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3-21-1983

The Alledger, volume 02, number 10The Alledger

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Recommended CitationThe Alledger, "The Alledger, volume 02, number 10" (1983). The Alledger. Book 20.http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/alledger/20

B.C. Hosts Lectures Meserve, Meehan Speak on Ethics, Housing

Meserve Robert Meserve, the new chairman of

the ABA Commission which is rewriting the Model Code of Ethics, spoke about the new Model Code before a sparse audience at the LSA Speaker Series on March 11. Meserve, a partner in the Boston fi rm of Palmer and Dodge, primarily dealt with the recent meeting of the ABA Board of Governors and its rejection of some of the provisions his commission has pushed in the area of confidential ity.

The Model Code now in existence was intended for a litigation practice, according to Meserve, and didn't deal with the ethical problems encountered in other areas of practice. Since 75% of lawyers rarely find themselves in court, the present Model Code was inadequate. In 1977, the ABA formed a commission to revise the Model Code. This commission first decided that it would redraft a new ·Code, rather than try to patch up the old one. The system of Discip li nary Rules (DR's) and Ethical Considerations (EC's) was dropped as unsatisfactory, because it was felt that the EC's had often been elevated beyond What was intended for them. The commission decided to adopt a restatement-type format, with principles of black letter law, followed by comments explicating the principles. The commission also tried to group provisions together in a pragmatic, functional way, corres­pond-ng to the type of law and lawyers each group of provisions was meant to cover.

Gandhi-

by Michael Kilkelly

The comm1ss1on, which was now dubbed the Kutak commission after its chairman, a corporate lawyer, printed a complete draft in 1981, which was amended continually up to June of 1982. In August 1982 the ABA Board of Governors voted that there wou ld be a new Code, in a restatement format. The Kutak commission printed its final draft in the November 1982 issue of the American Bar Association Journal. In February, the ABA Board met and voted on several of the individual provisions of the proposed Code, with a lot of newspaper publicity focusing on the confidentiality provisions. Robert J. Kutak died a week and half before the meeting, and Meserve, one of the two trial lawyers on the commission, was pressed into service as the new cahairman.

The confidential ity provisions ran into strong opposition from tri al lawyers. Meserve explained that the actual differences between the contending groups were exaggerated. It had been true that a lawyer could divulge client confidences if necessary to collect his fee, to defend himself against charges of malpractice, or to defend himself against charges of wrongdoing pressed by others . Another common exception to confidentiality was to prevent bodily

· harm to others. The Kutak commission proposed that the process of revealing confidences always be discretionary.

continued on page 2

An Engaging Work of Art by Mary Ellen Murphy

A convincing performance by an actor or actress may be measured by the transformation which takes place, not on the stage or screen, but in the mind of the viewer. As you watch the performer develop within his/her role, you become convinced of the reality of the experience. Indeed, the character acquires a life beyond the mere plot of the film or play . The performance of British actor Ben Kingsley instilled this kind of credibility in the mind of this viewer, in his portrayal of Mohandas Gandhi. And for this experience alone, Gandhi is a movie well worth seeing.

The film is essentially a documentary on the life of India's revolutionary architect of freedom- built on the philosophy of non-violent resistance. However, because of Kingsley's total assimilation of the spiritual leader's character (including an amazingly similar physical appearance) , one is quickly and continuously engaged as the drama unfolds.

Of course, the story itself is filled with the many and fascinating elements of Gandhi's personal and international struggle for freedom . We watch him lead 2,000 fellow Indians to employ tactics of "passive resistance" aganinst the enforcement of oppressive and · discriminatory laws passed by the Transvaal (South Africa) government. The film details his Phoenix settlement and Tolstoi farm, where Gandhi worked as a cobbler, farmer, and grass-roots politician. It was at this time when Gandhi's friendship with members of the American press began : Through this connection, the interests and sympathies of this country were stirred; one New York Times columnist is used effectively as a narrator in parts of the film .

