Law Commons^™

There Is No Work-Life Balance, Bridget M. Mccormack, Leonard M. Niehoff

Articles

We often find ourselves speaking to audiences of law students and new lawyers who are trying to figure out what their future as practicing attorneys will look like. At some point, typically toward the end of our remarks, a hand goes up and a dreaded question - as reliable as the law of gravity - lands with a thud: "Do you have any advice as to how to achieve the right work-life balance?"

Catch And Kill: Does The First Amendment Protect Buying Speech To Bury It?, Leonard M. Niehoff

Articles

The news media usually chase stories in order to publish them—but sometimes not so much. In some instances, media entities vigorously pursue a story—and purchase the source’s right to tell it—for the specific purpose of ensuring that it does not see the light of day. This practice, commonly called “catch and kill,” has recently come under close scrutiny and raises a host of questions.

These include pragmatic questions: Does the practice work? Can the media entity (or a third-party beneficiary) really enforce the underlying contract? Doesn’t the source’s willingness to abide by the contract come down to a simple economic …

Prosecutors And Voters Are Becoming Smart On Crime, Barbara L. Mcquade

Articles

How to explain the recent trend of electing reform-minded local prosecutors? It may be that voters are seeing through tough talk to embrace smarter strategies to reduce crime.

Social Freedom, Democracy And The Political: Three Reflections On Axel Honneth's Idea Of Socialism, Stephen W. Sawyer, William J. Novak, James T. Sparrow

Articles

Axel Honneth’s Idea of Socialism is an important clarion call for an urgent rethinking of the possibilities of a socialism for the twenty-first century. One of the most surprising and satisfying aspects of Axel Honneth’s timely new book is its recovery of the continued vitality of John Dewey’s pragmatic democratic philosophy. These reflections on Honneth’s use of John Dewey for democratizing social freedom, take stock of and explore the political limits of Honneth’s social reconstruction.

The Private Law Critique Of International Investment Law, Julian Arato

Articles

This Article argues that investment treaties subtly constrain how nations organize their internal systems of private law, including laws of property, contracts, corporations, and intellectual property. Problematically, the treaties do so on a one-size-fits-all basis, disregarding the wide variation in values reflected in these domestic legal institutions. Investor-state dispute settlement exacerbates this tension, further distorting national private law arrangements. This hidden aspect of the system produces inefficiency, unfairness, and distributional inequities that have eluded the regime's critics and apologists alike.

Targeting Poverty In The Courts: Improving The Measurement Of Ability To Pay Fines, Meghan M. O'Neil, J.J. Prescott

Articles

Ability-to-pay determinations are essential when governments use money-based alternative sanctions, like fines, to enforce laws. One longstanding difficulty in the U.S. has been the extreme lack of guidance on how courts are to determine a litigant’s ability to pay. The result has been a seat-of-the-pants approach that is inefficient and inaccurate, and, as a consequence, very socially costly. Fortunately, online platform technology presents a promising avenue for reform. In particular, platform technology offers the potential to increase litigant access, reduce costs, and ensure consistent and fair treatment—all of which should lead to more accurate sanctions. We use interviews, surveys, and …

Virtual Hatred: How Russia Tried To Start A Race War In The United States, William J. Aceves

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Russian government engaged in a sophisticated strategy to influence the U.S. political system and manipulate American democracy. While most news reports have focused on the cyber-attacks aimed at Democratic Party leaders and possible contacts between Russian officials and the Trump presidential campaign, a more pernicious intervention took place. Throughout the campaign, Russian operatives created hundreds of fake personas on social media platforms and then posted thousands of advertisements and messages that sought to promote racial divisions in the United States. This was a coordinated propaganda effort. Some Facebook and Twitter posts denounced the …

White Caller Crime: Racialized Police Communication And Existing While Black, Chan Tov Mcnamarah

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Over the past year, reports to the police about Black persons engaged in innocuous behaviors have bombarded the American consciousness. What do we make of them? And, equally important, what are the consequences of such reports?

