Law Commons^™

Selective Patronage, Omari Scott Simmons

Seattle University Law Review

Contemporary academic corporate governance narratives have a blind spot. They focus on institutions, rules, regulations, processes, procedures, intermediaries, and market forces. Yet, missing in this narrative, is the impact of corporate leadership. Ignoring the “black box” of corporate leadership, particularly individual actors, renders an incomplete descriptive assessment as well as potential miscalculations. The examination of key historical figures and their corporate activism provides an important lens through which to identify potential challenges and opportunities related to the contemporary ESG movement.

Generally, this essay examines corporate leadership’s potential to address socio-political issues through the prism of Civil Rights Movement activism. Specifically, …

Reframing The Dei Case, Veronica Root Martinez

Seattle University Law Review

Corporate firms have long expressed their support for the idea that their organizations should become more demographically diverse while creating a culture that is inclusive of all members of the firm. These firms have traditionally, however, not been successful at improving demographic diversity and true inclusion within the upper echelons of their organizations. The status quo seemed unlikely to move, but expectations for corporate firms were upended after the #MeToo Movement of 2017 and 2018, which was followed by corporate support of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement in 2020. These two social movements, while distinct in many ways, forced firms to rethink …

Universal Forms Of Influence: Support For Women On Boards, Cindy A. Schipani, Paula J. Caproni

Seattle University Law Review

There are various efforts underway to increase gender diversity on corporate boards, including legislation in California, a recent SEC approved comply or explain rule for companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, and efforts by institutional investors such as State Street and BlackRock to recognize the value diversity brings to corporate decisionmaking. Although some of these efforts are being contested in the courts, many companies have begun to comply with these initiatives.

This Article is organized as follows. Part I provides an overview of several efforts to increase gender diversity on boards along with numerous research studies showcasing the benefits …

Court’S Choice Of Law Ruling Undermines Washington Community Property Law: A Critique Of Shanghai Commercial Bank V. Chang, Brian D. Hulse

Seattle University Law Review

This Article deals with the issues that arise when Washington courts face the following scenario. One spouse enters into a contract without the joinder (and perhaps without the knowledge) of the other spouse. Both spouses are domiciled in Washington. The contract has contacts with one or more jurisdictions other than Washington and is generally governed as to validity and interpretation by the law of another jurisdiction. The contracting spouse defaults and the other party to the contract obtains a judgment on the contract. The court confronts a question about the property to which the plaintiff will have recourse to collect …

The Role Of The Aba’S “Summits” In Facilitating Global Networks And International Cross-Border Legal Practice, Laurel Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

This Article was written for a Symposium honoring recently-retired Professor Bob Lutz. It describes fourteen gatherings that were organized by either the ABA Section of International Law’s Transnational Legal Practice Committee or by the predecessor entities to the ABA Standing Committee on International Trade in Legal Services. Professor Lutz was a driving force behind these gatherings, which were held between 2004 and 2014, and were referred to by the organizers as “Summits.” This Article examines the impact of these Summits and explains why they played a critical role in helping establish global legal profession networks among U.S. legal profession stakeholders …

How Do Prosecutors "Send A Message"?, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

The recent indictments of former President Trump are stirring national debate about their effects on American society. Commentators speculate on the cases’ impact outside of the courtroom — on the 2024 election, on political polarization, and on the future of American democracy. Such cases originated in the prosecutor’s office, begging the question of if, when, and how prosecutors should consider the societal effects of the cases they bring.

