Law Commons^™

Mothers In Law, Melissa Murray

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality. By Tomiko Brown-Nagin.

Willard Hurst, Technological Changes, And The Transformation Of American Public Law, William J. Novak

Articles

As Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson once famously framed the “problem of humanity”: “We have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology.” America’s greatest philosopher John Dewey similarly placed this yawning gap between rapidly expanding technological change and slowly evolving human emotions and institutions at the heart of what he called The Public and Its Problems. Indeed, Dewey traced the origins of the modern American state as well as what he termed “the Great Society” to the new and modern technologies in production and commerce and steam and electricity that “resulted in a social revolution.” Without warning, Dewey argued, traditional local communities …

Susan Reynolds, John G. H. Hudson, David L. D'Avray

Book Chapters

Susan Reynolds was elected to the British Academy after she had worked out a new framework for the medieval history of England, France, Germany and northern Italy. The breakthrough book was her Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900–1300 (1984); it brought all levels of society together in a synthesis, and was a stunning achievement. Her subsequent Fiefs and Vassals (Oxford, 1994) left a generation reluctant even to use the word ‘feudalism’, and other important contributions continued until not long before she died. In 2001 she was honoured with a Festschrift entitled Law, Laity and Solidarities.

Racial Revisionism, Shaun Ossei-Owusu

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Enigma of Clarence Thomas. by Corey Robin.

Stanley Surrey, The Code And The Regime, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Nir Fishbien

Articles

Stanley Surrey (1910-1984) was arguably the most important tax scholar of his generation. Surrey was a rare combination of an academic (Berkeley and Harvard law schools, 1947-1961 and 1969-1981) and a government official (Tax Legislative Counsel, 1942-1947; Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, 1961-1969). Today he is mostly remembered for inventing the concept of tax expenditures and the tax expenditure budget. This paper will argue that while Surrey was influential in shaping domestic tax policy for a generation and had an impact after his death on the Tax Reform Act of 1986, his longest lasting contributions were in shaping the international …

Nicholas C. Howson's Tribute To Professor William P. Alford, Nicholas C. Howson

Articles

No abstract provided.

Winks, Whispers, And Prosecutorial Discretion In Rural Iowa, 1925-1928, Emily Prifogle

Articles

Through the eyes of Charles Pendleton’s memoirs, this article walks through a rural community with a county attorney to consider how race, religion, gender, and sexuality influenced rural prosecutorial discretion in the early twentieth century. Rural communities like those in Buena Vista County, Iowa, where the article is centered, experienced “the law” through distinctly isolated geographies and social networks that lacked anonymity and thus shaped available methods of conflict resolution. But anonymity did not mean homogeneity. Ethnic, racial, and religious diversity created divisions within a community where social distance between individuals was small. Both onymity and diversity shaped who should …

The Passion Of John Paul Stevens, Linda Greenhouse

Michigan Law Review

Review of John Paul Stevens' The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years.

Which Radicals?, Cass R. Sunstein

Michigan Law Review

Review of Jeremy McCarter's Young Radicals: In the War for American Ideals.

Review By Justice John Paul Stevens (Ret.), John Paul Stevens

Michigan Law Review

Review of Noah Feldman's The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.

Cardozo On The Supreme Court: Meeting High Expectations, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

President Trump announced his nomination of Neil Gorsuch — the sixth most senior judge on a federal appellate court in the hinterland—for a seat on the Supreme Court in a formal, nationally televised ceremony. Judge Gorsuch squeezed the shoulder of his wife, a gesture that signaled not only his thrill at the nomination but his joy at being able to share it with her. There followed a bitterly partisan process, featuring hearings at which the nominee testified and deflected questions about his substantive views. A change in the Senate rules, ending the possibility of a filibuster, was necessary to bring …

In Memoriam: John Reed, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Michigan Law Review

A tribute to John W. Reed.

Wilderness, Luck & Love: A Memoir And A Tribute, Neil Kagan

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

In 1984, Congress preserved 8.2 million acres of roadless federal lands as "wilderness," nearly matching the acreage set aside in the Wilderness Act of 1964. Congress also created the most new wilderness areas ever in a single year, by far. Wilderness Connect, Number of Wilderness Areas Designated by Year, https://wilderness.net/practitioners/wilderness-areas/summary-reports/wilderness-areas-designated-by-year.php.

