Law Commons^™

Crisis, Rupture And Structural Change: Re-Imagining Global Learning And Engagement While Staying In Place During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Shruti Rana, Hamid R. Ekbia

FIU Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented closures of national borders and the withdrawal of much of the social and cultural activities of society into the walls of the home. For us, educators focused on global engagement and analyzing international law and society, the abrupt retreat into the shelter of domestic walls disrupted the very subjects we were studying—inside and outside the classroom. In the pandemic’s first wave, most study abroad and international experiential programs were cancelled indefinitely, and the programs that continued had to operate in an environment of social distancing and uncertainty. We were forced to scramble to accommodate …

Copyrighting Tiktok Dances: Choreography In The Internet Age, Ali Johnson

Washington Law Review

TikTok is a video-sharing social media application that launched in 2018 and has grown wildly since its inception. Many users are drawn to the platform by “dance challenges”—short dance routines of varying complexity set to popular songs that are recreated by other users, eventually going “viral” (i.e., recreated on a massive scale by other users) on the app. Going viral can provide young dancers and choreographers an opportunity to break into the highly competitive entertainment industry. However, there is a problem: due to TikTok’s interface and community practices, the original creators of a dance (who, significantly, are often young women …

Internet Architecture And Disability, Blake Reid

Indiana Law Journal

The Internet is essential for education, employment, information, and cultural and democratic participation. For tens of millions of people with disabilities in the United States, barriers to accessing the Internet—including the visual presentation of information to people who are blind or visually impaired, the aural presentation of information to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and the persistence of Internet technology, interfaces, and content without regard to prohibitive cognitive load for people with cognitive and intellectual disabilities—collectively pose one of the most significant civil rights issues of the information age. Yet disability law lacks a comprehensive theoretical approach …

The City And The Soul: Character And Thriving In Law And Politics, Sherman J. Clark

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article describes a way of thinking about law and politics that is ancient in origins but largely absent from modern legal scholarship. It poses a two-part question: how do our law and politics influence our character, and how does that in turn influence how well and fully we live?

Much legal scholarship asks how law can be more efficient and effective in making us richer, healthier, safer, and such. This is good: wealth, health, and safety are—or can be—good things. But material conditions are not the only things that make for a rich and full life. What also matters—and …

"Christian Traditions, Culture, And Law": An Update And A Few Reflections, Robert F. Cochran Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

Using Richard Niebuhr’s description of Christian approaches to culture, this Article examines the way Christians approach law, focusing on developments over the last 20 years. During that time, synthesists have continued to develop natural law, seeking an understanding of law based on shared human goods and reason, an approach that can generate a common approach among people of all faiths and no faith. Conversionists, including those on both the political left and right, argue for changes in law that will reflect Christian understandings of the good. Separatists (including many former conversionists) argue that American culture and law have become so …

Helping Students Develop Affirmative Evidence Of Cross-Cultural Competency, Neil Hamilton, Jeff Maleska

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Who Speaks The Culture Of The Corporation?, Gwendolyn Gordon

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Recent cases – Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores and Citizens United chief among them – evince a new understanding of the nature of the corporation and its place in society. Whether a corporation has rights – such as those of religious exercise – is not, however, just a question of legal interpretation. To answer this question requires a theory of group or cultural identity, that is, a theory of how a group may have “culture” separate and apart from those of the individuals that comprise it. And such a theory must address how to understand the meaning of culture when …

Critical Race Science And Critical Race Philosophy Of Science, Paul Gowder

Fordham Law Review

Over several decades, feminist philosophy of science has revealed the ways in which much of science has proceeded from “mainstream” assumptions that privilege men and other hierarchically superordinate groups and existing socially constructed conceptions of gender. In doing so, it has produced a research program that, while rooted in the post- Kuhnian philosophy and sociology of science that has been taken up by many students of scientific method more generally, has been used to critique great swathes of modern science and to reveal both the biases of the mainstream, and the transformative potential of a science that proceeds from the …

Foreword: Diversity In The Legal Profession: A Comparative Perspective, Deborah L. Rhode

Fordham Law Review

In principle, the legal profession in the United States and United Kingdom is deeply committed to diversity and inclusion. In practice, it lags behind. This colloquium explores what stands in the way. Leading scholars from both countries look at the gap between aspirations and achievement, and suggest some concrete strategies for change.

