University of Wisconsin–Madison

Category: Ethics and Professional Responsibility

Bliss and Boutcher (2025), “Rationalizing Pro Bono: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Reinvention of Legal Professionalism in Elite American Law Firms”

Posted on

John Bliss and Steven A. Boutcher. “Rationalizing Pro Bono: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Reinvention of Legal Professionalism in Elite American Law Firms.” In Global Pro Bono: Causes, Context, and Contestation. Edited by Scott L. Cummings, Fabio de Sa e Silva, Louise G. Trubek, pp. 77-111, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2025.  This chapter traces …

López (2025), “Critical Curriculum Design: Teaching Law in an Age of Rising Authoritarianism”

Posted on

Rachel López. “Critical Curriculum Design: Teaching Law in an Age of Rising Authoritarianism.” Minnesota Law Review, vol. 109, no. 2 (2025): 81-111. This article examines how legal education in the United States contributes to democratic backsliding by producing lawyers who are technically proficient but often disengaged from democratic values. It argues that the traditional model …

Bachmann (1984), “Lawyers, Law and Social Change”

Posted on

Steve Bachmann. “Lawyers, Law and Social Change.” N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change, vol. 13, no. 1 (1984): 1-50. This article explores the complex relationship between lawyers, law, and social change, raising a central question for both legal professionals and activists: can law serve as a meaningful tool in the pursuit of justice? The …

Levin (2025), “The Use of State Discipline to Sanction Attorneys General and Other High-Ranking Legal Officers”

Posted on

Levin, Leslie C., The Use of State Discipline to Sanction Attorneys General and Other High-Ranking Legal Officers (November 15, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5753303 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5753303 The United States Attorney General, state attorneys general, and high-ranking officials in their offices, like all lawyers, are subject to rules of professional conduct. Increasingly, when they push the boundaries of these …

Kroncke (2025). “Legal Complicity in an Age of Resurgent Authoritarianism”.

Posted on

Kroncke, J. J. (2025). Legal Complicity in an Age of Resurgent Authoritarianism. Geo. J. Legal Ethics, 38, 75. Faith in end of history narratives emergent at the end of the twentieth century carried  powerful  ethical  implications for  engagement   with  authoritarian regimes. The  most widespread   of these narratives was modernization  theory: the idea that economic development  would invariably …