I brought two lawsuits in 1983 that proved to be the catalyst responsible for breaking the years-long impasse that had previously stymied the protection of these pristine wildlands. The lawsuits also pushed Congress to preserve more wildlands as wilderness than it would have otherwise.

This article describes the lawsuits, …

From Integrationism To Equal Protection: Tenbroek And The Next 25 Years Of Disability Rights, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Articles

If there is one person who we can say is most responsible for the legal theory of the disability rights movement, that person is Jacobus tenBroek. Professor tenBroek was an influential scholar of disability law, whose writings in the 1960s laid the groundwork for the disability rights laws we have today. He was also an influential disability rights activist. He was one of the founders and the president for more than two decades of the National Federation of the Blind, one of the first-and for many years undisputedly the most effective-of the organizations made up of people with disabilities that …

Hanging Together: A Multilateral Approach To Taxing Multinationals, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The recent revelation that many multinational enterprises (MNEs) pay very little tax to the countries they operate in has led to various proposals to change the ways they are taxed. Most of these proposals, however, do not address the fundamental flaws in the international tax regime that allow companies like Apple or Starbucks to legally avoid taxation. In particular, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been working on a Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project and is supposed to make recommendations to the G20, but it is not clear yet whether this will result in a …

The Uneasy Case For The Retirement Of Douglas Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

In the fall semester of 1964, a young Douglas Kahn joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School. During the spring semester of 2016, he will teach his final course as a full-time faculty member. For the interim fifty two years, he has been a fixture of the Michigan law school community. As a tax professor, former student, and his son, I am pleased and honored to write this introduction for an edition of the Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review honoring Professor Kahn’s tenure at the University of Michigan.

Doug Kahn: Class Master, Dennis E. Ross

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Doug has always been a bit of a departure from the professorial norm. Teaching for Doug was no accommodation to the job, no activity collateral to his true ambition, but rather an openly genuine attempt to engage his students and pull them into a subject that he obviously loved. His evident joy when in front of a class closed any distance with his students, no small feat considering the subject matter. Tax is forbidding territory for many, and Doug was justifiably known for his refusal to dumb the material down. Thus, much of his class may have been there reluctantly, …

A Note, Robert T. Pelinka Jr.

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

I find it quite meaningful that heartwarming reflections about Douglas Kahn come very naturally to me. Perhaps that, in and of itself, says something about this incredible man. For context, my time in physical proximity to Professor Kahn came during my years as a student-athlete at the University of Michigan, where I graduated from the Ross School of Business, and the Law School. I was also a member of The Michigan Wolverines Basketball Team, where I participated in three NCAA Final Fours, and earned an NCAA Championship Title. I mention these things, not to tout my own accomplishments, but rather …

Doug Kahn: The Pied Piper Of Tax Law, Barrie Lawson Loeks, Burt P. Rosen

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Doug Kahn’s love of tax law appears to be contagious. His wife was a tax lawyer, his son is now a tax law professor, and even his daughter in law is a tax lawyer. Doug may have caught the “tax disease” from his elder brother, who was also a leading tax lawyer. In politics, we have the Kennedys, the Bushes, and the Clintons; in the world of tax law, we have the Kahn family dynasty. One can only assume that the discussions around the family Thanksgiving table sliced and diced tax regulations and policies right along with the turkey and …

Where Does One Begin To Describe A Professor Who Literally Changed Your Life?, Kelli Turner

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

A bit of background to set the stage, if you’ll indulge me. Growing up in West Bloomfield, Michigan, I was never overly ambitious, nor did I have any lofty academic goals. In particular, I never had any desire to go to law school or, for that matter, to become a lawyer. I come from a family of trial attorneys and it never interested me much. I was a numbers person and didn’t enjoy a lot of deep reading and essay writing (somewhat ironic as I’m writing this for a law journal). But when I started in public accounting and developed …

A Grateful Testimonial To Doug Kahn, Terrence G. Perris

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

It is difficult for me to accept the reality that Doug Kahn is about to retire after a triumphant fifty-two year tenure as a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. For much of the nearly forty-seven years of my association with the Law School, first as a student and then as an alumnus, Doug has practically symbolized the Law School for me, as he went from being a revered teacher, to a valued mentor, to a dear friend, to a colleague and co-author, and, dare I say, to virtually a member of the family. But I am only …

