The office of magistrate is probably more important today than it has been at any other time since the creation of the magistrate system. The enhanced standards for search and arrest warrants, as well as the changing philosophies about bail, have made the work increasingly more difficult, requiring responsible deliberation on the part of each magistrate. Moreover, the frequent contacts with the general public, make it necessary that every magistrate be fully informed of the mechanics of his or her job so there will be no doubt by others that they are being treated by fair-minded and competent officials.* * *
[M]agistrates [must] realize that they are members of the State judiciary and his or her actions are a direct reflection on the quality of justice in Virginia, especially to tourists and non-residents who may never pass through Virginia again. Accordingly, magistrates are expected to conduct themselves at all times in a manner consistent with the responsibility and honor of the office. A professional appearance, a suitable place for conducting business, and a business-like, but courteous manner, are essential. Further, as judicial officers, magistrates occupy a position of public trust. Therefore, he or she is expected to meet an ethical standard considerably higher than that imposed on the average person.His duties as a Magistrate also take him to Washington and Russell Counties. His duties also include training new hires in the Magistrate's Office.
3. Competence in technology turned from dalliance to necessity.
In August 2012, the American Bar Association voted to amend the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to make clear that lawyers have a duty to be competent in technology. Specifically, the ABA voted to amend the comment to Model Rule 1.1, governing lawyer competence, to say that, in addition to keeping abreast of changes in the law and its practice, a lawyer should keep abreast of “the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” During 2013, we saw several states follow up on the ABA’s action. Delaware became the first state to formally adopt a duty of technology competence and it created a Commission on Law and Technology to help lawyers comply. Massachusetts is considering adoption of this rule. And in Pennsylvania on Nov. 21, amendments took effect to that state’s professional conduct rules to comport with the ABA model rule.
8. Law schools discovered legal technology.
This was the year in which a second wave of law schools began to discover the importance of teaching and studying legal technology. The first wave came years ago when some truly innovative law schools started programs focused on legal technology. They include Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology, William & Mary Law School’s Center for Legal and Court Technology, Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver and, of course, Cornell’s Legal Information Institute. But in the decade or so since those programs launched, there has not been much new coming out of law schools. Until this year, when several schools took steps to recognize the undeniable importance of technology in legal education. A good example is Suffolk University Law School in Boston, which last April launched its Institute on Law Practice Technology & Innovation and then last month announced one of the country’s first formal law school concentrations in legal technology and innovation. This year also brought the launch of the Center for Law Practice Technology at Florida Coastal School of Law and the establishment of a joint degree program in law and technology at the University of Pennsylvania. Not to be overlooked is the ReInvent Law Laboratory at Michigan State University College of Law, founded in the spring of 2012.
For the science on willpower, take a look at this Stanford School of Medicine blog. Two things can enhance your reserve of willpower: Meditation and regular exercise, partly because they help you manage stress better. Stress, in contrast, reduces your ability to resist urges and temptations, as does sleep deprivation and poor nutrition. You’ve heard it before . . . . Statistics show that a small minority of folks follow through on their resolutions.For more on stress, willpower, and pursing healthy habits, see here and here.
There are a few reasons for this, understanding why may help you.
How Success Is Built.
Maybe we set a goal that we will lose 30 pounds this year but by the time January is over and we haven’t lost the 30 pounds (or some significant undetermined amount) we feel like we failed. We start to let things slip and eventually, our efforts disappear.
Success is not built by simply stating the end goal. Success is structured bit by bit. Understanding how to construct the path, helps us stay on it.
Another reason why success slips away is that we fail to supplement our willpower. We seem to have it in abundance this time of year, but willpower is a limited resource.
Willpower can actually run out in the course of a day. Putting our willpower to focus on a project at work can deplete it such that we struggle to get to the gym later.
Understanding how to structure our day and supplement our willpower, is important.
Resistance Is Futile…
Accepting that you simply don't have an endless supply of will is a good first step. Here are a few ideas for supplementing the willpower you do have.
How - Instead of stating what you will do, map a plan for how you will do it. Keep it simple. Establish a reasonable plan of action with actionable steps and small successes built on one another throughout the year. The results will come.
Losing 30 pounds is not an action. Creating a menu from which you will shop and stock your pantry, is. Making $10,000 in new sales each month, is not an action. Making 5 calls a day, is.
Stick to the plan - We have this tendency to want to riff before we understand the notes. When you establish a plan, you are not waking up everyday wondering what to eat, or how many calls you should make. The plan is clear, follow it. The results will come.
Be Reasonable and Kind - For some folks, a no excuses, no days off, approach is spot on. It’s admirable. For others, it is unrealistic and missing one day, feels like failure. Set yourself up for success by understanding what is reasonable for you, your time, your commitments. I’m not saying you can’t push yourself to do more, but for some 4 days a week is more.
If you fall off the plan, it happens but it does not immediately signal failure. Be kind to yourself and start again tomorrow.
Take time to structure and support the willpower that has you excited for all you will accomplish in the coming year. Your goals deserve it. Small actions lead to big goals and I know you are going to accomplish great things.
Earlier this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on mandatory binding arbitration clauses, those fun bits of contractual language that take away your right to sue a company and force you into a resolution process that is heavily weighted in the company’s favor. The hearing was chaired by Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, who earlier this year introduced the proposed Arbitration Fairness Act, and so he obviously has a thing or two to say on the topic.
