Law Commons^™

Vol. 50, No. 6, December 1, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Prospective Faculty to Speak Within Next Week •Yingtao, Justified •Persian Pride •More Top 10 Lists •Shopping Guide •Tumble Freely •Dogma Trashed

Vol. 50, No. 5, November 9, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•LSSS Recognizes Bill Bradley Student Group •Yingtao on Guns •New Winter Courses •The J Arch Project •Movie Reviews •Interview of the Year •Music Reviews

Vol. 50, No. 4, October 19, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Curriculum Committee Debates Changes to Interview Season •Winter Grade Curve •Email Abuse •Get Musical! •Hornbook Workout •Larry Returns! •TBIYTC

Vol. 50, No. 3, October 5, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Election Results are In •Affirmative Action •A2: Ripoff City •3 Second Memory •Fashion for Profs •More on Trolleys •Movie Reviews

Vol. 50, No.2, September 21, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Student Senate Elections Next Wednesday & Thursday •The Economist •1L Reflections •What Law Review? •3 Second Memory •Movie Reviews •Gotta Go

Vol. 50, No. 1, September 7, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Vol. 1, No. 1 •The Growing Quad •Issues Still With Us •Cartoons •Asking for Trouble •Interview Tips

The Jury And Scientific Evidence, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

Read court decisions and commentaries from 100, or evenfive years ago, and you will find that experts and scientific evidence were causing problems then just as they are causing problems now. I do not think that Daubert, Kumho Tire, or any change in a rule of evidence will keep expert scientific testimony from being a difficult area for the legal system. Yet we must still ask: "What are the best terms on which to deal with scientific experts, and how can weimprove the system?"

Juries, Hindsight, And Punitive Damage Awards: Failures Of A Social Science Case For Change, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

In their recent Arizona Law Review article entitled What Juries Can't Do Well: The Jury's Performance As a Risk Manager,' Professors Reid Hastie and W. Kip Viscusi purport to show that juries are likely to do a poor job in setting punitive damages, largely because jurors cannot avoid the influence of what is called "hindsight bias," or the tendency to see the likelihood of an event higher in retrospect than it would have appeared before it happened. In particular, they argue that hindsight bias and other cognitive biases undermine the utility of jury-set punitive damage awards as risk management devices. …

Regulating Doctors, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

Alawyer today can hardly speak to a doctor--or even be treated by one-without being assailed by lawyer jokes. These jokes go well beyond good-humored badinage and pass the line into venom and gall. They reflect, I think, the sense many doctors today have that they are embattled and endangered, cruelly subject to pervasive and perverse controls. This is puzzling, almost to the point of mystery. Doctors have long been the American profession with the greatest social prestige, the greatest wealth, and the greatest control over its work. Indeed, what other profession has been as all-conquering? One may need to go …

The Influence Of Income Tax Rules On Insurance Reserves, David F. Bradford, Kyle D. Logue

Book Chapters

An insurance company is a financial intermediary whose main line of business is the sale of a particular type of contingent contract, called an insurance policy. Under this contract, the insurer promises to pay some amount to the policyholder, or to some other beneficiary, following the occurrence of an insured event. In the context of property-casualty insurance, the relevant insured events include, for example, the accidental destruction of the insured's property or the award of a liability judgment against the insured. In return for this promise the insured pays the insurer a premium. The premium and the earnings on the …

Family Law In The Age Of Distrust, Carl E. Scheider

Articles

I have been invited to examine the relationship between American culture and American family law at the end of the century. No doubt I was foolish to accept the invitation, since the topic can hardly be sketched, much less discussed, within the compass of even a lengthy article. On the other hand, that happy fault forces me to accept the luxury of writing a speculative essay and of eschewing the footnotes that are the misery (and majesty) of the academic lawyer. But even thus set free I am still enchained. Family law is shaped by more cultural forces than I …

Vol. 49, No. 10, April 14, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•SFF Auction Hauls in Over $29,000 •Campbell Finalists Defeat Vouchers •Letter to the Editor •Faculty Hiring Exposed •Alumni Update •Final Tale from Cambodia •Tenure Illustrated •Madness in DC •Interview: Yale Kamisar

