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Full-Text Articles in Law

Measuring The Impact Of Plausibility Pleading, Alexander A. Reinert Dec 2015

Measuring The Impact Of Plausibility Pleading, Alexander A. Reinert

Articles

Ashcroft v. Iqbal and its predecessor, Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, introduced a change to federal pleading standards that had remained essentially static for five decades. Both decisions have occupied the attention of academics, jurists, and practitioners since their announcement. Iqbal alone has, as of this writing, been cited by more than 95,000 judicial opinions, more than 1,400 law review articles, and innumerable briefs and motions. Many scholars have criticized Iqbal and Twombly for altering the meaning of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure outside the traditional procedures contemplated by the Rules Enabling Act. Almost all commentators agree that …


Patent Markets: A Framework For Evaluation, Michael J. Burstein Oct 2015

Patent Markets: A Framework For Evaluation, Michael J. Burstein

Articles

Patents have become financial assets, in both practice and theory. A nascent market for patents routinely produces headline-grabbing transactions in patent portfolios, and patent assertion entities frequently defend themselves as sources of liquidity essential for a patent market to function. Much of the discourse surrounding these developments assumes that a robust, liquid market for patents would improve the operation of the patent system. In this Essay, I challenge that assumption and systematically assess the cases for and against patent markets. I do so by taking seriously both the underlying innovation promotion goal of the patent system and the lessons of …


Acus - And Administrative Law - Then And Now, Michael Herz Sep 2015

Acus - And Administrative Law - Then And Now, Michael Herz

Articles

The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) both shapes and reflects the intellectual, policy, and practical concerns of the field of administrative law. Its recommendations are therefore a useful lens through which to view that field. Also, because of an unfortunate hiatus, ACUS has gotten underway not once but twice. Those two beginnings provide a kind of natural experiment, and they make a revealing contrast. This article traces the transformations of American administrative law, as well as the field’s perpetual concerns, by comparing the initial recommendations of ACUS 1.0 (1968 to 1970) with the initial recommendations of ACUS 2.0 …


The Supreme Court's Civil Assault On Civil Procedure, Alexander A. Reinert Jul 2015

The Supreme Court's Civil Assault On Civil Procedure, Alexander A. Reinert

Articles

No abstract provided.


Under The Prison Litigation Reform Act's So-Called Three Strikes Provision, When Does A Dismissal Count As A Strike: Coleman V. Tollefson (13-1333), Betsy Ginsberg Feb 2015

Under The Prison Litigation Reform Act's So-Called Three Strikes Provision, When Does A Dismissal Count As A Strike: Coleman V. Tollefson (13-1333), Betsy Ginsberg

Articles

The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 amended the federal in forma pauperis statute to include, among other provisions, what has become known as the “three strikes provision.” Under this provision, prisoners who have accumulated three strikes—three dismissals of cases that were frivolous, malicious, or failed to state a claim—are no longer permitted to proceed in forma pauperis unless they can show immediate danger of serious physical injury. This case asks the Court to determine whether a dismissal by the district court immediately counts as a strike or whether it does not count until any appeal of the dismissal has …


The Current State Of The Consumer Class Action, Myriam E. Gilles, Samuel Issacharoff, Andrew J. Pincus, Theodore D. Rave Jan 2015

The Current State Of The Consumer Class Action, Myriam E. Gilles, Samuel Issacharoff, Andrew J. Pincus, Theodore D. Rave

Articles

No abstract provided.


Postdefault Interest Rates In Bankruptcy, David G. Carlson Jan 2015

Postdefault Interest Rates In Bankruptcy, David G. Carlson

Articles

This Article shows that as Bankruptcy Code section 506(b) is currently written, postdefault interest rates are prohibited when the default is an “ipso facto event” — a filing for bankruptcy or insolvency as the event of a default. Yet some courts have insisted on postdefault interest in situations reinstating a loan agreement and have been ignoring restrictions on pendency interest to permit oversecured creditors from obtaining penalty rates of interest. This Article argues that those holdings violate section 506(b) and Supreme Court precedent. It begins with an analysis of ipso facto defaults, showing that the Bankruptcy Code prohibits ipso facto …


Pay For Play: The Compensated Leisure Flaw Of Contract Damages, Mitchell L. Engler Jan 2015

Pay For Play: The Compensated Leisure Flaw Of Contract Damages, Mitchell L. Engler

Articles

Contract damages aim to leave the injured party in as good a position as if the contract had been fulfilled. But discharged laborers often obtain a much better result due to the lack of a reduction for their excused work effort on breach. After first exposing the problematic ramifications of this unjustified deviation, this Article then provides two workable corrections.


