Digital Commons Network^™

Towards Racial Justice: The Role Of Medical-Legal Partnerships, Medha D. Makhlouf

Faculty Scholarly Works

Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) integrate knowledge and practices from law and health care in pursuit of health equity. However, the MLP movement has not reached its full potential to address racial health inequities, in part because its original framing was not explicitly race conscious. This article aims to stimulate discussion of the role of MLPs in racial justice. It calls for MLPs to name racism as a social determinant of health and to examine how racism may operate in the field. This work sets the stage for the next step: operationalizing racial justice in the MLP model, research, and practice.

Stemming The Shadow Pandemic: Integrating Sociolegal Services In Contact Tracing And Beyond, Medha D. Makhlouf

Faculty Scholarly Works

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the challenges of complying with public health guidance to isolate or quarantine without access to adequate income, housing, food, and other resources. When people cannot safely isolate or quarantine during an outbreak of infectious disease, a critical public health strategy fails. This article proposes integrating sociolegal needs screening and services into contact tracing as a way to mitigate public health harms and pandemic-related health inequities.

A Black Woman Law Dean Speaks About The Precarity Of Leadership, Danielle M. Conway

Faculty Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

China’S Sanctions And Rule Of Law: How To Respond When China Targets Lawyers, F. Scott Kieff, Thomas D. Grant

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has begun to use sanctions against people who speak out against its policies, including even lawyers in their ordinary work representing the interests of their clients. This paper explores the deleterious impact such sanctions can have on the entire legal profession, the broader community putatively served by the profession, and the rule of law.

The Institutional Mismatch Of State Civil Courts, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

State civil courts are central institutions in American democracy. Though designed for dispute resolution, these courts function as emergency rooms for social needs in the face of the failure of the legislative and executive branches to disrupt or mitigate inequality. We reconsider national case data to analyze the presence of social needs in state civil cases. We then use original data from courtroom observation and interviews to theorize how state civil courts grapple with the mismatch between the social needs people bring to these courts and their institutional design. This institutional mismatch leads to two roles of state civil courts …

Beyond Imagination?: The January 6 Insurrection (2022), Mark C. Alexander, Michele Alexandre, Erwin S. Chemerinsky, Danielle M. Conway, Anthony W. Crowell, Garry W. Jenkins, Kevin R. Johnson, Jennifer L. Mnookin, Kimberly Mutcherson, Andrew M. Perlman, Carla D. Pratt, Theodore W. Ruger, Daniel P. Tokaji, Robert K. Vischer

Books

The United States is a nation of laws, and its Constitution and the rule of law have allowed it to confront and successfully navigate many threats to democracy throughout the nation’s complex history, including a Civil War. All of these threats challenged the nation in various ways, but never has there been a challenge to the truth of our elections like what happened on January 6, 2021.

The Insurrection represents a turning point in America’s history. In addition to the unprecedented assault on the U.S. Capitol, members of the government sought to undermine an election and supported an attack on …

Rhode Was Right (About Character And Fitness), Leslie C. Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

Almost 40 years ago, Deborah Rhode chronicled numerous problems with the legal profession’s character and fitness inquiry in her seminal article, Moral Character as a Professional Credential. This essay, which is dedicated to her memory, assesses the current state of that inquiry. The essay notes a few areas of improvement in some jurisdictions, but finds the character and fitness inquiry remains problematic. Some jurisdictions continue to operate without published standards and most character and fitness committees—and even the courts— do not publish information about their decisions. It is still the case, as Rhode noted, that there is little evidence that …

"This Is Not Normal": The Role Of Lawyer Organizations In Protecting Constitutional Norms And Values, Leslie C. Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

Lawyer organizations in the United States perform a range of functions. Some are essentially social clubs that provide networking opportunities for lawyers. Others help their members stay up to date on changes in the law and provide other educational and material benefits.1 Through these efforts, lawyer organizations often serve as a site where lawyers learn the norms and values of the legal profession. Some lawyer organizations also perform more outward facing functions, working through lobbying and litigation to maintain lawyers’ status and protect their economic interests. Others pursue even broader goals, working to enhance the functioning of the courts, provide …

Tennessee Blue Book 2021-2022, Tennessee. Secretary Of State.

Tennessee Blue Book

No abstract provided.

