Law Commons^™

Students For Fair Admissions: Affirming Affirmative Action And Shapeshifting Towards Cognitive Diversity?, Steven A. Ramirez

Seattle University Law Review

The Roberts Court holds a well-earned reputation for overturning Supreme Court precedent regardless of the long-standing nature of the case. The Roberts Court knows how to overrule precedent. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), the Court’s majority opinion never intimates that it overrules Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court’s leading opinion permitting race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Instead, the Roberts Court applied Grutter as authoritative to hold certain affirmative action programs entailing racial preferences violative of the Constitution. These programs did not provide an end point, nor did they require assessment, review, periodic expiration, or revision for greater …

Three Stories: A Comment On Pritchard & Thompson’S A History Of Securities Laws In The Supreme Court, Harwell Wells

Seattle University Law Review

Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson’s A History of Securities Laws in the Supreme Court should stand for decades as the definitive work on the Federal securities laws’ career in the Supreme Court across the twentieth century.1 Like all good histories, it both tells a story and makes an argument. The story recounts how the Court dealt with the major securities laws, as well the agency charged with enforcing them, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the rules it promulgated, from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. But the book does not just string together a series of events, “one …

The Pioneers, Waves, And Random Walks Of Securities Law In The Supreme Court, Elizabeth Pollman

Seattle University Law Review

After the pioneers, waves, and random walks that have animated the history of securities laws in the U.S. Supreme Court, we might now be on the precipice of a new chapter. Pritchard and Thompson’s superb book, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, illuminates with rich archival detail how the Court’s view of the securities laws and the SEC have changed over time and how individuals have influenced this history. The book provides an invaluable resource for understanding nearly a century’s worth of Supreme Court jurisprudence in the area of securities law and much needed context for …

Justice Accused At 45: Reflections On Robert Cover’S Masterwork, Sanford Levinson, Mark A. Graber

Touro Law Review

We raise some questions about the timeliness and timelessness of certain themes in Robert Cover’s masterwork, Justice Accused, originally published in 1975. Our concern is how the issues Cover raised when exploring the ways antislavery justices decided fugitive slave cases in the antebellum United States, played out in the United States first when Cover was writing nearly fifty years ago, and then play out in the United States today. The moral-formal dilemma faced by the justices that Cover studied when adjudicating cases arising from the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 was whether judicial decision-makers should interpret the …

Why Don't We All Just Wear Robes?, Ruthann Robson

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Lawyers and law professors select our professional outfits each day, often experiencing a mix of consternation and gratification. The dread springs from our failures: to know what constitutes the “right look;” to be able to achieve that “right look;” to anticipate what the day will bring; to have prepared by doing the laundry or other tasks. The joy resides in self-expression; we fashion ourselves as works of art, even within the constraints of professional attire.

It could have been different. We could have sacrificed the satisfaction of self-expression for the complacency of conformity; we could wear robes. Judges—at least …

Keeping Faith With Nomos, Steven L. Winter

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Autonomy Isn't Everything: Some Cautionary Notes On Mccoy V. Louisiana, W. Bradley Wendel

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The Supreme Court’s May 2018 decision in McCoy v. Louisiana has been hailed as a decisive statement of the priority of the value of a criminal defendant’s autonomy over the fairness and reliability interests that also inform both the Sixth Amendment and the ethical obligations of defense counsel. It also appears to be a victory for the vision of client-centered representation and the humanistic value of the inherent dignity of the accused. However, the decision is susceptible to being read too broadly in ways that harm certain categories of defendants. This paper offers a couple of cautionary notes, in response …

Recalibrating Cy Pres Settlements To Restore The Equilibrium, Michael J. Slobom

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Class action settlement funds become “non-distributable” when class members fail to claim their share of the settlement or the cost of distribution exceeds the value of individual claims. Before 1974, parties had two options for disposing of non-distributable funds: escheatment to the state or reversion to the defendant. Both options undermine unique objectives of the class action—namely, compensating small individual harms and deterring misconduct.

To balance the undermining effects of escheatment and reversion, courts incorporated the charitable trust doctrine of cy pres into the class action settlements context. Cy pres distributions direct non-distributable settlement funds to charities whose work aligns …

Justice Blackmun And Preclusion In The State-Federal Context, Karen Nelson Moore

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Justice Blackmun And Individual Rights, Diane P. Wood

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Of the many contributions Justice Blackmun has made to American jurisprudence, surely his record in the area of individual rights stands out for its importance. Throughout his career on the Supreme Court, he has displayed concern for a wide variety of individual and civil rights. He has rendered decisions on matters ranging from the most personal interests in autonomy and freedom from interference from government in life’s private realms, to the increasingly complex problems posed by discrimination based upon race, sex, national origin, alienage, illegitimacy, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. As his views have become well known to the public, …

Acknowledgments, Alexander R. Mcdaniel

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dizzying Gillespie: The Exaggerated Death Of The Balancing Approach And The Inescapable Allure Of Flexibility In Appellate Jurisdiction, Bryan Lammon

University of Richmond Law Review

In Part I, I provide necessary background on the current re- gime of federal appellate jurisdiction before turning to the rise and fall of Gillespie and the balancing approach. Part I concludes by explaining how inconsistent Gillespie and the balancing approach are with the Supreme Court's current approach to appellate jurisdiction. Part II turns to five areas in which the balancing approach persists in the courts of appeals and demonstrates the influence of the balancing approach, and the often case-by-case nature of decision-making, in each of these areas. And in Part III, I explore the implications of the balancing approach's …

