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Full-Text Articles in Law

(In)Formal Marriage Equality, Michael Higdon Sep 2020

(In)Formal Marriage Equality, Michael Higdon

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

In 2015, same-sex couples throughout the United States obtained formal marriage equality. But is the prospective ability to obtain marriage licenses sufficient to achieve Obergefell’s promise of equality? What about individuals whose same-sex relationship did not survive — either through death or dissolution — to see marriage equality become the law of the land? Or those who did ultimately wed but now have a marriage that appears to be artificially short when considering just how long the couple has actually been together in a marriage-like relationship? With marriage benefits conditioned not only on the fact of marriage but also the …


Gut Renovations: Using Critical And Comparative Rhetoric To Remodel How The Law Addresses Privilege And Power, Lucille Jewel, Elizabeth Berenguer, Teri Mcmurtry-Chubb Jan 2020

Gut Renovations: Using Critical And Comparative Rhetoric To Remodel How The Law Addresses Privilege And Power, Lucille Jewel, Elizabeth Berenguer, Teri Mcmurtry-Chubb

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Treating Professionals Professionally: Requiring Security Of Position For All Skills-Focused Faculty Under Aba Accreditation Standard 405(C) And Eliminating 405(D), Lucille Jewel, J. Lyn Goering, Susie Salmon, Craig Smith, Kristen Robbins-Tiscione, Melissa Weresh Jan 2020

Treating Professionals Professionally: Requiring Security Of Position For All Skills-Focused Faculty Under Aba Accreditation Standard 405(C) And Eliminating 405(D), Lucille Jewel, J. Lyn Goering, Susie Salmon, Craig Smith, Kristen Robbins-Tiscione, Melissa Weresh

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

In 2014, the American Bar Association (ABA) decided to retain Accreditation Standard 405 in its current form to preserve tenure for law faculty as well as the status, security of position, governance rights, and academic freedom that tenure provides. In doing so, the ABA also preserved the long-standing hierarchy that elevates doctrine-focused faculty over skills-focused faculty. That hierarchy discriminates against skills-focused faculty, particularly those who specialize in legal writing--most of whom are women. This paper calls on the ABA to address this discrimination against skills-focused faculty and the negative effects it has on schools, faculty, and students. As explained in …


If You Grant It, They Will Come: The History And Enduring Legal Legacy Of Migratory Divorce, Michael Higdon Jan 2020

If You Grant It, They Will Come: The History And Enduring Legal Legacy Of Migratory Divorce, Michael Higdon

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Fifty years ago, California became the first state to enact no-fault divorce, making it easier than ever before for individuals to dissolve unsuccessful marriages. Soon every state would follow suit, and over the years much has been written about this national shift in the law of divorce. What has thus far escaped scrutiny, however, is one of the prime casualties of that switch—the phenomenon of migratory divorce. That failure is somewhat ironic given that, although no-fault divorce has existed for just over fifty years, migratory divorce played a prominent role in American legal history for well over a hundred years. …


Parens Patriae And The Disinherited Child, Michael Higdon Jan 2020

Parens Patriae And The Disinherited Child, Michael Higdon

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Most countries have safeguards in place to protect children from disinheritance. The United States is not one of them. Since its founding, America has clung tightly to the ideal of testamentary freedom, refusing to erect any barriers to a testator’s ability to disinherit his or her children—regardless of the child’s age or financial needs. Over the years, however, disinheritance has become more common given the evolving American family, specifically the increased incidences of divorce, remarriage, and cohabitation. Critics of the American approach have offered up solutions largely based on the two models currently employed by other countries: 1) the forced …


Review Of: The First: How To Think About Hate Speech, Campus Speech, Religious Speech, Fake News, Post-Truth, And Donald Trump, Rebecca Kite Jan 2020

Review Of: The First: How To Think About Hate Speech, Campus Speech, Religious Speech, Fake News, Post-Truth, And Donald Trump, Rebecca Kite

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


While They Waited: Pre-Obergefell Lives And The Law Of Nonmarriage, Michael Higdon Jul 2019

While They Waited: Pre-Obergefell Lives And The Law Of Nonmarriage, Michael Higdon

