Digital Commons Network^™

Sarbanes-Oxley, Corporate Federalism, And The Declining Significance Of Federal Reforms On State Director Independence Standards, Lisa M. Fairfax

Faculty Scholarship

Commentators have argued that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“Sarbanes-Oxley” or the “Act”) raises federalism concerns because it regulates the internal affairs of a corporation, including the composition of, and qualifications for, corporate boards, in a manner traditionally reserved to states. This Article responds to those claims, arguing that the Act reflects a relatively minimal intrusion into state law, particularly with regard to issues of director independence. This Article further argues that the Act’s failure to disturb state law on these issues may impede its ability to tighten director independence standards and by extension may undermine its ability to improve …

Survey Of The Law Of Cyberspace: Internet Contracting Cases 2004-2005, William L. Reynolds, Juliet M. Moringiello

Faculty Scholarship

This article reviews recent developments in the United States and the European Union involving Internet transactions. It describes those developments and analyzes both from a normative and practical perspective.

Defining Dicta, Maxwell L. Stearns, Michael Abramowicz

Faculty Scholarship

In recent decades, legal scholars have devoted substantially greater attention to studying the origin and nature of stare decisis than to defining the distinction between holding and dicta. This appears counterintuitive when one considers, first, that stare decisis applies only to holdings of announced precedents, and second, that beyond problematic and rudimentary intuitions, the legal system has failed to develop meaningful definitions of these terms. While lawyers, legal scholars, and jurists likely assume that they can identify dicta when they see it, a careful analysis that categorizes the range of judicial assertions in need of proper characterization reveals that defining …

Lawrence Summers At The Nber Conference: The Real Deal, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

This mini commentary is written in response to a public speech made by Lawrence Summers, then President of Harvard University in 2005 in which he asserted that the under-representation of women in science and engineering may be due in part to biological differences in abilities between women and men. This commentary argues that Summers' remarks constitute a brief against affirmative action for women stated so broadly that it easily encompasses objections to affirmative action for blacks and other non-white Americans. It concludes that our inability or unwillingness to make connections between gender bias and racial privilege helps to maintain a …

Toward Flawlessness, Peter E. Quint

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Counter-Stories: Maintaining And Expanding Civil Liberties In Wartime, Mark A. Graber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Constitutionalism And Political Science: Imaginative Scholarship, Unimaginative Teaching, Mark A. Graber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Regulation Of The Work Performance Relationship: Independent Contractors, Labor Subcontractors, And Joint Control Over An Employment-Like Relationship, Marley S. Weiss

Faculty Scholarship

I. Introduction. II. Who is covered and who is excluded from the protective scope of labor law, and the legal consequences for those excluded as independent contractors or owners. III. Benefits and burdens of the “employment relationship” characterization compared to a contract for services. IV. Speculations about solutions to the work relationship problem.

The Business Of Intimacy: Bridging The Private-Private Distinction, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Regulation By Software, James Grimmelmann

Faculty Scholarship

Software is neither law nor architecture. It is its own modality of regulation. This Note builds on Larry Lessig’s famous formulation that “code is law” to argue that Lessig was wrong to equate computer software with physical architecture. Although software resembles both law and architecture in its power to constrain behavior, it has features that distinguish it from both. The Note identifies four relevant attributes of software: It is ruleish, potentially nontransparent, impossible to ignore, and vulnerable to sudden failure. By assessing the impact of these characteristics in a given context, one can decide whether software is a good or …

Virtual Worlds As Comparative Law, James Grimmelmann

Faculty Scholarship

What would happen if we took seriously the claims of virtual worlds to be genuinely new places? Societies have laws, so why should virtual societies be any different? My topic, then, will not be the law of virtual worlds, but rather law in virtual worlds. If lawyers can learn from studying the legal systems of common law and civil law countries, perhaps we can also learn from studying the legal systems of virtual worlds.

In some cases, these legal systems track our own surprisingly well. In other cases, the contrasts are striking. Both the similarities and differences between real-life law …

Telling Stories, Saving Lives: The Battered Mothers' Testimony Project, Women's Narratives, And Court Reform, Leigh S. Goodmark

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Law Professor On Being Fashioned, Randy Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Introduction, Randy Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bruce Springsteen’S Hope And The Lawyer As Poet Advocate, Randy Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dorothy Day And Innovative Social Justice: A View From Inside The Box, Randy Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lessons To Be Learned, Lessons To Live Out: Catholicism At The Crossroads Of Judaism And American Legalism, Randy Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Recognizing That They Watch, Mary Kate Kearney

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Targets, Timetables And Effective Implementing Mechanisms: Necessary Building Blocks For Sustainable Development, John C. Dernbach

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Worst Way Of Selecting Judges—Except All The Others That Have Been Tried, Michael R. Dimino

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Attractive Complexity: Tax Deregulation, The Check-The-Box Election And The Future Of Tax Simplification, Steven A. Dean

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Introduction, Robyn L Meadows, Stephen L. Sepinuck, Russell A. Hakes

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unconscionability As A Contract Policing Device For The Elder Client: How Useful Is It?, Robyn L Meadows

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sales, Robyn L Meadows, Keith A. Rowley, Larry T. Garvin, Carolyn L. Dessin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Signals, Assent And Internet Contracting, Juliet M Moringiello

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Survey Of The Law Of Cyberspace: Internet Contracting Cases 2004-2005, Juliet M. Moringiello, William L. Reynolds

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Debtors Beware: The Expanding Universe Of Non-Assumable/Non-Assignable Contracts In Bankruptcy, Michelle M. Harner, Carl E. Black, Eric R. Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Heightened Standard Of Judicial Review In Cases Of Governmental Gender-Based Discrimination: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Influence On The U.S. Supreme Court In Craig V. Boren, Carlo A. Pedrioli

Faculty Scholarship

This paper argues that, as an amicus curiae who was working for the American Civil Liberties Union, Ruth Bader Ginsburg influenced the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision-making in the landmark 1976 case of Craig v. Boren. Craig, which received national news coverage from the New York Times, provided women, and men, with greater protection against governmental gender-based discrimination. In making the argument, this paper initially provides a brief, but essential note on heightened scrutiny in equal protection cases. Next, the paper compares the arguments of Ginsburg and Justice William Brennan, who wrote the opinion of the Court. Finally, the paper explains …

Poverty, Culture And The Bankruptcy Code: Narratives From The Money Law Clinic, Nathalie Martin

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, Professor Nathalie Martin shares her experiences attempting to teach clinical law, after many years of experience teaching in the doctrinal classroom. She describes the culture shock she and her students experienced while trying to provide bankruptcy, consumer, and business law assistance to people who came from backgrounds so different from their own. The article explores culture, race and social status, and how these necessarily affect the attorney-client relationship. The article also questions the practice of separating clinical legal education from the rest of legal education, and encourages schools to take a more integrated approach to teaching law. …

Whatever Happened To Law And Economics?, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.