Law Commons^™

Analyzing The Potential For Universal Disarmament Of Autonomous Weapons Systems Or How I Learned To Stop Working And Love The Killer Robot, Frank Nicholas Kelly

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) have recently become the subject of debate among scholars, world leaders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the popular media. While the dangers of autonomous robotics have existed for decades in science fiction, technology has only recently made the implementation of robots capable of military combat a real possibility. With the advent of this technology, many government leaders, politicians, scientists, and business leaders are advancing the argument that just because autonomous weapons can exist does not mean they should. Some countries, however, have demonstrated a strong interest in the continued developing LAWS, making universal disarmament unlikely. This …

Integrating Machine Learning In Law: A Precis Of Best Practices For Initial Law Firm Adoption, J. Mark Phillips

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

Much of the mystery surrounding machine learning lays not just in how it functions, but in how it is applied. This is especially true in the field of law, where the implementation of artificial intelligence has lagged other fields. This précis distills best practices of machine learning implementation and applies them succinctly to the unique environment of law. Guiding principles and considerations are provided for the technology team, the nature of law firm data, and the commitment level of the adopting law firm.

The Infinite Legal Acumen Of An Artificial Mind: How Machine Learning Can Permanently Capture Legal Expertise And Optimize The Law Firm Pyramid, J. Mark Phillips

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

As the legal industry gradually integrates artificial intelligence (AI) into its practice, the underlying technology continues to advance at a fever pitch. Machine learning platforms arguably represent the pinnacle of AI development, and this technology currently augments and replicates intelligent human tasks in ways never before conceived. The business applications of machine learning are bearing fruit across a spectrum of industries and professions. Yet despite machine learning’s demonstrated promise, its forays into the legal industry have been uneven. In fact, the most advanced forms of machine learning have been relegated primarily to lower-level attorney tasks such as e-discovery, due-diligence, and …

Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Real Implications Of Blockchain In The Legal Industry, Justin Evans

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Crow Indian Tribe V. United States, Hallee Kansman

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The protection status of the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear continues to elicit debate and find its way into the courtroom. In Crow Indian Tribe v. United States, for the second time in the last decade, a court held the Service’s attempt to delist the Yellowstone Grizzly arbitrary and capricious. Specifically, the court found the Service’s evaluation of remnant populations, recalibration, and genetic health deficient. This case demonstrates the importance in and the resilient motivation behind preserving grizzly bear populations and genetics. As the practice of delisting a species under the Endangered Species Act continues, this case will provide important …

Evolving Autonomous Vehicle Technology And The Erosion Of Privacy, Raquel Toral

University of Miami Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bots, Bias And Big Data: Artificial Intelligence, Algorithmic Bias And Disparate Impact Liability In Hiring Practices, Mckenzie Raub

Arkansas Law Review

No abstract provided.

Populist Placemaking: Grounds For Open Government-Citizen Spatial Regulating Discourse, Michael N. Widener

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Google Perceives Customer Privacy, Cyber, E-Commerce, Political And Regulatory Compliance Risks, Lawrence J. Trautman

William & Mary Business Law Review

By now, almost every business has an Internet presence. What are the major risks perceived by those engaged in the universe of Internet businesses? What potential risks, if they become reality, may cause substantial increases in operating costs or threaten the very survival of the enterprise?

This Article discusses the relevant annual report disclosures from Alphabet, Inc. (parent of Google), along with other Google documents, as a potentially powerful teaching device. Most of the descriptive language to follow is excerpted directly from Alphabet’s (Google) regulatory filings. My additions about these entities include weaving their disclosure materials into a logical presentation …

Digital Gold: Cybersecurity Regulations And Establishing The Free Trade Of Big Data, Victoria Conrad

William & Mary Business Law Review

Data is everywhere. With more than ten billion Internetenabled devices worldwide, each day individuals create a flood of information that is transferred onto the Internet as big data. Businesses that have the resources to capture and utilize data can better understand their consumers, allowing for reinforcement of customer relationship management, improvements to the management of operational risk, and enhancement of overall firm performance. However, big data’s advantages come with high costs. The cost of organization and storage coupled with the fact that no legal principle allows for any sort of property rights in big data creates a “digital divide” between …

I, Copyright, Huson, Garrett

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

I, Copyright

“Fly Home Ye Ravens!”: How The Fcc’S Abandonment Of Broadband Regulation Will Harm Music Diversity, Batty, Luke

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

“Fly Home Ye Ravens!”: How the FCC’s Abandonment of Broadband Regulation Will Harm Music Diversity

From Bits To Atoms: Does The Open Source Software Model Translate To Open Source Hardware?, Beldiman, Dana

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

From Bits to Atoms: Does the Open Source Software Model

Translate to Open Source Hardware?

Unfair Misuse: How Section 512 Of The Dmca Allows Abuse Of The Copyright Fair Use Doctrine And How To Fix It, Matteson, Joel D.

