Law Commons^™

The Lawyer As Legal Scholar, Michael J. Madison

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I review Eugene Volokh's recent book, Academic Legal Writing. The book is nominally directed to law students and those who teach them (and for those audiences, it is outstanding), but it also contains a number of valuable lessons for published scholars. The book is more than a writing manual, however. I argue that Professor Volokh suggests implicitly that scholarship is underappreciated as a dimension of the legal profession. A well-trained lawyer, in other words, should have experience as a scholar. The argument sheds new light on ongoing discussions about the character of law schools.

Enron - When All Systems Fail: Creative Destruction Or Roadmap To Corporate Governance Reform?, Douglas M. Branson

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This article raises the unthinkable proposition (for academics at least) that Enron may have been an aberration. The Enron debacle may have been the rare case in which nine, ten or more sets of monitors and gatekeepers failed. Alternatively, as with Tyco, WorldCom, Adelphia, Rite Aid or other celebrated corporate "busts," Enron may be the handiwork of one or two well placed wrongdoers, in this case, CFO Andrew Fastow. Enron then may not be the pathway to meaningful reform at all.

The article next proceeds to a critical review of Sarbanes-Oxley's principal provisions. The conclusion reached is that by and …

The Sometimes-Bumpy Stream Of Commerce Clause Doctrine (Symposium: The Commerce Clause: Past, Present, And Future), Richard D. Friedman

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The title of this essay is a somewhat feeble use of an unoriginal pun.' I am not talking about the doctrine of the stream, but about the stream of the doctrine. That is, my principal subject is not the "stream of commerce doctrine," but rather the historical development of the doctrine governing Congress's power under the Commerce Clause in the twentieth century, and especially in the years centering on the New Deal. My basic thesis is this: Although the doctrine developed rapidly in the New Deal era, there were no major discontinuities in it. That does not mean that it …

Learning To Trust: Thoughts From A Law Clinic, David A. Santacroce

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The State Bar Legal Education Committee is now the Legal Education and Professional Standards Committee. This marriage seems an apt occasion to raise, through the prism of students, the issue of trust in client relations, though not in the traditional sense of "getting the client to trust me." Rather, the more ignored "getting me to trust the client" is the focus.

Can Fingerprints Lie?: Re-Weighing Fingerprint Evidence In Criminal Jury Trials, Tamara F. Lawson

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This article discusses fingerprint evidence and its use in criminal jury trials. It is commonly thought that fingerprints "never lie"; however, this article reveals the little known fact that the "science" of fingerprint identification has never been empirically tested or proven to be reliable. It further exposes the seldom-discussed issue of fingerprint misidentification and latent print examiner error. The article explains the importance of fingerprint evidence and its extensive use in all phases of the criminal justice system. Specifically, the article plays out the dramatic courtroom scenario of incriminating fingerprints being found at a crime scene and matching the accused …

Farmers, Fish, Tribal Power And Poker: Reallocating Water In The Truckee River Basin, Nevada And California, Barbara Cosens

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No abstract provided.

Multijurisdictional Practice: An Emerging Issue For A Changing Profession, Donald L. Burnett Jr.

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No abstract provided.

Reconstructing The Software License, Michael J. Madison

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This article analyzes the legitimacy of the software license as a institution of governance for computer programs. The question of the open source license is used as a starting point. Having conducted a broader inquiry into the several possible bases for the legitimacy of software licensing in general, the article argues that none of the grounds on which software licensing in general rests are sound. With respect to open source software in particular, the article concludes that achieving a legitimate institutional form for the goals that open source proponents have set for themselves may require looking beyond licensing as such.

Child Placement Decisions: The Relevance Of Facial Resemblance And Biological Relationships, David J. Herring

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This article discusses two studies of evolution and human behavior addressing child-adult relationships and explores implications for policies and practices surrounding placement of children in foster homes. The first study indicates that men favor children whose facial features resemble their own facial features. This study may justify public child welfare decisionmakers in considering facial resemblance as they attempt to place children in safe foster homes.

