Digital Commons Network^™

Bridging The Digital Divide: Equality In The Information Age, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

The digital revolution has transformed the lives of many, but also has left untouched the lives of many others. As a result, a large segment of the world population misses out on the tremendous political, social, economic, educational, and career opportunities created by the digital revolution. This gap between the information haves and have-nots is commonly referred to as the digital divide.

Although evidence suggested that the digital divide in the United States is closing, the same is not true for the less developed countries. In light of the alarming disparities between the information haves and have-nots, the Howard M. …

An Empirical Study Of Associate Satisfaction, Law Firm Culture, And The Effects Of Billable Hour Requirements - Part Two, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers billing practices, the effects of hourly billing pressure, and firm culture as reflected in a survey of associates in Texas law firms. Part I of this article reports the empirical information from the survey. This information includes insight into the toll an increase in billable hour requirements has taken on legal practitioners and the consequent affect on the legal field. Part II discusses what the data means and how it might be used to improve the outlook for attracting and retaining good associates.

Positionality, Epistemology, And Social Justice In The Classroom, David Takacs

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Theory Of Imperial Law: A Study On U.S. Hegemony And The Latin Resistance, Ugo Mattei

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Our Economy Of Mothers And Others: Women And Economics Revisited, Joan C. Williams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Canaries In The Mine: Work/Family Conflict And The Law, Joan C. Williams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Taking Contracts Private: The Quiet Revolution In Contract Law, Charles L. Knapp

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Independence And Democratic Accountability Of The Supreme Court Of Ohio: Recalling The Work Of Frederick Grimke, Paul D. Carrington, Adam R. Long

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Electronic Real Estate Documents: Context, Unresolved Cost-Benefit Issues And A Recommended Decisional Process, Sam Stonefield

Faculty Scholarship

This essay begins with a prediction: that electronic real estate documents will soon begin to replace paper documents in many, if not all, phases of residential real estate transactions. It describes the costs and benefits of electronic documents, and the many forces supporting and impeding their widespread adoption. It concludes by urging all those participating in the process to use their best efforts to address the obstacles and to work towards a successful transition to a world of electronic real estate transactions and electronic recording.

The Invisible Patient (Reviewing Sally Satel, How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine (2000)), Barbara A. Noah

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the fact that African-Americans suffer from a variety of health problems at disproportionately higher rates than whites, inequities in the medical system make access to care more difficult for minorities. The problem of racial disparities in health care encompasses more than problems of access or payment, however. Communication difficulties between physician and patient and disparate provision of services covered by insurance also may contribute substantially to health disparities between the races. This review canvasses some of the evidence of differential medical treatment and offers some suggestions that may improve the quality of communication between physicians and patients. In addition …

A Word-And-Flesh Profession: A Response To White And Brueggemann, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

Speech remakes the world through a relationship among words, speaker, and hearer. On one hand, this view of the human encounter as essentially rhetorical precludes an understanding of speech as purely subjectivist or emotivist self-expression. On the other hand, this same view of human speech interaction precludes the understanding of speech acts as mere descriptions of previously discovered or reasoned truth, either empirical or abstract. Professor White reaffirms this triad among words, speaker, and hearer with what he has identified as the “deeply reciprocal” dynamic of language. Professor Brueggemann also describes the speech acts between Moses, Abraham, and their God …

Ethics Counsel's Role In Combating The "Ostrich" Tendency, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

This article focuses on ethics problems related to hourly billing by analyzing the results of a survey of 1000 randomly selected associates in Texas firms who (1) had been licensed for ten or fewer years as of June 1999, and (2) worked in private law firms with more than ten attorneys (the Associate Survey). This article addresses the need for firm managers to clarify how and what their attorneys should bill. The article reports the results from the Associate Survey relating to billing guidance and ethics systems. From the empirical data, the article identifies a need for supervising attorneys to …

Your Money Or Your Speech: The Children's Internet Protection Act And The Congressional Assault On The First Amendment In Public Libraries, Steven D. Hinckley

