Law Commons^™

Commentary, Session 1: Deciding To Become A Dean, Linda L. Ammons

Linda L. Ammons

Deciding to become a dean is a difficult decision. How do you know when you are ready and how do you need to prepare? Mentorship, leadership skills, risk-taking, vision, and energy are just some of the attributes needed by deans in today’s law school environment.

Constitutional Law: 2008 Annual Report, James R. May

James R. May

No abstract provided.

The Synergy Of Toxic Tort Law And Public Health: Lessons From A Century Of Cigarettes, Jean M. Eggen

Jean M. Eggen

Toxic torts is a relatively new area of the law, but its seeds were sown a century ago with developments in modern culture. The design, manufacture, and marketing of the cigarette constituted one such development, one with far-reaching legal consequences which continue to challenge the legal system today. This article is built around Allan M. Brandt's 2007 public health history of cigarettes, THE CIGARETTE CENTURY. It uses Brandt's book as a stepping stone to a broader discussion of current critical issues in toxic tort law. The article begins with a review of the book, then moves into a discussion of …

Peace: A Public Purpose For Punitive Damages?, Symposium: Punitive Damages, Due Process, And Deterrence: The Debate After Philip Morris V. Williams, Christopher J. Robinette

Christopher J Robinette

Introduction, Crimtorts Symposium, Christopher J. Robinette

Christopher J Robinette

Establishing Separate Criminal And Civil Evidence Codes, John J. Capowski

John J. Capowski

Immigration Enforcement And Federalism After September 11, 2001, Anil Kalhan

Anil Kalhan

In recent years, the U.S. federal government has aggressively sought to involve state and local government institutions more extensively and directly in the day-to-day regulation of immigration status and the interior enforcement of federal immigration laws. In this chapter, I discuss two sets of these initiatives - the efforts to involve state and local police in routine immigration enforcement and the development of federal issuance and eligibility standards for state driver's licenses - in order to explore the ways in which these developments may challenge conventional assumptions about the relationships between state and local governments and their non-U.S. citizen residents. …

Fourth Amendment Protection For Stored E-Mail, Susan Freiwald, Patricia L. Bellia

Susan Freiwald

The question of whether and how the Fourth Amendment regulates government access to stored e-mail remains open and pressing. A panel of the Sixth Circuit recently held in Warshak v. United States, 490 F.3d 455 (6th Cir. 2007), that users generally retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in the e-mails they store with their Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which implies that government agents must generally acquire a warrant before they may compel ISPs to disclose their users' stored e-mails. The Sixth Circuit, however, is reconsidering the case en banc. This Article examines the nature of stored e-mail surveillance and argues …

Electronic Surveillance At The Virtual Border, Susan Freiwald

Susan Freiwald

A virtual border divides people into two groups: those subject to the Fourth Amendment’s protections when the U.S. government conducts surveillance of their communications and those who are not. The distinction derives from a separation in powers: inside the virtual border, U.S. citizens and others enjoy the extensive oversight of the judiciary of executive branch surveillance. Judges review such surveillance before, during, and after it transpires. Foreign persons subject to surveillance in foreign countries fall within the executive branch’s’ foreign affairs function. However, the virtual border does not exactly match the physical border of the United States. Some people inside …

When Religious Practices Become Legal Obligations: Extending The Foreign Compulsion Defense, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

The purpose of this article is to fashion a religious compulsion defense as an outgrowth of the legally recognized foreign compulsion defense. Contra the rationale advanced in Employment Division v. Smith, the article argues that the rationale behind the foreign compulsion defense - to protect individuals from conflicting legal norms of competing legal systems - should also apply to situations where religious law and United States law collide. In adopting the criteria of the foreign compulsion defense, a religious compulsion defense would extract individuals from conflicts of law, protecting individuals in the throes of the most intractable of dilemmas.

Mutual Funds, Hedge Funds, And The Public-Private Dichotomy In A Macrosociological Framework For Law, Larry D. Barnett

Larry D Barnett

Macrosociology considers law to be one of the institutions of society and, hence, a fundamental component of a social system. Four macrosociological propositions underlie the instant paper: (i) the institutions comprising a social system are, in the long term, compatible with one another; (ii) the compatibility of institutions involves, inter alia, concepts that are similar or identical across at least some institutions; (iii) the concepts and doctrines of the institution of law manifest the properties, including the central values, of the social system; and (iv) the properties of the social system are fashioned by system-level forces. Because the propositions are …

Legal Services Support Centers And Rebellious Advocacy: A Case Study Of The Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Bill Ong Hing

Bill Ong Hing

Public interest lawyers and clinical law faculty are quite familiar with the strategies of rebellious or collaborative lawyering set forth forcefully by scholars such as Gerald López, Lucie White, and most recently Ascanio Piomelli. Some of the principles include educating clients and communities to support resistance; opening ourselves to being educated by clients, communities, and allies; respecting and not subordinating our clients; collaborating with clients and allies; recognizing that collaborative advocacy can lead to extremely challenging battles; and understanding that the rebellious style involves integrating and navigating many worlds. These principles have been adopted by those aspiring to practice in …