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Full-Text Articles in Law

A Fresh Start: Surveillance Tech And The Modern Law Firm, Titus R. Willis Mar 2021

A Fresh Start: Surveillance Tech And The Modern Law Firm, Titus R. Willis

Duke Law & Technology Review

The legal community is rapidly evolving: firms are more beholden to clients than ever, associates are growing more competitive with one another, and younger firm employees are more willing than ever to subject themselves to surveillance from their employers. These evolutions come alongside a boom in surveillance technology. Tech companies now provide services that can track every keystroke a lawyer makes on a company computer, analyze the content of their computer screens, or even develop algorithms to measure employee productivity. How does the modern law firm respond to these new technologies? How do they weigh their obligations to clients with …


Judging Risk, Brandon L. Garrett, John Monahan Jan 2020

Judging Risk, Brandon L. Garrett, John Monahan

Faculty Scholarship

Risk assessment plays an increasingly pervasive role in criminal justice in the United States at all stages of the process, from policing, to pre-trial, sentencing, corrections, and during parole. As efforts to reduce incarceration have led to adoption of risk-assessment tools, critics have begun to ask whether various instruments in use are valid and whether they might reinforce rather than reduce bias in criminal justice outcomes. Such work has neglected how decisionmakers use risk-assessment in practice. In this Article, we examine in detail the judging of risk assessment and we study why decisionmakers so often fail to consistently use such …


Fiduciary Duties On The Temporal Edges Of Agency Relationships, Deborah A. Demott Jan 2019

Fiduciary Duties On The Temporal Edges Of Agency Relationships, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

The duties that principals and agents owe each other are typically coterminous with the agency relationship itself. But sometimes temporal lines of clean demarcation do less work. The Chapter identifies situations in which an agent may owe duties—including fiduciary duties—to the principal prior to the formal start of their relationship, including any enforceable contract between the parties. Likewise, not all duties that agents and principals owe each other end with the relationship. The Chapter explores the rationales for duties at the temporal peripheries for an agency relationship and the extent to which they are derived from doctrines distinct from agency …


A General Defense Of Erie Railroad Co. V. Tompkins, Ernest A. Young Jan 2013

A General Defense Of Erie Railroad Co. V. Tompkins, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins was the most important federalism decision of the Twentieth Century. Justice Brandeis’s opinion for the Court stated unequivocally that “[e]xcept in matters governed by the Federal Constitution or by acts of Congress, the law to be applied in any case is the law of the state. . . . There is no federal general common law.” Seventy-five years later, however, Erie finds itself under siege. Critics have claimed that it is “bereft of serious intellectual or constitutional support” (Michael Greve), based on a “myth” that must be “repressed” (Craig Green), and even “the worst decision …


Book Review, Ralf Michaels Jan 2013

Book Review, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Private Lawyer In Disguise? On The Absence Of Private Law And Private International Law In Martti Koskenniemi’S Work, Ralf Michaels Jan 2013

Private Lawyer In Disguise? On The Absence Of Private Law And Private International Law In Martti Koskenniemi’S Work, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Apologies In The Healthcare System: From Clinical Medicine To Public Health, Michal Alberstein, Nadav Davidovitch Jul 2011

Apologies In The Healthcare System: From Clinical Medicine To Public Health, Michal Alberstein, Nadav Davidovitch

Law and Contemporary Problems

Alberstein and Davidovitch explore the role of apologies in healthcare systems from a broader perspective. The significance of apology in terms of social solidarity is addressed and the ways in which each apology situation entails a clash between cultural identities are demonstrated. The debate on apology is explored by presenting a public health perspective of apologies following collective traumatic events such as the application of sterilization laws or flawed human experimentations in various settings.


Escaping The Shadow Of Malpractice Law, Orna Rabinovich-Einy Jul 2011

Escaping The Shadow Of Malpractice Law, Orna Rabinovich-Einy

Law and Contemporary Problems

Abinovich-Einy addresses several constituencies operating at the meeting point of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), communication theory, healthcare policy, and medical-malpractice doctrine. From an ADR perspective, the need for, and barriers to, addressing non-litigable disputes, for which the "alternative" route is the only one, is explored. It is shown that ADR mechanisms may not take root when introduced into an environment that is resistant to collaborative and open discourse without additional incentives and measures being adopted.


