will take to bring it back. Bennett draws on his experience as a lawyer, judge, and law teacher, as well as upon oral histories of lawyers and judges, in his exploration of how and why the legal profession has lost its ennobling mythology. Effectively using examples from history, philosophy, psychology, mythology, and literature, Bennett shows that the loss of professionalism is more than merely the emergence of win-at-all-cost strategies and a scramble for personal wealth. It is something more profound—a loss of professional community and soul. Bennett identifies the old heroic myths of American lawyers and shows how they informed the values of professionalism through the middle of the last century. He shows why, in our more diverse society, those myths are inadequate guides for today's lawyers. And he also discusses the profession's agony over its trickster image and demonstrates how that archetype is not only a psychological reality, but a necessary component of a vibrant professional mythology for lawyers. At the heart of Bennett's eloquently written book is a call to reinvigorate the legal professional community. To do this, lawyers must revive their creative capacities and develop a meaningful, professional mythology—one based on a deeper understanding of professionalism and a broader, more compassionate ideal of justice.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226042561
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
Lawyers today are in a moral crisis. The popular perception of the lawyer, both within the legal community and beyond, is no longer the Abe Lincoln of American mythology, but is often a greedy, cynical manipulator of access and power. In The Lawyer's Myth, Walter Bennett goes beyond the caricatures to explore the deeper causes of why lawyers are losing their profession and what it will take to bring it back. Bennett draws on his experience as a lawyer, judge, and law teacher, as well as upon oral histories of lawyers and judges, in his exploration of how and why the legal profession has lost its ennobling mythology. Effectively using examples from history, philosophy, psychology, mythology, and literature, Bennett shows that the loss of professionalism is more than merely the emergence of win-at-all-cost strategies and a scramble for personal wealth. It is something more profound—a loss of professional community and soul. Bennett identifies the old heroic myths of American lawyers and shows how they informed the values of professionalism through the middle of the last century. He shows why, in our more diverse society, those myths are inadequate guides for today's lawyers. And he also discusses the profession's agony over its trickster image and demonstrates how that archetype is not only a psychological reality, but a necessary component of a vibrant professional mythology for lawyers. At the heart of Bennett's eloquently written book is a call to reinvigorate the legal professional community. To do this, lawyers must revive their creative capacities and develop a meaningful, professional mythology—one based on a deeper understanding of professionalism and a broader, more compassionate ideal of justice.
Lawyer Barons
Author: Lester Brickman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139497189
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 585
Book Description
This book is a broad and deep inquiry into how contingency fees distort our civil justice system, influence our political system and endanger democratic governance. Contingency fees are the way personal injury lawyers finance access to the courts for those wrongfully injured. Although the public senses that lawyers manipulate the justice system to serve their own ends, few are aware of the high costs that come with contingency fees. This book sets out to change that, providing a window into the seamy underworld of contingency fees that the bar and the courts not only tolerate but even protect and nurture. Contrary to a broad academic consensus, the book argues that the financial incentives for lawyers to litigate are so inordinately high that they perversely impact our civil justice system and impose other unconscionable costs. It thus presents the intellectual architecture that underpins all tort reform efforts.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139497189
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 585
Book Description
This book is a broad and deep inquiry into how contingency fees distort our civil justice system, influence our political system and endanger democratic governance. Contingency fees are the way personal injury lawyers finance access to the courts for those wrongfully injured. Although the public senses that lawyers manipulate the justice system to serve their own ends, few are aware of the high costs that come with contingency fees. This book sets out to change that, providing a window into the seamy underworld of contingency fees that the bar and the courts not only tolerate but even protect and nurture. Contrary to a broad academic consensus, the book argues that the financial incentives for lawyers to litigate are so inordinately high that they perversely impact our civil justice system and impose other unconscionable costs. It thus presents the intellectual architecture that underpins all tort reform efforts.
