Law Commons^™

Boys, Masculinities And Juvenile Justice, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

Culture and tradition are part of the macrosystem of ideas and beliefs that have a dramatic effect on children and families. One aspect of culture is gender beliefs, values and roles. Feminist analysis has explored the incorporation of gender in a wide range of structures, challenging gender bias and advocating reform of a range of laws, structural systems, and social practices. Masculinities analysis, an outgrowth of feminist analysis that focuses on men as gendered subjects, provides a perspective to consider those areas in which men are disproportionately present either in positions of power and privilege, or in positions of disadvantage. …

Cultural Norms As A Source Of Law: The Example Of Bottled Water, Christine A. Klein, Ling-Yee Huang

UF Law Faculty Publications

As a metaphor for the interaction of law and culture, bottled water is striking in its simplicity and clarity. Bottled water consumers form a surprisingly loyal subculture of beverage drinkers, united by the water truths and water myths that they embrace. More recently, an equally fervent subculture of bottled water protestors has begun to coalesce. Notably, the cultural norms associated with both supporters and detractors extend beyond mere hydration and encompass such fundamental and varied notions as health, taste, convenience, status, morality, anti-privatization, sustainability, and truth-telling. In contrast to the cultural story, the legal narrative is surprisingly sparse, overlooking an …

The Gender Bend: Culture, Sex, And Sexuality – A Latcritical Human Rights Map Of Latina/O Border Crossings, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

In the course of studying and theorizing about Latinas/os and their location in law and culture, critical theory has been simultaneously liberating and restraining, confining, and coercive. Critical theorists have made substantial inroads in recognizing the intersectionality, multidimensionality, multiplicity, and interconnectivities of the intersections of race and sex. These paradigms are central to an analysis of the Latina/o condition within the Estados Unidos (United States). However, much work remains to be done in other areas - such as culture, language, sexuality, and class - that are key to Latinas'/os' self-determination and full citizenship.

Cognizant of, and notwithstanding such limitations, this …

Designing Transparency: The 9/11 Commission And Institutional Form, Mark Fenster

UF Law Faculty Publications

Surpassing the low expectations established by previous investigatory commissions and overcoming the political and legal obstacles created by the Bush administration's opposition to its creation, the 9/11 Commission accomplished what appeared to be the impossible: an authoritative investigation, a widely-read final report, and direct influence on significant legislation. This Article argues that the 9/11 Commission represents an important institutional model for encouraging or forcing the Executive Branch to disclose information about an especially significant and controversial past event or future decision. It suggests that Congress or the President consider establishing such commissions when information held by the Executive Branch can …

Researching Initiatives And Referendums: A Guide For Florida, Elizabeth Outler

UF Law Faculty Publications

In Florida, direct democracy at the state level consists entirely of the initiative method of amending the State constitution. This constitutional provision was partly a response to the State’s history of obstacles to affording equitable legislative representation to all its citizens, a struggle with roots dating back to the Reconstruction era. The State constitution, governing statutes and regulations, and the Division of Elections Web site serve as the primary sources of information and guidance for those interested in the process of amending the State constitution by citizen-sponsored initiative.

Is The Corporate Tax System "Broken"?, Karen C. Burke

UF Law Faculty Publications

The slated expiration of the Bush Administration's tax cuts in 2010 highlights the instability of the current 15% rate on dividends and capital gains. Meanwhile, pressure has mounted to reduce U.S. corporate tax rates to improve competitiveness in an increasingly global economy. Much of the 1986 Act reform of the corporate tax-base-broadening combined with lower rates - has unraveled, leaving the U.S. with a high statutory corporate tax rate and narrow corporate tax base. Despite renewed interest in base-broadening and loophole-closing, the goal of corporate tax reform remains elusive. Thus far, proponents of corporate tax reform have largely sidestepped the …

Masculinities And Feminist Legal Theory, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

Men, patriarchy and masculine characteristics have predominantly been examined within feminist theory as a source of power, domination, inequality and subordination. Various theories of inequality have been developed by feminists to challenge and reveal structures and discourses that reinforce explicitly or implicitly the centrality of men and the identity of the top of a hierarchical power and economic structure as male.

