Legal professionalism Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

In defending Queen Caroline in the House of Lords, Henry Brougham declared, “[a]n advocate, by the sacred duty of his connection with his client, knows, in the discharge of that office, but one person in the world, that client and none... more

Twenty-first century legal professionals need a reflective legal education that emphasizes self-assessment and self-efficacy; supports lifelong learning; and builds the capacity for innovative thinking and responding creatively and... more

Twenty-first century legal professionals need a reflective legal education that emphasizes self-assessment and self-efficacy; supports lifelong learning; and builds the capacity for innovative thinking and responding creatively and constructively to " wicked problems ". " Reflective practice " —a core competency in other professions—has the potential to enhance the education of legal professionals by developing these skills. Encouraging and modelling reflective practice is best started in law school. This article aims to facilitate a dialogue about how reflective practice might be integrated into the law school curriculum and provides conceptual frameworks to help envision how reflective practice might be operationalized. Examples of reflective methods to help develop it as a competency will also be given. Reflective practice, as a disciplined form of reflective inquiry, offers the potential to enhance law student learning and, more systematically, develop professional expertise. Amongst other imperatives for enhancing legal education, various national reports call for strategic, collective and aligned action to better prepare future legal professionals to respond to growing gaps in access to justice and predictions of a disruptive and challenging future for the legal profession. Thus, this article will set out how reflective practice can nurture a positive, dynamic professional identity, cultivate resiliency, and forge a stronger sense of legal professionalism, while also supporting students to become both " justice ready " and " practice ready ". La formation des professionnels du droit au XXI e siècle doit reposer sur une éducation dite « réflexive » qui met l' accent sur l' autoévaluation et l' efficacité personnelle, facilite l' apprentissage continu et renforce les idées novatrices et la résolution de « vilains problèmes », de façon créative et constructive. La « pratique réflexive »—une compétence essentielle dans d' autres disciplines— offre la possibilité d' enrichir la formation des juristes qui acquièrent cette aptitude. Or, il vaut mieux encourager et mettre en oeuvre la pratique réflexive dès l' entrée à la faculté de droit. Le présent article a été rédigé en vue de faciliter le dialogue sur la façon d'incorporer la pratique réflexive au curriculum, LA REVUE DU BARREAU CANADIEN [Vol. 95 48 et de proposer un cadre conceptuel de sa mise en oeuvre. L' auteure fournit également des exemples de méthodes qui permettraient son acquisition à titre de compétence. La pratique réflexive, sous forme rigoureuse de recherche par la réflexion, favoriserait l' apprentissage des étudiants en droit et leur permettrait de développer une expertise sur le plan professionnel, de façon plus systématique. Parmi d' autres impératifs visant l' amélioration de la formation en droit, différents rapports de portée nationale exhortent d' adopter de mesures collectives stratégiques et concertées pour mieux préparer les futurs juristes à réagir aux lacunes croissantes en matière d' accès à la justice et, selon certaines prévisions, à l' avenir turbulent et incertain qui les attend. L' auteure expose, ainsi, les façons dont la pratique réflexive peut cultiver une identité professionnelle positive et dynamique, favoriser la résilience et raffermir le professionnalisme, tout en préparant les étudiants dès leur entrée sur le marché du travail au système de justice et à la pratique du droit.

Twenty-first century legal professionals need a reflective legal education that emphasizes self-assessment and self-efficacy; supports life-long learning; and builds the capacity for innovative thinking and responding creatively and... more

Twenty-first century legal professionals need a reflective legal education that emphasizes self-assessment and self-efficacy; supports life-long learning; and builds the capacity for innovative thinking and responding creatively and constructively to “wicked problems”. “Reflective practice”—a core competency in other professions—has the potential to enhance the education of legal professionals by developing these skills. Encouraging and modelling reflective practice is best started in law school. This article aims to facilitate a dialogue about how reflective practice might be integrated into the law school curriculum and provides conceptual frameworks to help envision how reflective practice might be operationalized. Examples of reflective methods to help develop it as a competency will also be given. Reflective practice, as a disciplined form of reflective inquiry, offers the potential to enhance law student learning and, more systematically, develop professional expertise. Amongs...