This Article is the first to argue that the recent spike in calls to the police against Black persons who are simply existing must be understood as a systematic phenomenon which it dubs racialized police communication. The label captures two related practices. First, racially motivated police reporting—calls, complaints, or reports made when Black persons are engaged in behavior that would not have been read …

General Editor's Introduction To The Treatise, Richard D. Friedman

Other Publications

There is a story -- recalled rather wistfully by an American in 1995, shortly after the thrashing of Young America by New Zealand's Black Magic -- that in 1851 Queen Victoria came to watch the first race for what became known as the America's Cup. “Who is leading?” she asked the signal master of the royal yacht. “The America,” came the reply. “Which boat is in second place?” the Queen wanted to know. The signal master replied: “There is no second, ma'am.'DD'

This story -- which, though perhaps apocryphal, has gained a life of its own -- captures perfectly the …

The Progressive Idea Of Democratic Administration, William J. Novak

Articles

The first thing to acknowledge about administration is that administration is coincident with governance. Far from being a modern invention or some kind of radical departure from an original political or legal tradition, administration is among the oldest practices of governments. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of government without administration. Laws need to be enforced, legislation needs to be implemented, and collective goods need to be secured. Governance is mostly a matter of actions and practices, making administration perhaps the most truly reflective aspect of legal and political culture.

Cross-Listing, Corporate Governance And Private Securities Law Enforceinent In Taiwan, Thomas Yenshou Tsai

SJD Dissertations

The regulation of foreign listings have become an increasingly important issue. As issuers can now easily cross borders to gain access to foreign capital markets, jurisdictions have begun to work hard to entice foreign issuers to list on their exchanges. Especially for small markets such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, embracing foreign listings has become the inevitable route in order to boost their capital markets.

This Article is organized as follows: Part II provides an overview of the regulatory regimes of corporate governance for foreign issuers in the United States. and EU-namely, the United Kingdom and Germany, the EU's two …

The Deterrence Case For Comprehensive Automaker Enterprise Liability, Kyle D. Logue

Journal of Law and Mobility

This Article lays out the potential (at this point purely theoretical) deterrence benefits of replacing our current auto tort regime (including auto products liability law, driver-based negligence claims, and auto no-fault regimes) with a single, comprehensive automaker enterprise liability system. This new regime would apply not only to Level 5 vehicles, but to all automobiles made and sold to be driven on public roads. Because such a system would make automakers unconditionally responsible for the economic losses resulting from any crashes of their vehicles, it would in effect make automakers into auto insurers as well, although such a change will …

Adoption Of 1325 Resolution, Christine M. Chinkin

Book Chapters

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was not adopted in a vacuum, but rather can be read with a number of other programs within the Security Council (SC) and UN architecture. These include other thematic resolutions, as well as broader policy initiatives. Taken together, these diverse strands sought to shift the understanding of the SC’s role in the maintenance of international peace and security, away from a classic state-oriented approach to one that places people at its center. The adoption of Resolution 1325, along with these other developments, had implications for the making of international law (the place of civil society …

The Confrontation Right, Richard D. Friedman

Book Chapters

This chapter examines the right of criminal defendants to be confronted with the witnesses against them. It first provides an overview of the nature, purposes, and costs of the confrontation right before discussing the history of the confrontation right. It then considers a range of issues that may arise in any jurisdiction (or in some cases, any common law jurisdiction) with regard to the confrontation right, using as a touchstone the current status of the right in the United States. In particular, it describes situations in which the question of whether a statement is testimonial typically arises, such as fresh …

Preface To The Third Edition By The General Editor. Preface To The New Wigmore: A Treatise On Evidence: Selected Rules Of Limited Admissibility, Richard D. Friedman

