Law Commons^™

Silicon Ceilings: Information Technology Equity, The Digital Divide And The Gender Gap Among Information Technology Professionals, Andrea M. Matwyshyn

Andrea Matwyshyn

No abstract provided.

When Caring Is Work: Home, Health, And The Invisible Workforce: Introduction, Dianne Avery, Martha T. Mccluskey

Dianne Avery

This essay introduces the SUNY Buffalo Law School 2012 James McCormick Mitchell Lecture. The Lecture featured distinguished scholars Hendrik Hartog, Jennifer Klein, and Peggie R. Smith, who each contributed an essay to this volume. These three scholars give a richly detailed picture of home caretakers' struggles to gain visibility and support for their important work. Legal rulings and policy choices have made care workers distinctly vulnerable, treating care services as an expression of love rather than contract (as Hartog describes), or as social rehabilitation for marginal citizens rather than as skilled health care provision (as Klein explains), or as informal …

I Could Have Been A Contender: Summary Jury Trial As A Means To Overcome Iqbal's Negative Effects Upon Pre-Litigation Communication, Negotiation And Early, Consensual Dispute Resolution, Nancy A. Welsh

Nancy Welsh

With its recent decisions in Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, the Supreme Court may be intentionally or unintentionally “throwing the fight,” at least in the legal contests between many civil rights claimants and institutional defendants. The most obvious feared effect is reduction of civil rights claimants’ access to the expressive and coercive power of the courts. Less obviously, the Supreme Court may be effectively undermining institutions’ motivation to negotiate, mediate - or even communicate with and listen to - such claimants before they initiate legal action. Thus, the Supreme Court’s recent decisions have the potential to deprive …

Research To Practice: Medicaid Involvement In Employment-Related Programs- Findings From The National Survey Of State Systems And Employment For People With Disabilities, Jennifer Sullivan Sulewski, Dana Scott Gilmore, Susan Foley

Jennifer Sulewski

This brief analyzes data from ICI's National Survey of State Systems and Employment for People with Disabilities regarding the priority Medicaid agencies place on employment and their involvement in recent policy initiatives.

Fiduciary-Isms: A Study Of Academic Influence On The Expansion Of The Law, Daniel B. Yeager

Daniel B. Yeager

Fiduciary law aspires to nullify power imbalances by obligating strong parties to give themselves over to servient parties. For example, due to profound imbalances of legal know-how, lawyers must as fiduciaries pursue their clients’ interests, not their own, lest clients get lost in the competitive shuffle. As a peculiar hybrid of status and contract relations, politics and law, compassion and capitalism, fiduciary law is very much in vogue in academic circles. As vogue as it is, there remains room for my “Fiduciary-isms...”, a meditation on the expansion of fiduciary law from its origins in the law of trusts through partnerships, …

Labor Law Obstacles To The Collective Negotiation And Implementation Of Employee Stock Ownership Plans: A Response To Henry Hansmann And Other "Survivalists", Jeffrey M. Hirsch

Jeffrey M. Hirsch

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Termination: Doing More With Less, Jeffrey M. Hirsch

Jeffrey M. Hirsch

No abstract provided.

Same Sex Marriage In A Post-Perry And Windsor America, Kathryn L. Moore, Allison I. Connelly, Ross T. Ewing

Allison Connelly

These materials accompanied a presentation at the 2014 Kentucky Bar Association Annual Convention entitled Same Sex Marriage in a Post-Perry and Windsor America. The focus of this presentation was on: the legal landscape following major LGBTQ civil rights cases; how these cases would impact families in Kentucky; and any employment or retirement issues.

Using The Nfl As A Model? Considering Zero Tolerance In The Workplace For Batterers, Deseriee A. Kennedy

Deseriee A. Kennedy

The impact of domestic violence can increasingly be felt in the workplace, and it can adversely affect the safety and productivity of employees. Legislators and employers have begun to recognize the effect of domestic violence on employment, and many have adopted policies to protect the interests of domestic violence survivors. This article suggests that wider adoption of domestic violence policies are needed and these policies should be broadened to directly address batterers in the workplace. The article argues that employer based sanctions would increase batterer accountability and workplace safety. It uses the newly revised NFL Personal Conduct Policy as a …

Myth: Hard Work And Credentials Determine Employment Opportunities

Alev Dudek

Your Right To Privacy: A Selective Bibliography, Sandra Klein

Sandra S. Klein

An awareness of relevant contemporary legal thought in the area of privacy is especially important today in light of what appears to be an increasing hostility to .the notion of individual privacy. The following bibliography considers privacy in terms of concept and application, and should prove useful to scholars, practitioners, and those seeking to gain more knowledge about this very important and complicated area of law.

Your Right To Privacy And The Aids Virus: A Selective Bibliography, Sandra Klein

Sandra S. Klein

The AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) virus has had a profound impact upon the lives of people everywhere. One aspect of this impact can be seen in the invasion into areas that had hitherto been believed by most to be private: sexual activity/preferences, medical records/testing, etc. An intensely personal and private tragedy has become, because of its nature~ a matter of public concern. The bibliography which follows addresses the privacy concerns of those infected with the AIDS virus.

