Law Commons^™

Slides: Ag Water Sharing: Legal Challenges And Considerations, Peter D. Nichols

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Peter D. Nichols, Esq., Partner, Berg, Hill, Greenleaf and Ruscitti, Boulder, CO

25 slides

Flexible Scheduling And Gender Equiality: The Working Families Flexibility Act Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Lane C. Powell

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The Working Families Flexibility Act (“WFFA”) as proposed in 2012 would create a federal right for employees to request flexible work arrangements. However, the bill contains no private right of action for employees to enforce this new right. By reframing the WFFA as an anti-discrimination statute targeting unconstitutional sex discrimination on the part of the States, the WFFA could be upheld under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, allowing Congress to provide a private right of action for both private and state employees. This Note uses the Supreme Court’s decisions on the Family Medical Leave Act in Hibbs and Coleman …

The Pragmatic Incrementalism Of Common Law Intellectual Property, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

All Faculty Scholarship

‘Common law intellectual property’ refers to a set of judge-made legal regimes that create exclusionary entitlements in different kinds of intangibles. Principally the creation of courts, many of these regimes are older than their statutory counterparts and continue to co-exist with them. Surprisingly though, intellectual property scholarship has paid scant attention to the nuanced law-making mechanisms and techniques that these regimes employ to navigate through several of intellectual property law’s substantive and structural problems. Common law intellectual property regimes employ a process of rule development that this Article calls ‘pragmatic incrementalism’. It involves the use of pragmatic and minimalist techniques …

Pharma's Nonobvious Problem, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

This Article considers the effect of the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc. on the nonobviousness standard for patentability as applied to pharmaceutical patents. By calling for an expansive and flexible analysis and disapproving of the use of rigid formulas in evaluating an invention for obviousness, KSR may appear to make it easier for generic competitors to challenge the validity of drug patents. But an examination of the Federal Circuit's nonobviousness jurisprudence in the context of such challenges reveals that the Federal Circuit has been employing all along the sort of flexible …

Private Rights And Collective Governance: A Functional Approach To Natural Resources Law, Eric T. Freyfogle

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

4 pages.

"Eric T. Freyfogle, Max L. Rowe Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law"

Different Roads To The Rule Of Law: Their Importance For Law Reform In Taiwan, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

Talk of law reform is in the air throughout East Asia. Whether in Beijing or Tokyo or here, law reform is spoken of in terms of strengthening the Rule of Law. But what is the Rule of Law? Different legal systems have different roads to reach the Rule of Law. These different roads are noticeable mainly in the different emphases different systems place on two critical elements in the realization of the Rule of Law State, namely rules and the machinery for implementing the rules, i.e., courts and administrative agencies. The Rule of Law makes demands on both the legal …

The Special Relationship Rule: Is It Consistent With The Waiver Of Sovereign Immunity? - A Study Of Kircher V. City Of Jamestown, Brian T. Cohen

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

State Water Planning To Protect Public Needs, David H. Getches

Water as a Public Resource: Emerging Rights and Obligations (Summer Conference, June 1-3)

44 pages.

Erisa Preemption: Judicial Flexibility And Statutory Rigidity, Leon E. Irish, Harrison J. Cohen

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article attempts to describe the ways in which, and the reasons why section 514(a) has caused the courts and Congress so much difficulty. Part I reviews the legislative history of section 514(a), with emphasis on the ambivalence Congress has shown toward its 1974 draftsmanship. Part II attempts to provide a coherent description of the case law that has developed under section 514(a). Part III completes the legislative history by examining the two instances in which experience compelled Congress to revise section 514. Finally, Part IV discusses examples of problems courts have faced when crafting a federal common law of …

Improving Jury Deliberations: A Reconsideration Of Lesser Included Offense Instructions, Michael D. Craig

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note approves of efforts to avoid hung juries by giving lesser included offense instructions but opposes those instructions that restrict juror decisions and coerce minority jurors. Rather, this Note offers a lesser included offense instruction that promotes flexibility and jury compromise without undermining the deliberative process. Part I describes the problem of hung juries and how courts have tried to prevent them with restrictive lesser included offense instructions. Part II analyzes the coercive impact of restrictive lesser included offense instructions and concludes that an instruction conditioning deliberations upon individual juror disagreement better promotes compromises on the merits while reducing …