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the inherent conflict between This article examines the inherent conflict between two Congressional approaches to public access to the Internet - the provision of federal funding support to schools and public libraries to ensure broad access to online information regardless of financial means, and federal restrictions on children's use of school and public library computers to access content that the government feels could be harmful to them. It analyzes the efficacy and constitutionality of the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), Congress's attempt to use its powers of the purse to control objectionable online content in the very …

Community Enforcement Of Informal Contracts: Jewish Diamond Merchants In New York, Barak D. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

The diamond industry is home to many unusual features: the predominance of an ethnically homogeneous community of merchants, the norm of intergenerational family businesses, and a rejection of public courts in favor of private contract enforcement. This paper explains that the diamond industry's unique attributes arise specifically to meet the particularly rigorous hazards of transacting in diamonds. Since diamonds are portable, easily concealable, and extremely valuable, the risk associated with a credit sale can be especially costly. However, the industry enjoys valuable organizational efficiencies if transactions occur on credit between independent, fully incentivized agents. Thus, an efficient system of exchange …

Beyond Napster: Using Antitrust Law To Advance And Enhance Online Music Distribution, Frank Pasquale, Matthew Fagin, Kim Weatherall

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Turning Seats Into Shares: Cause And Implications Of Demutualization Of Stock And Futures Exchange, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Balanced Diet Of First Amendment Cases, Joel Gora

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Patent Signals, Clarisa Long

Faculty Scholarship

Courts and commentators often treat intellectual property as if the private value of the rights stemmed entirely from the control legal rules conferred over the protected subject matter. While the literature has devoted an enormous amount of time, paper, and ink to the discussion of whether legal rules grant the optimal amount of exclusivity, it has not considered whether it has been examining all the functions of patents This Article provides a new general framework for analyzing the function and effect of intellectual property rules. Rather than focusing on patents as a mechanism for privatizing information, this Article instead frames …

Separability And Competence-Competence In International Arbitration: Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit? Can Something Indeed Come From Nothing?, Robert H. Smit

Faculty Scholarship

The doctrine of separability provides that an arbitration clause is “separable” from the contract containing it and thus may survive a successful challenge to the validity of the contract. The doctrine of competence-competence provides that arbitrators have jurisdiction to decide challenges to the arbitration agreements upon which their own jurisdiction is based. These two doctrines have appropriately been called the conceptual cornerstones of international arbitration as an autonomous and effective form of international dispute resolution. The doctrines, taken together, ensure that the parties’ intent to arbitrate any disputes that arise out of their international contractual relationship is effectuated without undue …

Public Funds And The Regulation Of Judicial Campaigns, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

Recent discussions of judicial election campaigns have been marked by two themes: (i) the growing costs of such campaigns, with concerns over the roles of large contributions and independent spending, the burden of fundraising for candidates, and the implications of campaign finance practices for judicial decision-making; and (ii) the changing nature of campaigning, as elections that were once “low-key affairs, conducted with civility and dignity,” have become increasingly politicized, marked by heated charges and sharp criticisms of the records and decisions of sitting judges. The two developments are surely intertwined, with the more bitter and hard-fought campaigns funded by rapidly …

Unifying Commercial Law In The New Century, Lance Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

I join enthusiastically in the applause for Fred Miller's service as Executive Director of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL). Without question, Fred is the outstanding contemporary embodiment of the passion that led fifty years ago to the achievement of a uniform commercial law among the American states. His work serves a worthy cause, and the American Law Institute (ALI) is proud to have been a partner in the venture and to have played its appropriate instruments in the orchestra that Fred has been conducting.

That said, and Fred's integrity, intelligence, and steadfastness appropriately noted, it …

The Belated Decline Of Literalism In Professional Responsibility Doctrine: Soft Deception And The Rule Of Law, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Literalism is the doctrine that a facially accurate but knowingly deceptive statement does not violate prohibitions of falsehood and misrepresentation. This essay argues that Literalism has had greater legitimacy in professional responsibility than in other areas of law, but that it seems to be in terminal decline. It surveys the arguments for and against Literalism and concludes that its impending demise should be welcomed.