The Constitutional Limits Of Client-Centered Decision Making, Todd A. Berger

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Triumphant Day In Pace Law School’S History: Justice Sonia Sotomayor’S November 12, 2012 Visit To Our Campus, Emily Gold Waldman

Pace Law Review

“Read through and then we can discuss. Don’t forward to anyone,” stated a March 2012 e-mail from Dean Emeritus Michelle Simon to me. The e-mail’s subject line was unremarkable – “FW: Your Pace Visit” – but its actual subject was anything but: Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor had officially agreed to visit Pace Law School. It was time for intensive planning to begin. The fruition of that planning – Justice Sotomayor’s full-day visit to our campus on November 12, 2012, the first-ever visit of a Supreme Court Justice to Pace Law School – was a wonderful highlight of Michelle’s …

Frenemies Of The Court: The Many Faces Of Amicus Curiae, Helen A. Anderson

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hiring Supreme Court Law Clerks: Probing The Ideological Linkage Between Judges And Justices, Lawrence Baum

Marquette Law Review

Since the 1970s, the overwhelming majority of Supreme Court law clerks have had prior experience clerking in lower courts, primarily the federal courts of appeals. Throughout that period, there has been a tendency for Justices to take clerks from lower court judges who share the Justices’ ideological tendencies, in what can be called an ideological linkage between judges and Justices in the selection of law clerks. However, that tendency became considerably stronger between the 1970s and 1990s, and it has remained very strong since the 1990s.

This Article probes the sources of that alteration in the Justices’ selection of law …

Diversity And Supreme Court Law Clerks, Tony Mauro

Marquette Law Review

none

Milking The New Sacred Cow: The Supreme Court Limits The Peremptory Challenge On Racial Grounds In Powers V. Ohio And Edmonson V. Leesville Concrete Co., Bradley R. Kirk

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contingency Enhancements In Attorney Fee Cases: City Of Burlington V. Dague, The End Of Merit Systems Protection Board's Struggle To Understand And Apply Delaware Valley Ii , Cameron P. Quinn, Katharine A. Klos

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Newman, J., Dissenting: Another Vision Of The Federal Circuit, Blake R. Hartz

IP Theory

No abstract provided.

A Passion For Justice, Charles A. Reich

Touro Law Review

What makes a good judge or justice? The public has a need to know. But simplistic labels, such as "activist," "liberal" and "conservative," are both meaningless and misleading. Perhaps aformer law clerk can offer a different perspective.

I served with David J. Vann as law clerk to Justice Hugo L.Black during the momentous 1953 Term of the Supreme Court. This was the year when Brown v. Board of Education was decided. It was also the year when Chief Justice Vinson died and was replaced by the Governor of California, Earl Warren. And it was also a year in which the …

Rethinking Fairness: Principled Legal Realism And Federal Jurisdiction, Aviam Soifer

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Section 1983, Honorable George C. Pratt, Martin A. Schwartz, Leon Friedman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Right To Counsel

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Second Death Of Substantive Due Process, Daniel O. Conkle

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Appealability, Under The Collateral Order Doctrine, Of Orders Denying Motions For Appointment Of Counsel In Federal Civil Litigation After Richardson-Merrell, Inc. V. Koller, Kevin G. Dumbach

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Louis D. Brandeis And The Progressive Tradition; Brandeis, Paul Brickner

Vanderbilt Law Review

Urofsky has captured the essence of Brandeis in his excellent and informative volume. Urofsky often demonstrates a fine facility for clarifying points and positions with meaningful factual details.His book reveals the depth of scholarship that one would expect from a co-editor of the five volume collection of Brandeis' letters."He recognized the importance of the relationship between Brandeis and Frankfurter and devoted an entire small chapter to their efforts to promulgate their views as described by Bruce Murphy. For a concise but telling biography of Brandeis, from the "people's attorney" to one of the Supreme Court's " nine old men", Urofsky's …

Some Comments On Proposals For Reform Of The Federal Appellate Court System, Terrance Sandalow

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

In response to growing concern over the rapidly increasing caseloads of the federal courts of appeal, the 92nd Congress established the Commission on Revision of the Federal Court Appellate System. The Commission was instructed "to study the structure and internal procedures of the federal courts of appeal system" and to recommend such "changes in structure or internal procedure as may be appropriate for the expeditious and effective disposition of the caseload of the Federal courts of appeal...."

In April 1975, the Commission issued a preliminary report of its views. Among the recommendations contained in that report was a proposal that …

Book Reviews, Max Rheinstein (Reviewer), William P. Murphy (Reviewer), Harrison Tweed (Reviewer), Walter P. Armstrong, Jr. (Reviewer)

Vanderbilt Law Review

This subject matter is not fully recognizable from the title, which might be understood to indicate that the book deals with the entire legal system of the United States including or, perhaps even emphasizing, the substantive law of the country and its sources. This is not the case, however. It is the sub-title which gives a more descriptive indication of the contents: "The Administration of Justice in the United States by Judicial, Administrative, Military, and Arbitral Tribunals." Not the substantive law of the United States is the concern of the author, but the machinery by which it is administered, the …

The Bar And The Unauthorized Practice Of Law: A Survey

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.