Law Commons^™

Evolution And The Holy Ghost Of Scopes: Can Science Lose The Next Round?, Stephen A. Newman

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Moving Beyond Strict Scrutiny: The Need For A More Nuanced Standard Of Protection Analysis For K Through 12 Integration Programs, Deborah N. Archer

Articles & Chapters

In Comfort v. Lynn School Committee, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit evaluated a race-conscious student assignment program using the affirmative action strict scrutiny framework of Grutter v. Bollinger. Comfort is part of a trend of applying strict scrutiny to race-conscious integration programs that has gained new momentum following the decision in Grutter. Invited by the Supreme Court's seemingly unequivocal language in Adarand Constructors v. Pena, that "all racial classifications, imposed by whatever federal, state, or local governmental actor, must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny," federal district and appellate courts confronted with …

The Rule Of Law And The Military Commission, Stephen J. Ellmann

Articles & Chapters

This essay examines the underlying foundations of the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. After laying out many of the features of the conflicting positions taken by the majority and dissents in the case, the article argues that the majority's judgment was by no means determined by the plain meaning of the statutory provisions at issue, nor even by the Steel Seizure framework of overlapping zones of executive and legislative power. Instead, three factors deserve special emphasis. The first is the Court's effort to protect, and catalyze, Congressional authority. The second is the Court's understanding of its own role …

International Human Rights And Comparative Mental Disability Law: The Universal Factors, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

An examination of comparative mental disability law reveals that there are at least five dominant, universal, core factors that must be considered carefully in any evaluation of the key question of whether international human rights standards have been violated. Each of these five factors is a reflection of the shame that the worldwide state of mental disability law brings to all of us who work in this field. Each is tainted by the pervasive corruption of sanism that permeates all of mental disability law. Each reflects a blinding pretextuality that contaminates legal practice in this area.

These are the factors …

Precedent, Super-Precedent, Michael B.W. Sinclair

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Higher Cost Of Being African-American Or Latino: Subprime Home Mortgage Lending In New York City, 2004-2005, Richard D. Marsico

Articles & Chapters

The recent turmoil in the financial markets caused by rising default rates on subprime residential home mortgages should not obscure that several studies have shown that African-Americans, Latinos, and residents of predominantly minority neighborhoods receive a disproportionately high percentage of subprime loans. The subprime lending crisis should also not obscure the fact that they have also received a disproportionately low percentage of all home mortgage loans.

This report uses data made public pursuant to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) to examine home mortgage lending in New York City in 2004 and 2005 to determine whether African-Americans, Latinos, and residents …

Ain't No Goin' Back: Teaching Mental Disability Law Courses Online, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

"Big Love"'? The Recognition Of Customary Marriages In South Africa, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

This Comment contextualizes the issue of polygamous marriages within the South African constitutional paradigm, one committed unequivocally to the principle of equality. This Comment analyzes how South African law, European in origin, had to incorporate the laws and institutions of indigenous communities within the national legal framework, as part of the overall transformative legal project underway in the country since 1994. By focusing on the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, this Comment examines such incorporation, while questioning its effect on the overall project of constitutionalism, human rights, and equality.

Nervine' And Knavery: The Life And Times Of Dr. Miles Medical Company, Rudolph J.R. Peritz

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Peer To Peer Meets The World Of Legal Information: Encountering A New Paradigm, Ethan Katsh, Beth Simone Noveck

Articles & Chapters

The authors describe a proposed system for patent application reviews that uses new technologies to access information-community peer reviews. By allowing examiners to "mine for data" in the heads of experts rather than in libraries or databases, the proposal illustrates how new technology could change the boundaries of legally authoritative and relevant information and make it possible to identify legitimate authority from new sources.

Going Private At The Intersection Of The Market And The Law, Faith Stevelman

Articles & Chapters

Delaware's fiduciary doctrine governing going private transactions by controlling stockholders is presently in disarray. Controllers generally select between single step cash-out mergers and tender offers followed by short-form mergers to do these freezeouts, and they are subject to very different equitable standards depending on the format selected. Further disarray arises because the courts' longstanding commitment to strict scrutiny in freezeouts is in tension with the popular disfavor towards private class-action litigation. This disarray threatens minority investors' interests in freezeouts, and capital market values more broadly. First, the disparities in freezeout doctrine have encouraged controllers to arbitrage the legal standards for …

Canadian Softwood Lumber And Free Trade Under Nafta, Sydney M. Cone Iii.

Articles & Chapters

Canada and the United States have been involved in a long-running dispute over U.S. efforts to protect U.S. producers of softwood lumber by imposing high duties on imports of Canadian-origin softwood lumber. This dispute was prolonged by virtue of the fact that Canada and the United States not only are parties to the North American Free Trade Agreement ("NAFTA"), but also are members of the World Trade Organization ("WTO"). NAFTA contains provisions for the resolution of a trade dispute by an arbitration panel. A WTO agreement known as the Dispute Settlement Understanding ("DSU") separately provides for the creation of panels …

Wikipedia And The Future Of Legal Education, Beth Simone Noveck

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Torture And Islamic Law, Sadiq Reza

Articles & Chapters

This article considers the relationship between Islamic law and the absence or practice of investigative torture in the countries of today's Muslim world. Torture is forbidden in the constitutions, statutes, and treaties of most Muslim-majority countries, but a number of these countries are regularly named among those in which torture is practiced with apparent impunity. Among these countries are several that profess a commitment to Islamic law as a source of national law, including some that identify Islamic law as the principal source of law and some that go so far as to declare themselves "Islamic states." The status of …

Reflections On The Law Review Symposium On Women’S Rights And Pornography: Big Sister, Big Brother, And The Role Of Legal Scholarship In Affirming Human Rights, Nadine Strossen

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

You Can’T Get There From Here: Managing Judicial Review Of Immigration Cases, Lenni B. Benson

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Introduction (Symposium: Perspectives On Post-Conflict Constitutionalism), Ruti G. Teitel

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Endless Emergency: The Case Of Egypt, Sadiq Reza

Articles & Chapters

The Arab Republic of Egypt has been in a declared state of emergency continuously since 1981 and for all but three of the past fifty years. Emergency powers, military courts, and other exceptional powers are governed by longstanding statutes in Egypt and authorized by the constitution, and their use is a prominent feature ofeveryday rule there today. This essay presents Egypt as a case study in what is essentially permanent governance by emergency rule and other exceptional measures. It summarizes the history and framework ofemergency rule in Egypt, discusses the apparent purposes and consequences of that rule, mentions judicial limitations …

An Internet-Based Mental Disability Law Program: Implications For Social Change In Nations With Developing Economies, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Resolving The Intergenerational Conflicts In Real Property Law: Preserving Free Markets And Personal Autonomy For Future Generations, Gerald Korngold

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Compulsory Licensing Vs. Private Negotiations In Peer-To-Peer File Sharing, Michael Botein, Edward Samuels

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Only A Sith Thinks Like That: Llewellyn's Dueling Canons, Eight To Twelve, Michael B.W. Sinclair

Articles & Chapters

In this, the second installment in a series of articles planned to examine each of the twenty eight pairs of "dueling canons" having opposite effect left to us in 1950 by Karl N. Llewellyn (Karl N. Llewellyn, "Remarks on the Theory of Appellate Decision and the Rules or Canons About How Statutes Are to Be Construed", 3 VANDERBILT L.REV. 395 (1950)), I examine pairs 8 through 12. I start with Pair 12, Llewellyn's formulation of the Plain Meaning Rule; it is not so much a canon of construction as a condition on construction: unless one or both of its conditions …

The Challenge Of Hedge Fund Regulation, Houman B. Shadab

Articles & Chapters

Currently en vogue concerns about hedge funds are not nearly as substantial as is often claimed. Moreover, the funds themselves are reducing their risks to investors and the broader markets, in accordance with investor demands. As hedge funds benefit the broader market by mitigating price downturns, bearing risks that others will not, making securities more liquid, and ferreting out inefficiencies, policymakers should consider whether stricter regulation of hedge funds could do more harm than good.

Introduction (Symposium: Seeking Review: Immigration Law And Federal Court Jurisdiction), Lenni B. Benson

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Risks And Realities Of Mezzanine Loans, Andrew R. Berman

Articles & Chapters

The last decade has witnessed an astounding increase in new real estate financing techniques, including mezzanine loans. These new financings are not directly secured by real estate and do not even directly involve land. In the real estate industry, mezzanine financing typically refers to a loan secured principally by the borrower's equity in other entities. Both economically and legally, the value of the mezzanine borrower's collateral derives solely from its indirect ownership of the underlying property.

This article provides a detailed description of the legal structure of mezzanine loans. In addition, this article evaluates the hazards, legal risks and uncertainties …

But Did They Listen? The New Jersey Death Penalty Commission's Exercise In Abolitionism: A Detailed Reply, Robert Blecker

Articles & Chapters

Based upon the nearly unanimous recommendation of its Death Penalty Study Commission, New Jersey seems poised to become the first state in the modern era to legislatively abolish capital punishment and substitute life without parole. Hailed nationally and internationally as thoughtful and fair, the Commission's final report consistently distorts the evidence, displays an anti-retributive bias, and worst of all, ignores basic well-established perspectives framing the great debate, avoiding at all costs the question of justice.

Unbalanced and biased, the Commission does not even consider any alternative to abolition or standing pat. This essay directly engages the Report on its findings …

Regulation Of Municipal Wi-Fi, Michael Botein

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Two Hemispheres Of Legal Education And The Rise And Fall Of Local Law Schools, Randolph N. Jonakait

Articles & Chapters

The recently published Urban Lawyers: The New Social Structure of the Bar by John P. Heinz, Robert L. Nelson, Rebecca L. Sandefur, and Edward O. Laumann documents that the legal profession is largely divided into two hemispheres, where lawyers on one side represent large organization, primarily corporations, and practice in large firms, while on the other side, they represent individuals and small businesses and practice in small firms or as solo practitioners. More and more of the total of legal fees has been going to the big-firm, corporate sector, and the incomes in this sphere have been increasing dramatically. Meanwhile, …

The (Futile) Search For A Common Law Right Of Confrontation: Beyond Brasier's Irrelevance To (Perhaps) Relevant American Cases, Randolph N. Jonakait

Articles & Chapters

After Crawford v. Washington asserted that the Confrontation Clause constitutionalized the common law right of confrontation, cases have been suggested that illustrate that right. This short essay considers whether the 1779 English case Rex v. Brasier is such a decision, as some contend. The essay concludes that Brasier says nothing about the right of confrontation and points to a comparable framing-era, American case that indicates that general rules about hearsay and confrontation were not at issue. The essay maintains that if the historical understandings of the right of confrontation and hearsay are to control the Confrontation Clause, then framing-era, American …

Constitutional Reform, Legal Consciousness, And Citizen Participation In Thailand, Frank W. Munger

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.