ls308: law and society unit 7 seminar unit 7 discussion review of unit 6

LS308: Law and SocietyUnit 7 Seminar

Unit 7 Discussion

Review of Unit 6

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Review of Unit 6

Law and Social ChangeMajor Themes

•The relationship between law and social change is an important dimension of the study of law and society. Social change can affect law (law as a dependent variable) and legal change can affect some aspect of society (law as an independent variable). Some issues involve law as both a dependent AND an independent variable.

• In this unit we discussed the views of prominent legal theorists who provided very historically important and still very influential work on the impact of social change on law. We also discussed the relationship between law and social change.

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Review of Unit 6 (cont.)

Law and Social Change

We learned how to:

•Analyze the impact of social change on laws (DQ, activity 2) •Analyze the impact of law on social change (activity 1, seminar) •Summarize how law is used by and against social movements

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This Week’s Assignment

Perceptions of the Legal Profession

People have widely differing views regarding lawyers and the legal system. Many people have a negative opinion of the legal system and the legal profession. Others have a very positive opinion of lawyers, and view them as heroes for the innocent and oppressed.

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Part 1 – Negative Beliefs

There are several reasons why some people may have a negative opinion of lawyers, including the following:

They often represent people involved in heated disputes.

They are thought to complicate matters with their penchant for argumentation and turgid prose.

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•They defend criminals and other unsavory clients. They sometimes use legal stratagems as they vigorously represent their clients to the best degree possible. When they represent people who have suffered personal injuries, they are seen as “ambulance chasers” or as vultures who greedily take advantage of their clients’ misfortune for their own personal gain.

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•Select three of the reasons above. For each reason that you select, provide an example in society to illustrate the reasons. The example that you provide can be a general case, or one based on your own personal experience. Also, include a summary of the impact these negative beliefs have on the examples you provided and society as a whole. Each example should be at least three paragraphs in length.

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Part 2 – Positive Beliefs • In 1-2 pages, describe one reason why lawyers are viewed positively in society. Provide an example to illustrate this reason. The example that you provide can be a general case, or one based on your own personal experience. With your example, include an analysis of the impact the positive belief has on the examples you provided and society as a whole.

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Unit 7 Discussion

The Legal ProfessionMajor Themes• Have you heard any good lawyer jokes lately? It likely won’t surprise you to learn that

many people have a negative image of lawyers. There are many reasons why this might be the case: lawyers are sometimes viewed as “ambulance chaser” or vultures. Some resent the fact that lawyers represent the right of criminals and unsavory client.

• Still many hold the opposite view that lawyers are to be respected and that they are heroes for the oppressed.

• In this unit we will examine some of these perceptions that people have about lawyers and the role that they play in society, We will also learn about the history of the legal professions, and analyze law school and legal education in today’s society.

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Unit 7 Discussion

The Legal ProfessionWhen you complete this unit you should be able to:

•Analyze the beliefs and perceptions that people have of lawyers in society

•Examine the history of legal professions•Analyze law school and legal education today

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Perception of Lawyers

The myriad of jokes about lawyers reflect our ambivalent view that lawyers are important for many reasons but also engage in practices that many of us find distasteful. Perhaps ever since lawyers first practiced law, they have endured a negative public image. The Bible, philosophers, and playwrights all have mocked lawyers. Public opinion surveys also reflect a negative image of lawyers.

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Perceptions of Lawyers

Lawyers have a negative image for several reasons. First, they often represent people involved in heated disputes. Second, they are thought to complicate matters with their penchant for argumentation and turgid prose. Third, they defend criminals and other unsavory clients. Fourth, they sometimes use legal stratagems as they vigorously represent their clients to the best degree possible.

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Fifth, when they represent people who have suffered personal injuries, they are seen as “ambulance chasers” or as vultures who greedily take advantage of their clients’ misfortune for their own personal gain. Finally, many lawyers work for corporations and other wealthy clients and are disliked for this reason by “have-nots.”

