Aaronson on Empathy and Judging

Mark Aaronson has published an op-ed in the May 26 edition of the San Francisco Daily Journal defending empathy as a necessary ingredient of responsible judging. The issue has arisen in connection with criticisms of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Hazard on the Cultural Chasm Between Lawyers and Corporate Clients

Geoff Hazard has published an essay titled, "Legal and Managerial 'Cultures' in Corporate Representation," 46 Houston L. Rev. 1 (2009). The essay identifies six dimensions in which the culture of corporate clients and the culture of lawyers differ. (Geoff defines the "culture" of an organization as "the style and character in which its members typically behave in terms of effort, focus, efficiency, awareness, dedication, and ethical tone.) The six dimensions are (1) benefit versus burden; (2) certainty versus ambiguity; (3) subjectivity versus objectivity; (4) multiple versus single; (5) time horizons; and (6) task techniques. In writing this essay, Geoff conspicuously draws on Ascanio Piomelli's analysis of differences between low-pay clients and lawyers in "Cross-Cultural Lawyering by the Book: The Latest Clinical Texts and a Sketch of a Future Agenda," 4 Hastings Race & Pov. L. J. 131 (2006)(available from HeinOnline).

Paul on the Myths of Globalization

Joel Paul has published an essay in the Waseda University Journal of Comparative Law titled, "The Myth of Economic Interdependence." Joel denies the conventional wisdom that economic interdependence is increasing and unavoidable and further argues that, so long as we hold to this conventional belief, we are obscuring the difficult policy choices that need to be made. (This essay resulted from a lecture Joel delivered at the Waseda Law School on July 15 of last year.)