Law Commons^™

Living "Top-Down" In A "Bottom-Up" World: Musings On The Relationship Between Jewish Ethics And Legal Ethics, Nancy B. Rapoport

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This article discusses the differences between how Jewish ethics are disseminated and how legal ethics are created, and it walks the reader through some classic examples of the conflicts between the two.

Book Review, David S. Tanenhaus

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After missing an opportunity as a graduate student in the early 1970s to meet the aged Miriam Van Waters, whose distinguished career as a penal reformer spanned from the First World War to the launching of Sputnik, historian Estelle Freedman now attempts to capture her through biography. Freedman’s effort is a valiant one because Van Waters, a student of psychology, struggled with her own identity and sexuality, and repeatedly pushed away anyone who tried to get too close. One can only imagine how the intensely private Van Waters would have reacted to learning that her most personal conflicts would become …

Moral Bankruptcy: Modeling Appropriate Attorney Behavior In Bankruptcy Cases, Nancy B. Rapoport

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This essay discusses how important it is for lawyers, especially senior lawyers, to model appropriate behavior so that the newest lawyers learn how best to behave professionally.

Cloning And The Preservation Of Family Integrity, David Orentlicher

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No abstract provided.

The Misperception That Bioethics And The Law Lag Behind Advances In Biotechnology, David Orentlicher

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No abstract provided.

Natural Law And The Cultivation Of Legal Rhetoric, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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This essay appeared in a book celebrating Lon Fuller's contributions to jurisprudence. In it, Professor Mootz argued that Fuller's conception of secular natural law, designated as an "internal morality of law," lends welcome assistance to the effort to articulate a new direction in legal philosophy. He defended Fuller's natural-law approach from the common misinterpretations that it is either a hollow echo of the natural law tradition or an essentialist conception of law at odds with the legal-realist world that he helped to create with his doctrinal scholarship. By reading his famous, "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers," in a new …

Law In Flux: Philosophical Hermeneutics, Legal Argumentation And The Natural Law Tradition, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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Peter Goodrich describes the plight of contemporary legal theory with concise accuracy: We have abandoned natural law foundations originally constructed in ecclesiastical venues only to find that the project of developing a secular legal language capable of transforming the management of social conflict into questions of technical rationality is doomed to failure. The ascendancy of analytic legal positivism has purchased conceptual rigor at the cost of separating the analysis of legal validity from moral acceptability, but retreat from this stale conceptualism and a return to traditional natural law precepts appears wildly implausible. The irrelevance of the natural law tradition in …

Judge-Made Insurance That Was Not On The Menu: Schmidt V. Smith And The Confluence Of Text, Expectation, And Public Policy In The Realm Of Employment Practices Liability, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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In Schmidt v. Smith, the New Jersey Supreme Court caught more than a few observers by surprise. New Jersey courts have generally issued opinions regarded as pro-claimant and pro-policyholders. But everyone's taste for recompense and coverage has limits. In Schmidt, the court exceeded those limits for many observers by holding that despite what it regarded as clear contract language in an exclusion, an insurer providing Employers’ Liability (“EL”) coverage along with Workers' Compensation (“WC”) insurance for the employer was required to provide coverage in a case of blatant sexual harassment bordering on criminal assault. In doing so, the Schmidt court, …

Lawyers' Representation Of Clients In Mediation: Using Economics And Psychology To Structure Advocacy In A Non-Adversarial Setting, Jean R. Sternlight

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Many believe that lawyers' adversarial methods and mindsets are inherently inconsistent with mediation. Lawyers' emphasis on advocacy and winning is seen as ill-suited to mediation's nonadversarial, problem-solving approach to dispute resolution. Yet, as mediation grows increasingly common, lawyers are frequently accompanying their clients to mediation and often play a critical and direct part in the process. Particularly where disputes are complex or involve relatively large sums of money, it is likely that one or both disputants will be represented by an attorney at the mediation. This Article argues that attorneys need not and ought not to abandon their advocacy or …

Agency Expertise, Alj Independence, And Administrative Courts: The Recent Changes In Louisiana's Administrative Procedure Act, Jay S. Bybee

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In the past two years, the Louisiana Legislature has adopted several structural changes in Louisiana's Administrative Procedure Act (“LAPA”). Most notably, Louisiana adopted what is known as a central panel or unified corps of administrative law judges (“ALJs”). The central panel system, which has been adopted in nearly half of the states and has been proposed for the federal system, has a central agency or office that hires and assigns all ALJs; the central agency rotates ALJs among agencies to ensure the ALJs' independence. Louisiana created the Division of Administrative Law, effective October 1, 1996, within the Department of State …

Limited Representation: Helping Clients While Protecting Yourself, Mary E. Berkheiser

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The lawyer-client relationship is defined by what the client retains the lawyer to do, and that retention may be as general or specific as the lawyer and client desire. The Nevada Supreme Court has recognized that even with regard to “a particular transaction or dispute, an attorney may be specifically employed in a limited capacity.” This freedom to contract for broader or narrower representation benefits both lawyers and clients. No lawyer can be a true generalist anymore, and most clients cannot afford the full range of representation that the legal profession offers on a single matter.

