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Articles 1 - 30 of 76

Full-Text Articles in Civil Law

A New Private Law Of Policing, Cristina Carmody Tilley Mar 2024

A New Private Law Of Policing, Cristina Carmody Tilley

Brooklyn Law Review

American law and American life are asymmetrical. Law divides neatly in two: public and private. But life is lived in three distinct spaces: pure public, pure private, and hybrid middle spaces that are neither state nor home. Which body of law governs the shops, gyms, and workplaces that are formally accessible to all, but functionally hostile to Black, female, poor, and other marginalized Americans? From the liberal midcentury onward, social justice advocates have treated these spaces as fundamentally public and fully remediable via public law equity commands. This article takes a broader view. It urges a tort law revival in …


Affirmatively Furthering Health Equity, Mary Crossley Mar 2024

Affirmatively Furthering Health Equity, Mary Crossley

Brooklyn Law Review

Pervasive health disparities in the United States undermine both public health and social cohesion. Because of the enormity of the healthcare sector, government action, standing alone, is limited in its power to remedy health disparities. This article proposes a novel approach to distributing responsibility for promoting health equity broadly among public and private actors in the healthcare sector. Specifically, it recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services issue guidance articulating an obligation on the part of all recipients of federal healthcare funding to act affirmatively to advance health equity. The Fair Housing Act’s requirement that recipients of federal …


Dogma, Discrimination, And Doctrinal Disarray: A New Test To Define Harm Under Title Vii, Zach Islam Mar 2024

Dogma, Discrimination, And Doctrinal Disarray: A New Test To Define Harm Under Title Vii, Zach Islam

Brooklyn Law Review

Historically, federal courts have used the “adverse employment action” test in Title VII disparate treatment, disparate impact, and retaliation cases to determine whether a plaintiff has suffered adequate harm. This note argues that this approach is fundamentally flawed. At the outset, the test is a judicial power grab with no support in the statutory language. What is more, it fails to uphold the plain policy purposes for Title VII by largely ignoring evidence of discriminatory acts in the workplace that Congress sought to prevent in passing the statute. Consequently, Title VII plaintiffs get the short end of the stick with …


Order Of Protection Or Deportation? How Civil Orders Of Protection Entangle Noncitizens And Their Families In The Immigration And Criminal Legal Systems, Creating The Harm That They Were Intended To Prevent., Sarah E. Corsico Dec 2023

Order Of Protection Or Deportation? How Civil Orders Of Protection Entangle Noncitizens And Their Families In The Immigration And Criminal Legal Systems, Creating The Harm That They Were Intended To Prevent., Sarah E. Corsico

Brooklyn Law Review

A civil protection order can act as an important form of relief for an individual experiencing violence; however, it can also bring extreme complications and consequences for noncitizens. Unlike its intended purpose as a remedy separate from punitive state systems, civil protection orders can replicate the harm of the criminal legal system for noncitizens—barring someone from gaining immigration status, delaying applications, impacting international travel, and at its worst, resulting in deportation. Despite the high stakes nature of these proceeding, for the most part, there is no right to assigned counsel in civil protection order cases. As a result, many individuals …


An Unreasonable Presumption: The National Security/Foreign Affairs Nexus In Immigration Law, Anthony J. Demattee, Matthew J. Lindsay, Hallie Ludsin Apr 2023

An Unreasonable Presumption: The National Security/Foreign Affairs Nexus In Immigration Law, Anthony J. Demattee, Matthew J. Lindsay, Hallie Ludsin

Brooklyn Law Review

For well over a century, immigration has occupied a constitutionally unique niche within US public law. Noncitizens in immigration proceedings are routinely denied constitutional guarantees, including due process and equal protection, that apply in virtually every other legal setting. Courts justify their extraordinary deference to the government by invoking a presumptive nexus between immigration, on the one hand, and national security and foreign affairs, on the other. Critically, courts cite the national security/foreign affairs nexus regardless of whether the specific regulation or enforcement action under review has any plausible bearing on those interests. This article is the first to demonstrate …


The Phantasm Of Principle, Wilfred Codrington Iii Jan 2023

The Phantasm Of Principle, Wilfred Codrington Iii

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Different Countries, Same Homophobia And Transphobia: A Cross-Cultural Survey Of So-Called Conversion Therapy Practices And The Move Toward Legislative Protections For The United States Lgbtq+ Community, Samantha J. Past Dec 2022

Different Countries, Same Homophobia And Transphobia: A Cross-Cultural Survey Of So-Called Conversion Therapy Practices And The Move Toward Legislative Protections For The United States Lgbtq+ Community, Samantha J. Past

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

So-called “conversion therapy” consists of dangerous practices that inflict detrimental, long-lasting effects on its victims. As a form of sexual orientation or gender identity or gender expression change efforts, conversion therapy is fostered by global homophobia and transphobia. Despite formal public rejection and scientific discreditation, conversion therapy providers across the world continue to target LGBTQ+ individuals, predominately under the guise of offering health care services or obeying religious practices. The following piece compares conversion therapy in three countries with recently introduced LGBTQ+ legislation––(1) Ghana; (2) Canada; and (3) the United States (U.S.)–––in order to identify factors furthering conversion therapy and …


A Firm Pillar Of Local Justice: The Failures Of The New York Town And Village Justice Courts Supporting Statewide Adoption Of The District Court Model, Noah Sexton Jun 2021

A Firm Pillar Of Local Justice: The Failures Of The New York Town And Village Justice Courts Supporting Statewide Adoption Of The District Court Model, Noah Sexton

Journal of Law and Policy

Town and village justice courts have been the center of municipal law, both civil and criminal, since the mid-nineteenth century. However, in the modern world, they have become corrupt, poorly managed institutions, creating issues involving procedural integrity and civil rights. In order to remedy these failures and modernize the New York State Unified Court System, state legislators must look to the district court model as it currently exists in Nassau and Eastern Suffolk Counties. The district court model offers several benefits, including the imposition of educational and experiential requirements for judges, the creation of internal and external oversight institutions, the …


Telling The Story On Your Timesheets: A Fee Examiner's Tips For Creditors' Lawyers And Bankruptcy Estate Professionals, Nancy B. Rapoport May 2021

Telling The Story On Your Timesheets: A Fee Examiner's Tips For Creditors' Lawyers And Bankruptcy Estate Professionals, Nancy B. Rapoport

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

This short (approx. 5,000 words) essay, which forms the basis of a keynote address to the Federal Bar Association that I’m doing next month, discusses how much of a lawyer’s embedded assumptions and cognitive errors can come across in something as simple as a time entry on a bill. So much can be revealed about how a lawyer views himself or herself in society and about the lawyer’s relationship with the client that it’s worth examining what we can find when we look at legal bills. One note, though: my writing style is informal and distinctive in that regard (especially …


A Rejection Of Absolutist Duties As A Barrier To Creditor Protection: Facilitating Directorial Decisivness Surrounding Insolvency Through The Business Judgment Rule, Philip Gavin May 2021

A Rejection Of Absolutist Duties As A Barrier To Creditor Protection: Facilitating Directorial Decisivness Surrounding Insolvency Through The Business Judgment Rule, Philip Gavin

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

This Article draws attention to the difficulties that directors may face when seeking to discharge their duties as a corporation approaches insolvency, in particular when directors must discern the point at which a corporation has become insolvent. It argues that discretion allowed to directors by the business judgment rule will be crucial to overcoming these difficulties. To do this, this article examines the nature of duties owed by directors both before and after insolvency, and accepts the stance taken by Delaware courts in recent years towards an expansive understanding of a corporation’s interests upon insolvency. It then considers unresolved issues …


Proxy Advisors As Issue Spotters, Douglas Sarro May 2021

Proxy Advisors As Issue Spotters, Douglas Sarro

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

When institutional investors hire proxy advisors to prepare reports on matters up for vote at public company shareholder meetings, are they interested primarily in acquiring a bottom-line recommendation on how to vote, on which they can then blindly rely? Or in acquiring information that will help them make their own voting decisions? Supporters of controversial reforms introduced by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2019 and 2020 gravitate toward the former position, arguing that reform is needed to discourage undue reliance on proxy advisor recommendations. Opponents gravitate toward the latter position, arguing that additional regulation generally is unnecessary given …


