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Shakespeare In The Classroom: How An Annual Student Production Of King Lear Adds Dimension To Teaching Trusts And Estates, Karen E. Boxx

Articles

I always begin the first day of my Trusts and Estates course by discussing the reasons for taking the class. While I note that some students may take the class to help in passing the bar exam or because family members have already asked them to draft wills, my list of reasons instead include: (1) exposure to the fiduciary relationship; (2) the real life ethical dilemmas faced by the lawyers; (3) learning to read and interpret state statutes; and (4) consideration of how law responds to societal changes and governs human relationships. This last reason is critical: Trusts and Estates …

Crowdfunding's Impact On Start-Up Ip Strategy, Sean M. O'Connor

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This Paper proceeds in Part I by reviewing the crowdfunding landscape and its potential benefits for start-ups, especially with regard to IP strategies. Part II examines the provisions of the JOBS Act and argues that the disclosure requirements of the CROWDFUND Act title will make the latter less attractive than other start-up financing options and may negatively affect start-ups’ IP strategies, in part by risking the disclosure of enabling aspects of patentable inventions.

Part III explores issues arising from the widespread involvement of many potentially unsophisticated investors who have no connection to the start-up. This contrasts with current unsophisticated investors …

Beyond Contrastive Rhetoric: Helping International Lawyers Use Cohesive Devices In U.S. Legal Writing, Elizabeth R. Baldwin

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This Article attempts to use linguistics, specifically text analysis and pragmatics, to help explain how and why lawyers who are non-native speakers of English (NNS) struggle with cohesion in their U.S. legal writing. Then in light of that discussion, it offers a four-step, receptive and productive exercise to engage students in contrastive analysis of cohesive features across languages and cultures.

It begins by distinguishing coherence (top-down flow related to rhetorical preferences and organization of content and argument) from cohesion (bottom-up flow related to the surface features that exhibit connections between clauses). As background, it explores the role of cohesion in …

Transparently Opaque: Understanding The Lack Of Transparency In Insurance Consumer Protection, Daniel Schwarcz

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Consumer protection in most domains of financial regulation centers on transparency. Broadly construed, transparency involves making relevant information available to consumers as well as others who might act on their behalf, such as academics, journalists, newspapers, consumer organizations or other market watchdogs. By contrast, command and control regulation that affirmatively limits financial firms’ products or pricing is relatively uncommon. This Article describes a remarkable inversion of this pattern: while state insurance regulation frequently employs aggressive command and control consumer protection regulation, it typically does little or nothing to promote transparent markets. Rather, state lawmakers routinely either completely ignore transparency-oriented reforms …

Machiavellianism In Healthcare Explored: Differences In Aspiring Managers And Patient Care Professionals, Sandra Collins

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Complex economic factors require healthcare professionals to have multiple skills. Although controversial, some characteristics associated with Machiavellianism may be needed in order to maintain organizational solvency. A study was conducted to determine the differences between aspiring healthcare managers and patient care professionals regarding the Machiavellian tendencies. The results of the study indicate a significant mix of Machiavellian traits exist within both groups which need to be both cultivated and controlled. Efforts should be made to increase some Machiavellian tendencies such as risk-risk taking and creative while extinguishing counterproductive traits that lead to unethical decision making.

Feeling Another's Pain: Sympathy And Psychology Saga Style, William I. Miller

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Progress is hardly a given in the humanities or the suspect sciences. In many ways we are not quite as astute as our grandparents, and they not as much as theirs, and so forth in an infinite entropic regress. Would I trade Montaigne or Stendhal’s psychological acumen for even the best work that comes from social psychology departments? In this short essay I want to show just how good some medieval people, medieval Icelanders to be exact, were at understanding the mental and emotional states of others, and if of others then presumably, though not necessarily, also of themselves. And …

Universalism And Civil Rights (With Notes On Voting Rights After Shelby), Samuel R. Bagenstos

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After the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, voting rights activists proposed a variety of legislative responses. Some proposals sought to move beyond measures that targeted voting discrimination based on race or ethnicity. They instead sought to eliminate certain problematic practices that place too great a burden on voting generally. Responses like these are universalist, because rather than seeking to protect any particular group against discrimination, they formally provide uniform protections to everyone. As Bruce Ackerman shows, voting rights activists confronted a similar set of questions—and at least some of them opted for a universalist approach—during the campaign …

After Search Neutrality: Drawing A Line Between Promotion And Demotion, Daniel A. Crane

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The Federal Trade Commission's (“FTC” or “the commission”) January 3, 2013 decision to close its longstanding investigation of Google1 brings to a close a flurry of discussion over the possibility that Google could become subject to a “search neutrality” principle in the United States. Although the Commission found against Google on several grounds, it rejected petitions from Google's critics to create a search neutrality principle as a matter of antitrust law. This essay briefly analyzes what remains of U.S. antitrust scrutiny of Internet search bias after the Google settlement. In particular, it suggests that a sensible line can be drawn …

