Introduction: Toward a Sociology of the Class Action

Symposium: The Sociology of Class Actions NOTE: A printing error labeled this issue Spring 1982, when it should have been labeled Summer 198

Taking Dispute Resolution Theory Seriously at Home and Abroad: Prospects and Limitations

Carrie Menkel-Meadow\u27s splendid discussion of dispute resolution theory operates at several levels.\u27 One level involves a questioning of the international applicability of U.S. dispute resolution theory. She shows that our theory is in many respects parochial-not necessarily capable of explaining or even contributing to shaping dispute resolution behavior outside the United States. For the theory to make any claim to universality, she suggests, it must take into account very different settings and perhaps even develop counter models applicable to some places but not others. A more context sensitive theory, she argues, can move us beyond concepts and approaches uncritically derived from U.S.-oriented assumptions about the interests and behaviors of parties to a dispute. The article deserves a very careful reading for these and other insights about the current state of dispute resolution theory in the United States and its potential relationship to dispute processes found abroad or in transnational contexts

The Elusive High Road for Lawyers: Teaching Professional Responsibility in a Shifting Context

Many professional responsibility teachers believe our mandate is to teach professionalism rather than how to comply with the rules of professional responsibility or pass the professional responsibility exam. Yet, it is not particularly easy to define just what content goes into that vague concept of professionalism. Lawyers and professors repeat the mantra that your professional reputation is central to your long-term professional success. We insist on the values of taking the “high road” in a student’s professional career, and we try correspondingly to discourage ethical shortcuts characteristic of the “low road.” But the difference between these two paths — once one gets past extreme examples like lying or cheating — is not so easy to ascertain and to teach.This contribution to the symposium is an attempt to look critically at this effort to find and teach a high road. It explores both professional contributions and the contributions of academics who have formulas for an ethical lawyer. Ultimately, it argues that the high road is a relationship to a moving target — the legal and professional market that defines how one gains clients and maintains a good reputation among peers. This shifting relationship — much more toward the market than toward the state now — helps explain why so many recipes for the high road look anachronistic in today’s legal and business world. Finally, the article suggests that legal entrepreneurs contribute to redefining the “high road” up and down

How Consumer Remedies Fail

A Review of No Access to Law: Alternatives to the American Judicial System edited by Laura Nade