This highly successful textbook provides complete coverage of ethical principles from the perspective of the practicing paralegal

Features:

• Comprehensive coverage of all the major areas of legal ethics, placing special emphasis on how the rules affect paralegals.
• Authoritative presentation combined with clear and readable pedagogy . Each chapter begins with an overview, followed by well-written text in a well-organized format. Key terms are introduced in italics.
• Review questions and discussion questions reinforce the material. Research projects at the end of each chapter provide ways to enhance and apply what has been learned.
• Coverage tailored to the needs of paralegals.
• Each chapter includes cases that demonstrate how the principles and rules are applied.
• Useful appendices provide the text of relevant ethical codes.
• Cannon is a well-known and respected leader in the paralegal field, and her name alone attracts many users to the book.
• The book is easily adaptable to courses of different lengths, and can be used in substantive courses for additional ethics coverage.
• Teaching package includes an Instructor s Manual with Test Bank and PowerPoint slides.

  New to the Sixth Edition:

  • Ethics rules and case law concerning ethics and related subjects updated throughout the text.
  • More coverage added on impact of technology in all ethical areas.
  • New hypotheticals, research problems, and class discussion questions.
  • Includes updates on trends in the paralegal field and ethics.

Is DNA technology the ultimate diviner of guilt or the ultimate threat to civil liberties? Over the past decade, DNA has been used to exonerate hundreds and to convict thousands. Its expanded use over the coming decade promises to recalibrate significantly the balance between collective security and individual freedom. For example, it is possible that law enforcement DNA databases will expand to include millions of individuals not convicted of any crime. Moreover, depending on what rules govern access, such databases could also be used for purposes that range from determining paternity to assessing predispositions to certain diseases or behaviors. Thus the use of DNA technology will involve tough trade-offs between individual and societal interests.

This book, written by a distinguished group of authors including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, explores the ethical, procedural, and economic challenges posed by the use of DNA evidence as well as future directions for the technology. After laying the conceptual historical, legal, and scientific groundwork for the debate, the book considers bioethical issues raised by the collection of DNA, including the question of control over DNA databases. The authors then turn to the possible genetic bases of human behavior and the implications of this still-unresolved issue for the criminal justice system. Finally, the book examines the current debate over the many roles that DNA can and should play in criminal justice.

In The Laws, Plato describes in fascinating detail a comprehensive system of legislation in a small agricultural utopia he named Magnesia. His laws not only govern crime and punishment but also form a code of conduct for all aspects of life in his ideal state—from education, sports, and religion to sexual behavior, marriage, and drinking parties. Plato sets out a plan for the day-to-day rule of Magnesia, administered by citizens and elected officials, with supreme power held by a Council. Although Plato’s views that citizens should act in complete obedience to the law have been read as totalitarian, The Laws nonetheless constitutes a highly impressive program for the reform of society and provides a crucial insight into the mind of one of classical Greece’s foremost thinkers.

Using the rule of law as its main theme, this text shows how abstract questions and concepts of legal philosophy are connected to concrete legal, political, and social issues. The text addresses several modern controversies and challenges students to consider both sides of an argument, using sound, reasoned thinking.

Celebrated legal scholar Kenji Yoshino's first book, Covering, was acclaimed—from the New York Times Book Review to O, The Oprah Magazine to the American Lawyer—for its elegant prose, its good humor, and its brilliant insights into civil rights and discrimination law. Now, in A Thousand Times More Fair, Yoshino turns his attention to the question of what makes a fair and just society, and delves deep into a surprising source to answer it: Shakespeare's greatest plays. Through fresh and insightful readings of Measure for Measure, Titus Andronicus, Othello, and others, he addresses the fundamental questions we ask about our world today and elucidates some of the most troubling issues in contemporary life.

Enormously creative, engaging, and provocative, A Thousand Times More Fair is an altogether original book about Shakespeare and the law, and an ideal starting point to explore the nature of a just society-and our own.