The Best Lawyer in a One-lawyer Town
Author: Dale Bumpers
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 9781557287731
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
If Frank McCourt had grown up in Depression-era Arkansas, he might write like Dale Bumpers, one of the most colorful and entertaining politicians in recent American history: Atticus Finch with a sense of humor. In The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town, Bumpers tells the story of his remarkable journey from poverty to political legend, and the result is a great American memoir that is already attracting wide acclaim for its clever Southern charm: "How agreeable to read a serious politician's memoir and find it as full of wit, bite, scorn, compassion, and insight as Dale Bumpers himself." -Norman Mailer "Former Arkansas governor Bumpers served in the Senate for twenty-four years and is currently with a Washington law firm. However, this witty book indicates he may have a new career as a humorist on the printed page. . . . These charming tales from a country lawyer turned national politician are thoroughly enjoyable."-Publishers Weekly "This saga of bootstrapping from an impoverished boyhood to the Arkansas governor's mansion and a distinguished senatorial career could easily serve as a manual for the legislatively inclined. But it is the author's total candor, combined with his facility for humor spun out of rural America's plain talk, that lifts this remembrance well above the ordinary."- Kirkus Reviews Dale Bumpers was reared during the depths of the Great Depression, in the miserably poor town of Charleston, Arkansas, population 851. He was twelve years old when he saw and heard Franklin Roosevelt, who was campaigning in the state. Afterward, his father assured young Dale that he, too, could be president. Many years later, in 1970, after suffering financial disaster and personal tragedy, Bumpers ran for governor of Arkansas, starting out with one-percent name recognition and $50,000, most of which was borrowed from his brother and sister. He defeated arch-segregationist Orval Faubus in the primary and a Rockefeller in the general election. He served four years as governor and then twenty-four years in the U.S. Senate. He never lost an election. Two weeks after Bumpers left the Senate, President Bill Clinton called him with an urgent plea to make the closing argument in his impeachment trial. That speech became an instant classic of political oratory. The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town is the work of a master politician blessed with wry insight into character and a gift for rib-tickling tales. It is a classic American story.
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 9781557287731
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
If Frank McCourt had grown up in Depression-era Arkansas, he might write like Dale Bumpers, one of the most colorful and entertaining politicians in recent American history: Atticus Finch with a sense of humor. In The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town, Bumpers tells the story of his remarkable journey from poverty to political legend, and the result is a great American memoir that is already attracting wide acclaim for its clever Southern charm: "How agreeable to read a serious politician's memoir and find it as full of wit, bite, scorn, compassion, and insight as Dale Bumpers himself." -Norman Mailer "Former Arkansas governor Bumpers served in the Senate for twenty-four years and is currently with a Washington law firm. However, this witty book indicates he may have a new career as a humorist on the printed page. . . . These charming tales from a country lawyer turned national politician are thoroughly enjoyable."-Publishers Weekly "This saga of bootstrapping from an impoverished boyhood to the Arkansas governor's mansion and a distinguished senatorial career could easily serve as a manual for the legislatively inclined. But it is the author's total candor, combined with his facility for humor spun out of rural America's plain talk, that lifts this remembrance well above the ordinary."- Kirkus Reviews Dale Bumpers was reared during the depths of the Great Depression, in the miserably poor town of Charleston, Arkansas, population 851. He was twelve years old when he saw and heard Franklin Roosevelt, who was campaigning in the state. Afterward, his father assured young Dale that he, too, could be president. Many years later, in 1970, after suffering financial disaster and personal tragedy, Bumpers ran for governor of Arkansas, starting out with one-percent name recognition and $50,000, most of which was borrowed from his brother and sister. He defeated arch-segregationist Orval Faubus in the primary and a Rockefeller in the general election. He served four years as governor and then twenty-four years in the U.S. Senate. He never lost an election. Two weeks after Bumpers left the Senate, President Bill Clinton called him with an urgent plea to make the closing argument in his impeachment trial. That speech became an instant classic of political oratory. The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town is the work of a master politician blessed with wry insight into character and a gift for rib-tickling tales. It is a classic American story.
