Law Commons^™

A Welcome, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Though my offering here is more ceremonial than intellectual, I accepted with alacrity the editors' invitation to submit a brief, welcoming essay for Volume 1, Number 1 of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law. I write, first, to symbolize our School's deep and abiding commitment to environmental studies, a commitment evidenced by the extraordinary number of Columbia students, faculty and alumni who have contributed and are contributing to the development of environmental law. Professors Grad, Jones, Murphy, and Rosenthal; Russel Train, David Sive and Jerome Kretchmer; and the editors of this Journal, among many others, come quickly to mind. I …

Mr. Justice Douglas, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

The American people are always interested in record-breakers, whether it be in the field of sports, politics, economics or any other phase of American life. In sports, it might be a Babe Ruth or a Hank Aaron; in politics, a Lincoln or a Roosevelt; in economics, a Rockefeller or a Ford.

And so it is in the judiciary, whether it be a Marshall, Hughes, Holmes or Brandeis. Most of their records in some respects are related to longevity, but the thrust of our admiration stems not from that fact but from some great contribution to the affairs of their day. …

Abusive Debt Collection – A Model Statute For Virginia, Robert E. Scott, Diane M. Strickland

Faculty Scholarship

Among the many by-products of the phenomenal growth of consumer credit in the last two decades has been the attempt on the part of existing legal institutions to grapple with the problem of coercive debt collection. The existence of the problem is no longer disputed, and the nature and extent of the abuse surrounding debt collection practices has been the subject of voluminous commentary. Given the dynamics of the competing interests involved when a creditor attempts to collect a just debt which the debtor is unable to pay, an essential conflict requiring regulated resolution becomes apparent. Unfortunately, the problem is …

The Individualization Of Excusing Conditions, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

The excusing conditions of the criminal law are variations of the theme "I couldn't help myself' or "I didn't mean to do it." In this respect the defenses known as necessity, duress, insanity and mistake of law are but extensions of homely, routine apologies for causing harm and violating the rules of social and family life. While we use the plea "I couldn't help myself" to cover the full range of excusing circumstances, each of the formal excuses of the criminal law has a limited sphere. As a general matter, these spheres are dictated by the type of circumstances rendering …

Changing Directions At Columbia, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Each period in history handles reform in its own way. In the earlier days we placed a heavy emphasis on legal realism. We stressed the need to adapt the learning of other disciplines to legal education and to bring the learning of other disciplines into the law school instructional program. As you know, that is an incomplete revolution. It remains a part of our present concern, but our focus today is different.

On Reanalyzing The Harris-Todaro Model: Policy Rankings In The Case Of Sector-Specific Sticky Wages, T.N. Srinivasan, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

In a brilliant and pioneering paper, John Harris and Michael Todaro introduced a model with two sectors, manufacturing (urban) and agriculture (rural), a (sticky) minimum wage in manufacturing and consequent unemployment. They also introduced a labor allocation mechanism under which, instead of the usual equalization of actual wages, the actual rural wage was equated with the expected urban wage; the latter was defined as the (sticky) minimum wage weighted by the rate of employment, so that, unlike in the standard rigid-wage models of trade theory (for example, Gottfried Haberler, Bhagwati, Harry Johnson, Louis Lefeber, and Richard Brecher), the unemployment resulting …

Mining Claims On Public Lands: A Study Of Interior Department Procedures, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

The Department of the Interior's disposition of mining claims on public lands, largely unknown to lawyers outside the West, is a significant field of federal administrative activity and an important element in planning rational use of the public lands. While energy minerals found under public lands typically pass by lease and common varieties such as sand and gravel are subject to sale, most other mineral deposits on federal property are claimed for possible exploitation by the mining claim, or "location."

The location system arose out of miners' custom, at a time when the federal lands were vacant and no federal …

2-1-1: The 4th Revolution In Legal Education, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

If we were to count the great changes in legal education from Charles Evans Hughes' day to this, we would find ourselves with a short list. The shift from apprenticeship to school was already well begun by the time Mr. Hughes was graduated from the Columbia School of Law in 1884. The case method was a new idea, but it would become the orthodox methodology in a startlingly short time. By the turn of the century, a number of law schools had moved from two- to three-year programs, but two years was still enough for admission to the bar in …

Institutional Change And The Quasi-Invisible Hand, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

The fundamental principle of economics is that people will pursue their own self-interest within a given institutional framework. The economist's basic policy premise is that (so long as certain "market failures" do not arise) this self-interest will, like an Invisible Hand, guide resources to their proper usage; when market failures arise the usual policy prescription is to amend the rules (for example, by breaking up monopolies, placing an "optimal" tax on pollution, or redefining property rights) to make the marginal private costs and benefits equal to the marginal social costs and benefits so that the free play on self-interest will …

Rules, Adjudications, And Other Sources Of Law In An Executive Department: Reflections On The Interior Department's Administration Of The Mining Law, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Strauss presents in this article a detailed case study of policymaking by the Department of the Interior in its administration of mining law. The antiquated nature of the General Mining Law of 1872, essentially unchanged since its enactment, has placed a great responsibility for "writing" the law of mining claims upon the Department, highlighting the problems that exist with the Department's internal allocation of its policymaking function.

The focus of this piece is a study of those problems and an examination of possible remedies. Professor Strauss criticizes, in particular, the inaccessibility of Department "law" and the Department's excessive reliance …

Beyond The Best Interests Of The Child, Joanna B. Strauss, Peter Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Identifying just principles for minimizing and resolving disputes over child custody remains one of the law's knots. King Solomon's renowned gambit for resolving the claims of two women to a newborn child was in fact the easy case: only one of the two contenders had a just claim; only one of the two contenders was prepared to be responsible; and in that first of reported cases, the judge had the advantage of surprise. Yet where each potential custodian has a claim, where each is equally prepared (or unprepared) to sacrifice his interests for the child, and where the rules of …

Hart And Wechsler's The Federal Courts And Federal System, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

The first edition of Hart & Wechsler's The Federal Courts and the Federal System, published in i953, has deservedly achieved a reputation that is extraordinary among casebooks and, indeed, rare even among learned treatises. Hart & Wechsler I is more than a stimulating collection of cases and basic source material, and its scope is not confined to the operation and functioning of the federal courts in the federal system. Through its extensive notes and its inimitable leading questions, the book constantly raised questions which have "prodded … students and [teachers] to think over their heads about the deepest problems …