Law Commons^™

Slides: The Yampa: New Rules For An Old River, Jerd Smith

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Jerd Smith, Reporter, Rocky Mountain News

11 slides

Slides: Paying The Price For Power: When L.A. Turns On The Lights, Northwestern New Mexico Feels It, Jonathan Thompson

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Jonathan Thompson, Editor, High Country News

23 slides

Cees Newsletter, No. 6, May 2008, University Of Colorado Boulder. Center For Energy & Environmental Security

CEES: The Center for Energy & Environmental Security [Newsletter] (2008)

No abstract provided.

Amicus (Spring 2008), University Of Colorado Law School

Amicus

Many would consider an appointment to the judiciary to be the pinnacle of a legal career, and so Colorado Law is proud to claim over 130 graduates as judges on state and federal benches in Colorado alone. This issue gives some of these alumni a chance to talk about their experiences in the judiciary.

Featured in this issue:

• Tim Tymkovich ‘82
• Luis Rovira ‘52
• Linda Neuman ‘73
• Arthur Roy ‘69
• Dennis Maes ‘72
• Profiles of past federal court judges
• An editorial from professor Robert Nagel
• An editorial from Judge Walker Miller ‘63

Baselines Newsletter, No. 2, Spring 2008, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Baselines: The Natural Resources Law Center Newsletter (2007-2011)

No abstract provided.

Agenda: Securing Environmental Flows On The Colorado River In An Era Of Climate Change: Issues, Challenges, And Opportunities, Western Water Policy Program, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center, Nature Conservancy (U.S.), Trout Unlimited, Environmental Defense (Organization), Western Water Assessment (Program), Western Resource Advocates, United States. Bureau Of Reclamation

Securing Environmental Flows on the Colorado River in an Era of Climate Change: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities (March 21)

The Colorado River is the primary surface water resource of the Southwest, providing water to approximately 30 million residents. Studies and policy decisions associated with a recently completed EIS point to an ever-tightening water supply due to longstanding growth pressures exacerbated by significant climate change impacts. Given these trends, how can the river’s environmental needs be satisfied?

On March 21st, the Center’s Western Water Policy Program brought together four leading Colorado River experts along with an audience of approximately 70 water professionals to discuss “Securing Environmental Flows on the Colorado River in an Era of Climate Change: Issues, Challenges, and …

Cees Newsletter, No. 4, Jan. 2008, University Of Colorado Boulder. Center For Energy & Environmental Security

CEES: The Center for Energy & Environmental Security [Newsletter] (2008)

No abstract provided.

Abbott, Aids, And The Ada: Why A Per Se Disability Rule For Hiv/Aids Is Both Just And A Must, Scott Thompson

Publications

HIV/AIDS should be classified as a per se disability under the Americans with Disablities Act. Such a ruling is justified by the plain language of the act itself, legislative history, administrative regulations, and court precedent. Absent such a ruling, individuals with HIV must demonstrate that they have (1) an mental or physical impairment, (2) that substantially limits (3) a major life activity. While most courts to address the applicability of the ADA to individuals with HIV/AIDS have found that such individuals are disabled because HIV impairs the major life activity of reproduction, such an interpretation leaves open the possibility that …

Cooper's Quiet Demise (A Short Response To Professor Strauss), Frederic M. Bloom

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Tax Treatment Of Advance Receipts, David Hasen

Publications

Under the present income tax, some advance receipts are neither taxable on receipt nor deductible on repayment, while others are taxable when received and deductible when repaid or paid for. From a purely theoretical perspective, it remains unclear why different sets of rules apply in different cases. For example, if the fact of unrestricted control over the payment compels the conclusion that it is income, then most advance receipts, including loan proceeds, should be included in income immediately. Conversely, if the presence of an offsetting liability compels the conclusion that the payment is not (yet) income, then most advance receipts, …

Unwinding Unwinding, David Hasen

Publications

"Unwinding" is a common, if not ubiquitous, feature of tax practice. In a successful unwind, parties to a prior transaction or arrangement back out of it by means of a later transaction and are treated for tax purposes as having engaged in no transactions at all. In a failed unwind, the parties undertake the later transaction, but it is not treated as nullifying the effects of the first transaction; rather, two separate transactions are deemed to have taken place, each with its own tax consequences.

This Article develops the first unified theoretical framework for analyzing tax unwinding. It also provides …

The Concept Of "Less Eligibility" And The Social Function Of Prison Violence In Class Society, Ahmed A. White

Publications

No abstract provided.