Indeed, prosecutors often publicly claim that they “send a message” when they indict a defendant. What, exactly, does this mean? Often, their assumption is that such messaging goes in one direction: indictment …

Road To Recovery: Why Rhode Island Drivers Should Be Made Whole From Potholes, Jordan Z. Sasa

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Creating A Better, Fairer Criminal Justice System, David A. Harris, Created And Presented Jointly By Students From State Correctional Institution - Greene, Waynesburg, Pa, And University Of Pittsburgh School Of Law, Chief Editor: David A. Harris

Articles

In the Fall 2022 semester, 14 law (Outside) students from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and 14 incarcerated (Inside) students at the State Correctional Institution at Greene, in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, took a full-semester class together called "Issues in Criminal Justice and the Law." The class, taught and facilitated by Professor David Harris, utilized the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program pedagogy, emphasizing dialogic learning and peer teaching. The semester culminated with a group project, with the topic selected by the students: "creating a better, fairer criminal justice system." Members of the class organized themselves into small groups, each working for …

Trauma-Informed Legal Advocacy, Laken Albrink

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A trauma-informed approach in legal practice can reduce the re-traumatization of victims, provide recognition of the role trauma plays in the attorney-client relationship, and provide legal professionals with the opportunity to increase connections to their clients and improve advocacy.1 Part Two of this article defines trauma and adverse childhood experiences and the impact they have on clients. It then explores indicators of trauma and how they may present case barriers if the attorney is not trauma informed. Part Three explores ways attorneys can tailor their practice of law to be trauma-informed with clients, support staff, and other professionals. It demonstrates …

The Intersections Among Science, Technology, Policy And Law: In Between Truth And Justice, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Different visions on the interaction between science, technology, policy and law have been presented. As common axe, we can detect the continuous search for truth and justice. Science and Law as social constructs, the distinction between truths and opinions through procedural method based on evidence and rationality, or how natural science “things” became facts, and consequently “truth”, are examples of this search. The evidence-gathering process that integrates scientific evidence into trial (sometimes by procedure and other times by a more substantive approach) is another possible approach. Of course, that the game of mutual influence among the four elements creates contradictions …

Science, Technology, Society, And Law, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Traditionally, science and technology have been granted as sources of knowledge and objective truth. However, much more recently, they are also seen as human activities, conducted in a social environment. This new approach focuses on the intersections between science, technology and society, and particularly their regulation by the law. Concerns on how to best regulate the interaction come up in modern societies, and when either their use or their impacts are global, international law and international organizations become involved. The impact of the fourfold relation is so high that science and technology are seen as one of the reasons for …

Artificial Intelligence And Contract Formation: Back To Contract As Bargain?, John Linarelli

Book Chapters

Some say AI is advancing quickly. ChatGPT, Bard, Bing’s AI, LaMDA, and other recent advances are remarkable, but they are talkers not doers. Advances toward some kind of robust agency for AI is, however, coming. Humans and their law must prepare for it. This chapter addresses this preparation from the standpoint of contract law and contract practices. An AI agent that can participate as a contracting agent, in a philosophical or psychological sense, with humans in the formation of a con-tract will have to have the following properties: (1) AI will need the cognitive functions to act with intention and …

The Interlinkages Science-Technology-Law: Information And Communication Society, Knowledge-Based Economy And The Rule Of Law, Giovanni Bombelli, Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

This chapter focuses on the circular and complex relationship between science, technology, society, and law. The technology/society connection focuses on the democratic deficit issue. The democratic deficit would be a consequence of the lack of adaptability of western democracy to complex (information) societies, where technology (and the increasing access to data that it permits) is separating the connection between information and knowledge (as well as the classical legitimacy couple of democracy-truth) moving these societies towards a technocracy. On one hand, the technology-law circle deals with the progressive reduction of law to a normative technique (since the law is always late …

Establishing The Legal Framework To Regulate Quantum Computing Technology, Kaya Derose

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Ethics For Real Estate Lawyers Today, John G. Cameron Jr., Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

This essay discusses various ethics issues that real estate lawyers experience: everything from new ABA Model Rule 8.4(g) (avoiding discrimination) to rules that apply when a lawyer works from home to technological competence and social media to the attorney-client privilege and to advance conflicts waivers. There is also a social science overlay that discusses why smart people do dumb things.

