Digital Commons Network^™

Maccrate (In)Action: The Case For Enhancing The Upper-Level Writing Requirement In Law Schools, Kenneth D. Chestek

Faculty Articles

In 2001 the American Bar Association amended the Standards for Accreditation of Law Schools to require for the first time a rigorous writing experience after the first year During the summer of 2004 the author conducted a nationwide survey to determine how law schools responded to this change The author found that most schools did little more than to require students to take at least one course which was evaluated by means of an academic paper rather than an examination The author concludes that this is probably not the response the ABA had hoped for but suggests that a 2005 …

Beyond Abstraction: The Law And Economics Of Copyright Scope And Doctrinal Efficiency, Matthew Sag

Faculty Articles

Uncertainty as to the optimum extent of protection generally limits the capacity of law and economics to translate economic theory into coherent doctrinal recommendations in the realm of copyright. This Article explores the relationship between copyright scope, doctrinal efficiency, and welfare from a theoretical perspective to develop a framework for evaluating specific doctrinal recommendations in copyright law.

The usefulness of applying this framework in either rejecting or improving doctrinal recommendations is illustrated with reference to the predominant law and economics theories of fair use. The metric-driven analysis adopted in this Article demonstrates the general robustness of the market-failure approach to …

Academic Discourse And Proprietary Rights: Putting Patents In Their Proper Place, Margo A. Bagley

Faculty Articles

This Article provides a fresh perspective on the Bayh-Dole debate by focusing on the impact of patent novelty rules on academic discourse. The Article proposes that to begin to reverse an observed deterioration in disclosure norms, flexibilities must be built into the patent system so that patents can be facilitators of the academic knowledge dissemination enterprise. In particular, the Article advocates creation of an opt-in extended grace period that would provide more time for academic researchers to publish and present early-stage research before having to file a patent application. Such an extension, coupled with early application publication, would both address …

The Intimacy Discount: Prosecutorial Discretion, Privacy, And Equality In The Statutory Rape Caseload, Kay L. Levine

Faculty Articles

This Article proceeds as follows. It begins in Part I by presenting the structural and case-based factors that scholars have identified as relevant to prosecutorial decision-making in the United States. Part II considers the existing social science research documenting the relationship between intimacy and criminal Justice treatment. Part III explains the empirical study of California prosecutors on which this Article's data and conclusions are based. After introducing California's statutory rape prosecution program in Part IV, the Article describes in Part V how the program's underlying rationale led to the development and deployment of prosecutorial assessments of intimacy and exploitation in …

The Law Is Not The Case: Incorporating Empirical Methods Into The Culture Of Case Analysis, Kay L. Levine

Faculty Articles

While I consider case analysis in the context of cultural defense jurisprudence, this Essay should be regarded as a case study of a more endemic problem in legal scholarship. In tackling such an area, my goal is not to overthrow centuries of legal analysis, but rather to explore how we, as legal scholars, might use social science techniques to more systematically investigate, document, analyze, and predict the state of a particular comer of the legal universe.

The argument proceeds in two parts. Part II considers empirical approaches to the question raised by Lee: how might we ascertain the relationship between …

Wireless Canopies?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Rules Of Thumb, Or Derots, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

It Costs How Much? Estimating The Costs To Design And Develop A Distance Delivered Course, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

And Finally … If It Is Intellectual, Can It Be Property?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Carol Twigg, executive director of the Center for Academic Transformation, has written and spoken extensively in the area of intellectual property and ownership of online courses and course materials. A reading of the abstract of her excellent monograph Intellectual Property Policies for a New Learning Environment is a requirement for any serious distance educator (Twigg, 2000). It is wellwritten, informative, and thought-provoking.

Design Based Research Applications For Distance Education, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Bloom’S Taxonomy Utilized To Develop Differentiated Instruction In A Heterogeneous Classroom, David B. Ross

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Growing By Degrees: Latest Report Of The Sloan, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Teaching Courses Online: A Challenge For The Field, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The 50% Rule: Going Away: A Challenge For The Field, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Framing Effects And Regulatory Choice, Jonathan R. Nash

Faculty Articles

This Article proceeds as follows. First, in Part I, I describe the contributions of behavioral law and economics literature, and then focus on the notion of framing effects. In Part II, I provide an overview of the regulatory tools generally available to environmental regulators. In Part III, I elucidate the "right to pollute" and "commodification" critiques as applied to environmental regulation. In Part IV, I analyze the economically proper scope of the "right to pollute" and "commodification" critiques with respect to environmental regulatory instruments. In Part V, I first describe the differing frames of various environmental regulatory tools. I then …

