Digital Commons Network^™

Why Is Betamax An Anachronism In The Digital Age?, Jiarui Liu

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Article aims to examine whether, as some courts indicate, the Sony doctrine is largely irrelevant in cyberspace. If the answer is no, how should courts properly apply the Sony doctrine to protect copyright holders' legitimate interests and further the innovation and prosperity of Internet technologies? This Article argues that the Sony doctrine should be given the widest application possible and not be subject to any preconceived formula. In the digital age, the test of "capable of substantial noninfringing uses" is still well suited to advance the ultimate objective of copyright law contemplated by the Supreme Court as well as …

Features Of Born-Global Processing Plants Under The Global Economy, Helen G. Zhao, Vistor H.Y. Lo, Domenic Sculli

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

A Born-Global Processing Plant (BGPP) is the formation of a new manufacturing plant specifically for the world-wide outsourcing industry and is a unique product of the global economy. The concept of a Born-Global entity has been mainly associated with high-tech industries and high-tech products. In this paper we extend the term BGPP to cover the concept of Born-Global to mature/low-tech and labor intensive processing plants that produce many of the traditional manufactured products. Such processing plants form the backbone of Southern China’s economic development. The conventional view regards a BGPP as playing a minor role in a traditional multinational enterprise …

Educating Lawyers For The Future Legal Profession, Thomas D. Morgan

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

What today's law students do as lawyers will be profoundly affected by changes their clients experience. Clients are likely to face more global competition than earlier generations could imagine, and they are likely to value lawyers who understand the non-legal aspects of their problems. Tomorrow's lawyers are likely to have to be more specialized than their predecessors, and many will deliver services that are less personal, more commodity-like, and less financially rewarding. Legal education, in turn, faces challenges producing lawyers capable of functioning in that world. Future lawyers will have to be simultaneously more specialized and more capable of responding …

A Model Regime Of Privacy Protection (Version 2.0), Daniel J. Solove, Chris Jay Hoofnagle

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This version incorporates and responds to the many comments that we received to Version 1.1, which we released on March 10, 2005.

Privacy protection in the United States has often been criticized, but critics have too infrequently suggested specific proposals for reform. Recently, there has been significant legislative interest at both the federal and state levels in addressing the privacy of personal information. This was sparked when ChoicePoint, one of the largest data brokers in the United States with records on almost every adult American citizen, sold data on about 145,000 people to fraudulent businesses set up by identity thieves. …

Defining Dicta, Michael B. Abramowicz, Maxwell L. Stearns

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

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 counter-intuitive 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 …

The Impact Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of 2002 On The Auditing Profession, Samantha Marie Rayburn

Honors Theses

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was passed in order to restore investor confidence to the market after a series of accounting fiascos. Congress included in this act legislation creating the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to monitor audits conducted on publicly traded companies and made many provisions concerning auditor independence. However, the most controversial part of the legislation was Section 404 which requires an audit of internal controls. The intent of this study was to determine how Sarbanes-Oxley will impact the auditing profession. This was determined through an intense review of the most current articles available on the subject. It …

Should Lawyers Participate In Rigged Systems: The Case Of The Military Commissions, Mary M. Cheh

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Lawyers often represent clients when the odds are long or a catastrophe likely. The facts might be harmful, the evidence overwhelming, or the law clearly on the side of the opponent. Still, we do the best we can. But what if the system is rigged? What if the system has the trappings of a fair fight, but is, in fact, skewed to one side and, by design, the lawyer cannot fully defend the client? What if the lawyer can only lend legitimacy to a process that at its core is biased, slanted in favor of the other side, or fundamentally …

Scholarly Profit Margins And The Legal Scholarship Network: Reflections On The Web, Lawrence A. Cunningham

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Controversy surrounding scholastic rankings arises, in part, because of complexities associated with measuring academic contributions. Legal researchers use various methodologies to assess scholarly production and impact but all suffer from inherent limitations and none provides data useful to scholarly self-reflection. The 10-year old Legal Scholarship Network (LSN) offers potential to improve considerably on both scores of public and personal assessment. This Essay critically evaluates approaches to conceptualizing scholarly profit margins, explores how LSN can enhance these conceptions, and opens new frontiers for this innovative Web-based repository of legal writing.