Other Publications

As General Editor of this treatise, my principal job is to recruit an excellent team of authors; no one in the modern day could hope to replicate John Henry Wigmore's one-man show. David Leonard, not only a superb scholar but also an exemplary person through and through, was one of the first people I asked, and to my delight he joined the project. He tackled his assignment with great ability and broad vision--and also graciousness in dealing with a slew of editorial comments from me. With a degree of efficiency and industry that can perhaps best be described in this …

Risks And Remedies For Artificial Intelligence In Healthcare, W. Nicholson Price Ii

Other Publications

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly entering health care and serving major roles, from automating drudgery and routine tasks in medical practice to managing patients and medical resources. As developers create AI systems to take on these tasks, several risks and challenges emerge, including the risk of injuries to patients from AI system errors, the risk to patient privacy of data acquisition and AI inference, and more. Potential solutions are complex but involve investment in infrastructure for high-quality, representative data; collaborative oversight by both the Food and Drug Administration and other health-care actors; and changes to medical education that will prepare …

A Higher Authority: Canada’S Cannabis Legalization In The Context Of International Law, Antonia Eliason, Robert Howse

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I of this Article provides an overview of some of the key terms and provisions of Canada’s Cannabis Act. Part II looks at the Cannabis Act in the context of the International Drug Conventions, examining how the various convention provisions might apply, looking first at the Single Convention and then at the 1988 Convention and how that convention fits with Canadian constitutional provisions. Part III focuses on the international human rights framework and how the Cannabis Act might be viewed as compatible with international human rights law even where incompatible with the International Drug Conventions. This Part also offers …

Between The Margins And The Mainstream: The Case Of Women's Rights, Hilary Charlesworth, Christine M. Chinkin

Book Chapters

This chapter investigates the conceptual limits of the field of women’s rights. It identifies two main currents of activity in the field: the elaboration of human rights standards, particularly through the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women of 1979; and the development of the ‘Women, Peace and Security’ agenda by the UN Security Council since 2000. Both areas are limited in their understandings of the diverse lives of women. The chapter argues that campaigns for the recognition of women’s rights shuttle between the mainstream and the margins of international law and that the structural …

Crisis-Driven Tax Law: The Case Of Section 382, Albert H. Choi, Quinn Curtis, Andrew T. Hayashi

Articles

At the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued Notice 2008–83 (the Notice), administrative guidance that limited Internal Revenue Code (the Code) section 382, an important tax rule designed to discourage tax-motivated acquisitions. Although styled as a mere interpretation of existing law, the Notice has been widely viewed as an improper exercise of the IRS’s authority that undermined its legitimacy. But did the Notice work? There were many extraordinary interventions during the financial crisis that raised questions about eroding the rule of law and the long-term destabilizing effects of bail­outs. In a financial crisis, regulators …

Of Bee Stings, Mud Pies, And Outhouses: Exploring The Value Of Satire Through The Theory Of Useful Untruths, Leonard M. Niehoff

Other Publications

In this article, I attempt to fill this conceptual gap within Hustler by offering a theory of how satire functions and why it has a distinctively important place in our public discourse. That theory draws on the work of philosophers like Kwame Anthony Appiah, Hans Vaihinger, Kendall Walton, and Lon Fuller, who have discussed the concept of “useful untruths”—lines of thought where we proceed as if something we know to be false is in fact true, because doing so serves a useful and valuable purpose. In my view, the philosophy of useful untruths can help us understand the complexity of …

Clown Eggs, Dave Fagundes, Aaron Perzanowski

Articles

Since 1946, many clowns have recorded their makeup by having it painted on eggs that are kept in a central registry in Wookey Hole, England. This tradition, which continues today, has been referred to alternately as a form of informal copyright registration and a means of protecting clowns’ property in their personae. This Article explores the Clown Egg Register and its surrounding practices from the perspective of law and social norms. In so doing, it makes several contributions. First, it contributes another chapter to the growing literature on the norms-based governance of intellectual property, showing how clowns—like comedians, roller derby …

The Orphan Drug Act At 35: Observations And An Outlook For The Twenty-First Century, Nicholas Bagley, Benjamin Berger, Amitabh Chandra, Craig Garthwaite