Looking For A Silver Lining: How The Covid-19 Pandemic Forced New York To Reckon With Its Affordable Housing Crisis, Daniel Finnegan May 2021

Looking For A Silver Lining: How The Covid-19 Pandemic Forced New York To Reckon With Its Affordable Housing Crisis, Daniel Finnegan

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Since the Great Depression, the United States government has failed to find an adequate remedy to a nationwide housing shortage amongst low- and moderate-income individuals and families. The COVID-19 public health crisis has exacerbated this ongoing, nation-wide housing crisis, and has highlighted the racial inequities present in our housing market. Furthermore, it has pushed New York State’s residential housing market into a uniquely precarious position. Dramatic legislation is required at the state level to address the housing crisis caused by the massive growth in income-insecure and housing-insecure individuals that resulted from the pandemic, as well as the widespread departure of …


Reducing Conflicts Of Interest: A "Glass-Steagall" Split Of Advisory And Consulting Services Of Proxy Advisory Firms, Austin Manna May 2021

Reducing Conflicts Of Interest: A "Glass-Steagall" Split Of Advisory And Consulting Services Of Proxy Advisory Firms, Austin Manna

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

This Note explores a solution to the potential problem with proxy advisory firms that involves an inherent conflict of interest arising from the structure of two services—advisory and consulting services—offered at certain proxy advisory firms in the United States. The solution proposed in this paper applies a Glass-Steagall framework to breakup these two services of the proxy advisory firms. In theory, this would eliminate the inherent conflicts of interest.


Police Reform Through A Power Lens, Jocelyn Simonson Feb 2021

Police Reform Through A Power Lens, Jocelyn Simonson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Libertad For All? Why The Helms-Burton Act Is An Empty Promise Of “Freedom” For The Cuban People., Cristina L. Lang Dec 2020

Libertad For All? Why The Helms-Burton Act Is An Empty Promise Of “Freedom” For The Cuban People., Cristina L. Lang

Brooklyn Law Review

After the Cuban Revolution, the Castro government nationalized the property of many American nationals, which served as a justification for the Kennedy administration’s decision to institute a general economic embargo on Cuba. This embargo was officially codified in the late 1990s in the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act, enacted by President Bill Clinton. Title III of this Act was suspended since its enactment. By creating a private cause of action for American nationals to sue “traffickers” of their improperly nationalized Cuban property, Title III aims to deter foreign investment into Cuba and compensate American citizens whose Cuban property …


Functional Statehood In Contemporary International Law, William Thomas Worster Dec 2020

Functional Statehood In Contemporary International Law, William Thomas Worster

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The international community lacks a form of territorial-based, international legal personality distinct from statehood, and yet, non-state, territorial entities of varying degrees of autonomy or independence need to function within the international community in some form. Some of these entities cannot be recognized as states because their creation violates jus cogens norms, though others are not recognized based on an assessment that they may not fully qualify as a state or that there are political reasons to refuse recognition. However, existing states still need to engage with these territorial quasi-states through the only paradigm the international community has—statehood. For example, …


Directors’ Duty Of Care In Times Of Financial Distress Following The Global Epidemic Crisis, Leon Yehuda Anidjar Dec 2020

Directors’ Duty Of Care In Times Of Financial Distress Following The Global Epidemic Crisis, Leon Yehuda Anidjar

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The global COVID-19 pandemic is causing the large-scale end of life and severe human suffering globally. This massive public health crisis created a significant economic crisis and is reflected in a recession of global production and the collapse of confidence in the functions of markets. Corporations and boards of directors around the world are required to design specific strategies to tackle the negative consequences of the crisis. This is especially true for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that suffered tremendous economic loss, and their continued existence as ongoing concern is under considerable risk. Given these uncertain financial times, this Article …


It’S 1919 Somewhere: What Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association V. Thomas Means For The National Hangover Of The Twenty-First Amendment, The Dormant Commerce Clause, And Federal Legalization Of Intoxicating Substances., Evan W. Saunders Dec 2020

It’S 1919 Somewhere: What Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association V. Thomas Means For The National Hangover Of The Twenty-First Amendment, The Dormant Commerce Clause, And Federal Legalization Of Intoxicating Substances., Evan W. Saunders

