A Comparative Analysis of Substance Use Disorder Programs Between Three Safety Sensitive Professions.

Examining the court's perspective: Legal professionals' perceptions and preferences of expert testimony.

This conceptual paper examines ethical challenges and professional misconduct in the Malaysian legal profession, with a focus on identifying key causes, consequences, and potential reforms. Despite the existence of regulatory frameworks such as the Legal Profession Act 1976, incidents of misconduct including conflicts of interest, dishonesty, negligence, and breaches of confidentiality remain prevalent. The study adopts a qualitative, literature-based approach to analyse how individual, organisational, and institutional factors contribute to unethical behaviour. The findings indicate that ethical challenges arise from competing professional duties, financial pressures, workplace culture, and weak regulatory enforcement. Systemic issues such as lack of transparency, inconsistent disciplinary actions, and insufficient monitoring mechanisms further exacerbate misconduct. Additionally, existing ethics education is found to be inadequate in influencing practical decision-making. The paper concludes that professional misconduct is not solely an individual failing but a product of broader structural weaknesses. Addressing this issue requires a holistic strategy involving stronger enforcement mechanisms, continuous professional development, improved regulatory clarity, and the promotion of an ethical legal culture. These measures are essential to restore public trust and uphold the integrity of the legal profession in Malaysia.

Litigation related to total hip arthroplasty (THA) is a growing concern. Manufacturer-specified contraindications for femoral implants may influence legal outcomes, particularly when common patient characteristics such as obesity are listed. This study identified manufacturer-listed contraindications for femoral implants used in primary THA and evaluated their medicolegal implications within the frameworks of medical negligence and informed consent law in England and Wales. The 11 most commonly used femoral implants were identified from the National Joint Registry of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. For each implant, manufacturer surgical technique guides were reviewed to extract contraindications, relative contraindications, and warnings. A structured medicolegal analysis was conducted within the frameworks of medical negligence and informed consent law, drawing on landmark case law and peer-reviewed medicolegal scholarship, supplemented by consultation with legal professionals who specialize in orthopaedic device litigation. Two implants cited obesity or morbid obesity as a contraindication; four reported obesity as a warning. Nine implants listed inadequate bone quality as a contraindication, and two as a relative contraindication. Neuromuscular disease was contraindicated in nine implants, and a relative contraindication in two. Infection was contraindicated in all eleven implants. Vascular deficiency was a contraindication in six implants, and a relative contraindication in two. Deficient musculature was contraindicated in five implants and a relative contraindication in two. Many manufacturer-listed contraindications correspond to clinical characteristics commonly found in THA patients. These contraindications do not preclude implant use when supported by evidence and sound clinical judgement, but carry significant medicolegal implications under negligence and informed consent law. Once a manufacturer has communicated a contraindication, medicolegal scrutiny may shift to the surgeon's decision-making under two distinct frameworks, namely the standard of care and informed consent. Surgeons should know their implant-specific contraindications, ensure decisions are evidence-based and documented, and explicitly disclose elevated risks to patients.

Far from being a mere intermediary, the lawyer holds a pivotal role within the legal and democratic framework. Their significance rests on three core pillars: (i) the technical defense of rights, safeguarding adversarial proceedings and the right to a full defense; (ii) the enforcement of constitutional guarantees, whether through litigation or advisory work; and (iii) the promotion of social justice, expanding citizenship through an ethos of ethics and independence. Thus, protecting the prerogatives of the legal profession ultimately means protecting the citizen. Ethics plays a pivotal role in the legal field, not merely as an academic discipline but as a normative foundation that underpins the legitimacy of legal professionals’ actions. This paper examines the importance of Ethics in Law, outlining its main aspects—from philosophical roots to practical impacts on contemporary legal practice. It discusses jurisprudence and the normative framework found in the Brazilian Bar Association Statute (Law No. 8,906/1994) and the OAB Code of Ethics and Discipline (2015), highlighting principles such as dignity, independence, loyalty, and professional secrecy. Through bibliographic review and document analysis, the study concludes that the teaching and practice of legal ethics reinforce fundamental rights, bolstering public trust in the justice system and the effectiveness of the Democratic Rule of Law.