A Proposed Replacement Of The Tax Expenditure Concept And A Different Perspective On Accelerated Depreciation, Douglas A. Kahn

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Over 32 years ago, I published an article on accelerated depreciation in which I concluded that some amount of acceleration was consistent with normal tax principles and should not be classified as a tax expenditure. Over the intervening years, from time to time, I have exchanged comments with authors who have questioned that conclusion. It is time to revisit that topic and renew the consideration of how tax depreciation may properly operate. This Essay’s analysis of depreciation provides one example of how the tax expenditure budgets are flawed. The treatment of some accelerated depreciation as a tax expenditure is based …

Frequent Approximation Of The Bayesian Posterior Inclusion Probability By Stochastic Subsampling, Ernest Fokoue, Vi Ly

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No abstract provided.

Formalism And Employer Liability Under Title Vii, Samuel R. Bagenstos

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Most lawyers, law professors, and judges are familiar with two standard critiques of formalism in legal reasoning. One is the unacknowledged-policymaking critique. This critique argues that formalist reasoning purports to be above judicial policymaking but instead simply hides the policy decisions offstage. The other is the false-determinacy critique. This critique observes that formalist reasoning purports to reduce decision costs in the run of cases by sorting cases into defined categories, but argues that instead of going away the difficult questions of application migrate to the choice of the category in which to place a particular case.

Rate Of False Conviction Of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced To Death, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien, Chen Hu, Edward H. Kennedy

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The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place. As a result, very few false convictions are ever discovered, and those that are discovered are not representative of the group as a whole. In the United States, however, a high proportion of false convictions that do come to light and produce exonerations are concentrated among the tiny minority of cases in which defendants are sentenced to …

H-Index For Quantifying The Fractal Or Scaling Structure Of Geographic Features, Bin Jiang, Junjun Yin

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Although geographic features, such as mountains and coastlines, are fractal, some studies have claimed that the fractal property is not universal. This claim, which is dubious, is mainly attributed to the strict definition of fractal dimension as a measure or index for characterizing the complexity of fractals. In this article, we propose an alternative, ht-index, to quantify the fractal or scaling structure of geographic features. A geographic feature has ht-index (h) if the pattern of far more small things than large ones recurs (h – 1) times at different scales. The higher the ht-index, the more complex …

Fatigue Life Prediction Of Magnetorheological Elastomers Subjected To Dynamic Equi-Biaxial Cyclic Loadin, Yanfen Zhou, Stephen Jerrams, Tony Betts, Lin Chen

Articles

Prediction of fatigue life is of great significance in ensuring that dynamically loaded rubber components exhibit safety and reliability in service. In this text, the dynamic equi-biaxial fatigue behaviour of magnetorheological elastomer (MREs) using a bubble inflation method is described. Wöhler (S-N) curves for both isotropic and anisotropic MREs were produced by subjecting the compounds to cycling over a range of stress amplitudes (σ_a) between 0.75 MPa and 1.4 MPa. Changes in physical properties, including variation in stress-strain relations and complex modulus (E*) during the fatigue process were analysed. It was found that the complex modulus of MRE …

Experimental Study And Analysis Of A Polymer Fiber Bragg Grating Embedded In A Composite Material, Ginu Rajan, Manjusha Ramakrishnan, Yuliya Semenova, Eliathamby Ambikairajah, Gerald Farrell, Gang-Ding Peng

Articles

The characteristics of polymer fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) embedded in composite materials are studied in this paper and are compared with characteristics of their silica counterparts. A polymer FBG of 10 mm length which exhibits a peak reflected wavelength circa 1530 nm is fabricated and characterized for this purpose. A silica FBG with a peak reflected wavelength circa 1553 nm is also embedded in the composite material for a comparison study. The fabricated composite material sample with embedded sensors is subjected to temperature and strain changes and the corresponding effects on the embedded polymer and silica FBGs are studied. The …

Reflections On The Indictment Of Sitting Heads Of State And Government And Its Consequences For Peace And Stability And Reconciliation In Africa, Charles Chernor Jalloh

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In these remarks, the author considers the most recent challenge to the application of international criminal justice in Africa: Kenya's controversial November 2013 proposal to amend the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to temporarily exempt from prosecution sitting presidents accused of involvement with international crimes. He examines several legal and practical reasons why such a proposal is untenable. Instead, citing the principle of complementarity and urging the principled use of judicial and prosecutorial discretion, he contends that much of the African Union's current concerns about the Kenya Situation can be addressed within the confines of existing Rome Law. …

Representing Entities: The Value Of Teaching Students How To Draft Board Resolutions And Other Similar Documentation, Joan Mcleod Heminway, Marcia Narine

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No abstract provided.

