Digital Commons Network^™

Enhancing The Fighting Force: Medical Research On American Soldiers, Catherine L. Annas, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

During President Barack Obama's first primetime press conference, reporters asked primarily about the state of the economy and terrorism. Wedged between questions on these two vital issues was a query from the Washington Post's Michael Fletcher:

Question: What is your reaction to Alex Rodriguez's admission that he used steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers?

Obama: You know, I think it's depressing news.... And if you're a fan of Major League Baseball, I think it - it tarnishes an entire era, to some degree. And it's unfortunate, because I think there are a lot of ballplayers who played it …

Economic Development In Cold War South Carolina, R. Phillip Stone Ii

Faculty Scholarship

Argues that South Carolina did not benefit from Cold War-influenced economic development because of the lack of industry in the state and the lack of skilled workers. South Carolina's focus on low-wage, low-value added production continued well into the modern era.

The Role Of Conversation In Health Care Interventions: Enabling Sensemaking And Learning, Kurt C. Stange

Faculty Scholarship

Background. Those attempting to implement changes in health care settings often find that intervention efforts do not progress as expected. Unexpected outcomes are often attributed to variation and/or error in implementation processes. We argue that some unanticipated variation in intervention outcomes arises because unexpected conversations emerge during intervention attempts. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of conversation in shaping interventions and to explain why conversation is important in intervention efforts in health care organizations. We draw on literature from sociolinguistics and complex adaptive systems theory to create an interpretive framework and develop our theory. We use …

Regime Shifting In The International Intellectual Property System, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

The international intellectual property system provides an important illustration of how regime complexity shapes domestic and international strategies of states and non-state actors. This article describes and graphically illustrates the multifaceted nature of the international intellectual property system. It then analyzes the consequences of regime complexity for international and domestic politics, emphasizing the strategy of regime shifting and its consequences for chessboard politics and the domestic implementation of international rules.

Water Scarcity, Conflict, And Security In A Climate Change World: Challenges And Opportunities For International Law And Policy, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Although climate change is expected to have major consequences that affect the global environment in its broadest sense, one of the earliest and most direct impacts will be on Earth’s fresh water systems. While some regions will experience increased precipitation, others will suffer serious scarcity. Among others, consequences are likely to include severe flooding, extreme droughts, and meandering border-rivers. This, in turn, will affect human migration patterns, population growths, agricultural activities, economic development, and the environment. This article explores the impact that climate change will have on regional and global freshwater resources and the resulting legal and policy implications that …

American Civil Religion: An Idea Whose Time Is Past, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

From the founding of the United States, Americans have understood loyalty to their country as a religious and not just a civic commitment. The idea of a 'civil religion' that defines the collective identity of a nation originates with Rousseau, and was adapted to the United States Robert Bellah, who suggested that a peculiarly American civil religion has underwritten government and civil society in the United States.

Leaving aside the question whether civil religion has ever truly unified all or virtually all Americans, I argue that it excludes too many Americans to function as such a unifying force in the …

Update On Legal Relief Options For Unaccompanied Alien Children Following The Enactment Of The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection, Deborah Lee, Manoj Govindaiah, Angela D. Morrison, David Thronson

Faculty Scholarship

This practice advisory will discuss recent developments in legal relief for unaccompanied alien children brought about by the enactment of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-457; “TVPRA”) on December 23, 2008. In addition to expanding protections for trafficking victims generally, the TVPRA made procedural and substantive changes to immigration legal relief for unaccompanied alien children. Specifically, section 235 of the TVPRA increased many protections for unaccompanied alien children seeking relief from removal, including Special Immigrant Juvenile status and asylum. This section of the TVPRA also provides more child-sensitive procedures for those in immigration custody …

Developing A New Model Of Support And Empowerment To Families In Need: Overcoming Historic And Ethical Barriers To Interdisciplinary Practice, Deborah J. Weimer

Faculty Scholarship

This article will briefly describe the history that has led to the present disconnect between social workers and lawyers, the ethical rules that have been perceived as a barrier to effective interdisciplinary practice, including rules about lawyer independence, defining who the client is and mandated reporting of child abuse and neglect. It identifies the importance of advance planning in structuring a truly interdisciplinary practice and anticipating and addressing ethical issues. And it describes the benefits to clients as well as social work and law students of engaging in interdisciplinary practice.

Out Of The Box: The Future Of Retail Medical Clinics, William M. Sage

Faculty Scholarship

The 2000s was mostly a lost decade for reform of the health care delivery system. Among the few significant innovations was the retail medical clinic, where individuals could receive basic health care at posted prices without appointments, typically from nurse practitioners or physician assistants. Most retail clinics were associated with chain drugstores, supermarkets, or other "big box" retailers. This short article describes the implications of the retail clinic model for US health policy and health care reform. It is no longer available from the online journal in which it originally appeared.

Pick Your Poison: Responses To The Marketing And Sale Of Flavored Tobacco Products, Kathleen Hoke Dachille

Faculty Scholarship

This law synopsis explores legal approaches for addressing the marketing and sale of flavored tobacco products to youth.