Busy Doing Nothing: An Exploration Of The Disconnect Between Gender Equity Issues Faced By Large Law Firms In The United Kingdom And The Diversity Management Initiatives Devised To Address Them, Savita Kumra

Fordham Law Review

The Article has three parts: the first reviews the data showing women’s increased participation in the legal sector and assesses why increased participation has not led to inclusion at senior levels. The main barriers are macro and micro processes of social reproduction, poor access to mentors and influential business networks, and gender bias in society at large.

In the second part, the response by large law firms is assessed. This has largely consisted of “business case” approaches to diversity management. The key characteristics of these approaches are presented, as is an overview of key practices adopted by large law firms. …

Diversity In The Legal Profession: Perspectives From Managing Partners And General Counsel, Deborah L. Rhode, Lucy Buford Ricca

Fordham Law Review

Within the American legal profession, diversity is widely embraced in principle but seldom realized in practice. Women and minorities are grossly underrepresented at the top and overrepresented at the bottom. What accounts for this disparity and what can be done to address it are the subjects of this Article. It provides the first comprehensive portrait of the problem from the vantage of leaders of the nation’s largest legal organizations. Through their perspectives, this Article seeks to identify best practices for diversity in law firms and in-house legal departments, as well as the obstacles standing in the way.

Part I begins …

Biglaw Identity Capital: Pink And Blue, Black And White, Eli Wald

Fordham Law Review

This Article advances a new capital analysis, depicting BigLaw relationships not as basic labor-salary exchanges but rather as complex transactions in which BigLaw and its lawyers exchange labor and various forms of capital—social, cultural, and identity. Unlike the traditional Tournament Theory model, in which BigLaw and its lawyers come across as near hopeless pawns powerless to combat vicious exogenous societal forces outside of their control, the proposed capital model conceives of BigLaw and its lawyers as active players who are very much responsible for the outcomes of their exchanges. Moreover, exactly because the capital model describes the underrepresentation of diverse …

Reproduction And The Rule Of Law In Latin America, Michele Goodwin, Allison M. Whelan

Fordham Law Review

When Carmen Guadalupe Vasquez was rushed to [the] hospital after giving birth to a stillborn baby boy, the doctors first treated her life-threatening bleeding and then called the police, who handcuffed her to the bed. In El Salvador, where all abortion is illegal and emergency wards are turned into crime scenes, the confused, weak, and desperately ill 18-yearold maid was placed under investigation for terminating her pregnancy and driven away in a police van.

Race And Rapport: Homophily And Racial Disadvantage In Large Law Firms, Kevin Woodson

Fordham Law Review

This Article calls attention to a different, heretofore unacknowledged source of racial disadvantage in these firms, one that is neither dependent upon these inferences of racial bias, nor incompatible with them. Cultural homophily, the tendency of people to develop rapport and relationships with others on the basis of shared interests and experiences, profoundly and often determinatively disadvantages many black attorneys in America’s largest law firms. Although not intrinsically racial, cultural homophily has decidedly racial consequences in this context because of the profound social and cultural distance that separates black and white Americans, evident in pronounced racial patterns in a wide …

Legal Professional De(Re)Regulation, Equality, And Inclusion, And The Contested Space Of Professionalism Within The Legal Market In England And Wales, Lisa Webley

Fordham Law Review

This Article aims to examine equality and inclusion in legal services from the perspectives of would-be lawyers and would-be clients. It begins by examining the state and solicitors’ changing relationship regarding access to justice, professional independence, and the rule of law. It then considers the changes that the LSA 2007 wrought, and whether this neoliberal turn can deliver equality and inclusion within the profession and by the profession for those seeking redress with legal help. It also explores whether de(re)regulation may be altering the legal profession(s)’s ability to act as gatekeeper to the profession(s) and whether this too may have …

Shaping Diversity And Inclusion Policy With Research, Julie Ashdown

Fordham Law Review

The legal profession in England and Wales is perceived as pale, male, and stale (that is, white, male, and older), but is that actually the case? And, if it is, what could or should a representative body like the Law Society do about it? This Article considers the situation from the perspective of solicitors. It reviews the research that the Law Society has commissioned over the last twenty years and how the findings have impacted policymaking. This Article looks at the main initiatives resulting from the research and considers whether they have made a difference and what the continuing challenges …

Difference Blindness Vs. Bias Awareness: Why Law Firms With The Best Of Intentions Have Failed To Create Diverse Partnerships, Russell G. Pearce, Eli Wald, Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen

Fordham Law Review

This Article uses the example of BigLaw firms to explore the challenges that many elite organizations face in providing equal opportunity to their workers. Despite good intentions and the investment of significant resources, large law firms have been consistently unable to deliver diverse partnership structures—especially in more senior positions of power. Building on implicit and institutional bias scholarship and on successful approaches described in the organizational behavior literature, we argue that a significant barrier to systemic diversity at the law firm partnership level has been, paradoxically, the insistence on difference blindness standards that seek to evaluate each person on their …

Going Public: Diversity Disclosures By Large U.K. Law Firms, Steven Vaughan

Fordham Law Review

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has been the parent regulator of legal services in England and Wales since 2009. Born of the wide-ranging reforms introduced by the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA), the LSB is tasked with promoting the regulatory objectives contained within the LSA, including “encouraging an independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession.” In July 2011, the LSB introduced a rule requiring the collection of data on workforce diversity and the publication of that data by the legal profession. This was the first—and indeed, is the only—direct regulatory intervention taken with regard to diversity in the legal profession. …

Bicultural Experience In The Legal Profession: A Developmental Network Approach, Jonathan Ashong-Lamptey

Fordham Law Review

A developmental network refers to the egocentric network of individuals who take an active interest in and concerted actions toward advancing a protégé’s career. In Part I of this Article, I draw upon the literature to outline the lived experiences of black lawyers, highlighting the need for them to manage their working identity. In Part II, I further develop bicultural experience as a construct for exploring racial minority experience in a professional context with recent developments from the acculturation literature. In Part III, I introduce the developmental network as a vehicle for understanding developmental relationships. Part IV summarizes the methodology …

How Diversity Can Redeem The Mcdonnell Douglas Standard: Mounting An Effective Title Vii Defense Of The Commitment To Diversity In The Legal Profession, Stacy Hawkins

Fordham Law Review

This Article undertakes an analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, of the developing body of Title VII diversity law. The jurisprudence of diversity was first developed by the U.S. Supreme Court in equal protection cases, but it has not been confined to that context. In particular, lower federal courts have been adjudicating cases asserting an interest in diversity as a means of challenging or justifying race/ethnicity- or gender-conscious policies and/or practices under Title VII. These cases have given rise to a body of Title VII diversity law that has remained largely unexplored in the scholarly literature. Because these cases have gone …

The “Social Magic” Of Merit: Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In The English And Welsh Legal Profession, Hilary Sommerlad

Fordham Law Review

The discourse of merit is central to the “boundary” practices deployed by the white male elite of the English legal profession to exclude outsiders. The official discourse of government and regulatory body reports presents merit as an objectively verifiable and quantifiable property, synonymous with “excellence,” the salience of which in the recruitment process is indicative of the modernization of the profession. In this form it is mobilized to deflect criticism of the slow progress toward diversity. Critical interrogation of the discourse of merit reveals that it operates rather differently as a key structuring principle of the profession. The alternative meaning …

Naming Men As Men In Corporate Legal Practice: Gender And The Idea Of “Virtually 24/7 Commitment” In Law, Richard Collier