Later in India, Gandhi is shown on an extensive and rugged journey across the countryside, studying the plight of the exploited untouchables, who were compelled to plant indigo and act as slaves of Europeans and fellow

continued on page 2

Meehan Eugene Meehan, Professor of

Political Science at the University of Missouri - St. Louis, painted a dreary and depressing picture of the prospects for housing the poor, before a large crowd in Barry Pavilion on March 14. Meehan blamed the fundamental problem of housing on the American ethos, which does not contain the idea .that society is responsible for the fate of its least fortunate members, and that the American society isn't willing to make the investment of time and money to provid ing a decent living for its poor.

Meehan laid a strong foundation for his main thesis, which is that the only solution for the housing problem lies in the public sector. The private sector, under one theory, is able to trickle­down housing, as people upgrade into newer or more expensive housing. ·Meehan called this "hand-me-down housing", and said it doesn't work because there hasn't been enough expansion in the housing market, older housing hasn't gotten any cheaper, and there has been a appalling destruction of the older housing stock, especially by urban developments like the Mass. General Hospital area in Boston, which wiped out a whole lower middle class area of Boston without replacing any of the housing. The quality of the housing built in the fifties and sixties was terrible, according to Meehan, compared to that built in the twenties and thirties, so that housing is not lasting as long as it used to. The

The Bottle Bill caused the Bookstore some initial problems, but it has

moved closer to compliance with

the law.

housing stock has been constrained therefore in precisely those areas most open to poor people.

Meehan stated that no program can be based on the existing housing stock --there must be more housing built and opened up to the poor. The private sector can't make money on housing for the poor, and is barely making money on any housing now. Meehan explained that in the private sector, the ultimate cost of housing depends on how long it takes for a unit to get to the ultimate consumer. This is because interest costs eat up on average 40-50% of the cost of housing over the lifetime of a unit. The poor as a general rule have no assets, little or no savings, a lousy credit rating, and have to depend on current income flow to finance all purchases. Such a consumer has to depend on a middle-man, !;~.landlord, to secure housing. The landlord ties up his capital and recoups an investment return after covering his initial costs, continuing maintenance, and his risk (through insurance or otherwise) . With the current high rates of interest and the development of money market funds and other attractive investment vehicles, landlords have been able to make more money in other areas. This has caused the rush by landlords into condominium conversion, so that they can get their money out of housing and into other areas where they can get a better rate of return. The advent of rent

continued on page 2

Forwn I suppose it's "better late than never"

to start a column here in this distinguished newspaper, even as my law school career is winding down. There have been a few little stories this semester that I've run across that I haven't been able to get out in regular articles, and yet that are significant as a whole.

A good example, one mentioned is last issue's Life at Newton, is the issue -of compliance with the Bottle Bill here at the Newton Campus. The law, as described in a recent Globe article , mandates that anyone selling soft drinks take back all containers that they sell, during all their business hours . The initial collection times here

~ were limited to two nights at the ~ Grocery Store and were thus blatant o:: violations of the law: the Bookstore _g

itself, since it sells containers subject to the Bottle Bill, must take back any container of the type it sells, during all of its business hours. The recent Bookstore policy is much better, but to the extent that the Bookstore limits its

·continued on page 2

Page 2/ ALLEDGER

c==:::::> OoN 'T HT ,.., •• , C':r~T DIIMII~!

Gandhi continued from page l

Indians. There are also scenes of large scale brutal British attacks against non-cooperative, non-violent Indians as they wage their battle for home rule. There is a fully orchestrated depiction of Gandhi's march to the sea, in defiance of Great Britain's government-enforced monopoly on salt collection and taxation . The film begins and concludes with the leader's assassination , to remind the viewer of the inevitable reality , that a non­violent philosopher is not immune from a violent world.

