Digital Commons Network^™

Whose Body Is It Anyway? Human Cells And The Strange Effects Of Property And Intellectual Property Law, Robin Feldman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Social Networking And Workers’ Compensation Law At The Crossroads, Gregory M. Duhl

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past decade, social networking has increasingly influenced the practice of both civil and criminal law. One way to illustrate those influences is to examine a “system” of laws and the parties and lawyers in that system. In this article, we examine how social networking has influenced workers’ compensation law, looking at, in particular, the intersection of professional responsibility, discovery, privacy, and evidence with social networking in state workers’ compensation systems. Workers’ compensation laws are no-fault insurance systems designed to resolve disputes efficiently. Consequently, the rules of evidence are often more relaxed and the rules of discovery often more …

Synthetic Hype: A Skeptical View Of The Promise Of Synthetic Biology, Jonathan Kahn

Faculty Scholarship

This article urges a cautious approach to assessing the promises of synthetic biology based on broad political and economic concerns rather than technical ones. Specifically, I mark three related dynamics which place the current buzz around synthetic biology in a broader context. These dynamics are not necessarily distinctive to synthetic biology, but perhaps for that very reason, they may carry added weight. First, is the place of synthetic biology as the latest entry in the procession of what I call the “receding horizons of biotechnological promise.” Second, is the excitement generated by the related promise of finding seemingly direct technological …

Measure Twice, Shoot Once: Higher Care For Cia-Targeted Killing, Afsheen John Radsan, Richard Murphy

Faculty Scholarship

For almost a decade, the United States has deployed unmanned aerial vehicles, or "drones," to kill targeted members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) drone strikes in Pakistan have, in particular, stirred strong debates over the legality of such actions. Some commentators insist that these strikes are legal under international humanitarian law (IHL) or as a matter of self-defense. Others insist that the United States' targeted killing amounts to murder.

It is critical for the law to determine how to control killer drones and the future of warfare. As technology evolves, drones will develop sharper senses …

Renaissance Or Retrenchment: Legal Education At A Crossroads, Lauren Carasik

Faculty Scholarship

This Article begins to synthesize the literature criticizing the current state of legal education with the scholarship proposing solutions, and argues that whatever review is undertaken must be expansive, with a careful and critical look at how each piece supports the endeavor. None of the ideas discussed, taken alone, are novel, as scholarship abounds on all of the topics. Considered together, the analysis suggests that a comprehensive and holistic approach to reform is necessary. In essence, the goal is to catalyze a wholesale reconsideration of the very foundation of legal education. Many of the seemingly disparate themes comprise a Gordian …

The Money Blind: How To Stop Industry Bias In Biomedical Science, Without Violating The First Amendment, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

The pharmaceutical and medical device industries use billions of dollars to support the biomedical science that physicians, regulators, and patients use to make healthcare decisions—the decisions that drive an increasingly large portion of the American economy. Compelling evidence suggests that this industry money buys favorable results, biasing the outcomes of scientific research. Current efforts to manage the problem, including disclosure mandates and peer reviews, are ineffective. A blinding mechanism, operating through an intermediary such as the National Institutes of Health, could instead be developed to allow industry support of science without allowing undue influence. If the editors of biomedical journals …

The Puzzle Of Independent Directors: New Learning, Frederick Tung

Faculty Scholarship

In this symposium paper, I discuss and critique some new empirical learning on independent directors.

The independent director has always offered a sort of magic bullet for corporate governance, representing the idealized monitor of executives’ behavior. Yet we corporate law scholars also harbor some ambivalence about the magic of this bullet. As much as we want to trust in the promise of independent directors, no solid empirical evidence exists to suggest that independent directors add value. Moreover, we have seen spectacular failures in the face of independent boards.

How do we account for this disconnect between our intuitions and best …

Does Westlawnext Really Change Everything: The Implications Of Westlawnext On Legal Research, Ronald E. Wheeler

Faculty Scholarship

WestlawNext, Thomson Reuters’ newest electronic research service, has been around for over a year now. Ron Wheeler shares his thoughts on how this service may impact various aspects of legal research, and he suggests further study and research are necessary to fully evaluate and comprehend the system.

