Law Commons^™

Science, Technology, Society, And Law, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Traditionally, science and technology have been granted as sources of knowledge and objective truth. However, much more recently, they are also seen as human activities, conducted in a social environment. This new approach focuses on the intersections between science, technology and society, and particularly their regulation by the law. Concerns on how to best regulate the interaction come up in modern societies, and when either their use or their impacts are global, international law and international organizations become involved. The impact of the fourfold relation is so high that science and technology are seen as one of the reasons for …

The Interlinkages Science-Technology-Law: Information And Communication Society, Knowledge-Based Economy And The Rule Of Law, Giovanni Bombelli, Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

This chapter focuses on the circular and complex relationship between science, technology, society, and law. The technology/society connection focuses on the democratic deficit issue. The democratic deficit would be a consequence of the lack of adaptability of western democracy to complex (information) societies, where technology (and the increasing access to data that it permits) is separating the connection between information and knowledge (as well as the classical legitimacy couple of democracy-truth) moving these societies towards a technocracy. On one hand, the technology-law circle deals with the progressive reduction of law to a normative technique (since the law is always late …

The Intersections Among Science, Technology, Policy And Law: In Between Truth And Justice, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Different visions on the interaction between science, technology, policy and law have been presented. As common axe, we can detect the continuous search for truth and justice. Science and Law as social constructs, the distinction between truths and opinions through procedural method based on evidence and rationality, or how natural science “things” became facts, and consequently “truth”, are examples of this search. The evidence-gathering process that integrates scientific evidence into trial (sometimes by procedure and other times by a more substantive approach) is another possible approach. Of course, that the game of mutual influence among the four elements creates contradictions …

A Human Being Wrote This Law Review Article: Gpt-3 And The Practice Of Law, Amy B. Cyphert

Law Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence tools can now “write” in such a sophisticated manner that they fool people into believing that a human wrote the text. None are better at writing than GPT-3, released in 2020 for beta testing and coming to commercial markets in 2021. GPT-3 was trained on a massive dataset that included scrapes of language from sources ranging from the NYTimes to Reddit boards. And so, it comes as no surprise that researchers have already documented incidences of bias where GPT-3 spews toxic language. But because GPT-3 is so good at “writing,” and can be easily trained to write in …

Advocating For The Future, John C. Dernbach, Irma S. Russell, Matthew Bogoshian

Faculty Works

Attorneys in our varied roles need to step up and address the climate crisis for the sake of every person and for the public good. All lawyers must be sustainability lawyers now. This article explains why; it also offers an illustrative set of suggestions on how to get started and what to do.

All Rise: Suiting Up When Showing Up For The Practice Of Law In The Covid-19 Virtual Legal Environment, Marissa Moran

Publications and Research

The age-old advice: “No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, and show up for work and life!” may be worth remembering as more legal professionals participate in virtual environments due to the COVID-19 mandated court closures.

Virtual court hearings, mediations, and meetings are taking place. Attorneys and legal educators have adapted to changes in how we meet clients and students by utilizing Blackboard Collaborative, Zoom, Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet/Hangouts, and Skype. Do such changes in our ways of meeting and communicating-within the virtual environment-bring with them a corresponding change in expectations of what is appropriate attire …

Speaking Volumes: The Failure Of American Courts To Address The Underlying Themes Of Silence And Patriarchy Within The Civil Order Of Protection Process In Davenport, Iowa, Catherine Priebe

Sociology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Domestic abuse is a pervasive issue within the United States. Approximately three women will be murdered by an intimate partner every day and around half of all women will experience psychological abuse by an intimate partner in their lifetime. As such, it is important to have legal avenues that survivors can pursue in order to ensure safety for themselves and their children. There are many obstacles to obtaining a civil order of protection despite it being the most common legal option survivors choose to pursue. Survivors must take on the burden of proof and hire their own attorney if they …

Ai Report: Humanity Is Doomed. Send Lawyers, Guns, And Money!, Ashley M. London

Law Faculty Publications

AI systems are powerful technologies being built and implemented by private corporations motivated by profit, not altruism. Change makers, such as attorneys and law students, must therefore be educated on the benefits, detriments, and pitfalls of the rapid spread, and often secret implementation of this technology. The implementation is secret because private corporations place proprietary AI systems inside of black boxes to conceal what is inside. If they did not, the popular myth that AI systems are unbiased machines crunching inherently objective data would be revealed as a falsehood. Algorithms created to run AI systems reflect the inherent human categorization …

The Institute For The Future Of Law Practice: A New Narrative For Legal Education And The Legal Profession, William D. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

"The mission of IFLP is to produce more legal professionals who have strong legal knowledge plus foundational training in allied disciplines — in other words, “T-shaped” legal professionals."

--

You look down at your smartphone and see that you just got a text from a close family relative. They are asking to schedule a phone call.