Association Of American Law Schools Panel On The International Criminal Court, Christopher L. Blakesley

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Professor Blakesley participates in this panel discussion on the International Criminal Court. The Association of American Law Schools sponsored the panel.

Democracy And Inclusion: The Role Of The Judge In A Pluralist Polity, Sylvia R. Lazos

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The Supreme Court plays a critical role in resolving clashes between majority and minority interests and perspectives. The Equal Protection Clause, and at times the Due Process Clause, have become key vehicles for considering the most problematic intergroup conflicts that divide our society. Prior to this article, the Court heard cases dealing with affirmative action in government procurement programs, legislative districts designed to increase minority representation, state sponsored male-only military schooling, and a state constitutional amendment that would have proscribed antidiscrimination legislation protecting gay men and lesbians. While the Court declined to challenge California's anti-affirmative action referendum (Proposition 209) and …

When Equal Opportunity Meets Freedom Of Expression: Student-On-Student Sexual Harassment And The First Amendment In School, Kay P. Kindred

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Sexual harassment can take a variety of forms. It can be verbal, nonverbal or physical. Often it takes the form of hateful and harassing speech. In the AAUW Survey, 76% of the girls and 56 % of the boys surveyed had been the target of sexual comments, jokes, gestures or looks. Even when the harassment includes physical contact of some nature, it is typically accompanied or preceded by verbal harassment. While school officials and parents look for solutions to these problems, courts are struggling with the questions as well. In recent years, the problem of student-on-student sexual harassment has found …

Law As Language (Reviewing Peter M. Tiersma, Legal Language (1999)), Francis J. Mootz Iii

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The jacket of Professor Peter Tiersma’s book Legal Language illustrates the problem inherent in a linguistic study of legal language. The jacket features a legal document in fine print, with an overlay of a magnifying glass that brings some of the indecipherable words into focus. The problem, of course, is that a scholar conducting a linguistic study of language does not have access to a distinct "magnifying glass" that can posit language as an object; he can study language only with language.

Tiersma attempts to avoid the most difficult problems of self-reference that follow from the "interpretive turn" in social …

Insurance Coverage Of Employment Discrimination Claims, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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This article discusses insurance coverage of employment discrimination claims under both existing policies and emerging Employment Practices Liability Insurance policies: The first part describes the “three *7 dimensional model” of liability insurance; the second part describes general principles of interpretation as applied by courts to insurance policies; and the third part describes public policy limitations on the interpretation of insurance policies. These first three sections establish the background necessary for analyzing the availability of insurance coverage for employment disputes. The fourth part of the article then analyzes the potential for coverage under standard types of liability insurance, while the fifth …

Insuring Employer Liability For Hostile Work Environment Claims: How Changes In Discrimination Law May Affect The Growing Market For Employment-Related Practices Liability Insurance, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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Assessing the role that Employment Practices Liability Insurance might play in the future requires an understanding of two murky areas of law: employment law and insurance coverage law. In Part I of the Article I discuss the evolution of employer liability for hostile work environment sexual harassment. In Part II of the Article I analyze the consequences for insurance coverage that follow from recognizing that liability for hostile work environment sexual harassment is grounded on negligence principles.

Revisiting Victim's Rights, Lynne Henderson

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No abstract provided.

Advertising Policies Of Medical Journals: Conflicts Of Interest For Journal Editors And Professional Societies, David Orentlicher

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No abstract provided.

Representing Defendants On Charges Of Economic Crime: Unethical When Done For A Fee, David Orentlicher

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No abstract provided.

Foreward: Employment Practies Liability Insurance And The Changing American Workplace, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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In the past fifteen years there has been substantial insurance coverage litigation as employers have attempted to secure coverage under their liability insurance program for employment-related practices liabilities. In recognition of this significant development of a body of law, and growing out of an American Bar Association Annual Meeting panel discussion in which I participated, the Western New England Law Review published a Symposium in 1996 entitled, Insurance Coverage of Employment Disputes. Employers continue to seek insurance coverage for these liabilities under their traditional liability insurance policies, but the situation has dramatically changed in the past several years. On the …

Ratings, Not Rankings: Why U.S. News & World Report Shouldn't Want To Be Compared To Time And Newsweek - Or The New Yorker, Nancy B. Rapoport

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This article discusses the many problems with the U.S. News & World Report rankings of law schools. It argues, among other things, that the rankings magnify insignificant differences among law schools and that the rankings do not provide helpful consumer information.