The movie, with Kingsley's compelling performance, lingers well beyond the three hours that one spends in the cinema. The concept of non-violent "fighting" for human rights is .as germain to our present society as it was in the early part of his century during Gandhi's life. · Some critics have suggested that the only distinction between Gandhi's independence campaign against Great Britian, and similar non-conformist, non-violent movements ender less democratic forms of government, is the amount of time which is allowed to pass before the leader is killed. In watching this firm, one begins to note the similarities between autocratic rule and the British imposition of martial law. Yet , whatever political and philosophical issues this film address (and there are many)' it is undisputable that Gandhi is a fine artistic achievement. Kingsley is a credible and engaging performer, and it is a movie that you won't soon forget.

Vol. IL No 10

Boston College Law School 885 Centre Street

Newton Centre. MA 02159 (6.17) 969-0100 (x437l)

Editor-in Chief Managing Editor Features Editor Photo Editor Entertainment Ed. Business Mgr. Production Mgr. Cartoonist

Sheryl Serreze Michael Kilkelly Barbara Epstein

Ian Veitzer M.E. Murphy

Michael Clancy Susan Taylor

Ivy Main

The Alledger is published every other Monday, 14 times per academic year. for and by the students of Boston College Law School. We welcome submissions and contributionS from all our readers. Manuscripts. news. letters. ads, notices. etc. should reach us by 5 p m. the Wednesday immediately preceding the intended publica­tion date.

-......_

Meehan continued from page l hours of collection (even for only one hour) , or refuses to take back non­Coke products (if it continues to sell non-Coke products) , and to the extent that the Grocery Store still limits its hours of collection to two days out of the four days it is open, they are in clear violation of the Bottle Bill law.

The informational content of thelaw school bulletin board was enhanced recently by an item courtesy of the University of Maine Law School concerning "sanctions " against professors who fail to get their grades in on time. Such sanctions, like a dock in professor.' s .pay, would complete the analogy made in Alledger issue 8 between professors getting grades in late and students getting assignments in late: when students · are late' their grade is reduced. It is utterly ridiculous that as of this writing , three months after second and third year exams, we have not yet received our grades from the Registrar . The memo from Dean Huber on the "responsibilites"of faculty mell)bers is fine for all its laudable language, but maybe he

Forum continued from page 1

control, the movement of th law toward tenant protection, and the tendency of tenants to chew up housing faster, have added to this rush to condos. This has reduced the supply of rental housing even further, reseparating the rich and poor, as the cost of housing increases and its quality decreases.

Professor Meehan stressed the fact that all housing in this · country is subsidized, and especially residential home ownership . A further focus on home ownership as the answer to the housing problem is terribly misplaced according to Meehan, as the cost would be prohibitive. Likewise, to subsidize landlords to a level where more housing would be offered would also be prohibitively expensive, as you would end up subsidizing the cost of all the present housing that exists right now. The poor are also very tough on housing -- their inherited culture is a handicap when looking for housing , as they have little experience with the maintenance of property, and they can find it difficult to keep current on rent when faced with other emergency costs . Meehan stressed that this aspect of the housing problem can not be separated from the overall problem of poverty , and the normative structure of the American economy, where the bottom 40% of the country in income get less than 20% of overall income.

Meehan's riext major area of bleak prospects was America 's recent experience with public housing .

// I by Ivy Main

should take a cue from the undergrad professors here at B.C., who have their grades in early enough so that the undergraduates get their grade report at home before they come back in the middle of January. At least some real sanctions to enforce the one-month deadline are in order.

My last topic is one close to my own heart-Bar Review. A brief discussion I had with Mark Haddad made it clear that Bar Review does not have the Snack Bar " signed out" on Friday afternoons , but rather is subject to preemption by any group that goes to Dining Services seeking the Snack Bar. The reason that I was interested was the Friday in February when Bar Review was cancelled because the Newton freshmen were having a "Screw Your Roommate" dance that night and needed time to set up for it. It seems to this writer that considering how regularly Bar Review has been held in the Snack Bar, that Dining Services should reserve it to Bar Review for Friday afternoons, and tell other groups to work around that. It seems the least that we can ask for in reserving time and space here at Newton .

