Digital Commons Network^™

Law Talk In A Brief Advice Clinic, Linda F. Smith

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Over three decades ago, Sarat and Felstiner published a ground-breaking ethnographic study of divorce client-lawyer conversations. They concluded that lawyers portrayed "a chaotic 'anti-system' in which [clients] cannot rely on the technical proficiency, or good faith, of judges and rival lawyers" but need to rely on their own lawyers' insider status to achieve reasonable outcomes.1 Although lawyers initially described the law and procedure to their clients, they rarely referenced that rational description when explaining what had occurred or would occur in their clients' cases. This law talk may have gradually and ultimately persuaded the clients to reach reasonable settlements, but …

Let The Sunshine In: Floridian Felons And The Franchise, Joshua H. Winograd

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Dysfunctional Criminalization Of Family Violence, Andrea L. Dennis

Scholarly Works

Legal responses to elder, child and intimate partner abuse have developed along similar tracks from civil and regulatory to criminal, employed much of the same mechanisms, and shifted power from victims to law enforcement officers and prosecutors. The siloed evolutionary process leading to the criminalization of the se behaviors has not significantly resolved the problems and criticisms of the behavior. Indeed, thirty years ago, Peter Edelman critiqued the government's role in remediating child abuse and domestic violence. In particular Edelman identified three issues: (1) the failure to recognize the inter-relatedness of different types of family violence; (2) the lack of …

Specialty Bar Associations And The Marketing Of Ethics: The Example Of The Academy Of Adoption Attorneys, Malinda L. Seymore

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Worker Voice And Corporate Governance: Putting Words Into Actions, Thomas A. Kochan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Two decades ago, Margaret Blair and I edited a book focused on governance of modern corporations. At the time it was evident that the dominant paradigm governing corporate governance and behavior centered on maximizing shareholder value. This was a shift in practice that began in the 1980s and was endorsed in 1997 by the Business Roundtable, when it recanted on its 1990 statement that supported a broader stakeholder view of corporate responsibilities.

The effects of the shift from a stakeholder- to a shareholder-maximizing set of practices have been devastating for American workers and the overall economy. It reinforced and accelerated …

How And Why Did It Go So Wrong?: Theranos As A Legal Ethics Case Study, G. S. Hans

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Theranos saga encompasses many discrete areas of law. Reporting on Theranos, most notably John Carreyrou's Bad Blood, highlights the questionable ethical decisions that many of the attorneys involved made. The lessons attorneys and law students can learn from Bad Blood are highly complex. The Theranos story touches on multiple areas of professional responsibility, including competence, diligence, candor, conflicts, and liability. Thus, Theranos serves as a helpful tool to explore the limits of ethical lawyering for Professional Responsibility students. This Article discusses the author's experience with using Bad Blood as an extended case study in a new course on Legal …

Zooming Into The Future Of Skills-Based Teaching, Paige L. Wilson, Evan Daryl Walton, Michael Murphy, Emily Bucholz

Publications

No abstract provided.

Decolonizing Indigenous Migration, Angela R. Riley, Kristen A. Carpenter

Publications

As global attention turns increasingly to issues of migration, the Indigenous identity of migrants often remains invisible. At the U.S.-Mexico border, for example, a significant number of the individuals now being detained are people of indigenous origin, whether Kekchi, Mam, Achi, Ixil, Awakatek, Jakaltek or Qanjobal, coming from communities in Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala and other countries. They may be leaving their homelands precisely because their rights as Indigenous Peoples, for example the right to occupy land collectively and without forcible removal, have been violated. But once they reach the United States, they are treated as any other migrants, without regard …

Selling Out: An Instrumentalist Theory Of Legal Ethics, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

Legal ethics has received attention mostly from scholars who view it as a field for the application of moral philosophy. However, economic analysis is also useful in the study of legal ethics, because it can illuminate the incentives that generate ethical dilemmas and controversies. This is especially true in the subfield this paper devotes its attention to, lawyer conflict of interest rules. The problem I focus on is the incentive of the lawyer to "sell out" his client-for example, by providing confidential information to a potential adversary or by providing legal misinformation to the client in order to aid the …

A Guide For Certifying Agencies: Mgl 258f Certification For Victims Of Violent Crime And Human Trafficking, Alexandra Bonazoli, Julie A. Dahlstrom, Emily Leung, Sarah Leidel, Jennifer Ollington, Ashleigh Pelto, Jamie Sabino

Faculty Scholarship

This guide provides information to certifying agencies about the new law, M.G.L. 258F Certification for Victims of Violent Crime and Human Trafficking, which went into effect on July 1, 2021. The law provides victims of violent crime and human trafficking equal access to justice throughout the Commonwealth and establishes transparent and consistent processes for victims seeking certifications from law enforcement agencies.

Exploring The Implications Of Artificial Intelligence, Kristin N. Johnson, Carla L. Reyes

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Emerging technologies promise to play a transformative role in our society, enabling driverless cars, enhanced accuracy and efficiency in disease mapping, greater and less expensive access to certain consumer services, including consumer financial services. Discussions regarding the role of emerging technologies increasingly center on the development and integration of artificial intelligence technologies or AI-an assemblage of technologies that rely on a variety of computational techniques. This Essay offers a modest primer outlining a general understanding of the contours and contributions of Al, as well as introducing the articulated benefits and limits

of these technologies.

This Essay examines the increasingly pervasive …

The Informed Consent Doctrine In Legal Malpractice Law, Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

The doctrine of informed consent is now deeply embedded into the law of legal ethics. In legal malpractice litigation, the doctrine holds that a lawyer has a duty to disclose to a client material information about the risks and alternatives associated with a course of action. A lawyer who fails to make such required disclosures and fails to obtain informed consent is negligent, regardless of whether the lawyer otherwise exercises care in representing a client. If such negligent nondisclosures cause damages, the lawyer can be held accountable for the client's losses.

Shifting the focus of a legal malpractice action from …

Mdl Revolution, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Abbe Gluck

Scholarly Works

Over the past 50 years, multidistrict litigation (MDL) has quietly revolutionized civil procedure. MDLs include the largest tort cases in U.S. history, but without the authority of the class-action rule, MDL judges—who formally have only pretrial jurisdiction over individual cases—have resorted to extraordinary procedural exceptionalism to settle cases on a national scale. Substantive state laws, personal jurisdiction, transparency, impartiality, reviewability, federalism, and adequate representation must all yield if doing so fulfills that one goal.

Somehow, until now, this has remained below the surface to everyone but MDL insiders. Thanks to the sprawling MDL over the opioid crisis—and unprecedented opposition to …

Do Parents Receive Reasonably Equivalent Value For Paying College Tuition For Their Children Making Such Payments Avoidable, Alexandria Stiteler

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Under section 548 of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”), a trustee may avoid a transfer by a debtor that was an actual or constructive fraud. An actual fraudulent transfer is a transfer made with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors. In general, a constructive fraudulent transfer is a transfer or the incurrence of an obligation by a debtor that was made within two years before the date of filing the bankruptcy petition, for less than reasonably equivalent value, at a time when the debtor was insolvent and could not pay its debts …

Focus On The Future: An Interview With Justin S. Smith, Esq., Nicole P. Dyszlewski, Meghan L. Hopkins

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Turning Participation Into Power: A Water Justice Case Study, Jaime Alison Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Accounts For The Variation Of Immigration Policies In Western Democracies Since 9/11?, Hayley Mcelroy

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

From the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to now, there has been a dramatic change of immigration policies among Western Democracies. This comparative paper will measure the change of refugee acceptance rates and will discover the reasons for these variations. Immigration has become a major issue in the United States as well as in other Western democracies. Even though most of these democracies are located in similar geographic areas and have similar cultures, they all have different approaches when it comes to accepting immigrants and refugees. Furthermore, this paper will analyze the policies of the United States, the United …

Tenants Without Rights: Immigrants’ Experiences In The U.S. Low-Income Housing Market, Mekonnen Firew Ayano

Journal Articles

Immigrants who recently arrived in the United States generally are not able to exclusively possess rental properties in the formal market because they lack a steady source of income and credit history. Instead, they rent shared bedrooms, basements, attics, garages, and illegally converted units that violate housing codes and regulations. Their situations highlight the disconnect between tenant rights law and the deleterious conditions of informal residential tenancies. Tenant rights law confers a variety of rights and remedies to a residential tenant if the renter has exclusive possession of the premises. If the renter lacks exclusive possession, courts typically characterize the …

Richmond Law Magazine: Winter 2021, University Of Richmond

Richmond Law Magazine

The Pandemic Pivot

8 Things to Know When Suing and Defending in a Post-COVID World

The Pandemic, Students, and The Law

Winter 2021

The Weldon Times

A student-run publication from the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University.

