Contingent-Fee Lawyers and Their Clients: Settlement Expectations, Settlement Realities, and Issues of Control in the Lawyer-Client Relationship

One hallmark of Herb Jacob's analyses of criminal courts—extensive consideration of the interaction among actors–was less pronounced in his work on civil justice, which was more focused on institutions and the politics behind the laws that those institutions administered. In the research I report here, my emphasis is squarely on the actors in the civil justice process: the relationship between contingency-fee lawyers and clients, and how that relationship plays out in the settlement process. In Felony Justice, Herb, and his coauthor James Eisenstein, focus on the courtroom workgroup as a case-processing (and, largely, case-settling) machine; clients are relatively peripheral. In my account, clients, both current and future, are extremely important in how the lawyer works to settle cases. In the criminal court workgroup, lawyers do not worry about where future clients will come from because police secure them. In contrast, the contingency-fee lawyer has constant concerns about future clients, and I argue, this concern provides a control over lawyers that prior analyses of the contingency fee have largely missed. This dynamic also may explain why the courtroom workgroups, or court communities, found in the criminal courts do not appear to exist in the civil justice system.     

Use of the MMPI-2 to predict the employment continuation and performance ratings of recently hired police officers

The MMPI-2 is one of the most frequently employed instruments for the selection of police officers. Serafino and Serafino (1997) collected data which involved information about employment continuation and ratings by supervisors of 32 police officers who had recently been hired and who had been given the MMPI-2 during the hiring process. In this study, the Paranoia Obvious (Pa) and Paranoia Subtle (Ps) scales proved to be the significant. Pa Subtle correlated with removal whereas Pa Obvious correlated with rating. Higher scores on Pa Subtle correlated significantly with being removed from the job, whereas low scores on the Pa Obvious correlated with higher ratings of performance by supervisors. Discussion of the results involved the fact that Subtle Pa scores would suggest paranoid tendencies not easily detected during the interview. Since most high Pa Obvious individuals would have been eliminated in the hiring process, expression of this tendency was at a low level after being hired but if present resulted in low ratings. Significant predictors were noted to be very much a function of the type of criterion variable employed in the study.     

Federal Agency Budget Officers: Who Needs Them?

This article examines the role of federal agency budget officers and their responsibilities from the author's own perspective and experience. The article suggests that it is inadequate to standardize the role of an agency budget oficer other than that used by the agency head to determine if he or she is satisfied with the budget processes in the agency.     

Problematic police performance and the personality assessment inventory

A relative newcomer to personality assessment in the area of law enforcement is the Personality Assessment Inventory, or PAI. Earlier MMPI research in the area of police selection has focused upon antisocial behavior, control of aggression, and validity indices, particularly the L scale. In this study T scores for 800 male and female police officer candidates on the PAI scales Negative Impression (NIM), Positive Impression (PIM), Antisocial-Antisocial Behaviors (ANTA), Antisocial-Egocentricity (ANTE), and Antisocial-Stimulus Seeking (ANTS) were used as predictors of the criterion variables Insubordination, Excessive Citizen Complaints, and Neglect of Duty. Highly significant coefficients were obtained for ANTE as a predictor of Insubordination and Excessive Citizen Complaints. For Neglect of Duty, two significant coefficients were obtained, one for ANTS and another for NIM. Discussion centered on the fact that egocentricity is a predictor of Insubordination and Excessive Citizen Complaints, and Neglect of Duty is related to stimulus seeking. Authors' Note: William U. Weiss, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Psychology, The University of Evansville, 1800 Lincoln Avenue, Evansville, IN 47722. Sarah Zehner is an undergraduate psychology major at The University of Evansville. Robert Davis, Ph.D., is executive vice-president and director of science, research, and development for Matrix, Inc., and Cary Rostow, Ph.D., is president of Matrix, Inc., Baton Rouge, LA. Emily DeCoster-Martin was an undergraduate psychology major at The University of Evansville at the time this paper was written.     

Compulsive traits and police officer performance

As a general rule, pathologies tend to impair job performance. In a study involving performance criteria and the Personality Assessment Inventory in a sample of Louisiana police officers (N=800), OCD characteristics correlated significantly in a negative direction with several performance criteria, such as involvement in an on-duty or off-duty at fault moving violation, number of on-duty or off-duty at fault moving violations, any citizen complaints regarding unprofessional conduct, number of unprofessional conduct, and accusation in any way of racially offensive conduct, behavior, verbalization, or complaints. It has been found that the traits of obsessive-compulsive disorder, in moderation, may actually improve performance in police officers. This agrees with the Yerkes-Dodson law, which states that peak performance occurs when a person experiences mild to moderate levels of stress. Authors' Note: Emily DeCoster-Martin was an undergraduate psychology major at The University of Evansville at the time this paper was written. William U. Weiss, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Psychology, The University of Evansville, 1800 Lincoln Av., Evansville, IN 47722. Robert D. Davis, Ph.D., is executive vice-president and director of science, research, and development for Matrix, Inc., Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Cary Rostow, Ph.D. is president of Matrix, Inc.