Deconstructing The Mythology Of Free Trade: Critical Reflections On Comparative Advantage, Carmen Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

The theory of comparative advantage serves as the theoretical justification for the neoliberal economic reforms promoted by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and multilateral and regional free trade agreements. This article employs insights from both neoclassical and heterodox economics in order to critique the theory of comparative advantage as applied to the agricultural sector. In particular, the article takes aim at the illusory notion that eliminating distortions in international agricultural trade caused by the lavish agricultural subsidies of wealthy nations will be sufficient to “level the playing field” and promote prosperity in both developed and developing countries. The …

The Adventures Of Blackness In Western Culture: An Epistolary Exchange On Old And New Identity Wars, Robert S. Chang, Adrienne D. Davis

Faculty Articles

Through a series of letters, Professors Robert Chang and Adrienne Davis examine the politics of positionality in law and literary criticism. They use the scholarly debates and conversations around critical race theory and feminist legal theory as a starting point to formulate some thoughts about Critical Race Feminism ("CRF") and its future. The authors use the epistolary form as a literary device to allow them to collaborate on this project while maintaining their own voices. Thus, the letters are not dated. The letters pay particular attention to various border crossings: male attempts to engage in feminist literary criticism, white attempts …

The Principled Executioner: Capital Juries’ Bias And The Benefits Of True Bifurcation, Susan D. Rozelle

Faculty Articles

Capital jurors are "death-qualified," or asked to verify at voir dire that their views on the death penalty would not prevent them from serving impartially. Ironically, death qualification itself creates juries unfairly biased toward guilt and death. Empirical investigation has demonstrated this skewing effect for over fifty years, and with the release of the recent Capital Jury Project data, any doubts on this score surely have been laid to rest. Efforts to ameliorate death qualification's prosecutorial bias have been hamstrung, however, by statutory unitary jury requirements like the one found in the Federal Death Penalty Act. Statutes like these, which …

Intellectual Property And The Development Divide, Margaret Chon

Faculty Articles

This article attempts to map the challenges raised by recent encounters between intellectual property and development. It proposes a normative principle of global intellectual property - one that is responsive to development paradigms that have moved far beyond simple utilitarian measures of social welfare. Recent insights from the field of development economics suggest strongly that intellectual property should include a substantive equality principle, measuring its welfare-generating outcomes not only by economic growth but also by distributional effects. A new principle of substantive equality is a necessary corollary to the formal equality principles of national treatment and minimum standards that are …

The Entrepreneur And The Theory Of The Modern Corporation, Charles O'Kelley

Faculty Articles

The foremost description of the classic entrepreneur, immediately prior to the Great Depression and now, was presented by Frank Knight in his seminal work, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit. In this Article, I will explicate Knight's theory of the entrepreneur and show how it relates to both the Berle-Means Paradigm and the nexus-of-contracts theory of the corporation. My effort here is in part intellectual history and in part the tentative beginnings of a new positive account of the corporation. In the latter regard, this Article takes only the first step in what may prove a quite exhaustive effort to re-plow the …

Linguistics As A Knowledge Domain In The Law, Janet Ainsworth

Faculty Articles

This article focuses on the use of linguistic expertise by trial courts to aid in fact-finding. It identifies many of the ways the legal system has been enriched by donations from linguistic scholarship. In addition, it discusses the underutilized-at-present use of linguistic knowledge by appellate courts as a tool for crafting and applying doctrinal rules. Whereas courts have adopted economics analysis in determining appropriate legal rules, linguistic science has been neglected. Linguistic predictions are more testable and falsifiable than economic predictions. Linguistic research can be useful—particularly in the areas of comprehensibility of texts and resolving textual ambiguity. Indeed, legislatures and …

The Court Against The Courts: Hostility To Litigation As An Organizing Theme In The Rehnquist Court’S Jurisprudence, Andrew Siegel

Faculty Articles

Previous commentators on the Rehnquist Court's history, seeking an overarching explanation for the Court's cases, have focused their attention primarily on a revitalized "federalism," an agenda-driven "conservatism," and a constitutionally fixated "judicial supremacy." While each of these themes is undoubtedly present in the Court's later jurisprudence, this article argues that one cannot understand the Rehnquist Court's complicated intellectual matrix without taking account of its profound hostility towards the institution of litigation and its concomitant skepticism as to ability of litigation to function as a mechanism for organizing social relations and collectively administering justice. The article takes a pointillist approach, commenting …

Whose Job Is It Anyway?: Governmental Obligations Created By The Human Right To Water, Amy Hardberger

Faculty Articles

The importance of water is difficult to quantify, but because it is necessary for survival, it deserves recognition as a human right. Although the right to water has received considerable attention, it has not yet achieved the status of customary international law.