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

In the wake of Obergefell, the United States now has a large class of married, same-sex couples whose relationships began at a time when marriage was unavailable to them. The law must therefore wrestle with the question whether any portion of a pre-Obergefell relationship should count toward the length of the ensuing marriage — an important question given the number of marital benefits tied directly to this calculation. As courts and legislators alike wrestle with this difficult question, they will need to examine how these couples ordered their relationships during a time when “nonmarriage” was the only option. This Essay …


Entrepreneurial Law, Brian Krumm, George Kuney May 2019

Entrepreneurial Law, Brian Krumm, George Kuney

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

This text is designed to provide insight into the transactional legal needs of the entrepreneur. It is written to provide both business and law students with a foundational understanding of the doctrinal areas of the law that impact the entrepreneurial endeavor. Substantively, coverage begins with taking the entrepreneur from the initial business plan through choice of business entity and corporate governance considerations. It then moves to address the use, analysis, and drafting of transactional documents typically used in the conduct of business. This is followed by chapters covering applied intellectual property law and protection of intellectual property. Coverage concludes with …


Developing A Culturally Competent Legal Research Curriculum, Shamika Dalton, Clanitra Nejdl Apr 2019

Developing A Culturally Competent Legal Research Curriculum, Shamika Dalton, Clanitra Nejdl

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Defining Sustainable Business - Beyond Greenwashing, Becky Jacobs Jan 2019

Defining Sustainable Business - Beyond Greenwashing, Becky Jacobs

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Consumers are increasingly prioritizing the "sustainability" of their purchases, even when products labeled as "sustainable" sometimes are more expensive than their ostensibly unsustainable counterparts. Businesses have responded to this trend by promoting a wide range of fair trade and "sustainable" services and products, from items packed in bio-degradable, post-consumer recyclable paper to those supplied by companies seeking to reduce their carbon footprints, water use, paper consumption, and waste generation.There are not, however, agreed criteria for what makes a business "sustainable," nor is there a precise, authoritative definition of sustainability or of the products, practices, or services that the term includes …


Community Economic Development Is Access To Justice, Brian Krumm Jan 2019

Community Economic Development Is Access To Justice, Brian Krumm

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

What gaps exist in the justice system that result in a need for services provided by community economic development attorneys? What is the evidence that those gaps actually exist? How do we know that community economic development practitioners fill those gaps, and in what way? These are merely a few of the questions addressed in this collection.At the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) annual meeting in San Diego in January 2018, legal scholars gathered to discuss this evolution as part of the discussion group, “Community Economic Development Is Access to Justice.” The goal of the discussion group was to …


The Myth Of The Country Lawyer, Judy Cornett, Heather Bosau Jan 2019

The Myth Of The Country Lawyer, Judy Cornett, Heather Bosau

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Death In The Shadows, Lucille Jewel, Mary Campbell Jan 2019

Death In The Shadows, Lucille Jewel, Mary Campbell

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

This paper is about the law and visual culture. Its centerpiece is Parson Weems’ Fable (1939), a painting by the American artist Grant Wood (1891-1942) that depicts the apocryphal story of George Washington and the cherry tree. At first glance, Wood’s image appears to celebrate an enduring myth of American virtue, namely Washington’s precocious inability to tell a lie. Studying the picture more closely, however, one finds a pair of black figures, presumably two of the Washingtons’ slaves. Stationed beneath dark storm clouds and harvesting cherries from a second tree, these slaves invoke yet another national myth, that of the …


Hillbilly Atticus, Judy Cornett Jan 2019

Hillbilly Atticus, Judy Cornett

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

In his controversial memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance implicitly asserts a connection between the individual and his or her culture. Vance’s work rests on a number of premises. An individual is a product of a particular culture, and that culture defines the choices available to that individual. Therefore, understanding a person requires an understanding of the culture from which that person comes. Conversely, by looking at individuals within a given culture, we can define the culture and generalize its characteristics to other individuals within that culture. Although several commentators have pushed back against the latter proposition by pointing out that …


Biological Citizenship And The Children Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael Higdon Jan 2019

Biological Citizenship And The Children Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael Higdon

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not, consistent with the Due Process Clause, deny same-sex couples the right to marry. To allow otherwise, said the Court, would “harm and humiliate the children of same sex marriage.” Thus, it was hoped that marriage equality would provide greater security for the children of same-sex couples. And the need for such protections are increasingly important given that, with advances in assisted reproduction techniques, it is easier than ever for same-sex couples to become parents. Indeed, when it comes to procreation, same-sex marriages and opposite-sex marriages are becoming much more alike. …