Despite what your students may have learned in Schoolhouse Rock, the textbook how-a-bill-becomes-a-law scenario is a rarity. As evidenced with health care reform legislation, most major measures wind their way through the contemporary Congress in what Barbara Sinclair has dubbed unorthodox lawmaking.

Whatever path a bill takes whether considered by multiple committees or subjected to a filibuster in the Senate Sinclair explores the full range of special procedures and processes that make up the legislative process, as well as the reasons these unconventional routes evolved.

This much-anticipated fourth edition updates the book through the end of the 111th Congress. Sinclair incorporates new examples and new case studies throughout, including the economic stimulus bill of 2008, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and, of course, the health care reform legislation of 2009 and 2010. New coverage also includes recent developments in the Senate (for example, filling the amendment tree); major changes in how the House and Senate resolve their differences (fewer conferences and more informal bargaining and amendments); and earmarks and changes in the appropriations process.

With Sinclair's unique perspective, Unorthodox Lawmaking introduces students to the intricacies of Congress while also providing the tools to assess the relative successes and limitations of the legislative process.

This engrossing book examines the legal system through the use of psychological concepts, methods, and research results. It seeks to clarify the basic dilemmas that persist in the legal system and looks at the ethical, moral, legal, and psychological "gray areas" of the law, including coverage of such topics as: competence to stand trial, pretrial publicity and resulting changes in venue, criminal profiling, civil case law and civil procedures, the rights of children, capital punishment, the psychology of criminal trials, the insanity defense, expert forensic testimony, and analysis of eyewitness identification and line-up procedures. This thoroughly updated edition balances discussion of the legal system with psychological theory, concepts, and research.

In The Honest Hour, Ross explains how to formulate ethical standards for time-based billing. Tapping a broad range of sources, including judicial opinions, rules of professional conduct, the recent ABA opinion on hourly billing, fee agreements, bar journals, law reviews, personal interviews, and nationwide surveys of hundreds of private practitioners, and an inside counsel that he conducted in 1991 and from 1994 to 1995, Ross shows how members of the business and legal communities view the propriety of various billing practices.

Ross also evaluates the magnitude of unethical billing, drawing on his surveys, the experiences of legal audit firms, and anecdotes. Although he concludes that overbilling is widespread, he contends that most attorneys try to bill their clients ethically and that much overbilling is the result of excessive zeal rather than fraud. He also explains how clarification and reform of billing practices could help to improve the public image of attorneys and stimulate greater public service by lawyers.

The Honest Hour discusses how attorneys and their clients can work together to develop fee agreements that will permit attorneys to spend enough time to produce quality work, while guarding against practices that exploit clients. The book also covers the merits and disadvantages of various alternatives of hourly billing and the reactions of clients and lawyers to their experiences with such alternatives.

Mirande examines the relationship of the legal system to Chicanos, emphasizing its role in the mobilization of bias against Chicanos as well as the expropriation of their land. Extensive attention is given to the development of the 'bandito' and gang images and the use, in changing forms, of these stereotypes to mobilize anti-Chicano ideologies throughout the history of Anglo-Chicano relations. The book is detailed and highly instructive in the specific legal means used to deprive Chicanos of their Mexican land grants following the U.S. conquest of Mexican territory.

More than 325 references provide an excellent overview of materials on Chicano history and Anglo-Chicano relations, and are drawn form a wide variety of academic, historical, and popular writings on these topics.

Writing in his direct and lively style, Stephen Gillers explores the subtleties and nuances of the legal and ethical rules governing lawyers and judges. From great teaching cases, timely materials, and realistic problems, students come away with new insight, equipped to detect and avoid improper conduct over the course of their professional careers.