Meehan compared the Dept. of Housing and Urbari Development to the Department of Defense in the extent to which costs are inflated by the "parasites" that live on inefficient bureaucracy . Meehan claimed to understand why such bloating appears in defense, but felt there was little intrinsic reason why it had to exist in public housing .. He compared the median cost of building from scratch a housing unit in the private sector ($75 ,000) to the cost of rehabbing public housing projects in St. Louis that were built in the fifties ($78,000) . . He went through other examples to show that America has never seriously tried public housing at the cost efficiency and level of maintenance and upkeep that would be necessary.

Meehan concluded that the prospects of change are extremely bleak . Especially with the current President, the government and most of society feels that the poor deserve their fate, and Meehan doesn't see any change in that attitude. For all of our outreach and humaneness to foreigners in need, we are insensitive to the plight of our own poor. The "vulture culture" that lives off public housing projects will not be dealt with firmly , so that the govern merit is unable to make a decent housing project at a respectable cost. The tragedy for Meehan is that for all the money wasted recently on public housing, we have learned nothing that will help us to do better in the futue . Even if we made the effort and were willing to expend the money, we would not know where to start our program. For one thing , the size of the country has outpaced the ability of Congress and the Executive

Meserve continued from pa ge l The commission also sought two further exceptions to confidentiality : If there is a serious threat of substantial property loss, and if the lawyer is entangled in continuing deception by a client.

These two proposals were meant to cover problems raised by incidents like the ·O·.R.M. case (which Meserve said stood for Other People's Money) . In that case the principal person behind O.P.M . forged a slew of documents so

- that O.P.M.'s law firm would issue the opi.nions necessary fo r a series of loans. When the law firm found out about the .forgeries, it got O.P.M. to agree not to do it again . Another round of documents were forged and another opinion was issued. The law firm found it had been fooled again and withdrew from representation of the client. O.P.M. went to another firm , and a lawyer in that firm called someone he knew at the first firm and asked him why O.P.M. had left them. Should the first firm be able to tell the second firm anything? The first firm meanwhile had left all its opinions out in public when it knew they .were wrong, thereby participating in the client's fraud. The commission's proposals would have allowed the lawyer to blow the whistle on his client in a case like O.P.M. which involved substantial property and participation in fraud. The ABA Governors voted against both provisions in February.

In all these cases, Meserve stressed the importance of trying to talk a client out of illegal and improper activity, and then withdrawing from representation if necessary. The toughest cases are then the li t igation cases, where an attorney cannot withdraw.

The next step for the proposed rules is the August ABA meeting, where they will be voted on as a package, with Comments that are being wri'tten up now. The rules will then need to be adopted by each state, and Meserve felt that some states might very well include some of the confidentiality provisions rejected by the ABA, while other states might water down some of the proposed rules .

Branch bureaucracies to administer anything. The plans would need to be administered at some local level in order to function with any cost efficiency. For another thing , Americans have not been taught how to be good consumers of the products of government, and need to organize themselves at grass roots levels to monitor the functioning of government agencies.

Meehan looked to the future for signs of hope, but couldn 't find very much . He cited examples in Europe and Ontario that we could look to , but claimed that our ideas of collective responsibility are fifty years behind most European countries. He feels in order to do anything, we have to write off the current generations of poor as beyond the capacity of government to help, beyond the public dole, but he appealed to the audience as individual citizens to work at saving future generations from the same fate. In terms of housing, the community must become organized to watchdog community funds from all levels of government, in a structure akin to the New England town meeting. A housing program must also concentrate on long term maintenance functions , which are much more crucial to the continuing fate of housing than the initial building phase. He also appealed to our political science structures to begin add r essing fundamental problems in our consittutional government, which was designed to move very slowly, in different era, and which must now deal with large institutions and with difficult long term problems.

