Search

It seems impossible to explain language choice and practice in the multilingual, understudied context of an asylum law firm by simply referring to official policy texts and linguistic (human) rights. Based on linguistic-ethnographic data (in the form of participant observations, recordings and interviews conducted in the Belgian context), this study integrates a top-down perspective (focusing on the influence of language management) with a bottom-up perspective (by eliciting the research participants' language attitudes and ideologies and by investigating what actually happens in practice). Approaching these different parameters of language policy from a discourse analytical perspective, shows how a clear framework of linguistic (human) rights to regulate lawyer-client communication is missing. Because of the lack of concrete stipulations on how to make language choice acts, interpretation of linguistic needs is left to the individual assessment of lawyers. This leads to highly situated decision-making practices, where lawyers draw on their own experience as well as the input of others to organise multilingual interaction. Although a top-down policy exists, practice shows a lack of regulation and transparency in the selection of linguistic strategies/support on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An online survey of 261 Queensland legal practitioners working in sole, micro, small or medium-sized law firms provides valuable insights into their capability to successfully navigate disruption like that experienced during COVID-19. Our results indicated that respondent lawyers demonstrated progressiveness, openness and willingness to engage with innovative approaches, including technology, to build greater capacity within their firms. However, the results from the research identified several overlapping challenges faced by respondents that reduced their capability to adapt to disruption, including being time-poor and difficulty obtaining impartial and trustworthy information and training about emerging forms of disruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) and its implications on lawyers and law firms in the U.S. Topics discussed include the aim of CTA to address the lack of transparency which may facilitate illegal activities, the requirement to companies to disclose the identity of their beneficial owners and company applicants to the Financial Crimes and Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the Department of Treasury, and the compliance to CTA.

Law firms absolutely want to give each of their associates the types of experiences that will help them grow as lawyers, and law firms absolutely want to retain a diverse group of professionals. We suggest that the best way for a law firm to ensure that it is, in fact, giving everyone the same access to valuable experiences is to mine the firm’s own data—time entries—to doublecheck any anecdotal evidence that the firm’s efforts are working. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section offers news briefs on the Idaho State Bar as of March 1, 2024. It includes the 2024 Annual Meeting Scholarships, the additional functions of the Idaho Court Data web site, the appointment of attorney Andrew LaPorta as part for Hepworth Holzer LLP, and results of Idaho State Bar's 2023 Year-End Statistics report.

With the publication of the Panama Papers in 2016, law firms and attorneys came under the spotlight of international anti-money laundering efforts. It became clear that attorneys, protected by the attorney-client privilege, play a significant role in concealing the origin of illicit funds and the constructing of offshore company-schemes. The public outcry prompted legislators to hold these facilitators accountable and to prevent money-laundering activities by imposing reporting obligation on them, whenever there is the suspicion of a client being involved in illicit activities. Unsurprisingly, attorney and professional associations voiced considerable opposition to these legislative efforts claiming an erosion of the attorney client privilege and nothing less than an attack on the rule of law. This article examines the attorney-client privilege from a historical, empirical, and constitutional perspective. A brief analysis of the legal frameworks in Germany and Switzerland exemplifies how reporting obligations affect legal practice and what challenges exist for attorneys. Both countries are considered global hubs for money laundering activities. The legal concepts of holding attorneys accountable in the neighboring countries differ in some respects. In conclusion, it shows that the legal professions successfully managed to widely avoid a 'responsibilization'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Justicia (0124-7441) is the property of Universidad Simon Bolivar and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses rules and American Bar Association (ABA) ethics opinion that will help lawyers avoid imputing disqualification with prospective clients and conflicts to other members of the law firms. It defines disqualifying information and cites examples of reasonably necessary inquiries. Reasonable measures to avoid exposure to disqualifying information include avoiding free-flowing discussion with prospective client and limiting discussion to identifying the parties involved.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including Italian boutique law firms, ethical education in Hong Kong's legal sector and emotional neglect in lawyer professionalism.

This section offers news briefs concerning the Idaho State Bar (ISB) as of October 2023. Topics discussed include the hiring of attorney Sean C. Johnson at personal injury law firm Skaug Law, the voting on the 2023 Resolution Process, the 2023-2034 Class of the Idaho Academy of Leadership for Lawyers (IALL), and the Certified B Corporation™ status earned by boutique law firm Kelsey Jae LLC.

This study explored the school-to-work transition experiences of new candidate attorneys within South African law firms. The participants included a purposive voluntary sample of 13 candidate attorneys (female = 76.9%, black = 69.2%, mean age = 24.7 years). They completed semi-structured in-depth interviews on the barriers and facilitators of their transition experiences in the working world as new employees leaving university. Thematic analysis of the data identified the following school-to-work transition barriers: (i) adapting to the world of work; (ii) misaligned, high and unrealistic expectations; (iii) organisational culture; and (iv) candidate attorneys' experience. The candidate attorneys identified (v) positive organisational socialisation, and (vi) coping strategies as school-to-work facilitators. The findings indicate a need for work induction support programmes and workplace culture changes to mitigate the barriers candidate attorneys experience when entering the world of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The narrative that banks, government departments and state-owned enterprises are the foremost protagonists in shaping China's outbound capital flows has been a commonplace view. This article seeks to expand the focus to include other under-scrutinised players: lawyers. With reference to exporting industries (such as shipping and natural gas), this article explains how lawyers – in tandem with China's governmental and judicial organs – have shifted from enabling outflows to postponing them, as a result of China's Covid-19 force majeure regime. Even with capital on pause, Covid-19 has also kept lawyers busy, prompting them to think about how to maximise their firm's proximity to the clients they have and to new clients that they want to win. Accordingly, this article also provides an overview of the techniques used by predominantly Anglo-American law firms to gain access to new legal markets during Covid-19, with a view to winning more work from Chinese capital-exporters and their foreign counterparties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most law firms are struggling when it comes to diversity and inclusion. There are fewer women in law firms compared to men.¹ The majority of lawyers--81%--are White, despite White people making up only about 65% of the law school population.² Lawyers of color remain underrepresented with the historic high being only 28.32%.³ By comparison, 13.4% of the United States population is Black and 5.9% is Asian.4 The biases that perpetuate this lack of diversity in law firms begin during the hiring process and extend to associate retainment. For example, an applicant's resume reveals a lot, including the prestige of the law school they attend (which can create inferences about their socioeconomic status); their class status, depending on extracurricular activities (i.e., playing polo v. interning with a dentist); or their gender, based on their name or other details.5 Continuing to depend on these biases is detrimental to law firms for various reasons. They lead to the same demographics of hired candidates, to the exclusion of other diverse candidates. Clients also have been demanding their outside counsel to be diverse, or risk losing their business.6 This paper recommends law firms seeking to address diversity and inclusion issues adopt artificial intelligence ("AI") in the hiring and retention of lawyers. AI is a term that refers to computers that accomplish tasks that would ordinarily require human intelligence.7 While AI is being used in other legal tasks successfully to automate routine work and cut costs,8 there is an added benefit to using AI in hiring and recruiting: firms can remove human biases. This Note begins by first identifying the current lack of diversity in law firms and discussing how bias is a major contributing factor. Second, it will explain how clients are influencing outside counsel to have an increasingly diverse workforce. It will then propose AI as a beneficial solution that can help firms increase diversity and inclusion in both the hiring processes and retention efforts of attorneys while mitigating human biases. Specifically, this paper will discuss the advantages of AI as applied to resume screening, structured interviewing, fair performance management, and equal compensation systems. Finally, it will outline challenges to using AI and how firms can overcome them to use AI fairly and efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]