A Mixed Bag For Chicken Little: Analyzing Year 2000 Claims And Insurance Coverage, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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A visitor from another planet reading the popular and insurance trade press would probably conclude that the world stands on the abyss of a business, tort, and insurance crisis of unprecedented proportion. Media coverage of an impending Year 2000 “crisis” has reached a fevered pitch, with predictions of both a gigantic volume of Year 2000 claims and a correspondingly large amount of insurance coverage litigation. Many predict that the Year 2000 problem (also known as the “Y2K” or “Millennium Bug” problem) will create coverage controversies and costs dwarfing major insurance battles of the late twentieth century such as those concerning …

Domtar Baby: Misplaced Notions Of Equitable Apportionment Create A Thicket Of Potential Unfairness For Insurance Policyholders, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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Minnesota has an enduring reputation as a progressive, even liberal state hospitable to the underdog and concerned for fairness. This is hardly a surprise for the home state of prominent liberal politicians such as Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy and Paul Wellstone. The perception of Minnesota liberalism, populism, or pro-plaintiff sympathies extends to the technical legal realm as well. Lawyers know about prominent Minnesota cases favoring claimants. Many are reprinted in casebooks or otherwise disproportionately well-known. Most recently, Minnesota was again in the news as the state unwilling to join in a proposed national settlement of claims against the …

Embracing Descent: The Bankruptcy Of A Business Paradigm For Conceptualizing And Regulating The Legal Profession, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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Lawyers are said to travel in packs, or at least pairs, and in the popular parlance are often compared to hoards of locusts, herds of cattle, or unruly mobs. However, at least for purposes of assessing concerns with professionalism currently surrounding the bar and the public, whether attorneys are more or less social than other human animals does not matter. My point is simply that lawyers are social beings; like other human beings in social and occupational groups, lawyers behave largely in accordance with group norms, in much the same way peer pressure led Julian English toward juvenile delinquency in …

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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Recent case developments in Insurance law in the year 1998-1999.

Compelling Arbitration Of Claims Under The Civil Rights Act Of 1866: What Congress Could Not Have Intended, Jean R. Sternlight

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The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was a very special statute, designed at minimum to eliminate all "badges and incidents of slavery" and to ensure that the freed slaves would be provided with civil rights equal to those of white persons. Its enforcement depends on the availability of a neutral public system of justice. Private arbitration cannot assure these characteristics. Thus, courts should not enforce agreements to arbitrate future disputes that may arise under this statute. This Article, however, does not argue that arbitration of claims under the Civil Rights Act of 1866 should be prohibited altogether. Disputants who mutually …

Pro Bono Service At The William S. Boyd School Of Law, Mary E. Berkheiser, Christine Smith

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The mission of the William S. Boyd School of Law is to serve Nevada, and the legal and academic communities by developing and maintaining an innovative educational program that will train ethical and effective lawyers and leaders for Nevada and for the legal profession. To put the school’s mission in motion, we have begun by stressing community service, professionalism and the roles, responsibilities, skills and values of lawyers, and by involving students and faculty in community service projects in ways that will benefit our state.

Judicial Review Of Initiatives And Referendums In Which Majorities Vote On Minorities’ Citizenship, Sylvia R. Lazos

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In this Article, Professor Lazos examines initiatives and referendums in which a majority is in a position to vote on the content of a minority's democratic civic standing. Case law fails to set forth a single test for judicial review; consequently, doctrinal and theoretical coherence in this area is nonexistent. Professor Lazos proposes a test that takes into account social dynamics and focuses on the impact of these measures. First, she examines outcomes over the last three decades of approximately eighty such initiatives and referendums, from the anti-integration movement of the sixties to today's ideological and cultural versions, such as …

The Wages Of Welfare Reform: A Report On New York City's Job Centers, Rebecca L. Scharf, Barry Bassis, Lorraine Doran, Benjamin Dewitt Duke, Donald Friedman, Matthew Schneider

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Waving the banner of welfare reform, President Clinton signed historic legislation in August 1996 abolishing poor families' federal entitlement to direct cash assistance and replacing it with a decentralized system of conditional block grants to the states. To qualify for these grants, most states—including New York—overhauled their own welfare systems and added rigorous new welfare-to-work requirements (the most prominent of which is frequently called "workfare"), as well as other programs which became conditions of eligibility for assistance. Not surprisingly, New York City, with one of the largest and most concentrated welfare populations in the United States, has become a crucible …