Law For The Common Man: An Individual-Level Theory Of Values, Expanded Rationality, And The Law , Amir N. Licht Apr 2011

Law For The Common Man: An Individual-Level Theory Of Values, Expanded Rationality, And The Law , Amir N. Licht

Law and Contemporary Problems

This article makes an admittedly bold attempt at outlining an analytical framework for addressing this question. Instead of looking at the legal implications of bounded rationality -- an exercise highly worthy in its own right -- this article advances a theory of expanded rationality. This theory retains the element of rationality in that people respond to incentives in an attempt to attain utility, and it does not question the observation that decision-making is often bounded due to various factors.


The Durham Statement Two Years Later: Open Access In The Law School Journal Environment, Richard A. Danner, Kelly Leong, Wayne V. Miller Jan 2011

The Durham Statement Two Years Later: Open Access In The Law School Journal Environment, Richard A. Danner, Kelly Leong, Wayne V. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

The Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship, drafted by a group of academic law library directors, was promulgated in February 2009. It calls for two things: (1) open access publication of law school–published journals; and (2) an end to print publication of law journals, coupled with a commitment to keeping the electronic versions available in “stable, open, digital formats.” The two years since the Statement was issued have seen increased publication of law journals in openly available electronic formats, but little movement toward all-electronic publication. This article discusses the issues raised by the Durham Statement, the current state …


Defining International Law Librarianship In An Age Of Multiplicity, Knowledge, And Open Access To Law, Richard A. Danner Jan 2011

Defining International Law Librarianship In An Age Of Multiplicity, Knowledge, And Open Access To Law, Richard A. Danner

Faculty Scholarship

Many law librarians are experts in international law and legal research. The concept of ‘international law librarianship’, however, encompasses something more than a field of study in which a group of experts practise their profession. In the broader sense, the idea suggests a common calling, similar interests, and goals shared by librarians with a range of specialties beyond international law, working in all types of law libraries. What commonalities create and sustain the concept of international law librarianship? This paper suggests that they can be found in: law librarians’ common need to respond to the ‘multiplicity’ of information sources facing …


The Functionalism Of Legal Origins, Ralf Michaels Jan 2011

The Functionalism Of Legal Origins, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

This article, written on request for the centennial issue of Ius Commune Europaeum, connects the economic literature on legal origins (La Porta et al) and the World Bank's Doing Business reports with discussions in comparative law about the functional method. It finds that a number of parallels and similarities exist, and that much of the criticism that has been voiced against functionalism should apply, mutates mutants, also to these more recent projects. The attraction that these projects have derive not, it is argued, from their methodological sophistication, but instead from "the strange lure of economics" and from the ostentatious objectivity …


Irreconcilable Differences? The Troubled Marriage Of Science And Law, Susan Haack Jan 2009

Irreconcilable Differences? The Troubled Marriage Of Science And Law, Susan Haack

Law and Contemporary Problems

There haven't always been scientific witnesses: in fact, there haven't always been witnesses. In early medieval times, courts relied on tests by oath, ordeal, and sometimes by combat. Here, Haack provides a brief historical background to the use of scientific experts in law and then proceeds to discuss in greater detail the values underlying scientific inquiry, the uncertainty in the quest of knowledge and understanding, and the methods by which consensus is reached, even if that consensus is always tentative. She then contrasts scientific inquiry with the law's quest for "truth" in the courtroom and, particularly, the normative and temporal …


How Does Science Come To Speak In The Courts? Citations Intertexts, Expert Witnesses, Consequential Facts, And Reasoning, Charles Bazerman Jan 2009

How Does Science Come To Speak In The Courts? Citations Intertexts, Expert Witnesses, Consequential Facts, And Reasoning, Charles Bazerman

Law and Contemporary Problems

Citations, in their highly conventionalized forms, visibly indicate each texts explicit use of the prior literature that embodies the knowledge and contentions of its field. This relation to prior texts has been called intertextuality in literary and literacy studies. Here, Bazerman discusses the citation practices and intertextuality in science and the law in theoretical and historical perspective, and considers the intersection of science and law by identifying the judicial rules that limit and shape the role of scientific literature in court proceedings. He emphasizes that from the historical and theoretical analysis, it is clear that, in the US, judicial reasoning …


Rethinking Visitation: From A Parental To A Relational Right, Ayelet Blecher-Prigat Jan 2009

Rethinking Visitation: From A Parental To A Relational Right, Ayelet Blecher-Prigat

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

[...] visitation rights are considered to arise from the very fact of parenthood, so that parents are entitled to this right simply by being legally recognized as parents. [...] visitation rights are subject to the general rule of parental exclusivity: only a child's legal parents have rights considered parental, and non-parents cannot acquire them.


