Sunshine in Litigation Act of 2009: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Commercial and Administrative Law of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 111th Cong., June 4, 2009 (Statement of Sherman L. Cohn, Prof. of Law, Geo. U. L. Center)

I urge that the issue before the Congress in the proposed “Sunshine in Litigation Act of 2009” is really one of social values and a choice to be made among various values and that that is a substantive matter rather than a mere matter of procedure. It is a choice among values that Congress, the legislative arm of the federal government, is charged with making and in this case should make

The Proposed Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure

After a discussion of the history of uniform procedural rules and the authority of the Supreme Court to promulgate uniform appellate rules, Professor Cohn discusses some of the problems of expense and delay which are found in the appellate system today. In his analysis of the Proposed Uniform Rules of Federal Appellate Procedure, the author gives special emphasis to those areas where the rules constitute a departure from present practice. In addition, several changes are suggested in areas in which the author believes further improvement can be made

[Review of] George Kaufman, The Lawyer’s Guide to Balancing Life and Work: Taking the Stress out of Success

In recent years there has been much self-examination within the legal profession. On the macro scale, Sol Linowitz, The Betrayed Profession, compares, not favorably, the profession of today with that which he knew in the early decades of his practice. Dean Anthony Kronman, The Lost Lawyer, and Mary Ann Glendon, A Nation Under Lawyers, use their skills as scholars to examine the profession on a more objective level. On the micro level, Deborah Arron led the way with Running from the Law, which tells of talented overachievers who stood out in law school and judicial clerkships, and then found large-firm practice disastrous

The Work-Product Doctrine: Protection, Not Privilege

Although the work-product doctrine has received considerable attention before the courts in recent years, several issues regarding the scope and applicability of the doctrine remain controversial As a prelude to explaining the state of the law on these issues, the author examines the case law through which the doctrine developed and explores the doctrine\u27s modern application through rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. He next discusses the rule\u27s various requirements and its treatment ofparticular categories of information including opinion work product andparty statements. Finally, Professor Cohn explains how the rule\u27s protection may be waived and discusses the rule\u27s operation with respect to subsequent litigation and aparty\u27s use of experts. The author draws distinctions throughout the article between operation of the attorney- client privilege and the work-product doctrine and concludes that the work-product doctrine operates not as aprivilege that belongs to any party but rather as a protection for the adversary systetr

The New Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

The amendments to the civil rules continue a process of transition from legal formulas toward adaptation to the practicalities of the various factual situations involved. This process was commenced with the early reform movement when the strictures of common-law, form-of-action pleading were abolished and the artificial separation of law and equity was ended. It continued through the original promulgation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which attempted to eliminate many of the legalistic but artificial restrictions that code practice perpetuated. The current amendments move closer to what Mr. Justice Goldberg termed the aims of a liberal, nontechnical application of federal procedural rules, rules that are designed to place before the court the actual substantive issues in the case with the minimum amount of formal procedural restrictions needed to ensure fair and orderly proceedings

Celebrating 100 Years of The Georgetown Law Journal

It was 1911. Georgetown Law was then forty-one years old. It was an undergraduate program, as a college degree was unnecessary. Indeed, it was only a dozen years or less since Georgetown had begun to require a high school diploma for admission and had expanded to a three-year program. The degree granted was an LL.B., a bachelor of law, usually the first academic degree the student received. The school had recently grown to over 900 students. It was time to move forward. That year, three dynamic young men enrolled at Georgetown: Eugene Quay, Horace H. Hagan, and John Cosgrove. They decided—perhaps with the encouragement of the dean or the faculty (the record is silent)—that it was time to move into the big leagues with a scholarly law journal. By 1911, there were four law journals. The University of Pennsylvania claims to have the oldest, going back to 1852, when it was known as the American Law Register. The Harvard Law Review was started in 1887, followed by the Yale Law Journal in 1891 and the Columbia Law Review in 1901. It was time for Georgetown to join that distinguished group

Federal Discovery: A Survey of Local Rules and Practices in View of Proposed Changes to the Federal Rules

Traditionally, except for the limited role played by pleadings and bills of particulars, the attorney in a law court did not disclose evidentiary matters until trial. A judicial proceeding was a battle of wits rather than a search for the truth, \u27 and thus, each side was protected to a large extent against disclosure of his case until counsel chose to disclose it at trial. This philosophy changed some forty years ago with the introduction of discovery in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In the words of Mr. Justice Murphy, the discovery rules meant that civil trials in the federal courts no longer need be carried on in the dark. The way is now clear, consistent with recognized privileges, for the parties to obtain the fullest possible knowledge of the issues and facts before trial. Or, as another observer saw it, [m]odern instruments of discovery. . . together with pretrial procedures make a trial less a game of blind man\u27s bluff and more a fair contest with the basic issues and facts disclosed to the fullest practicable extent

The HIV Positive Health Care Clinician: Rights, Obligations, and the Academy

The questions raised by a case of an HIV positive student-clinician in an acupuncture school provide an analytical framework for considering the many conflicts raised by HIV positive health care providers in general. A number of conflicting social values are discussed in the context of federal and Maryland state law. HIV positive people are protected by certain antidiscrimination laws, provided they do not pose a significant risk of transmission. This protection must be balanced against the rights of patients to informed consent, the relative risk of a relatively noninvasive procedure such as acupuncture, and the academic freedom of the school to determine the qualifications of its graduates and the methods by which they are educated. This evaluation and balancing of competing values on a case by case basis provides the most rational and effective policy for dealing with infected providers

The Organizational Client: Attorney-Client Privilege and the No-Contract Rule

A basic issue in the law governing lawyers is the identification of an attorney\u27s client. Various duties, obligations, and rights arise from the attorney-client relationship. In the case of the individual who is a client, the answer is relatively easy. But in the case of the organizational client, the issue becomes more complex and the answers still are evolving. Indeed, the answer may differ depending on the legal context in which the question is asked and on the individual values being served