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Fordham Law School

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2012

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Accountability And The Bureau Of Consumer Financial Protection, Susan Block-Lieb Jan 2012

Accountability And The Bureau Of Consumer Financial Protection, Susan Block-Lieb

Faculty Scholarship

Some industry and political actors oppose the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on the grounds that its institutional design ensures its lack of accountability. Specifically, opponents point to the CFPB’s regulatory and financial independence and to the fact that a single director heads the Bureau rather than a bipartisan panel of commissioners. But to focus on the Bureau’s financial independence and single director misses the distinctive political deal struck when Congress created the CFPB. The CFPB has been uniquely and intentionally structured to insulate it not only from interest group influence and executive interference, but also from congressional control, while …


How Many Lives Has Victor Streib Saved? A Tribute, Deborah W. Denno Jan 2012

How Many Lives Has Victor Streib Saved? A Tribute, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Making Good Lawyers, Eli Wald, Russell G. Pearce Jan 2012

Making Good Lawyers, Eli Wald, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

Today, the criticism of law schools has become an industry. Detractors argue that legal education fails to effectively prepare students for the practice of law, that it is too theoretical and detached from the profession, that it dehumanizes and alienates students, too expensive and inapt in helping students develop a sense of professional identity, professional values, and professionalism. In this sea of criticisms it is hard to see the forest from the trees. “There is so much wrong with legal education today,” writes one commentator, “that it is hard to know where to begin.” This article argues that any reform …


The Statutory Ucc: Interpretative License And Duty Under Article 2, Nicholas J. Johnson Jan 2012

The Statutory Ucc: Interpretative License And Duty Under Article 2, Nicholas J. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Libya: A Multilateral Constitutional Moment?, Catherine Powell Jan 2012

Libya: A Multilateral Constitutional Moment?, Catherine Powell

Faculty Scholarship

The Libya intervention of 2011 marked the first time that the UN Security Council invoked the “responsibility to protect” principle (RtoP) to authorize use of force by UN member states. In this comment the author argues that the Security Council’s invocation of RtoP in the midst of the Libyan crisis significantly deepens the broader, ongoing transformation in the international law system’s approach to sovereignty and civilian protection. This transformation away from the traditional Westphalian notion of sovereignty has been unfolding for decades, but the Libyan case represents a further normative shift from sovereignty as a right to sovereignty as a …


Is Europe Headed Down The Primrose Path With Mandatory Mediation, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley Jan 2012

Is Europe Headed Down The Primrose Path With Mandatory Mediation, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Predicting Securities Fraud Settlements And Amounts: A Hierarchical Bayesian Model Of Federal Securities Class Action Lawsuits, Blakeley M. Mcshane, Oliver P. Watson, Sean J. Griffith, Tom Baker Jan 2012

Predicting Securities Fraud Settlements And Amounts: A Hierarchical Bayesian Model Of Federal Securities Class Action Lawsuits, Blakeley M. Mcshane, Oliver P. Watson, Sean J. Griffith, Tom Baker

Faculty Scholarship

This article develops models that predict the incidence and amount of settlements for federal class action securities fraud litigation in the post-PLSRA period. We build hierarchical Bayesian models using data that come principally from Riskmetrics and identify several important predictors of settlement incidence (e.g., the number of different types of securities associated with a case, the company return during the class period) and settlement amount (e.g., market capitalization, measures of newsworthiness). Our models also allow us to estimate how the circuit court a case is filed in as well as the industry of the plaintiff firm associate with settlement outcomes. …


Why Do Shareholder Derivative Suits Remain Rare In Continental Europe?, Martin Gelter Jan 2012

Why Do Shareholder Derivative Suits Remain Rare In Continental Europe?, Martin Gelter

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Changing The Conversation In Education Law: Political Geography And Virtual Schooling Book Review Essay, Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2012

Changing The Conversation In Education Law: Political Geography And Virtual Schooling Book Review Essay, Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

In Five Miles Away, A World Apart, James E. Ryan concludes that the educational reforms of the hour, school accountability and school choice, will exacerbate rather than undermine the systematic educational advantages enjoyed by wealthier Americans. Paul Peterson, in his Saving Schools, argues that increasingly centralizing American schools have become sufficiently centralized that, as a labor-intensive industry, few productivity gains are available from governance reform, even as demand escalates for the customization of education to individual needs. Both volumes therefore pin their hopes for change upon political geography-the relationship between people and educational institutions in space. Ryan argues that changing …


