Course Details

American Legal Profession
#6614

Type

SEM

Credits Desc.

2 cr.

Credits Def. Value

2 cr.

Prerequisites

Course for LL.M. & Exchange Students

Senior Writing?

(not listed)

Student Year

LLM/Exch

When Offered

(not listed)

Description:

This course is designed to introduce non-American students to the American legal profession and legal practice in the United States. It covers the development of the profession, the current structure of the profession, the range of types of practice American lawyers engage in, and several specific issues (e.g., special issues confronted by women and minorities, and regulation and discipline).

The course meets for one two-hour session each week. Sessions will be heavily lecture-oriented, but the lectures are interruptible so that students may at any time interpose questions, insights from their home countries, or raise issues for discussion by the class.

On several occasions during the semester, guests will join the class to talk about their own practice experience in one of the settings we will be discussing.
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Sections

Fall 2012: American Legal Profession

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Type

LEC

Credits

2

Prerequisites

Course for LL.M. & Exchange Students

Senior Writing?

(not listed)

Student Year

2L/3L

Details:

The assignment for the first week is:

Read:

  1. pp. 117-129, 193-211 in the Abel text (Lawyers: A Critical Reader)
  2. Eliot Freidson (1992) “Professionalism as Model and Ideology,” in Robert L. Nelson, David M. Trubek, and R. L. Solomon, eds., Lawyers' Ideal/Lawyers' Practices: Transformations in the American Legal Profession (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press), pp. 215-229 [this is in the reading packet]
  3. Marc Galanter (1998) “The Faces of Mistrust:  The Image of Lawyers in Public Opinion, Jokes, and Political Discourse,”  66 University of Cincinnati Law Review 805-845 (read 816-26) [this is available online at http://marcgalanter.net/Documents/papers/TheFacesofMistrust.pdf; this copy uses the Westlaw *page# notation to denote page numbers].

Write:

A 750-1,000 word essay describing your existing impressions of American lawyers, their work setting(s), and the work that they do. This assignment will be used in part to assess your English language writing skills. For this, and all other writing assignments for this course, you should turn in a paper that is as polished as you can make it.

Bert

Documents and Readings: