Law Commons^™

'Sophisticated Robots': Balancing Liability, Regulation, And Innovation, F. Patrick Hubbard

Faculty Publications

Our lives are being transformed by large mobile “sophisticated robots” with increasingly higher levels of autonomy, intelligence, and interconnectivity among themselves. For example, driverless automobiles are likely to become commercially available within a decade. Many people who suffer physical injuries from these robots will seek legal redress for their injury, and regulatory schemes are likely to impose requirements to reduce the number and severity of injuries.

This Article addresses the issue of whether the current liability and regulatory systems provide a fair, efficient method for balancing the concern for physical safety against the need to incentivize the innovation necessary to …

20/20 Foresight: Coaches Can Have More Of An Impact By Removing Dangerous Drills From Practices, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Proximity-Driven Liability, Bryant Walker Smith

Faculty Publications

This working paper argues that commercial sellers’ growing information about, access to, and control over their products, product users, and product uses could significantly expand their point-of-sale and post-sale obligations toward people endangered by these products. The paper first describes how companies are embracing new technologies that expand their information, access, and control, with primary reference to the increasingly automated and connected motor vehicle. It next analyzes how this proximity to product, user, and use could impact product-related claims for breach of implied warranty, defect in design or information, post-sale failure to warn or update, and negligent enabling of a …

Featuring People In Ads (2014 Edition), Eric Goldman, Rebecca Tushnet

Faculty Publications

This is a book chapter from the 2014 edition of a casebook, Advertising & Marketing Law: Cases and Materials, by Rebecca Tushnet and Eric Goldman. This chapter examines the legal issues arising from featuring people in advertisements, including publicity rights and endorsement/testimonial guidelines.

Juries, Social Norms, And Civil Justice, Jason M. Solomon

Faculty Publications

At the root of many contemporary debates and landmark cases in the civil justice system are underlying questions about the role of the civil jury. In prior work, I examined the justifications for the civil jury as a political institution, and found them wanting in our contemporary legal system.

This Article looks closely and critically at the justification for the civil jury as an adjudicative institution and questions the conventional wisdom behind it. The focus is on tort law because the jury has more power to decide questions of law in tort than any other area of law. The Article …

The Wire As A Gap-Filling Class On Criminal Law And Procedure, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Law School Training For Licensed 'Legal Technicians'? Implications For The Consumer Market, Elizabeth Chambliss

Faculty Publications

In January 2014, the ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education released its report calling, among other things, for limited licensing and the expansion of independent paraprofessional training by law schools. In Washington State, all three law schools are collaborating with community college paralegal programs to design and deliver specialized training for “Limited License Legal Technicians” (LLLTs), who will be licensed to deliver limited family law services beginning in 2015. At least three other states, including California and New York — which together contain nearly twenty-six percent of U.S. lawyers and seventy-six law schools — are actively seeking …

Liberty Without Capacity: Why States Should Ban Adolescent Driving, Vivian E. Hamilton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Health Equity For All: Sexual And Reproductive Health Needs And Access To Health Services For Adolescents 10–17 Engaged In Selling Sex In Asia Pacific, Brendan M. Conner, Ayesha Mago, Sarah Middleton-Lee

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Multipolarity, Intellectual Property And The Internationalization Of Public Health Law, Sam F. Halabi

Faculty Publications

This Article critically examines the proliferation of international legal agreements addressing global health threats like the outbreak of infectious diseases, tobacco use and lack of access to affordable medicines. The conventional wisdom behind this trend is that a global normative shift has occurred which has caused states to regard health as “special” and less subject to the normal rules of international law making because health threats endanger all of humanity. This Article challenges that thesis, arguing that at the same time the number and scope of international health law treaties has grown, developed states have subordinated health law to intellectual …

Ubiquitous Privacy, Thomas P. Crocker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

International Commercial Arbitration Coming To A Courthouse Near You, S. I. Strong, Judith Kaye

Faculty Publications

Some people view international commercial arbitration as an exotic, private dispute resolution mechanism that is entirely separate from U.S. state and federal courts. However, the truth of the matter is that judges from around the country increasingly are being asked to handle disputes that are somehow related to international commercial arbitration.

