Scholarship Update

The role of the GM lawyers in the ignition switch case has received scrutiny, including by the legal ethics community. But, until now, the scandal has not been explored from a behavioral perspective. That has now started to change with the publication of Inside Lawyers: Friends or Gatekeepers, Professor Sung Hui Kim’s most recent consideration of the role of inside counsel. The article, which responds to a critique of her views about the gatekeeping role of inside counsel, once again explores why lawyers (such as in the GM case) possess a host of psychological biases that make it difficult to uncover and report misdeeds committed by others inside an organization. Prof. Kim’s current article, as well her earlier work that explore these psychological phenomena in more detail (see here, here and here), are a must read for anyone interested in the behavioral aspects of corporate legal ethics.

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