The next line reads, “I’m thinking about going to law school.”

Well, if you read PD Quarterly, you’re likely a logical person to seek out for advice. You’ve got some time to think about it. What are you going to say?

Whatever your counsel, …

Teaching Bioethics: The Role Of Empathy & Humility In The Teaching And Practice Of Law, Barbara A. Noah

Faculty Scholarship

This essay considers the role of empathy and humility in the professional practices of physicians and lawyers and in those who prepare students for these professions. Beginning with an overview of the goals and methods of legal education, it compares similar goals in medical education and the value of practicing law (and medicine) with empathy and humility. The essay then describes exercises used in the law school classroom designed both to teach law students about end-of-life law and also to allow them to practice counseling clients. Through these exercises, law students can experience firsthand the challenges of advising a client …

Transactional Real Estate Law: From Contract To Closing, Jacqueline A. Revis, Ronald Brown

NSU Law Seminar Series

This particular seminar is designed to educate attorneys about how to process a real estate transaction from contract to closing, focusing on the current rules and regulations for financed transactions.

• How to competently act as a closing agent for a real estate transaction in Florida
• Review requirements of a title agent
• Discuss difference between being only a title agent and the additional role representing a particular party (buyer or seller)
• Understanding the new closing disclosure form and the difference between a buyer closing disclosure and a seller closing disclosure
• Handling special challenges that arise in the context of real estate …

Probable Cause Revisited, William Ortman

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

The Ethical-Religious Framework For Shalom, Michael E. Cafferky

Faculty Works

This paper explores the ancient Hebrew Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, a traditional ethical-religious framework for business conduct, in terms of its contribution to well-being. Some elements of the Decalogue align with what contemporary scholars believe are generally-accepted moral principles expected of businesses. This paper addresses the question of how all the elements of the Decalogue contribute to the Hebrew concept of Shalom. The purpose of the Decalogue is established in the context of a covenant community of believers. Each of the Ten Commandments is evaluated in terms of its contribution to Shalom.

Why U.S. Jurisdictions Should Adopt ‘Regulatory Objectives’ For The Legal Profession, Laurel S. Terry

Howard Lichtenstein Distinguished Professorship in Legal Ethics Lectures

As a Lichtenstein Distinguished Lecturer, Professor Terry was asked to write an article for the Hofstra Law Review. Her article, cited below, may be downloaded from the link at the top of the page.

Laurel S. Terry, Globalization and the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20: Reflections on Missed Opportunities and the Road Not Taken, 43 Hofstra L. Rev. 95 (2014)

The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 was established in order to “perform a thorough review of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the U.S. system of lawyer regulation in the context of advances in technology and global …

The Modern Corporation Magnified: Managerial Accountability In Financial Services Holding Companies, Anita Krug

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article first recalls the primary contours of Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means’s acclaimed observations regarding the separation of ownership and control in the “modern corporation,” as well as their conclusions about the implications of those observations for the doctrine of shareholder primacy. Second, the Article describes how the activities of FSHCs generally differ from what we think corporations do and, certainly, from what Berle and Means conceived of as the purpose of corporations or, indeed, any business enterprise. Third, this Article articulates how those business activities render more acute the problem of the separation of ownership and control that …

Foreword To The Conference: The Law: Business Or Profession? The Continuing Relevance Of Julius Henry Cohen For The Practice Of Law In The Twenty-First Century, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Collaboration And Coercion: Domestic Violence Meets Collaborative Law, Margaret B. Drew

Faculty Publications

‘Collaboration and Coercion’ addresses the systemic and individual concerns that arise when family members that have experienced abuse enter into the collaborative law process. A form of alternative dispute resolution, collaborative law is a method of resolving disputes without engagement of the legal system. The author addresses the structural and cultural difficulties that survivors of abuse encounter throughout the process as well as the ethical concerns that are raised when collaborative practitioners accept cases where the parties have a history of coercion within the intimate relationship.

Mapping The Issues: Public Health, Law And Ethics, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The field of public health is typically regarded as a positivistic pursuit and, undoubtedly, our understanding of the etiology and response to disease is heavily influenced by scientific inquiry. Public health policies, however, are shaped not only by science but also by ethical values, legal norms, and political oversight. Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (expanded and updated 2nd ed., 2010) probes and seeks to illuminate this complex interplay, through a careful selection of government reports, scholarly articles, and court cases together with discussion and analysis of critical problems at the interface of law, ethics, and public health. The …

Bisexuals Need Not Apply: A Comparative Appraisal Of Refugee Law And Policy In Canada, The United States, And Australia, Sean Rehaag

Articles & Book Chapters

This paper offers an analysis of refugee claims on grounds of bisexuality. After discussing the grounds on which sexual minorities may qualify for refugee status under international refugee law, the paper empirically assesses the success rates of bisexual refugee claimants in three major host states: Canada, the United States, and Australia. It concludes that bisexuals are significantly less successful than other sexual minority groups in obtaining refugee status in those countries. Through an examination of selected published decisions involving bisexual refugee claimants, the author identifies two main areas for concern that may partly account for the difficulties that bisexual refugee …

Why Care About The Polar Bear?: Economic Analysis Of Natural Resources Law And Policy [Outline], Lisa Heinzerling

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

1 page.

