Law Commons^™

Don’T ‘Screw Joe The Plummer’: The Sausage-Making Of Financial Reform, Kimberly D. Krawiec

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines agency-level activity during the preproposal rulemaking phase—a time period about which little is known despite its importance to policy outcomes—through an analysis of federal agency activity in connection with section 619 of the Dodd–Frank Act, popularly known as the Volcker Rule. By capitalizing on transparency efforts specific to Dodd–Frank, I am able to access information on agency contacts whose disclosure is not required by the Administrative Procedure Act and, therefore, not typically available to researchers.

I analyze the roughly 8,000 public comment letters received by the Financial Stability Oversight Council in advance of its study regarding Volcker …

Internal Compliance Officers In Jeopardy?, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Crucial But (Potentially) Precarious Position Of The Chief Compliance Officer, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

This Article, written for a symposium on compliance issues in financial-services firms, focuses on the role of the chief compliance officer (“CCO”). Contrasting the position with that held by a firm’s general counsel or Chief Legal Officer (CLO), the article argues that a CCO’s position holds distinct challenges. Additionally, although internal compliance systems and personnel may be characterized as functional substitutes for external regulation, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of internal compliance requires a willingness to look deep within firms. The article argues that the law and regulation may enhance firms’ incentives to invest in effective internal compliance but may …

Improving (Software) Patent Quality Through The Administrative Process, Arti K. Rai

Faculty Scholarship

The available evidence indicates that patent quality, particularly in the area of software, needs improvement. This Article argues that even an agency as institutionally constrained as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) could implement a portfolio of pragmatic, cost-effective quality improvement strategies. The argument in favor of these strategies draws upon not only legal theory and doctrine but also new data from a PTO software examination unit with relatively strict practices. Strategies that resolve around Section 112 of the patent statute could usefully be deployed at the initial examination stage. Other strategies could be deployed within the new post-issuance …