The study of masculinities has been inspired by feminist theory to explore the construction of manhood and masculinity, and to question the real circumstances of men. It has explored how privilege is constructed, and what price is paid for …

Cobra Strikes Back: Anatomy Of A Tax Shelter, Karen C. Burke, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

Paul Daugerdas gained notoriety for himself and his erstwhile firm, Jenkens & Gilchrist, as the designer of a tax shelter that uses contingent liabilities to generate artificial tax losses on a grand scale. The basic shelter transaction is surprisingly simple. In essence, it uses offsetting options to inflate the basis of property that is distributed by a partnership and then contributed to and sold by another partnership, resulting in a large tax loss without any corresponding economic loss. In principle, this type of shelter could be replicated indefinitely and generate unlimited tax losses. Mr. Daugerdas is by no means unique. …

A Comment On Unification, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article discusses recent proposals aimed at unifying the law of wills and nonprobate transfers. The author notes that default rules of construction present the strongest case for unification, but contends that distinctions between wills and nonprobate transfers remain important in the areas of formalities and restrictions affecting third-party rights. The author concludes that the policy goal should be to allow wills and nonprobate transfers to operate smoothly as complementary methods of deathtime wealth transmission.

The Empty Promise Of Estate Tax Repeal, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

The terms of the debate over the estate tax have been framed largely by abolitionists who have propounded an antitax message that portrays the estate tax as unambiguously harmful and threatening to ordinary families and small businesses. The attack on the estate tax is linked to a larger agenda of eliminating taxes on capital and capital income and dismantling the progressive elements of the federal tax system. The slogan of estate tax repeal, while effective in mobilizing antitax sentiment, makes no sense as a matter of tax policy because it downplays revenue costs, distributional effects, administrative concerns, and consequences for …

William Faulkner, Legal Commentator: Humanity And Endurance In Hollywood's Yoknapatawpha, Michael Allan Wolf

UF Law Faculty Publications

Two of the several films based on William Faulkner's writings - “Intruder in the Dust” and “Tomorrow” - are sensitive adaptations that are permeated with themes regarding the nature of justice, the role of the attorney, and the place of law and lawlessness in society. In many ways, a careful study of each of these two films (and of the novel and story upon which they are based) reveals that William Faulkner holds a place as an important American legal commentator. No writer (before or since Faulkner) captures so vividly and so truly the moral predicament of an American South …

Value In The Eye Of The Beholder: The Valuation Of Intangibles For Transfer Pricing Purposes, Yariv Brauner

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article assesses the desirability of our current, arms' length based, transfer pricing regime by analyzing its theoretical and practical effectiveness in application to transfers of intangibles. A detailed analysis of the practice of valuation of intangibles, which is the key component in the application of this regime, exposes its weaknesses that result in undesirable market incentives. These incentives create a strong bias in favor of large multinational enterprises, yet, even if one favored such bias, it is achieved using an uncontrollable, costly and wasteful legal mechanism. The article particularly criticizes the regime's disregard of the unique characteristics of intangibles …

Presidential Debates And Deliberative Democracy, Charles W. Collier

UF Law Faculty Publications

Consider democracy in America through the lens of the presidential debates. It is not a pretty picture. From a high point in the nineteenth century (for example, the lengthy Lincoln-Douglas Senate campaign debates of 1858) a declining trajectory can be traced to the present day, with a marked acceleration in the Age of Television. To our polity's discredit, the presidential debate has long since ceased to be a dialogue that might shed light on the candidates' true powers of deliberation. The key to reversing this long decline, I believe, lies in an unlikely place: in the structural features of the …

Harnessing The Power Of Science In Environmental Law: Why We Should, Why We Don't, And How We Can, Mary Jane Angelo

UF Law Faculty Publications

To illustrate how legal scholars, lawmakers, environmental agencies, and practicing lawyers have attempted to incorporate new scientific developments into environmental law, particularly in the administrative context, this Article traces the journeys of three distinct scientific developments -- risk assessment, adaptive management, and emergy synthesis -- from scientific academia to environmental administrative law. The Article concludes by making observations about what types of scientific developments are most likely to be incorporated into the law and suggesting ways for improving the likelihood that new beneficial developments will be adopted to inform the law.

Harnessing The Power Of Information To Protect Our Public Natural Resource Legacy, Alyson C. Flournoy, Heather Halter, Christina Storz

UF Law Faculty Publications

In practice, our laws have proven unequal to the lofty objectives of preserving a legacy of public natural resources for our children or achieving sustainable use of these resources. There are many factors that contribute to this shortfall, but inherent inadequacies in the design of these statutes cannot be overlooked as an important determinant. Despite the statutes' broadly stated aspirations toward sustainability and protection of the interests of future generations, only a handful of these statutes include strong and enforceable mandates for sustainable resource use. Many of these statutes accord natural resource-management agencies broad discretion to balance and permit a …

The Evolution Of “Fred”: Family Responsibilities Discrimination And Developments In The Law Of Stereotyping And Implicit Bias, Joan C. Williams, Stephanie Bornstein

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article integrates a discussion of current family responsibilities discrimination ("FRD") case law with a discussion of the single most important recent development in the field: the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s ("EEOC") 2007 issuance of Enforcement Guidance on caregiver discrimination. The Guidance concretely informs the public about what constitutes unlawful discrimination against caregivers under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, the Guidance crystallizes two key holdings from case law in regard to Title VII disparate treatment claims brought by caregivers: (1) where plaintiffs have evidence of gender stereotyping, they can make out a prima facie case …

Is That All There Is? "The Problem" In Court-Oriented Mediation, Leonard L. Riskin, Nancy A. Welsh

UF Law Faculty Publications

The alternative process of mediation is now well-institutionalized and widely (though not universally) perceived to save time and money and satisfy lawyers and parties. However, the process has failed to meet important aspirations of its early proponents and certain expectations and needs of one-shot players. In particular, court-oriented mediation now reflects the dominance and preferences of lawyers and insurance claims adjusters. These repeat players understand the problem to be addressed in personal injury, employment, contract, medical malpractice and other ordinary civil non-family disputes as a matter of merits assessment and litigation risk analysis. Mediation is structured so that litigation issues …

Probate Law Reform And Nonprobate Transfers, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

The advent of widespread, large-scale probate avoidance has added a new dimension to the project of probate law reform. When the Uniform Probate Code made its debut in 1969, its primary goal was to modernize traditional probate procedures and make them more uniform, flexible, and efficient. The Code's reforms were in part a response to the rise of will substitutes which offered a ready means of transferring property at death outside the probate system. In the intervening years, however, will substitutes have continued to proliferate, while traditional probate procedures have resisted comprehensive reform. The probate system has not become obsolete …

Supply, Demand, And Consequences: The Impact Of Information Flow On Individual Permitting Decisions Under Section 404 Of The Clean Water Act, Alyson C. Flournoy

UF Law Faculty Publications

This paper focuses on a public trust resource -- wetlands -- and examines an issue that has been studied primarily with reference to health-based pollution-control statutes. This paper assesses whether information gaps create an obstacle to successful regulation under section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA or "the Act") as it applies to discharges of dredged and fill material in wetlands. It focuses on how section 404 and the regulations governing permitting determine information demands, information supply, and the legal consequences of a gap between supply and demand. The goal of this inquiry into the demand/supply/consequences scheme is to …

The Non-Sense Tax: A Reply To New Corporate Income Tax Advocacy, Yariv Brauner

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article challenges recent attempts by influential scholars to rationalize the existence of the corporate income tax. The corporate income tax has long been considered unjustifiable on traditional tax policy grounds. The new justifications recognize this, yet argue that the tax is still desirable because it promotes other goals, such as improvement of corporate governance and restraint of undesirable corporate management power accumulation. This Article demonstrates that the existence and magnitude of these alleged benefits of the corporate income tax are doubtful. Yet, the Article argues, even if taken as correct, the recent rationalization of the corporate income tax cannot …

Turning Slogans Into Tax Policy, Karen C. Burke, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

The article examines the Bush Administration's tax cutting agenda, focusing on recent attempts to repeal the estate tax and to eliminate the shareholder-level income tax on corporate dividends. In each of these two seemingly disparate episodes, the Administration used dubious economic claims and populist rhetoric to promote tax cuts without considering revenue costs or distributional effects. The legislative outcomes, however, were driven largely by budget constraints and interest group politics. In conclusion, the article suggests that the Administration's tax cutting agenda is best understood in terms of politics and ideology rather than conventional tax policy.

Diversity As A Dead-End, Kenneth B. Nunn

UF Law Faculty Publications

Supreme Court cases on diversity could only assist if they defined diversity in a way that allowed institutions to admit significant numbers of the type of individuals that the institutions were lacking. This is precisely what the Supreme Court's cases on diversity do not do. Furthermore, the Supreme Court's view of diversity is flawed because it does not address existing power differentials between Blacks and Whites. As a result diversity, as it is defined by the Supreme Court, is a dead-end for those who are concerned about social justice and equity in higher education.