Common Ground: The Case For Collaboration Between Anti-Poverty Advocates And Public Interest Intellectual Property Advocates, Deborah J. Cantrell

Publications

This article examines the previously unappreciated common ground between scholars and advocates who work to eliminate poverty, and scholars and advocates who work on intellectual property issues in the public interest. The article first illustrates how scholars and advocates working on poverty and on public interest intellectual property have relied on rights talk to frame their social movements. Under the conventional narrative, the framing has accentuated differences between the movements. As the Article explains, the two movements share core principles and should recognize shared interests and goals. By developing a new model of how to view public interest movements, the …

Instead Of Enda, A Course Correction For Title Vii, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

In September 2008, the D.C. federal court issued a landmark decision holding that discrimination against a transgender person was sex discrimination under Title VII. This decision throws into sharp relief the ongoing debates among supporters of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act about whether the compromise on including protection for gender identity claims. Consideration of ENDA in some form will likely be early on the agenda of the next Congress, especially under a Democratic administration likely to support the bill. This essay proposes an alternative to ENDA that would embrace the theoretical connections between sex, gender, and sexual orientation, with important practical …

Extraterritoriality, Antitrust, And The Pragmatist Style, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

In the last decades of the 20th century, David Kennedy and Martti Koskenniemi made the case that the modern structure of international legal argument was characterized by "pragmatism." Taking this idea as its baseline, this Article's central argument is that legal pragmatism embodies a dominant style of contemporary legal reasoning, and that as Kennedy and Koskenniemi might have suggested, it is on display in some of the canonical antitrust decisions having an international dimension. The Article also seeks to show that pragmatism's ostensible triumph is best understood as a contest of three distinctly legal pragmatisms: "eclectic pragmatism," as evidenced in …

The Ethics Of Collaborative Law, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

The practice of Collaborative Law - in which both parties agree that should their case fail to settle, both lawyers will be disqualified from proceeding to court - has grown rapidly in the family bar over the last decade. At the same time, the ethics of this practice have been called into question. Competing ethics opinions in 2007 - from the Colorado Bar Association and the American Bar Association - alternately ban and permit the practice. This Article tries to clarify the underlying ethical issues in Collaborative Law, arguing that much confusion has resulted from imprecise understandings of what the …

Dunya, Marianne Wesson

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Accounting: Habeas Corpus And Enemy Combatants, Emily Calhoun

Publications

The judiciary should impose a heavy burden of justification on the executive when a habeas petitioner challenges the accuracy of facts on which an enemy combatant designation rests. A heavy burden of justification will ensure that the essential institutional purposes of the writ--and legitimate, separated-powers government--are preserved, even during times of national exigency. The institutional purposes of the writ argue for robust judicial review rather than deference to the executive. Moreover, the procedural flexibility traditionally associated with the writ gives the judiciary the tools to ensure that a heavy burden of justification can be imposed.

Delivering User-Centric Services At The Colorado Supreme Court Library, Robert M. Linz

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Measure Of Government Speech: Identifying Expression's Source, Helen Norton

Publications

States and other governmental bodies increasingly invoke the government speech defense to First Amendment challenges by private parties who seek to alter or join what the government contends is its own expression. These disputes involve competing claims to the same speech: a private party maintains that a certain means of expression reflects (or should be allowed to reflect) her own views, while a public entity claims that same speech as its own, along with the ability to control its content.

In suggesting a framework for approaching these problems, this Article starts by examining the theoretical and practical justifications for insulating …

The Future Of 9-1-1: New Technologies And The Need For Reform, Philip J. Weiser, Dale Hatfield, Brad Bernthal

Publications

Our nation's 9-1-1 system's success to date belies the fact that its core premises will not continue to serve it effectively and it has come to a critical juncture. In particular, the balkanized nature of 9-1-1 operations that differ across jurisdictions and are supported by Byzantine funding mechanisms obscure a simple but profound development: our nation's emergency system is not keeping up with or taking advantage of technological change. Because the system continues to work and policymakers largely do not appreciate the system's technological limitations, decision makers not only fail to focus on this challenge but instead are all too …

Tribute To Professor Jim Mooney, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Mother Jones Meets Gordon Gekko: The Complicated Relationship Between Labor And Private Equity, Matthew T. Bodie