In The Wake Of Ledbetter V. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company: Applying The Discovery Rule To Determine The Start Of The Limitations Period For Pay Discrimination Claims, Nancy Zisk Jan 2009

In The Wake Of Ledbetter V. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company: Applying The Discovery Rule To Determine The Start Of The Limitations Period For Pay Discrimination Claims, Nancy Zisk

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

"14 These laws include Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,15 Section 1981 of the Civil War Reconstruction statutes,16 the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA),17 the Equal Pay Act (EPA),18 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).19 While the statutes define different types of discrimination, each addresses discrimination in employment and defines a limitations period in which an employee can bring a claim.20 With Title VII defining the "paradigm," the first step in determining whether a claim is timely under any statute is determining when the discriminatory act takes place.21 To do that, …


Practice Style And Successful Legal Mobilization, Anne Bloom Apr 2008

Practice Style And Successful Legal Mobilization, Anne Bloom

Law and Contemporary Problems

Bloom talks about the making of a great cause lawyer. Perhaps not surprisingly, dedication, strong political ties, and superb legal skills all play a role in the making of a great cause lawyer, but so does a somewhat less obvious quality, which Marc Galanter described several years ago as practice "style." However, in these case studies, it suggests that the making of a great cause lawyer depends, in part, on practice style. Put differently, how a lawyer approaches legal practice seems to matter for purposes of legal mobilization. In these cases, cause lawyers were more effective at using the law …


When Do Facts Persuade? Some Thoughts On The Market For “Empirical Legal Studies”, Elizabeth Chambliss Apr 2008

When Do Facts Persuade? Some Thoughts On The Market For “Empirical Legal Studies”, Elizabeth Chambliss

Law and Contemporary Problems

Chambliss talks about how Marc Galanter has devoted himself to combating the "jaundiced view" of the civil-justice system. Armed initially with great faith in the power of social science, Galanter and other socio-legal scholars of his generation, as well as many who have followed, have tried to combat misinformation in law and policy with the findings from systematic research--as if the facts would speak for themselves.


Tyranny Of The Available: Under-Represented Topics, Approaches, And Viewpoints, Katherine Topulos, Marci Hoffman Jan 2008

Tyranny Of The Available: Under-Represented Topics, Approaches, And Viewpoints, Katherine Topulos, Marci Hoffman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Odious Debt In Retrospect, Daniel K. Tarullo Oct 2007

Odious Debt In Retrospect, Daniel K. Tarullo

Law and Contemporary Problems

In the eighty years since Alexander Sack coined the phrase "odious debt," academics and activists have periodically rediscovered Sack's idea, often arguing for its application or extension-to this point, in vain. Here, Tarullo reveals the degree to which current interest in the problem of odious debt is intertwined with other problems that strike more critically at the well-being of developing-and emerging-market countries. He reasons that the necessarily complex effort needed to institutionalize a doctrine of odious debt is a potentially effective organizing principle for generating the political will to address these other persistent, debilitating problems.


Partially Odious Debts?, Omri Ben-Shahar, Mitu Gulati Oct 2007

Partially Odious Debts?, Omri Ben-Shahar, Mitu Gulati

Law and Contemporary Problems

Ben-Shahar borrows from a rich private-law tradition to explore the treatment of odious debt as a problem analogous to allocation of liability in private law. Drawing on the economic analysis of private law, it develops insights as to the structure of an optimal liability scheme. Under this approach, liability is imposed not on the basis of some intrinsic judgment as to the parties' relative blameworthiness, but rather in a forward-looking fashion, on parties who are best suited to take actions to prevent the loss. In addition, liability is imposed on a magnitude tailored to induce an optimal level of precautionary …


Consensual Sex Crimes In The Armed Forces: A Primer For The Uninformed, Walter T. Cox Iii May 2007

Consensual Sex Crimes In The Armed Forces: A Primer For The Uninformed, Walter T. Cox Iii

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, . . . shall be punished at the discretion of that court.5 To implement this congressionally-enacted prohibition, the President, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, has deemed by executive order that a number of acts are punishable under this Article.