Prosecutors And Professional Regulation, Bruce A. Green Jan 2012

Prosecutors And Professional Regulation, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

Prosecutors often express mistrust of professional regulators, their rules and their processes. This may have been more understandable twenty years ago, when prosecutors perceived that the organized bar had been captured by defense lawyers seeking to use professional regulation as a means of imposing limits on criminal investigative authority that the law did not otherwise recognize. Although that criticism no longer has much basis in reality, it has persisted in the rhetoric prosecutors employ in advocacy regarding their professional conduct. This article explores prosecutors’ public attitude toward professional regulation, beginning with a brief account of their responses two decades ago, …


How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Richard Squire Jan 2012

How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Richard Squire

Faculty Scholarship

Corporations insure against liability in shareholder lawsuits by buying tiered coverage from multiple insurers who each cover a distinct segment of the potential damages range. Rather than negotiating to settle individually with the plaintiff, the insurers seek to reach a single, collectively binding settlement agreement. This combination of segmented coverage and collective settlements produces a conflict of interests: the corporation’s managers and some insurers are better off if the case settles pre-trial for the expected damages, while other insurers are better off going to trial. To force reluctant insurers to settle, courts have created a duty that can require an …


The Virtue Of Low Barriers To Becoming A Lawyer: Promoting Liberal And Democratic Values [With Sinna Nasseri], Russell G. Pearce, Sinna Nasseri Jan 2012

The Virtue Of Low Barriers To Becoming A Lawyer: Promoting Liberal And Democratic Values [With Sinna Nasseri], Russell G. Pearce, Sinna Nasseri

Faculty Scholarship

This article offers a new perspective on how to determine whether barriers to practicing law are appropriate. It identifies a connection between those barriers and the role of legal services providers (‘lawyers’) in permitting individuals to obtain their basic political and economic rights in a liberal democracy. Democratic values require making legal services as equally available as possible to all citizens, while liberal values dictate that each individual has access in order to enforce human rights, compete in a market economy, and engage in a legal system grounded in the rule of law. Liberal and democratic values therefore require the …


Neuroscience And The Child Welfare System, Clare Huntington Jan 2012

Neuroscience And The Child Welfare System, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

A growing body of research by neuroscientists demonstrates that a child’s early life experiences and environment literally shape the child’s brain architecture, with lifelong consequences that are very difficult to reverse. Children’s relationships with their primary caregivers are at the core of this brain development, but when this relationship is severely deficient, the developing child’s brain is deeply affected. This research has not gained sufficient recognition in policy debates about the child welfare system because much of the work is complex and hard for non-neuroscientists to decipher with nuance. This essay brings a family law scholar’s perspective to understanding the …


Habeas Corpus, Protection, And Extraterritorial Constitutional Rights, Andrew Kent Jan 2012

Habeas Corpus, Protection, And Extraterritorial Constitutional Rights, Andrew Kent

Faculty Scholarship

This short essay is an exchange with Professor Steve Vladeck's about my Article entitled: Boumediene, Munaf, and the Supreme Court’s Misreading of the Insular Cases, 97 Iowa Law Review 101 (2011). My Article showed that the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Boumediene v. Bush relied on a demonstrably incorrect understanding of key precedents known as the Insular Cases, which arose from actions of the United States military and the new civil governments of the islands acquired by the United States at the turn of the twentieth century — Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, and for a time Cuba. This reply …


Evaluating The Palestinians’ Claimed Right Of Return, Andrew Kent Jan 2012

Evaluating The Palestinians’ Claimed Right Of Return, Andrew Kent

Faculty Scholarship

This Article takes on a question at the heart of the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian dispute: did Israel violate international law during the conflict of 1947-49 either by expelling Palestinian civilians or by subsequently refusing to repatriate Palestinian refugees? Palestinians have claimed that Israel engaged in illegal ethnic cleansing, and that international law provides a "right of return" for the refugees displaced during what they call al-Nakbah (the catastrophe). Israel has disagreed, blaming Arab aggression and unilateral decisions by Arab inhabitants for the refugees' flight, and asserting that international law provides no right of the refugees to return to Israel. Each side …