Unveiling Raphaelle Peale's "Venus Rising From The Sea -- A Deception", Lauren K. Lessing, Mary Schafer

Faculty Scholarship

New technical information uncovered by conservator Mary Schafer has revealed an earlier, unfinished composition beneath the margins of Raphaelle Peale’s circa 1822 trompe l’oeil painting “Venus Rising from the Sea—a Deception.” The earlier version of the painting featured a partial copy of Charles Willson Peale’s 1817 portrait of Raphaelle seemingly concealed behind the same white kerchief that now appears to hide a copy of James Barry’s 1772 painting “The Birth of Venus.” Schafer and art historian Lauren Lessing reinterpret Peale’s painting in light of these findings, describing its complex nature as both a physical object and a dark visual joke.

From Greed To Grievance: The Shifting Political Profile Of The Colombian Paramilitaries, Winifred Tate

Faculty Scholarship

On June 28, 2004, indicted drug trafficker and paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, wearing a fashionable Italian suit and tie, addressed the Colombian Congress from the podium. "The judgment of history will recognize the goodness and nobility of our cause," he told the assembled legislators and press. The day before, Mancuso, along with two other paramilitary leaders, had traveled in an official air force plane from the small northern Colombia hamlet where paramilitary leaders had assembled to begin talks with the Colombian government. After almost a decade of fighting outside the law, Mancuso was now addressing the heart of the state, …

Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back: Lessons To Be Learned From How Florida's Initiatives To Curtail Confidentiality In Litigation Have Missed Their Mark, Roma Perez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Toward Procedural Optionality: Private Ordering Of Public Adjudication, Robert J. Rhee

Faculty Scholarship

Private resolution and public adjudication of disputes are commonly seen as discrete, antipodal processes. There is a generally held understanding of the dispute resolution processes. The essence of private dispute resolution is that the parties can arrange the disputed rights and entitlements per agreement and without judicial intervention. In public adjudication, however, the sovereign mandates the substantive and procedural laws to be applied, many of which cannot be changed by either a party’s unilateral decision or both parties’ mutual consent. Neither approach allows a party an option to unilaterally alter important aspects of the process, such as the standards of …

Making Decisions About Our Animals' Health Care: Does It Matter Whether We Are Owners Or Guardians?, Susan J. Hankin

Faculty Scholarship

A great deal of opposition has been mounted against legislation that changes the language describing the relationship between people and their animals from “owner” to “guardian.” One of the primary arguments focuses on the claim that pet “guardians” might be faced with more limited health care choices for their pets. Behind these arguments is the premise that no one should interfere with an owner’s authority to make decisions for her animal’s health care. However, state and local laws that change the designation from pet “owner” to “guardian” will not, as opponents have argued, affect in any way our ability to …

Putting Community Equity In Community Development: Resident Equity Participation In Urban Redevelopment, Barbara Bezdek

Faculty Scholarship

The special concern of this paper is to recalibrate the benefits and burdens of public-private partnerships as they remake inner city neighborhoods, by braking the rate at which urban land is being reclaimed from low-wealth residents by local government practices to disperse occupants, sweeping aside their tangible and intangible capital. Public oversight requirements have not kept pace with the dispossession, yet the costs that these development decisions impose on the social fabric of communities rend the shared networks necessary to residents’ abilities to meet basic social needs. This destruction of low-wealth communities is a form of equity-stripping, produced by local …

Outsider Citizens: Film Narratives About The Internment Of Japanese Americans, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the conflicting film narratives about the internment from 1942 through 2007. It argues that while later film narratives, especially documentaries, counter early government film narratives justifying the internment, these counter-narratives have their own damaging hegemony. Whereas earlier commercial films tell the internment story through the eyes of sympathetic whites, using a conventional civil rights template … Japanese and other Asian American documentary filmmakers construct their Japanese characters as model minorities — hyper-citizens, super patriots. Further, the internment experience remains largely a male story. With the exception of Emiko Omori’s documentary film memoir, Rabbit in the Moon (2004), …

Laboratories Of Destitution: Democratic Experimentalsim And The Failure Of Antipoverty Law, David A. Super

Faculty Scholarship

Democratic experimentalism, the procedural component of the “new governance” movement, has won widespread acceptance in calling for decentralization, deliberation, deregulation, and experimentation. Democratic experimentalists claim that this approach offers pragmatic solutions to social problems. Although the democratic experimentalist movement formally began only a decade ago, antipoverty law has reflected its major principles since the 1960s. This experiment has gone badly, weakening antipoverty programs. Key elements of this participatory approach to antipoverty law – decentralization, privatization, and the substitution of ad hoc problemsolving for individual rights – all contributed to the calamity that low-income people suffered during and after Hurricane Katrina. …

Dispute Resolution And The Post-Divorce Family: Implications Of A Paradigm Shift, Jana B. Singer

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past two decades, there has been a paradigm shift in the way the legal system handles most family disputes – particularly disputes involving children. This paradigm shift has replaced the law-oriented and judge-focused model of adjudication with a more collaborative, interdisciplinary and forward-looking family dispute resolution regime. It has also transformed the practice of family law and fundamentally altered the way in which disputing families interact with the legal system. This essay examines the elements of this paradigm shift in family dispute resolution and explores the opportunities and challenges it offers for families, children and the legal system.