Vol. 49, No. 9.5, April 1, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Final Plans for "New" Building Announced •US News Admits Ranking Error: UM Law #1 •ABA Accreditation in Jeopardy Due to Faculty Teaching Practices •The News as We See It •Interview with the Dean •Are You a BPOC? •3Ls Donate Integrity

Vol. 49, No. 9, March 29, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Liberian Book Drive Overwhelming Success •SFF Gears Up for Annual Fundraising Auction •$25,000 Directed by YOU •Fall 1998 Grade Curve •Bruce is Psychic •Going Once, Going Twice

Vol. 49, No. 8, March 17, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•WLSA & Federalists Sponsor Debate •Debt Management Program Banishes 'Firm Future' Nightmares •Juan Tienda Lives On •The RG Finally Gets a Letter •Message from the President •Sure to Become a Classic •Tales from Cambodia •Lawyer Flick of the Year •Eggiweg McMuffin •CDs You've Never Heard Of

Vol. 49, No. 7, February 24, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Terrorism Symposium Sparks Debate •Success for Jessup Team •Think Like a Lawyer •SUV's and Nifty Loopholes •Desensitization •Droit de Seigneur •A Modest Proposal •Sage Advice •Guest Columnist Emeritus

Vol. 49, No. 6, February 15, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Stalking, Robbery, & Embezzlement •Saints Be Praised •Tales From Cambodia •Political Pronouns •Five Gavel Rating •Just Say No •Just Getting' By •Back to Nature

Vol. 49, No. 5, January 28, 1999, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•On-Campus Interviews, Part Two •Winter Ball February 4 •Under New Management •Fly the Friendly Skies •For Your Creative Side •Everyone's a Critic •What IS His Problem? •Personal Politics •Ricta Returns

Minority Preferences Reconsidered, Terrance Sandalow

Reviews

During the academic year 1965-66, at the height of the civil rights movement, the University of Michigan Law School faculty looked around and saw not a single African-American student. The absence of any black students was not, it should hardly need saying, attributable to a policy of purposeful exclusion. A black student graduated from the Law School as early as 1870, and in the intervening years a continuous flow of African-American students, though not a large number, had been admitted and graduated. Some went on to distinguished careers in the law.

Failure And Forgiveness: A Review, James J. White

Reviews

In Failure and Forgiveness, Professor Karen Gross has written two books about bankruptcy. The first book, found in the first nine chapters, describes the bankruptcy law, the bankruptcy system, its operation, and the policies that support that law and system. This first book is written for a lay audience, and it is an admirable exposition of the law and policy. The second book, chapters ten to fifteen, contains several proposals for change in the bankruptcy law and states arguments to justify those proposals. The second book shows Professor Gross to be a kindly socialist, deeply suspicious of free markets and …

Dicta, University Of Michigan Law School

Miscellaneous Law School History & Publications

We all need art, and to see it flourish in our own academic community is cause for celebration and gratitude. Thank you, contributors, for sharing the fruits of your creative energy with your friends and colleagues.

The Editors would also like to extend a hearty thank you to the Law School Student Senate for its continued and generous financial support.

As always, we invite each member of the law school community to get involved with the journal - either as an editor or as a contributor. In the words of Dicta's founding law students, "don't let this good thing die"! …

Honors Convocation, University Of Michigan Law School

Commencement and Honors Materials

Program for the May 14, 1999 University of Michigan Law School Honors Convocation.

Narrative Relevance, Imagined Juries, And A Supreme Court Inspired Agenda For Jury Research, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

This paper has its roots in Old Chief v. United States, a case the Supreme Court of the United States decided in 1997. I will begin by describing this case; then comment on its implications for the Supreme Court's conception of the jury, and conclude by examining the agenda one may draw from it for empirical jury research. Old Chief arose when Johnny Lynn Old Chief was charged not only with assault with a dangerous weapon and using a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence, but also with violating a law that precludes convicted felons from possessing …

