Digital Commons Network^™

The Futures Of Law, Lawyers, And Law Schools: A Dialogue, Sameer M. Ashar, Benjamin H. Barton, Michael J. Madison, Rachel F. Moran

Articles

On April 19 and 20, 2023, Professors Bernard Hibbitts and Richard Weisberg convened a conference at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law titled “Disarmed, Distracted, Disconnected, and Distressed: Modern Legal Education and the Unmaking of American Lawyers.” Four speakers concluded the event with a spirited conversation about themes expressed during the proceedings. Distilling a lively two days, they asked: what are the most critical challenges now facing US legal education and, by extension, lawyers and the communities they serve? Their agreements and disagreements were striking, so much so that Professors Hibbitts and Weisberg invited those four to extend their …

Making Sustainability A Core Competency: Consumer Response To Sustainable Innovative Products, Clyde Eiríkur Hull, Jennifer D. Russell, Monika Kukar-Kinney

Articles

Research suggests that sustainability may not be sufficient to yield a competitive advantage. Building on the resource-based view, this research evaluates three questions: (1) Can using sustainability as a differentiator lead to consumers choosing sustainable products? (2) Does product sustainability appeal more to environmentally concerned consumers? (3) Does product sustainability appeal more when paired with innovation? To test the hypotheses, an online survey of 344 US respondents was conducted. Consumers were given a hypothetical budget for an office chair and asked to choose between two products at a time. Hypotheses were tested with frequency and Chisquare tests and logistic regression. …

Preparing For Service: A Template For 21st Century Legal Education, Michael J. Madison

Articles

Legal educators today grapple with the changing dynamics of legal employment markets; the evolution of technologies and business models driving changes to the legal profession; and the economics of operating – and attending – a law school. Accrediting organizations and practitioners pressure law schools to prepare new lawyers both to be ready to practice and to be ready for an ever-fluid career path. From the standpoint of law schools in general and any one law school in particular, constraints and limitations surround us. Adaptation through innovation is the order of the day.

How, when, and in what direction should innovation …

Giving It Away : Free Technology Transfer To The Irish Sme Sector, Peter Kavanagh, Andy Maguire, James J. Casey

Articles

One of Europe’s major weaknesses lies in its inferiority in terms of transforming the results of technological research and skills into innovations and competitive advantages. (European Commission, 1995, p. 8.)

Technology transfer is a key aspect of economic development and research administration. These concerns are shared equally between academia and industry on both sides of the Atlantic. As technology is developed at a greater rate, concerns about the technology transfer will heighten. This article focuses on technology transfer in Ireland, particularly in the SME (Small and Medium size Enterprises, under 250 employees) sector. As the main Lisbon Objective has not …

Law As Design: Objects, Concepts, And Digital Things, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This Article initiates an account of things in the law, including both conceptual things and material things. Human relationships matter to the design of law. Yet things matter too. To an increasing extent, and particularly via the advent of digital technology, those relationships are not only considered ex post by the law but are designed into things, ex ante, by their producers. This development has a number of important dimensions. Some are familiar, such as the reification of conceptual things as material things, so that computer software is treated as a good. Others are new, such as the characterization of …