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Lawyers also have a positive image as heroes for the innocent or oppressed. Fictitious examples include Perry Mason and Atticus Finch. A real-life example includes famed attorney Clarence Darrow.

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Lawyers are a relatively modern development that were lacking in preliterate societies. Part-time lawyers appeared in ancient Rome, and full-time lawyers appeared in Rome’s Imperial Period. Although the advent of the medieval period in Europe weakened the importance of law and lawyers, these twin phenomena again became important in early capitalism.

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US Legal Profession

•To understand the history of the U.S. legal profession it is helpful to trace changes in the legal profession in England during the eighteenth century. During this time the English legal profession became increasingly professionalized.

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Legal Education

•Formal legal education became a growing expectation, and licenses became required to provide many types of services. This professionalization enhanced the quality of legal services and restricted the number of people allowed to practice law. This latter consequence raised lawyers’ incomes.

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Legal History

•Lawyers were very unpopular during the colonial period of the United States, but became increasingly important as the break with England neared, owing to growing commerce. Almost half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were lawyers! The colonists disliked lawyers for at least two reasons.

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Legal History

•First, they distrusted law and thus lawyers because they thought its adversary nature violated their Christian beliefs and disrupted the social harmony characterizing their small communities. Second, they disliked lawyers for representing banks and other established interests.

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ABA

•The American bar professionalized during the late nineteenth century after a period of many decades in which apprenticeship was a prime path into the legal profession. Because it was so easy to become a lawyer, many people who did become lawyers were poorly trained, creating concern in legal circles about the quality of the bar.

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ABA

•At the same time, their sheer numbers also created concern that the plethora of attorneys was keeping legal fees and lawyers’ incomes down. These concerns led bar associations to lobby for stricter requirements for entry into the bar.

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ABA

•These bar associations tended to be composed of elite attorneys, almost all of them white male Protestants from the wealthy backgrounds who primarily practiced corporate and business law. The bar associations excluded women, people of color, Catholics, and Jews for may decades. Their professionalization effort succeeded in improving the quality of the bar and increasing lawyers’ incomes.

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Growth of the Legal Profession

•The U.S. legal professional has grown tremendously since the late nineteenth century and now numbers more than 1.1 million attorneys. The United States has more lawyers per capita than most other Western nations. Although the U.S. legal profession is no longer the exclusive “white men’s club” that it was in the nineteenth century, it still does not reflect the diversity of the American citizenry, as women and people of color continue to be underrepresented in the bar.

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Vast Differences

•The U.S. legal profession is stratified: some attorneys earn much more money than others and enjoy more respect and influence than others. These disparities depend largely on the kind of work they do and the settings in which they perform their work. Corporate attorneys enjoy much greater incomes and prestige than personal service attorneys. About three-quarters of attorneys are in private practice. Almost half of private practice attorneys work by themselves as “solo” attorneys.

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ABA

•The American bar is now somewhat less unified and coherent than it had been in the 1970s. Growing gender, racial/ethnic, and religious diversity in the bar means attorneys no longer all come from the same social backgrounds. Because lawyers have become specialized in the work they do, they are less likely to share the same understanding of what practicing law is all about. Further, the great growth of the bar since the mid-1900s has weakened social bonds among the many attorneys now in practice.

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Cause Lawyering

•Cause lawyers attempt to use the law to change society and can be liberal/radical or conservative in their political orientation. The heyday of cause lawyering was the period of the 1960s and 1970s, when attorneys in the South represented civil rights activists, various “new left” causes, and black power activists, and attorneys elsewhere represented Vietnam antiwar activists.

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Women and the Law

•Women have made significant advances in he legal profession during the past few decades, but still face a “glass ceiling” that limits their advancement and full equality with their male counterparts. Women are less likely than men to work in large law firms, and they are paid less than men even when size of firm, family situation, work hours, and other relevant factors are taken into account.