Here To Stay: Wrestling With The Future Of The Quickly Maturing Spac Market, Matthew Diller, Rick Fleming, Stephen Fraidin, Aj Harris, Gregory F. Laufer, Mark Lebovitch, Gregg A. Noel, Hester M. Peirce, Usha R. Rodrigues, Mike Stegemoller, Verity Winship, Douglas Ellenoff

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

The Ties That Bind: The Relationship Between Law Firm Growth And Law Firm Survival, Alan J. Kluegel

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

For the better part of the twentieth century, law firms hired, trained, and grew through a stable and predictable pattern: hire new law school graduates, monitor and evaluate their work, and pick promising attorneys from among their ranks and elevate them to partner. Rinse, lather, repeat. A combination of professional norms and organizational inertia made this approach the dominant method of growth among large corporate law firms until changes in legal market broke down these customary practices, ushering in a new era of lawyer mobility. Now, it has become commonplace for lawyers to leave for greener pastures as more law …

Limited Court Access V. Poor And Indigent, Chinyere Anunobi

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In criminal cases, poor individuals must qualify as legally indigent to receive legal representation. In civil cases, poor and indigent individuals must find their own resources to support themselves since the government does not guarantee counsel. Without counsel, poor and indigent individuals are forced to find legal representation for these cases on their own, which can be difficult considering the expenses of fees and fines. Cognitive processes, including bias and stereotypes, create a barrier in advocacy because they cloud judgement of decision-makers, which can diminish the voice of this vulnerable community. Barriers like these create an invisible wall where limited …

Patient Referral Failures, Jessica L. Mantel, Leah R. Fowler

Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine

No abstract provided.

Getting Out Of Traffic: Applying White Collar Investigative Tactics To Increase Detection Of Sex Trafficking Cases, Evan Binder

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

When federal authorities investigate sex trafficking, three realities are consistently present. First, most sex trafficking investigations begin in response to an individual affirmatively bringing evidence to investigators. Second, the elements required to prove a someone guilty of sex trafficking under federal sex trafficking laws incentivize prosecutors to rely on victim testimony and their cooperation throughout the life of the investigation. This can be, and often is, psychologically traumatizing for the victim. Third, most cases are viewed through a traditional tripartite structure, involving the trafficker, the victim(s), and the purchasers of the sex act (johns). However, recent high-profile sex trafficking indictments …

Good Intentions: Administrative Fiat And The General Welfare Exclusion, Samuel D. Brunson, Christian A. Johnson

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Since its introduction in 1913, the federal income tax has viewed income expansively, subjecting virtually all types of enrichment as gross income unless Congress explicitly exempted the income from taxation. But in the income tax’s second decade, the Bureau of Internal Revenue created an exception to the broad reach, an exception not grounded in any type of Congressional enactment. The Bureau’s practice of excluding certain benefits began innocuously in the late 1930s by excluding certain social security benefits from gross income. Over the decades, the IRS has used what it now refers to as the “general welfare exclusion” to exclude …

Witnessed From The Justice Bus: Covid Drove Equal Justice Off The Road, But Technology Grabbed The Wheel And Is Steering Us Into The Future, Jude Schmit, Rachel Albertson

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Conceptualizing Attorney Motivation: A Study Of The Representatives For Parents And Children In The Child Welfare System, Shannon Moody

Theses and Dissertations--Social Work

Background. Attorneys who represent parents and children in dependency, neglect, and abuse (DNA) proceedings are key in influencing the outcomes of the cases they carry. These influences include the length of time a child spends in the custody of the state or the necessity for foster care, visitation with family members, length of time to reunification, and recommended services for the child and parents (Courtney & Hook, 2012; Goldman, 1993; Thornton & Gwin, 2012; Zinn & Peters, 2015). The American Bar Association’s analysis is that there are “four constants: high caseloads, low compensation, inadequate training, and lack of supervision” …

A Pandemic And Evictions: A Dangerous Duo That Is Creating An Insurmountable Crisis, Kenneth D. Freid

Student Works

No abstract provided.

The Supplier Shield: Covid-19 Effects On Suppliers Of Highly Affected Industries, Maisy Mills

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the effect Covid-19 has on hard-hit industries and their suppliers. By looking at the widening of credit spreads on corporate bonds, a shield can be observed through the disproportionate way Covid affects hard-hit companies compared to their suppliers. The dataset looks specifically at three highly affected industries which are accommodation, air transportation, and full-service restaurants. This paper runs a linear regression that looks at the effect that being one of the main 3 frontline industries has on credit spreads of corporate bonds versus that from being a supplier of these industries. The regression highlights the effects that …

Searching For Justice For Australia’S Stolen Generations, Keila Mayberry

Chicago Journal of International Law

Until the early 1970s, Australian federal and state government agencies forcibly removed tens of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and placed them up for adoption or in group homes and church missions. These children are known as the “Stolen Generations.” Domestic remedies have proven insufficient in securing justice for the Stolen Generations and international adjudication may be a viable alternative. This Comment examines whether Australia may be haled before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for violations of the Genocide Convention for its Stolen Generations policies. Australia’s policies likely constituted a violation of Article …

Legal Uncertainties: Covid-19, Distance Learning, Bar Exams, And The Future Of U.S. Legal Education, Christine Corcos

Journal Articles

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the U.S. legal academy and legal profession to make changes to legal education and training very rapidly in order to accommodate the needs of students, graduates, practitioners, clients, and the public. Like most of the public, members of the profession assumed that most, if not all, of the changes would be temporary, and life would return to a pre-pandemic normal.