This essay, as part of a larger book project and a chapter in a forthcoming edited volume, takes the first step to concretize the "imagined community" of legal specialists in late imperial China. Despite the recent surge of interest in... more

This essay, as part of a larger book project and a chapter in a forthcoming edited volume, takes the first step to concretize the "imagined community" of legal specialists in late imperial China. Despite the recent surge of interest in and scholarship on late imperial Chinese law and society, we still know relatively little about the existence, origins, formation, scale, and operation of the legal professional community in late imperial China. Such inadequate knowledge is partly caused by the scarcity of extant documentation about Chinese legal specialists and partly caused by the popular assumption in traditional historiography that law and legal expertise were at best the last resort or necessary evil in a Confucian society where education, moral leadership and informal resolution of interpersonal conflicts were the best means for maintaining social order and relationship. By analyzing new archival sources and under-utilized printed material and by moving out of the scholarly comfort zone to try some innovative uses of available documentation and data, this essay hopes to help develop some baseline estimates of the total number of trained legal practitioners or professionals in Qing China. Based on what we can tell or infer from the various kinds of evidence, I estimate that Qing China was likely to have at least 6,000 to 9,000 trained judicial officials, 17,000 to 20,000 trained litigation masters, and 30,000 to 60,000 trained legal advisors, during the two centuries from 1700 to 1900. The presence of such a substantial number of legal specialists or professionals would lead us to rethink various aspects of late imperial Chinese law, governance, and society. Having such a concrete sense of this legal professional community even on the basis of rough estimates would be an important step toward developing a better understanding of the nature, operational dynamics, evolution, and impact of the juridical field and legal culture of late imperial China.
A draft paper will be uploaded soon and seriously interested readers can contact the author for a preliminary draft.

When the American Bar Association (ABA) adopted its Code of Professional Responsibility at its annual meeting in August 1969, the American legal profession was a publicly respected and economically vibrant body. Lawyers, though always... more

When the American Bar Association (ABA) adopted its Code of Professional Responsibility at its annual meeting in August 1969, the American legal profession was a publicly respected and economically vibrant body. Lawyers, though always more feared than loved, became increasingly important in post-World War II America. The demand for their services exploded for a quarter-century, and lawyers assumed an increased role in the economic and political life of the United States. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the Cold War led American lawyers and other public figures to re-emphasize the rule of law as defining the difference between the United States and the Soviet Union. Relatedly, American lawyers argued they possessed a central role in maintaining the rule of law. From the 1950s through the mid-1960s, the popular image of lawyers may have peaked. It was at this time that the ABA began its work to update the 1908 Canons of Ethics. The ABA’s adoption of the Code of Professional Responsi...

5 NLP tips for legal professionals with(out) learning difficulties

Recent national reports have documented growing justice gaps in Canada and have identified a compelling need for innovation in the justice sector to better meet the needs of the public. Nurturing a greater capacity for individual,... more

Recent national reports have documented growing justice gaps in Canada and have identified a compelling need for innovation in the justice sector to better meet the needs of the public. Nurturing a greater capacity for individual, collective, and critical reflection will ensure the legal profession is much better equipped to respond creatively and strategically to a lack of equal access to justice. In this article, I explore the generative and transformative potential of reflective practice – an important professional competency in other professional disciplines, but under-theorized in law, and action research – a dynamic and flexible form of qualitative research for supporting a culture of innovation in the legal profession and the justice system. Reflective capacity is a crucial enabler of innovative thinking, and it undergirds approaches to encouraging individual and systems change emerging from the organizational learning and innovation literature. An enhanced capacity for refle...

This article traces the careers of 12 Palestinian Arab lawyers who practised law during the last years of the British Mandate in Palestine (1920-1948), and who became Israeli citizens after 1948. The State of Israel made efforts to limit... more

This article traces the careers of 12 Palestinian Arab lawyers who practised law during the last years of the British Mandate in Palestine (1920-1948), and who became Israeli citizens after 1948. The State of Israel made efforts to limit the professional practice of Palestinian lawyers and to supervise them. Yet, despite the pressures, most of them continued their legal practice and became active in the Israeli public sphere. We show that the Palestinian lawyers' struggle to maintain their practice in Israel was used to assert autonomy for the legal profession, and concurrently, it was perceived as a touchstone for minority civil rights in the state.

Crisi, malessere, frammentazione sociale sono temi ricorrenti nelle rappresentazioni dei ceti medi. Il volume, basato sui risultati di un’indagine sulla professione forense realizzata con il contributo del Consiglio dell’Ordine degli... more

Crisi, malessere, frammentazione sociale sono temi ricorrenti nelle rappresentazioni dei ceti medi. Il volume, basato sui risultati di un’indagine sulla professione forense realizzata con il contributo del Consiglio dell’Ordine degli Avvocati di Firenze, approfondisce la questione collocandosi in un filone di studi che ha ripreso vigore all’interno del dibattito sociologico italiano e internazionale. Toccando una pluralità di temi e avvalendosi di metodi d’indagine misti, la ricerca ha permesso di verificare come situazioni occupazionali diverse si traducano in una distribuzione diseguale delle chances di vita e in differenti atteggiamenti verso la professione, la politica e la vita sociale, consentendo altresì di esplorare il ruolo svolto dall’avvocatura nei processi di cambiamento.