Law Commons^™

When Can The Baseball Writers For The Hall Of Fame Consider Cheating Through Ped Use, Or Not?, Wes R. Porter, Dan Dressman

Publications

When the 2013 MLB Hall of Fame Ballot was released this past November, the heated discussion began about which controversial candidates, if any at all, would be inducted into Cooperstown (HOF). while isolated athletes have come up in previous years, this year represents a first real tension between the modern ear of baseball - the "steroid era" - and traditional standards for admission into the Hall. The 537 baseball writers are, and should be, entrusted to weigh cheating and use of PEDs against the HOF's criteria of "character," "sportsmanship" and "upholding the integrity of the game." These writers each will …

Take An Active Role In Improving Legal Education, Wes R. Porter

Publications

As a law professor, catching up with classes, scholarship, and other work after a conference is always challenging. Last month, I returned to San Francisco from the first gathering of the previously-only-virtual community connected through the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Initiative (ETL) and website. ETL, through a conference entitled "The Development of Professional Identity in Legal Education," brought together teams from its consortium schools, its ETL fellows, and many other legal education reform advocates. Upon my return, I was confronted with yet another demand on my time (and on my brain). Ideas. Many, many ideas.

Use Of Role Play And Interview Modes In Law Clinic Case Rounds To Teach Essential Legal Skills And To Maximize Meaningful Participation, Helen Kang

Publications

Case rounds are a common feature of the seminar component of clinical programs. This article describes using in the case rounds setting multiple design elements, including role plays and formalized interviews, to enhance student learning and engagement. In the rounds described here, a student presenter is asked to adopt the role of her opponent in her clinic case and to explain succinctly the opponent's case, followed by an informational session in which the student presenter is allowed only to give short answers in response to questions from her clinic peers; and after the question-and-answer session, students and their professors debrief …

Viewpoint: Slain Diplomat, A Hastings Grad, 'Helped Me Find My Better Angel', Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

John Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya who was killed there on Sept. 11, was a 1989 graduate of UC-Hastings. Rachel Van Cleave, a classmate of his and now the interim dean at Golden Gate University School of Law, spoke at a vigil for Stevens on the Hastings campus this week. What follows is an excerpt of her remarks.

Recognizing The Link Among Climate Change, Food, And Poverty, Helen H. Kang

Publications

The United States must begin to meet in earnest the challenges that climate change poses to adequate nutrition for the poor and the hungry. Climate change is profoundly affecting agriculture and is expected to continue to do so, resulting in sometimes-sharp food-price fluctuations to which our government at all levels is unprepared to respond. While those with resources may be able to cope with price volatility, those who are already undernourished are less able without government programs nimbly responding to fluctuations in food prices. Compounding the problem for U.S. households, the predicted cost increases of other necessities such as energy …

Blind Discretion: Girls Of Color & Delinquency In The Juvenile Justice System, Jyoti Nanda

Publications

The juvenile justice system was designed to empower its decisionmakers with a wide grant of discretion in hopes of better addressing youth in a more individualistic and holistic, and therefore more effective, manner. Unfortunately for girls of color in the system, this discretionary charter given to police, probation officers, and especially judges has operated without sufficiently acknowledging and addressing their unique position. Indeed, the dearth of adequate gender/race intersectional analysis in the research and the stark absence of significant system tools directed at the specific characteristics of and circumstances faced by girls of color have tracked alarming trends such as …

Bound To Arbitrate, Jon H. Sylvester

Publications

When can arbitration be compelled by a party who did not sign the agreement containing the arbitration provision? This question was raised recently in a well-publicized and ongoing San Francisco Superior Court lawsuit alleging gender bias and discrimination at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Not A Ceqa Question, Alan Ramo

Publications

Until the California Supreme Court speaks, the environment's impact on a project is not subject to environmental review.

Children Aren't Adults, Even When They Kill, Reichi Lee

Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Shelves: Westlawnext Vs. Lexis Advance, Jodi Collova

Publications

WestlawNext and Lexis Advance — the new generation of legal research systems from Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis — have a new interface with a single search box like Google, a new search engine and other new features. While they share many similar new attributes, the two systems differ in several ways.

