Addiction and Responsibility: An Introduction

Law and Philosophy -     

Jacqueline Rose: Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty

Jindal Global Law Review -     

Professional Divestiture: The Cession of Responsibility for Lawyer Discipline

Lawyer-discipline systems underwent substantial reorganization in a majority of states during the 1970s, with responsibility for their operation moving from the bar associations in which they had been located for almost a century to agencies of the state supreme courts. While this transfer of the locus of lawyer discipline resulted in a diminution of the power of the organized bar, it encouraged the professionalization of the process. In this paper the reasons for the willingness of the bar associations in Illinois to cede control over such a central component of professional regulation are examined and their implications for the sociology of the legal profession discussed. Unable to maintain the status quo in the face of extensive criticism, the Illinois bar associations chose not to meet the high costs of upgrading the discipline process but rather to divest themselves of a function that, although at one time central to their identity and authority, had become inconvenient and damaging to their image. It is suggested that the bar associations were willing to countenance such a divestiture because their positions as collective representatives of the profession in Illinois were secure and the major parameters of lawyer discipline well established. Whereas immediate control over self-regulation processes may be necessary during the developmental phase of professionalism, it is not so important once the profession has achieved a dominant market position.     

Law School Instruction in Professional Responsibility: A Curricular Paradox

Legal ethics has recently become the focus of professional and public concern. One aspect of that concern has to do with the education and socialization of law students in professional responsibility. This study, using data from a sample of law students in diverse school settings, examines the influence of prevailing learning norms in legal education on student responses to courses in professional responsibility. The author also reviews the bases of ambiguous sentiments about the role of education in professional ethics and concludes with a discussion of the difficulties and dilemmas involved in attempts to alter the established mode of instruction.     

The Word: An Essay on Seeing,Owning, and the Sacred

In the classical period of ancient Greece, Logos had a variety ofmeanings, most or all of which connoted one aspect or another ofHeraclitus's conception of the term, ``the rational governing principleof the universe'. The triadic semiotics of Charles Sanders Peircesuggests that, through the linguistic sign, humans construct structuresof meaning, which form the cognitive Worlds in which humans exist, thesubstantive content of consciousness, and which, as such, provide theexplanation for the Cosmos. The three-term Peircean Sign becomestriadic, however, only in conjunction with Peirce's Ground, whichprovides particular substantive values that form the basis ofconstructing the meaningful World. Thus, it is possible, for example, totrace in the heterogeneity of judicial doctrine in United States law thealternative sets of values that are available; the function ofWorld creation proceeds when the Ground is suffused with a particularvalue set. If Logos is conceptualized in terms of these value sets, thenit can be understood in terms of ``the rational governing principle ofthe World.' In this understanding, the substantive content of theGround becomes equated with the Sacred. This conceptualization alsoprovides an alternative way of understanding the opening of the Gospelof John in the Christian Bible and the concept of the Trinity inChristian doctrine in terms of the creative powers of humans through theSign. The fact of this same creative power also provides a way ofunderstanding the strong limitations in ancient Israel on pronouncingthe Tetragrammaton.     

Comparative Sociology of Legal Professions: An Exploratory Essay

The author surveys and compares the legal professions of 15 nations, including both civil law and common law countries. The essay is organized around the ways that legal professionals control their markets—first by controlling "production of producers" or who and how many enter the profession (with formal education or apprenticeship requirements, examinations, access to entry-level positions). Legal professionals also control "production by producers"—both external competitors and lawyers themselves. This occurs, for example, through definition and defense of the professional monopoly, control of competition between licensed professionals, and creation of demand. The discussion takes place against the background of the legal profession's recent history—assessing changes in its composition (by race, age, gender), in lawyers' practice settings, in the categories of work they perform, and in the income and status associated with these categories and with the profession in general.     

Ideals and Practices in the Rule of Law: An Essay on Legal Politics

Massoud, Mark Fathi. 2013 . Law's Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 277. Paper $34.99. This essay responds to the three commentators in the symposium on my book, Law's Fragile State, by describing the sociolegal study of the rule of law as an investigation into both a set of ideals (the rule of law as a normative question) and a set of practices (the rule of law as an empirical question). Studying the rule of law involves understanding the contingent nature of its ideals as well as investigating the actual work that lawyers, judges, state officials, aid workers, activists, and others have done in specific contexts to promote legal remedies to social or political ills. These overlapping layers of the study of the rule of law—ideals and practices, normative and empirical—provide a sociolegal framework for understanding the successes and failures of legal work and, ultimately, how citizens experience state power in democratic and nondemocratic societies alike.     

The Legal Cooperative Principle: An Essay on the Cooperative Nature of Contractual Transactions

The well-known complexity andobscurity of legal English seem to excludecontracts from being regarded as communicativetypes of written exchanges. However, whenanalyzed in the light of Grice's CooperativePrinciple (1975), contracts could be construedas examples of communicative and cooperativeoccurrences on the assumption that some maximsof a suitable cooperative principle between theparties are observed. The aim of this essay istwo-fold: to assign Grice's theory to thewritten medium of English contractual exchangeand to prompt the Legal Cooperative Principleand it maxims to be followed by the parties toguarantee the contractual communication and toconfirm general expectations about how languageis used in contracts.     

Pedagogy of CLE and CLE as pedagogy: An interview with Ved Kumari

In this conversation with Ved Kumari, Professor and Former Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, we navigate through different conceptions and practices of Clinical Legal Education (CLE), practical and ethical challenges in the implementation of CLE, and the importance of critical theory and jurisprudence to achieve the pedagogical goals of CLE. Drawing on her experience as a feminist clinical law professor, she critically approaches the twin goals of CLE — social justice and professional legal skills — on the one hand, and flags affective concerns which arise in live-client and community-based clinics, on the other. The conversation centres on the importance of the values of sustainability, professionalism, empathy, and critical self-reflection in conceptualisation and incorporation of CLE in the legal curriculum.

     

Theory for Accounting or Accounting Theory: An Essay on the Interaction between Economics and Accounting

The disciplines of general economics and business economics have been growing apart. Business economics has a more practice oriented and multidisciplinary focus. The background for this paper is the question whether, and in what manner, general economics can contribute to the development of business economics. This paper delves into the roots of the old-institutional economic school, in particular into the ideas of Schmoller. More specifically, it is a preliminary investigation into the question whether the insights of the old-institutional school can have a bearing on (management) accounting research. Some future directions in this respect are suggested at the end.