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Full-Text Articles in Law
Regulating Viatical Settlements: Is The Invisible Hand Picking The Pockets Of The Terminally Ill?, Russell J. Herron
Regulating Viatical Settlements: Is The Invisible Hand Picking The Pockets Of The Terminally Ill?, Russell J. Herron
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The newly emerging viatical settlement industry has attracted considerable attention from both insurance regulators and advocates for the terminally ill. In a viatical settlement, a terminally ill person names a viatical settlement company as beneficiary under his life insurance policy in exchange for an immediate lump-sum cash payment of less than face value of the policy. To date, viatical settlement payments to people with AIDS (PWAs) have been disturbingly low as a percentage of the face value of PWA policies. This Note examines the few enacted viatical settlement regulations and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' model regulations as they …
School Finance Adequacy As Vertical Equity, Julie K. Underwood
School Finance Adequacy As Vertical Equity, Julie K. Underwood
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In this Article, Dean Underwood explains that school finance cases can be divided into three waves of reform. The first wave involved efforts to use the Federal Equal Protection Clause to overturn financing systems. Litigants in the second wave turned to state equal protection and due process clauses. Finally, the third wave involved the utilization of education clauses in state constitutions as the predominant litigation vehicle. These three waves embody two primary approaches to school finance litigation. The first approach involves a challenge to the adequacy of a state's funding system under either the state or federal equal protection clause, …
Establishing Education Program Inadequacy: The Alabama Example, Martha I. Morgan, Adam S. Cohen, Helen Hershkoff
Establishing Education Program Inadequacy: The Alabama Example, Martha I. Morgan, Adam S. Cohen, Helen Hershkoff
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The authors draw on their experience as attorneys for a statewide class of plaintiff school children in the liability phase of ongoing public education reform litigation in Alabama to demonstrate the availability of state and nationally recognized standards concerning educational resources (inputs) and results (outputs) that can serve as evidentiary tools for assessing and for establishing a state public education system's failure to satisfy constitutional mandates of educational adequacy. The Article discusses the usefulness and limitations of using such standards as a starting point in a court's constitutional analysis. It suggests an integrated approach that links input and output standards …
Accelerated Education As A Remedy For High-Poverty Schools, William H. Clune
Accelerated Education As A Remedy For High-Poverty Schools, William H. Clune
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
High-poverty schools, and the students who attend them, have historically faced substantial challenges in providing and receiving, adequate education. Despite some relief from the courts, school finance remedies that require the redistribution of monetary aid to low-wealth districts have encountered strong political opposition. In this Article, Professor Clune makes a renewed claim for accelerated education as the primary focus of adequacy litigation in school reform cases. He describes the nation's educational condition, in which there exists a disturbing correlation between poverty and low educational outcomes. He then drafts a vision of a comprehensive, school reform remedy, one that emphasizes institutional …
Achieving Equity And Excellence In Kentucky Education, C. Scott Trimble, Andrew C. Forsaith
Achieving Equity And Excellence In Kentucky Education, C. Scott Trimble, Andrew C. Forsaith
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In this Article, Trimble and Forsaith discuss the landmark Kentucky school finance case, Rose v. Council for Better Education, 790 S.W.2d 186 (Ky. 1989), and the school reform efforts it spawned. In Council for Better Education, the Kentucky Supreme Court held that the state had failed its duty under the state constitution to provide all students with an adequate education, which it defined in terms of seven categories of knowledge and skills students should acquire. The State General Assembly responded with the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA), which significantly boosted state funding as well as established an ambitious accountability system …
Decreasing The Costs Of Jurisdictional Gridlock: Merger Of The Securities And Exchange Commission And The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Mark Frederick Hoffman
Decreasing The Costs Of Jurisdictional Gridlock: Merger Of The Securities And Exchange Commission And The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Mark Frederick Hoffman
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Jurisdictional conflict exists between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), primarily due to the language of the 1974 CFTC Act. This Act grants the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction to regulate certain financial instruments which, given the increasing complexity and "hybrid" nature of such instruments, might simultaneously be subject to SEC regulation. This Note first explores the history of the two agencies and the statutory language giving rise to the jurisdictional conflict. This Note then examines several instances of jurisdictional conflict that resulted in extensive costs for the respective agencies and the United States' financial …
Oklahoma School Finance Litigation: Shifting From Equity To Adequacy, Mark S. Grossman
Oklahoma School Finance Litigation: Shifting From Equity To Adequacy, Mark S. Grossman
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article traces the history of Oklahoma school finance litigation from the initial challenge based on funding inequity to a recent lawsuit founded on alleged constitutional inadequacies in the state system. Although the legal challenge based on funding inequity was unsuccessful in the courts, the pendency of the suit helped push the state legislature toward some reforms. The threat of a new lawsuit based on alleged inadequacies in the state school system, together with a serious funding shortfall, propelled a comprehensive education reform plan through the state legislature in 1990. The association of local school boards that led the equity …
Furthering The Accountability Principle In Privatized Federal Corrections: The Need For Access To Private Prison Records, Nicole B. Cásarez
Furthering The Accountability Principle In Privatized Federal Corrections: The Need For Access To Private Prison Records, Nicole B. Cásarez
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
As American prisons face unprecedented overcrowding, both the federal and various state governments have engaged private entrepreneurs to operate correctional facilities on a for-profit basis. In the federal context, one overlooked consequence of prison privatization involves decreased public access to prison records. When a federal agency delegates a public function, like the provision of correctional services, to a private contractor, the agency frustrates the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act. Prison records that otherwise would have been available to the public become insulated from disclosure by virtue of the contractor's nonagency status. To safeguard prisoners' liberty interests and well-being, …
Legislatively Directed Judicial Activism: Some Reflections On The Meaning Of The Civil Justice Reform Act, Matthew R. Kipp, Paul B. Lewis
Legislatively Directed Judicial Activism: Some Reflections On The Meaning Of The Civil Justice Reform Act, Matthew R. Kipp, Paul B. Lewis
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
With the Civil Justice Reform Act (CJRA), Congress attempted to further a trend that the federal judiciary had undertaken largely on its own initiative. Sensing a critical need to address the mounting expense and delay of federal civil litigation, Congress, like the judiciary, sought to increase the degree of early and active involvement of judges in the adjudicatory process. The result of this mandate has been a further emphasis on the role of the judge as a case manager. As a necessary corollary, the liberty and self-determination of individual litigants-ideals that have historically been seen as philosophical cornerstones of the …
Professional Responsibility And Choice Of Law: A Client-Based Alternative To The Model Rules Of Professional Conduct, Colin Owyang
Professional Responsibility And Choice Of Law: A Client-Based Alternative To The Model Rules Of Professional Conduct, Colin Owyang
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Because of the increasingly interstate nature of legal practice during the past few decades, practitioners licensed in multiple jurisdictions have been forced more frequently to confront choice-of-law dilemmas in the area of professional responsibility. Although most states have adopted fairly uniform regulations on professional ethics, only the recently amended American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct contain a specific provision that addresses the choice-of-law problem in the professional responsibility context. This Note outlines certain ethical considerations facing the multistate practitioner and argues that the choice-of-law provision in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides insufficient clarity and predictability where …