Drug Testing/Use, Sandra Klein

Sandra S. Klein

Drug testing is one of the most controversial of recent privacy issues. The bibliography which follows provides the reader with access to a wide range of discussion on this topic which is, or should be, of interest to everyone. Whether in our private lives, or on the job, drug use and drug testing will have an impact on every one of us.

An Essay Challenging The Racially Biased Selection Of Arbitrators For Employment Discrimination Suits, Michael Z. Green

Michael Z. Green

Since 1991, employers have increasingly decided to require that employees agree to arbitrate statutory employment discrimination claims as a condition of employment. This Essay seeks to expose some of the potential discriminatory components that may arise in the arbitrator selection process while highlighting the lack of legal remedy for those who believe that employers, in conjunction with neutral service provders, have stacked the pool in favor of having arbitrators who tend to be older, white and male. The Essay suggests the use of 42 U.S.C. Section 1981 as a potential remedy and challenge to the dearth of arbitrators of color …

An Essay Challenging The Racially Biased Selection Of Arbitrators For Employment Discrimination Suits, Michael Z. Green

Michael Z. Green

Since 1991, employers have increasingly decided to require that employees agree to arbitrate statutory employment discrimination claims as a condition of employment. This Essay seeks to expose some of the potential discriminatory components that may arise in the arbitrator selection process while highlighting the lack of legal remedy for those who believe that employers, in conjunction with neutral service provders, have stacked the pool in favor of having arbitrators who tend to be older, white and male. The Essay suggests the use of 42 U.S.C. Section 1981 as a potential remedy and challenge to the dearth of arbitrators of color …

Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert Hockett, Saule Omarova

Saule T. Omarova

The recent financial crisis brought into sharp relief fundamental questions about the social function and purpose of the financial system, including its relation to the “real” economy. This Article argues that, to answer these questions, we must recapture a distinctively American view of the proper relations among state, financial market, and development. This programmatic vision – captured in what we call a “developmental finance state” – is based on three key propositions: (1) that economic and social development is not an “end-state” but a continuing national policy priority; (2) that the modalities of finance are the most potent means of …

Restraints Of Trade: The Legal Practice, Christopher Arup, Chris Dent, John Howe, William Van Caenegem

William Van Caenegem

This article tests these common assertions against the evidence of the practice. We have gathered data about the legal practice around the state supreme courts. That data includes the legal principles, legal proceedings, cited decisions and legal commentaries. But the article goes beyond this book law to report the impressions and insights gained from a set of interviews with practitioners. These interviews provide a uniquely nuanced picture. They reveal that there are occasions of under-enforcement or genuine compromise. Overall, though, the momentum is with the employer and the practice is a daunting one for many employees to navigate. In this …

Disqualifiying Universality Under The Americans With Disabilities Act Amendments Act, Michelle Travis

Michelle A. Travis

This Article reveals a new resistance strategy to disability rights in the workplace. The initial backlash against the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) targeted protected class status by characterizing the ADA's accommodation mandate as special treatment that benefitted the disabled at the expense of the nondisabled workforce. As a result, federal courts treated the ADA as a welfare statute rather than a civil rights law, which resulted in the Supreme Court dramatically narrowing the definition of disability. Congress responded with sweeping amendments in 2008 to expand the class of individuals with disabilities who are entitled to accommodations and …

Acting White? Or Acting Affluent? A Book Review Of Acting White? Rethinking Race In "Post-Racial" America, Lisa Pruitt

Lisa R Pruitt

Acting White? Rethinking Race in “Post-Racial” America (2013) is the latest installment in Devon Carbado and Mitu Gulati’s decade-plus collaboration regarding issues of race and employment. This review lauds the book’s comprehensive treatment of the double bind that racial minorities—especially blacks—experience within principally white institutions. In this volume, the authors expand on their prior employment-centered work to consider, for example, Barack and Michelle Obama’s presence on the national political stage, racial identity and performance in the context of higher education admissions, and racial profiling by law enforcement. With a focus on intra-racial diversity, Carbado and Gulati begin to gesture to …

Sexual Harassment And Disparate Impact: Should Non-Targeted Workplace Sexual Conduct Be Actionable Under Title Vii?, Kelly Cahill Timmons

Kelly Cahill Timmons

No abstract provided.

