Digital Commons Network^™

Cross Dressing And The Criminal, Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Financial Regulation In Private Financial Firms: Risk Management And The Limitations Of The Market Model, James A. Fanto

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Continuing Need For Broker-Dealer Professionalism In Ipos, James A. Fanto

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legal Writing Beyond Memos And Briefs: An Annotated Bibliography, Carrie Teitcher

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Excluding Religion, Nelson Tebbe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Pick A Card, Any Card, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

At the heart of all serious thought about consumer financial products is the difficulty of understanding the mental processes by which consumers evaluate, compare, and use those products. Usury proposals from scholars and policy makers depend on explicit or implicit assumptions about how interest-rate caps will affect the mix of products available in the marketplace and the choices that consumers make among them. Legislators and lobbyists that decry a torrent of consumer bankruptcy filings rely explicitly on the claim that consumers abuse credit products. Proposals to outlaw products like payday loans assume that those who use the products are so …

The American Law Institute Goes Global: The Restatement Of International Commercial Arbitration, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

The American Law Institute's new Restatement of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration is only barely underway, and the reporters began with a chapter, namely the recognition and enforcement of awards, that should represent for them a comfort zone of sorts within the overall project. Yet, already a number of difficult, and to some extent unexpectedly difficult, questions have arisen. Some of the difficulties stem from the very nature of an ALI Restatement project. Others stem from the nature of arbitration itself and, more particularly, from the inherent tension between arbitral and judicial functions in the arbitration arena. Still …

E-Disclosure In International Arbitration, Robert H. Smit, Tyler B. Robinson

Faculty Scholarship

Electronically stored documents, in particular, emails, have rapidly become perhaps the most important source of evidence in commercial business disputes of virtually every kind. In the United States, new rules of court procedure seek to address the scope and conduct of discovery of electronic documents, which present unique challenges for litigants that discovery rules and principles designed with hardcopy documents in mind are ill-equipped to address. The same issues arise for international commercial arbitration but no guidelines tailored to the unique nature of international arbitration have yet been devised. This article surveys the unique issues and problems that arise in …

Equality Opportunity: Marriage Litigation And Iowa's Equal Protection Law, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Discrimination claims against longstanding rules invite the public and the courts to rethink the status quo and address overarching legal and social commitments to equality together with questions specific to the case at hand. Lawsuits seeking marriage rights for same-sex couples quintessentially illustrate this multilayered nature of law reform litigation, as the debates they provoke focus not only on the rights of same-sex couples but also on the meaning of marriage and the meaning of equality more generally. While few other than lawyers, judges, and perhaps some reporters actually read the equal protection and due process arguments that the presiding …

Wrtl Ii: The Sharpest Turn In Campaign Finance's Long And Winding Road, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

In Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (WRTL II), a closely divided and fragmented Supreme Court, without a majority opinion, held that the First Amendment requires the creation of a sweeping as-applied exception to § 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), which extended the ban on the use of corporate and union treasury funds in federal election campaigns to “electioneering communication.” In so doing, the Court broke sharply with its 2003 decision in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, which had, inter alia, rejected a facial challenge to the …

International Standards For Detaining Terrorism Suspects: Moving Beyond The Armed Conflict-Criminal Divide, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

Although sometimes described as war, the fight against transnational jihadi groups (referred to for shorthand as the "fight against terrorism") largely takes place away from any recognizable battlefield. Terrorism suspects are captured in houses, on street comers, and at border crossings around the globe. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the high-level Qaeda operative who planned the September 11 attacks, was captured by the Pakistani government in a residence in Pakistan. Abu Omar, a radical Muslim imam, was apparently abducted by U.S. and Italian agents off the streets of Milan. And Abu Baker Bashir, the spiritual leader of the Qaeda-affiliated group responsible for …

Are We Over-Lawyering International Affairs, Philip C. Bobbitt, John D. Hutson, John C. Yoo, Philip D. Zelikow, Edwin D. Williamson

Faculty Scholarship

This panel will discuss the role of lawyers — particularly government lawyers — in addressing questions of legal policy. We will discuss fundamental questions such as: Should lawyers decide legal policy? Or, is that best left to the policymakers? Should lawyers give advice as to legal policy, or should they stick to providing answers as to what the law is? How should lawyers respond to what a policymaker thinks is the legal question, but is really a question of legal policy? If lawyers find the law vague or lacking, should they fill in the gaps, advising as to what the …

We Are All Entrepreneurs Now, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

A funny thing happened to the entrepreneur in legal, business, and social science scholarship. She strayed from her capitalist roots, took on more and more functions that have little to do with starting or running a business, and became wildly popular in the process. Nowadays, "social entrepreneurs" tackle civic problems through innovative methods, "policy entrepreneurs" promote new forms of government action, "norm entrepreneurs" seek to change the way society thinks or behaves, and "moral entrepreneurs" try to alter the boundaries of duty or compassion. "Ethnification entrepreneurs," "polarization entrepreneurs," and other newfangled spinoffs pursue more discrete objectives. Entrepreneurial rhetoric has never …

Seeing And Believing: Mandatory Ultrasound And The Path To A Protected Choice, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

Several state legislatures now require that before a woman may consent to an abortion, she must first undergo an ultrasound and be offered the image of her fetus. The justification is that without an ultrasound, her consent will not be fully informed. Such legislation, the latest move in abortion regulation, supposes that a woman who sees the image will be less likely to abort. This Article explores how visual politics has combined with visual technology, and how law has seized upon both in a campaign to encourage women to choose against abortion. While rarely analyzed, the significance of seeing, or …

Litigation & Professional Responsibility: Is Overlawyering Overtaking Democracy?, David M. Schizer

Faculty Scholarship

Welcome everyone. We're going to get started. I'm David Schizer, the Dean of Columbia Law School. I'm here to moderate the panel, and our panel's title is, of course, "Is Overlawyering Overtaking Democracy?"

Now, as the moderator I get to ask questions, and I'm going to start with a question of the audience. My question is, aside from me, how many people here have seen Jerry Seinfeld's new animated movie, Bee Movie? I've a six-year-old daughter, which explains why I did – okay, a couple of people. For the rest of the audience's benefit, I should tell you the …

Overcoming Cultural Blindness In International Clinical Collaboration: The Divide Between Civil And Common Law Cultures And Its Implications For Clinical Education, Philip Genty

Faculty Scholarship

This essay reflects upon the work that U.S. clinical teachers have done in helping to bring clinical methodology to law schools in European civil law jurisdictions. The essay examines some of the differences between the U.S. common law and European civil law systems with respect to the conception, teaching, and practice of law. The essay suggests that U.S. clinical teachers have not been sufficiently sensitive to these differences in legal culture. The essay describes five core differences between the two systems and their implications for effective clinical education in civil law systems. The essay concludes with recommendations for future cross-cultural …

Recent Developments In Us Copyright Law – Part Ii, Caselaw: Exclusive Rights On The Ebb?, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The 1976 Act announces broad exclusive rights, offset by a myriad of specific exemptions, and one wide exception for "fair use." In words and intent, the exclusive rights are capacious, but new technologies may have caused some of the general phrases to become more constraining than might have been expected from a text whose drafters took pains to make forward-looking. Thus, the scope of the reproduction right turns on the meaning of "copy;" the reach of the distribution right on "distribute copies" and "transfer of ownership;" the range of the public performance right on "public" and "perform." Entrepreneurs and users …

Relational Tax Planning Under Risk-Based Rules, Alex Raskolnikov

Faculty Scholarship

Risk-based rules are the tax system's primary response to aggressive tax planning. They usually grant benefits only to those taxpayers who accept risk of changes in market prices (market risk) or business opportunities (business risk). Attempts to circumvent these rules by hedging, contractual safeguards, and diversification are well-understood. The same cannot be said about a very different type of tax planning. Instead of reducing risk directly, some taxpayers change the nature of risk. They enter into informal, legally unenforceable agreements with contractual counterparties that are designed to eliminate market or business risk entirely. The new uncertainty these tax planners inevitably …

Reason, Reasons And Normativity, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

All normative phenomena are normative in as much as, and because, they provide reasons or are partly constituted by reasons. This makes the concept of a reason key to an understanding of normativity. Believing that, I will here present some thoughts about the connection between reasons and Reason and between Reason and normativity.

Symposium On Pursuing Racial Fairness In Criminal Justice: Twenty Years After Mccleskey V. Kemp, Jeffrey Fagan, Mukul A. Bakhshi

Faculty Scholarship

Last year marked the twentieth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in McCleskey v. Kemp, a case whose ramifications for the pursuit of racial equality within criminal justice are still felt today. McCleskey set an impossibly high bar for constitutionally-based challenges seeking fundamental racial fairness in capital punishment. The McCleskey decision strengthened a jurisprudential climate that shifted and increased the burden onto defendants seeking constitutional relief from discriminatory and biased decisions at every step of the criminal justice process, from arrest to conviction and punishment. The McCleskey court articulated a crime-control rationale for tolerance of error and refused to …

