Sarah Bellum is a brilliant young legal scholar who is being recruited to teach at Cosmopolitan University School of Law. Sarah signs a contract to begin teaching at CUSL at an annual salary of $300,000. The contract provides that Sarah’s employment will begin on August 1.

It goes on to provide: Prior to [August 1], the Employee [Sarah] shall provide to the Administration all documentation and other materials necessary to demonstrate that (1) he/she is an American citizen or otherwise authorized to engage in lawful employment in the United States; (2) he/she possesses a Juris Doctorate degree from an American Bar Association-accredited law school or an equivalent foreign law degree; and (3) he/she has been admitted to the practice of law in at least one American or foreign jurisdiction.

The contract also provides that no modification to the contract may be made except in writing signed by Sarah and by the Human Resources Vice President of Cosmopolitan U. As of August 1, Sarah, who has been doing a lecture tour in the Far East, fails to supply any of these documents. She is, in fact, an American citizen, earned her J.D. with high honors from a top school, and is a member of the bar, and CUSL’s hiring committee has no reason to doubt those facts, but there is no documentation in the file.

On August 2, the Human Resources Vice President at CU notifies Sarah that the contract is terminated since she did not get her documents in by August 1. Sarah, who had turned down lucrative offers from many other elite schools—where it is now too late to get a job for the year—sues. It becomes apparent that the reason that Sarah’s contract was terminated was that the CU administration had discovered a massive budget shortfall and that it no longer wanted to pay Sarah under the contract. What result and why?

Discuss some of the important rules of professional responsibility. you want to be sure to convey accurate, clear, and concise information at the initial orientation for employment because there could be “real world” implications.  Understand though that, oftentimes, the ethical dilemma may arise from the shadows around the seemingly clear rules.  If you see that, be sure to address such “shadows” to help the new employees avoid them.

• Part I consists of defining and describing the unauthorized practice of law.
• Part II consists of a discussion of confidentiality and the attorney-client privilege.
• Part III consists of defining and discussing conflicts of interest.
• Part IV consists of a discussion of fees and sharing.

ou need to incorporate the rules of professional conduct into your presentation, but your presentation must show creativity and originality to earn full credit.

Government Agency has a five-year document retention policy. In other words, they must keep documents for five years. Once the five years expires, Government Agency destroys the document automatically. On January 2, 2005, without any warning, John Doe filed a lawsuit and served Government Employer.

A litigation hold was placed on January 5, 2005. Through discovery, John Doe, in a request for production, seeks his old hard drive. In accordance with the retention policy, Government Agency destroyed the hard drive on December 31, 2004.  Now, John Doe claims Government Employer is guilty of intentional spoliation. Is Government Employer guilty of spoliation? Why or why not? Fully explain the steps a court must use to determine spoliation.

Central Hospital of Milwaukee makes good people angry, and it makes decent people weep.  This hospital has committed an unethical act. You may wonder why I say so. This letter explains. My cousin Mandy Mankowski arrived at the hospital ER at midnight on June 4.  She was in what turned out to be an acute health crisis. The hospital sent her away untreated.  She died three hours later.  The triage nurse, at the time, said that all the available beds had to be allocated to victims of a multi-car accident that had just occurred on the interstate.

It is true that several of these victims required immediate care, but frankly several of them died even after receiving care.  My cousin was only complaining of a stomachache, but if the hospital had accepted her as a patient, tests could have been done that would have revealed that she had acute appendicitis.  The hospital is subject to the ethical standards set out in the Wisconsin Licensing of Hospitals Act.  The section of that Act dealing with Triage (principles governing the allocation of scarce hospital resources) say that a hospital with limited health resources has a duty to allocate these resources to their patients in the following order:

1) first priority goes to those in known acute danger of death or permanent
    disability who have a reasonable chance of survival.

2) second priority goes to those who show serious signs of being in such acute danger and    
     require diagnostic testing to ascertain the degree of the danger; and

3) third priority goes to those who are facing almost certain death and treatment
     stands virtually no chance of success.

It was unethical for this reckless and unfeeling hospital to prioritize patients who were clearly in the third category over my cousin who was in the second category.   

     When asked about her symptoms, my cousin said, “O its nothing, just a stomachache. The people in the wreck are more important.” But the hospital has a duty to examine patients scientifically before making a judgment about the seriousness of their health status. Any intern would have seen on even a superficial examination that my cousin showed all the symptoms of acute appendicitis.  I was shocked that the hospital answered my accusations by saying that their duty applied only to “patients” and that my cousin was not yet a patient because she had not yet checked in to the hospital.

As you complete the list, she also asks you to place a label after a statement on the list as follows: After each normative and factual premise, (sound) or (unsound). After each logical inference, the writer of the letter draws of a conclusion from a premise, [valid] or [invald].

In addition, she asks you to provide a short list of:

1. Any emotional utterances included in the letter that are unverifiable and therefore do not qualify as a premise, i.e., supporting reason.