Notes Toward A Critical Contemplation Of Law, Sonia K. Katyal Jan 2012

Notes Toward A Critical Contemplation Of Law, Sonia K. Katyal

Faculty Scholarship

In this tribute to Professor Derrick Bell’s legacy, Professor Katyal reflects on one of Bell’s greatest gifts: the necessary, and perhaps unfinished gift of critical contemplation of law, along with its possibilities and its concomitant limitations. In her paper, Katyal reflects on two seemingly disparate areas of civil rights that might benefit from Bell’s critical vision: the area of LGBT rights and equality, and federal Indian law. Relying on some of Bell’s most valuable insights, Katyal calls for the creation of a “critical sexuality studies” and a “critical indigenous studies” that employs some of Bell’s groundbreaking lessons in reimagining broader …


Governing Systemic Risk: Towards A Governance Structure For Derivatives Clearhouses, Sean J. Griffith Jan 2012

Governing Systemic Risk: Towards A Governance Structure For Derivatives Clearhouses, Sean J. Griffith

Faculty Scholarship

Derivatives transactions create systemic risk by threatening to spread the consequences of default throughout the financial system. Responding to the manifestations of systemic risk exhibited in the financial crisis, policy-makers have sought to solve the problem by requiring as many derivatives transactions as possible to be “cleared” (essentially guaranteed) by a clearinghouse. The clearinghouse will centralize and, through the creation of reserve accounts, seek to contain systemic risk by preventing the consequences of default from spreading. This centralization of risk makes the clearinghouse the new locus of systemic risk, and the question of systemic risk management thus becomes a question …


Why Proportionality Matters, Youngjae Lee Jan 2012

Why Proportionality Matters, Youngjae Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


The Influence Of Rudolf Von Jhering On Karl Llewellyn, Julie E. Grise, Martin Gelter, Robert Whitman Jan 2012

The Influence Of Rudolf Von Jhering On Karl Llewellyn, Julie E. Grise, Martin Gelter, Robert Whitman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Do Boumediene Rights Expire?, Andrew Kent Jan 2012

Do Boumediene Rights Expire?, Andrew Kent

Faculty Scholarship

In 2008, Guantanamo detainees won a landmark victory in Boumediene v. Bush, which held that the Congress and the President could not prevent the detainees from accessing the courts to seek release via habeas corpus. The Court decided that persons claiming to be innocent civilians deserved a day in court, even though they were noncitizens held by the U.S. military as enemy combatants on foreign territory. The Court applied a fact-specific test that granted habeas rights to noncitizens outside the United States only when a balance of factors — including citizenship, enemy status, the nature of status review procedures, the …


Corporate Governance, Corporate And Employment Law, And The Costs Of Expropriation, Giulio Ecchia, Martin Gelter, Piero Pasotti Jan 2012

Corporate Governance, Corporate And Employment Law, And The Costs Of Expropriation, Giulio Ecchia, Martin Gelter, Piero Pasotti

Faculty Scholarship

We set up a model to study how ownership structure, corporate law and employment law interact to set the incentives that infl uence the decision by the large shareholder or manager effectively controlling the fi rm to divert resources from minority shareholders and employees. We suggest that agency problems between the controller and other investors and holdup problems between shareholders and employees are connected if the controller bears private costs of “expropriating” these groups. Corporate law and employment law may therefore somethimes be substitutes; employees may benefi t from better corporate law intended to protect minority shareholder, and vice versa. …


Envisioning Enforcement Of Freedom Of Association Standards In Corporate Codes: A Journey For Sinbad Or Sisyphus?, James J. Brudney Jan 2012

Envisioning Enforcement Of Freedom Of Association Standards In Corporate Codes: A Journey For Sinbad Or Sisyphus?, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

Since the 1970’s, multinational corporations (MNCs) in large numbers have adopted codes of conduct declaring their commitment to workers’ rights. These codes, however, do not require adherence to specific labor regulations or standards in a global setting. The MNC record on voluntary compliance has been discouraging, especially in labor-intensive industries like apparel, shoes, and toys, where a global supply chain of contractors effectively controls labor conditions. The persistent gap between aspiration and achievement regarding corporate codes has led to disagreement over their meaning and value. MNCs hope to be judged on the basis of the self-regulatory systems they have established. …


Broadband Localism, Olivier Sylvain Jan 2012

Broadband Localism, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Today, local governments are supplying broadband service to residents to fill the service gap left by major providers. Municipalities are joining forces with local anchor institutions and private providers to close the digital divide and incubate novel public-minded service models. This is the new broadband localism. Some stakeholders fear that local public participation in the broadband market will negatively impact competition. They have articulated this concern in state legislation across the country: nineteen states forbid or otherwise restrict municipal ownership or administration of broadband and three may enact similar restrictions this year. No matter the substantive policy merits of such …


