How Do You Avoid Malpractice When Representing Clients in Foreign and International Matters?

globeMany attorneys representing domestic clients extend their legal advice to foreign and international matters.  Unfortunately, some of these attorneys are ill-prepared to provide this advice. Not only are they not familiar with the basic operation of other legal systems, such as those derived from the Civil Law tradition, they are unfamiliar even with the Common Law systems that vary from the U.S.

Domestically, a lawyer is rarely found to have committed malpractice merely because she or he is unfamiliar with the current state of the law in her or his own state, much less other states or federal law. Rather, the presumption is that she or he has sufficient general familiarity with the law and possesses the skills necessary to collect knowledge about the law to provide effective counsel.  This is true even for highly specific legal subject matters such as antitrust or securities law (the one significant exception may be patent law). So, if a practitioner does not commit malpractice when advising a client without knowledge of the specific domestic law, why would the standard differ for foreign and international legal matters? 

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Marquette Law Student Theresa Fallon Serving as ABA Law Student Division Liaison for the Dispute Resolution Section

I recently learned that Theresa Fallon, a 2L, was appointed by the ABA to serve as Liaison to the Section on Dispute Resolution for 2009-2010.  You can see a list naming Theresa and the other liaison appointees here.  Student liaisons to ABA entities such as the Dispute Resolution Section work to “serve as a line of communication between [their] respective entit[ies], Law Student Division, Division Circuits, and local law schools,” according to the front page of the Liaison website.

The competition for the liaison positions is tough, and it is an honor for Theresa to have been chosen.  In this position, Theresa will attend the section’s meetings and get to know its leadership, helping it to understand and serve the needs of law students.  She will also attend meetings for the ABA Law Student Division in the Seventh Circuit.  The liaison position is a wonderful opportunity for Theresa to make connections, serve the profession, and represent Marquette University Law School in national legal circles.

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Judge Cannon and the Continuity of the Profession

old-courthouseEach May the Milwaukee Bar Association holds an annual Memorial Service to remember lawyers in this region who have passed away within the previous year. It occurs in the Ceremonial Courtroom of the Milwaukee County Courthouse and is attended by a variety of judges, lawyers, family of deceased lawyers, and others. When I was appointed dean in 2003, my friend, Tom Shriner, invited me to give the annual Memorial Address, in light of my association with the late Dean Howard B. Eisenberg, and I have tried to attend the event each subsequent year as well. This year, one of the “responses” to the Memorial Address (or remembrances) was delivered by Tom Cannon, director of the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee and former faculty member of the Law School (see this previous blog post by Professor Blinka). Tom remembered his father, the late Judge Robert C. Cannon, L’41.

Here is a bit of the beginning of Tom Cannon’s remembrance:

Dad was probably destined to become a lawyer. By the time he was born in 1917, his father was already emerging as an iconic figure in the legal profession. Dad’s uncle, Ed Carey, was also a lawyer. And many of Dad’s numerous cousins became practicing attorneys as well. These included the Jenningses, Foleys, Tierneys, Gillicks, and Flemings — all well-known, multi-generational legal families in Milwaukee.

One of Dad’s earliest memories was sitting in a high-ceilinged courtroom in the ornate old Milwaukee County Courthouse on what is now Cathedral Square. His father was trying a case there against a cousin, Joe Tierney, Sr. As the sun streamed in through a bank of tall, stately windows, and crept toward the jurors’ faces, Dad watched his father walk over and slowly draw the shades. Perhaps it was that early moment that influenced him to become a lawyer.

Tom’s remarks are well worth the few minutes that it will take to read them — and to remember both Judge Cannon and others of our forbears who contributed much to society through the legal profession. You can find a link to them here.

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