Legal Impediments To Service: Women In The Military And The Rule Of Law, Linda Strite Murnane May 2007

Legal Impediments To Service: Women In The Military And The Rule Of Law, Linda Strite Murnane

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

Some of those who served did so by disguising themselves as men.6 A number of women had served as spies, as was the case of Rose O'Neal Greenhow, who was arrested and imprisoned for supplying the Confederate Army with information, and Pauline Cushman, who was sentenced to be executed as a Union spy during the War Between the States.7 The first woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, Dr. Mary Walker, provided her services as a doctor free of charge to Union forces in Virginia and Tennessee.8 She had asked the Union Army to hire her as a doctor, …


The Law And Economics Of Identity, Rafael Gely Jan 2007

The Law And Economics Of Identity, Rafael Gely

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

"24 Social norms, for example, have long had an important impact on gender roles in employment specifically with respect to work/family concerns.25 Moreover, one of the central conclusions of the famous Hawthorne experiments of the 1930s26 was that employee work effort is significantly influenced by the norms of the employee's workgroup with respect to what constitutes an appropriate work level or output.27 Applying this analysis, employees are deemed not "irrational" when they don't increase output in response to increased employer incentive pay; they are simply responding to workplace social norms-i.e., they don't want to be ostracized by fellow employees as …


The Ugly Truth About Appearance Discrimination And The Beauty Of Our Employment Discrimination Law, William R. Corbett Jan 2007

The Ugly Truth About Appearance Discrimination And The Beauty Of Our Employment Discrimination Law, William R. Corbett

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

The keynote speaker for the conference begins by reminding the audience that a mere quarter of a century earlier there was no federal law that expressly prohibited discrimination in employment based on physical appearance. Considering the difficulty of crafting and enacting an appearance-based employment discrimination law should lead to a fuller appreciation of not only our employment discrimination laws generally, but also the Americans with Disabilities Act specifically.


Preservationism, Or The Elephant In The Room: How Opponents Of Same-Sex Marriage Deceive Us Into Establishing Religion, Justin T. Wilson Jan 2007

Preservationism, Or The Elephant In The Room: How Opponents Of Same-Sex Marriage Deceive Us Into Establishing Religion, Justin T. Wilson

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

The overwhelming majority of support for bans on same-sex civil marriage has come from religious believers, and the so-called "secular justifications" for these bans are mere pretexts for religious beliefs that homosexuality, homosexuals, and same-sex couples are evil or sinful. Courts should take a hard look at the substantive justifications offered in support of same-sex marriage bans, bearing in mind that (1) these justifications are universally offered by religious believers but are infrequently offered by credentialed Secularists, and (2) they are the result of a studied use of pretextual, secular-sounding language to cloak a religiously-motivated bias against homosexuals and same-sex …


Misinformation, Misrepresentation, And Misuse Of Human Behavioral Genetics Research, Jonathan Kaplan Apr 2006

Misinformation, Misrepresentation, And Misuse Of Human Behavioral Genetics Research, Jonathan Kaplan

Law and Contemporary Problems

Kaplan discusses the limitations of human behavioral genetics studies, highlighting the research limitations inherent in studying humans and the narrow policy and legal applicability of results arising from behavioral genetics studies.


The Proceedings Of The European Ombudsman, Simone Cadeddu Dec 2004

The Proceedings Of The European Ombudsman, Simone Cadeddu

Law and Contemporary Problems

Given the severe institutional shortcomings of the European Ombudsman and the poor understanding of his duties among European citizens, the Ombudsman's information strategy does not appear to have been very effective so far. With dedication and activism, the Ombudsman continues to travel tirelessly year after year, participating in conferences, seminars, meetings, and visits with officials of Community and national institutions in all of the 25 Member States.


European Principles Governing National Administrative Proceedings, Claudio Franchini Dec 2004

European Principles Governing National Administrative Proceedings, Claudio Franchini

Law and Contemporary Problems

It is critical that the process of developing general principles of Community administrative law continue, notwithstanding the marked diversity of supranational administrative proceedings. Because Community law has traditionally been focused on activities relevant to the common market, an asymmetry between the regulation of market-related administrative proceedings and other types of administrative proceedings has developed.


Forms Of European Administrative Action, Mario P. Chiti Dec 2004

Forms Of European Administrative Action, Mario P. Chiti

Law and Contemporary Problems

Chiti examines the various forms of European administration and their associated administrative law systems. Chiti recounts the history of administration and of administrative law in the European Community, examines the main types of administrative action in the Community, and highlights the novel elements and the shortcomings of European administrative law today.