Refined through years of classroom use, this casebook offers:

• author Stephen Gillers, a recognized authority and clarion voice on professional responsibility
• a balanced mix of cases, law review articles, and text—often drawn from recent headlines
• engaging and realistic problems, revised and augmented throughout
• excellent case selection that exemplifies multiple variations on particular themes
• in-depth treatment of issues in clearly written notes
• outstanding annual statutory supplement co-authored by Roy D. Simon and Andrew Perlman —Regulation of Lawyers: Statutes and Standards covers all major and many minor rules governing lawyers and judges, along with important state variations

Updated throughout, the Eighth Edition includes:

• an introductory essay on theories and ideology behind legal ethics
• issues surrounding electronic stored information, discovery duties, and obstruction of justice
• the 9th Circuit’s Napster opinion on the crime-fraud exception to the privilege
• expanded treatment of ethical issues arising from inadvertent disclosure of privileged information expanded treatment of duties with regard to real evidence, including the prosecution of Philip Russell in Connecticut
• changes in the new ABA Code of Judicial Conduct, judicial campaign speech and judicial seminars
• litigation Funding Companies
• criminalization of legal services
• ...

What happens when public prosecutors, the most powerful officials in the criminal justice system, seek convictions instead of justice? Why are cases involving well-to-do victims often prosecuted more vigorously than those involving poor victims? Why do wealthy defendants frequently enjoy more lenient plea bargains than the disadvantaged? In this eye-opening work, Angela J. Davis shines a much-needed light on the power of American prosecutors, revealing how the day-to-day practice of even the most well-intentioned prosecutors can result in unequal treatment of defendants and victims. Ranging from mandatory minimum sentencing laws that enhance prosecutorial control over the outcome of cases, to the increasing politicization of the office, Davis uses powerful stories of individuals caught in the system to demonstrate how the perfectly legal exercise of prosecutorial discretion can result in gross inequities in criminal justice. For the paperback edition, Davis provides a new Afterword which covers such recent incidents of prosecutorial abuse as the Jena Six case, the Duke lacrosse case, the Department of Justice firings, and more.

Patent Ethics: Prosecution serves as an essential guide to the ethical issues arising in the course of the patent prosecution process. By providing relevant rules and case law, it allows practitioners to identify ethical problems before they arise and to address them most effectively when they do. Patent Ethics: Prosecution is the first of two volumes on patent ethics. This treatise is the first of its kind to combine the United State Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) rules with commentary by the authors, which distills the authors' own experience and expertise in patent prosecution into effective practice strategies.

A laboratory companion to Forensic Science: An Introduction to Scientific and Investigative Techniques and other undergraduate texts, Forensic Science Laboratory Manual and Workbook, Third Edition provides a plethora of basic, hands-on experiments that can be completed with inexpensive and accessible instrumentation, making this an ideal workbook for non-science majors and an excellent choice for use at both the high school and college level.

This revised edition of a bestselling lab manual provides numerous experiments in odontology, anthropology, archeology, chemistry, and trace evidence. The experiments cover tests involving body fluid, soil, glass, fiber, ink, and hair. The book also presents experiments in impression evidence, such as fingerprints, bite marks, footwear, and firearms, and it features digital and traditional photography and basic microscopy.

All of the experiments incorporate practical elements to facilitate the learning process. Students must apply the scientific method of reasoning, deduction, and problem-solving in order to complete the experiments successfully and attain a solid understanding of fundamental forensic science. Each of the 39 chapters features a separate experiment and includes teaching goals, offers the requisite background knowledge needed to conduct the experiments, and lists the required equipment and supplies. The book is designed for a cooperative learning setting in which three to five students comprise a group. Using the hands-on learning techniques provided in this manual, students will master the practical application of their theoretical knowledge of forensics.

 

The updated second edition of Handbook of Firearms and Ballistics includes recent developed analytical techniques and methodologies with a more comprehensive glossary, additional material, and new case studies. With a new chapter on the determination of bullet caliber via x-ray photography, this edition includes revised material on muzzle attachments, proof marks, non-toxic bullets, and gunshot residues. Essential reading for forensic scientists, firearms examiners, defense and prosecution practitioners, the judiciary, and police force, this book is also a helpful reference guide for undergraduate and graduate forensic science students.