Federal Air Pollution Requirements, Helen Kang

Publications

The Clean Air Act is notoriously difficult to navigate and enforce. The difficulty is in part due to the act's regulatory scheme, which is inferior in critical ways to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act). Unlike the Waste Discharge Requirements covering discharges of pollution into water bodies issued by the Regional Water Quality Control Board, which contain both federal and state requirements in a single permit, the Clean Air Act does not require a single permit for all facilities that pollute the air. Also significant, the Clean Air Act does not require self-reporting …

Trademark And Copyright Enforcement In The Shadow Of Ip Law, William T. Gallagher

Publications

In recent years, as Congress has created new intellectual property (IP) rights and courts have often interpreted those rights broadly, legal scholars have frequently decried the expanded scope of protection afforded IP owners in most substantive areas of IP law. According to this critique, the over-expansion of IP rights throughout the past two decades harms competition, chills free speech, and diminishes the public domain as increasingly broad areas of social life are brought within the scope of strong IP protection. While this over-expansion theory reflects an important-indeed, foundationalpolicy debate concerning the proper balance between IP owners' rights and the public's …

A Renewable Future: Jerry Brown's Environmental Agenda, Clifford Rechtschaffen, Ken Alex

Publications

The Environmental Law Section was honored to welcome Cliff Rechtschaffen and Ken Alex, two prominent Senior Advisors to Governor Jerry Brown, as its featured speakers for the first plenary session at the 2011 Environmental Law Conference at Yosemite® last October. Messrs. Rechtschaffen and Alex led a lively discussion of energy and environmental issues in the Brown administration, which touched on topics ranging from the Governor's agenda for addressing climate change to the Office of Planning and Research's approaches to CEQA to the administration's vision for a California with 50 million people, among others. They have adapted the following article from …

Immigration And Naturalization Law, Johanna K.P. Dennis, Et Al.

Publications

This article summarizes developments in immigration and naturalization law during 2011.

Right Of Publicity And The Intersection Of Copyright And Trademark Law, Marc Greenberg, Michael L. Lovitz

Publications

The Right of Publicity has its root in privacy law. Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, in an 1890 article in the Harvard Law Review, first defined this right as the right “to be left alone”. William Prosser followed their lead by enunciating a personal right of privacy based in four categories: 1) Protection against intrusion into one’s private affairs; 2) Avoidance of disclosure of one’s embarrassing private facts; 3) Protection against publicity placing one in a false light in the public eye; and 4) Remedies for appropriation, usually for commercial advantage, of one’s name or likeness.

The first three of …

Resolving Arbitrability, Jon H. Sylvester

Publications

No abstract provided.

Lawyers' Ethics In Real Estate Transactions, Roger Bernhardt, Robert L. Kehr

Publications

In the past few months, two California decisions have made strong statements to lawyers about improper behavior in handling real estate matters for their clients. One such case is concerned with going into business with a client while representing the client and the other case addresses supporting the other side after the termination of the client's representation.

So Your Paralegal Is Applying To Law School, Angela Dalfen

Publications

More than 40,000 individuals will apply to law school this fall. Some of them no doubt work in your law office, and may be asking you to write a letter of recommendation to add to their application materials. You may be surprised to learn that these letters do get read. In fact, a strong letter of recommendation from someone familiar with the applicant's strengths and level of exposure to the realities of day-to-day legal practice can make a big impact. These letters often tip the scales when an admissions committee is uncertain whether to admit a candidate with a perceived …

Living With Tied Priority, Roger Bernhardt

Publications

This article analyzes a recent California appellate decision holding that two lenders had equal priority because their mortgages were deemed received by the county recorder’s office at the same time when the overnight mail was opened.

An Early Exercise In Trial Ad: Advocacy Personality Presentations, Wes R. Porter

Publications

'What is the "most productive" early exercise in trial advocacy? Through experimentation, I think I may have found it. Let's call it "Advocacy Personality Presentations."

The Most Common Path To A Public Interest Career Is Also The Least Discussed, Leeor Neta

Publications

There are ultimately three avenues to a public interest legal career. The first is a postgraduate fellowship with a public interest organization. The second is a judicial clerkship; clerkships demonstrate a commitment to public service that can attract public interest employers. While these paths to a public interest career are certainly desirable, it is probably fair to say that most future public interest lawyers pursue a third avenue: taking whatever comes, maintaining a long-term perspective, and doing one’s best to exemplify a commitment to public interest in the meantime.

