Law Commons^™

Accountability In Patenting Of Federally Funded Research, Arti K. Rai, Bhaven N. Sampat

Faculty Scholarship

Bayh-Dole allows academic grantees to patent federally-funded research for purposes of promoting the commercialization of this research. To ensure commercialization goals are achieved, the Act requires grantees to report to funding agencies not only the existence of federally-funded patents but also utilization efforts they and their licensees/assignees are making.

Although reporting is a cornerstone of accountability under Bayh-Dole, information about grantee compliance with reporting requirements is incomplete and dated. In fact, the last significant study of the question dates back to the late 1990s and analyzes only 633 patents. Since that time, concerns have emerged that federally-funded university patents are …

When Copyright Law And Science Collide: Empowering Digitally Integrated Research Methods On A Global Scale, Jerome H. Reichman, Ruth L. Okediji

Faculty Scholarship

Automated knowledge discovery tools have become central to the scientific enterprise in a growing number of fields and are widely employed in the humanities as well. New scientific methods, and the evolution of entirely new fields of scientific inquiry, have emerged from the integration of digital technologies into scientific research processes that ingest vast amounts of published data and literature. The Article demonstrates that intellectual property laws have not kept pace with these phenomena.

Copyright law and science co-existed for much of their respective histories, with a benign tradition of the former giving way to the needs of the latter. …

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.

Medical Malpractice Mediation: Benefits Gained, Opportunities Lost , Carol B. Liebman

Law and Contemporary Problems

Liebman reviews two recent studies evaluating the use of interest-based mediation to resolve medical malpractice claims. The first studied cases brought against the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, and the second, Mediating Suits against Hospitals, studied cases brought against private New York City hospitals. How non-participation of physicians in mediations diminishes opportunities to achieve noneconomic goals that plaintiffs desire is analyzed.

Experimenting With Alternative Dispute Resolution As A Means For Peaceful Resolution Of Interest Labor Disputes In Public Healthcare—A Case Study , Mordehai (Moti) Mironi

Law and Contemporary Problems

Mironi examines the dispute between the Israel Medical Association and the Israeli government. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with the arbitrators and the parties' representatives and counsels, as well as upon the extensive litigation and transcripts of the arbitration proceedings and award, the process-oriented aspects of the arbitration are emphasized. The disputes between the IMA and the government have never been only about money, but also have been about voice, the future status of public healthcare, and the doctors' professional quality of life.

Rationalizing Noneconomic Damages: A Health-Utilities Approach, David M. Studdert, Allen Kachalia, Joshua A. Salomon, Michelle M. Mello

Law and Contemporary Problems

Studdert et al examine why making compensation of noneconomic damages in personal-injury litigation more rational and predictable is socially valuable. Noneconomic-damages schedules as an alternative to caps are discussed, several potential approaches to construction of schedules are reviewed, and the use of a health-utilities approach as the most promising model is argued. An empirical analysis that combines health-utilities data created in a previous study with original empirical work is used to demonstrate how key steps in construction of a health-utilities-based schedule for noneconomic damages might proceed.

Most Claims Settle: Implications For Alternative Dispute Resolution From A Profile Of Medical-Malpractice Claims In Florida , Mirya Holman, Neil Vidmar, Paul Lee

Law and Contemporary Problems

Holman et al draw attention to the frequent and complicated evidentiary problems in medical malpractice claims and the procedural mechanisms provided by statutes, court rules, and case law that are already in place to facilitate claim resolution. While proposed alternative dispute resolution (ADR) procedures might well provide better resolutions to medical malpractice claims, they must take into consideration both the unique characteristics of medical malpractice disputes and existing mechanisms for resolving these disputes. The profile of the settlements of Florida medical-malpractice claims provides a structure with which any proposals for ADR must contend.

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

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.

Stealing Sunshine, Ronen Perry, Dana Weimann-Saks

Law and Contemporary Problems

This study is the first to examine the efficacy of this tactic, both theoretically and empirically, contributing to the growing literature on the impact of various trial-advocacy techniques on decision-makers' perceptions and trial outcomes. Given the primacy of the work, the authors draw on existing literature on a related courtroom technique commonly known as "stealing thunder," which is -- in a sense -- the mirror image of the tactic under scrutiny.

Notions Of Fairness And Contingent Fees , Eyal Zamir, Ilana Ritov

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Harmful Freedom Of Choice: Lessons From The Cellphone Market , Adi Ayal

Law and Contemporary Problems

This article focuses on the relationship between provider and customer, specifically on the complexity of available contracts in the cellphone market and the ways this complexity might be harmful to consumers. This article aims to elucidate the issues, fleshing them out both as a general phenomenon and as a specific implementation in the cellphone context. The aim is not to provide ultimate solutions, but to show the directions these solutions might take and the difficulties involved.

Behind The Veil Of Legal Uncertainty , Yuval Feldman, Shahar Lifshitz

Law and Contemporary Problems

This article challenges the conventional view and proclaims the advantages of legal uncertainty. This article recognized some of the drawbacks may arise due to uncertainty and hence illustrated several refinements and limitations regarding the use of a "veil of uncertainty" mechanism in order to improve its potential benefits for lawmakers.