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

Unfair Misuse: How Section 512 of the DMCA Allows Abuse of the Copyright Fair Use Doctrine and How to Fix It

Model(Ing) Privacy: Empirical Approaches To Privacy Law And Governance, Barrett, Lindsey

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

Model(ing) Privacy: Empirical Approaches to Privacy Law and Governance

Drones: Proposed Standards Of Liability, Harris, Kristopher-Kent ‘K-K’

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

Drones: Proposed Standards of Liability

The Biosimilar Patent Dance- If You Don't Dance You're No Friend Of Mine, Ladonnikov, Alexej

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

The Biosimilar Patent Dance- If You Don't Dance Your No Friend of Mine

Liability Issue Of Domestic Drones, Sehrawat, Vivek

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

Liability Issue of Domestic Drones

Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy: How A Government For The People, Failed The People, Jeffery Mark Sauer

University of Miami Law Review

Despite having the potential to significantly reduce the passage of many lethal diseases and devastating birth defects, mitochondrial replacement therapy—a controversial medical procedure in which mitochondrial RNA from a healthy female replaces the mitochondrial RNA from the intended mother in vitro—will have no place in the United States anytime soon. Under the guise of purported safety concerns and ethical dilemmas, the Republican Congress used its “power of the purse” to halt any and all research furthering mitochondrial replacement therapy, notwithstanding the fact that many leaders in the medical community have advocated for further research. Several developed countries have already implemented …

Western Organization Of Resource Councils V. United States Bureau Of Land Management, Seth Sivinski

Public Land & Resources Law Review

To what extent must the BLM analyze potential climate change impacts where millions of acres of public lands and federal mineral estates are being considered for coal development? Western Organization of Resource Councils v. BLM addresses this, setting the scope for NEPA-mandated environmental impact analysis and reasonable alternative consideration by federal agencies. Judge Brian Morris of the District of Montana eschewed BLM’s assertions that considering climate impacts would be speculative, instead requiring BLM to acknowledge scientific reality and include modern climate science in its NEPA review analysis.

Highway Culverts, Salmon Runs, And The Stevens Treaties: A Century Of Litigating Pacific Northwest Tribal Fishing Rights, Ryan Hickey

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Isaac Stevens, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs and Governor of Washington Territory, negotiated a series of treaties with Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest during 1854 and 1855. A century and a half later in 2001, the United States joined 21 Indian tribes in filing a Request for Determination in the United States District Court for the District of Washington. Plaintiffs alleged the State of Washington had violated those 150-year-old treaties, which remained in effect, by building and maintaining culverts under roads that prevented salmon passage. This litigation eventually reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which held in favor …

Collaboration Through Nepa: Achieving A Social License To Operate On Federal Public Lands, Temple Stoellinger, L. Steven Smutko, Jessica M. Western

Public Land & Resources Law Review

As demand and consumption of natural gas increases, so will drilling operations to extract the natural gas on federal public lands. Fueled by the shale gas revolution, natural gas drilling operations are now frequently taking place, not only in the highly documented urban settings, but also on federal public lands with high conservation value. The phenomenon of increased drilling in sensitive locations, both urban and remote, has sparked increased public opposition, requiring oil and gas producers to reconsider how they engage the public. Oil and gas producers have increasingly deployed the concept of a social license to operate to gain …

Public-Private Conservation Agreements And The Greater Sage-Grouse, Justin R. Pidot

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 2015, the Obama Administration announced its conservation plans for the greater sage-grouse, an iconic bird of the intermountain west.Political leadership at the time described those plans as the “largest landscape-level conservation effort in U.S. history,”and they served as the foundation for a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) that a listing of the bird was not warranted under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). The Trump Administration appears poised to substantially amend the plans, although an array of interested parties have urged that the plans be left intact. Regardless of the outcome of this debate, conservation of …

Streamlining The Production Of Clean Energy: Proposals To Reform The Hydroelectricity Licensing Process, Travis Kavulla, Laura Farkas

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Hydroelectric power is an efficient and clean source of power. In an era when air emissions dominate public concern about the environmental effects of the energy sector, it is a paradox that among the most highly regulated energy projects are hydroelectric dams, which do not combust fuel. This is partly due to a failure of successive statutory enactments,which have transformed hydroelectric licensing from a regulatory “one-stop shop” with a single regulator, to a process chained to a bewilderingnumber of often conflicting regulatory agencies, often riven with delay. Hydroelectric licensing has also failed because its capacious standard of review encourages special-interest …

Keeping Power In Charge: Federal Hydropower And The Downstream Environment, Reed D. Benson

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Language Matters: Environmental Controversy And The Quest For Common Ground, Scott Slovic

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Custom-Edited Dna: Legal Limits On The Patentability Of Crispr-Cas9'S Therapeutic Applications, Noah C. Chauvin

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Center For Biological Diversity V. Zinke, Ryan Hickey

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The oft-cited “arbitrary and capricious” standard revived the Center for Biological Diversity’s most recent legal challenge in its decades-long quest to see arctic grayling listed under the Endangered Species Act. While this Ninth Circuit decision did not grant grayling ESA protections, it did require the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its 2014 finding that listing grayling as threatened or endangered was unwarranted. In doing so, the court found “range,” as used in the ESA, vague while endorsing the FWS’s 2014 clarification of that term. Finally, this holding identified specific shortcomings of the challenged FWS finding, highlighting how …

Adapting Bartnicki V. Vopper To A Changing Tech Landscape: Rebalancing Free Speech And Privacy In The Smartphone Age, Andrew E. Levitt

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Friends Of Animals V. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, Bradley E. Tinker

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Friends of Animals v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, the Ninth Circuit held that the plain language of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act allows for the removal of one species of bird to benefit another species. Friends of Animals argued that the Service’s experiment permitting the taking of one species––the barred owl––to advance the conservation of a different species––the northern spotted owl––violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The court, however, found that the Act delegates broad implementing discretion to the Secretary of the Interior, and neither the Act nor the underlying international conventions limit the taking of …