Digital Commons Network^™

Conference Program

Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (2006)

No abstract provided.

What Estate Planners Need To Know About The New Pension Protection Act, Diana S.C. Zeydel, Mitchell M. Gans, Jonathan G. Blattmachr

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

The PPA radically changes the rules applicable to charitable gifts of fractional interests in tangible personal property. The new rules are exceptionally onerous and there, unless modified, are likely to discourage donors from making fractional interest contributions.

In general, the Code does not allow a deduction for income, gift or estate tax purposes for a donation to charity of an interest in property that consists of less than the taxpayer's entire interest in the property. Nevertheless, a deduction is permitted for a contribution of an interest in property that consists of a "vertical slice" of the taxpayer's interest, such as …

What’S An Embryo?: The Debate About Human Embryonic Stem Cells, Janet L. Dolgin

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

In July 2006 the Senate passed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.1 The House of Representatives had passed the bill, referred to as H.R. 810, in May 2005. The day after the Senate vote, President Bush vetoed the legislation. It was the first time he exercised the veto power in almost six years in office. That day, the House voted to override the veto. The vote was 235 to 193, less than the two-thirds majority needed to set aside a presidential veto.

H.R. 810 did not aim to legalize human embryonic stem cell research. It already was legal. It would, …

Foreword To The Special Issue On The Family Law Education Reform Project, Andrew Schepard, Peter Salem

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this issue is to promote a dialogue between the family law academic community and stakeholders in the family law system about how future family lawyers should be educated. Family law practice has undergone dramatic change in the last quarter century, perhaps more than any other area of practice. Virtually everything about it has changed—the role of the family court, the procedure for resolving family disputes, the role of the family lawyer, and the substantive law. It is a vibrant and exciting field, with great influence on the lives of families and children.

The family law curriculum in …

Why Constitutional Rights Litigation Should Not Follow The Flag, Julian Ku

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Detritus Of Troxel, John Dewitt Gregory

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

The article focuses on the decision of the Supreme Court regarding the case Troxel v. Granville in the U.S. The case deals with a central third party issue, which is the grandparent visitation. The court held that the third party statute of the state of Washington unconstitutionally impinged the basic right of parents to decide for the care, custody and control of their children. Other state courts have followed and applied the principles used in the decision of this case. For instance, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, ruled in one of its cases that a parent's objection …

Family Boundaries: Third-Party Rights And Obligations With Respect To Children, Joanna L. Grossman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

The article introduces the topics discussed within the issue, which defines the law pertaining to the rights and obligations of a third parties with respect to children in the U.S. According to the author, the articles regard whether the law should recognize a continuum of those adults with claims to children in which a third party might deserve more or fewer rights based on his relationship with the child. In the article "Philosophy, Morality and Parental Priority," the fundamental right of parents to raise their children is being dealt with. Another article talks about the rights of same-sex partners in …

Power As A Factor In Lawyers' Ethical Deliberation, Susan D. Carle

Hofstra Law Review

A fundamental disagreement among legal ethics scholars concerns the difference between client-centered and justice-centered approaches to lawyers' ethical obligations. Advocates of client-centered approaches put lawyers' duty to the client first. Justice-centered theorists critique the elevation of the client's interests over other important concerns lawyers affect through the work they do on behalf of clients. Scholars who adopt justice-centered approaches argue that lawyers' ethical obligations should be analyzed with a paramount focus on achieving justice.

Legal ethicists often view these two approaches as inconsistent with each other, but I argue in this Article that they are not necessarily so. Building on …

Shoring Up The Citadel (At-Will Employment), Matthew W. Finkin

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

The third draft of parts three and four of the proposed Restatement of Employment Law was circulated in April, 2006. The draft was prefaced by a statement of the Executive Director of the American Law Institute explaining the project's purpose: to simplify the law, to clarify the doctrine underpinning it, and to bring the law into line with evolving economic and social developments. This essay takes a hard look at these two parts - governing contractual job security and discharge for reasons violative of public policy - from the perspective of these desiderata. It argues that the rules set out …

Front Matter

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Contract Formalism, Scientism, And The M-Word: A Comment On Professor Movsesian's Under-Theorization Thesis, Jeffrey M. Lipshaw

Hofstra Law Review

In two recent essays, Professor Mark L. Movsesian has suggested that a significant difference between the classical formalism of Williston and the formalism of contemporary contracts scholars is the extent to which the earlier work was under-theorized. I want to suggest an area in which there is a consistency to the under-theorization between the classical and the modern contract formalists: the extent to which theorization in anything that approaches metaphysics is, and has been, consistently anathema. Modern theorizing is overwhelmingly of a particular form: dispassionate social science inquiry into how we tick, rarely questioned but implicit norms shaped solely around …

Front Matter

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

You Are Living In A Gold Rush, Richard Delgado

Hofstra Law Review

This article argues that our times, characterized as they are by dreams of vast wealth, environmental destruction, and growing social inequality, resemble nothing so much as earlier get-rich-quick periods like the Gilded Age and the California gold rush.

