International Journal of the Legal Profession最新文献

{"title":"Are we there yet? Best practices for diversity and inclusion in Australia","authors":"T. Mundy, Nan Seuffert","doi":"10.1080/09695958.2019.1676754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2019.1676754","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article reports on the findings of a pilot research project investigating current best practices, operating within national law firms in Australia, that support women lawyers in their advancement to partnership and other leadership positions. Academic research and professional body reports suggest that current diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives across the private sector are not resulting in significant change to advancement, retention and attrition of women in the legal profession. However, work done by the Women Lawyers’ Association of New South Wales in Australia, through the Data Comparison Project (DCP), indicates that some firms have made better progress than others. Building on the DCP, this article presents the findings of a pilot project involving in-depth interviews with four of the top-achieving national law firms in Australia on gender equity criteria. It finds that these firms are collectively engaging with many of the best practice initiatives for D&I recommended by the current national and international research and scholarship, and in some instances go beyond international best practice. What is apparent, however, is that the current best practices have yet to achieve significant advancement of women, or to break through the glass ceilings that continue to operate for women in large Australian law firms.","PeriodicalId":43893,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Legal Profession","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09695958.2019.1676754","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46301619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Women judges who judge women offenders: a Chinese case study on gender and judging","authors":"Anqi Shen","doi":"10.1080/09695958.2020.1733580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2020.1733580","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Based on an empirical study, this article examines Chinese female judges’ life experiences and worldviews by asking: are women judges feminist or pro-feminism? Given the very nature of feminism, if a large number of women judges are feminist or pro-feminism, they are likely to bring attention to women’s issues in the judiciary and the judicial process. If so, women’s equal participation in courts would make a vital difference in law and judicial production. The article first provides the context of the research on which this article is based. Next, it briefly outlines several key methodological issues. Then, it presents findings on female judges’ perceptions of women’s gender roles, their views about female offending and their awareness of feminism. Finally, it highlights the evidence presented and offers implications of the research.","PeriodicalId":43893,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Legal Profession","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09695958.2020.1733580","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48519407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Contemporary criminal defence practice: importance of active involvement at the investigative stage and related training requirements","authors":"A. Pivaty, M. Vanderhallen, Y. Daly, V. Conway","doi":"10.1080/09695958.2019.1706528","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2019.1706528","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The shifting focus of criminal proceedings from the trial to the pre-trial stages leads to a changing role of criminal defence practitioners across Europe. European criminal defence lawyers are now expected to enter the proceedings earlier and exercise “active” and “participatory” defence as early as the investigative stage. Criminal lawyers, trained in the traditional trial-centred paradigm, are ill-prepared for this role, which results in an important skills gap. Legal representation at the investigative stage presents unique challenges, such as shortage of information, time pressures and the closed nature of pre-trial proceedings. It requires lawyers to operate in a more complex communication environment, than the one to which they have been accustomed. This article sets out the main elements of a professional training programme aiming to fill in the emerging skills gap. The training programme (SUPRALAT) was successfully implemented in Belgium, Hungary, Ireland and the Netherlands, and is being expanded further. The training focuses on effective communication skills, experiential learning and the development of reflective skills. It includes elements of interprofessional training and encourages the development of “communities of practice”.","PeriodicalId":43893,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Legal Profession","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09695958.2019.1706528","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49462429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Editorial","authors":"A. Sherr","doi":"10.1080/09695958.2020.1742913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2020.1742913","url":null,"abstract":"Melville et al. open this year’s Journal with a study of the effects of international mobility on the biographies of academics from Australian law schools. Looking at the career trajectories of 700 individual academics, a quarter had obtained their first degrees outside Australia and over a third obtained their highest qualification in elite schools outside before returning to work in Australia. Forty-one per cent had been employed overseas. Most of this experience was in the developed world. Some interesting findings show whether there is a career advantage to this mobility, and there is a discussion of the different gender possibilities for mobility. Pivaty et al. expose the skills gap which has appeared for European lawyers involved in criminal cases where they must now become involved from the earliest “interrogation”. At the same time, actual criminal trials are decreasing across Europe and decisions are made managerially at an earlier stage. Lawyers trained for the theatre of the courtroom find themselves unprepared for this shifting focus of criminal proceedings. Systems which have existed for some time in England and Wales are considered for the training of lawyers handling the investigative stage in countries across the rest of Europe. Barbero attempts to discover the purpose of lawyers working as public defenders for immigrant clients in Spain. The “migration industry” is described and the place of lawyers for immigrants within it. Despite poor pay, and sometimes no pay, the sense of working for a public cause and commitment to clients keeps immigration defence work in place. Shen asks whether women judges in China possess different values in deciding cases relating to women offenders. The difficulty of presenting a truly female or feminist approach in a patriarchal environment is noted and the need to develop more awareness of feminist views within the female Chinese judiciary. Male judges are assumed to be able to take the pressure of the work better and have closer political connections to power. Women offenders are seen as doubly deviant, breaking the law and patriarchal society’s code for female decency. Practical family issues such as the needs of children would not be taken into account. Feminist attitudes among women judges remain “latent and unactivated.” Mundy and Seuffert describe particular progress in a project among some law firms in New South Wales, Australia, for diversity and inclusion of women. Although this compares well with suggested best practice, it is yet to achieve significant change. Good reading","PeriodicalId":43893,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Legal Profession","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09695958.2020.1742913","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43521133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"White Shoe: How a New Breed of Wall Street Lawyers Changed Big Business and the American Century","authors":"Morgan K Doherty, P. Schmidt","doi":"10.1080/09695958.2019.1682589","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2019.1682589","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43893,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Legal