Patterns Of Credit Card Use Among Low And Moderate Income Households, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter uses data from the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances for 2004 (the "SCF") to examine the penetration of credit cards into LMI markets. The chapter has two purposes. First, I discuss the rise of the modern credit market, emphasizing the segmentation of product lines based on behavioral and financial characteristics of customer groups. Among other things, that trend involves the use of products aimed at LMI households that differ significantly from those aimed at middle-class households. Second, I describe the extent to which LMI households borrow on credit cards, the types of LMI households that borrow, …

"See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Hea[R] Me" (And Maybe Smell And Taste Me, Too): I Am A Trademark – A Us Perspective, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The preceding chapter, “Between a sign and a brand,” addresses the current law in the UK and the EU regarding which signs can be a registered trademark, and the scope of protection a trademark receives. Jennifer Davis also considers the extent to which that scope does or should cover the more ineffable subject matter of “brand values.” This comment from the perspective of United States trademark law will follow a similar plan. It first will address what is (and is not) a trademark, focusing on the extensions of trademarks beyond traditional word marks and design marks (logos; trade dress [get-up]) …

Adolescent Development And The Regulation Of Youth Crime, Elizabeth S. Scott, Laurence Steinberg

Faculty Scholarship

Elizabeth Scott and Laurence Steinberg explore the dramatic changes in the law’s conception of young offenders between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. At the dawn of the juvenile court era, they note, most youths were tried and punished as if they were adults. Early juvenile court reformers argued strongly against such a view, believing that the justice system should offer young offenders treatment that would cure them of their antisocial ways. That rehabilitative model of juvenile justice held sway until a sharp upswing in youth violence at the end of the twentieth century …

Contractual Enforcement Institutions And The Structure Of Information, Avery W. Katz

Faculty Scholarship

Many economic writers on contract theory have assumed that legal institutions are simply unable to do the job of enforcement, and have thus attempted to devise arrangements that motivate the parties to keep their commitments even though a government tribunal would be unable to tell whether they had performed. But non-legal enforcement mechanisms operate both as substitutes and complements for legal mechanisms (and as substitutes and complements for each other). This essay sketches how parties should choose among available enforcement mechanisms, based on the costs of information and other transaction costs.

Decline And Fall? The Roberts Court And The Challenges To Campaign Finance Law, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court has had a major impact on the development of campaign finance law. Court decisions have barred most expenditure limits, upheld contribution restrictions and disclosure requirements, and limited the kinds of electoral ads that can be subject to regulation. In the McConnell decision in 2003 the Court demonstrated a greater openness to campaign finance regulation when it upheld McCain-Feingold's soft money and issue advocacy restrictions. Since McConnell, however, the composition of the Court has changed, and in two decisions in the past two years, the new majority has been much more hostile to campaign finance limits. In …

Seqra And Climate Change, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

New York's State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) is the centerpiece of environmental decision-making in the state. It requires state and local agencies to prepare environmental impact statements (EISs) for actions that could significantly affect the environment. SEQRA has become the principal framework for the identification and mitigation of environmental impacts.

The text of SEQRA provides that EISs should discuss the "effects of the proposed action on the use and conservation of energy resources, where applicable and significant." EISs under SEQRA are also required to consider, among many other things, a project's effects on air pollution. Since the main source …

Foreword, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

The launch of the Indian Journal of International Economic Law by the students at the National Law School of India University is a milestone. It fills an important lacuna in India's study of WTO law and should begin to provide us with informed perspectives on the evolving WTO jurisprudence excessively dominated by the perceptions and objectives of policymakers in powerful developed countries and by the activism of the gigantic, financially-flush NGOs like Friends of the Earth and Oxfam reflecting the viewpoints of their origin and location.

Our Uniform Patent System, Clarisa Long

Faculty Scholarship

Patent reform arouses passions among the affected industries, whether they are plaintiffs or defendants, willing users or unwilling participants in the patent system. The key question, therefore, is: How should we structure the patent system in order to best promote innovation in the U.S. economy?

The Metaphysics Of Mind And The Practical Science Of The Law, Sarah Seo, John F. Witt

Faculty Scholarship

In “Mind of a Moral Agent,” Susanna Blumenthal elegantly limns the rise and partial fall of the common sense theory of moral responsibility in American law. As Blumenthal convincingly describes it, the problem for early American jurists was nothing less than to solve the paradox of determinism and free will. How can the law declare someone morally culpable unless we are free to choose our own ends?

After the Revolution, according to Blumenthal’s account, American doctors and jurists turned to a sunny, Scottish Enlightenment theory of moral responsibility. In place of the tortured moral gymnastics of an older generation of …

Public Financing And Presidential Elections, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, legal scholar Richard Briffault traces the history of public funding of presidential elections. He analyzes the implications and prospects for the 2008 general election campaign. He also discusses the challenges facing the system of public funding, as campaign costs increase and public support wines, and possible reforms.