Digital Commons Network^™

The Public Domain, Jessica D. Litman

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This article examines the public domain by looking at the gulf between what authors really do and the way the law perceives them. Part I outlines the basics of copyright as a species of property and introduces the public domain's place within the copyright scheme. Copyright grants authors" ' rights modeled on real property in order to encourage authorship by providing authors with markets in which they can seek compensation for their creations. Because parcels of authorship are intangible, however, the law faces *problems in determining the ownership and boundaries of its property grants. In particular, the concept of "originality," …

Reasons, Authority, And The Meaning Of 'Obey': Further Thoughts On Raz And Obedience To Law, Donald H. Regan

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I recently published a long article' discussing a variety of topics from Joseph Raz's The Morality of Freedom.2 The article was part of a symposium on Raz's work in the Southern California Law Review. Raz responded' to the articles in that symposium, including my own. From a perspective which surveys the whole range of views on political philosophy, Raz's view and mine look very similar. Even so, we find many things to disagree about, which neither of us would regard as merely matters of detail. For the most part, we at least share a common understanding of our disagreements. But …

Afterword To Chicago-Kent Law Review, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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A unifying theme of this Symposium is as old and enduring as the common law: when and how can a well-established, successful adjudicative institution be adapted to meet the demands of new and substantially different situations? There have been splendid triumphs of transference, such as Lord Mansfield's appropriation of the law merchant in the eighteenth century as a major building block of modem commercial law. There have also been embarrassing failures, like the abortive effort to transport American labor law concepts en masse into the alien British environment of the early 1970s. The common question confronting the participants in this …

Risk And Design, James E. Krier

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Risk springs from uncertainty,' uncertainty invites error, and, since error can be costly, we would prefer to avoid it (provided, of course, that avoidance is not more costly yet). While there is much in the Noll and Krier article2 about judgmental error under conditions of risk and uncertainty, there is little about ways to avoid it. So avoidance-more accurately, minimization-of error costs is the topic I want to address very briefly and partially here.

Judging The Judges: Three Opinions, James Boyd White

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For some time I have been working on the problem of judicial criticism, focusing especially on the question: What is it in the work of a judge that leads us to admire a judicial opinion with the result of which we disagree, or to condemn an opinion that "comes out" the way we would do if we were charged with the responsibility of decision? The response I have been making is that this kind of judicial excellence (and its opposite too) lies in the sort of social and intellectual action in which the opinion engages: in the character the court …

Changing Company Law? (Book Review), Caroline Bradley, Judith Freedman

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No abstract provided.

Synthesizing Related Rules From Statutes And Cases For Legal Expert Systems, Layman E. Allen, Sallyanne Payton, Charles S. Saxon

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Different legal expert systems may be incompatible with each other: A user in characterizing the same situation by answering the questions presented in a consultation can be led to contradictory inferences. Such systems can be ”synthesized’ to help users avoid such contradictions by alerting them that other relevant systems are available to be consulted as they are responding to questions. An example of potentially incompatible, related legal expert systems is presented here - ones for the New Jersey murder statute and the celebrated Quinlan case, along with one way of synthesizing them to avoid such incompatibility.

Stalking The Squeeze: Understanding Commodities Market Manipulation, Richard D. Friedman

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This article addresses the perplexing and important problem of how to distinguish valid, large-scale trading activity from a squeeze. Part I analyzes and reformulates what I will call the price-impact test, according to which manipulation is conduct motivated by its impact on price. This test, I contend, states a necessary but not sufficient condition for characterizing conduct as a squeeze. Part II offers a substantially different test, which I call the modified-sanctions approach. Under this approach, the price-impact test is used as a preliminary safe-harbor standard. The modified-sanctions approach goes further, however, recognizing that the essence of a squeeze is …