The second study indicates that parents are likely to invest more in children who are biologically related to them, thus enhancing their long term well-being. Among other implications, this study may justify public child welfare …

Gacaca Courts: The Hope For Reconciliation In The Aftermath Of The Rwandan Genocide, Maureen Laflin

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No abstract provided.

Adr Without Borders, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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My task is to assess the ways in which alternative dispute resolution procedures may be adapted to deal with international labor disputes. ADR refers to various methods by which neutral third parties assist persons engaged in a conflict to settle their differences without involving the decision-making power of the state or other sanction-imposing body. Both mediation and arbitration are included. In mediation the neutral seeks to get the parties to agree on a mutually acceptable solution. In arbitration the neutral imposes a solution after presentations by the contending parties. A third term, conciliation, is sometimes used and generally connotes a …

Behavioral Economics And The Sec, Stephen J. Choi, Adam C. Pritchard

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Not all investors are rational. Quite apart from the obvious examples of credulity in the face of the latest Ponzi scheme, there is no shortage of evidence that many investors' decisions are influenced by systematic biases that impair their abilities to maximize their investment returns. For example, investors will often hold onto poorly performing stocks longer than warranted, hoping to recoup their losses. Other investors will engage in speculative trading, dissipating their returns by paying larger commissions than more passive investors. And we are not just talking about widows and orphans here. There is evidence that supposedly sophisticated institutional investors-mutual …

Redistributing Optimally: Of Tax Rules, Legal Rules, And Insurance, Kyle D. Logue, Ronen Avraham

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From the beginning of the law and economics movement, normative legal economists have focused almost exclusively on evaluating the efficiency of alternative legal rules. The distributional consequences of legal rules, therefore, have largely been ignored. It is tempting to conclude that legal economists are hostile or indifferent to concerns of distributional fairness. In fact, however, the discipline of economics has a great deal to say about distributional policy. The normative branch of economics, known as welfare economics, has always been deeply concerned with distributional issues. It is not that welfare economists purport to know a priori the "right" or "optimal" …

Going To Pot, Carl E. Schneider

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In several earlier columns, I suggested that judges are usually poorly placed to make good biomedical policy, not least because the law so rarely offers them direct and cogent guidance. Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit proffered a new example of this old problem. In 1996, California's voters approved Proposition 215. Its "Compassionate Use Act of 1996" provided -that a patient "who possesses or cultivates marijuana for the personal medical purposes of the patient upon the written or oral recommendation or approval of a physician" committed no crime.

Inmate Litigation, Margo Schlanger

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In 1995, prison and jail inmates brought about 40,000 new lawsuits in federal court nearly a fifth of the federal civil docket. Court records evidence a success rate for inmate plaintiffs under fifteen percent. These statistics highlight two qualities long associated with the inmate docket: its volume and the low rate of plaintiffs' success. Then, in 1996, Congress enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), which dramatically altered the litigation landscape, restricting inmates' access to federal court in a variety of ways. This Article examines inmate litigation before and after the PLRA. Looking first at the litigation process itself, it …

Why Theories Of Law Have Little Or Nothing To Do With Judicial Restraint, Philip E. Soper

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The question I explore here, stated in its broadest form, is this: What is the connection between theory and practice between academic claims about how judges should decide cases and the actual behavior of judges as revealed in the opinions they write? More particularly, do theories about the nature of law have any implications for the question whether a judge should adopt an "activist" or a "restrained" approach to deciding cases? As you might infer from my title, I defend here what I call "the skeptical thesis" in answer to both the general and particular questions. Judges pay little or …

Community Acequias In Colorado's Rio Culebra Watershed: A Customary Commons In The Domain Of Prior Appropriation, Gregory A. Hicks, Devon G. Peña

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This article presents an account of the landscape and water institutions of the acequia communities of Colorado's Rio Culebra watershed. The physical and social landscape of the Culebra watershed, a product of water institutions introduced by Hispano settlers in the years immediately following the Mexican War, and the persistence of those institutions after the introduction of the system of prior appropriation, offers an instance of a successful engagement of community water institutions in the creation of a sustainable and resource-rich watershed landscape. The ultimate goals of this article are threefold. First, the article describes the acequialandscape and its social, …