Fordham Law Review

This Article seeks to reframe and turn the conversation about gender equity in the legal profession on its head, taking up Hannah Brenner’s recent call to reconceptualize problems and rethink solutions around gender equity in the profession. It does so by moving beyond the frame of the retention of women and exploring selected aspects of the gendered practices of men in relation to this notion of the ideal legal professional in large transnational “city” law firms. The Article traces how particular ideas about men and gender are, on closer examination, implicated in a broader recasting of lawyer professionalism within the …

Religiosity In Constitutions And The Status Of Minority Rights, Brandy G. Robinson

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

Minority rights and religion have never been topics that are simultaneously considered. However, arguably, the two have relevance, especially when combined with the topic and theory of constitutionalism. Historically and traditionally, minorities have been granted certain rights and have been denied certain rights under various constitutions. These grants and denials relate to cultural differences and values, arguably relating to a culture’s understanding and interpretation of religion.

This article explores the relationship and status of minority rights as it relates to religiosity and constitutionalism. Essentially, there is a correlation between these topics and research shows where certain nations have used religion …

Character, Liberalism, And The Protean Culture Of Evidence Law, Daniel D. Blinka

Seattle University Law Review

It is time to rethink character evidence. Long notorious as the most frequently litigated evidence issue, character doctrine plagues courts, trial lawyers, and law students with its infamously “grotesque” array of nonsensical rules, whimsical distinctions, and arcane procedures. Character is a calculation of social worth and value; it is the sum total of what others think of us, whether expressed as their own opinion or the collective opinions of many (reputation). Once we grasp that character is a social construct, we are in a better position to address some of the problems that plague evidence law. To provide needed clarity …

The Mighty Work Of Making Nations Happy: A Response To James Davison Hunter, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Pepperdine Law Review

This article is an invited response to James Davison Hunter’s much-discussed book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010). Hunter, a sociologist at UVA and a believing Protestant, claims that law’s capacity to contribute to social change is “mostly illusory” and that Christians, therefore, should practice “faithful presence” in the public square rather than seek to influence law directly. My response is that it is, in fact, law’s stunning ability to alter and limit available choices that makes it an object of deservedly fierce contest. The wild …

Is Culture A Justiciable Issue? , Jessica L. Darraby

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Purple Haze, Clare Huntington

Michigan Law Review

It takes only a glance at the headlines every political season-with battles over issues ranging from abortion and abstinence-only education to same-sex marriage and single parenthood-to see that the culture wars have become a fixed feature of the American political landscape. The real puzzle is why these divides continue to resonate so powerfully. In Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture, Naomi Cahn and June Carbone offer an ambitious addition to our understanding of this puzzle, illustrating pointedly why it is so hard to talk across the political divide. In a telling anecdote in the …

The Gay Agenda, Libby Adler

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article is designed to illuminate options that the author believes have been difficult for advocates of gay rights to imagine due to an incessant culture war and the hard work of anti-gay forces that have kept pro-gay advocates under persistent fire. The culture war, this paper argues, while a fundraising boon and a media draw, compels a particular type of participation and a particular reform agenda, eclipsing reform possibilities that might be preferable in the long run.

Toward A Third-Wave Feminist Legal Theory: Young Women, Pornography And The Praxis Of Pleasure, Bridget J. Crawford

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Part I of this Article explores the general themes of third-wave feminist writings. The Article begins with an overview of third-wave feminist literature and its predominant concerns. These concerns are (1) dissatisfaction with earlier feminists; (2) the multiple nature of personal identity; (3) the joy of embracing traditional feminine appearance and attributes; (4) the centrality of sexual pleasure and sexual self-awareness; (5) the obstacles to economic empowerment; and (6) the social and cultural impact of media and technology. Textual analysis reveals third-wave feminists' reliance on non-legal tools for remedying gender inequality. Although third-wave feminists acknowledge the law's role in women's …

Love Doesn't Pay: The Fiction Of Marriage Rights In The Workplace, James A. Sonne

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.