Globalization in a Fallen World: Redeeming Dust

Law and Religion Symposiu

L'Oz

Over twenty years ago, Jacques Derrida visited the University of Nebraska. My colleague at the Law School, John Snowden, kindly gave me his place on the roundtable of Nebraska scholars who gathered to talk with Derrida. Not yet feeling “at home” in my new teaching job, I still hoped to offer Derrida hospitality, by reconstructing The Wizard of Oz in order to welcome him “home.

Unlaw

The United States is in a time of “unlaw” that is both a point in circular time, the time of eternal return, and a point never before reached. This “unlaw” infuses both the practical, applied, and experiential world of politics. Additionally, this era of “unlaw” also incorporates the intellectual world of philosophy and theology as well as political theory. In this state of non-law, the United States incarcerates a higher percentage of people than any other developed nation. The United States claims to value money so much that it is speech, and thus free under the First Amendment. This results in blocking election reform in an admittedly “broken” electoral system. The United States stock market fluctuates wildly and its citizens know there is no new world order on the horizon. The “war” on terror is bankrupting the United States. The United States is not doing well by anyone’s standards. However, “unlaw” is necessary to bind us together and open our eyes to these contradictions that the law creates

Multiple Unities in the Law

The issues in ethics among differing jurisdictions are not simply about reconciling the formal rules of plural bar associations. Multijurisdictional ethics are not merely colliding codes or labyrinths negotiated by choice of law rules. In a world newly in touch with its diversity, ethics must struggle with difference's impact on coherence. There is a crucial dilemma more profound than how to avoid violating the canons of ethics of how to dodge disciplinary proceedings, for the lawyer in a world of plural ethics: the dilemma posed by the primary tension in ethics today between reason and spirit. The jurisdiction of the "world" is concerned with not getting caught or not running afoul of what some bar committee decides is "ethical" in their back yard; the jurisdiction of the spirit of the law is something else. The world and the spirit are not another Cartesian dualism, however-many commentators, notably many feminists, are choosing to belong to "neither one nor the other" but to both, to both the so-called secular world and to the sacred. This is not a simple story

L'Oz

Over twenty years ago, Jacques Derrida visited the University of Nebraska. My colleague at the Law School, John Snowden, kindly gave me his place on the roundtable of Nebraska scholars who gathered to talk with Derrida. Not yet feeling “at home” in my new teaching job, I still hoped to offer Derrida hospitality, by reconstructing The Wizard of Oz in order to welcome him “home.

CLE: 2011: Ethics Tales: Interesting Cases from 2010

The presentation will include a number of attorney discipline cases from 2010 in various jurisdictions. The cases will apply broadly to attorney misconduct. Ethics: