Law Commons^™

The Anxiety Of Influence And Judicial Self-Aggrandizement In Rabbinic Jurisprudence, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Pattern Of Violence: How The Law Classifies Crimes And What It Means For Justice. By David Alan Sklansky. Cambridge, Ma: Belknap Press. 336 Pp. $29.95 Hardcover, John F. Pfaff

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Local Constitutions, Nestor M. Davidson

Faculty Scholarship

Municipal charters are the forgotten constitutions of our federal system. Scholars generally understand our democracy to be governed by federal and state constitutions, but there is a third, almost entirely ignored realm of constitutional law and practice that lives at the local-government level, embodied in the charters that govern cities, counties, and towns. Engaging these foundational documents is critical. In an era of political gridlock and national polarization, with cities and other local governments increasingly grappling with policy concerns once considered state, federal, or even international responsibilities, the legal institutions that govern local democracy merit newfound scrutiny.

Although municipal charters …

Fiduciary Law And The Law Of Public Office, Ethan J. Leib, Andrew Kent

Faculty Scholarship

A law of public office crystallized in Anglo-American law in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This body of law—defined and enforced through a mix of oaths, statutes, criminal and civil case law, impeachments, and legislative investigations—imposed core duties on holders of public executive offices: officials needed to serve the public good, not their own private interests; were barred from acting ultra vires; could often be required to account to the public for their conduct in office; and needed to act with impartiality, honesty, and diligence. Officeholding came to be viewed as conditional, with officers removable for misdeeds. These substantive duties …

What's Law Got To Do With It? Dignity And Menstruation, Elizabeth B. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Absolute Power, Or A Power Absolutely In Need Of Reform? Proposals To Reform The Presidential Pardon Power, Milana Bretgoltz, Albert Ford, Alicia Serrani

Faculty Scholarship

The presidential pardon power can serve valuable purposes, but the lack of checks on the power invites abuses. This report calls for laws and executive orders to curtail misuses of the pardon power. Congress should pass laws banning the president from pardoning himself or herself and issuing pardons for conduct that has not yet occurred. Executive orders should set detailed procedures for considering pardons and require reports to Congress if the president pardons a family member or close associate.

Selecting Representative And Qualified Candidates For President: Proposals To Reform Presidential Primaries, Daisy De Wolff, Ben Kremnitzer, Samara Perlman, Gabriella Weick

Faculty Scholarship

The presidential primary processes used by the two major parties misses opportunities to engage voters and incorporate their input in selecting nominees. This report advances several reforms to make the primaries more inclusive, including reordering the primary calendar to give voters in more states a meaningful voice, eliminating caucuses, and opening primaries to independent voters. Additionally, the political parties should make primary debates more informative and limit party leaders’ opportunities to have disproportionate input in selecting presidential candidates

Lessons For Bivens And Qualified Immunity Debates From Nineteenth-Century Damages Litigation Against Federal Officers, Andrew Kent

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay was written for a symposium marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics. As the current Court has turned against Bivens—seemingly confining it to three specific contexts created by Bivens and two follow-on decisions in 1979 and 1980—scholars and litigants have developed a set of claims to respond to the Court’s critique. The Court now views the judicially created Bivens cause of action and remedy as a separation-of-powers foul; Congress is said to be the institution which should weigh the costs and benefits of allowing …

Historical Antecedents Of The 2020 Presidential Election, Thomas H. Lee

Faculty Scholarship

Antecedenti storici dell’elezione presidenziale del 2020 – Starting from former President Trump’s speech that propelled the storm of Capitol Hill on January 6th, the article provides an historical account of the transition of powers between administrations in the past decades and centuries. The analysis, on the one hand, highlights the traditionally peaceful nature of such transitions, while, on the other, it points to the instances when disputes concerning the electoral outcome occurred.

Who Should Police Politicization Of The Doj?, Bruce A. Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Letting Companies Choose Between Board Models: An Empirical Analysis Of Country Variations, Martin Gelter, Mathias Siems

Faculty Scholarship

This article has a dual aim: it aims to contribute to the substance of comparative corporate law and it aims to advance the methodology of comparative legal research. In substantive terms, the article addresses the key question about the design of a suitable board structure. It notes that today many countries not only allow modifications of the default structure, but provide two separate legal templates by giving firms a choice between a one-tier and a two-tier board model. Yet, information on the actual choices made by companies is rare. This article aims to fill this gap. It presents original data …

Protecting The Supreme Court: Why Safeguarding The Judiciary’S Independence Is Crucial To Maintaining Its Legitimacy, Isabella Abelite, Evelyn Michalos, John Rogue

Faculty Scholarship

The stability of the Supreme Court’s size and procedures is a critical source of legitimacy, but reforms might protect the Court’s independence from politics. Perceptions among members of the public that justices are political actors harms the rule of law. This report discusses reforms to ensure that each president receives the same number of appointments to the Supreme Court. The report also considers how to guarantee each nominee a Senate hearing and reforms to the retirement stage of justices’ tenures.

Improving Communication With Public Officials On Social Media: Proposals For Protecting Social Media Users’ First Amendment Rights, Kendra Kumor, Evelyn Li, Nicole Rubin

Faculty Scholarship

Government officials undermine a key platform for communication with the public when they block users or delete their comments on social media. Those actions also often run afoul of the First Amendment. To address a problem that exists at all levels of government, this report recommends legislation that bans public officials using social media for official purposes from blocking users or deleting their comments, except when comments are unprotected by the First Amendment.