Immutability And Innateness Arguments About Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Rights, Edward Stein

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A popular and intuitively plausible argument for the rights of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals (LGB people) focuses on the claim that sexual orientations are inborn and/or unchangeable. This argument draws on three sources: ethical, scientific, and legal. The scientific source is the widely held observation that people generally (and LGB people particularly) do not choose their sexual orientation. This observation is buttressed by claims about the causes and character of human sexuality. The ethical source is the general intuition that people should not be punished for something that they did not choose. Together, these ethical and scientific beliefs lead …

The Courts And National Security: The Ordeal Of The State Secrets Privilege, David Rudenstine

Articles

The state secrets privilege, originally established in United States v. Reynolds, has evolved into a powerful tool for the Executive to shield actions from judicial scrutiny, undermining the rule of law and constitutional checks and balances. This expansion, driven by judicial deference and circuit court interpretations, now prioritizes national security over accountability, threatening core legal principles. The article argues for reform to balance national security concerns with judicial oversight and individual rights.

Why The Buffett-Gates Giving Pledge Requires Limitation Of The Estate Tax Charitable Deduction, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

The Buffett-Gates Giving Pledge, under which wealthy individuals promise to leave a majority of their assets to charity, is an admirable effort to encourage philanthropy. However, the Pledge requires us to confront the paradox that the federal estate tax charitable deduction is unlimited while the federal income tax charitable deduction is capped. If a Giving Pledger leaves his wealth to charity, the federal fisc loses significant revenue since the Pledger thereby avoids federal estate taxation as charitable bequests are deductible without limit for federal estate tax purposes. Despite its laudable qualities, the Giving Pledge is a systematic (albeit inadvertent) threat …

Rethinking Online Privacy In Canada: Commentary On Voltage Pictures V. John And Jane Doe, Ngozi Okidegbe

Articles

This article problematizes the use of the bona fide case standard as the legal standard for a court to order a third party Internet Service Provider ("ISP") to disclose subscriber information to a copyright owner in online piracy cases. It argues that ISP account holders have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their subscriber information. It contends that the current bona fide case standard affords a relatively low threshold of protection for Internet users’ subscriber information. The reason for which the article takes this position is that the bona fide case standard can be met solely by IP address evidence, …

Why Wynne Worries Me, Edward A. Zelinsky

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No abstract provided.

Does Tort Law Empower?, Anthony J. Sebok

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No abstract provided.

Why Answer?, Anthony J. Sebok

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No abstract provided.

Shaken Baby Syndrome On Trial, Keith A. Findley, Barry Scheck

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This is a short review of Deborah Tuerkheimer's book, "Flawed Convictions: 'Shaken Baby Syndrome' and the Inertia of Injustice" (Oxford University Press 2014).

European Legal Development: The Case Of Tort: Comparative Studies In The Development Of The Law Of Tort In Europe, Vol 9, Anthony J. Sebok

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This review addresses volumes 7-9 of the series Comparative Studies in the Development of the Law of Torts in Europe, edited by John Bell and David Ibbetson and published by Cambridge University Press.

Through A Glass, Darkly: The Rhetoric And Reality Of Campaign Finance Disclosure, Jennifer A. Heerwig, Katherine Shaw

Articles

In Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court swept away long-standing limits on corporate spending in federal elections, but it also strongly affirmed the constitutionality of robust disclosure and disclaimer requirements. In the wake of that decision, many proponents of campaign finance regulation have turned their attention to disclosure as the best remaining mechanism by which to regulate money in elections. At the same time, opponents of campaign finance regulation — including the legal team behind Citizens United — have trained their sights on disclosure, filing new challenges to existing disclosure require- ments in a number of state or federal …

Atlantic Marine Through The Lens Of Erie Symposium: Forum Selection After Atlantic Marine, Adam N. Steinman

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No abstract provided.

The Hobby Lobby Moment The Supreme Court - 2013 Term: Comments, Paul Horwitz

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No abstract provided.

Supplementation With Three Different Macular Carotenoid Formulations In Patients With Early Age-Related Macular Degeneration., James Loughman, Sarah Sabour-Pickett, Stephen Beatty, Eithne Connolly, Jim Stack, Alan Howard, Ronald Klein, Barbara Klein, Stacy Meuer, Chelsea Myers, Kwadwo Akuffo, John Nolan

Articles

Purpose: To investigate the impact of three different macular carotenoid formulations on macular pigment optical density and visual performance in subjects with early age-related macular degeneration. Methods: Fifty-two subjects were supplemented and followed for 12 months, 17 of them were in intervention Group 1 (20 mg/day lutein and 2 mg/day zeaxanthin); 21 in Group 2 (10 mg/day meso-zeaxanthin, 10 mg/day lutein, and 2 mg/day zeaxanthin); and 14 in Group 3 (17 mg/day meso-zeaxanthin, 3 mg/day lutein, and 2 mg/day zeaxanthin). The macular pigment optical density was measured using customized heterochromatic flicker photometry, and visual function was assessed using corrected distance …