Sports In America, John D. Feerick Jan 2012

Sports In America, John D. Feerick

Faculty Scholarship

A speech written and delivered by Dean John Feerick on April 17, 2009 at the Fordham Law School Sports Law Symposium gives us an insightful look into what sports mean to the world around them. Dean Feerick has been involved first hand in a number of influential sports law decisions in his time as a practitioner and this speech serves as a reminder as to the meaningful role that sports play in each one of our lives. Feerick draws from life experiences of his own as well as that of colleagues and family members to observe the timeless and universal …


Between Semiotic Democracy And Disobedience: Two Views Of Branding, Culture And Intellectualproperty, Sonia K. Katyal Jan 2012

Between Semiotic Democracy And Disobedience: Two Views Of Branding, Culture And Intellectualproperty, Sonia K. Katyal

Faculty Scholarship

Even though most scholars and judges treat intellectual property law as a predominantly content-neutral phenomenon, trademark law contains a statutory provision, section 2(a), that provides for the cancellation of marks that are “disparaging,” “immoral,” or “scandalous.” This provision has raised intrinsically powerful constitutional concerns, which invariably affect two central metaphors that are at war within trademark law: the marketplace of goods, which premises itself on the fixedness of intellectual properties, and the marketplace of ideas, which is premised on the very fluidity of language itself. Since the architecture of trademark law focuses only on how marks communicate information about a …


The Flood Of U.S. Lawyers: Natural Fluctuation Or Professional Climate Change?, Bruce A. Green Jan 2012

The Flood Of U.S. Lawyers: Natural Fluctuation Or Professional Climate Change?, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

This paper considers how US courts, which regulate the US legal profession, should respond to the perceived excess of lawyers (i.e. to the lack of adequate employment opportunities for lawyers). It begins by summarizing the courts’ regulatory role. It then situates the contemporary flood-of-lawyers problem in the unavailability of well-paid legal work, not in the absence of a need for lawyers’ services: many people need lawyers, but they cannot afford them. Next, the paper explores whether the problem is simply a product of natural economic fluctuation which will be solved naturally, particularly if potential law school applicants become better informed, …


Religious Consumers And Institutional Challenges To American Public Schools, Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2012

Religious Consumers And Institutional Challenges To American Public Schools, Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

The paradigm of American K–12 education is shifting as the institution of local educational polities, each responsible for own its 'common schools,' faces competition from programs of school choice. Although charter schools and related reforms are generally studied in terms of quality and equity, the rise of consumer sovereignty as an alternative to political sovereignty as an organizing principle for educational governance has much wider ramifications. Paradigms of choice have already begun dramatically to alter religious education and its relationship to public schooling. Moreover, because these paradigms rely upon consumer preferences and the aggregation of those preferences by markets, the …


Palsgraf, Punitive Damages, And Preemption, Benjamin C. Zipursky Jan 2012

Palsgraf, Punitive Damages, And Preemption, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

This Article utilizes civil recourse theory along with a pragmatic conceptualist methodology to solve three problems in tort law: one on Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., one on punitive damages (as seen in the Supreme Court’s struggles with Philip Morris v. Williams), and one on federal preemption (as seen in the Supreme Court’s 4-4 deadlock in Warner-Lambert Company v. Kent). Confusion has been generated by a failure to recognize that -- despite the many aspects of tort law that render it importantly public -- there is something distinctively private about the common law of torts. When one firmly rejects …


Why Party Democrats Need Popular Democracy And Popular Democrats Need Parties , Ethan J. Leib, Christopher S. Elmendorf Jan 2012

Why Party Democrats Need Popular Democracy And Popular Democrats Need Parties , Ethan J. Leib, Christopher S. Elmendorf

Faculty Scholarship

Too often, popular political power-whether it is in the form of direct democracy or other more innovative forays in participatory or deliberative democracy-presents itself principally as a counterweight to the political power parties wield. Yet setting up "popular democracy" and '"party democracy" in opposition to one another in the American political landscape is not only unnecessary but also pathological: this oppositional posture risks the ossification of party democracy and keeps popular democrats insulated from the substantial improvements the power of parties could bring to the polity. This Article, accordingly, seeks to enrich both party democracy and popular democracy by showing …


Tensions In Rhetoric And Reality At The Intersection Of Work And Immigration, Jennifer Gordon Jan 2012

Tensions In Rhetoric And Reality At The Intersection Of Work And Immigration, Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.