University of Colorado Law Review

In 2007, private equity firms came under increasing scrutiny for the favorable tax treatment accorded to their fund managers' compensation. Labor, particularly the Service Workers International Union ("SEIU), was instrumental in bringing this issue to the attention of the media and the public. However, SEIU's private equity campaign is just one way in which the union is pursuing its primary concern: increasing the ranks of its members. This Article examines the role that the SEIU private equity campaign plays both in the overall debate about private equity taxation as well as in the union's negotiations with private equity firms. It …

The Ipod Tax: Why The Digital Copyright System Of American Law Professors' Dreams Failed In Japan, Salil K. Mehra

University of Colorado Law Review

A number of prominent American law professors have endorsed the notion of a tax on digital recording and music file-sharing-call it an "iPod tax"--with the proceeds to be paid into a general fund. A clearinghouse representing rights-holders would monitor which works were downloaded and how often and then divvy up the iPod tax revenues to the individual rights-holders. Japan has run a very similar system since the early days of digital recording in 1993. This Article focuses on how Japanese experts decided that regulatory failures merited killing an extension of their existing system, including a proposed iPod tax. In particular, …

Opinion Testimony: Lay, Expert, Or Something Else?, H. Patrick Furman

Publications

This article discusses opinion testimony of lay witnesses and expert witnesses. It provides an overview of lay opinion testimony and discusses the dividing line between lay and opinion testimony.

Real Property And Peoplehood, Kristen A. Carpenter

Publications

This Article proposes a theory of real property and peoplehood in which lands essential to the identity and survival of collective groups are entitled to heightened legal protection. Although many Americans are sympathetic to American Indian tribes and their quest for cultural survival, we remain unable to confront the uncomfortable truth that the very thing Indian peoples need is their land, the same land that the U.S. took from them. This is especially the case with regard to the sacred sites of Indian peoples, whose religions and cultures are inextricably linked to those sites. Federal law permits the United States …

State Courts Unbound, Frederic M. Bloom

Publications

We may not think that state courts disobey binding Supreme Court precedent, but occasionally state courts do. In a number of important cases, state courts have actively defied apposite Supreme Court doctrine, and often it is the Court itself that has invited them to.

This Article shows state courts doing the unthinkable: flouting Supreme Court precedent, sometimes at the Court's own behest. The idea of state court defiance may surprise us. It is not in every case, after all, that state courts affirmatively disobey. But rare events still have their lessons, and we should ask how and why they emerge. …

How Do Securities Laws Influence Affect, Happiness, & Trust?, Peter H. Huang

Publications

This Article advocates that securities regulators promulgate rules based upon taking into consideration their impacts upon investors' and others' affect, happiness, and trust. Examples of these impacts are consumer optimism, financial stress, anxiety over how thoroughly securities regulators deliberate over proposed rules, investor confidence in securities disclosures, market exuberance, social moods, and subjective well-being. These variables affect and are affected by traditional financial variables, such as consumer debt, expenditures, and wealth; corporate investment; initial public offerings; and securities market demand, liquidity, prices, supply, and volume. This Article proposes that securities regulators can and should evaluate rules based upon measures of …

The Chains Of The Constitution And Legal Process In The Library: A Post-Usa Patriot Reauthorization Act Assessment, Susan Nevelow Mart

Publications

Since the Patriot Act was passed in 2001, controversy has raged over nearly every provision. The controversy has been particularly intense over provisions that affect the patrons of libraries. This article follows those Patriot Act provisions that affect libraries, and reviews how they have been interpreted, how the Patriot Reauthorization Acts have changed them, and what government audits and court affidavits reveal about the use and misuse of the Patriot Act. The efforts of librarians and others opposed to the Patriot Act have had an effect, both legislatively and judicially, in changing and challenging the Patriot Act. Because libraries are …

The Intriguing Federalist Future Of Reproductive Rights, Scott A. Moss, Douglas M. Raines

Publications

As the decline of Roe v. Wade inspires renewed efforts to restrict federal constitutional abortion rights, the serious shortcomings of abortion rights advocates' strategies for preserving such rights will become increasingly apparent. Continued reliance on Roe is likely to fail with an increasingly unsympathetic Supreme Court. Even abortion rights supporters have begun to criticize the decision for weak reasoning, which is difficult to remedy at this late stage of federal abortion jurisprudence. Moreover, although autonomy and gender equality arguments for abortion rights would improve upon Roe's privacy rationale, such arguments would require abrogating substantial precedent and are, therefore, of limited …