Law Commons^™

2019 E-Newsletter Student Spotlight: Second-Year Student Amber Greenaway, Office Of Communications And Public Relations

Profiles of Members of the Law School Community

No abstract provided.

Does Multidistrict Litigation Deny Plaintiffs Due Process?, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

European Decision Could Have Killed Investment Treaties, Affecting Arbitration And Investments, Peter B. Rutledge, Katherine M. Larsen, Amanda W. Newton

Popular Media

A dramatic upheaval in investor-state arbitration last year recently led to the apparent demise of investment treaties throughout Europe and could have broad implications for both international arbitration and foreign investments in the European Union. In May 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union found in Achmea v. Slovak Republic that the bilateral investment treaty between the Netherlands and the Slovak Republic (a so-called intra-EU BIT) contained an arbitration clause that was incompatible with European law.

Lawyers Should Keep Their Eyes On Cuba Sanctions Cases, Peter B. Rutledge, Katherine M. Larsen, Miles S. Porter

Popular Media

A dramatic change in the executive branch position on Cuban sanctions recently led to a wave of litigation in the federal courts and could have broad implications for entities that conduct business in or with Cuba. In April, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Title III of the Helms-Burton Act would no longer be suspended, thereby allowing U.S. nationals to file lawsuits against any individual or entity that “traffics” in property expropriated by the Cuban government.

Singapore Convention Presents An Opportunity For Georgia In Mediation, Peter B. Rutledge, Katherine M. Larsen

Popular Media

On Dec. 20, 2018, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Singapore Convention. The Singapore Convention ensures that a mediation settlement reached by parties will be binding and enforceable in accordance with a streamlined procedure. The convention will compel contracting states to recognize international mediation settlement agreements in commercial disputes. On Aug. 7, the opening day of the convention, a record 46 nations signed the Singapore Convention on Mediation, including the United States.

The Singapore Convention presents a unique opportunity for Georgia to become a forum for hospitable mediation. Much like it adopted an international arbitration code, the state could …

2019-20 Executive, Managing And Editorial Boards, Georgia Journal Of International And Comparative Law

GJICL Editorial Boards

No abstract provided.

$3 Million Gift To Uga School Of Law Will Transform First-Generation Student Experiences, University Of Georgia School Of Law

News @ UGA School of Law

This message was sent to alumni/alumnae and friends of the UGA School of Law related to a gift transforming first-generation student experiences.

Uga School Of Law Advances Its Mission, University Of Georgia School Of Law

News @ UGA School of Law

This messaging was addressed to alumni/alumnae and friends of the School of Law community related to progress towards the Commit to Georgia campaign. It discusses the support raised so far and the scholarship and other opportunities the goals made possible for students.

Law Firm Establishes Scholarship In Honor Of Casey, University Of Georgia School Of Law

News @ UGA School of Law

This message to alumni/alumnae and friends reviews an exciting weekend celebrating Professor Kellie Casey, the pledge of support members made toward the school, and announces the establishment of a new scholarship in Casey's honor.

Uga School Of Law Is On The Rise And Building Momentum, University Of Georgia School Of Law

News @ UGA School of Law

This message to the School of Law community shares news of the 2020 U.S. News & World Report law school ranking, other steps alumni-alumnae support and leadership have made towards achieving strategic goals, and invites everyone to take part in Alumni/Alumnae Weekend in March 2020.

$1 Million Gift To Law School Will Fund Student Scholarships, University Of Georgia School Of Law

News @ UGA School of Law

This message to the law school community announces a $1 million gift for funding more student scholarships, particularly to law students who have demonstrated success in the face of challenging circumstances.

Back-To-Back Best Value Law School, University Of Georgia School Of Law

News @ UGA School of Law

This info-graphic style message to the law school community shares information including being ranked # Best Value Law School by National Jurist for 2019 and 2018 "Back to Back", as well as employment and ultimate bar passage rates among other stats and data on law student success and return on investment measures.

Uga School Of Law Named Best Value In Legal Education, University Of Georgia School Of Law

News @ UGA School of Law

Excerpt from this message:

We are excited to share that for the second year in a row, the University of Georgia School of Law has been named the Best Value in Legal Education in the United States by the National Jurist. As these rankings are based largely upon outcome-driven factors such as average indebtedness, bar passage and employment, this speaks volumes to the school's relentless pursuit of a vision to be the nation's very best return on investment in legal education.

$1 Million Gift To Support Family Justice Clinic, Scholarships, University Of Georgia School Of Law

News @ UGA School of Law

Excerpt from the message:

The memory of a domestic violence victim will have a lasting impact on the University of Georgia School of Law as an anonymous donor has pledged $1 million to support the school’s Family Justice Clinic and create a Distinguished Law Fellowship, both bearing the victim’s name – Jane W. Wilson.

