[Insert Song Lyrics Here]: The Uses and Misuses of Popular Music Lyrics in Legal Writing

Legal writers frequently utilize the lyrics of popular music artists to help advance a particular theme or argument in legal writing. And if the music we listen to says something about us as individuals, then the music we, the legal profession as a whole, write about may something about who we are as a profession. A study of citations to popular artists in law journals reveals that, not surprisingly, Bob Dylan is the most popular artist in legal scholarship. The list of names of the other artists rounding out the Top Ten essentially reads like a Who’s Who of baby boomer favorites. Often, attorneys use the lyrics of popular music in fairly predictable ways in their writing, sometimes with adverse impact on the persuasiveness of the argument they are advancing. However, if one digs deeper, one can find numerous instances in which legal writers incorporate the lyrics of popular music into their writing in more creative ways

Whistleblowing Attorneys and Ethical Infrastructures

Rule 5.1 of the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct requires law firm partners to make reasonable efforts to supervise subordinate attorneys and to ensure that the firm has internal measures in place that give \u27reasonable assurance\u27 that all lawyers within the firm are complying with their ethical obligations. Despite the existence of this ethical duty, there are enough judicial decisions involving attorneys who have been fired for blowing the whistle on unethical conduct to lead one to suspect that perhaps law firm compliance measures regarding Rule 5.1 leave something to be desired. This Article discusses the role that a law firm’s ethical infrastructure - or lack thereof - may have on encouraging junior attorneys to make internal and external reports of suspected unethical conduct. It describes the results of a survey concerning law firm compliance measures and offers several proposals to encourage attorneys to make internal reports of suspected unethical conduct and to protect those attorneys who make internal and external reports of suspected unethical conduct

Abolishing the Suicide Rule

Suicide is increasingly recognized as a public health issue. There are over 40,000 suicides a year in the U.S., making suicide the tenth-leading cause of death in the country. But societal attitudes on the subject remain decidedly mixed. Suicide is often closely linked to mental illness, a condition that continues to involve stigma and often triggers irrational fears and misunderstanding. For many, suicide remains an immoral act that flies in the face of strongly held religious principles. In some ways, tort law’s treatment of suicide mirrors the conflicting societal views regarding suicide. Tort law has long been reluctant to permit recovery in a wrongful death action from a defendant who is alleged to have caused the suicide of the decedent. In many instances, courts apply a strict rule of causation in suicide cases that has actually been dubbed “the suicide rule” in one jurisdiction. While reluctance to assign liability to defendants whose actions are alleged to have resulted in suicide still remains the norm in negligence cases, there has been a slight trend among court decisions away from singling out suicide cases for special treatment and toward an analytical framework that more closely follows traditional tort law principles. This Article argues that this trend is to be encouraged and that it is time for courts to largely abandon the special rules that have developed in suicide cases that treat suicide as a superseding cause of a decedent’s death

Introducing the New and Improved Americans with Disabilities Act: Assessing the ADA Amendments Act of 2008

This essay summarizes the changes to the Americans with Disabilities made by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. The Act represents the first substantive revision to the ADA since its inception and contains some dramatic changes. This essay summarizes those changes and makes some preliminary assessments as to how the new amendments are likely to alter the current interpretation of the ADA

[Insert Song Lyrics Here]: The Uses and Misuses of Popular Music Lyrics in Legal Writing

Legal writers frequently utilize the lyrics of popular music artists to help advance a particular theme or argument in legal writing. And if the music we listen to says something about us as individuals, then the music we, the legal profession as a whole, write about may something about who we are as a profession. A study of citations to popular artists in law journals reveals that, not surprisingly, Bob Dylan is the most popular artist in legal scholarship. The list of names of the other artists rounding out the Top Ten essentially reads like a Who’s Who of baby boomer favorites. Often, attorneys use the lyrics of popular music in fairly predictable ways in their writing, sometimes with adverse impact on the persuasiveness of the argument they are advancing. However, if one digs deeper, one can find numerous instances in which legal writers incorporate the lyrics of popular music into their writing in more creative ways

What the Lawyer Well-Being Movement Could Learn from the Americans with Disabilities Act

Perhaps the central theme in all of the lawyer well-being literature is the profession\u27s need to create a culture in which lawyers are proactive about taking care of themselves. This necessarily involves reducing some of the stigma associated with mental health issues so that lawyers feel comfortable to seek help when needed and to otherwise be mindful of their own well-being. The trick, obviously, is adopting an approach that meaningfully addresses the problems of mental health issues within the profession without further stigmatizing mental health issues more generally. This Article argues that despite its admirable efforts, the legal profession has generally fallen short of this goal. Whether in formal ethics opinions dealing with the issue of lawyers with disabilities or reports such as the National Task Force\u27s The Path to Lawyer Well-Being, the lawyer well-being movement has sometimes perpetuated harmful stereotypes concerning disability. This Article suggests that in order to effectively improve lawyer well-being, the organized bar should look more carefully at the text of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as well as the policies that underlie it. This abstract has been adapted from the author\u27s introduction

The Forgotten Role of Consent in Defamation and Employment Reference Cases

As has been well documented, the fear of defamation suits and related claims lead many employers to refuse to provide meaningful employment references. However, an employer who provides a negative reference concerning an employee enjoys a privilege in an ensuing defamation action if the employee has consented to the release of information concerning the employee’s job performance. Thus, many attorneys now advise prospective employers to have applicants sign consent agreements, permitting the prospective employer to conduct an investigation into the applicant’s work history and releasing from liability anyone who provides information about the employee’s work history. The Restatement (Second) of Torts has been highly influential in shaping the development of the defense of consent in the defamation context. This Article looks at the consent defense within the context of employment reference cases. Specifically, this Article examines the consent defense as described in the Restatement from a historical perspective and argues that the authors fundamentally misstated the law in a manner that has had negative consequence for employees who have been the victims of defamatory references