Co-Editors in Chief: Tiffany Leung, Madison Ranta

Graphic Design & Layout: Alexandra Fox

Ethical Duty To Investigate Your Client?, Peter A. Joy

Scholarship@WashULaw

Lawyers have been implicated in corporate scandals and other client crimes or frauds all too often, and the complicity of some lawyers is troubling both to the public and to members of the legal profession. This is especially true when the crime involved is money laundering. As a response to attorney involvement in crimes or frauds, some legal commentators have called for changes to the ethics rules to require lawyers to investigate their clients and client transactions under some circumstances rather than remaining “consciously” or “willfully” blind to what may be illegal or fraudulent conduct. The commentators argue that such …

Functions Of The Rule Of Law, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Scholarship@WashULaw

This concise essay examines multiple manifest and latent functions of the rule of law. The rule of law is characterized as a society in which government officials and the populace are generally bound by and abide law. The functions covered include: personal and collective security and trust; integration of society; legal restrictions on officials; liberty and guiding conduct; economic development; a pivotal place for legal professionals; entrenching power structures; normative commitment and critical standard; and rhetoric. The discussion raises core issues about each function.

Disruptive Implications Of Legal Positivism’S Social Efficacy Thesis, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Scholarship@WashULaw

The social efficacy thesis holds that for law to exist it must be generally obeyed by the populace. Accepted by virtually all legal positivists, this is the most neglected thesis of legal positivism. Despite its nigh universal acceptance by theorists, however, the efficacy thesis is surrounded with unanswered questions with significant implications. Several questions immediately come to mind: How widespread must conformity to law be? What must people conform to (all areas of law)? Who must conform (legal officials, government officials, the entire populace, significant groups)? What does conformity entail (normatively, knowingly, behaviorally)? This essay explores these issues and a …

On Bankruptcy’S Promethean Gap: Building Enslaving Capacity Into The Antebellum Administrative State, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

As the United States contends with the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, federal bankruptcy law is one tool that can be used to resolve the financial distress suffered by individuals and businesses. When implementing this remedy, the question arises whether the law’s application should be viewed as limited to addressing private debt matters, without regard for the public interest. This Article answers the question by looking to modern U.S. bankruptcy law’s first forebear, the 1841 Bankruptcy Act, which Congress enacted in response to the depressed economic conditions following the Panic of 1837. That legislation created a judicially administered …

Social Services And Mutual Aid In Times Of Covid-19 And Beyond: A Brief Critique, Dana Neacsu

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Arbitration Clauses In Intellectual Property Contracts: Past, Precedence, And Future, Julien Chaisse, A. Marisport

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Obligation To Prosecute Or Extradite (Belgium V. Senegal)

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Discovery Under § 1782 In International Commercial Arbitration: Recent Developments From A Comparative Perspective, Tamar Meshel

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.

A New Chapter In Veterans Law, The Honorable Margaret Bartley

American University Law Review

Chief Judge Bartley delivered these remarks on October 2, 2020 at the American University Law Review’s thirty-fifth annual Federal Circuit Symposium. The remarks have been minimally edited based on the event transcript.

That's Not Fair Use: Why Rule 68 Copyright Defendants Canno Recover Post-Offer Attorney's Fees, Ryan Kaiser

American University Law Review

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 (Rule 68) is a cost-shifting rule that allows a non-prevailing defendant who made an offer of judgment more favorable than the final judgment to recover costs incurred from the point the offer was made. Until the mid-1980s, whether the rule could apply to the attorney’s fees was the source of much debate. In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court provided a partial answer when it decided Marek v. Chesny, holding that Rule 68 operates to preclude a civil rights plaintiff from recovering post-offer attorney’s fees. The Court stated that Rule 68 costs include all costs …