Maintaining The Public Trust

New law clerks: welcome to the federal court system. Career clerks: thank you for your continued service. During your clerkship, you will provide valuable assistance as your judge resolves disputes that are of great importance to the parties, and often to the public. The parties and the public accept judges' rulings because they trust the system to be fair and impartial. Maintaining this trust is crucial to the continued success of our courts. That's why, although you have many responsibilities that demand your attention, you must never lose sight of your ethical obligations. You need to become familiar with the Code of Conduct for Judicial Employees, which has five canons. In brief, the canons provide that you should - uphold the independence and integrity of the judiciary and of your office; - avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities; - adhere to appropriate standards in performing your duties; - avoid conflict with official duties and the appearance of impropriety in all...

New law clerks: welcome to the federal court system. Career clerks: thank you for your continued service. During your clerkship, you will provide valuable assistance as your judge resolves disputes that are of great importance to the parties, and often to the public. The parties and the public accept judges' rulings because they trust the system to be fair and impartial. Maintaining this trust is crucial to the continued success of our courts. That's why, although you have many responsibilities that demand your attention, you must never lose sight of your ethical obligations. You need to become familiar with the Code of Conduct for Judicial Employees, which has five canons. In brief, the canons provide that you should - uphold the independence and integrity of the judiciary and of your office - avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities - adhere to appropriate standards in performing your duties; - avoid conflict with official duties and the appearance of impropriety in all outside activities - refrain from inappropriate political activities Scrupulously follow these canons and the other rules that govern your conduct. Do not assume that good intentions are enough. It is not enough to simply learn and follow the Code of Conduct and other related ethics rules, however. You also need to familiarize yourself with and follow your judge's ethical guidelines. These guidelines may differ from chambers to chambers. Your judge may impose restrictions that go beyond the Code. Although many of your obligations are the same as those of other federal judicial employees, certain restrictions are more stringent because of your special position in relation to the judge.

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

Amid increasing concern for patient safety and the shutdown of prominent research operations, the need to improve protections for individuals who volunteer to participate in research has become critical. Preserving Public Trust: Accreditation and Human Research Participant Protection Programs considers the possible impact of creating an accreditation system to raise the performance of local protection mechanisms. In the United States, the system for human research participant protections has centered on the Institutional Review Board (IRB); however, this report envisions a broader system with multiple functional elements. In this context, two draft sets of accreditation standards are reviewed (authored by Public Responsibility in Medicine & Research and the National Committee for Quality Assurance) for their specific content in core areas, as well as their objectivity and validity as measurement tools. The recommendations in the report support the concept of accreditation as a quality improvement strategy, suggesting that the model should be initially pursued through pilot testing of the proposed accreditation programs.

How did Chicago, a city known for commerce, come to have such a splendid public waterfront—its most treasured asset? Lakefront reveals a story of social, political, and legal conflict in which private and public rights have clashed repeatedly over time, only to produce, as a kind of miracle, a generally happy ending. Joseph D. Kearney and Thomas W. Merrill study the lakefront's evolution from the middle of the nineteenth century to the twenty-first. Their findings have significance for understanding not only Chicago's history but also the law's part in determining the future of significant urban resources such as waterfronts. The Chicago lakefront is where the American public trust doctrine, holding certain public resources off limits to private development, was born. This book describes the circumstances that gave rise to the doctrine and its fluctuating importance over time, and reveals how it was resurrected in the later twentieth century to become the primary principle for mediating clashes between public and private lakefront rights. Lakefront compares the effectiveness of the public trust idea to other property doctrines, and assesses the role of the law as compared with more institutional developments, such as the emergence of sanitary commissions and park districts, in securing the protection of the lakefront for public uses. By charting its history, Kearney and Merrill demonstrate that the lakefront's current status is in part a product of individuals and events unique to Chicago. But technological changes, and a transformation in social values in favor of recreational and preservationist uses, also have been critical. Throughout, the law, while also in a state of continual change, has played at least a supporting role.

The "Action Training and Research" method of organizational development, pioneered by Neely Gardner in the 1960s, has become a classic methodology in public administration, despite the fact that GardnerÆs work was never published in book form. Raymon R. Bruce and Sherman M. Wyman have presented the power of GardnerÆs work in a form that speaks to the context of modern practice and scholarly thought. GardnerÆs methodology addresses how to change hierarchically structured public organizations whose management is rigidly vested in the status quo. He saw participative management as the key to achieving democratic organizations, reflecting the democratic values and norms of our society. He felt the devolution of management power in the organization enables the people doing the work of the organization to innovate and adapt to their "customerÆs" changing needs. It is, after all, those who are producing the goods and delivering the services that are best able to play a substantial and non-hypocritical role in the decisions concerning those goods and services, with the result that the most efficient and economic outcome will occur over time. The Action Training and Research approach focuses not so much on how to change organizations, but how to develop organizations that constantly change themselves. In this approach, each employee is a trainer and an agent of change. Remarkably, many of GardnerÆs principles are current todayùparticipative management, self-managed work groups and employees, outcome budgets, empowering the employee, and viewing the citizen as customer/owner. All provide a tool for organizational development in todayÆs public and private organizations. This volume will serve as a valuable guide to managers and consultants practicing organizational change in private and public sectors, at home or abroad. It will serve as an excellent resource to all students of action research methods.