Miami Law School

Miami Law School Global Lawyering Web Page 2008

Instructor: Prof John Flood

Office: G373. 

Tel: 305- 284- 5443

Office hours: Tuesday 10 to noon or by appointment.

Here you will find extra links that I think will be useful to the course, eg, websites, documents, etc. I will add to these as the course progresses. The website is divided along the same lines as the syllabus. If there is anything that you think should be placed on this site, please email me at johnaflood@gmail.com with the details.Documents

are either in MS Word format or PDF files. To download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software, click logo

Here is a copy of the Global Lawyering syllabus with clickable links

The requirement for this course is a paper. If you are taking the seminar for your upper writing requirement, the paper must be 35-40 pages. If not, the paper is to be 17-20 pages.

This is the timetable:

  1. Topics with descriptive paragraph to me by February 14
  2. Outlines of paper to me by March 7
  3. Optional first draft of paper to me by April 7
  4. Final paper due to me by April 25

1. Globalization

Here are some websites and documents containing stories that involve globalization and also the links in the syllabus:

1. BBC World Service program about Ohmae (with audio and text) at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/work/handy/ohmae.shtml

2. Giddens Reith Lectures "Runaway World" at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_99/

3. This website extends the information found in syllabus #5 Held. D., Global Transformations. David Held is one of the key scholars of globalization and has thought deeply about it. More in Globalization.

4. David Held has also written an interesting essay titled, "Globalization: the dangers and the answers". The blurb for the piece runs like this: "Washington-led neoliberalism and unilateralism has failed the world. It is urgent that we find a way beyond its legacy. This calls for a new model of globalisation, that works for humans everywhere. In a brilliant, extended essay, David Held provides a unified critique of the present global order and sketches his alternative." Read Globalisation: the dangers and the answers David Held - openDemocracy.

5. One of the more interesting websites to discuss globalization among other issues is "openDemocracy.net". Try exploring it here openDemocracy.

6. The BBC has put together an unusual website on globalization that looks at 4 aspects, music, food, noise, and multinational companies. The website is interactive, eg, the "noise" section has audio files. Explore here Globalisation | BBC World Service.

7. Here is a page of globalization links from Held's Globalization website.

8. Saskia Sassen has written an interesting article, "The World's Third Spaces" on openDemocracy which considers "Between national and global levels, a fresh landscape of territory, authority and rights is being opened. It may look messy, but it is part of a new reality in the making."

9. I have mentioned maps in class. The map of the world you are used to looking at is the Mercator projection. It is a way of representing a cylinder as a flat picture. The problem arise when you "unroll" the cylinder: distortions are introduced. In the Mercator projection North America and Eurasia are overrepresented and so are too big. Another more recent projection, the Peters, attempts to make countries and continents appear as they are, so, for example, Greenland is now small and Mexico is much bigger. For our eyes the Peters projection does look a little weird. Have a look here Peters Map.

10. Here is an interesting short paper by Ohmae called, "Beyond the Nation State", in which he describes his 'invisible contintent' idea.

2. Legal Profession

1. Some links to The Winslow Boy. Note that with the exception of a., the other reviews refer to David Mamet's 1999 remake of the 1948 film. The story is the same so they apply. I should let you know that until I showed you the 1948 version, I had only seen the later one. And that was the one I intended to show you but the Law Library only had the earlier version. Having now seen both--and I recommend you see the later one--I actually prefer the earlier version to the later.
    a. The IMDB link to the 1948 movie
    b. The IMDB link to the 1999 version
    c. Asimow's, of UCLA Law School, review of  The Winslow Boy and The Castle
    d. Robert Waring's review The Winslow Boy: The Trial of the Century
    e. Finally Chris Jackson's Mamet's The Winslow Boy: Traps and Loopholes

2. Here is an article from the New York Times about the Cravath firm making a rare lateral partner hire in the field of bankruptcy. This is an additional link to the newspaper.

3. In conjunction with my discussion of Cravath, Sullivan & Cromwell, and Skadden, which touched on global versus local, expansionist versus focussed, here is an interesting analysis of two models of how law firms can go global by Adam Smith Esq, a blog you should keep up with as he keeps a "weather eye" on the legal profession.

3. Transnational Processes

 

Latest News

Subscribe to the News Feed rss feed

  1. New Working Paper Uploaded on 14th March 2008
    "Lawyers, Law Firms and the Stabilization of Transnational Business" is a new paper by Fabian Sosa, my colleague in Bremen, and me. It looks at the role of lawyers, in large and medium-sized law firms, in cross-border transactions through the lens of Luhmann and Gilson. It's under "In Progress" here and also on my SSRN page. Comments are very welcome. The paper is coming out in the Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business this year.

See more news