Arbitration In Autumn, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

Often invoked as a metaphor for decline and decay, autumn also carries a sense of robust maturity bringing fruitful harvest and new beginnings. The season’s double symbolism evokes rival visions of arbitration today. Some observers see a golden age of cheap and cheerful proceedings as replaced by a costly complexity that fails arbitration’s promise of coherent and efficient dispute resolution. On closer scrutiny, however, arbitration reveals itself as having arrived at its autumn not in the sense of decay, but rather with vital maturity. Productive exchanges among the various stakeholders in the process serve to refine the counterpoise among accuracy, …

"We Know It When We See It": Intermediary Trademark Liability And The Internet, Stacey Dogan

Faculty Scholarship

The recent history of intermediary liability decisions in copyright and trademark law reflects a notable resistance to rules that might constrain judicial discretion to ferret out bad guys. Indeed, a dichotomy appears to be emerging between two types of defendants: those who want infringement to happen and those who do not. In both copyright and trademark cases, courts are developing two distinct sets of rules to deal with two different classes of intermediaries. Good-faith intermediaries — those with a core business model unrelated to infringement — have an obligation to address infringement upon notice, but need not go out of …

Traynor (Drennan) Versus Hand (Baird): Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Most Contracts casebooks feature either Baird v. Gimbel or Drennan v. Star Paving to illustrate the limits on revocability of an offer. In this article an analysis of the case law yields three major conclusions. First, as is generally known, in the contractor-subcontractor cases Drennan has prevailed. However, both it and its spawn, Restatement 2d E 87(2), have had almost no impact outside that narrow area. Moreover, almost all the cases involve public construction projects – private projects account for only about ten percent of the cases. This suggests that private parties have managed to resolve the problem contractually. Public …

Patenting Genes And Genetic Methods: What’S At Stake?, Eileen M. Kane

Faculty Scholarship

The emergence of genetic medicine following decades of molecular biology research has been accompanied by the procurement of patent rights to many medically significant genes and methods for their use. The intellectual force of reductionism in the life sciences – to explain biological phenomena with molecular precision – generates direct conflicts with patent law’s exclusion of basic knowledge from patenting: laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas must remain in the public domain. This is a period of renewed attention to the issue of patentable subject matter in the life sciences, with a particular focus on genetic patenting. Patents …

Somebody's Watching Me: Fcpa Monitorships And How They Can Work Better, F. Joseph Warin, Michael S. Diamant, Veronica S. Root

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the rise of the corporate compliance monitor as a condition for settling violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) — a setting in which federal prosecutors routinely impose monitors. If U.S. enforcement authorities maintain their current approach, the reality is that companies facing liability for violating the FCPA are likely to have a monitor imposed on them as part of a settlement agreement. From the U.S. government’s perspective, monitorships make sense for companies that violate anti-bribery laws, making it important for offending corporations to learn how to deal with monitors. Pulling from the authors’ extensive …

The Origins Of The American Military Coup Of 2012, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Contracts Meet Henry Ford, Barak D. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholars and legal educators view contracts as a welfare-maximizing (or optimal risk-allocating) device for two or more parties. Because we cling to this principal-driven paradigm, we think of lawyers only as the proverbial “transaction cost engineers,” the loyal agents of parties to a transaction. And whenever we observe contracts that appear to be suboptimal, we blame agency costs. We instead should apply the literature on organizational economics to understand the production of contracts by the modern law firm. This literature better illustrates how law firms organize, why they produce the products they do, and why those products sometimes exhibit …

The Case For Legal Regulation Of Physicians’ Off-Label Prescribing, Doriane Lambelet Coleman, Philip M. Rosoff

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Freedom Thwarted Israel's Illegal Attack On The Gaza Flotilla, George Bisharat, Carey James, Rose Mishaan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mancession Or "Momcession"?: Good Providers, A Bad Economy, And Gender Discrimination, Joan C. Williams, Allison Tait

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Crisis Of Confidence And Legal Theory: Why The Economic Downturn Should Help Signal The End Of The Doctrine Of Efficient Breach, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

To understand subprime behavior and efficient breaches, it is imperative to first examine the necessary social predicate for economic transactions. Accordingly, Part I will offer an overview of society and the market, highlighting the importance of reciprocity and trust to both. Part II will define the economic transactions implicated by this Article: basic contracting, efficient breach of contract, and the subprime behavior of the current economic crisis. Part III will make explicit the nexus between subprime behavior and efficient breaches by explaining that subprime behavior and efficient breaches are linked by shared elements; they are opportunistic in nature, are interested …