Bart Bartosic: What You See Is Not What You Get, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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With "Bart" Bartosic, what you see is not necessarily what you get. Anyone even vaguely acquainted with him knows I am not talking about duplicity; on occasion, Bart can be almost painfully forthright. Nonetheless, on first meeting, most persons are likely to view him as the very soul of politesse - perhaps actually too deferential and accommodating. Yet behind that beguiling exterior can be found a backbone of cast iron, a mind like a steel trap, and (to extend the metallic figure) a willingness, when the situation demands, to be as hard as nails in dealing with either ideas or …

Clinical Realism: Simulated Hearings Based On Actual Events In Students' Lives, Samuel R. Gross

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This essay describes a novel clinical format, a simulation course that is based on students' testimony about actual events in their own lives. The two main purposes of the course, however, are not novel. First, I aim to teach the students to be effective trial lawyers by instructing them in the techniques of direct examination and cross-examination and by making them sensitive to the roles of the other courtroom players: the witness, the judge, and the jury. Second, I hope to encourage the students to think about the social and ethical consequences of our method of trying lawsuits.

Risk, Courts, And Agencies, Clayton P. Gillette, James E. Krier

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Public risks are precisely the risks that have recently captured the attention of the legal community and the world at large, in no small part because they give rise to such novel problems for lawyers and such grave apprehensions among lay people. Public risks have moved the legal system to relax doctrines--regarding, for example, standards of causation and culpability, burdens of proof, sharing of liability--that were designed to deal with the private risks that once dominated the landscape. And public risks have moved lay people to intensify their demands for risk control measures. These developments suggest that public risks are …

Remembering The 'Old World' Of Criminal Procedure: A Reply To Professor Grano, Yale Kamisar

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When I graduated from high school in 1961, the "old world" of criminal procedure still existed, albeit in its waning days; when I graduated from law school in 1968, circa the time most of today's first-year law students were arriving on the scene, the "new world" had fully dislodged the old. Indeed, the force of the new world's revolutionary impetus already had crested. Some of the change that the criminal procedure revolution effected was for the better, but much of it, at least as some of us see it, was decidedly for the worse. My students, however, cannot make the …

Gideon V. Wainwright A Quarter-Century Later, Yale Kamisar

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In a brief working paper sent to all conference participants, Professor Burt Neuborne suggested that we might consider several themes, among them "Gideon Celebrated," "Gideon Fulfilled," and "Gideon Betrayed." I think these are useful headings.

The Two Faces Of Tax Neutrality: Do They Interact Or Are They Mutually Exclusive?, Douglas A. Kahn

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The term "tax neutrality" refers to at least two quite different concepts. In its most common usage, tax neutrality refers to tax provisions that conform to an ideal tax system. A tax provision that is consistent with such an ideal system is described as "neutral." A tax provision that cannot be reconciled with the ideal system is sometimes referred to as a "tax expenditure" item. I will discuss tax expenditures later in this paper.

Patenting The Human Genome, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

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The increasing promise of federal funding for mapping and sequencing the human genome has brought with it renewed attention in the research science community to issues of intellectual property protection for products of biotechnology research. Echoing concerns raised a decade ago in the debate over commercialization of academic biomedical research, scientists have called for the free availability of all information generated through the Human Genome Project and have argued against allowing private intellectual property rights in such knowledge. Meanwhile, private parties have quietly been obtaining patents on bits and pieces of the human genome from the Patent and Trademark Office …

The (Unlikely) Death Of Property, James E. Krier

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Is property dead? Thomas Grey has argued that it is.' If he is right, we have an answer to the principal question of this symposium panel, which asks whether regulation and property are allies or enemies. If Professor Grey is right, they are neitherbecause property no longer exists. If he is wrong (as I believe he partly is), then, I argue, regulation and property are allies and enemies alike, and will remain so.