ABSTRACT Beliefs about our memory can have consequences for how we act in our everyday life and in professional contexts, including what we expect from witnesses during interviews. Previous research has documented that the beliefs that professionals or laypeople hold regarding witnesses are not always aligned with science. While most studies have targeted beliefs about memory in general, fewer studies have tailored their questionnaires to map out beliefs about child witnesses. In this study, we surveyed 340 Danish professionals including police, psychologists, social workers, judges, defence attorneys, and prosecutors about their beliefs regarding children as witnesses. Since the main interest was to map out current beliefs held by the groups, we did not have predictions regarding specific items. However, since previous research has shown that beliefs held by various professional groups are not always aligned with science, this was also to be expected in this study. Overall, the results replicated earlier findings. It is noteworthy that a large proportion of respondents selected the response category “neither agree nor disagree”. Furthermore, prior training was found to influence the responses. Key areas where an update of the knowledge base is deemed relevant are highlighted and future directions are discussed.

This paper contributes to this special issue by exploring the act of capitulation to populist authoritarianism, focusing on American universities under Donald Trump's second administration. Despite threats to funding and autonomy, especially around health-related issues, many universities capitulated. Yet, while universities might be seen as especially vulnerable due to their dependence on federal funds and international students, we show that actors with far greater power exhibited similar behaviour. Elements of the legal profession enabled authoritarian legalism, while corporations, once defenders of democratic norms, largely retreated into silence or complicity. Drawing on contemporary and historical examples, we situate these responses within broader patterns of democratic backsliding. Institutions are shown to be vulnerable to legal manipulation, financial coercion, and ideological alignment. Yet, resistance persists. Some universities have fought back through litigation, and judges have blocked unconstitutional orders despite personal risk. The paper reframes institutions not as passive structures but as active agents that can either resist or enable authoritarianism. It argues that democratic commitment is not inherent but must be cultivated and defended. Ultimately, democracy requires ongoing engagement, ethical leadership, and a willingness to bear short-term costs for long-term preservation.

ABSTRACT As dementia prevalence increases, lawyers play a critical role in supporting legal planning, safeguarding rights and enabling decision-making for people living with cognitive impairment. Despite policy emphasis on dementia-capable workforces, little empirical research has examined what dementia capability means for the legal profession. This qualitative study developed a research-informed framework of dementia-capable attributes for lawyers, drawing on perspectives from legal practitioners, people living with dementia and their support persons. Using a two-round modified Delphi approach, we conducted in-depth interviews followed by an online survey with 39 participants across Australia. Qualitative content analysis identified five core attribute domains: knowledge; legal rights and risks; capacity; communication; and advocacy. Participants emphasised strengths-based approaches, the distinction between diagnosis and decision-making capacity, the centrality of respectful and supportive communication, and the need to balance ethical obligations with commercial and professional pressures. Dementia capability was characterised as aspirational but achievable along a continuum, with implications for professional education, standards and service design. The findings demonstrate that dementia-capable legal practice benefits not only clients with dementia diagnoses but all clients planning for future incapacity, supporting a universal design approach to legal services. The framework provides an empirical foundation for training, accreditation and reform within the legal profession.

Unlicensed medical practices (UMPs) pose a substantial threat to patient safety and public health, but their clandestine nature makes them difficult to monitor through conventional surveillance systems. Legal epidemiology offers a framework for using judicial data to study hidden health-related misconduct, and machine learning (ML) may help convert unstructured legal texts into analyzable public health information. This study aimed to characterize prosecuted UMP cases in South Korea using a legal infoveillance framework and evaluate the utility of ML-assisted extraction from criminal court decisions for public health surveillance. We conducted a retrospective observational study of 1532 criminal court decisions involving UMP-related convictions in South Korea between 2005 and 2023. Using an ML-assisted extraction pipeline with human-in-the-loop verification, we transformed unstructured judicial texts into structured legal and medical variables. Analyses were conducted at the case, charge, defendant category, and legal ruling levels. In addition to descriptive analyses, we performed exploratory inferential analyses to examine factors associated with legal rulings and professionals' involvement. Of 1718 charge entries, 987 (57.5%) were related to Article 5 of the Act on Special Measures for the Control of Public Health Crimes, and 731 (42.5%) were related to Article 27(1) of the Medical Service Act. Profit motive was coded in 91.6% (1404/1532) of the cases. At the legal ruling level (n=2004 entries), suspended sentences, meaning sentences whose execution was conditionally suspended under Korean criminal law, were the most common outcome (1261/2004, 62.9%), followed by fines (421/2004, 21%) and imprisonment without suspension (209/2004, 10.4%). Of 1716 defendant category entries, ordinary persons accounted for 1294 (75.4%), health care professionals accounted for 264 (15.4%), and health care providers accounted for 158 (9.2%). Physicians were the largest subgroup among health care professionals. In exploratory multinomial models, licensed personnel-only and mixed ordinary person and licensed personnel cases were more likely than ordinary person-only cases to result in fines or imprisonment without suspension rather than suspended sentences. Secondary exploratory analyses also suggested distinctive patterns of professional involvement and possible scope-of-practice or delegation-related boundary violations. ML-assisted analysis of criminal court decisions can serve as a useful supplementary surveillance method for hidden UMPs. In South Korea, prosecuted UMPs were predominantly profit driven and involved both ordinary persons and licensed personnel. The findings support closer monitoring of scope-of-practice and delegation-related violations and demonstrate the value of judicial records as a source of public health intelligence.

The rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence has exposed limitations in traditional intellectual property frameworks based on human authorship, creating uncertainty in ownership attribution. This study proposes a Bayesian Network-based workflow for analyzing ownership of AI-generated content under legal and technical uncertainty. The workflow integrates dataset curation, variable annotation, probabilistic dependency modeling, inference generation, cross-validation, and sensitivity analysis to evaluate relationships among factors, including human contribution, the legality of training data, contractual context, and AI autonomy. The framework was developed using annotated cases derived from a curated AI litigation dataset, publicly available court opinion databases, and AI copyright case trackers. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the influence of legal and technical variables on ownership attribution across different scenarios. The proposed framework supports probabilistic and interpretable reasoning for AI-related intellectual property disputes and provides a structured decision-support approach for legal professionals, policymakers, and AI developers. Results demonstrated stable posterior probability estimates across folds, with ownership prediction consistency exceeding 80% across datasets. The framework enables probabilistic, scenario-based reasoning and provides an interpretable decision-support tool, improving transparency and consistency in resolving ownership disputes for legal professionals, policymakers, and AI developers.

Mental disorder in the courtroom: Challenges for legal practice in low-resource criminal justice system: A qualitative analysis from Indonesia.

Given the unprecedented global volume of forced migration, ensuring equitable access to healthcare for refugees has become a pressing global health priority. This comparative case study examined country-level determinants that influence healthcare access and social determinants of health among refugees in Australia, South Korea, and the United States. We conducted a comparative case study to identify country-level factors influencing refugee healthcare access in Australia, South Korea, and the United States. Countries were selected to capture diversity in geographic context, immigration and integration policies, and healthcare system structures. Data sources included a comprehensive review of laws, policies, and peer-reviewed literature, as well as in-depth interviews with refugees, healthcare providers, resettlement agency staff, and legal professionals. We used framework analysis guided by a conceptual model, incorporating both deductive and inductive coding. This study focused on cross-case themes emerging from the synthesis of all data sources. Findings revealed that, while refugees in all three host countries generally view health services as superior to those in their countries of origin, significant disparities persisted in access across various factors. The availability of culturally and linguistically appropriate care, legal frameworks, insurance systems, and social supports varied widely, contributing to health disparities. In the United States, complex healthcare navigation and insurance gaps posed substantial barriers, while in South Korea, legal mandates for interpretation services were lacking, and health insurance coverage was limited for certain refugee groups. Australia's universal health coverage and government-funded language and interpretation services supported more inclusive access, although barriers existed for vulnerable subgroups. This study underscores the significance of national policies, culturally competent care, and long-term integration support in promoting health equity for refugees. It also highlights the need for targeted, context-sensitive strategies to address persistent barriers and calls for better-tailored policies to support the health and well-being of refugees in host countries and beyond.

ABSTRACT This paper explores the impact of the Solicitors Acts 1954 to 2011 (Apprenticeship and Education) (Amendment) Regulations 2019 on undergraduate legal education in Ireland. The 2019 Regulations provided for “accelerated access” to the Law Society of Ireland’s entrance examination (FE-1) thereby permitting undergraduate students to sit the exam. This study examines the experience and impact of sitting the FE-1 while simultaneously completing an undergraduate degree. It concentrates on points such as academic and career aspirations, workload management, and the alignment of the undergraduate curriculum with the FE-1. Empirical research based on a questionnaire completed by 121 participants reveals both benefits and challenges. Key findings draw attention to improved study skills and legal understanding but also stress and financial pressures experienced by participants. The article considers the broader implications for legal education and suggests a need for enhanced support and guidance from higher education institutions as well as potential reforms to the FE-1 process to better align with undergraduate programmes and reduce barriers to entry into the legal profession.