Can A Christian Be A Lawyer Or Can Both God And Jackson Browne Be Right, Randy Lee

Touro Law Review

Jesus’s final command at His final meal before His death was to “love one another.” No less than Jackson Browne insisted that the ultimate absurdity in an absurd world is a “lawyer in love.” Thus, Jesus has commanded that even lawyers must love, but Jackson Browne has emphatically stressed that lawyers are incapable of love. Given the apparent conflict for lawyers between these two observations of Jesus and Jackson Browne, one might wonder whether one can be a Christian and a lawyer both. Can both God and Jackson Browne be right? Of course, the government could seemingly make the answer …

The Conference Of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools Foreword, Samuel J. Levine

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Depoliticizing Federal Prosecution, Bruce Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Articles & Chapters

There is broad agreement that federal prosecutors should not use their power to pursue partisan political objectives, but there is stark disagreement about how to prevent them from abusing their power in this way. Geoffrey Berman, a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, recently argued that U.S. Attorneys should have complete autonomy and independence from the Attorney General and administration. Attorney General Bill Barr, in contrast, has insisted that Attorneys General should have full control over prosecutors so the administration can be held politically accountable. Neither view fully addresses the problem. Barr minimizes the significant …

Human Rights And Lawyer’S Oaths, Lauren E. Bartlett

All Faculty Scholarship

Each lawyer in the United States must take an oath to be licensed to practice law. The first time a lawyer takes this oath is usually a momentous occasion in their career, marked by ceremony and celebration. Yet, many lawyer’s oaths today are unremarkable and irrelevant to modern law practice at best, and at worst, inappropriate, discriminatory, and obsolete. Drawing on a fifty-state survey of lawyer’s oaths in the United States, this article argues that it is past time to update lawyer’s oaths in the United States and suggests drawing on human rights to make lawyer’s oaths more accessible and …

Outsourcing Self-Regulation, Marsha Griggs

All Faculty Scholarship

Answerable only to the courts that have the sole authority to grant or withhold the right to practice law, lawyers operate under a system of self-regulation. The self-regulated legal profession staunchly resists external interference from the legislative and administrative branches of government. Yet, with the same fervor that the legal profession defies non-judicial oversight, it has subordinated itself to the controlling influence of a private corporate interest. By outsourcing the mechanisms that control admission to the bar, the legal profession has all but surrendered the most crucial component of its gatekeeping function to an industry that profits at the expense …

Can A Tribunal’S Former Counsel Appear Before The Tribunal? A Comment On Certain Container Chassis, Andrew Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Lawyer mobility has been recognized as an important but not determinative consideration in legal ethics, particularly when it comes to conflicts of interest. Mobility poses particular issues for counsel to a tribunal. Those counsel may well at some point leave that position and pursue other opportunities. Prospective opportunities may sometimes involve appearing as counsel for a party before the same tribunal – especially where the tribunal operates in a highly specialized area of law. Can a lawyer appear before a tribunal if they were previously counsel to that tribunal? This discrete issue, though it rarely arises in the case law, …

Loyalty, Conscience, And Withdrawal: Are Government Lawyers Different?, Andrew Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

There is a growing recognition that the core concepts and specific rules of legal ethics can have unusual and even unique implications for government lawyers. In this short essay, I examine how loyalty, conscience, and withdrawal apply to government lawyers. I argue that while government lawyers should be slower than lawyers in private practice to exercise their professional discretions to withdraw from a matter, they must be particularly ready to withdraw when unavoidably required – despite any selfless dedication to the ideal of a non-partisan public service.

The Continuing Application Of Gladue Principles In The Professional Discipline Of Indigenous Lawyers: A Comment On Law Society Of Ontario V Mccullough, Andrew Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

While Gladue principles have previously been applied in the professional discipline of Indigenous lawyers, the recent decision of the Law Society Tribunal in Law Society of Ontario v McCullough affirms and applies those precedents in new and powerful ways. In this case comment, I explain the ways in which McCullough is important in its application of Gladue principles and consider what questions remain to be settled in future decisions.