Michael Kilkelly

The Secret Life of Steve Stallings by Barbara M. Epstein

Steve Stallings is a Full Lieutenant on active duty in the Navy. Dramatic as this may sound, his present duty consists of going to law school, all expenses paid . In addition , he receives his regular pay since his military · ~ work" is to attend the la.w school. These generous terms are ·not without their obligations, though ; Steve is committed to the Navy for six years after tie 'graduates this May. ·

Steve is from Everywhere; he was born into an Air Force family in England, spent his high school years in Japan , and since then has- live-d in Lubbock, Texas. In college he vras in the Air Force ROTC program and graduated from school as a Second Lieutenant. He then piloted for two years, but resigned his commission because he hated flying . Wanting to remain in the military, he went to OCS

· (Office Candidate School) in the Nav_y. Steve was one of the five combat

officers selected each year to participate in the Law Education Program. As soon as the officers are selected, they become JAG (Judge Advocate General) officers and can do everything a lawyer can do except be a defense attorney in a court martial (until they pass the bar) . The program is highly competitive and evaluates a candidate's service record, college grades, LSAT's , and recommenda­tions. These officers are sent to the law school of their choice; the service pays for the tuition, a bar review course, books, and the application fee to that law school. Although Steve applied all over the country , B.C. sold itself to him via its brochure _ . . . it " piqued his

. inte.rest, " •. , , • .- .. '

Unlike the rest of the law school world, Steve did not have to hunt down summer jobs. His first summer he worked at the legal office at the Naval Base in Newport, R.I. and adjudicated tort claims. Last summer he worked at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi , Texp.s, prosecuting military criminal _ cases. When he graduates, he will be stationed at the Naval Base in Norfolk, Va ." _for three years and will be a trial · att0rney (criminal cases) - for which side; he does not yet know. Should he want:to , he will be able to retire after twenty years, with only twelve to go as the time of graduation.

The Navy certainly has not hampered Steve 's personal life. He met his wife at his sister's home in San Antonio, Texas the night before he had to return to law school at the end of a vacation. After supporting the phone company for five months and having only weekend visits (many courtesy of the Navy) , they were married last summer. The Navy granted Steve's request to be stationed in Texas last summer as opposed to Newport out of consideration for his personal life ("shows they are human , too" ).

Initially Steve did not plan to make the Navy a career . He did feel an obligation to give four years of service to his country, though . Originally he planned to pursue his college major, the field of management. He decided to stay, however,.because of the ability to be a trial lawyer and because of all that the Navy d id to help him reach his goal. Steve agrees that the Service is not for everyone, but it has worked for- " it's a personal thing ."

To the Editor:

Do you want to get away from Marbury or the fee simple absolute and find out what it is really like to be a lawyer? At Boston College LAB (Legal Assistance Bureau) , students are given the opportunity to serve as attorneys for people who are unable to affo rd a . lawyer, LAB maintains .an office in Waltham and serves clien.ts from the Newton , Watertown and Waltham area . . At the present time thirty second and third-year· students are selected for LAB and are being supervised by fou r practicing attorneys.

The LAB program's educational component is a class called Lawyering Process. This class is broken down into two parts. The dominant portion of the course is the casework done by the student. Students are scheduled for six hours a week in the office to do their casework . The re is also a classroom component. The classroom groups meet once a week to discuss specific aspects of a student's case. Some of the skills that a student will learn at LAB include interviewing , counsel i ng , negotiations, as well as trial skills. In this year 's curriculum students learned and pract iced the various aspects of a trial and then put on mock trials .

The selection process for next year's LAB class will start wi th a general informational meeting on Thursday, April 7. At that meeting students will be broken down into small groups and meet with students who are cu rrently in the LAB program. The LAB students will be discussing the types of cases and types of work they have done over the past year. Any student who is then interested in participating in LAB next year m 1.,1 st ente r a lottery .

March 21, 1983/ Page 3

During the week of Friday, April 8 th ru Thursday, April 14, sign up for the lottery will take place. To sign up a student must visit t he LAB office in Waltham (21 Lexington St. -maps will be available) and then submit an application . The lottery will take place on Friday, April15. Lottery results will be posted on the LAB Board (outside room 326) on either Friday, April15 or Tuesday , Apri I 19.