Public On Paper: The Failure Of Law To Protect Public Water Uses In The Western United States, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Water conflicts in the western United States increasingly arise from competition between traditional economic uses (especially irrigation, municipal supply and hydropower) and public uses (especially environmental protection and water-based recreation). Western United States water law, based on the prior appropriation doctrine, has always promoted maximizing ‘beneficial use’ of the resource and has effectively protected water allocations for traditional purposes. Public water uses also enjoy some legal protection, but it exists mostly on paper; in practice, neither statutory public interest provisions nor the non-statutory public trust doctrine has been widely effective. This paper identifies the relevant legal principles and briefly explains …

New Adventures Of The Old Bureau: Modern-Day Reclamation Statutes And Congress Unfinished Environmental Business, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Congress established the reclamation program in 1902, and the hundreds of federal water projects built in the 20th century helped shape the West. Today, the Bureau of Reclamation plays an enormously important role in managing these projects. But with no big new dams to build, the Bureau has been forced to revise its mission to address todays water management challenges, such as stretching finite water supplies and restoring aquatic ecosystems. Through both site-specific enactments and programmatic statutes, Congress in recent years has given the Bureau new authority and direction to address these modern challenges. But Congress has left a significant …

Too Hot To Handle: Climate Change And Agricultural Water Use, Denise D. Fort

Faculty Scholarship

The world faces enormous challenges in responding to looming crises in food and water. Responding to this challenge will require flexibility; such flexibility may be impeded by legal institutions. This paper looks at the western United States and discusses the role of irrigated agriculture in that region. Because of climate change, a growing population, declining groundwater, the need to protect ecosystems and other conflicts, the author suggests that all water uses, including long-standing agricultural water rights, need to be examined in light of these changes. Legal systems have tended to serve the status quo, but perhaps the law can help …

Universal Citation And The American Association Of Law Libraries: A White Paper, Jennifer Laws, Timothy L. Coggins, John Cannan

Faculty Scholarship

This white paper is a collaborative endeavor of many individuals, including members of the American Association of Law Libraries and its Digital Access to Legal Information Committee (DALIC), formerly the Electronic Legal Information Access & Citation (ELIAC) Committee. First, Justice Yvonne Kauger introduces the topic by identifying the groundbreaking steps taken by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Law librarians Carol Billings and Kathy Carlson next provide a detailed and comprehensive history of citation reform and the American Association of Law Libraries’ leadership and involvement in the issue. They also summarize the citation reform steps taken in selected jurisdictions. Finally, John Cannan, …

Environmental Review Of Western Water Project Operations: Where Nepa Has Not Applied, Will It Now Protect Farmers From Fish?, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation operates hundreds of dams in seventeen western states, and storage and release of water at these dams often causes serious environmental impacts. In operating these dams, however, the Bureau has largely been excused from complying with the environmental review requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. This article explains and analyzes relevant NEPA cases involving these Bureau projects, and argues that the Bureau may want to conduct NEPA reviews for project operations even if they are not legally required. It also describes and critiques District Judge Oliver Wangers recent decisions applying NEPA to the Bureau's …

Interdisciplinary Transactional Courses, Eric J. Gouvin, Robert Statchen, Anthony J. Luppino, William Kell

Faculty Scholarship

This Article represents a panel presentation on interdisciplinary work in law school transactional courses. The Authors’ focus is on the Small Business Clinic at Western New England University School of Law. Topics covered are: interdisciplinary work and the classroom, professional liability and competency issues in rendering services through a clinic, culture class issues, ethical dilemmas, delivering professional products to the client, and co-curricular opportunities.

New Millennium, Same Glass Ceiling? The Impact Of Law Firm Compensation Systems On Women, Joan C. Williams, Veta Richardson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reviving Judicial Gatekeeping Of Aggregation: Scrutinizing The Merits On Class Certification, Richard L. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

States And Networks In The Formation Of International Law, Moria Paz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Different Cultures, Different Conflicts: Sex Discrimination Law And The United States And Japan, Reuel E. Schiller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Complexity Of Jurisdictional Clarity, Scott Dodson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.