A Quixotic Quest For Definition: Perceptions Of "Organic" And Implications For The Environment And For Market Participants, Becky Jacobs Jan 2019

A Quixotic Quest For Definition: Perceptions Of "Organic" And Implications For The Environment And For Market Participants, Becky Jacobs

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

We recently began a quest, Don Quixote-like, to determine the definition of “organic” food, or at least to assess how most consumers of organic food in the U.S. perceive that term to be defined. Our quest was inspired by a visit to a “sustainable” farm that was hosting a farm-to-table dining event. The crowd was large and enthusiastic; the meal was exceptional; and the farm setting was bucolic and impressive.In our conversations with the very capable farm owner, we were very surprised to learn that her products, mostly vegetables, were not certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). …


A "Case" Study In Legal Writing Pedagogy: Connecting Doctrine And Skills To Authentic Client Voices, Becky Jacobs Jan 2019

A "Case" Study In Legal Writing Pedagogy: Connecting Doctrine And Skills To Authentic Client Voices, Becky Jacobs

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Legal writing faculty have too little time to teach too many skills. To choices of deciding which skills to teach, how to teach those skills, and how much time to allocate to each skill." This brief essay will discuss one case, Epps v. Gober, that two instructors have found to be a veritable Swiss Army knife (nod to Tracy McGaugh), offering a range of versatile functions in the legal writing classroom.


Crypto-Concerns: A Cyberskeptic Looks For Weak Links In The Blockchain, Becky Jacobs Jan 2019

Crypto-Concerns: A Cyberskeptic Looks For Weak Links In The Blockchain, Becky Jacobs

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

In her article, “Beyond Bitcoin: Leveraging Blockchain to Benefit Business and Society,” Professor Weldon explores the potential of blockchain technology to transform corporate governance and risk management and to promote the principles of transparency that animate various mandatorydisclosure regimes.I too am very excited by blockchain’s potential to revolutionize and make more transparent many business practices, but I also have some, pun intended, crypto-concerns. I admit that these concerns are based upon Blockchain technology interacts with the law in a number ofcontexts, corporate governance being one (as well as copyright and other IP, tax, antitrust, securities regulation, banking, criminal, corporate, maritime, …


Regulatory Policy In The Trump Era And Its Impact On Innovation, Brian Krumm Jan 2019

Regulatory Policy In The Trump Era And Its Impact On Innovation, Brian Krumm

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the strength of the United States economy has been driven largely by the ability of Americans to innovate.1 Beyond macro-economic growth, innovation increases per capita income and improves standards of living and quality of life.2 Furthermore, innovation begets innovation. As companies within a market innovate, pressure is placed on their competitors to innovate as well in order to protect profitability and market share. For most of the last half century, the United States boasted the strongest intellectual property system3 and was called home by the most innovative companies in the world.4 However, in the last five …


Does The Reasonable Man Have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?, Lucille Jewel Jan 2019

Does The Reasonable Man Have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?, Lucille Jewel

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

The reasonable man is an anthropomorphic metaphor for legal reasoning. In this role, he sometimes shows symptoms of mental illness. He exhibits a compulsion to organize, rank, and prevent disorder, a process that can create unjust outcomes. When he is symptomatic, the reasonable man becomes a monster borne out of a fear of disorder. As the putative judge whom all lawyers write and speak in front of, the reasonable man is the reader attorneys fine-tune their arguments and language for. After developing a case history for the reasonable man, this Article engages with several questions. First, when advocates emulate the …


Minimizing And Addressing Microaggressions In The Workplace: Be Proactive, Part Two, Shamika Dalton, Michele Villagran Nov 2018

Minimizing And Addressing Microaggressions In The Workplace: Be Proactive, Part Two, Shamika Dalton, Michele Villagran

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Minimizing And Addressing Implicit Bias In The Workplace: Be Proactive, Part One, Shamika Dalton, Michele Villagran Oct 2018

Minimizing And Addressing Implicit Bias In The Workplace: Be Proactive, Part One, Shamika Dalton, Michele Villagran

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Librarians and information professionals cannot hide from bias: a prejudice for or against something, someone, or a group. As human beings, we all have biases. However, implicit biases are ones that affect us in an unconscious manner. Awareness of our implicit biases, and how they can affect our colleagues and work environment, is critical to promoting an inclusive work environment. Part one of this two-part article series will focus on implicit bias: what is implicit bias, how these biases affect the work environment, and best practices for reducing these biases within recruitment, hiring, and retention in the library workplace.