Virtuous Capture, Matthew Wansley Jan 2015

Virtuous Capture, Matthew Wansley

Articles

A regulatory agency is captured if, instead of the public interest, it pursues the interests of powerful firms it is intended to regulate. Scholars disagree about which agencies are captured, how they become captured, and what reforms, if any, can prevent capture. There is consensus on one issue: capture is a vice.In this Article, I argue that capture can be a virtue. When powerful interest groups thwart justified regulation, the optimal strategy for pursuing that regulation may be to indirectly empower interest groups that stand to profit from it in the long-run. Legislation creating new interest groups — or altering …


Cost-Benefit Analysis As A Commitment Device, Matthew Wansley Jan 2015

Cost-Benefit Analysis As A Commitment Device, Matthew Wansley

Articles

Cost-benefit analysis does not age well. As scientific understanding of health, safety, and environmental risks accumulates over time — and as the technology to mitigate those risks becomes more affordable — the assumptions underlying a rule’s cost-benefit analysis obsolesce. Yet because of agency inaction, rulemaking ossification, and inattention to priority setting, outdated rules persist. In order to combat obsolescence, agencies should use cost-benefit analysis as a commitment device. When an agency analyzes a rule, it should precommit to subsequently adopting a more stringent rule than the one it initially promulgates, if and when a private actor credibly demonstrates that the …


Redressing Hiv/Aids Discrimination In Nigeria: The Implications Of The Anti-Discrimination Act Of 2015, Ngozi Okidegbe Jan 2015

Redressing Hiv/Aids Discrimination In Nigeria: The Implications Of The Anti-Discrimination Act Of 2015, Ngozi Okidegbe

Articles

No abstract provided.


Rethinking Standing In Patent Challenges, Michael J. Burstein Jan 2015

Rethinking Standing In Patent Challenges, Michael J. Burstein

Articles

No abstract provided.


Revisiting The Revolution: Reintegrating The Wealth Transmission System, Melanie B. Leslie, Stewart E. Sterk Jan 2015

Revisiting The Revolution: Reintegrating The Wealth Transmission System, Melanie B. Leslie, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

Thirty years ago, John Langbein published "The Nonprobate Revolution and the Future of Succession." The article celebrated testators' newfound ability to avoid the expense and delay of the probate court system by holding assets in a variety of non-probate devices, such as retirement and bank accounts with beneficiary designations and revocable trusts. Langbein high-lighted problems the revolution might generate and predicted how they might be resolved. Since then, significant problems have indeed developed. First, wills law doctrines designed to effectuate intent of testators have not been universally extended to non-probate transfers. Second, the fragmentation of the wealth transmission process has …


Facing Terror Together: Public Agents And Civic Worth, Ekow N. Yankah Jan 2015

Facing Terror Together: Public Agents And Civic Worth, Ekow N. Yankah

Articles

No abstract provided.


Chinese Companies And U.S. Class Actions: Securities Litigation And Product Liability, Geoffrey Sant, Charles M. Yablon, Stephen A. Radin, Kayvan Sadeghi, Christopher Seeger, Richard H. Silberberg Jan 2015

Chinese Companies And U.S. Class Actions: Securities Litigation And Product Liability, Geoffrey Sant, Charles M. Yablon, Stephen A. Radin, Kayvan Sadeghi, Christopher Seeger, Richard H. Silberberg

Articles

No abstract provided.


Individualized Injunctions And No-Modification Terms: Challenging "Anti-Reform" Provisions In Arbitration Clauses, Myriam E. Gilles Jan 2015

Individualized Injunctions And No-Modification Terms: Challenging "Anti-Reform" Provisions In Arbitration Clauses, Myriam E. Gilles

Articles

The Supreme Court’s recent decisions in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion and American Express v. Italian Colors have considered only whether class actions for monetary damages may be barred by arbitration clauses requiring individual adjudication. The Justices have not examined the enforceability of arbitration clauses or arbitral rules which explicitly prohibit claimants from seeking or arbitrators from granting broad injunctive relief in an individual dispute. I term these "anti-reform" provisions because they broadly prohibit an individual arbitral claimant from seeking to end a practice, change a rule, or enjoin an act that causes injury to itself and to similarly-situated non-parties. This …


Why Instrumentalism Matters, Kyron Huigens Jan 2015

Why Instrumentalism Matters, Kyron Huigens

Articles

No abstract provided.