Legal contract review automation faces significant challenges in processing unstructured texts and performing complex legal reasoning, particularly in Chinese legal contexts where manual methods remain inefficient and error-prone. We present PEAT-LLM4LCR, a specialized automated contract review tool that addresses these challenges through the integration of prompt engineering and multi-agent collaboration technology. Unlike existing solutions such as CUAD, which focus on English contracts, or general-purpose LLMs that lack domain expertise, our system employs the Agent-GoTFlow architecture to enable dynamic workflow adaptation and multi-task coordination. The system comprises three core review modules coordinated through 30 chain-of-thought reasoning templates distributed across three specialized agents, processing natural language requirements and generating structured risk reports with actionable recommendations. Experimental evaluation with 18 participants across different expertise levels demonstrates significant improvements compared to manual review without tool assistance: 34–77% reduction in review time across different expertise levels (novices: 50%, professionals: 77%, experts: 34%) and 50% improvement in accuracy for non-expert users. The system democratizes professional-grade legal analysis, benefiting legal professionals, business stakeholders, and resource-constrained small-medium enterprises alike. The tool is available at https://github.com/Hongbin-Xiao/PEAT-LLM4LCR-TOOL , with a demonstration video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyIikQDkv0E .

This study examines how the criminalization of women's drug use during their reproductive years affects their access to reproductive healthcare, legal treatment, and psychosocial wellbeing. Using a qualitative research design, the study employed semi-structured interviews with women affected by drug-related criminalization, healthcare providers, legal professionals, and policy-related stakeholders in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, China. The findings reveal that criminalization functions as a major barrier to timely healthcare access by generating fear, stigma, and mistrust of formal institutions. Women reported avoiding prenatal and reproductive health services due to concerns about legal consequences, social judgment, and possible loss of child custody. The study also found that punitive responses intensify emotional distress, social isolation, and institutional exclusion, while creating ethical and professional challenges for healthcare providers. These findings suggest that treating women's drug use primarily as a criminal issue may worsen reproductive health risks rather than reduce them. The study concludes that more effective responses require a shift toward health-centered, rights-based, and non-punitive approaches that prioritize treatment, confidentiality, psychosocial support, and coordinated care. Such reforms are essential for improving maternal wellbeing, protecting reproductive rights, and reducing the harmful effects of stigma and criminalization.

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is a threat to women and girls' health and justice globally, and is widely prevalent in Sierra Leone. This study identifies key barriers to high-quality healthcare and justice for SGBV survivors in Sierra Leone using a gender-integrated socio-ecological model. In this qualitative study, purposive sampling was performed with maximum variation by sector and region. From December 2023 to February 2024, Sierra Leonean and international researchers conducted semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with health, legal, law enforcement, and government officials across Sierra Leone. Data analysis employed a hybrid thematic approach using a gender-integrated socio-ecological model (GI-SEM) framework while remaining open to emerging themes. Analysis was completed between August 2024-March 2025. Across five sites in Sierra Leone, a total of 31 multidisciplinary staff participants were included through semi-structured individual (n=17) and focus group interviews (n=6), including healthcare providers (n=15; 48.4%), law enforcement officers (n=9; 29.0%), government officials (n=5; 16.1%), and legal professionals (n=2; 6.5%). At the individual level, perceived barriers included system fatigue, internalized stigma, and secondary trauma. Interpersonal barriers included power imbalances in provider interactions and coercion by survivor networks. Organizational barriers consisted of service accessibility gaps, operational inefficiencies, and resource constraints. Community-level barriers involved religious interference and insufficient prevention engagement. At the societal level, financial constraints, legal framework gaps, and stigmatizing attitudes further impeded access to care and justice. Despite ongoing efforts, SGBV survivors in Sierra Leone face persistent challenges accessing care and justice. These findings highlight critical intervention points across multiple levels to strengthen response systems.