Pink Franklin V. South Carolina: The Naacp’S First Case, W. Lewis Burke

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Following Lower-Court Precedent, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the role of lower-court precedent in the US Supreme Court’s decisions. The Supreme Court is rarely the first court to consider a legal question, and therefore the Court has the opportunity to be informed by and perhaps even persuaded by the views of the various lower courts that have previously addressed the issue. This Article considers whether the Court should give weight to lower-court precedent as a matter of normative theory and whether the Court in fact does so as a matter of practice. To answer the normative question, this Article analyzes a variety of potential reasons …

The Home: Where Our Heart Resides, David M. English

Faculty Publications

Helping a client maximize the use of his or her home for these purposes is no simple task. It requires knowledge of options and resources across many domains. But stepping back and taking a broader look at these strategic opportunities and pitfalls is useful in appreciating the knowledge and skill set needed to competently counsel and represent aging clients. This article looks first at a variety of consumer protection issues, examines the interrelationship between the home and a variety of government benefits, and concludes with a discussion of technology that may enable an elderly person to remain in the place …

Systemic Barriers To Effective Assistance Of Counsel In Plea Bargaining, Rodney J. Uphoff, Peter A. Joy

Faculty Publications

In a trio of recent cases, Padilla v. Kentucky, Missouri v. Frye, and Lafler v. Cooper, the U.S. Supreme Court has focused its attention on defense counsel's pivotal role during the plea bargaining process . At the same time that the Court has signaled its willingness to consider ineffective assistance of counsel claims at the plea stage, prosecutors are increasingly requiring defendants to sign waivers that include waiving all constitutional and procedural errors, even unknown ineffective assistance of counsel claims such as those that proved successful in Padilla and Frye. Had Jose Padilla and Galin Frye been forced to sign …

Rogue Debtors And Unanticipated Risk, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

Commercial actors are becoming increasingly concerned about the effect that various types of political risk, including the risk of sovereign default, has on their investments. This Essay considers the problem of rogue debtors (i.e., states that intentionally ignore their legal and financial obligations) as a type of unanticipated risk and analyzes how well various responses, including domestic litigation, interstate negotiation and investment arbitration, address investors’ needs. In particular, the discussion focuses on how effective investment arbitration is in overcoming a number of difficulties traditionally associated with rogue debtors and the various means by which states are attempting to bypass the …

One Judge’S ‘Top Ten Tips For Effective Brief Writing’ (Part I), Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Trial By Google: Judicial Notice In The Information Age, Jeffrey Bellin, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Faculty Publications

This Article presents a theory of judicial notice for the information age. It argues that the ease of accessing factual data on the Internet allows judges and litigants to expand the use of judicial notice in ways that raise significant concerns about admissibility, reliability, and fair process. State and federal courts are already applying the surprisingly pliant judicial notice rules to bring websites ranging from Google Maps to Wikipedia into the courtroom, and these decisions will only increase in frequency in coming years. This rapidly emerging judicial phenomenon is notable for its ad hoc and conclusory nature—attributes that have the …

Reflections On Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections Of Race And Class For Women In Academia Symposium—The Plenary Panel, Stephanie M. Wildman, Angela Mae Kupenda, Maritza I. Reyes, Angela Onwauchi-Willig, Adiren Katherine Wing

Faculty Publications

Reflections on Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia Symposium--The Plenary Panel in the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice represents the author’s reflections on the recent important book PRESUMED INCOMPETENT edited by Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. González, and Angela P. Harris. PRESUMED INCOMPETENT has started a national movement of attention to treatment of women of color in academia; google the reviews and check out the book’s Facebook presence. In this recreation of the symposium plenary, the panelists discuss issues surrounding race and gender in academia, particularly in law …

Decades Of Research Shows Adolescents Do Better With Community Service Rather Than Incarceration, Gary L. Hopkins, Duane C. Mcbride, Brent C. Featherston, Peter C. Gleason, Jacqueline Moreno

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to share with the legal community some of what we as social science researchers have learned from our research and the research of others, regarding the health and education benefits of community service among adolescents. In other words, we will attempt to answer the question of whether there are benefits of performing community service to the individuals performing the service, and to describe what these benefits are.