Domestic Worker Organizing: Building A Contemporary Movement For Dignity And Power, Hina Shah, Marci Seville

Publications

The success of domestic worker organizing in the twenty-first century may seem like an anomaly against the backdrop of increased hostility towards unionized labor and an overall decline in wages and benefits for workers. The contemporary domestic worker movement, beginning in the 1990s, builds upon centuries of organizing and agitation by domestic workers and others for a cultural shift that values domestic labor as real work. The current movement fundamentally alters past organizing models, linking the struggle to a broader movement for social justice. Unlike past organizing efforts, domestic workers are at the helm of the contemporary movement. They have …

Offensive Venue: The Curious Use Of Declaratory Judgment To Forum Shop In Patent Litigation, Chester Chuang

Publications

Forum shopping is widespread in patent litigation because there are clear differences in outcomes among the various federal districts. An accused patent infringer that is sued in a particularly disadvantageous forum can file a motion to transfer to a more convenient forum, but the general consensus is that such motions are difficult to win. Accordingly, accused infringers often file declaratory judgment actions to forum shop. Such actions allow accused infringers to preemptively sue the patent owner in the accused infringer’s preferred forum, and are considered by many to be the best way for accused infringers to play the forum shopping …

Women And Poisons In 17th Century France, Benedetta Faedi Duramy

Publications

During the late 1660s and the early 1670s, several mysterious deaths of influential members of the French nobility followed one after the other, leading to a scandal, better known as the "Affair of the Poisons," which involved prominent individuals at the royal court of Louis XIV in France. The King, who was concerned that the widespread use of the practice of poisoning could endanger his own safety and that of the royal family, appointed Nicolas de La Reynie, the Lieutenant General of the Paris Police, to oversee the investigation. In 1679, he also established a special tribunal, known as the …

An Integrated Green Urban Electrical Grid, Deborah N. Behles

Publications

This Article will discuss the vision of a new green urban grid that relies on decentralized generation and storage, energy efficiency, and demand response. Much of the literature focuses on the development of aspects of the green grid, such as energy efficiency, without consideration of how these resources should be integrated to effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, maintain reliability, and create economic opportunity. After discussing the components of the green urban grid, this Article will discuss why integrating these components is essential to meeting renewable policy goals, and finally, this Article will discuss steps that regulators and policymakers …

Book Review: The Oxford Handbook Of Empirical Legal Rearch, William T. Gallagher

Publications

The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research, edited by Peter Cane and Herbert M. Kritzer, is an excellent scholarly resource that is especially timely given the recent resurgence of interest by (mostly) legal academics in the empirical study of law. As the editors suggest, it is precisely because of this resurgent interest that it is important to understand contemporary empirical legal research in the context of its historical and institutional roots and in light of ongoing scholarly debate about the most appropriate methodologies for conducting this type of research.

Comics, Courts & Controversy: A Case Study Of The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Marc Greenberg

Publications

Cartoons and comics have been a part of American culture since this nation’s formation. Throughout that lengthy history, comics and cartoons have also been a subject of controversy, censorship, legislation, and litigation. They have been viewed as a threat to society and a cause of juvenile delinquency; they are scandalous, indecent, and obscene. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (“CBLDF”), a New York-based non-profit organization, provides legal defense for comic artists, collectors, distributors, and retailers who face civil and/or criminal penalties for the creation, sale, and ownership of comics, cartoons, graphic novels, and related works.

The Introduction to this article …

A Review Of Great Legal Traditions: Civil Law, Common Law, And Chinese Law In Historical And Operational Perspective, Leslie A. Burton

Publications

Three justices of the German Federal Constitutional Court, resplendent in red regalia, stand tall behind a high wooden bench and under an enormous carved eagle. A high ceiling emphasizes the splendor of the high court. The faces of Confucius, Constantine, and Blackstone, regal in their formal vestments, appear on the left. Superimposed text reads "Great Legal Traditions: Civil Law, Common Law, and Chinese Law in Historical and Operational Perspective." The startlingly vivid book cover commands visual attention, while its title promises an overview of the history of three legal systems along with their presentday procedures. But an impressive cover can …

Women In The Aftermath Of The 2010 Haitian Earthquake, Benedetta Faedi Duramy

Publications

This Article examines women’s and girls’ struggles in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. In particular, it focuses on the grievous conditions in the displacement camps that foster gender-based violence and abuse, often perpetrated by members of armed groups or prison escapees. Indeed, the lack of lighting, private sanitary facilities, secure shelters, and police patrols in the encampment areas endanger women’s and girls’ safety. The devastation and traumatic loss of family and community members following the earthquake further affect women’s resilience and increase their vulnerability to abuse and sexual violence. By examining the conditions and risks faced by women and …

The Case For Local Constitutional Enforcement, Kathleen Morris

Publications

This Article calls for the overruling of the central rule in Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh (1907) on Erie grounds. Hunter announced as a matter of federal law that local governments are powerless instrumentalities of state governments. Legal scholars have criticized Hunter for exacerbating the doctrinal and practical problems that plague local government law. This Article goes further by challenging Hunter directly. It argues first that Erie v. Tompkins (1938), properly read, effectively overruled the central rule in Hunter. Second, it argues that we should not mourn the loss of that rule because its analytic support structures are historically, …