Strong Advocate
Author: Thomas Strong
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826272967
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
In Strong Advocate, Thomas Strong, one of the most successful trial lawyers in Missouri’s history, chronicles his adventures as a contemporary personal injury attorney. Though the profession is held in low esteem by the general public, Strong entered the field with the right motives: to help victims who have been injured by defective products or through the negligence of others. As a twelve-year-old in rural southwest Missouri during the Great Depression, Strong bought a cow, then purchased others as he could afford them, and eventually financed his education with the milk he sold. After graduating law school and serving in the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps, he rejected offers to practice in New York and San Francisco and returned to his hometown of Springfield. Strong exhibited his lifelong passion to represent the underdog early in his practice, the “trial by ambush” days when neither side was required to disclose witnesses or exhibits. He quickly became known for his audacious approach to trying cases. Tactics included asking a friend to ride on top of a moving car and hiring a local character called “Crazy Max” to recreate an automobile accident. One fraud case ended with Strong owning a bank and his opponent going to prison. When he sued a labor union for the wrongful death of his client’s spouse, he found his own life threatened. With changes in the law that allowed discovery of information from an opponent’s files as well as the exhibits and witnesses to be used at trial, Strong and fellow personal injury attorneys forced a wide array of manufacturers to produce safer products. When witnesses of a terrible collision claimed both roadways had green lights simultaneously, Strong purchased the traffic light controller. After three months of continuous testing at a university, the controller failed, showing four green lights, and Strong learned that fail-safe devices were available but had not been implemented. These fail-safe devices are now standard on traffic lights throughout the country. In his last venture, Strong represented the state of Missouri in its case against the tobacco industry, culminating in a settlement totaling billions of dollars. He reflects on the changes—not always for the better—in his oft-maligned profession since he entered the field in the 1950s. Thomas Strong’s story of tenacity, quick wits, and humor demonstrates what made him such a creative and effective attorney. Lawyers and law students can learn much from this giant of the bar, and all readers will be entertained and heartened by his victories for the everyman.
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826272967
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
In Strong Advocate, Thomas Strong, one of the most successful trial lawyers in Missouri’s history, chronicles his adventures as a contemporary personal injury attorney. Though the profession is held in low esteem by the general public, Strong entered the field with the right motives: to help victims who have been injured by defective products or through the negligence of others. As a twelve-year-old in rural southwest Missouri during the Great Depression, Strong bought a cow, then purchased others as he could afford them, and eventually financed his education with the milk he sold. After graduating law school and serving in the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps, he rejected offers to practice in New York and San Francisco and returned to his hometown of Springfield. Strong exhibited his lifelong passion to represent the underdog early in his practice, the “trial by ambush” days when neither side was required to disclose witnesses or exhibits. He quickly became known for his audacious approach to trying cases. Tactics included asking a friend to ride on top of a moving car and hiring a local character called “Crazy Max” to recreate an automobile accident. One fraud case ended with Strong owning a bank and his opponent going to prison. When he sued a labor union for the wrongful death of his client’s spouse, he found his own life threatened. With changes in the law that allowed discovery of information from an opponent’s files as well as the exhibits and witnesses to be used at trial, Strong and fellow personal injury attorneys forced a wide array of manufacturers to produce safer products. When witnesses of a terrible collision claimed both roadways had green lights simultaneously, Strong purchased the traffic light controller. After three months of continuous testing at a university, the controller failed, showing four green lights, and Strong learned that fail-safe devices were available but had not been implemented. These fail-safe devices are now standard on traffic lights throughout the country. In his last venture, Strong represented the state of Missouri in its case against the tobacco industry, culminating in a settlement totaling billions of dollars. He reflects on the changes—not always for the better—in his oft-maligned profession since he entered the field in the 1950s. Thomas Strong’s story of tenacity, quick wits, and humor demonstrates what made him such a creative and effective attorney. Lawyers and law students can learn much from this giant of the bar, and all readers will be entertained and heartened by his victories for the everyman.