Doug Kahn - A Personal Appreciation, Patricia D. White

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Doug Kahn has a booming laugh and an infectious enthusiasm for his subject. I am one of the legions of students who were infected by the tax bug—thanks to Doug. It is appropriate that, on the occasion of his retirement, some of us who were most infected reflect on Doug’s influence in our lives. In my case this is easy. I owe the basic contours of my career to Doug. I graduated from Michigan Law in 1974. Times were different then. I graduated never having had a female instructor. There were no women on the faculty. Only thirteen percent of …

Helping A Lawyer To Understand What It Means To Think Like An Architect, Kevin Emerson Collins

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Professor Radin unquestionably influenced legal academia through her ideas, arguments, and scholarship. With that said, my tribute is decidedly personal. To me, Professor Radin was the mentor and role model that I sorely needed when I was figuring out what being a legal academic could mean for me.

Asking The Nearest Hippie, Shubha Ghosh

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

It is an honor to be asked to contribute to this Symposium in honor of Margaret Jane Radin. It is particularly exciting to be able to engage with her scholarship during the summer of 2015 (the time this essay was written) when so many compelling legal issues are coming to a head: same sex marriage and the recognition of dignity as a constitutional value, pragmatic treatment of controversial regulation such as the Affordable Care Act, the death penalty under scrutiny as two justices unequivocally reaffirm its unconstitutionality, voting rights protections roll back, police brutality against African-American citizens as a daily …

Peggy Radin, Mentor Extraordinaire, R. Anthony Reese

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

I write to celebrate Peggy Radin’s contributions to the legal academy in her role as a mentor. I know that others will speak to her significant scholarly achievements and important contributions across several fields. I want to pay tribute to the substantial time and energy that Peggy has devoted over the course of her career to mentoring students and young academics. I was extremely fortunate to have had a handful of mentors who helped me become a law professor. (I am also extremely fortunate that some of those mentors became generous senior colleagues who occasionally continue to help me navigate …

Contracts, Persons And Property: A Tribute To Margaret Jane Radin, Ruth L. Okediji

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

In 2011, the United States was only just beginning to emerge from what some claimed to be the most significant economic crisis since the Great Depression. The devastation wrought by unregulated subprime mortgages unfolded as a political, legal, financial and social tragedy. Millions of homeowners had purchased homes for amounts they most certainly could not afford, with terms and conditions written on documents they even more certainly had never read. Many of those most severely affected were, as one might expect, racial minorities and underrepresented groups, but plenty of other members of society were also caught in the intricately woven …

The Legacy Of Senator Edmund Muskie, Robert Hirshon

Articles

I am delighted to be with you this morning. My relationship with Senator Edmund Muskie actually predated my birth. It arose from my grandfather's ownership of a building in Waterville, Maine. On the ground floor was a dry goods and clothing store operated by my grandparents and frequently visited by Jane Gray, the future wife of Edmund Muskie. On one of the upper floors in 'the building was a small office that my grandfather rented to an aspiring young lawyer who had recently graduated from Cornell Law School and had returned to Maine to practice law. That young lawyer was …

Jack Sammons As Therapist, Jospeh Vining

Articles

Jack Sammons is well known as a pioneer in making the practice of law a field of academic study and teaching. He is also an original and penetrating analyst of law as such. This essay comments on his recent work, especially his putting the way we understand law and the way we understand music side by side and drawing out the parallels between them. Many will find his work a revelation.

Joseph L. Sax: The Realm Of The Legal Scholar, Nina A. Mendelson

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

It is one of my great regrets that I never really got to know Professor Joseph Sax personally. I joined the faculty at the University of Michigan Law School well over a decade after Sax departed our halls for the University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law. I met him on one occasion several years ago, when he gave an engaging workshop at Michigan on governance issues around Colorado River water allocation, complete with a detailed map of the watershed. I am exceptionally fortunate, however, to occupy a chair named for him. This is not only because …

The Legacy Of Professor Joe Sax, Fred Krupp

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

I grew up as the environmental movement did, in the 1960s and 1970s. In college at Yale, engineering professor Charlie Walker became my mentor and taught me that there are practical solutions for almost all environmental problems. This hopeful point of view inspired me to devote myself to the subject, first as an academic pursuit. As I neared graduation and was trying to decide on a path, Professor Walker handed me a book: Defending the Environment by Joseph Sax.1 That book was visionary in its description of private citizens’ ability to protect and defend the environment through the legal system. …