If the human right to water becomes an accepted norm of international law, there could be differing consequences for governments. A human right is enforceable by a citizen against her government by investigating intragovernmental responsibilities in different contexts, including times of peace and more complicated relationships, such as those created in times of conflict or belligerent occupation. Different …

Life In The Early Days Of Lawyer Advertising: Personal Recollections Of A Bates Baby, Gerald S. Reamey

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court decision in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona ruled that lawyer advertising is commercial speech subject to First Amendment protection. However, a Texas disciplinary statute provided that “a lawyer shall not publicize himself, his partner, or associate…through newspaper or magazine advertisements, radio or television announcements…or other means of commercial publicity.” Despite being clearly unconstitutional, the Texas statute remained law for five years. Finally, responding to Bates in September 1977, the Texas State Bar Board of Directors adopted an official statement which allowed for limited advertising in newspapers, and only to the extent which was provided for by …

Texas Annual Survey: Securities Regulation, George Lee Flint Jr

Faculty Articles

The definitions, especially those relating to the issues of what constitutes a security, who may recover, and the territorial reach, determine the scope of the securities acts. The Fifth Circuit issued one decision concerning standing to sue under section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933.

The State Securities Board amended its form for public information charges and billing detail to reflect current fees for public information established by the Texas Building and Procedures Commission. The Board adopted new rules reorganizing the exemption for sales to financial institutions and certain institutional investors under the Texas Securities Act (“TSA”) and reconsidered …

Terrorism Law, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Faculty Articles

The hard reality is that the United States has declared war on a tactic—terror. The nation must accept lawful force as the only tool that will allow us to win the war against our enemy. The “War on Terror” is unlike anything the people of the United States have seen or fought before. The issue is: Are we at war, or is this simply a metaphor like the “war on drugs” or the “war on poverty?” The Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush was the first legal document that began to answer this inquiry. The 2006 Military …

The Court Against The Courts: Hostility To Litigation As An Organizing Theme In The Rehnquist Court’S Jurisprudence, Andrew Siegel

Faculty Articles

Previous commentators on the Rehnquist Court's history, seeking an overarching explanation for the Court's cases, have focused their attention primarily on a revitalized 'federalism, " an agenda-driven "conservatism," and a constitutionally fixated 'Judicial supremacy." While each of these themes is undoubtedly present in the Court's later jurisprudence, this Article argues that one cannot understand the Rehnquist Court's complicated intellectual matrix without taking account of its profound hostility toward the institution of litigation and its concomitant skepticism as to the ability of litigation to function as a mechanism for organizing social relations and collectively administering justice. The article takes a pointillist …

The H’Aint In The (School) House: The Interest Convergence Paradigm In State Legislatures And School Finance Reform, Bryan Adamson

Faculty Articles

The purpose of this essay is to examine recent school funding litigation to illuminate the interest convergence paradigm, using the school finance reform controversy in Ohio as an example. Part I describes how the school finance reform debate is an extension of our nation's desegregation history. Part II looks at the school funding controversy in Ohio, highlighting legislator and citizen attitudes toward school finance litigation and public school funding along racial and geographic lines. Part III identifies six interests which emerge in the school funding dispute, arguing that these interests must be taken into account by legislators in crafting school …

January 1, 2003: The Birth Of The Unpublished Public Domain And Its International Implications, Elizabeth Townsend-Gard

Faculty Articles

On January 1, 2003, a small, quiet historic transformation took place throughout the United States: unpublished works in mass came into the public domain for the first time. Section 302 of the 1976 Copyright Act created a unified system of duration, whereby unpublished and published works carry a term of life of the author plus seventy years. In order to aid with a transition from a state common law perpetual system to a "limited Times" federal statutory system, the 1976 Copyright Act built two mechanisms for change in the form of Section 303(a). First, Section 303(a) guarantees that no work …

Policy, Logic, And Persuasion In The Evolving Realm Of Trust Asset Protection, John K. Eason

Faculty Articles

The concept of using legal structures to protect property from those who might otherwise have some claim to it is an idea with deep roots. The trust device is one such legal structure, and its evolution as an asset protection device has not been without controversy. The recent and noticeable break with the traditional denial of self-settled trust protections is one such area of modern controversy, but not the only notable recent development. The self-setted asset protection trust movement is accompanied by the recent completion of two major law reform projects. The drafting and recommendation for state adoption of a …