Starting at around the 1:55 mark in the above video, Franken cites the professor’s own previous statements that certain arbitrators can, by the decisions they make in resolving disputes, develop pro-business reputations with the goal of being used more frequently and earning more fees.Overall, I am not in favor of these types of clauses in the consumer and employment context. But, arbitration can be a viable option to "lumping it" even in these contexts. Lumping it is often the only other option available if the parties cannot negotiate a satisfactory outcome to the dispute or afford full-blown litigation.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m convinced of a couple of things: (1) Fundamental shifts in the legal services environment will spawn a diverse population of new providers that will expand access to those services while destroying lawyers’ market exclusivity; and, (2) This is, on balance, a good thing. I’ve never been more certain than I am today, at the close of 2013, about the first — but I’ve never been less certain about the second.After summarizing evidence of the revolution, he offers some predictions for the future, and asks regulators, bar associations, law schools, courts, and lawyers to take action now that will respond in a way that enhances services for clients while protecting core values of the profession. He offers one apocalyptic prediction that arises if we, as a profession, do not respond quickly and strategically to the trends.
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The Natural Resources Law Program proudly continues to innovate and offer specialized classes that provide our students with real world exposure to today’s energy issues, problems, and solutions. This course is just another step in our commitment to creating the policy makers and lawyers of tomorrow.Lawyerpreneur
Launch: I am referring to my plan to launch, this summer, a web-based teaching program for business and professional women who have trouble asking for what they want and need for fear that they will lose love and connection if they assert themselves. I will teach them how to manage those negotiations so they can protect the relationships they value while getting what they need and want for themselves, their families, their businesses, their employers, and their clients.
Law school enrollments nationwide are down 11 percent this year from last year and 24 percent from 2010, new figures show.
The nation’s 202 ABA-accredited schools reported that 39,675 full- and part-time students were enrolled in a first-year J.D. program this fall, according to figures released Tuesday by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.
That’s a decrease of 4,806 students from the fall of 2012, when 44,481 students began their law school studies, and a decrease of 12,813 students from 2010, when an all-time high of 52,488 first-year students were enrolled in an ABA-accredited school.(Emphasis added.) In a more recent article, the ABA explains that: "The last time enrollment was so low was in 1975, when 39,038 students were enrolled. And, at the time, there were only 163 ABA-accredited schools."
If you want an example, take a look at law schools. You’re probably aware that applications to US law schools have been dropping like a stone and that enrolment is now down to itslowest level since 1977. As Bruce MacEwen notes (and as I’ve been saying for some time now), this story has only one ending: many American law schools will close or will become so small as to turn into veritable cottage businesses. There’s no question that there are too many law schools providing too little value to their students and to the clients they’ll someday struggle to serve, and that a major correction is overdue here. There’s also a lot of schadenfreude throughout the profession right now as these schools wriggle on the hook.
We can hope for and work towards a renaissance and reinvention of law school. But what if that fails? What if 80% of US law schools close and are not replaced? Will the profession and the public be well served by a legal education system that features Harvard, Yale, Stanford and a few other clones, and nobody else? Or what if the failed law schools are followed by profiteering private law degree factories that replace the passive academic lecture with cookie-cutter “practical training” packages bereft of jurisprudence and professionalism? I think this is an unlikely outcome. But it is a possible outcome — a possibility that didn’t exist 10 years ago, but does today.Jan. 1, 2014 Update: This National Law Journal 2013-in-review summary spoke to the issue of new law schools:
9. MORE NEW SCHOOLS
Think plummeting demand for a law degree would put the brakes on plans to open new schools? Think again. The Indiana Tech Law School in August opened the doors to its new $15 million building in Fort Wayne. The school didn't meet its initial enrollment goal of 100 students — the inaugural class comprises 32 — but its dean has expressed optimism about the future. Meanwhile, administrators at the University of North Texas at Dallas are moving forward with plans to open the long-discussed UNT Dallas College of Law next fall; the school is now accepting applications.Jan. 3, 2014 Update: Prof. Debbie Merritt offers here her assessment of whether existing law schools will close in light of the current fall off in applications to law school.
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[NALP] Note: Graph is based on 20,709 salaries reported for full-time jobs lasting a year or more. A few salaries above $205,000 are excluded from the graph for clarity, but not from the percentage calculations. The left-hand peaks of the graph reflect salaries of $40,000 to $65,000, which collectively accounted for about 51% of reported salaries. The right-hand peak shows that salaries of $160,000 accounted for about 16% of reported salaries. However, more complete salary coverage for jobs at large law firms heightens this peak and diminishes the left-hand peaks — and shows that the unadjusted mean overstates the average starting salary by about 7%. Nonetheless, as both the arithmetic mean and the adjusted mean show, relatively few salaries are close to either mean. For purposes of this graph, all reported salaries were rounded to the nearest $5,000.
NALP Issues Press Release on Associate Salary Findings
Starting associate salaries at large law firms have remained essentially flat since 2007, despite some erosion of the prevalence of $160,000 as the norm. "The story is really one of no change, or at least not much change," noted James Leipold, NALP's Executive Director, in a press release issued recently by NALP on the findings of the 2013 Associate Salary Survey. "Compared to the period of 2006 through 2009, when associate salaries were rising year on year at a steady clip, in the period since the recession we have seen associate salaries remain more or less static," he added. "At the largest firms in the largest markets, a starting salary of $160,000 remains the norm, though its prevalence has ebbed and flowed a bit over the last several years." Read the full press release at http://www.nalp.org/associate_salaries_sept2013.Interesting that NALP talks about the spike, even suggesting it is the norm, without talking about the bell curve.
