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NashVegas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-19-05 08:31 PM
Original message
A Question for DU Lawyers
I don't know if anyone here can help me, but figure it's as good a place to ask as any.

I'm tutoring English to a couple of Mexican immigrants. One of them was practicing law (for the government) for two years before she moved up here, and is trying to get her skills up so she can move in that direction, in the US.

Any ideas on any specific material I could use to work with her and be helpful?
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jcv1 Donating Member (103 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-19-05 08:51 PM
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1. practicing law in the US
Each State has its own requirements for practicing in that State so the best place to check is the Supreme Court website of the State she will be living in for those specific requirements
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happyslug Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-21-05 10:40 AM
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2. Difficult but not impossible.
The lawyer will have to check with his State's Supreme Court to see what are the requirements. As a general rule most states will accept a lawyer who have practiced in another state for Five years. I see no reasons why the same (or similar) rule should apply to Canadian or British Lawyers BUT as to a lawyer trained in the Civil law tradition I can see some serious problems.

Except for Louisiana (which has a heavily Common law influenced version of the Civil Law) ALL US States use English Common Law and its traditions. Except for England, India, the US most of the rest of the World follow the Civil Law Tradition. Civil Law is a direct descent from Roman Law (as modified over the years as Canon Law in the Middle ages, Revival of Roman law in the Renaissance, the attempts to update it in the 1700s leading to the adoption of the French Civil Code Under Napoleon).

A good bit of the French Civil Code was adapted by the Mexican Legal Profession in the 1800s (With some influence based on Common law Concepts being accepted into Mexican Civil Law for example a severely modified version of the Common Law Writ of Habeas Corpus).

One of the Traditions of the Civil law is its dominance by University Professors starting in the Middle Ages and continuing till today. The Common Law did not have Law Schools till the 1800s and it was not till while in the 1900s that most Common Law Lawyers had gone to law schools as opposed to studying under another lawyer (In my home county I still have one elderly lawyer who intern under another lawyer instead of going to Law school, almost impossible since WWII but you still have one or two Common Law lawyers who learn Law like Lincoln did, while working for another lawyer).

Another tradition difference is Notaries, under the Civil Law a type of Lawyer, under the Common Law nothing but an oath taker. Under The Civil law Wills are done by Notaries and kept by Notaries as are certain other documents that have to have a seal. It was the need for Europeans to have seals from people their were dealing with in England that England adopted Notaries, but the English Common Law tradition never permitted the English Notaries to be anything more than oath takers.

The chief difference between the Common Law and the Civil Law is the actual setup of how the Courts operate. In the Common Law, people become lawyers and as a general rule this pool of lawyers is where we pick out prosecutors and Judges from. Basically one big legal services pool.

The Civil law Traditions has a tendency to separate Judges, Lawyers and Prosecutors by the Law Schools their attend. People who want to become Judges go to a Law School that Produces Judges, Prosecutors to a School that produces Prosecutors, Lawyers to Schools that Produces Lawyers. The four Legal Professions (Which we must include Notaries) interact based on traditions dating to Roman Times. Judges are promoted by their fellow Judges (as are Prosecutors).

This use of trained Judges instead of Lawyers as Judges leans itself to another difference, that a trial is NOT the presentation of evidence to a Neutral fact finder, but a review of already established evidence by the Defendant (Thus the famous comment that Under the Common law you are Innocent till Pr oven Guilty, while under the Civil Law you are Guilty until proved innocent).

Thus while it is NOT impossible for a Civil law trained Lawyer to become a Common Law Lawyer, the Civil Law trained Lawyer has to understand that the BASIC rules are different.
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tubbacheez Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-25-05 04:04 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Very informative post. Thanks!
Made this lurker learn something... :)
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