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Women and the Law

•Possible reasons for this disparity include (1) women are less likely than men to desire stressful corporate law careers; (2) women in corporate law settings face a hostile and discriminatory work environment; and (3) recruitment and advancement in the legal profession still occurs through an “old boys’ network” that excludes women.

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Personal Service Attorneys

•Research finds a good deal of ethical violations among personal service attorneys. Lawyerly misconduct usually remains unknown unless a client complains. However, many clients are either unaware of lawyer’s malpractice or unfamiliar with the ethical standards for legal practice.

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Malpractice

•Many of the clients who suspect malpractice may also not know where to report it or may not want to endure the personal difficulties that their complaint might initiate. Some clients also do not complain about malpractice with which they are aware because the malpractice benefits their case. Cases of lawyerly misconduct that are investigated rarely lead to disbarment, and self-regulation by the legal profession is often lax and ineffective.

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Lawyer Satifisfaction

•How satisfied are lawyers with their careers? Studies reveal several findings: (1) lawyers as a whole are generally highly satisfied with their jobs and careers; (2) the degree of satisfaction is about the same for men and women; (3) lawyers with higher incomes are more satisfied with their jobs than those with lower incomes, but lawyers in large firms are less satisfied than those in small firms; and (4) graduates of elite law schools exhibit less satisfaction with their decision to enter law than graduates of low-tier law schools, even when only lawyers working in large firms are considered.

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Law Schools

•The first U.S. law school was established in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1784. The first law school at a university was established at Harvard University in 1829. The number of law schools grew rapidly after the Civil War and into the twentieth century. The key development in the growth of the American law school was the introduction of the Harvard Law School in 1870 of the case study and Socratic methods, which eventually became the model for legal education across the nation.

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Legal Education

•Legal education in the past and today has been criticized on several grounds. First, it shuns social science and neglects important considerations of race, class, gender, and other social variables. Second, it socializes students to be more politically conservative than when they began law school and, more specifically, orients them to the needs of corporations and other established interests rather than to the needs of the poor and people of color.

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Legal Education

•Third, legal education is said to be brutal for students and particularly alienating for women. Defenders of legal education say that law needs to be taught as a system of logic, that law students want corporate careers, and that the case study and Socratic methods are necessary to train students to “think like a lawyer.”

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PRACTICE QUESTIONS

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Practice Question #1

•Why do negative perceptions and jokes about lawyers exist? The major reason lies in ___________.

- the impact of the Industrial Revolution- demographic characteristics of lawyers- personalities of lawyers- the nature of the work that lawyers do

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Answer to Practice Question # 1

•Correct Answer: d (p. 238)

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Practice Question # 2

• In the majestic novel _________, Alabama lawyer Atticus Finch defends an African American man falsely accused of raping a white woman in a racist town.

- The Color Purple- The Sun also Rises- A Raisin in the Sun- To Kill a Mockingbird

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•The roots of the legal profession are to be found in _______.- ancient Greece - ancient Rome- Germany- Spain

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•Correct Answer: b (p. 241)

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•About _______ of all lawyers are in private practice.- one-third- one-half- three-quarters- 95 percent

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•Correct Answer: c (p. 247)

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•Which of the following is not accurate?- Lawyers with higher incomes are more satisfied with their job than those with

lower incomes.- Lawyers as a whole are generally highly satisfied with their jobs and careers.- Men tend to be much more satisfied with jobs and careers as lawyers than are

women.- Graduates of elite law schools exhibit less satisfaction with their decision to enter

law than graduates of low-tier schools.

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Answer to Practice Question #5

•Correct Answer: c (pp. 257-258)

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•Having professors engaging students in a vigorous question-and-answer process about the cases that was meant to help students recognize the legal principles at stake is known as the ______ method.

- adversarial- Aristotelian- Weberian- Socratic

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Answer to Practice Question #6


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ls308: law and society unit 7 seminar unit 7 discussion review of unit 6

Documents

law law

impact of law

legal change

impact of social change

study of law

aspect of society law

social change activity

society unit