The New Private Ordering Of Intellectual Property, Lawrence M. Sung

Faculty Scholarship

One consequence of the renewed U.S. Supreme Court interest in patent cases in recent years is an enhanced scrutiny on patent rights generally and, in particular, on the importance of better defining contracts to govern the patent rights among the parties. The Intellectual Property Law Program of the University of Maryland School of Law, in collaboratoin with the Business Law Program and the Journal of Business & Technology Law, convened a symposium on April 18, 2008 to consider the pertinent jurisprudence to inform prudent business practices in managing patent rights by private agreements. This Issue of the Journal includes a …

The Universal Declaration And South African Constitutional Law: A Response To Justice Arthur Chaskalson, Peter E. Quint

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

In The Wake Of Reinvigorated U.S. Supreme Court Activity In Patent Appeals, Lawrence M. Sung

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

State And Federal Emergency Powers, Michael Greenberger, Arianne Spaccarelli

Faculty Scholarship

As the federal and state response to Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, a failure to understand and utilize legal authorities properly during a disaster can slow response efforts, destroy trust in governments, and exacerbate chaos and civil unrest. This chapter will provide an overview of the statutory and constitutional authority for state and federal response to emergencies, including a description of typical state emergency management statutes, a summary of the major federal statutes related to public health emergency responses, and a discussion of the constitutional limits on federal actions during a public health emergency.

Prosecuting Doctors For Trusting Patients, Deborah Hellman

Faculty Scholarship

In an escalating phase of our country’s war on drugs, doctors treating patients in pain are being prosecuted for drug trafficking under the Controlled Substances Act. While doctors surely can be guilty of drug trafficking when they sell drugs for money, lately some doctors have been prosecuted for violations of a statute that requires knowingly distributing or dispensing controlled substances in an unauthorized manner for simply being willfully blind to the fact that their patients were reselling the drugs. While willful blindness may be an apt substitute for knowledge in the traditional drug courier scenario, doctors in these cases are …

Here Comes The Judge! Gender Distortion On Tv Reality Court Shows, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

In the judicial world of television court shows women constitute a majority of the judges and where non-white women and men dominate. In real life most judges are white and male. This essay looks at the gender and racial composition and demeanor of these television reality judges. It asks whether women TV reality judges behave differently from their male counterparts and whether women’s increased visibility as judges on daytime reality court shows reinforces or diminishes traditional negative stereotypes about women, especially non-white women.

Privilege-Wise And Patent (And Trade-Secret)-Foolish?: How The Courts' Misapplication Of The Military And State Secrets Privilege Violates The Constitution And Endangers National Security, Davida H. Isaacs, Robert M. Farley

Faculty Scholarship

It is every inventor's nightmare: a valuable idea, stolen, with no legal recourse. Yet that is precisely what happened in Lucent v. Crater, where the Federal Circuit permitted the Federal Government to defeat the inventors' claims using the military and state secrets privilege. In light of the recent upsurge in the Government's invocation of this privilege, it is time to scrutinize more carefully courts' highly deferential response to its use. There is little question that the executive branch must be able to invoke the privilege in order to ensure that national security is not imperiled by public disclosure of information. …

Alinsky's Prescription: Democracy Alongside Law, Barbara L. Bezdek

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the import of the life’s work of Saul Alinsky—arguably the most prominent founder of contemporary organizing—to the content and methodologies of today’s legal education. I review the community organizing theory and practice of Saul Alinsky for its synergies and lessons on two approaches by legal theorists and educators working in law schools today — “community lawyering” and “social justice”education. These approaches embrace the special responsibility of the legal profession for the quality of justice in society[1] by extending the traditional conceptions of lawyers’ relationships with clients in ways that are informed by the insights of community organizers, …

Research Stories: Video Tales From The Summer Associate Workplace, Susan Herrick

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Physicians Who Break The Law, Diane E. Hoffmann

Faculty Scholarship

This paper takes as its starting point a recent article by Prof. Sandra Johnson, Regulating Physician Behavior: Taking Doctors “Bad Law” Claims Seriously. In the article, Johnson focuses on doctors who comply with the law despite their belief that the law is “bad”, i.e., causes them to behave in ways that are harmful to their patients. In Physicians Who Break the Law, I explore cases where physicians break the law claiming that it is “bad”. In this exploration, I focus on two areas of physicians’ lawbreaking: (1) violations of business-related laws, in particular, insurance fraud; and (2) violations of laws …

Recalibrating The Moral Compass: Expanding "Thinking Like A Lawyer" Into "Thinking Like A Leader", Karen H. Rothenberg

Faculty Scholarship

This essay was prepared for the Leadership in Legal Education Symposium IX.