Against Methodological Stare Decisis, Evan J. Criddle, Glen Staszewski

Faculty Publications

Should federal courts give stare decisis effect to statutory interpretation methodology? Although a growing number of legal scholars have answered this question in the affirmative, this Essay makes the case against methodological stare decisis. Drawing on recent empirical studies of Congress’s expectations regarding statutory interpretation, we show that existing knowledge of Congress’s expectations is insufficient to settle on one consistent approach to statutory interpretation. Moreover, Congress has almost certainly changed its expectations over time, and this raises serious problems for methodological stare decisis from the perspective of faithful-agency theories. We argue further that many theories and doctrines of statutory interpretation …

International Humanitarian Law Teaching Supplement: Volume 2 - International Criminal Law, Beth Van Schaack

Faculty Publications

This supplement is designed to provide comprehensive yet focused materials on international humanitarian law (IHL), or the law of armed conflict, for inclusion in other substantive courses, such as public international law, international criminal law, or foreign relations law. The supplement is divided into four main substantive chapters on IHL—when does IHL apply, conflict classification, and means and methods of combat—with an emphasis on how these concepts would arise in a legal proceeding, such as a war crimes prosecution. Each chapter contains an introduction to the main IHL concepts; cases and primary source materials drawn from the jurisprudence of the …

Hobby Lobby, Corporate Law, And The Theory Of The Firm: Why For-Profit Corporations Are Rfra Persons, Alan J. Meese, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Benefits To Adolescents Who Perform Community Service: A Perspective From Adolescent Health Researchers, Gary Hopkins, Duane C. Mcbride, Brent C. Featherston, Peter C. Gleason, Jacqueline Moreno

Faculty Publications

In the arenas of health, social scientists have learned over the past two decades that engagement in community service among adolescents often result in valuable outcomes. In other words, the persons being served are not the only ones benefiting from the experience, the providers of the service benefit as well. The purpose of this paper is to share with the legal community some of what we as social science researchers have learned from our research and also learned from the research of others in both health and education regarding benefits of community service among adolescents. We also will share with …

Policing Facts, Seth W. Stoughton

Faculty Publications

The United States Supreme Court’s understanding of police practices plays a significant role in the development of the constitutional rules that regulate officer conduct. As it approaches the questions of whether to engage in constitutional regulation and what form of regulation to adopt, the Court discusses the environment in which officers act, describes specific police practices, and explains what motivates officers. Yet the majority of the Court’s factual assertions are made entirely without support or citation, raising concerns about whether the Court is acting based on a complete and accurate perception. When it comes to policing facts, the Court too …

50 Years After The War On Poverty: An Introduction, Emily Suski

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Standing Outside Article Iii, Tara Leigh Grove

Faculty Publications

The U.S. Supreme Court has insisted that standing doctrine is a “bedrock” requirement only of Article III. Accordingly, both jurists and scholars have assumed that the standing of the executive branch and the legislature, like that of other parties, depends solely on Article III. But I argue that these commentators have overlooked a basic constitutional principle: federal institutions must have affirmative authority for their actions, including the power to bring suit or appeal in federal court. Article III defines the federal “judicial Power” and does not purport to confer any authority on the executive branch or the legislature. Executive and …

Antitrust, Regulatory Harm, And Economic Liberty, Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Una Mirada Al Derecho Y Su Historia Desde Venezuela, Rogelio Pérez Perdomo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.