Digital Commons Network^™

Lawyering In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence, Jonathan H. Choi, Monahan Amy, Daniel Schwarcz

Scholarship@WashULaw

We conducted the first randomized controlled trial to study the effect of AI assistance on human legal analysis. We randomly assigned law school students to complete realistic legal tasks either with or without the assistance of GPT-4, tracking how long the students took on each task and blind-grading the results. We found that access to GPT-4 only slightly and inconsistently improved the quality of participants’ legal analysis but induced large and consistent increases in speed. AI assistance improved the quality of output unevenly—where it was useful at all, the lowest-skilled participants saw the largest improvements. On the other hand, AI …

Do High School Students Understand Their Miranda Rights? A Preliminary Investigation, Emma K. Hinds

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Background: Numerous studies have established that the linguistic complexity of the Miranda warning often results in poor comprehension, particularly for adolescents. Several studies have shown that persons with language disorders are overrepresented in U.S. prisons. Additionally, a few studies have shown a strong positive correlation between language scores and scores on Miranda assessments. These findings suggest that individuals with language disorders are at risk for poor comprehension of their Miranda rights, placing them at greater risk of waiving those rights, which can lead to incarceration.

Aims: The goal of this preliminary investigation is to examine how well adolescents with typical …

Governing Artificial Intelligence Responsibility In Low To Middle Income Countries: Enabling Pathways To Sustainable Development, Adele Barzelay, Jeremy Ng, Mila Romanoff

California Western International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Seeking Asylum In The United States: Intersectional Analysis Of The Experiences Of Transgender Women From The Central American Northern Triangle, Debra Rodman, Carmen Monico, Karen S. Rotabi-Casares

Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Northern Triangle countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, are sources of a significant number of asylum seekers in the United States today. This article examines the underlying societal dynamics in these countries and considers the typical profile of transgender immigrant women seeking asylum in the U.S. on the legal grounds of having faced gender-based violence in their countries of origin. It analyzes the relevant international conventions as well as the social determinants of the health and mental health of transgender asylum seekers. It draws from 35 cases of transgender immigrant women subjected to child sexual abuse; sexual assault, …

Exoneration Finance, Kay L. Levine, Russell M. Gold

Articles

The path to financial compensation for the wrongfully convicted can be complex and time-consuming. Exonerees often struggle to make ends meet and function in free society, let alone navigate serpentine processes while waiting years for the recovery they deserve. Securing the assistance of an attorney is often a critical step, but too few lawyers are willing to risk accepting these complicated cases on a contingency-fee basis the only way that exoneree-clients can likely pay their lawyers without outside help.

Litigation finance an important tool for increasing access to justice in tort cases could help close this access to justice gap …

In Defense Of Land And Water Protectors: Environmental Justice And The Criminalization Of Environmental Activism, Mia Montoya Hammersley

University of Memphis Law Review

No abstract provided.

Quantifying The Rural Legal Desert Problem: Assessing Access To Justice And Legal Services In Marginalized Communities, K. Aleks Schaefer, Andrew Van Leuven

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fostering A Law Student's Professional Identity: How Law School Field Placements And Online Programming Can Develop The Next Generation Of Rural Lawyers, Melissa L. Kidder

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sharing Elected Prosecutors, Quinn Yeargain

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Friends In Law Places- The Role For Medical-Legal Partnerships In Reshaping The Rural Bar And Bedside, Michael Sobol

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Technology And Law School Pro Se Clinics To Enhance Rural Access To The Courts, Marilyn Trefz, Kelly Collinsworth

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Indigent Legal Services In South Dakota: A History, Benjamin Titus

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Battling The Form: A Front-End Approach To Default-Use Noncompetes, Rachel Arnow-Richman

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

A growing consensus holds that employer overuse of noncompete agreements adversely affects workers and the economy. But there is little agreement on how best to regulate these instruments. States have experimented with an array of idiosyncratic reforms that capture the most egregious misuses, while the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), has issued an outright ban that would prohibit all employee noncompetes and comparable instruments nationwide.

This Article argues that any effective reform strategy must target what it terms “default-use” noncompetes—boilerplate restraints imposed by employers as a matter of course without close consideration of their underlying justification. Some unlawful noncompetes are clearly …

Consumer Justice: Do Europeans Know Something We Do Not?, Magdalena Tulibacka

Emory International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Best Practices For Community Outreach For The Virginia Eviction Reduction Pilot, Callie B. Houghland

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

The purpose of this plan is to understand best practices for community outreach for the VERP program and provide materials to aid future outreach efforts. This plan has five parts. First, this plan will review characteristics that contribute to housing vulnerability, such as race or number of children, and consider which vulnerabilities should be prioritized in outreach. Then, this plan will identify how VERP grantees are currently conducting community outreach and who is being served through the program. Next this plan will look to understand who is missed between those who are most vulnerable and who are actually served across …

Access To Justice: A Roadmap To Creating And Launching Consumer Bankruptcy Experiential Programs In Law Schools, Ishaq Kundawala

Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal

No abstract provided.

Assumptions, Resources, And Inputs To Case Management: Implications For California’S Regional Center System, Jonathan Flint

Master's Projects

This project adds to knowledge of case management assumptions, resources, and inputs for California’s Regional Center system by surveying members of the Service Access and Equity working group, formed by the Department of Developmental Services (DDS). It recommends development of a logic model to evaluate case management activities because their intended societal impacts are difficult to directly measure. Additionally, it adds to the debate on health equity and racial disparities in Medicaid long-term services and supports (LTSS). In 1969, passage of the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act (The Lanterman Act) led to the first and still only entitlement to community-based …

Bias Notification Duty, Eldar Haber, Shai Stern

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

Algorithms are often tainted with bias that could negatively affect subjects' lives in many aspects. But while policymakers and scholars tend to focus their attention on methods to fix the bias within the algorithm or its output, they neglect a crucial piece of the puzzle: when companies discover bias and fix it in the algorithmic output, they do so behind the scenes. While such a move might debias the output, society remains in the dark about its existence or how it might have affected the outcome. Society thus misses a unique opportunity to study social and cognitive biases that shape …

Masthead, Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, Vol. 43 (2024-25)

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Language Barriers In The U.S. Legal System For Primarily Spanish Speakers: Attorney Perspectives And Potential Solutions For True Equal Access, Emma F. Kizer

Honors Program Theses

The U.S. legal system is difficult to navigate for anyone who is attempting to use it, but non-English-speaking individuals have a unique set of obstacles to overcome. Communicating and understanding legal jargon and processes can become increasingly strenuous when one does not speak English in a predominantly English system. This study is specifically focused on the barriers that Spanish-speaking clients face and potential ways to change the system in order to make the experiences of non-English speakers more accessible. By interviewing attorneys who work with both English and Spanish speaking clients, we gain insight into their perspective on issues they …

What I Talk About When I Talk About Charity Scott, Elizabeth Weeks

Scholarly Works

This essay pays tribute to Professor Charity Scott’s transformative impact on health law, legal education, and medical-legal partnerships. Reflecting on personal experience and Scott’s pioneering work, It highlights Scott’s integrity, compassion, and dedication to improving individual and community well-being through law. Scott’s role in establishing the Health Law Partnership (HeLP) and advancing the medical-legal partnership model is situated within the broader evolution of health justice, social determinants of health, and interprofessional collaboration. The essay underscores her legacy as a scholar, mentor, and innovator whose work continues to shape health law and inspire future generations of advocates, educators, and practitioners

Tax Expenditures And Horizontal Equity: A Present-Day Reassessment, Nir Fishbien

Chapman Law Review

Tax expenditures are “revenue losses attributable to provisions of the Federal tax laws which allow a special exclusion, exemption, or deduction from gross income or which provide a special credit, a preferential rate of tax, or a deferral of tax liability.” The concept of tax expenditures was coined by the first Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, Stanley S. Surrey, in the late 1960s, and was codified by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, which requires that a list of tax expenditures be included in the U.S. budget. The concept relies on the Haig-Simons definition of income (with certain adjustments) as …

Modern Disaster Fragmentation, Abigail E. André

Fordham Law Review

Natural disasters test us. They exist at the intersection of nature, law, and society to show us where our systems are failing. Beyond physical damage, they magnify weaknesses in our socioeconomic and legal systems. In an attempt to leverage the lessons disasters bring, this Article analyzes the administrative institutions that govern disaster relief from the perspective of law, history, equity, and institutional design. This intersectional analysis uncovers a system fragmented by centuries of disorganization and infused with socioeconomic discrimination. Minor revisions cannot fix our federal approach to disaster relief: an institutional overhaul is required to achieve good governance.

Guardians Of Ethics For The Profession Of Arms: Judge Advocates Assisting Commanders To Choose The Harder Right Over The Easier Wrong, Lisa M. Schenck

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Telling Stories, Curtis E. A. Karnow

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Judges As Lawyers, Deirdre M. Smith

Faculty Publications

The integrity of the American legal system and, thereby, of our democracy rests on the shoulders of the judiciary. It is widely understood that the roles of jurist and advocate are incompatible and that the fairness and legitimacy of our court systems require maintaining clear boundaries between those roles. Accordingly, an essential feature of every state’s judicial conduct code is a prohibition on the practice of law by judges. However, many states have carved out exceptions to this prohibition to allow part-time judges sitting in low-level trial courts to supplement their modest judicial compensation by practicing law. The rationale for …

The Subfederal In Immigration Polarization, Huyen Pham, Pham Hoang Van

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Lifting The Voices Of Cisgender Female Survivors Of Sexual Violence: A Systematic Review Of Their Experiences With Formal Support Providers/Systems, Madeleine Walker

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative systematic review aimed to recognize what adult cisgender female survivors of sexual violence said about their experiences with formal support providers upon disclosure and their recommendations to enhance the disclosure process. Using a deductive content analysis of nice qualitative studies, the researcher identified and explored supportive and unsupportive formal support providers’ behaviors. Results indicated that supportive experiences typically involved aspects of both emotional support and tangible aid. Unsupportive experiences mainly focused on how providers responded to and negatively treated cisgender female survivors during the entirety of the investigation process. Also, cultural factors, such as race, gender, ethnicity, and …

The Digitalization Of Litigation, Manuel A. Gómez

Emory International Law Review

The development of digital tools that enhance communications, security and decision making have caught the attention of international development agencies, national governments, civil society organizations, and the private sector. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has highlighted the importance of digital tools as a means “to improve justice sector efficiency, transparency and access to justice[,]” while the European Commission has aligned them with “a new push for European democracy in line with the political priority of a Europe fit for the digital age[.]” With these observations in mind, this article focuses on the unique advantages and challenges presented by the …

Blockchain As A Newer More Economic Form Of Data Services For Large Organizations

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

Blockchain can be used in Academia to create an alternative to the operating systems of a college. This helps reduce the economic and financial costs of operating. Blockchain also enables businesses in the area to connect to the college in a more economically efficient way. To complete these objectives, a prototype blockchain was created using Docker and Python. Blockchain improves the efficiency and security of data transfer within these institutions while providing additional features that will enhance operations for Institutional stakeholders and connected businesses. These additional features can solve issues within collegiate systems through financial assistance transparency and efficiency.