Globalism From An African Perspective: The Training Of Lawyers For A New And Challenging Reality, Winston P. Nagan, Marcio Santos

UF Law Faculty Publications

This paper deals with the definition and implications of globalism generally and for African interests in particular. Its focus is on globalism as a cluster of social, economic, and political forces contesting for the controlling paradigm of international relations and international law. The article underscores the general issue of globalism's impact on the well-being of the international community. It also considers the impact of globalism on the U.N. Charter, and, in particular, the role of the United Nations in international economic order. The connections between globalism and society are considered as part of the changing character of war and political …

Risk, Return, And Objective Economic Substance, Charlene Luke

UF Law Faculty Publications

The economic substance doctrine is a judicial method used to assess transactions suspected of being nothing more than elaborate (and illicit) tax avoidance. Courts vary in their formulation of the doctrine. Generally, the test consists of (1) a subjective inquiry into the taxpayer's motivations for entering the suspect transaction and (2) an objective inquiry into whether the transaction accomplished anything beyond tax effects. Both inquiries frequently revolve around the profit potential of the suspect transaction. In making an objective inquiry into profit, courts focus on the profit potential exclusive of taxes - the pre-tax landscape. This Article suggests that although …

Whither Sexual Orientation Analysis?: The Proper Methodology When Due Process And Equal Protection Intersect, Sharon E. Rush

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article suggests that there is Proper Methodology that courts apply when reviewing cases at the intersection of due process and equal protection. Briefly, courts operate under a rule that heightened review applies if either a fundamental right or a suspect class is involved in a case, and that rational basis review applies if neither is involved (the "Rule"). Two primary exceptions to the Rule exist, and this Article identifies them as the "Logical" and "Ill Motives" Exceptions. The Logical Exception applies when a court need not apply heightened review because a law fails rational basis review. The Ill Motives …

Where's The Harm?: Free Speech And The Regulation Of Lies, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

UF Law Faculty Publications

False factual information has no First Amendment value, and yet the United States Supreme Court has accorded lies a measure of First Amendment protection. The First Amendment imposes something in the nature of a presumption against government interference in public discourse. This presumption is rooted in suspicion of the State's ability to distinguish facts from falsehoods as well as its motives for doing so. However, the presumption against regulation of false speech is not absolute. It can be overcome when verifiably false speech poses a direct threat of harm to individual interests. Unlike other countries, the United States has never …

Order Without (Enforceable) Law: Why Countries Enter Into Non-Enforceable Competition Policy Chapters In Free Trade Agreements, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Over the past ten to fifteen years, there has been an explosion of bilateral and regional free trade agreements in Latin America (together, these are called "preferential free trade agreements" or PTAs). The purpose of PTAs is to increase trade, regulatory, and investment liberalization. As effective trade liberalization requires more than just a reduction of tariffs, PTAs include "chapters" in a number of areas of domestic regulation. These chapters address domestic regulation and create binding commitments to liberalize domestic regulation that may impact foreign trade. Among chapters that address domestic regulation, many of the Latin American PTAs include a chapter …

Water Transfers: The Case Against Transbasin Diversions In The Eastern States, Christine A. Klein

UF Law Faculty Publications

Water policy in the western states consistently has embraced a nineteenth century, supply-side mentality, requiring cities and other water providers to satisfy an ever-growing demand for water at virtually any cost. As a result, the western states rely upon thousands of engineered water transfers-even siphoning water from one side of mountain ranges to the other-in an un-sustainable attempt to support growth. This article challenges the conventional reliance upon transbasin diversions as a response to shortage. It argues that importing water from distant watersheds lulls growing communities into a false sense of security, subsidizes unsustainable growth, and exacts significant social, economic, …

People V. Coughlin And Criticisms Of The Criminal Jury In Late Nineteenth-Century Chicago, Elizabeth Dale

UF Law Faculty Publications

The last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century are typically characterized as the era in which the criminal jury trial came to an end. Although criminal juries did not completely disappear, their role became smaller and smaller across that time frame. Most studies of this phenomenon attribute that decline to the rise of plea bargains in that same period. Specifically, these studies lead to the conclusion that institutional factors, such as case loads and the political pressure on elected prosecutors to be "tough on crime," made plea bargains an increasingly attractive option for …

The Rise Of Outsourcing In Modern Warfare : Sovereign Power, Private Military Actors, And The Constitutive Process, Winston P. Nagan, Craig Hammer

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, we will examine the world order implications of combat privatization through the prism of the world constitutive process. This process is one of continuing communication and collaboration that examines, refines, and allocates competence in the international system. The process of contextual mapping might shed light on the terms associated with, and concepts communicated by, privatized military combat, which might be better understood when the contexts in which they are used are illuminated in a discriminating manner. Their multiple meanings are given coherence when we appreciate the divergent contexts within which they are used. To develop the appropriate …