Publishing Basics: How To Get Started & Where To Begin Jul 2018

Publishing Basics: How To Get Started & Where To Begin

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Tips for first-time writers looking to get published.


The Future Of Law Practice: Fresh Models Of Lawyering, Technologies And Business, Benjamin Barton Mar 2018

The Future Of Law Practice: Fresh Models Of Lawyering, Technologies And Business, Benjamin Barton

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


What Can Students Teach Each Other, Brian Krumm, Willow Tracy, Stacey Bowers Jan 2018

What Can Students Teach Each Other, Brian Krumm, Willow Tracy, Stacey Bowers

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Foreword: A Rot In Heaven: A Powerful Investigative Partnership, The Opioid Crisis, Pill Profits, And A Pulitzer Prize, Becky Jacobs Jan 2018

Foreword: A Rot In Heaven: A Powerful Investigative Partnership, The Opioid Crisis, Pill Profits, And A Pulitzer Prize, Becky Jacobs

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

In the spring of 2018, the Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy hosted the "Healing Appalachia: The Role of Professionals in Solving the Opioid Crisis" symposium. This Foreword pays tribute to the symposium’s keynote speakers, journalist Eric Eyre and WVU College of Law faculty member Pat McGinley. Eric, with the support of Pat, Suzanne Weise, another WVU faculty member, and others, uncovered the shocking data that appeared in a series of articles that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. It also introduces the symposium program, provides a summary of the more than 400 lawsuits pending against corporations that …


Aall 2018 Implicit Bias In Legal Research Instruction Handout, Shamika Dalton, Raquel Gabriel, Clanitra Nejdl, Michelle Rigual Jan 2018

Aall 2018 Implicit Bias In Legal Research Instruction Handout, Shamika Dalton, Raquel Gabriel, Clanitra Nejdl, Michelle Rigual

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Aall 2018 Implicit Bias In Legal Research Instruction Powerpoint, Shamika Dalton, Michelle Rigual, Clanitra Nejdl, Raquel Gabriel Jan 2018

Aall 2018 Implicit Bias In Legal Research Instruction Powerpoint, Shamika Dalton, Michelle Rigual, Clanitra Nejdl, Raquel Gabriel

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

A growing body of research studies shows that implicit biases based on race and other minority status play a role in student perceptions, behaviors, and teacher evaluation outcomes. Across the country, persons of color are enduring unique legal challenges, including racial profiling, police brutality, racial gerrymandering, and the threat of deportation. In this context, the continued use in legal research instruction of race-neutral "Jack and Jill" client names and traditional, noncontroversial hypotheticals misses an important opportunity to address these topics.Considering the obligations and responsibilities of legal research instructors to develop culturally competent lawyers, the first portion of the program will …


Constitutional Parenthood, Michael Higdon Jan 2018

Constitutional Parenthood, Michael Higdon

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Despite having recognized the constitutional rights of parents almost a hundred years ago, the Supreme Court has not weighed in on the subject of who qualifies as a “parent” under the Fourteenth Amendment in thirty years. In light of the Court’s silence, the states have been forced to individually grapple with the issue of constitutional parenthood — a task made exponentially more difficult by the fact that the last thirty years have ushered in an avalanche of change when it comes to the American family. With such societal changes as advances in assisted reproduction, the legalization of same-sex marriage, and …


The Quasi-Parent Conundrum, Michael Higdon Jan 2018

The Quasi-Parent Conundrum, Michael Higdon

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Although family law is very much concerned with legal parentage and its attendant rights, children are much more concerned with maintaining relationships with those who care for them, regardless of whether that person is a legal parent or merely someone functioning as one. What happens though if the child’s legal parent attempts to banish the quasi-parent from the child’s life? Doing so can be extremely damaging to the child. Nonetheless, parents do possess a constitutional right to make decisions about how to rear their children, including who may have access to the child. Trying to strike a balance between protecting …