"Lisa Heinzerling, Georgetown Law School" -- Agenda

Legal Scholarship, Humility, And The Scientific Method, David J. Herring

Articles

This essay responds to the question of What next for law and behavioral biology? by describing an approach to legal scholarship that relies on the scientific method. There are two steps involved in this approach to legal scholarship. First, the legal scholar must become familiar with an area of scientific research that is relevant to the development of law and policy. (This essay uses behavioral biology research as an example.) Second, the legal scholar must seek and form relationships across disciplines, becoming an active member of a scientific research team that conducts studies relevant to particular issues of law and …

Res Ipsa Loquitor -- Law A Noble Profession, Marissa Moran

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Expecting Too Much And Too Little Of Lawyers, Eugene R. Gaetke

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The regulation of lawyers' behavior remains a controversial topic. Over the past hundred years, the organized bar has engaged in a number of efforts to generate rules governing lawyers' conduct. Still, prominent lawyers and jurists, the public media, and legal scholars perceive an ongoing decline in the profession's ethics.

Bar leaders tend to respond to the problem by calling for greater "professionalism" among practicing lawyers. Drawing on professional images from earlier times, they urge lawyers to look beyond the rules and to be more virtuous, selfless, independent of clients, and dedicated to justice.

A number of commentators go further. These …

Sec Enforcement Of Attorney Up-The-Ladder Reporting Rules: An Analysis Of Institutional Contraints, Norms, And Biases, Michael A. Perino

Faculty Publications

In their paper and in their earlier comments to the SEC on the proposed attorney reporting rules, Professors Cramton, Cohen and Koniak do an excellent job recounting the genesis of the attorney reporting requirements in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, describing the SEC's proposed and final rules and critiquing the rule's triggering mechanism and now apparently shelved noisy withdrawal requirement. Their case study of the recent Spiegel, Inc. independent examiner's report is a particularly useful vehicle for examining the practical implications of the SEC's policy and drafting choices. Although I was a member of a committee that submitted comments opposed to noisy …

Taking The Lawyer's Craft Into Virtual Space: Computer-Mediated Interviewing, Counseling, And Negotiating, Robert M. Bastress, Joseph D. Harbaugh

Law Faculty Scholarship

Bellow's and Moulton's The Lawyering Process emphasized the need for law students and lawyers to draw on other disciplines for effective skills development, to make self-analysis of their professional skills and principles a career-long practice, and to remain ever vigilant of emerging ethical issues. This article attempts to honor those lessons by applying them to lawyers' use of computer mediated communication (CMC) in interacting with clients and in negotiating for clients. The article examines the social science research on CMC, applies that research to the lawyer's context, and makes some tentative assessments about the skills involved in lawyers' use of …

Professionalism Without Parochialism: Julius Henry Cohen, Rabbi Nachman Of Breslov, And The Stories Of Two Sons, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

Professor Levine addresses the question of whether the practice of law a business or a profession and looks at sources where practitioners might draw inspiration for ethical behaviors. He examines two works: a 1916 book by Julius Henry Cohen - The Law: Business or Profession?; and a tale by Chasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. Both works tell the story of two sons from two different fathers with different ethical natures that manifest in their different choices of and approaches to their careers. Professor Levine uses these two parables to suggest that a more inclusive question than those posed above: …

What I Think That I Have Learned About Legal Ethics, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this short piece I want to say a few things that other academics teaching legal ethics may find disturbing. I say this because I believe that I may be swimming against the current academic fashion. Of course, it is possible that I do not have a very good handle on the current academic fashion. I hope I am not setting up a straw person to knock down, but I may be. If I am, I am sure someone will call me to task. What I am going to say is this: contrary to popular belief (among practitioners, at least) …

Ethics, Race, And Reform, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

No abstract provided.

Annotating The News: Mitigating The Effects Of Media Convergence And Consolidation, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay is a personal inquiry into the nature of media technology, law, and ethics in an era marked by the convergence of media that have been largely separate-print, broadcast, cable, satellite, and the Internet-and by the consolidation of ownership in all of these media. What inventions, practices, and norms must emerge to enable us to take advantage of this vast new information-based world, while preserving such important professional values as diversity, objectivity, reliability, and independence?

The right to know belongs not only to individuals, but to the public at large, it can (or, perhaps, must) be vindicated by government …

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

Scholarly Works

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.