Catherine G O'Grady

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Scholarly Contributions

Books

• O'Grady, C. G. (2021). Beyond the Rules -- Behavioral Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility. West Academic Publishing.
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  Book was published 2021.
• O'Grady, C. G. (2021). Beyond the Rules -- Behavorial Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility. West Academic Publishing.
• O'Grady, C. G. (2021). Beyond the Rules: Behavioral Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility . West Academic.
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  My co-author, New England College of Law Professor Tigran Eldred, and I submitted a book proposal to West Academic and it was accepted. We are currently working on a book on behavioral legal ethics which is designed to accompany any professional responsibility text and allow legal ethics professors to add a behavioral component to their professional responsibility classes. We expect that the book will also be used by law firms, state bar CLE programs, and legal malpractice insurers. Currently, we have a full draft of the book 100% completed and we have been sending chapters out to outside reviewers for comment. We expect to submit the final draft to West in January, 2021. The project was delayed somewhat this spring with the pandemic.

Chapters

• O'Grady, C. G. (2018). Wrongful Obedience and the Professional Practice of Law (published in Journ. Law, Business & Ethics) Vol 19 (2013)). In Corporate Scandals and Their Implications Third Edition. West Academic Publishing.
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  Article accepted as part of the Third Edition of Corporate Scandals and Their Implications, Nancy B. Rapoport and Jeffrey D. Van Niel.

Journals/Publications

• O'Grady, C. G. (2017). A Behavioral Approach to Lawyer Mistake and Apology. 51 New England L. Rev. 1, 51, 47.
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  I was invited to submit the keynote paper for this journal and other contributors will respond to my paper, as well as to the body of my work. It will be published early fall, 2016 and I will go to Boston to give the keynote address on November 10, 2016. Article Description:The Article explores the social psychology behavioral principles that prevent us from recognizing that we have made a mistake and applies those principles to lawyering and the practice of law. A behavioral analysis suggests that the toughest acknowledgement of mistake is the one we make to ourselves. Once a mistake is fully recognized, acknowledgement of the mistake to others becomes a critical consideration. For the lawyer, especially the new lawyer, mistake acknowledgment often means a difficult discussion with senior lawyers and even clients. This Article explores mistake acknowledgement and considers the role of apology to clients for lawyering mistakes. Although lawyers are increasingly advising their clients to apologize to an opposing party in a dispute, often to facilitate settlement, lawyers are generally not considering the role of apology as it applies to them and their professional work. This Article opens up that topic, primarily by exploring the increasing use of apology in the medical field and suggesting that a role for apology exists in the professional practice of law as well as the professional practice of medicine.Update: The article was published and is posted here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2848612.The symposium articles dedicated to exploring my article and the body of my work were very favorable. The symposium edition is 51 New England L. Rev. (2017).
• O'Grady, C. G. (2017). Behavioral Legal Ethics, Decision Making, and the New Attorney’s Unique Perspective. UNLV 671 / Symposium.
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  This article explores the emerging field of behavioral legal ethics and decision making to analyze the dynamic that takes place when a new attorney makes ethical decisions that diverge from ethical beliefs. The study of decision making is a broad area that seeks to ascertain how people uncover and process facts and information, reach judgments, and make decisions — it provides analytic tools for decision making and focuses on systematic errors commonly made and heuristics commonly employed by decision makers. In law, knowing how to make decisions and solve problems is critical and recognized by the American Bar Association as one of the top ten “fundamental lawyering skills” every new lawyer should acquire. The separate but related study of behavioral ethics has its roots in social psychology and business — it has been applied most frequently to ethical decisions made in a business context. In contrast to viewing ethics and morality from a philosophical perspective or as grounded in rules of conduct or societal norms, behavioral ethics explores empirically how people actually behave. It thus allows a comparison between the actor's ultimate behavior and how the actor thinks he should or would behave and it permits fuller consideration of unintentional unethical conduct. Recently, scholars have begun to apply behavioral ethics principles to the practice of law — examining behavioral legal ethics. This article contributes to that growing body of literature. So far, scholars of behavioral legal ethics have generally treated the field as homogenous. By focusing on the new attorney’s ethical decision making, this article shows how the predictions of behavioral ethics may be heterogeneous across attorneys, in particular impacting new lawyers differently than more experienced lawyers. The article highlights the influences of situational and psychological pressures and the dangers that succumbing unreflectively to intuitive decision making and heuristics can have on the new lawyer's professional development. New attorneys are uniquely vulnerable to certain situational pressures and may be especially susceptible to some decision making heuristics. Interestingly, on the other hand, research suggests that the newest attorney in a legal working group or firm may actually be the one in the room who is most likely to see ethical implications and frame a situation in ethical terms rather than relying on moral intuition, business schemas, and decision making short cuts. Thus, the new attorney is in a unique position — confronting a number of unique situational challenges, but in a posture that makes her best able to avoid the temptations of inappropriate intuitive ethical decision making, she is perfectly positioned consciously to shape the process that will guide her ethical decision making and contribute importantly to her professional development.This article is used included in materials used in the Fellows Pedagogy Program at Georgetown Law and as part of several courses in law schools including at ASU and University of Tennessee.
• O'grady, C. (2012). Wrongful Obedience and the Professional Practice of Law. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2135786

Presentations

• O'Grady, C. G. (2020, Spring). A Behavioral Approach to Attorney Mistake/Behavioral Legal Ethics. ABA Professional Responsibility Conference/International Legal Ethics Conference.
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  I was invited to participate in two prestigious conferences this spring to discuss behavioral legal ethics. Both conferences were cancelled due to the pandemic. In one, Professor Susan Saab Fortney asked me to discuss the behavioral approach to attorney mistake, which I had written about in a law journal article. In another, conference organizers for the largest international professional responsibility conference in the world asked me to participate on a panel discussing behavioral legal ethics.
• O'Grady, C. G. (2021, May, 2021). Behavioral Legal Ethics and Attorney Mistake. ABA Professional Responsibility Annual Conference. Zoom: American Bar Association.
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  I presented my research on attorney mistake as part of a panel at the ABA Professional Responsibility Conference, which is a large gathering of professors, judges, and state bar counsel.
• O'Grady, C. G. (2016, November/Fall). Symposium Presentation -- A Behavioral Approach to Lawyer Mistake and Apology. Symposium presentation - panel paper discussions. New England College of Law, Boston MA: New England College of Law, New England Law Review.
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  I was invited to present the keynote paper address at a symposium presentation at the New England College of Law on November 10, 2016. All my expenses were paid for by the New England Law Review
• O'Grady, C. G. (2017, February/Spring). Behavioral Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility. Professional Responsibility/Legal Ethics Conference. California Western College of Law, San Diego CA: STEPPS Program -- California Western College of Law.
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  I was invited to participate in a small conference of professional responsibility teachers to discuss behavioral legal ethics. All of my expenses were paid by California Western and the sponsoring organization.

Other Teaching Materials

• O'Grady, C. G., & Eldred, T. W. (2022. Teachers Manual for Beyond the Rules -- Behavioral Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility. West Academic Publishing.

Others

• O'Grady, C. G. (2019, Summer). ABA Professional Responsibility Conference.
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  I attended the ABA Professional Responsibility conference to meet with scholars in professional responsibility and talk about my book/work in progress.