Taking Decisions Seriously, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

The New Deal era is one of the great turning points of American constitutional history. The receptivity of the Supreme Court to regulation by state and federal governments increased dra- matically during that period. The constitutionalism that prevailed before Charles Evans Hughes became Chief Justice in 1930 was similar in most respects to that of the beginning of the twen- tieth century. The constitutionalism that prevailed by the time Hughes’ successor Harlan Fiske Stone died in 1946 is far more related to that of the end of the century. How this transformation occurred is a crucial and enduring issue in …

Review Of The Repeal Of Reticence: A History Of America's Cultural And Legal Struggles Over Free Speech, Obscenity, Sexual Liberation, And Modern Art, Donald J. Herzog

Reviews

Our public sphere, which should have displayed and preserved the grandeur and beauty of our civic ideals and moral excellences, is instead inane and vacuous when it is not utterly mean, ugly, or indecent (p. 4). Troubled by the tawdry nonsense circulating in the public sphere-and she wrote before learned enquiries into whether the President's genitals had any distinguishing characteristics- Rochelle Gurstein turns to history to understand how we arrived at such a sorry destination. Hers is a tale of decline: The Victorians "we moderns" so routinelyd eridef or theirP uritanicalr epressivenessu nderstoodf ull well that certain things have to …

Beyond The Hero Judge: Institutional Reform Litigation As Litigation, Margo Schlanger

Reviews

In 1955, in its second decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court suggested that federal courts might be called upon to engage in long-term oversight of once-segregated schools. Through the 1960s, southern resistance pushed federal district and appellate judges to turn that possibility into a reality. The impact of this saga on litigation practice extended beyond school desegregation, and even beyond the struggle for African-American equality; through implementation of Brown, the nation’s litigants, lawyers, and judges grew accustomed both to issuance of permanent injunctions against state and local public institutions, and to extended court oversight of compliance. …

Revaluing Restitution: From The Talmud To Postsocialism, Michael A. Heller, Christopher Serkin

Reviews

Whatever happened to the study of restitution? Once a core private law subject along with property, torts, and contracts, restitution has receded from American legal scholarship. Few law professors teach the material, fewer still write in the area, and no one even agrees what the field comprises anymore. Hanoch Dagan's Unjust Enrichment: A Study of Private Law and Public Values threatens to reverse the tide and make restitution interesting again. The book takes commonplace words such as "value" and "gain" and shows how they embody a society's underlying normative principles. Variations across cultures in the law of unjust enrichment reflect …

Rights Discourse And Neonatal Euthanasia, Carl Schneider

Book Chapters

At the heart of our difficulty in approaching neonatal euthanasia lie the intractable questions it raises: What is human life? When is death preferable to life? What do parents owe their children? What does society owe the suffering? Those moral questions could hardly be more perplexing, yet they are further complicated when they must be resolved not informally and case by case, but through generally applicable social rules. This is so for numerous reasons. For instance, the wide range of deeply held opinions about neonatal euthanasia makes rules hard to formulate, and the wide range of factual situations in which …

Finding The Constitution: An Economic Analysis Of Tradition's Role In Constitutional Interpretation, Adam C. Pritchard, Todd J. Zywicki

Articles

In this Article, Professor Pritchard and Professor Zywicki examine the role of tradition in constitutional interpretation, a topic that has received significant attention in recent years. After outlining the current debate over the use of tradition, the authors discuss the efficiency purposes of constitutionalism--precommitment and the reduction of agency costs--and demonstrate how the use of tradition in constitutional interpretation can serve these purposes. Rejecting both Justice Scalia's majoritarian model, which focuses on legislative sources of tradition, and Justice Souter's common-law model, which focuses on Supreme Court precedent as a source of tradition, the authors propose an alternative model--the "finding model"-- …

Lilly V. Virginia: A Chance To Reconceptualize The Confrontation Right, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

In Lilly v. Virginia, the Supreme Court once again has the opportunity to grapple with the meaning of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendmel).t. The basic facts of Lilly are simple, for they present the ageold problem of accomplice confessions. Three men, Gary Barker and Ben and Mark Lilly, went on a crime spree, during which one of them shot to death a young man they had robbed and kidnaped. Ben Lilly was charged with being the triggerman, and Barker testified to that effect at Ben's trial. Mark did not testify. But Mark had made a statement to the …