This innovative case file provides materials for students to work in the role of attorney as they learn and master the primary skills needed for legal practice. The file is equally suitable for first-year legal practice/legal writing classes or upper-level simulation courses focused on interviewing, counseling, negotiation or pre-trial litigation. Student-attorneys represent clients on both sides of a lawsuit through a realistic and carefully-sequenced series of exercises that track the stages of pre-trial work while encouraging mastery of many basic skills of legal practice: research, formal and informal legal writing, interviewing and counseling clients, fact development, discovery, motion practice, negotiation and drafting. Every chapter of the case file is scaffolded on students' earlier work and critical reflection, permitting students to develop a confident sense of professional identity as they see the results of their efforts play out as the case develops. Chapters feature lively commentary giving an overview of the assigned task and contextualizing it within the goals for the case. The materials are accompanied by a comprehensive Teacher's Manual that includes suggestions for teaching and using the case file, detailed instructions for clients, and additional documents available only to counsel for each side. This book is part of the Context and Practice Series, edited by Michael Hunter Schwartz, Professor of Law and Dean of the McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific.

How do lawyers resolve ethical dilemmas in the everyday context of their practice? What are the issues that commonly arise, and how do lawyers determine the best ways to resolve them? Until recently, efforts to answer these questions have focused primarily on rules and legal doctrine rather than the real-life situations lawyers face in legal practice. The first book to present empirical research on ethical decision making in a variety of practice contexts, including corporate litigation, securities, immigration, and divorce law, Lawyers in Practice fills a substantial gap in the existing literature. Following an introduction emphasizing the increasing importance of understanding context in the legal profession, contributions focus on ethical dilemmas ranging from relatively narrow ethical issues to broader problems of professionalism, including the prosecutor’s obligation to disclose evidence, the management of conflicts of interest, and loyalty to clients and the court. Each chapter details the resolution of a dilemma from the practitioner’s point of view that is, in turn, set within a particular community of practice. Timely and practical, this book should be required reading for law students as well as students and scholars of law and society.

Have you considered what type of lawyer you want to be? What is the most effective way to market yourself in an industry where lawyers increasingly over-rely on social media to prove their relevance? Tannebaum discusses the proper way to handle referrals, personal branding, and other subjects that will help you become a better, and more informed lawyer.

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

From law school to the law firm, lawyers are taught and encouraged to win, with little regard to the emotional consequences. After years of being obsessed with winning, racking up billable hours, and fishing for clients, many lawyers lose sight of why they initially joined the ranks of the legal profession. This landmark book explains how to reconnect with the spiritual side of law practice. It presents profiles of firms and lawyers who have transformed their practices from heartless and cold professional endeavors into kinder, gentler operations, with more emphasis on the clients'--and their own--emotional and spiritual needs.

This book explores the structure and regulation of the contemporary American legal profession. It introduces students to the rich empirical literature on the profession, teaching them about the profession's overall composition and organization as well as huge variation in the practice settings, types of work, and daily experiences of American lawyers and their clients. It describes powerful economic and cultural forces that are reshaping the legal profession, and it presents the most recent scholarship and commentary on new challenges for the legal profession posed by technology, litigation finance, globalization, access to justice, diversity, and changes to legal education. Suitable for seminars or courses on professional identity and the sociology of the legal profession, the book invites students to reflect on their place in the profession and how they will navigate the turbulent landscape to chart successful, rewarding and responsible careers in almost any type of practice today's law graduates might enter. This book presents materials and questions drawn from recent events highlighting professional ethics issues currently in the news, but it could supplement rather than replace materials on the law of professional responsibility. The book provides sufficient explanation of basic legal concepts and the operation of the legal system to make it suitable for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses, as well as first-year law students, but it also works very well for second and third year courses.

This book is a valuable resource for information on things to consider before and during the process of buying, selling, closing, and merging a law practice. The guide provides advice and tips on: the advantages of buying and selling a law practice; the ethical aspects of acquiring a law practice; valuation of a law firm; tax consequences of retiring a partner's interest in a law firm taxed as a partnership; merging law firms; selling a niche practice; business responsibilities in closing a law practice; the ethical aspects of winding down a law practice; file preservation; and ending client and employee relationships. The guide includes handy checklists, forms, and sample letters as well as several Rules from the ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct.