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Full-Text Articles in Law

Developing Inclusive Language Competency In Clinical Teaching, Jennifer Safstrom, Joseph Mead Apr 2023

Developing Inclusive Language Competency In Clinical Teaching, Jennifer Safstrom, Joseph Mead

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Drawing from legal pedagogy, litigation practice, and teaching experience, this article seeks to compile a set of key considerations for inclusive language decision-making in the clinical setting. Using a multi-factor framework--accuracy, precision, relevance, audience, and respect-this analysis explores the process for deciding on terms to use in practice and the potential implications of those choices on student learning, case outcomes, and attorney-client relationships. In addition, this article explores some current trends and best practices when adopting these principles in the context of specific groups. This article connects these principles to broader academic and practice is- sues, including the American Bar …


The Overreach Of Limits On 'Legal Advice', Lauren Sudeall Jan 2022

The Overreach Of Limits On 'Legal Advice', Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Nonlawyers, including court personnel, are typically prohibited from providing legal advice. But definitions of “legal advice” are unnecessarily broad, creating confusion, disadvantaging self-represented litigants, and possibly raising due process concerns. This Essay argues for a narrower, more explicit definition of legal advice that advances, rather than undercuts, access to justice.


Clinical Fellowships, Faculty Hiring, And Community Values, G. S. Hans Jan 2021

Clinical Fellowships, Faculty Hiring, And Community Values, G. S. Hans

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Essay explores clinical hiring practices as an expression of community values. In particular, it discusses how lawyers become clinical faculty to reflect on whether and how prior clinical teaching experience should be assessed for entry-level clinical applicants in order to effectuate equity and inclusion within law schools and the clinical community. Publicly available data suggest that a majority of recent entry-level clinical faculty have prior clinical teaching experience as fellows or staff attorneys. What does this apparent hiring preference for prior teaching experience mean for the composition of the clinical community, especially with respect to equity and inclusion? As …


How And Why Did It Go So Wrong?: Theranos As A Legal Ethics Case Study, G. S. Hans Jan 2021

How And Why Did It Go So Wrong?: Theranos As A Legal Ethics Case Study, G. S. Hans

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Theranos saga encompasses many discrete areas of law. Reporting on Theranos, most notably John Carreyrou's Bad Blood, highlights the questionable ethical decisions that many of the attorneys involved made. The lessons attorneys and law students can learn from Bad Blood are highly complex. The Theranos story touches on multiple areas of professional responsibility, including competence, diligence, candor, conflicts, and liability. Thus, Theranos serves as a helpful tool to explore the limits of ethical lawyering for Professional Responsibility students. This Article discusses the author's experience with using Bad Blood as an extended case study in a new course on Legal …


Legal Deserts, Lauren Sudeall, Lise R. Pruitt, Danielle M. Conway, Michele Statz, Hannah Haksgaard, Amanda L. Kool Jan 2018

Legal Deserts, Lauren Sudeall, Lise R. Pruitt, Danielle M. Conway, Michele Statz, Hannah Haksgaard, Amanda L. Kool

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Rural America faces an increasingly dire access-to-justice crisis, which serves to exacerbate the already disproportionate share of social problems afflicting rural areas. One critical aspect of the crisis is the dearth of information and research regarding the extent of the problem and its impacts. This Article begins to fill that gap by providing surveys of rural access to justice in six geographically, demographically, and economically varied states: California, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In addition to providing insights about the distinct rural challenges confronting each of these states, the legal resources available, and existing policy responses, the Article …


Navigating The Research-Clinical Interface In Genomic Medicine: Analysis From The Cser Consortium, Ellen Wright Clayton, Susan M. Wolf, Laura M. Amendola, Et Al. Jan 2018

Navigating The Research-Clinical Interface In Genomic Medicine: Analysis From The Cser Consortium, Ellen Wright Clayton, Susan M. Wolf, Laura M. Amendola, Et Al.

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Purpose: The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) Consortium encompasses nine National Institutes of Health– funded U-award projects investigating translation of genomic sequencing into clinical care. Previous literature has distinguished norms and rules governing research versus clinical care. This is the first study to explore how genomics investigators describe and navigate the research–clinical interface. Methods: A CSER working group developed a 22-item survey. All nine U-award projects participated. Descriptive data were tabulated and qualitative analysis of text responses identified themes and characterizations of the research–clinical interface. Results: Survey responses described how studies approached the research–clinical interface, including in consent practices, recording …


Lawyering To The Lowest Common Denominator: "Strickland's" Potential For Incorporating Underfunded Norms Into Legal Doctrine, Lauren Sudeall Apr 2014

Lawyering To The Lowest Common Denominator: "Strickland's" Potential For Incorporating Underfunded Norms Into Legal Doctrine, Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This symposium article explores how ineffective assistance of counsel doctrine, by its design, may incorporate and exacerbate the failings of an underfunded indigent defense system. Specifically, it highlights two aspects of the Strickland v. Washington standard for ineffective assistance of counsel: first, its inability to effectively address issues of underfunding through its two-prong test of deficient performance and prejudice; and, second, the way in which its eschewal of specific substantive guidelines for attorney performance in favor of reliance on "prevailing professional norms" may allow legal doctrine to be influenced by anemic, localized practice norms resulting from a lack of resources. …


Can I Be Sued For That? Liability Risk And The Disclosure Of Clinically Significant Genetic Research Findings, Ellen Wright Clayton, Amy L. Mcguire, Et Al. Jan 2014

Can I Be Sued For That? Liability Risk And The Disclosure Of Clinically Significant Genetic Research Findings, Ellen Wright Clayton, Amy L. Mcguire, Et Al.

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Genomic researchers increasingly are faced with difficult decisions about whether, under what circumstances, and how to return research results and significant incidental findings to study participants. Many have argued that there is an ethical—maybe even a legal—obligation to disclose significant findings under some circumstances. At the international level, over the last decade there has begun to emerge a clear legal obligation to return significant findings discovered during the course of research. However, there is no explicit legal duty to disclose in the United States. This creates legal uncertainty that may lead to unmanaged variation in practice and poor quality care. …


Seeking Genomic Knowledge: The Case For Clinical Restraint, Ellen Wright Clayton, Wylie Burke, Susan Brown Trinidad Jan 2013

Seeking Genomic Knowledge: The Case For Clinical Restraint, Ellen Wright Clayton, Wylie Burke, Susan Brown Trinidad

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Genome sequencing technology provides new and promising tests for clinical practice, including whole genome sequencing, which measures an individual's complete DNA sequence, and whole exome sequencing, which measures the DNA for all genes coding for proteins. These technologies make it possible to test for multiple genes in a single test, which increases the efficiency of genetic testing. However, they can also produce large amounts of information that cannot be interpreted or is of limited clinical utility. This additional information could be distracting for patients and clinicians, and contribute to unnecessary healthcare costs. The potential for genomic sequencing to improve care …


Angry Judges, Terry A. Maroney Jan 2012

Angry Judges, Terry A. Maroney

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Judges get angry. Law, however, is of two minds as to whether they should; more importantly, it is of two minds as to whether judges’ anger should influence their behavior and decision making. On the one hand, anger is the quintessentially judicial emotion. It involves appraisal of wrongdoing, attribution of blame, and assignment of punishment — precisely what we ask of judges. On the other, anger is associated with aggression, impulsivity, and irrationality. Aristotle, through his concept of virtue, proposed reconciling this conflict by asking whether a person is angry at the right people, for the right reasons, and in …


Evolving Equality: The Development Of The International Defense Bar, Michael A. Newton Jan 2011

Evolving Equality: The Development Of The International Defense Bar, Michael A. Newton

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Defense counsel in international criminal proceedings face difficult challenges that are intrinsic to the modern system of internationalized accountability; yet their professionalism and performance represent perhaps the most determinative dimension for evaluating the overall fairness of what the world terms “justice” for grievous atrocities. Defense teams labor against the tides of public opinion and the deeply felt pain of the victims of mass atrocities. Abandonment of appropriate defense efforts, whether the result of professional fecklessness or personal pressures, would transform international criminal law into an organized sham aimed at achieving a shadow of justice while undermining the rights of the …


Through The Lens Of The Sequence, Ellen Wright Clayton Jan 2001

Through The Lens Of The Sequence, Ellen Wright Clayton

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The completion of the rough draft of the human genome is a scientific feat worthy of celebration. But the media attention that has been devoted to the Human Genome Project demonstrates that most people are not as interested in what the sequence is as in what it means for individuals and for society, for good or for ill. My purpose in writing this essay is to discuss how the project was conducted here in the United States, and some of the implications of knowing the sequence (or more aptly, a sequence).