Follow The Giraffe's Lead - Lanco, Inc. V. Director, Division Of Taxation Gets Lost In The Quagmire That Is State Taxation, Cory D. Olson

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Symposium: An Experiment In Integrating Critical Theory And Clinical Education, Margaret E. Johnson

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Billable Hours Derby: Empirical Data On The Problems And Pressure Points, Susan Saab Fortney

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

If you ask law firm attorneys to identify their biggest complaint related to private law practice, most will probably respond with one word: billing. At the same time, clients are likely to identify billing as their most serious concern associated with obtaining legal services. The irony in clients and attorneys sharing frustration over hourly billing relates to the fact that the initial interest in hourly billing stemmed from attorneys' desire to be efficient and to maximize their earnings and clients' preference for only paying for the actual time expended on their behalf. Since the 1960s, hourly billing has evolved as …

Law Firm General Counsel As Sherpa: Challenges Facing The In-Firm Lawyer’S Lawyer, Susan Saab Fortney

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

This article addresses the increasing trend in law firms appointing general counsel. Part I of this article provides an overview of the frequency of law firms employing the services of general counsel and the different roles general counsel may assume in law firms. Part II outlines the duties of general counsel in advising the firm on matters related to firm structure. Part III observes that general counsel may play an important role in helping law firms choose the most appropriate method to compensate its lawyers to achieve the desired results. Part IV stresses the importance of the preventative measures general …

A Practical Guide To Chinese Patent Law, Cynthia Smith

Seton Hall Journal of Legislation and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

South Dakota Review 50th Anniversary Topic Index, Vols. 31-50, South Dakota Law Review

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Status And Rights Of Undocumented Workers: Advisory Opinion Oc-18, Sarah H. Cleveland

Faculty Scholarship

In Advisory Opinion OC-18 of September 17, 2003, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that international principles of nondiscrimination prohibit discriminating against undocumented migrant workers in the terms and conditions of work. The Court acknowledged that governments have the sovereign right to deny employment to undocumented immigrants, but held that such workers are equally protected by human rights in the workplace once an employment relationship is initiated. In other words, states may not further their immigration policies by denying basic workplace protections to undocumented employees.

The Importance Of Expectation Fulfillment On Domestic Violence Victims’ Satisfaction With The Police In The Uk, Amanda L. Robinson, Meghan S. Stroshine

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate what victims of domestic violence expect police to do for them, and how these expectations subsequently influence their levels of satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach – Structured interviews with 222 victims of domestic violence were conducted by staff from an integrated community-based service delivery agency in Cardiff, Wales. Multivariate analyses were performed to reveal the factors that contribute to domestic violence victims' satisfaction with the police.

Findings – Consistent with the expectancy disconfirmation model, results indicate that the most important determinant of satisfaction is the extent to which victims' expectations about police behaviour and demeanour are …

Contractual Incompleteness: A Transactional Perspective, Avery W. Katz

Faculty Scholarship

Recent scholarship in the field of contract law has concentrated on contractual incompleteness-that is, on the fact that except in the simplest and most basic transactions, contracting parties do not work out all of the relevant details and contingencies of their relationship at the outset. The reasons for incomplete contracts are varied. Sometimes parties deliberately leave terms unresolved, trusting future negotiations or social norms to fill in any problems that emerge. Other times, they leave terms unresolved without realizing they have done so, in part because they devote limited attention or resources to their negotiations and in part because contracts …

A Theory Of Access To Justice, Robert Rubinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article draws upon three observations: 1) the vast majority of disputes involve low-income litigants; 2) the vast majority of public and private resources of dispute resolution are allocated to disputes involving wealthy individuals and organizations; 3) any principled moral or ethical analysis demonstrates that the stakes are much higher in disputes involving low-income disputants than in disputes involving affluent individuals or organizations. Thus, the legal matters that attract a minute percentage of dispute resolution resources implicate issues of food and shelter, life and death. The Article describes a methodology - called "Resources of Dispute Resolution" or "RDR" - for …

Contractual Incompleteness: A Transactional Perspective, Avery W. Katz

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Promises And Pitfalls Of Reminiscences As Historical Documents: A Case In Point, Daniel W. Stowell