Goldstein's Curse, James J. White

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ON April 16, 1980, a man using the name Marvin Goldstein opened a bank account at a Baltimore branch of Union Trust Company. He deposited $15,000 in cash. He told the branch manager that he planned to establish a Baltimore office of his father's New York business, "Goldstein's Precious Metals and Stones." Goldstein identified himself with a New Jersey driver's license and gave a bank reference from New York. On May 6, Goldstein deposited a check for $880,000 at another Union Trust branch near the branch where he had opened the account. Words on this check indicated that it was …

Nepa At Twenty: Mimicry And Recruitment In Environmental Law, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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We are gathered here to consider not so much a twenty year-old law but a twenty year-old that has been extraordinarily far-reaching and influential. In its own special way, the National Environmental Polic Act and the environmental assessment that it represents have become the legal equivalent of cultural fads such as Hula Hoops, Rubik's Cubes, and Air Jordans.

A good portion of this conference, I suspect, will be devoted to documenting the many measures of NEPA's significance—the legal business it has generated, the institutional moves it has inspired, the precious places it is credited with saving.

My opening remarks will …

Defining The Scope Of Broker And Dealer Duties -- Some Problems In Adjudicating The Responsibilities Of Securities And Commodities Professionals, Gregory A. Hicks

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The purpose of this Article is to stress the need for grounding broker-dealer duties in sound, articulated understandings of the investment markets, as well as defensible statements of the responsibilities and expectations of both customers and market professionals. This important need will be demonstrated through the use of several cases illustrating problematical or failed processes by which broker-dealer duties have been established.

This Article will focus primarily on two recent decisions, In re E.F. Hutton & Co., and Wasnick v. Refco, Inc., both of which have been criticized for inappropriately expanding broker and dealer duties. Each decision is …

From The President, Penny A. Hazelton

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A series of From the President columns written by then President of the American Association of Law Libraries Penny A. Hazelton in 1990 and 1991.

Exergy Analysis - A Different Perspective On Energy Part 2: Rational Efficiency And Some Examples Of Energy, Jim Mcgovern

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The concept of exergy having been introduced in the first part of this paper, a universal rational efficiency is now defined and a number of examples of exergy analyses is given.

Judicial Influences And The Inside-Outside Dichotomy: A Comment On Professor Nagel Ira C. Rothgerber Jr. Conference On Constitutional Law: Constitutional Law And The Experience Of Judging, Richard Delgado

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No abstract provided.

Norms And Narratives: Can Judges Avoid Serious Moral Error Colloquy, Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic

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No abstract provided.

When A Story Is Just A Story: Does Voice Really Matter, Richard Delgado

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No abstract provided.

Campus Antiracism Rules: Constitutional Narratives In Collision Legal Theory, Richard Delgado

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No abstract provided.

Norms And Normal Science: Toward A Critique Of Normativity In Legal Thought, Richard Delgado

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No abstract provided.

John Payne's Dream: A Brief History Of The University Of Alabama - School Of Law Library, 1887-1980, With Emphasis Upon Collection-Building, Paul M. Pruitt Jr., Penny Calhoun Gibson

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No abstract provided.

Justifying The Judge's Hunch: An Essay On Discretion, Charles M. Yablon

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The article explores the interplay between jurisprudential and procedural perspectives on judicial discretion, arguing that these two discourses—often treated as distinct—offer valuable insights into each other. It examines how different models of discretion (skill, expediency, and creativity) operate within institutional frameworks, emphasizing the normative assumptions underlying their justifications. The analysis highlights the tension between rule-bound decision-making and the practical realities of judicial discretion, particularly in sentencing and appellate review.

Bulk Sales Under Article 9: Some Easy Cases Made Difficult, David G. Carlson

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No abstract provided.

The Air Toxics Dilemma: Whither Section 112?, Michael E. Herz

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The Clean Air Act was the product of a spasm of extraordinary political unanimity. Its actual implementation, however, has been divisive and controversial from the start. For two decades now, politicians, members of the regulated community, environmental activists, and academics have been debating whether the Act represents a rational investment (current expenditures for air pollution control are generally estimated at something above thirty billion dollars), uses optimal or even sensible regulatory mechanisms, or has accomplished anything at all.