Articles

On the thirty-fifth anniversary of the adoption of the Orphan Drug Act (ODA), we describe the enormous changes in the markets for therapies for rare diseases that have emerged over recent decades. The most prominent example is the fact that the profit-maximizing price of new orphan drugs appears to be greater today than it was in 1983. All else equal, this should reduce the threshold for research and development (R&D) investment in an economically viable product. Further, the small size of patient populations for orphan drugs, together with the increasing prevalence of biologics among orphan drugs, have created a set …

Abortion Talk, Clare Huntington

Michigan Law Review

Review of Carol Sanger's About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in Twenty-First-Century America.

Doors To Safety: Exit West, Refugee Resettlement, And The Right To Asylum, Betsy L. Fisher

Michigan Law Review

Review of Mohsin Hamid's Exit West.

Making Rule 23 Ideal: Using A Multifactor Test To Evaluate The Admissibility Of Evidence At Class Certification, Cianan M. Lesley

Michigan Law Review

Circuit courts are split on whether and to what extent the Daubert standard should apply at class certification. Potential plaintiffs believe that application of Daubert would make it nearly impossible to obtain class certification. For potential defendants, the application of the standard is an important way to ensure that the certification process is fair. This Note examines the incentives underlying the push to apply the Daubert standard at class certification and the benefits and drawbacks associated with that proposal. It proposes a solution that balances the concerns of both plaintiffs and defendants by focusing on three factors: the obstacles to …

Review Of Rights And Demands: A Foundational Inquiry, Nicholas B. Cornell

Reviews

No abstract provided.

Platform Procedure: Using Technology To Facilitate (Efficient) Civil Settlement., J.J. Prescott, Alexander Sanchez

Book Chapters

In this chapter, we explore the ability of courts to enhance the role of substantive law in case outcomes by reducing party litigation costs. When it becomes less costly for parties to engage actively in dispute resolution, the shadow of substantive law should, in theory, become more pronounced and case outcomes should change (and hopefully become more accurate/efficient on average). To empirically investigate this hypothesis, we examine the consequences of a large state court’s implementation of court-assisted online dispute resolution (ODR) tools for its small claims docket. A central goal of this technology is to reduce litigation costs of all …

Health Care Ai: Law, Regulation, And Policy., W. Nicholson Price Ii

Book Chapters

As discussed in previous chapters, artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to be involved in almost all aspects of the health care industry. The legal landscape for health care AI is complex; AI systems with different intended uses, audiences, and use environments face different requirements at state, federal, and international levels. A full accounting of these legal requirements, or of the policy questions involved, is far beyond the scope of this chapter. Additionally, the legal and regulatory framework for AI in health care continues to evolve, given the nascent stage of the industry.

In this chapter, we offer an overview …

Reading Terminology In The Sources For The Early Common Law: Seisin, Simple And Not So Simple, John G. H. Hudson

Book Chapters

According to F. W. Maitland, ‘the treatment of seisin in our oldest common law must be understood if ever we are to use the vast store of valuable knowledge that lies buried in the plea rolls and the Year Books’. In The History of English Law, Maitland stated firmly that ‘Seisin is possession’, and that ‘When we say that seisin is possession, we use the latter term in the sense in which lawyers use it, a sense in which possession is quite distinct from, and may be sharply opposed to, proprietary right.’ He added that ‘The idea of seisin …

The Most Revealing Word In The United States Report, Richard Primus

Articles

The most prominent issue in NFIB v. Sebelius was whether Congress’s regulatory power under the Commerce Clause stops at a point marked by a distinction between “activity” and “inactivity.” According to the law’s challengers, prior decisions about the scope of the commerce power already reflected the importance of the distinction between action and inaction. In all of the previous cases in which exercises of the commerce power had been sustained, the challengers argued, that power had been used to regulate activity. Never had Congress tried to regulate mere inactivity. In NFIB, four Justices rejected that contention, writing that such …