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

How did Abraham Lincoln get an acquittal for his client Duff Armstrong, on trial for his life in a murder case in 1858? His co-counsel and a prosecution attorney remembered that it was Lincoln's eloquent closing argument that recounted how the accused's parents had been kind to Lincoln when he was a young man, alone and without friends. Another co-counsel was certain that Lincoln's carefully worded jury instructions paved the way for Armstrong's acquittal. The judge recalled that it was a doctor's expert testimony that a blow to the back of the victim's head by someone other than Armstrong was …

Bulletin Of The University Of San Diego School Of Law 2005-2007, University Of San Diego. School Of Law

School of Law Course Catalogs (1954-2013)

44 pages : illustrations, photographs ; 29.5 cm

Laying Down The Law: Bringing Down The Legal Cartel In Real Estate Settlement Services And Beyond, Margaret O. Rentz

Georgia Law Review

America is in the midst of an explosion in the demand for legal services, yet few Americans can afford to pay the ever-increasing cost of legal fees and are thus continually deprived of access to the legal system. Non lawyers have responded to this problem by entering the market and attempting to provide basic legal services at deeply discounted rates. Under the guise of "consumer protection," the bar has responded by blocking non lawyers from 'practicing law" with unauthorized practice statutes. A debate has emerged over whether UPL statutes actually serve American consumers or merely guard the legal cartel's economic …

Going-Private Decisions And The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of 2002: A Cross-Country Analysis, Ehud Kamar, Pinar Karaca-Mandic, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

This article investigates whether the passage and the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) drove firms out of the public capital market. To control for other factors affecting exit decisions, we examine the post-SOX change in the propensity of public American targets to be bought by private acquirers rather than public ones with the corresponding change for foreign targets, which were outside the purview of SOX. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that SOX induced small firms to exit the public capital market during the year following its enactment. In contrast, SOX appears to have had little …

An Ethical Manifesto For Public Defenders, Monroe H. Freedman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

One way the states have purported to meet their constitutional obligation to provide counsel to poor people accused of crimes has been through court-appointed lawyers. However, the paltry compensation paid for these services has generally been inadequate to attract competent lawyers. In addition, judges have too often selected court appointed lawyers precisely because the lawyers are incompetent, and can be counted on to move the courts' calendars quickly by entering hasty guilty pleas in virtually all cases. In those few cases in which the accused insists on his right to trial by jury, the trials typically move rapidly because the …

Making Work Pay: Promoting Employment And Better Child Support Outcomes For Low-Income And Incarcerated Parents, Ann Cammett

Scholarly Works

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice prepared this report in response to concerns about child support debt—in particular as it creates a barrier to employment for low-income parents and works at cross-purposes with the goals of the child support program. Drawing on examples from other states, this report identifies a range of policies that inform child support practice in New Jersey and offers administrative, legislative, and programmatic solutions to address child support arrears owed by low-income and incarcerated parents.

Charity, Publicity, And The Donation Registry, Brian Broughman, Robert Cooter

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Many Americans donate little or nothing to charity, but according to Robert Cooter and Brian Broughman, our social environment is the cause, not human nature. They propose a small policy change to increase transparency and elicit generosity inspired by experimental evidence about the nature of giving.

Multicultural Lawyering: Teaching Psychology To Develop Cultural Self-Awareness, Carwina Weng

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Much of the current literature in multicultural lawyering focuses on learning substantive information about clients who are culturally different from the lawyer, such as how the client's culture perceives eye contact or reacts to science-based world views. This article notes that such a focus sidesteps the human reality that every person reacts to people who are different from him- or herself unconsciously in ways that may be culturally insensitive and discriminatory and that this human reaction occurs despite awareness of the general values, attitudes, and beliefs of the client's culture. It therefore suggests that multicultural lawyering training should begin with …

Regulating International Lawyers: The Legal Consultant Rules, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of The Transitional Support Needs For Young People Leaving Detention, Kirsten Janke

Theses : Honours

A successful transition from detention to living in the community is a critical step in preventing young people from recidivism and entrenchment in criminal activity (Utting & Vennard, 2000). According to Outcare, an organisation that provides support services to offenders, ex-offenders and their families, there seems to be difficulty accommodating newly released young people in existing accommodation services: additionally, many of these young people are not able to access existing support services which contributes significantly to recidivist behaviour. The purpose of undertaking this qualitative study was to examine the transitional support needs for young people leaving detention. The investigation adopted …