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 practice of contingent fees--taking a percentage share of the money recovered for damage or injury--began among lawyers as a method of providing legal services for those unable to afford counsel. It is now the dominant method of financing litigation for both rich and poor. F. B. MacKinnon, in this book, examines the ethical and economic questions within the legal profession or ethical theory in general. Contingent Fees for Legal Services is a thoroughly documented study undertaken by the American Bar Foundation, the research affiliate of the American Bar Association. It provides the information necessary for evaluating the present status of this controversial practice and the proposals for its change. Arguments about contingent fees center around possible abuses in litigation, extreme competition for cases, increased emphasis upon winning cases, and other ethical considerations. This book describes fully the historical, professional and economic context within which contingent fees developed, without attempting to resolve the debates. In addition, the MacKinnon offers in one volume relevant court decisions, statutes and administrative regulations, estimates the proportion of cases presented under contingent fee contracts, and describes fee schedules and practices. As it permits an objective assessment of the fairness of contingent fees both to clients and to lawyers, this book will therefore interest everyone concerned with reforms of the fee system--lawyers and judges, professors and students, plaintiffs and defendants, as well as policymakers. This is an issue that continues to irritate and confound all concerned with the costs as well as rights of the legal profession and its clients.
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.
Of principal findings. -- Studying the civil litigation process. -- Civil litigation as the investment of lawyer time. -- Other studies of civil litigation and dispute processing.
How David Beats Goliath: Access to Capital for Contingent-Fee Law Firms addresses a little-known but critical flaw in America's system of justice. Average citizens and workers who have been injured or wronged through negligence or malfeasance are guaranteed their day in court. In practice, however, this bedrock legal right is compromised. The problem is a paucity of fair and reasonable funding for expenses incurred in the bringing of personal-injury and other lawsuits. Writing for trial attorneys who represent middle-class or even indigent clients, author and finance expert Michael J. Swanson outlines this complex problem in a clear and lucid book that every dedicated trial lawyer should own. "By temperament, training and the long traditions of their profession, contingent-fee lawyers often fail to maximize the business needs of their practices," says Swanson, "They especially fail to understand and control the cost of their capital structure."
"The eighth edition of the Annotated Model Rules of Professional Conduct presents an authoritative and practical analysis of the lawyer ethics rules and the cases, ethics opinions, and other legal authorities essential to understanding them. The Model Rules of Professional Conduct were adopted by the ABA in 1983 and have been amended numerous times since. This new edition of the Annotated Model Rules of Professional Conduct represents a major refinement of previous editions. It takes into account all amendments through February 2013, as well as the American Law Institute's Restatement (Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers (2000)"--Acknowledgments.
The volume describes and analyzes how the costs of litigation in civil procedure are distributed in key countries around the world. It compares the various approaches, draws general conclusions from that comparison, and presents global trends as well as common problems and solutions. In particular, the book deals with three principal questions: First, who pays for civil litigation costs, i.e., to what extent do losers have to make winners whole? Second, how much money is at stake, i.e., how expensive is civil litigation in the respective jurisdictions? And third, whose money is ultimately spent, i.e., how are civil litigation costs distributed through mechanisms like legal aid, litigation insurance, collective actions, and success oriented fees? Inter alia, the study reveals a general trend towards deregulation of lawyer fees as well as a substantial correlation between the burden of litigation costs and membership of a jurisdiction in the civil and common law families. This study is the result of the XVIIIth World Congress of Comparative Law held under the auspices of the International Academy of Comparative Law.
The practice of contingent fees - taking a percentage share of the money recovered for damage or injury - began among lawyers as a method of providing legal services for those unable to afford counsel. It is now the dominant method of financing litigation for both rich and poor. F. B. MacKinnon, in this book, examines the ethical and economic questions within the legal profession or ethical theory in general."Contingent Fees for Legal Services" is a thoroughly documented study undertaken by the American Bar Foundation, the research affiliate of the American Bar Association. It provides the information necessary for evaluating the present status of this controversial practice and the proposals for its change. Arguments about contingent fees center around possible abuses in litigation, extreme competition for cases, increased emphasis upon winning cases, and other ethical considerations. This book describes fully the historical, professional and economic context within which contingent fees developed, without attempting to resolve the debates. In addition, the MacKinnon offers in one volume relevant court decisions, statutes and administrative regulations, estimates the proportion of cases presented under contingent fee contracts, and describes fee schedules and practices.As it permits an objective assessment of the fairness of contingent fees both to clients and to lawyers, this book will therefore interest everyone concerned with reforms of the fee system - lawyers and judges, professors and students, plaintiffs and defendants, as well as policymakers. This is an issue that continues to irritate and confound all concerned with the costs as well as rights of the legal profession and its clients.