The Nba's 2011 Collectively Bargained Amnesty Clause-Exploring The Fundamentals, Adam Epstein, Kathryn Kisska-Schulze

Adam Epstein

The purpose of this article is to fundamentally introduce the amnesty clause, a relatively new provision in the labor and employment law discussions involving sport. The expression amnesty clause or amnesty provision is found in the 2011 NBA CBA. To date, academic references to the amnesty clause within the sport genre are virtually non-existent. The amnesty clause provides NBA teams a tool to release players from their contracts if they feel that the player turned out to be a bad investment, regardless of the reason. Additionally, by releasing a player under an amnesty clause provision, the team exercising the clause …

Cracks In The Shield: The Necessity Of The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, James N. Bolotin

James N Bolotin

This paper argues that legislation protecting homosexuals from employment discrimination is necessary, despite hopeful arguments that the text of Title VII should or can already protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The paper discusses how the precedent of the federal courts has gone too far in the wrong direction to believe that they will fix this interpretation problem on their own. Furthermore, it posits that the passage of ENDA or similar legislation will successfully lessen the prevalence of this type of discrimination.

Part I considers the history of Title VII’s “because of sex” protection. This includes a short discussion …

Old Lessons For New Governance: Safety Or Profit And The New Conventional Wisdom, Eric Tucker

Eric M. Tucker

New governance theory has a large following in academia and is exerting an influence in numerous spheres of regulatory policy. Yet in the area of occupational health and safety, new governance is hardly new at all. Indeed, it is fair to say that it in many ways what are now labelled new governance concepts were first articulated and applied in the 1972 Robens Report, Safety and Health at Work. This included its critique of command and control legislation and its emphasis on the need to develop better self-regulation. This paper critically examines new governance models in OHS regulation. In the …

Locating Labour Law: Conflicting Perspectives And The Case Of Occupational Health And Safety, Eric Tucker

Eric M. Tucker

While the need to locate employment and labour law in its social context is now widely recognized, there is significant disagreement over the character of that social context, how law is located in it, and the way that law both shapes and is shaped by its social location. The importance of these disputes is not just theoretical because their resolution shapes the way labour law is written and implemented. Nowhere is this truer than in one particular area of labour law, occupational health and safety (OHS) regulation. This chapter argues that from its origins in the nineteenth century, OHS regulation …

Layers Of Vulnerability In Occupational Health And Saftey For Migrant Workers: Case Studies From Canada And The United Kingdom, Malcolm Sargeant, Eric Tucker

Eric M. Tucker

In many high-income countries, like Canada and the United Kingdom, there has recently been a significant increase in the number of migrant workers entering and participating in their labour markets. This article is concerned with the implications of this phenomenon for protective labour laws and, in particular, for occupational health and safety regulation. We identify a framework for assessing the OHS vulnerabilities of migrant workers, using a layered approach which assists in identifying the risk factors. Using this layer of vulnerability framework, we compare the situation of at-risk migrant workers in Canada and the United Kingdom.

To Read Or Not To Read: Privacy Within Social Networks, The Entitlement Of Employees To A Virtual “Private Zone” And The Balloon Theory, Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid

Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid Professor of Law

Social networking has increasingly become the most common venue of self-expression in the digital era. Although social networks started as a social vehicle, they have recently become a major source for employers to track personal data ("screening") of applicants, employees or former employees.

This article addresses the questions of whether this casual business routine harms employees' rights to privacy with regard to data users post in social networks, what the drawbacks of this routine may be, and why and how privacy rights should be protected to secure private zones within the virtual sphere. The article suggests that a privacy right …

Living With Adr: Evolving Perceptions And Use Of Mediation, Arbitration And Conflict Management In Fortune 1,000 Corporations, Thomas Stipanowich, Ryan Lamare

Thomas J. Stipanowich

As attorneys for the world’s most visible clients, corporate counsel played a key role in the transformation of American conflict resolution in the late Twentieth Century. In 1997 a survey of Fortune 1,000 corporate counsel provided the first broad-based picture of conflict resolution processes within large companies. In 2011, a second landmark survey of corporate counsel in Fortune 1,000 companies captured a variety of critical changes in the ways large companies handle conflict. Comparing their responses to those of the mid-1990s, clear and significant evolutionary trends are observable, including a further shift in corporate orientation away from litigation and toward …

A Vast Image Out Of Spiritus Mundi: The Existential Crisis Of Law Schools (Book Review), Jeremiah A. Ho

Jeremiah A. Ho

Review of Teaching Law: Justice, Politics, and the Demands of Professionalism. By Robin L. West. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. 2014. Pp. 246. Cloth, $90; paper, $32.99.

What It Means To Be A Lawyer In These Uncertain Times: Some Thoughts On Ethical Participation In The Legal Education Industry, Susan D. Carle

Susan D. Carle

Discrimination Cases In The Supreme Court’S 1998 Term, Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

In the Supreme Court's 1997 Term, the Supreme Court had decided a record number of statutory discrimination cases. However, that record was exceeded in the Supreme Court's 1998 Term with the Court addressing issues arising under Title VII, which covers discrimination in employment; Title IX, which covers discrimination in schools; and most significantly, the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability. Overall, the term scored significant victories for employers who were given considerable latitude to set their own physical characteristic standards and who were, to a large extent, immunized from liability for punitive damages. There was an …