I put forward a number of parallels between those earlier periods and now, and suggest that the current fever is likely to end soon. This will come as a relief to those of you who, like me, deplore the regressive social policies, bellicose foreign relations, and coarsening of public taste that we have been living through-even if some of our more libertarian …

Front Matter

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Lawyers' Ethics In An Adversary System - Foreword: Like Gravity, Roy D. Simon

Hofstra Law Review

The adversary system, like gravity, affects us all. We cannot escape it. The adversary system, and the ethical standards of the lawyers who operate within the adversary system, therefore warrant continual study. ...

This issue collects nearly all of the papers delivered at the conference. Of equal interest, each paper is followed by a transcript of the fascinating exchanges that occurred between the speaker and members of the audience during a lengthy question and answer session after each speech.

Surrounding Embryos: Biology, Ideology And Politics, Janet L. Dolgin

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

This article considers several parameters of the late twentieth and early twenty-first-century debate in the U.S. about ethics, politics, science, and ideology (popularly referred to as the "culture wars"). The article focuses, in particular, on shifting understandings of the embryo. The article reviews developments in science (especially the advent of stem-cell research and cloning) that have affected understandings of embryo, the history of debate about abortion in the U.S., and the place of discourse about abortion in a more far-reaching social debate about family, personal relationships, and the scope of personhood in the U.S.

The Family Law Education Reform Project: Final Report, J. Herbie Difonzo, Mary E. O’Connell

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

The Family Law Education Reform Project (the FLER Project) was launched by a group of professionals who share a common concern. In their regular (for some, daily) interactions in the family court, they routinely observe lawyers who are woefully unprepared to make positive contributions on behalf of their clients. While some novice attorneys struggle valiantly and learn quickly, the quality of their initial preparation is, to use a term that surfaced often in FLER Project discussions, dismal. The question this group asked is “can we help the law schools to do this better?”

The Triage Trilemma, Steven Lubet

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Old Means To A Different End: The War On Terror, American Citizens... And The Treason Clause, Benjamin A. Lewis

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Henry Lord Brougham And Zeal, Monroe H. Freedman

Hofstra Law Review

In a recent article, Professors Fred Zacharias and Bruce Green undertook to "reconceptualize" advocacy ethics. In the course of that article, they rejected the ethic of zeal, and stated erroneously that Henry Lord Brougham had himself repudiated his famous statement on zealous advocacy.

Inspired by Brougham almost two centuries ago, the "traditional aspiration" of zealous advocacy remains "the fundamental principle of the law of lawyering" and "the dominant standard of lawyerly excellence" among lawyers today. To paraphrase the ABA's 1908 Canons of Professional Ethics, the ethic of zeal requires that the lawyer give entire devotion to the interests of the …

Timing Controversial Decisions, Cass R. Sunstein

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Remarks On The Installation Of Mark Movsesian As Max Schmertz Distinguished Professor Of Law, John O. Mcginnis

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Peril Invites Rescue: An Evolutionary Perspective, Bailey Kuklin

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Wide Open": Nevada's Innovative Market In Partnership Law, Allan W. Vestal

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Mackinnon's Dominance Feminism To Evaluate And Effectuate The Advancement Of Women Lawyers As Leaders Within Large Law Firms, Amanda J. Albert

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

End Matter

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Nature And Impact Of The "Tort Reform" Movement, F. Patrick Hubbard

Hofstra Law Review

For over thirty years, repeat players on the defense side of tort litigation have undertaken to "reform" tort doctrine in their favor. Initially, these efforts consisted of ad hoc efforts to address a series of "crises," primarily in terms of the cost and availability of liability insurance. In the 1980s, the tort reform movement began to develop a more permanent institutionalized approach to the push for "reform." Not surprisingly, there has been considerable debate about the goals of this movement, the fairness or efficiency of the specific doctrinal reforms it seeks, and the methods it uses. This Article places this …

The Case For Selective Abolition Of The Rules Of Evidence, David Crump

Hofstra Law Review

This article advocates selectively abolishing the exclusionary components in the Federal Rules of Evidence. Arguing that some parts of the existing rules cost more than the value of any benefits they provide, it is the author's position that the current system is sufficiently dysfunctional so as to make significant revisions in the Rules of Evidence worthwhile. The article examines the hearsay rule, the rules governing repetitive-behavior evidence, and issues regarding opinion evidence, experts, and authentication. The article proceeds to consider the rest of the FRE 400 series - particularly Rules 401 through 403 - and proposes modifications. Next, the article …

Bias In Direct-To-Consumer Advertising And Its Effect On Drug Safety, Marvin M. Lipman

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.