ABSTRACT The entry of artificial intelligence (AI) in different sectors of professional world has increased the dependency and efficiency of professional domain, and it has been rapidly growing as a popular instrument in the fields of science, medical, engineering, advertisements, etc. The legal profession which has always been dominated via human interface is also seeing a surge in integration of AI. In arbitration, where the process involves extensive drafting, records, anddetailed procedures of cross examination, etc. much time is dedicated toward procedural upkeep and, therefore, AI is emerging in the arena of research, drafting case records, written submissions and arbitral awards, proofreading, summarizing evidence, organization of documents, translation, transcription, and estimation of costs. This augmented utility of AI in the dispute-resolution process cannot be denied when it comes to adjudication of disputes. However, there is much conflict regarding the extent to which AI can be used in dispute resolution, considering the principles of natural justice, morality, equality, and good conscience, which a human arbitrator considers. This paper examines the role of AI in the decision-making process of arbitration and its possibility of understanding the human interface with AI. It also aims to explore the potential of AI to replace human arbitrators through an analysis of different issues. Thus, this study intends to evaluate the feasibility of AI as a substitute for human arbitrators. The research methodology followed in this paper is doctrinal and qualitative research, relying primarily on secondary sources of information.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the significant knowledge gap surrounding forced marriage, particularly among Muslim legal professionals, religious leaders, and the broader community in South Australia, despite its criminalization in 2013. A key concern is the limited understanding of the distinction between arranged and forced marriages, which is increasingly blurred by ongoing socio-cultural coercive control that may gradually erode genuine consent. This ambiguity complicates the identification of coercion and challenges the effectiveness of legal and community responses. Using a mixed qualitative approach, thematic analysis was conducted on data from four focus groups (lawyers, university students, and women’s groups) and five interviews (with Imams and community leaders), comprising a total of 30 participants. A critical finding was the widespread lack of awareness among community leaders, both religious and legal, regarding the legal definition of forced marriage and the (then applicable) Support for Trafficked People Program. This gap has, at times, resulted in well-intentioned but potentially harmful guidance, which undermines community trust. The paper argues for targeted, culturally informed education for community and religious leaders, with clear dissemination of what constitutes valid consent under both Australian and Islamic law. Empowering communities through accessible, accurate information will assist in fostering communities’ collective agency, and which in turn, results in a more effective, sustainable and preventive alternative to reactive, punitive approaches that risk alienating multicultural communities and perpetuating the hidden nature of forced marriage.

ABSTRACT This article explores how disciplinary sanctions imposed on legal professionals can be given a coherent moral justification. Drawing inspiration from the philosophy of criminal law, it develops a modified form of legal moralism based on role morality rather than common morality. The theory is intended to provide disciplinary authorities with normative guidance on what may legitimately be defined as a disciplinary offence, as well as limits on what must not be classified as such. Four challenges that any plausible version of legal moralism must meet are identified and addressed. The article argues that legal moralism, traditionally grounded in a deontological conception of morality, can be coherently connected with consequentialist reasoning, represented here by utilitarianism. Utilitarianism can serve as its ultimate justification. Furthermore, the paper proposes a version of legal moralism that rests on a consequentialist conception of morality. In this case, however, utilitarians have little reason to prefer such an approach over the direct application of the principle of utility. The article concludes that legal moralism, properly reconstructed, provides a philosophically robust foundation for understanding and justifying disciplinary sanctions.

This study aims to analyze the violation of the ethics of the advocate profession which is metaphor as the phenomenon of "Lawyer at the Table" through the perspective of Immanuel Kant's deontological morality. The research uses normative legal research methods with legislative, conceptual, and philosophical approaches, and is analyzed qualitatively through literature studies. The results of the study show that the phenomenon reflects the crisis of moral obligations in the practice of the legal profession which is characterized by the dominance of instrumental rationality, the weak internalization of professional ethics, and the shift in professional orientation from moral obligations to pragmatic interests. Based on Kant's theory of deontology, these actions are contrary to the principle of categorical imperative, especially the Universality Formula and the Humanity Formula, because they cannot be universalized as moral law and reduce human dignity and judicial institutions as a means of certain interests. This study also found that resolving violations of the ethics of the advocate profession is not enough through a disciplinary sanctions approach, but requires the reconstruction of professional ethics through the universalization of actions, respect for human dignity, and the internalization of universal moral obligations. The implications of the study confirm that Immanuel Kant's deontological theory is relevant as a philosophical foundation for establishing universal, rational, and justice-oriented standards of ethics for the legal profession.