Law Commons^™

Public Agencies And Investor Compensation: The Agency As Judge Or Lawyer?, Verity Winship

Verity Winship

This essay compares experiments in investor compensation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The Fair Fund provision of Sarbanes-Oxley allows the SEC to distribute penalty amounts to injured investors, acting as “public class counsel.” In contrast, through its longstanding Reparations Program, the CFTC acts as a judge or arbitrator to resolve disputes between private parties. This essay suggests that the Treasury Department’s recent proposal to consolidate financial regulators – including the SEC and CFTC – provides an opportunity to reexamine these programs and ask whether a consolidated financial regulator should act as …

Plain Language Patents, Robin C. Feldman

Robin C Feldman

Law is a process of Bounded Adaptation. The law that exists at any given moment is constantly driven to adapt to changing circumstances within the framework of what has gone before. The boundaries of that framework are policed by the necessity of articulating an interpretation in a way that gains general acceptance. It is the need to effectively articulate a common logic that mitigates the distortion of personal perspective.

This process of Bounded Adaptation cannot proceed effectively without an adequately structured dialogue that will promote the flow of information and analysis. Nowhere is this dialogue more challenging than at the …

Technological Due Process, Danielle Keats Citron

Danielle Keats Citron

Distinct and complementary procedures for adjudications and rulemaking lie at the heart of twentieth-century administrative law. Due process required agencies to provide individuals notice and an opportunity to be heard. Agencies could foreclose policy issues that individuals might otherwise raise in adjudications through public rulemaking. One system allowed focused advocacy; the other featured broad participation. Each procedural regime compensated for the normative limits of the other. Both depended on clear statements of reason. The dichotomy between these procedural regimes has become outmoded. This century’s automated decision-making systems collapse individual adjudications into rulemaking while adhering to the procedural safeguards of neither. …

Rethinking Johnson V. M’Intosh (1823): The Root Of The Continued Forced Displacement Of American Indians Despite Cobell V. Norton (2001), T S. Twibell

Ty Twibell

How The Government Can Protect Home Mortgage Consumers: A Proposal To Provide Consumers A Risk Assessment Of Mortgages, Adeline Park

Adeline Park

The recent sub-prime mortgage crisis has revealed the consumer’s vulnerability in the home mortgage marketplace. Consumers face an overwhelming variety of mortgage options, and are not motivated to invest the necessary time and resources to comprehend the meaning and implications of each loan feature. I propose that the government assess the risk of each loan feature available in the home mortgage market, based on the historical number of foreclosures each loan type has yielded. The government will then require lenders to display the risk assessment icon on all sales, marketing, and advertising materials. The risk assessment icon will identify the …

“The Longest Journey, With A First Step”: Bringing Coherence To Sovereignty And Jurisdictional Issues In Global Employee Benefits Law, Paul Secunda

Paul M. Secunda

One of the most neglected areas of employee benefits law in the United States today is the extraterritorial application of ERISA to U.S. employees in other countries. Additionally, the courts and legislature have not spent the necessary time to discuss ERISA coverage issues for foreign employees, both legal and illegal and both working for foreign government and non-government employers, in the United States. These are increasingly crucial areas of U.S. employee benefits law as the globalization of the world's workplaces continues apace.

After surveying the tangled web of ERISA law in this context, the article proposes two statutory fixes and …

Dealing With The Realities Of Race And Ethnicity: A Bioethics-Centered Argument In Favor Of Race-Based Genetics Research, Michael J. Malinowski

Michael J. Malinowski

No abstract provided.

Asimplify You, Classify You@: Stigma, Stereotypes And Civil Rights In Disability Classification Systems, Michael L. Perlin

Michael L Perlin

Abstract:

In this paper I consider the question of the extent to which sanism and pretextuality - the factors that contaminate all of mental disability law - do or do not equally contaminate the special education process, and the decision to label certain children as learning disabled. The thesis of this paper is that the process of labeling of children with intellectual disabilities implicates at least five conflicts and clusters of policy issues:

1. The need to insure that all children receive adequate education

2. The need to insure that the cure is not worse than the illness (that is, …

Regulation With Placebo Effects, Anup Malani

Anup Malani

There is a growing body of empirical evidence supporting the existence of placebo effects in medical contexts and is suggestive of nontrivial placebo effects in non-medical contexts. This paper reviews the literature on placebo effects, examines the implications for four fields of law (drug approval, informed consent law, consumer protection law, and torts) and suggests future areas for research on placebo effects. Specifically, it make the case for altering the drug approval process to account for, if not credit, placebo effects. It suggests allowing evidence of placebo effects as a defense in cases alleging violations of informed consent or false …

Agency Preemption And The Shimer Analysis: Unmasking Strategic Characterization By Agencies And Giving Effect To The Presumption Against Preemption, Karen Jordan

Karen A. Jordan

Acerca Del Dominio Público Y Dominio Privado Del Estado., Walter Vásquez Rebaza

Walter Vásquez Rebaza

No abstract provided.

Liars And Terrorists And Judges, Oh My: Moral Panic And The Symbolic Politics Of Appellate Review In Asylum Cases, Eric M. Fink

Eric M Fink

As part of the REAL ID Act, Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to restrict judicial review of adverse credibility determinations by immigration judges. The change came in the wake of controversy of judicial reversals of adverse credibility determinations that the reviewing courts saw as inappropriately speculative and lacking in evidentiary support. Critics, including some appellate judges, have in turn alleged that the appellate courts have been insufficiently deferential to the factual determinations of Immigration Judges (IJs) and the BIA.

This paper examines the argument offered in support of limiting judicial review in this area, and provides an empirical …

Excerpt From Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy And Power In American Culture (Revised And Updated Edition), Mark Fenster

Mark Fenster

This is the introduction to the revised and updated edition of Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming 2008). The book challenges the dominant academic and popular approach to conspiracy theories, which views them as a paranoid, extremist expression of marginal groups and individuals that pathologically challenges the basic assumptions of American history and the pluralistic political system of the United States. The book is premised on the contrary proposition that the prevalence of conspiracy theories is neither necessarily pernicious nor external to American politics and culture but instead an integral aspect of …

Designing Transparency: The 9/11 Commission And Institutional Form, Mark Fenster

Mark Fenster

A Meating Of The Minds: Possible Pitfalls And Benefits Of Certified Organic Livestock Production And The Prodigious Potential Of Brazil, Adam C. Schlosser

Adam C. Schlosser

Certified organic food represents the fastest growing segment of food production in both the United States and throughout the entire world. This article examines the issues and opportunities facing both large and small scale farmers wishing to engage in organic livestock production. Organic regulations cover everything involved in production, starting with the organic certification process and concluding with slaughter and the subsequent shipping and sale of the end organic product. The final section of this article addresses the unique ability of Brazil – described alternatively as “the world’s warehouse” and the “world’s [future] source of food” – to increase the …

Achieving Policymaking Consensus: The (Unfortunate) Waning Of Negotiated Rulemaking, Jeffrey Lubbers

Jeffrey Lubbers

"The Public's Right Of Access To 'Some Kind Of Hearing' - Creating Policies That Protect The Right To Observe Agency Hearings", Chris Mcneil

Christopher B. McNeil, J.D., Ph.D.

As administrative agencies take on greater responsibilities and increasing caseloads, the tendency may be to shield their operations from the public. This article examines the competing constitutional premises supporting access to agency hearings on one hand, and due process considerations on the other; and provides a model for use by agencies seeking to control public access to agency adjudications.