Draft Convention On Jurisdiction And Recognition Of Judgments In Intellectual Property Matters, Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The proposed Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters is currently drafted to cover most fields of private litigation, including intellectual property. However, as those following the Hague process are aware, the Convention has run into considerable difficulties. There is currently reason to be concerned that it may not be promulgated at all, or that if it is promulgated, that it will be reduced in scope and cover only select areas of litigation, likely not to include intellectual property. This proposal is meant to spur the intellectual property bar to consider whether it would be …

Marital Commitment And The Legal Regulation Of Divorce, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The question of the appropriate role of law in regulating marriage and divorce is the subject of much controversy in the United States – a raging battle of the “Culture Wars” (Hunter, 1991). On one side are social conservatives, who view divorce and family instability as an important source of societal decline. These advocates of “family values” adopt a somewhat punitive tone, arguing that the family can be saved only if the government restricts divorce, by reinstituting fault grounds and discouraging unhappy spouses from selfishly defecting from their responsibilities. Liberals tend to oppose all restrictions on divorce, partly on the …

Facing The Urban Future After September 11, 2001, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay I would like to address briefly four issues of importance to local governments raised by the September 11 attack and its aftermath. These issues are the role of local governments in addressing questions of public safety and preparedness; the relations among local governments within a region in responding to terrorism; the role of the federal government in the local response to terrorism; and the implications of September 11 for the structures and functions of local government. These issues are interconnected. Certainly, an effective local response to the public safety challenge posed by terrorism will require more coordinated …

"The Exclusive Right To Their Writings": Copyright And Control In The Digital Age, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, I will explore the concept of control and the meaning of exclusive rights in the constitutional text, the pre-1976 Copyright Act regime, and the 1976 Act. I then consider the new technology cases from piano rolls through videotaperecorders, as well as Congress' responses to new technological means of exploitation. I make two submissions. First, I conclude that when copyright owners seek to eliminate a new kind of dissemination, and when courts do not deem that dissemination harmful to copyright owners, courts decline to find infringement, even though the legal and economic analysis that support those determinations often …

Copyright Infringement And Peer-To-Peer Technology, Niels Schaumann

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, I will analyze the activities of peer-to-peer ("P2P") users to determine more precisely which, if any, of their actions infringe copyright. In Part II, I will describe the process of copyright lawmaking and the recent evolution of copyright law in response to technology. This discussion will include a brief description of conventional and P2P network technology. A copyright analysis of user activities on P2P networks follows in Part III, where I argue that the nature of copyright legislation requires courts to be especially careful and precise in determining the contours of infringing noncommercial conduct by members of …

Should I Have Learned To Cook? Interviews With Women Lawyers Juggling Multiple Roles, Jackie Slotkin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Interpreting U.S. Treaties In Light Of Human Rights Values, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

International treaty law occupies a more secure place in U.S. constitutional text than customary international law. Treaties, we know, are the “supreme law of the land” under Article VI of the Constitution and are routinely applied both in state courts and in federal courts under Article III. So the “awkward relationship” to which I will address myself is how U.S. courts should determine the meaning of an international treaty to which the United States is bound, when the parties involved in court have different views on the substance of the obligation that the United States has undertaken. Thus my general …

Measured Interpretation: Introducing The Method Of Correspondence Analysis To Legal Studies, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Harcourt develops and advocates a method to more rigorously measure and evaluate how qualitative “social meaning” variables relate to legal practices and public policies. The method integrates in-depth qualitative interviews with an experimental free associational component, map analysis of the interviews, and a methodology, correspondence analysis, that remains little known in the United States despite its acceptance in other parts of the world. Correspondence analysis, according to Professor Harcourt, is a tool that allows researchers to visually represent the relationship between structures of social meaning and the contexts and practices within which they are embedded. This method opens up …