A Compensatory Liability Regime To Promote The Exchange Of Microbial Genetic Resources For Research And Benefit Sharing, Jerome H. Reichman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Defining The Problem Of Cost In Federal Civil Litigation, Emery G. Lee Iii, Thomas E. Willging

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Likeability V. Competence: The Impossible Choice Faced By Female Politicians, Attenuated By Lawyers, Andrea Kupfer Schneider, Catherine H. Tinsley, Sandra Cheldelin, Emily T. Amanatullah

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

More Harm Than Good: A Summary Of Scientific Research On The Intended And Unintended Effects Of Corporal Punishment On Children, Elizabeth T. Gershoff

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Prevalence, Societal Causes, And Trends In Corporal Punishment By Parents In World Perspective, Murray A. Straus

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Are Spanking Injunctions Scientifically Supported?, Robert E. Larzelere, Diana Baumrind

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

The Special Problem Of Cultural Differences In Effects Of Corporal Punishment, Jennifer E. Lansford

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Administrative Law, Filter Failure, And Information Capture, Wendy E. Wagner

Duke Law Journal

There are no provisions in administrative law for regulating the flow of information entering or leaving the system, or for ensuring that regulatory participants can keep up with a rising tide of issues, details, and technicalities. Indeed, a number of doctrinal refinements, originally intended to ensure that executive branch decisions are made in the sunlight, inadvertently create incentives for participants to overwhelm the administrative system with complex information, causing many of the decision-making processes to remain, for all practical purposes, in the dark. As these agency decisions become increasingly obscure to all but the most well-informed insiders, administrative accountability is …

How The Dissent Becomes The Majority: Using Federalism To Transform Coalitions In The U.S. Supreme Court, Vanessa Baird, Tonja Jacobi

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Conceptualizing Aggression, Noah Weisbord

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

No abstract provided.

Unlearning Fear Out-Group Others, Terry A. Maroney

Law and Contemporary Problems

Maroney describes a neuroscientific fear-extinction study as preliminary evidence supporting the notion that out-group hostilities might be influenced by biological predispositions. In the fear-extinction study, subjects were conditioned to fear the presentation of black or white faces with the introduction of an electric shock when such faces appeared on a screen. Then the experimenters stopped using the shock when that race's faces appeared on the screen. Subjects' fear was extinguished much more effectively when the subject was conditioned to fear faces of individuals of her own race than when the subject was conditioned to fear faces of individuals of another …

Examining The Applicability Of The Concepts Of Apology, Forgiveness, And Reconciliation To Multi-Stakeholder, Collaborative Problem-Solving Processes, Jennifer Pratt Miles

Law and Contemporary Problems

In 2004, Meridian Institute, an organization with expertise in designing, facilitating, and mediating collaborative problem-solving processes, was asked to assess the feasibility of forming collaborative, community-based-watershed groups in northern New Mexico to develop plans to address water-quality problems and--if determined to be feasible--to facilitate the formation of those groups and plans. Early in the assessment process it became clear that the historical context was critically important and was one of the factors that had to be addressed. Here, Miles explores the applicability of apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation to a collaborative group process that can be examined through the example of …

The “Hidden Judiciary”: An Empirical Examination Of Executive Branch Justice, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich

Duke Law Journal

Administrative law judges attract little scholarly attention, yet they decide a large fraction of all civil disputes. In this Article, we demonstrate that these executive branch judges, like their counterparts in the judicial branch, tend to make predominantly intuitive rather than predominantly deliberative decisions. This finding sheds new light on executive branch justice by suggesting that judicial intuition, not judicial independence, is the most significant challenge facing these important judicial officers.

Are Empiricists Asking The Right Questions About Judicial Decisionmaking?, Jack Knight

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Never Being Able To Say You’Re Sorry: Barriers To Apology By Leaders In Group Conflicts, Roger Conner, Patricia Jordan

Law and Contemporary Problems

Conner and Jordan discuss three implications of the foregoing analysis for leaders, peacemakers, and scholars interested in apology as an instrument to advance justice, prevent destructive conflict, and promote cooperation. First, an effective apology is likely to occur only after other changes have "softened up" negative attitudes between the groups--referred to here as "ripeness." Second, even with a degree of ripeness, apology is unlikely without a "window of opportunity," a confluence of circumstances that permits the leader to limit the scope of the apology so as not to concede too much. Third, even if these conditions are satisfied, words alone …

Can Effective Apology Emerge Through Litigation?, Alphonse A. Gerhardstein

Law and Contemporary Problems

Gerhardstein provides a number of examples in which the factors identified by Roger Conner and Patricia Jordan--ripeness, a window of opportunity, and a symbolic act or gesture--came together to facilitate apology by a public leader. But he doesn't think that the window of opportunity needs to be exogenously determined. Rather, advocates can, through litigation and settlement demands, create that window. He believes that apology by public officials can do more to promote healthy civic society than can mere monetary settlement.

Saving Face: The Benefits Of Not Saying I’M Sorry, Brent T. White

Law and Contemporary Problems

White discusses the socio-psychological research that suggests humans invest significant emotional stake in "face"--or their "claimed identity as a competent, intelligent, or moral persons"--and apologize only when they can do so without significant "face threat." Criminal offenders, many of whom are likely to be low on self-determination, may resist apology to victims out of psychological fragility and the psychological need to preserve face rather than lack of remorse. Thus, the criminal-justice system should be cautious about punishing offenders more harshly because they fail to show external remorse--or even when they are openly defiant. This caution should be exercised whether the …