Because of the populari ty of the prog ram a lottery was selected as the procedure for selecti1_1g students. The lottery is ruh·by the stu.dents who make up the Board of Directors. Each name wi ll be drawn randomly and assigned a number. During the first week of school in September, the first th irty names will have to establish whether they will take the class. Remaining students on the list, in numerical order, w ill then be given the opportunity to get in the class. An orien tation is then conducted for those students before they actually start receiving cl ients.

Typical cases that a student will work on at LAB include social security cases, landlord tenant case, mental health patient cases and consumer protection cases. The LAB program is a full year course in which a student rece ives 8 academic cred its .

The newly elected Board of Directors are Ann Van Graafei land, President; Augie Grace, Executive Director; Tammy Wolfson, Vice President; Betts Howes, Secretary; and Linda Neary, Teasurer . Supervising atto r neys include Robin Freedman, Ca rol Liebman, and Paul Trembly. Th is year's director is Bob Smi th. Next Year the program will again be run by Mark Spiegel. LAB also employs Kathy Laufer as a social worker, Betty White as an administrator, and Kathy Doyle as the Secretary.

Augie Grace March 18, 1983

A LITTLE EXTRA WORK PAl D OFF! Here is proof that the SMH Intensive Review

methodology, although a bit more demanding than

other course formats, has again made the difference for a substantial number of

Mass. bar candidates.

Look for the schedule of FREE REVIEW LECTURES

for First and Second Year final exams, beginning in March, 1983.

100 90.5

85.5 68.7 90.9 75.8 88.5

94.5 91.5 91.1 79.5 87.7 79.7 84.3 41.7 62.8 77.1 83.8 50.0 65.0 75.8

These statistics represent ALL first time takers. No discriminating criteria. such as class attendance, have been imposed on regis-tration data to enhance statistical performance.

For further information, contact a campus s~e.' representative or your nearest SMH office:

{!1\or/A 'BR.ioj95 STATE STREET /BOSTON, MA 02109

l.,•ntAA l3v,Js~ L~&:.t Sto:tt>" n"'e-. (617) 742-3900 or 1 (800) 343-9188

T.m ~rchLYr

H BAR REVIEW

SPRING DISCOUNT NOW AVAILABLE

WEEKEND WORKSHOP JOSEPHSON

XAM PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP FOR LA-W STUDENTS

(Lectures, Exam Techniques, 3 Practice Graded Essays)

Professor Michael Josephson of Loyola Law School, recent Chairperson of the Teaching Methods Section for the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), and Director and founder of CES/BRC, will personally teach a special Workshop to assist law students in successful exam writing for law school.

The Workshop includes 9 hours of video lectures by Professor Josephson and 3 hours of exam writing (3 essay exams will be graded and critiqued and returned to each student within 2 weeks following the Workshop).

· The substantive areas of focus will include Contracts, Criminal Law and Torts. Thus, the Workshop will be especially valuable for first year students, but it is designd tq help '!lllaw st~qents, including those in their second and third year of law school. - ·

DATE: TIME: LOCATION:

TUITION:

Saturday & Sunday, March 26 & 27 9:30am - 1:00 & 2:00pm - 5:30pm (both days) Boston University Law School 765 Commonwealth Avenue; Room 520 $50, BRC Student; $75, N~n-BRC Student

Please register me for the Josephson Exam Performance Workshop (Weekend Workshop). I understand that tuition is to be paid at the first session on Saturday, March 26, 19·83, and materials for the Workshop will be issued to me at that time.

(Please Print) . Name: . . Address: . City

School:

States --~------ Zip

Year of graduation

BRC Student: D yes D no New Outlines now available

D no, but I want to enroll. Please send information. See your campus Rep

BRING THIS REGISTRATION FORM WITH YOU

'• ·.