A Critical Moral Dilemma Within Animal Law Impact Litigation, Kyla Dayton-Woods

Animal Law Review

Animals, as legal clients, deserve the same rights as people when being represented by attorneys. There is no Model Rule of Professional Conduct to guide attorneys on how to ethically represent their animal clients. This gap in the law demonstrates an uncertainty in how lawyers are meant to fulfill their moral and legal obligations for their animal clients. Using the Nonhuman Rights Project’s representation of two elephant clients, Beulah and Karen, as a test, this Article proposes a Model Rule to fill the moral gap. If this proposed rule was incorporated into the Model Rules, Beulah and Karen’s attorneys may …

Unsettling Human Rights Clinical Pedagogy And Practice In Settler Colonial Contexts, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Caroline Bishop Laporte

Faculty Articles

In settler colonial contexts, law and educational institutions operate as structures of oppression, extraction, erasure, disempowerment, and continuing violence against colonized peoples. Consequently, clinical legal advocacy often can reinforce coloniality--the logic that perpetuates structural violence against individuals and groups resisting colonization and struggling for survival as peoples. Critical legal theory, including Third World Approaches to International Law (“TWAIL”), has long exposed colonial laws and practices that entrench discriminatory, racialized power structures and prevent transformative international human rights advocacy. Understanding and responding to these critiques can assist in decolonizing international human rights clinical law teaching and practice but is insufficient in …

Investment Bankers And Inclusive Corporate Leadership, Afra Afsharipour

Seattle University Law Review

Few major deals happen without the engagement and advice of investment bankers. Whether a company is undertaking an initial public offering or engaging in a large merger or acquisition deal, investment bankers play a central role in advising corporate executives. Successful investment bankers are devoted to cultivating relationships with executives. And these relationships place bankers in a position to earn tens of millions in fees for their advisory and service roles in connection with corporate dealmaking. Investment bankers’ constant endeavors to nurture relationships with executives, while also maximizing their own ability to enhance fees, commonly leads to allegations of double-dealing, …

Why Corporate Boards Should Include Lgbtq+ People, Jeremy Mcclane, Darren Rosenblum

Seattle University Law Review

Corporate boardrooms sit at the heart of most of society’s most consequential decisions but fall far short of the diversity of our society. The current movement toward board diversification aims to remedy the underrepresentation of marginalized groups on corporate boards. More recently, some efforts have included LGBTQ+ people, even though the basis for their inclusion on corporate boards remains largely unstated. This Article examines both the normative and instrumental bases for LGBTQ+ inclusion in board diversity initiatives, articulating unspoken assumptions and linking LGBTQ+ people to the broader inclusion effort. In so doing, it begins to surface the unique issues LGBTQ+ …

Beyond The Business Case: Moving From Transactional To Transformational Inclusion, Jamillah Bowman Williams

Seattle University Law Review

While workplace diversity is a hot topic, the extent to which the diversity management movement has effectively improved intergroup relations and reduced racial inequality remains unclear.1 Despite large investments in diversity and inclusion training and other company wide initiatives, historically excluded groups remain vastly underrepresented in leadership and the most lucrative careers, such as finance, law, and technology. This calls the efficacy of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts into question, particularly with respect to reducing racial inequality in the workplace.

This Article explains why it is time for organizational leaders to move beyond the transactional case for diversity and …

Promoting Corporate Diversity: The Uncertain Role Of Institutional Investors, Jill Fisch

Seattle University Law Review

Two developments are having an impact on corporate decisions. One is the increased engagement by institutional intermediaries and a shift in the focus of that engagement from corporate governance to environmental and social issues. The other is a heightened societal awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues, particularly the importance of diversity in corporate leadership. This Article considers the intersection between the two. It describes how institutional investors have focused their attention on increasing diversity in corporate leadership, the potential motivations for that focus, and the impact of that focus, to date. It highlights the tensions that result from …

Women In Shareholder Activism, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

Even a cursory review of the history of American environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) shareholder activism reveals the presence of women leaders. This Article sketches some of this history and interrogates the role of women in the shareholder activism movement. That movement typically has involved claims by minority shareholders to corporate power; activists are nearly always on the margins of power, though minority shareholders may, collectively, represent a majority interest. This Article ascribes women’s leadership in shareholder activism to their longstanding position as outsiders to corporate organization. Women’s participation in shaping corporate policy—even from the margins—has provided women with …