Current important events in the U.S. legal profession and legal ethics, with useful research and analysis of the rules and the profession's current status, are explored by Tulane law students from an advanced ethics seminar. The collection is edited by Tulane legal ethics professor Steven Alan Childress, and he previews in his Foreword the students' explorations of the big stories of 2011. Purchase of this book benefits Tulane's Public Interest Law Foundation, a nonprofit student group that funds public interest placements and indigent client representations throughout the country. The timely topics include: prosecutorial relationships with public defenders, bar discipline for behavior outside the practice of law, false guilty pleas, the capital defense of Jared Loughner, Justice Scalia's seminar for conservative congressmembers, sensitivity to "cultural competence," legal outsourcing and competition, the dilemma of student debt in a slowed legal economy, the practice of law by legal websites like LegalZoom, and the advocate-witness rule.

Medical practice is not only a specialist occupation but also a business. Practice finance and law are complex matters and it is becoming increasingly difficult to run a successful practice in the present climate. With the pressures facing GPs and practice managers at an all-time high it is now essential to work ‘on’ as well as ‘in’ the practice. To do this practices need to reorganise to create time to undertake these hugely important tasks. This compendium of hot topics around accounting, banking and legal issues will be of enormous use to practice managers and GPs. The topics have been carefully selected to be as up to date and applicable to current issues as possible. The topics include: changes to the GP contract and their financial impact, tax returns, partnership roles, disputes and changes, incorporation, practice mergers and federations, GP property ownership, loans, security and overdrafts, recruitment of partners, salaried GPs and locums, retirement and pensions, the types of private work available. The easy-to-read topics are support by worked examples and tables throughout. This book will assist with the success of a practice in terms of earnings, quality of life and indeed patient care. It will help GPs and practice managers find and take the time to work ‘on’ as well as ‘in’ the business.

Economic globalization is transforming practically every service sector. The legal industry that has long remained insulated too has not remained untouched by the effects of globalization. The outsourcing of legal services in the past one decade has transformed the legal landscape. Legal outsourcing to India is becoming increasingly popular among U.S. and European law firms and corporations. This book broadly seeks to discuss three main topics surrounding legal process outsourcing (LPO): its emerging trends, the legal challenges it raises and the hitherto unrecognized potential it holds. Firstly, this book clarifies concepts of LPO and its operating models practiced by U.S. and U.K. law firms and corporations. Secondly, the outsourcing of legal services creates significant challenges for ethics rules including conflict of interests, attorney-client privilege, supervision and fee sharing. Thirdly, this research explores the hidden potential of LPO to improve access to justice. This book develops an altogether new proposal where Indian LPO professionals could help alleviate the access to justice problem among indigent and low-income populations of the United States.

There has never been a more exciting time to practice law. While artificial intelligence promises to minimize mundane tasks, clients' legal issues are becoming more complex. But, to successfully navigate these changes, legal professionals must better develop and exercise their creative problem- solving skills.

Drugs Law and Legal Practice in Southeast Asia investigates criminal law and practice relevant to drugs regulation in three Southeast Asian jurisdictions: Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam. These jurisdictions represent a spectrum of approaches to drug regulation in Southeast Asia, highlighting differences in practice between civil and common law countries, and between liberal and authoritarian states. This book offers the first major English language empirical investigation and comparative analysis of regulation, jurisprudence, court procedure, and practices relating to drugs law enforcement in these three states.

Two thousand years ago, Seneca described advocates not as seekers of truth but as accessories to injustice, "smothered by their prosperity." This unflattering assessment has only worsened over time. The vast majority of Americans now perceive lawyers as arrogant, unaffordable hired guns whose ethical practices rank just slightly above those of used car salesmen. In this penetrating new book, Deborah L. Rhode goes beyond the commonplace attacks on lawyers to provide the first systematic study of the structural problems confronting the legal profession. A past president of the Association of American Law Schools and senior counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during Clinton's impeachment proceedings, Rhode brings an insider's knowledge to the labyrinthine complexities of how the law works, or fails to work, for most Americans and often for lawyers themselves. She sheds much light on problems with the adversary system, the commercialization of practice, bar disciplinary processes, race and gender bias, and legal education. She argues convincingly that the bar's current self-regulation must be replaced by oversight structures that would put the public's interests above those of the profession. She insists that legal education become more flexible, by offering less expensive degree programs that would prepare paralegals to provide much needed low cost assistance. Most important, she calls for a return to ethical standards that put public service above economic self-interest. Elegantly written and touching on such high profile cases as the O.J. Simpson trial and the Starr investigation, In the Interests of Justice uncovers fundamental flaws in our legal system and proposes sweeping reforms.