Arbitral Courts, Pamela K. Bookman

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, states from Delaware to Dubai have been establishing something in between courts and arbitration, what this Article calls “arbitral courts.” Arbitral courts mimic arbitration’s traditional features. They hire internationally well-regarded judges who may also work as arbitrators. They claim the neutrality, expertise, and sometimes the privacy and confidentiality of international arbitration. Unlike arbitration, however, they bind third parties, develop law, and wield the power of the state.

This Article identifies, theorizes, and explores the significance of these new arbitral courts. Arbitral courts unsettle traditional distinctions between public and private adjudication. Their appearance has significant consequences not only …

"And They Took My Milk!", I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Right To Strike As Customary International Law, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Takings Localism, Nestor M. Davidson, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

Conflicts over “sanctuary” cities, minimum wage laws, and genderneutral bathrooms have brought the problematic landscape of contemporary state preemption of local governance to national attention. This Article contends that more covert, although equally robust, state interference can be found in property, with significant consequences for our understanding of takings law.

Takings jurisprudence looks to the states to mediate most tensions between individual property rights and community needs, as the takings federalism literature recognizes. Takings challenges, however, often involve local governments. If the doctrine privileges the democratic process to resolve most takings claims, then, that critical process is a largely local …

Technocapital@Biglaw.Com, Bruce A. Green, Carole Silver

Faculty Scholarship

The transformative potential of technology in legal practice is well recognized. But wholly apart from how law firms actually use technology is the question of what law firms say about how they use and relate to technology—in particular, how law firms communicate whether technology matters and has value in what they do. In the past, firms in the BigLaw category, especially at the top echelon, have grounded their reputations on the credentials and achievements of their lawyers. In this paper, we explore whether elite law firms use technology similarly by describing it as an additional tool of inter-firm competition—a sort …

Is There A "Mulatto Escape Hatch" Out Of Racism?: A Reflection On Multiracial Exceptionalism During A Time Of #Blacklivesmatter, Tanya K. Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Skimmed Milk: Reflections On Race, Health, And What Families Tell Us About Structural Racism, Robin A. Lenhardt, Kimani Paul-Emile

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Interpreting By The Rules, Rebecca Kysar

Faculty Scholarship

A promising new school of statutory interpretation has emerged that tries to wed the work of Congress with that of the courts by tying interpretation to congressional process. The primary challenge to this process-based interpretive approach is the difficulty in reconstructing the legislative process. Scholars have proposed leveraging Congress’s procedural frameworks and rules as reliable heuristics to that end. This Article starts from that premise but will add wrinkles to it. The complications stem from the fact that each rule is adopted for distinct reasons and is applied differently across contexts. As investigation into these particularities proceeds, it becomes apparent …

Experiential Leadership: Teaching Collaboration Through A Shared Leadership Model, Paul Radvany

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hard Cases Make Bad Law? A Theoretical Investigation, Sepehr Shahshahani

Faculty Scholarship

I use formal models to probe the aphorism that “hard cases make bad law.” The analysis illuminates important features of the common law process, especially the influence of case characteristics on lawmaking and the role of strategic litigators. When a case raises concerns that are not reflected in doctrine, the court might distort the law to avoid a hardship. Distortion is more likely when the case is important or the facts are close to the border of legality. Litigators may exploit courts’ attention to extra-doctrinal concerns by strategically selecting cases for litigation. Surprisingly, though, a strategic litigator improves lawmaking relative …

Future Sex, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Racial Architecture Of Criminal Justice, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

One of the pleasures of contributing to symposia—especially symposia where each contribution is brief—is the ability to engage in new explorations, test new ideas, and offer new provocations. I do that now in this essay about race, architecture, and criminal justice. I begin by discussing how race is imbricated in the architecture of courthouses, the quintessential place of supposed justice. I then take race and architecture a step further. If we think of architecture expansively—Lawrence Lessig’s definition of architecture as “the physical world as we find it” comes to mind—then it becomes clear that race is also imbricated in the …

The Law School As A White Space, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The International Governance Of Refugee Work: Reflections On The Jordan Compact, Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

For the past seventy years, separate international regimes have governed the economic lives of refugees and labor migrants. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) oversees all aspects of refugee resettlement, including livelihoods, while the International Labor Organization (ILO) is charged with addressing the labor rights of migrants. This division has become increasingly problematic as international actors have sought to move refugees into employment arenas from which they have been largely excluded since the end of WWII. This article uses a case study of the 2016 EU-Jordan Compact to illustrate the risks inherent in positioning refugees as workers in …

The State’S Right To Evidence And Duties Of Citizenship, Youngjae Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Racial Reckoning Of Public Interest Law, Atinuke O. Adediran, Shaun Ossei-Owusu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Menstrual Dignity And The Bar Exam, Marcy L. Karin, Margaret E. Johnson, Elizabeth B. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the issue of menstruation and the administration of the bar exam. Although such problems are not new, over the summer and fall of 2020, test takers and commentators took to social media to critique state board of law examiners’ (“BOLE”) policies regarding menstruation. These problems persist. Menstruators worry that if they unexpectedly bleed during the exam, they may not have access to appropriately sized and constructed menstrual products or may be prohibited from accessing the bathroom. Personal products that are permitted often must be carried in a clear, plastic bag. Some express privacy concerns that the see-through …