A broad, comprehensive foray into the debate about the legal crisis, written by one of the most respected and authoritative scholars of the legal profession.

It's a good thing lawyers are thick-skinned. From Dostoyevsky calling lawyers "a conscience for hire" to notorious bank robber Willie Sutton equating the legal profession to his own line of work, the world is filled with quotable quotes about those who practice law. The Trouble with Law Is Lawyers is a collection of the most scathing of these.Quite possibly the most insufferable, cursed group of "professionals" in the world, lawyers have a long, illustrious list of critics, including Shakespeare, F. Lee Bailey, and Alan Dershowitz. You'll find them all in this vicious little volume.

By any measure, the law as a profession is in serious trouble. Americans' trust in lawyers is at a low, and many members of the profession wish they had chosen a different path. Law schools, with their endlessly rising tuitions, are churning out too many graduates for the jobs available. Yet despite the glut of lawyers, the United States ranks 67th (tied with Uganda) of 97 countries in access to justice and affordability of legal services. The upper echelons of the legal establishment remain heavily white and male. Most problematic of all, the professional organizations that could help remedy these concerns instead jealously protect their prerogatives, stifling necessary innovation and failing to hold practitioners accountable. Deborah Rhode's The Trouble with Lawyers is a comprehensive account of the challenges facing the American bar. She examines how the problems have affected (and originated within) law schools, firms, and governance institutions like bar associations; the impact on the justice system and access to lawyers for the poor; and the profession's underlying difficulties with diversity. She uncovers the structural problems, from the tyranny of law school rankings and billable hours to the lack of accountability and innovation built into legal governance-all of which do a disservice to lawyers, their clients, and the public. The Trouble with Lawyers is a clear call to fix a profession that has gone badly off the rails, and a source of innovative responses.

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.

The Second World War saw the rise not only of new technologies, new freedoms, new terrors, and a new world order, but of new legal issues. This book takes a global perspective in looking at the legal situations in seven major countries affected by the war. Fifty legal issues are identified from the war, ranging from subverting the judiciary and creating a divine military to economic and social issues to genocide and nuclear weapons. And more than 300 lawyers and judges, from more than 20 countries around the wor ...

This book offers a unique opportunity to sit down with a diverse gathering of lawyers to share their perspectives on being a lawyer. In this compelling collection of essays, the contributors write about the values of the profession, a lawyers responsibility to their communities, their duty of service to clients, and to the public and to each other. This book can provide the guidance you need should you ever feel that you are losing your way.