Brooklyn Law Review

The United States has a drinking problem; or rather, an alcohol problem. In the aftermath of Prohibition and the passage of the Twenty-First Amendment, the Supreme Court has struggled to settle upon an overarching regulatory system for alcohol that is amenable to both the federal government and the states. Most recently, in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas, the Court further asserted that alcohol should be treated just like any other good under the Dormant Commerce Clause. This note examines the Court’s Twenty-First Amendment jurisprudence leading up to Tennessee Wine, and suggests an alternate interpretation of the amendment …


Cyber-Insecurity: The Reasonableness Standard In Internet Of Things Device Regulation And Why Technical Standards Are Better Equipped To Combat Cybercrime, Chynna Rose Foucek Dec 2020

Cyber-Insecurity: The Reasonableness Standard In Internet Of Things Device Regulation And Why Technical Standards Are Better Equipped To Combat Cybercrime, Chynna Rose Foucek

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

While the Internet of Things (IoT) has created an interconnected world via phones, laptops, and even household devices, it is not infallible. As cyber-attacks increase in frequency, affecting companies of all sizes and industries, IoT device manufacturers have become particularly vulnerable, due in large part to the fact that many companies fail to implement adequate cybersecurity protocols. Mass data breaches occur often. However, these companies are not held accountable due to the use of the reasonableness standard in existing cybersecurity legislation, which is flexible and malleable. In 2019, the California Legislature enacted a cybersecurity law specific to IoT device manufacturers. …


The Political Face Of Antitrust, Spencer Weber Waller, Jacob E. Morse Dec 2020

The Political Face Of Antitrust, Spencer Weber Waller, Jacob E. Morse

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The last twenty years have brought antitrust back to the fore as a political issue of greater salience. Several booms and busts in the economy have highlighted the issue of corporate power in the economy and the political system. The growing influence and aggressiveness of the European Union and other jurisdictions’ competition laws have highlighted the relative retreat in the United States. Political movements in the United States have brought issues of corporate power and its abuse back into the public limelight and with them a greater political salience for antitrust in the election cycle of 2020.


The Revolution Of The Commercial Space Industry: Why Current Laws Must Be Replaced Before American Business Expands To The Moon And Beyond, Drew M. Fryhoff Dec 2020

The Revolution Of The Commercial Space Industry: Why Current Laws Must Be Replaced Before American Business Expands To The Moon And Beyond, Drew M. Fryhoff

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Space, the final frontier. Resting at the rim of the Earth, an endless void full of opportunity awaits those who are willing to take a leap of faith. Historically, only national space programs have been capable of orchestrating expeditions to outer space. However, American aerospace companies now rival governmental entities in their abilities to operate beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. State-of-the-art developments in aerospace technology have positioned the American commercial space sector to become more productive than national space programs in the years to come. Unfortunately, the potential of the American commercial space sector is severely hindered under the Treaty on …


Alternative Data And Insider Trading: Are Investment Managers Assleep At The Wheel On Big Data Use?, William Montemarano Dec 2020

Alternative Data And Insider Trading: Are Investment Managers Assleep At The Wheel On Big Data Use?, William Montemarano

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The rapid rise of “big data” has transformed the way that professional investors make investment decisions. In addition, the intersection of the United States federal securities laws and the use of “big data” to inform securities trading lies in uncharted waters. The nuanced and factually-dependent securities laws are far behind industry practices, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have remained largely silent on the issue to date. This Note argues that this combination of murky laws and rapidly evolving business practices gives rise to legal and regulatory risk, and that investment managers leveraging …


The Modern Pay For Play Model: Laws That Protect Student-Athletes' Fundamental Right To Commercialze Their Names, Images, And Likeness, Paul A. Schwabe Jr. Dec 2020

The Modern Pay For Play Model: Laws That Protect Student-Athletes' Fundamental Right To Commercialze Their Names, Images, And Likeness, Paul A. Schwabe Jr.