These assumed temporary changes included a rapid and massive shift to online teaching for legal education, to online administration of the bar exam in some jurisdictions, or the option to offer the diploma privilege in others. …

Reflections On A Crit Clinic, Elizabeth L. Macdowell, Nina L. Terzian

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Billing Judgment, Nancy B. Rapoport, Joseph R. Tiano Jr.

Scholarly Works

In most situations, when a lawyer sends a bill to a client, the client pays the fees. When the client believes that a fee or expense is unreasonable, the client will ask for reductions. Conscientious lawyers review a bill before sending it to the client, exercising judgment in terms of what fees and expenses are reasonable. But in bankruptcy cases, the estate pays the court-appointed professionals' fees and expenses out of unsecured funds or from a cash collateral carve-out. Thus, the responsibility for scrutinizing the fees and expenses falls not to a particular client, but to the court, per 11 …

A Peace Treaty For The Bar Wars: An Updated Framework To Determine Permissibility Of Mandatory Bar Association Activity, Everett Stanley

Emory Law Journal

First Amendment challenges against the constitutionality of mandatory bar associations have frequented federal appellate courts. However, only two Supreme Court cases are directly applicable to these claims, neither of which provides a clear framework to adjudicate all of the issues involved. As a result, appellate courts have taken divergent routes to determine the constitutionality of whether (1) mandatory membership to the bar generally violates the freedom of association, and (2) certain activities undertaken by mandatory bar associations violate the freedom of speech and, in some circuit courts, association. The first issue has resulted in a rift between circuits. The Sixth …

The Minds Behind The Movement: The Role Of Academics In East Asia’S War Reparations Litigation, Timothy Webster

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Talking Foreign Policy: “Blood & Treasure” September 28, 2021 Broadcast, Michael P. Scharf, Et Al.

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

Talking Foreign Policy broadcast from Sept. 28, 2021, "Blood and Treasure," featuring Michael P. Scharf, Sandra Hodgkinson, Darin E.W. Johnson, Gregory P. Noone, and Milena Sterio. Interviews of international lawyers whose real-life experiences may have helped inspire the CBS TV show.

Alternatives To Immigrant Detention Under Biden: Expansion Of Immigrant Industrial Complex, Amber Chong

Scripps Senior Theses

This article examines the political reasons for the expansion of alternatives to detention (ATD) for immigrants under President Joe Biden’s administration. Enrollment in ATDs has doubled since the beginning of Biden’s presidency in January 2021, a stark growth after over ⅔ of voters polled by the ACLU said they would support the elimination of private immigrant detention centers. To understand the growth of ATD, I analyze the bipartisan expansion of immigrant detention and militarization of the U.S. Mexico border, discussing the Democratic Party’s history of criminalizing immigrants and bolstering surveillance in service of racist notions of “national security.” I then …

Abolishing The Evidence-Based Paradigm, Erin Collins

Law Faculty Publications

The belief that policies and procedures should be data-driven and “evidence-based” has become criminal law’s leading paradigm for reform. This evidence-based paradigm, which promotes quantitative data collection and empirical analysis to shape and assess reforms, has been widely embraced for its potential to cure the emotional and political pathologies that led to mass incarceration. It has influenced reforms across the criminal procedure spectrum, from predictive policing through actuarial sentencing. The paradigm’s appeal is clear: it promises an objective approach that lets data – not politics – lead the way and purports to have no agenda beyond identifying effective, efficient reforms. …

University Of Memphis Magazine, 1997 Spring

University of Memphis Magazine

FROM THE PRESIDENT:

This issue of our magazine is devoted to showing some of the ways The University of Memphis is fulfilling its role as a comprehensive urban university. Through these pages, you will read specific ways we are impacting our community. You will notice that our faculty and staff as well as a number of our local alumni are involved in outreach projects.

As the major university in this city and region, The University of Memphis is involved in nearly every aspect of public and private enterprise. Our mission statement makes clear the commitment we have to serve the …

University Of Memphis Magazine, 2013 Spring

University of Memphis Magazine

Cover Story, "Patent Pending" by Greg Russell

A new breed of scientists at the U of M is aggressively pursuing inventions that are already affecting millions around the world.

Also featured: The Columns Alumni Review