Profession","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09695958.2019.1682589","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44338893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Editorial","authors":"A. Sherr","doi":"10.1080/09695958.2019.1687125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2019.1687125","url":null,"abstract":"Welcome to the final Issue of 2019. Semple’s work on the difficulties of “personal plight” clients in finding and assessing appropriate lawyers in Ontario shows how competition is suppressed by high search costs, difficulties in comparing price and quality and contingency-based prices in tortious cases. Alternatives to attempts in increasing competition by Regulators are discussed, and the UK attempt to foster demand-side competition is mentioned. Li, on the other hand, questions the need for regulation of lawyers in a fast-changing environment in which online information is increasingly available and not subject to regulation, and business and managerial forms are transforming to satisfy the needs especially of corporate clients, who are much more in the driving seat with their lawyers, in what Li describes as a “buyers market”. Surveying the latest innovation initiatives and alternative business models in China, with its highly regulated profession, Li asks whether and where more liberal approaches might be applied to appropriate client services. Continuing the theme of more sensitively designed regulation Moore, Forster, Diesfeld and Rychert research into how New Zealand lawyer disciplinary tribunals face up to the needs of vulnerable clients. They suggest that disciplinary bodies need to take the nature of the clients into account and that risk-reducing lawyers need to be more client-centred in their work. Bogdanova researched how Russian Law Schools understand their objectives in producing the “ideal lawyer”. Reacting to the post-Soviet legal education reforms and dealing with regulations governing higher legal education, law schools are forced to balance the state standards of higher education and external legal, social, economic, and political challenges. This seems to challenge the revival of the Soviet model of the “ideal jurist”. Kisilowski shows how the formalist approaches of the Polish legal profession assisted them under the Communist regime, but left them open to being undermined by major changes under the government of the populist Law and Justice Party. We hope you enjoy this issue which concludes with a Book Review of “White Shoe: How a New Breed of Wall Street Lawyers Changed Big Business and the American Century”.","PeriodicalId":43893,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Legal Profession","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09695958.2019.1687125","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42268850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From refuge to trap: formalist misadventures of Poland’s postsocialist legal profession","authors":"Maciej Kisilowski","doi":"10.1080/09695958.2019.1646654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2019.1646654","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Since 2015 the populist government of the Law and Justice Party in Poland has spearheaded a highly effective campaign against the country’s lawyers, encountering relatively muted social opposition. Using Bourdieuan lenses, the article traces the roots of that remarkable institutional weakness of the Polish legal profession to the highly formalist approach to law and legal thinking that Poland’s lawyers espoused. Prior to the fall of communism, and in democratic Poland, the role of lawyers in society was to act as guardians of “neatness” of the legal system – or that system’s internal clarity, cohesion, and completeness. Such a sterile approach to legal practice was initially attractive, among other reasons, because it protected the legal profession from difficult legitimacy challenges stemming from that profession’s pre-1989 coexistence with the communist regime. With time, however, the refuge that formalism offered became a trap that undermined lawyers’ political and economic power.","PeriodicalId":43893,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Legal Profession","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09695958.2019.1646654","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42613051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Objectives of Russian law schools today: what is the “ideal jurist”?","authors":"Elena A. Bogdanova","doi":"10.1080/09695958.2019.1637743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2019.1637743","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article describes how Russian law schools understand their objectives today and whether there is an ideal model of a jurist to which law schools should conform. Different qualitative methods were used in this study, including a review of the post-Soviet legal education reforms, analysis of regulations governing higher legal education, analysis of websites, and expert semi-structured interviews with heads of law schools. The results demonstrate the difficulties faced by law schools, which are forced to balance the state standards of higher education and external legal, social, economic, and political challenges. The study concludes that law schools are experiencing serious difficulties with respect to understandings of their objectives as well as the current redefinition of the normative ideal model of a jurist. The study also makes it possible to draw conclusions about the importance of legal knowledge, different ways of understanding prestige in the legal profession, and the revival of features of the Soviet model of the “ideal jurist.”","PeriodicalId":43893,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Legal Profession","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09695958.2019.1637743","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47537315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The emerging legal profession in Qatar: diversity realities and challenges","authors":"Melissa Deehring","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3328067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3328067","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the West, women have practiced law and advocated greater gender diversity in the legal profession for more than a century. In Qatar, concepts such as “equality of opportunity” and “diversity or inclusion in the profession” are virtually unexplored by research and only beginning to appear in casual conversations. While the number of women studying law in Qatar has significantly increased, the number of women practicing law as prosecutors, judges and lawyers has not directly correlated. This article will use Qatar as a case study to analyze how culture and modern development affect the feminization of Qatar’s bar and bench.","PeriodicalId":43893,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Legal Profession","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46749891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"New Zealand lawyers and conveyancers disciplinary tribunal cases involving vulnerable clients, 2011–2017*","authors":"Jennifer Moore, C. Forster, K. Diesfeld, M. Rychert","doi":"10.1080/09695958.2018.1543119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2018.1543119","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This research analyses disciplinary decisions of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal (NZLCDT) from 2011 to 2017 that involve vulnerable clients. Increasingly, scholarship discusses vulnerability as an ethical concept, including in the legal context. Based on published decisions, the present study inquires whether some legal clients’ vulnerability warrants special attention. Twenty-five of the 193 clients in the NZLCDT decisions qualified as vulnerable based upon age, gender, mental health/neuro-disability or immigrant status. The results may inform disciplinary bodies and inspire preventive strategies by lawyers, educators and regulatory bodies. Ultimately, this evidence-based analysis magnifies the importance of client-centred approaches to risk reduction in legal practice.","PeriodicalId":43893,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Legal Profession","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09695958.2018.1543119","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44865988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}