This column summarizes two kinds of legal-writing plagiarism and then presents a recent article that proposes a new view of plagiarism in law practice.
Law-School Plagiarism
In In re Zbiegien, a student who committed plagiarism in a law-school seminar paper was confronted, admitted the plagiarism, and accepted the law school’s penalty: a grade of F. Although he disclosed the plagiarism and penalty on his bar application, he was denied admission. He appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, which granted him admission, stating, “He has been punished; he is ashamed. … [The law school] elected to give him a second chance. We, too, believe that this conduct will not be repeated.” Two justices dissented.1
Reported cases in which law-school plagiarism results in bar discipline are rare, but here are two more that involved lawyers who went back to law school to get an LLM.