Wilson, a resident of rural Northern Georgia in her early thirties, was shot and killed by her second husband of just three days during August 1976. Her two young children, aged 10 and 8, witnessed the homicide.

By making this gift to the law school, the …

Federal Guilty Pleas: Inequities, Indigence And The Rule 11 Process, Julian A. Cook

Scholarly Works

In 2017 and 2018, the Supreme Court issued two little-noticed decisions—Lee v. United States and Class v. United States. While neither case captured the attention of the national media nor generated meaningful academic commentary, both cases are well deserving of critical examination for reasons independent of the issues presented to the Court. They deserve review because of a consequential shared fact; a fact representative of a commonplace, yet largely overlooked, federal court practice that routinely disadvantages the indigent (and disproportionately minority populations), and compromises the integrity of arguably the most consequential component of the federal criminal justice process. In each …

Due Process For Article Iii—Rethinking Murray's Lessee, Kent H. Barnett

Scholarly Works

The Founders sought to protect federal judges’ impartiality primarily because those judges would review the political branches’ actions. To that end, Article III judges retain their offices during “good behaviour,” and Congress cannot reduce their compensation while they are in office. But Article III has taken a curious turn. Article III generally does not prohibit Article I courts or agencies from deciding “public rights” cases, i.e., when the government is a party and seeking to vindicate its own actions and interpretations under federal law against a private party. In contrast, Article III courts generally must resolve cases that concern “private …

Facebook V. Sullivan: Public Figures And Newsworthiness In Online Speech, Thomas E. Kadri, Kate Klonick

Scholarly Works

In the United States, there are now two systems to adjudicate disputes about harmful speech. The first is older and more established: the legal system in which judges apply constitutional law to limit tort claims alleging injuries caused by speech. The second is newer and less familiar: the content-moderation system in which platforms like Facebook implement the rules that govern online speech. These platforms are not bound by the First Amendment. But, as it turns out, they rely on many of the tools used by courts to resolve tensions between regulating harmful speech and preserving free expression—particularly the entangled concepts …

Environmental Law, Travis M. Trimble

Scholarly Works

In 2017,1 district courts in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided three cases that clarified issues arising under the Clean Water Act (CWA). 2 The United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia preliminarily enjoined the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers from enforcing the Waters of the United States Rule (WOTUS Rule), 3 a regulatory attempt to define the term "Waters of the United States," which is a jurisdictional threshold for agencies' regulatory authority under the CWA.4 Also, the United States District Court for the Northern District of …

The Primitive Lawyer Speaks!: Thoughts On The Concepts Of International And Rabbinic Laws, Harlan G. Cohen

Scholarly Works

A feature of the Norman J. Shachoy Symposium: The Rabbinic Idea of Law: Interactions and Implications

Inspired by Chaim Saiman’s brilliant book, Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law, this essay draws connections between the lived experiences of international law and Jewish law, focusing in particular on (1) the centrality of practice, (2) the search for and construction of authority in communities of practice (the “invisible college”), (3) the challenges and opportunities of fragmentation and pluralism, and (4) the difficulty translating their methods to more state-like institutions, like courts and legislation. The hope is that this testimony of one of H.L.A. …

Introduction To The Symposium On Julian Nyarko, “Giving The Treaty A Purpose: Comparing The Durability Of Treaties And Executive Agreements”, Harlan G. Cohen

Scholarly Works

Part of the symposium on Julian Nyarko, “Giving the Treaty a Purpose: Comparing the Durability of Treaties and Executive Agreements”

Understanding The Gap Between Law And Practice: Barriers And Alternatives To Tailoring Adult Guardianship Orders, Eleanor Lanier

Scholarly Works

An overwhelming majority of state laws governing adult guardianship require an inquiry into whether less restrictive alternatives may be available/appropriate and, where guardianship is necessary, that guardianship orders be designed to maximize theindependence of the person subject to the guardianship. However, the best available data indicates that most guardianship orders are plenary," removing rights on a wholesale basis rather than individually tailoring the guardianship. To many observers, the imposition of plenary guardianship contradicts the unambiguous statutory language in most states favoring a tailored approach that implements guardianships to maximize an individual's independence and autonomy.

The literature is rife with examples …

Reflections On The Cross-Border Tax Challenges Of The Digital Economy, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

In this article, Hellerstein discusses common problems confronting national and subnational jurisdictions in addressing the cross-border tax challenges of the digital economy. This article is based on the author's November 21 inaugural lecture as a visiting professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Statute Of Limitations For Child Sexual Abuse Civil Lawsuits In Georgia, Emma Hetherington, Jean Mangan, Chase Lyndale, Michael Nunnally, Wilbanks Child Endangerment And Sexual Exploitation Clinic, University Of Georgia School Of Law

Scholarly Works

Only 29% of child sexual abuse reports result in criminal charges being filed. As a result, most states have enacted civil statutes of limitations to allow survivors to file claims both against abusers and also those who owed them a duty of care and knew or should have known about the abuse. In 2015 the Georgia legislature passed the Hidden Predator Act (HPA) to amend the state’s civil statute of limitations. Under the HPA, survivors of child sexual abuse that occurred prior to July 1, 2015 were given a two-year retroactive window under which to file claims against their abusers. …

Brandeis’S I.P. Federalism: Thoughts On Erie At Eighty, Joseph S. Miller

Scholarly Works

Justice Brandeis is, in intellectual property law’s precincts, most famous for his lone dissent in International News Service v. Associate Press, the misappropriation case one can find in virtually every i.p. survey casebook (and many property law casebooks as well). But in the wider legal world, Brandeis is likely most famous for his earthquake opinion in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins. Do Brandeis’s opinions in these two cases speak to each other? Can considering them together inform broader reflections on the texture of our federalism in the i.p. context? This piece, prepared in connection with an “Erie at Eighty” conference …

Bias In, Bias Out, Sandra G. Mayson

Scholarly Works

Police, prosecutors, judges, and other criminal justice actors increasingly use algorithmic risk assessment to estimate the likelihood that a person will commit future crime. As many scholars have noted, these algorithms tend to have disparate racial impact. In response, critics advocate three strategies of resistance: (1) the exclusion of input factors that correlate closely with race, (2) adjustments to algorithmic design to equalize predictions across racial lines, and (3) rejection of algorithmic methods altogether.

This Article’s central claim is that these strategies are at best superficial and at worst counterproductive, because the source of racial inequality in risk assessment lies …

Clinical Syllabi As Demonstration Of Best Practices Implementation, Jean Goetz Mangan, Fernanda Mackay

Scholarly Works

This Article posits that the University of Georgia School of Law for Clinical Programs course syllabi demonstrate implementation of recommendations found in leading works that advocate for change in traditional legal education. This Article reviews some high points of legal education reform with a focus on clinical legal education and then discusses the role of syllabi in the classroom and the potential within the document that many professors miss. This Article then turns to using syllabi to measure the extent that the clinics are implementing instruction that addresses all three apprenticeships as defined in the Carnegie Report.. To assess the …

Restoring The Statutory Safety-Valve For Immigrant Crime Victims: Premium Processing For Interim U Visa Benefits, Jason A. Cade, Mary Honeychurch

Scholarly Works

This essay focuses on the U visa, a critical government program that has thus far failed to live up to its significant potential. Congress enacted the U visa to aid undocumented victims of serious crime and incentivize them to assist law enforcement without fear of deportation. The reality, however, is that noncitizens eligible for U status still languish in limbo for many years while remaining vulnerable to deportation and workplace exploitation. This is in large part due to the fact that the agency has never devoted sufficient resources to processing these cases. As a result, the potential benefits of the …

Nudges And Norms In Multidistrict Litigation: A Response To Engstrom, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

On paper, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply equally to billion-dollar opioid allegations and small-stakes claims for $75,000.01. In practice, however, judges and attorneys in high-stakes multidistrict proceedings like those over opioids have invented a smattering of procedures that you’ll never find indexed in the Federal Rules: plaintiff fact sheets, short form complaints, science days, bellwether trials, census orders, inactive dockets, and Lone Pine orders to name but a few. In a world where settlement is the prevailing currency, norms take root. But as norms blossom, the stabilizing features of the federal rules—balance, predictability, and structural protections—can wither. As …

The National Security Delegation Conundrum, Harlan G. Cohen

Scholarly Works

In the past two years alone, Trump has claimed national security authority to unilaterally issue steel and aluminum tariffs under Section 232 and threaten the same on auto parts; to implement a travel ban targeting majority-Muslim countries under the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA); to threaten Mexico with tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) if it didn’t do more to stop migration to the U.S.; to find funds for a border wall that Congress specifically chose not to support; to continue attacks under the 2001 Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF), originally passed to go after …

Daniel Amsterdam's Roaring Metropolis: Businessmen's Campaign For A Civic Welfare State, Laura Phillips Sawyer

Scholarly Works

Daniel Amsterdam’s Roaring Metropolis: Businessmen’s Campaign for a Civic Welfare State challenges the conventional narrative of early twentieth-century American businessmen as promoting laissezfaire or antistatist politics. Instead, as Amsterdam argues, elite business leaders campaigned vigorously for greater municipal spending on civic welfare projects, which included building and improving public schools, public health infrastructure, parks and playgrounds, libraries, and museums. Rather than focus on national-level business in- government, his narrative traverses multiple cities (Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta) to demonstrate both the diversity of political challenges and institutional constraints that civic-minded reformers faced as well as the striking convergence of civic welfare …