Australia's Tampa Incident: The Convergence Of International And Domestic Refugee And Maritime Law In The Pacific Rim: Introduction To The Maritime Law Forum, Craig Allen

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The members of the Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal are to be congratulated for their initiative, compassion, and insight in calling attention to the August 26, 2001 M/V Tampa incident and subjecting the actions of the involved principals and the governing legal regime to close and thoughtful scrutiny. Planning for the April 22, 2002 symposium in Seattle began in the fall of 2001, shortly after the Tampa's week-long crisis involving 438 migrants garnered international attention. Speakers for the Symposium conference, recruited under the leadership of the Journal's 2001-2002 Editor-in-Chief, Kelly Thomas, hailed from Australia, Europe and throughout the United …

Introduction, The Osceola After 100 Years: Its Meaning And Effect On Maritime Personal Injury Law In The United States, Craig Allen

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A century ago the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in The Osceola [189 U.S. 158 (1903)], announcing four legal propositions that controlled personal injury claims by seamen at the time. On the 100th anniversary of the Court's decision, the four admiralty law professors contributing to this symposium take the opportunity to critically examine the Court's renowned decision, Congress' responses to the decision, and the effect of both The Osceola's four propositions and the responsive legislation on the remedies available to injured maritime workers in the 21st century.

In the first of the three articles that follow, Professor …

Icann And Antitrust, A. Michael Froomkin

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National identification ("ID") cards appear increasingly inevitable. National ID cards have the potential to be repressive and privacy destroying, but it is also possible to design a system that captures more benefits than costs. Because the United States currently lacks a single, reliable credential, private businesses have trouble authenticating their customers and matching data among distributed databases. This Article argues that the desire for reliable ID creates a window of opportunity for the federal government to strike a bargain: offer private businesses the use of a reliable credential in the form of a national ID card, on the condition that …

Agora (Continued): Future Implications Of The Iraq Conflict Editors' Note, Lori Fisler Damrosh, Bernard H. Oxman

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No abstract provided.

Subject Unrest, Jerome M. Culp Jr., Angela P. Harris, Francisco Valdes

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No abstract provided.

Water Dispute Resolution In The West: Process Elements For The Modern Era In Basin-Wide Problem Solving, Barbara Cosens

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Growing urban water demand, recent recognition of tribal water rights, and needs for critical aquatic habitat in the face of the archaic law governing water allocation are driving people in the western United States to seek alternative methods to resolve water allocation disputes. The current ad hoc and locally driven approach to negotiation of basin-wide water issues runs the risk of overlooking broader interests. Whereas water use is local and rives local economies, the continued viability of our water resources and the legacy we leave to future generations in water infrastructure, social stability, an environmental amenities is national in scope. …

Foreword, Jessica Owley, Emma Garrison

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No abstract provided.

Truth, Truths, "Truth," And "Truths" In The Law, Susan Haack

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No abstract provided.

Habermas@Discourse.Net: Toward A Critical Theory Of Cyberspace, A. Michael Froomkin

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No abstract provided.

Class And Status In American Law: Race, Interest, And The Anti-Transformation Cases, Martha R. Mahoney

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No abstract provided.

Agora: Future Implications Of The Iraq Conflict Editors' Introduction, Lori Fisler Damrosh, Bernard H. Oxman

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No abstract provided.

Risk Management And Organizational Governance: The Case Of Enron, Robert Eli Rosen

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No abstract provided.

Law Without Authority: Sources Of The Welfare State In Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Arthur J. Jacobson

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In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), Spinoza mounts an attack on authority in all its forms, including the authority of law and the state. Because authority in all its forms is a product of the imagination, obligation can never be justified. The subjects of Spinoza's commonwealth have no duties, only rights. Spinoza replaces the authority of the commonwealth with the welfare of subjects as the sign and the source of the commonwealth's flourishing. Spinoza was thus the first to propose that the only way for commonwealths to maintain the illusion of authority is by attending to the welfare of their citizens.