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In O’Bannon v. NCAA, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California entered a permanent injunction against the National Collegiate Athletic Association enjoining the collegiate sports governing body from enforcing limits on student-athlete compensation derived from the use of their name, images, and likenesses rights. The court concluded that NCAA rules unreasonably restrained trade in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, however, neither the court nor the NCAA laid out a framework for lawfully implementing these new economic rights to student-athletes. Since that ruling, only one state’s legislature, California, has attempted to pass legislation to prevent the …


The Heavy Hand Of Amazon: A Seller Not A Neutral Platform, Edward J. Janger, Aaron D. Twerski Jun 2020

The Heavy Hand Of Amazon: A Seller Not A Neutral Platform, Edward J. Janger, Aaron D. Twerski

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Since the adoption of Section 402A of the Second Restatement of Torts, every party in a product’s distribution chain has been potentially liable for injuries caused by product defects. Consumers who buy from reputable sellers are almost always guaranteed to have a solvent defendant if injured by a product defect. Amazon, though responsible for a vast number of retail sales, has sought to avoid liability by claiming that it is not a seller but a neutral platform that merely facilitates third-party sales to consumers. With two significant exceptions, most courts have sided with Amazon and concluded that Amazon is not …


Protecting Health Information In Utero: A Radical Proposal, Luke Isaac Haqq Dec 2019

Protecting Health Information In Utero: A Radical Proposal, Luke Isaac Haqq

Journal of Law and Policy

This Article introduces an underappreciated space in which protected health information (“PHI”) remains largely unprotected, a fact that will become only more problematic as clinical medicine increasingly turns to genomics. The past decade has seen significant advances in the prevention of birth defects, especially with the introduction of clinical preconception, prenatal, and neonatal genomic sequencing. Parental access to the results of embryonic and fetal clinical sequencing is critical to reproductive autonomy; results can provide parents with important considerations in determining whether to seek or avoid conception, as well as in deciding whether to carry a pregnancy to term. The information …


Sex, Trump, And Constitutional Change, Elizabeth Schneider, Helen Hershkoff Jan 2019

Sex, Trump, And Constitutional Change, Elizabeth Schneider, Helen Hershkoff

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


The Equifax Data Breach And The Resulting Legal Recourse, Caitlin Kenny Oct 2018

The Equifax Data Breach And The Resulting Legal Recourse, Caitlin Kenny

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

What happens when one’s sensitive information falls into the wrong hands? With the twenty-first century’s advancement of technology comes the increasing problem of data breaches wherein sensitive information is exposed. On September 7, 2017, Equifax, one of three major United States credit reporting agencies announced one of the largest data breaches in the history of the United States. The data breach affected approximately 145 million consumers and subsequently a wave of consumer class actions followed. This Note clarifies why class action lawsuits and arbitration are not viable legal remedies for massive data breaches where entities like credit reporting agencies are …


Ab(Ju)Dication: How Procedure Defeats Civil Liberties In The War On Terror, Susan Herman Jan 2017

Ab(Ju)Dication: How Procedure Defeats Civil Liberties In The War On Terror, Susan Herman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Accountability In Corporate Governance In China And The Impact Of Guanxi As A Double-Edged Sword, Andrew Keay, Jingchen Zhao Jan 2017

Accountability In Corporate Governance In China And The Impact Of Guanxi As A Double-Edged Sword, Andrew Keay, Jingchen Zhao

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Accountability is an essential aspect of corporate governance and it has been argued that the “wenze” system of accountability in China comes very close to the accountability systems developed in Anglo-American corporate governance. This Article examines the role of cultural factors, namely guanxi and its derivatives, in corporate governance in China to determine what effect, if any, these cultural factors have on the operation and development of the “wenze” system in large listed companies. The Article specifically considers whether the cultural elements affect accountability, and if so, how and to what extent. It also explores whether these cultural factors are …


When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It: Unifying The Split In New York's Analysis Of In-House Attorney-Client Privilege, Thomas O'Connor Dec 2016

When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It: Unifying The Split In New York's Analysis Of In-House Attorney-Client Privilege, Thomas O'Connor

Journal of Law and Policy

As one surveys the vast and ever-changing landscape of law and litigation, few things stand out as so unanimously exalted and carefully guarded as the privilege protecting attorney-client communications. Yet there is today a surprising lack of uniformity and predictability in the reasoning by which New York courts determine whether a communication made by in-house counsel to its corporate client will – or will not – enjoy the protection of that privilege. Rather than follow a single and predictable analysis to resolve the question, New York courts have oscillated between one line of decisions focusing primarily on the purpose of …