Susan W Harrell

The history of various the oaths of Admission and rules of professional conduct, the changes in the legal profession, and the legal needs of a large portion of our society dictate that immediate changes should be made by members of the Bar in order to adequately provide legal services to those who lack access to justice. "10 In a speech to the American Bar Association (ABA), Chief Justice Warren Burger stated, "A sense of confidence in the courts is essential to maintain the fabric of ordered liberty for a free people and three things could destroy that confidence and do incalculable damage to society: that people come to believe that inefficiency and delay will drain even a just judgment of its value; that people who have long been exploited in the smaller transactions of daily life come to believe that courts cannot vindicate their legal rights from fraud and over-reaching; that people come to believe the law - in the larger sense - cannot fulfill its primary function to protect them and their families in their homes, at their work, and on the public streets. "16 Some states also note a specific obligation to act for the betterment of society, to improve the administration of justice, and to support professionalism among lawyers.17 Rules of Professional Responsibility Although the oath of admission in some states may not specifically mention an obligation to provide legal services to those without meaningful access to justice, all states encourage attorneys to provide voluntary pro bono services via the state rules of professional responsibility or professional conduct.18 Unlike some oaths of admission, however, the Rules of Professional Conduct merely encourage rather than mandate pro bono representation. The most recent report issued by the ABA's Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service reported that almost 20% of attorneys provided at least 50 hours of pro bono service in 2016, providing an average of 36.9 hours of pro bono services.

Experiential learning is at the forefront of pedagogical best practices in undergraduate education. Business schools, which are an increasingly popular choice for future law school applicants, should take steps to enrich the learning experience for these students. Many pre-law
programs already implement and utilize successful experiential assignments which should be adopted by business schools. The skills learned in these assignments, which include contract simulations, mock trials, and client interviews, contain components that can benefit both the traditional business student and the law school applicant. By providing opportunities for experiential learning similar to their real-world counterparts, business schools can better position themselves to accommodate the needs of these students.

The desired outcome for children in foster care is to be reunited with their parents or to be permanently placed in a stable home. Federal and state legislation directs increased efforts by the social welfare and judicial systems in the United States to act in the best interests of the child and to identify and reduce barriers to permanency. Records from two county dependency courts in Florida were examined and caregivers surveyed to identify issues that prevented them from adopting the child in their care, and to identify services that would have enhanced the likelihood of adoption. The findings and their implications suggest that more integration of the two systems and support for concrete assistance to caregivers are paramount to facilitating adoption of children in foster care.

Lawyers who enter academe are faced with potential conflicts between the rules of professional conduct governing lawyers and ethical standards for professors. This article compares ethics codes from the American Bar Association (ABA) Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). It will examine inconsistencies in the policies and will offer recommendations to policy makers.

Seven aspects of laws on suicide, as proxy measures of public attitudes in each state, were correlated with the 2001 rates of suicide for the contiguous U.S. states. With so many correlations in the present study, the likelihood of a Type I error was large. Alpha was adjusted to control for that likelihood. Statistical analysis now requires even stronger evidence before concluding that there were significant relationships between state laws on suicide and state rates of suicide. A multiple regression on all seven aspects showed that only 20% of the variance in the 2001 rates of suicide was accounted for. None of the seven aspects of the state laws appears to be closely related to the rate of suicide. Overall state laws probably do not reflect the acceptance of suicide as a behavior by the general public.