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The Functions Of Family Law, Serena Mayeri

All Faculty Scholarship

Melissa Murray's Family Law's Doctrines provides a fascinating case study of legal parentage cases involving assisted reproductive technology, where judges applied relatively new laws to even newer circumstances never contemplated by the laws' drafters. The Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) was a modernizing statute intended to resolve legal questions generated by new societal developments: namely, the rise of nonmarital heterosexual relationships producing children, and the use of artificial insemination within heterosexual marital relationships.

In the decades after its adoption in California, the UPA confronted a brave new world. Two developments further transformed the reality of family life: assisted reproductive technologies such …

From The Octagon To The Courtroom: The Right To Fight, Subaltern Cosmopolitanism, And Public Interest Litigation As Tool For Mixed Martial Arts As A Community/Cultural Normative System, Sara Gwendolyn Ross

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

As a new sport, mixed martial arts (“MMA”) has grown wildly in popularity. Yet MMA faces hurdles in legitimization and acceptance through legal, regulatory, and political means. While the MMA community has gone to great lengths to change its image, its internal rules, and regulatory framework—and while most American states and Canadian provinces now legally regulate MMA—certain states, such as New York, continue to ban live professional MMA events.

MMA suffers from a lack of scholarship across many disciplines, including legal scholarship. While the available literature on MMA gradually develops, the minimal legal scholarship related to the matter has concentrated …

The Moral Vigilante And Her Cousins In The Shadows, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

By definition, vigilantes cannot be legally justified – if they satisfied a justification defense, for example, they would not be law-breakers – but they may well be morally justified, if their aim is to provide the order and justice that the criminal justice system has failed to provide in a breach of the social contract. Yet, even moral vigilantism is detrimental to society and ought to be avoided, ideally not by prosecuting moral vigilantism but by avoiding the creation of situations that would call for it. Unfortunately, the U.S. criminal justice system has adopted a wide range of criminal law …

Proportionality And The Social Benefits Of Discovery: Out Of Sight And Out Of Mind?, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

In this short essay, based on remarks delivered at the 2015 meeting of the AALS Section of Litigation, I use a recent paper by Gelbach and Kobayashi to highlight the risk that, in assessing the proportionality of proposed discovery under the 2015 amendments to Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, federal judges will privilege costs over benefits, and private over public interests. The risk arises from the temptation to focus on (1) the interests of those who are present to the detriment of the interests of those who are absent (“the availability heuristic”), and (2) variables that …

The Ironies Of Affirmative Action, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

All Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s most recent confrontation with race-based affirmative action, Fisher v. University of Texas, did not live up to people’s expectations—or their fears. The Court did not explicitly change the current approach in any substantial way. It did, however, signal that it wants race-based affirmative action to be subject to real strict scrutiny, not the watered-down version featured in Grutter v. Bollinger. That is a significant signal, because under real strict scrutiny, almost all race-based affirmative action programs are likely unconstitutional. This is especially true given the conceptual framework the Court has created for such programs—the way …

A Bribe New World: The Federal Government Gets Creative In Chasing Foreign Officials For Taking Bribes, Jorge Mestre

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Pleading Guilty While Claiming Innocence: Reconsidering The Mysterious Alford Plea, James W. Diehm

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

"When Fire Breaks Out": Recognizing The Inherently Dangerous Activity Of Prescribed Burning In Florida, D. Kent Safriet, Miguel Collazo Iii

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law: Biological Relationships And Intent V. Waiver In Establishing Protected Parental Rights, D.M.T. V. T.M.H., 129 So. 3d 320 (Fla. 2013), Susan M. Johns

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Accountable Care Organizations: Realigning The Incentive Problems In The U.S. Health Care System, Nicholas Hodges

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Regulating For The First Time The Decision To Grant Consumer Credit: A Look At The First Steps Taken By The United States And Australia, Jeffrey Davis

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Protecting Volunteers Under Title Vii: Amending The Eeoc Compliance Manual Through Section 553(B) Interpretive Rulemaking, Neil A. Murphy

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Redefining Professionalism, Rebecca Roiphe

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Climate Change Science And Standing In Climate Change Cases: Analysis And Implications, Susan Johns

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

State Sanctioned Identity Theft: Why Personal Information Contained Within A Homeless Management Information System May Be Subject To Disclosure Under Florida's Public Records Laws, Michael S. Thomas

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Local Home Rule In The Time Of Globalization, Kenneth Stahl

Kenneth Stahl

Cities are increasingly taking the lead in tackling global issues like climate change, financial regulation, economic inequality, and others that the federal and state governments have failed to address. Recent media accounts have accordingly praised cities as the hope of our globally networked future. This optimistic appraisal of cities is, however, undermined by local governments’ cramped legal status. Under the doctrine of home rule, local governments can often only act in matters deemed “local” in nature, and cannot regulate “statewide” issues that may have impacts beyond local borders. As a result, the global issues that local governments are being praised …

Administrative Equal Protection: Federalism, The Fourteenth Amendment, And The Rights Of The Poor, Karen M. Tani

Karen M. Tani

Law In Regression? Impacts Of Quantitative Research On Law And Regulation, David C. Donald

David C. Donald

Quantitative research (QR) has undeniably improved the quality of law- and rulemaking, but it can also present risks for these activities. On the one hand, replacing anecdotal assertions regarding behavior or the effects of rules in an area to be regulated with objective, statistical evidence has advanced the quality of regulatory discourse. On the other hand, because the construction of such evidence often depends on bringing the complex realities of both human behavior and rules designed to govern it into simple, quantified variables, QR findings can at times camouflage complexity, masking real problems. Deceptively objective findings can in this way …

A Quantum Congress, Jorge R. Roig

Jorge R Roig

Economics-Based Environmentalism In The Fourth Generation Of Environmental Law, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Environmental protection and economic concerns are not mutually exclusive. This article explores some of the issues of economic analysis that might arise as we approach the fourth generation of environmental law. It explains ways that economic analysis can be employed to generate the best environmental rules, including measures under what this article terms as "economics-based environmentalism." Economics-based environmentalism contends that the advantages of using economic principles within a “polycentric toolbox” of environmental law come from the benefits available in private ordering, markets, property rights, liability regimes and incentives structures that will better protect the environment than alternatives like state-based interventionist, …