Law Commons^™

Ubit Me!, Thomas E. Simmons

Thomas E. Simmons

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Guiding Startups Through Legal Pickles 11-14-2016, Jill Rodrigues, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News Guiding Startups Through Legal Pickles: Law Students Launch Artisan Pickler And Other Businesses To Success 11/09/2016, Jill Rodriques

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Trending @ Rwu Law: Linda Tappa's Post: An Amazing Summer: Public Interest Law In Texas 11/01/2016, Linda Tappa

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The Will To Prevail: Inside The Legal Battle To Save Sweet Briar, James M. Giudice, J. Westwood Smithers Iii

Law Student Publications

Despite the school‘s storied past and deep historical roots, on March 3, 2015, the Sweet Briar Board of Directors announced its intention to shut down the college—permanently—the following summer. The Board cited "insurmountable financial challenges," including falling enrollment, a lack of unrestricted funds in its endowment, and the century-old school‘s lack of appeal to modern generations of students. The Board claimed the school was no longer financially viable, because though its $84 million endowment was sizeable by most measures, the school needed an endowment three times that size to stay open. Students, faculty, staff, and alumnae were blindsided by the …

Rejecting Charity: Why The Irs Denies Tax Exemption To 501(C)(3) Applicants, Terri Lynn Helge

Faculty Scholarship

New charitable organizations generally must file an application for exemption (Form 1023) and await approval from the Internal Revenue Service. Unfortunately, the criteria the Internal Revenue Service uses to evaluate applications has not always been transparent. If an application is approved, the Internal Revenue Service determination letter and the application for exemption are required to be made publicly available and can be requested from the Internal Revenue Service or the organization itself. Prior to 2004, in the case of denials, neither the application nor the Internal Revenue Service’s correspondence setting forth its rationale for the denial were made publicly available. …

Look For The Helpers, Tara L. Casey

Law Faculty Publications

Mr. Rogers once said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’“
So, as I sit and wrestle with the news stream that surrounds me, I look for the helpers. And I find ... you.
Inside of each of us is the capacity to be the helper that provides a salve to our world’s wounds. We all can be the helpers when we create,cultivate, and operate pro bono service and community engagement programs that focus on …

The Pro Bono Collaborative: Celebrating 10 Years Of Pro Bono Partnerships, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Pro Bono Collaborative Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

If I Go Crazy, Then Will You Still Call Me A Super Pac? How Enmeshment With Political Action Committees Makes Contribution Limits Enforceable On Independent Expenditure-Only Committees, Brian Greivenkamp

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unearthed: Advocating Against Fracking And Breaking The Bond Of The Imagined World Order, Colleen E. Cloonan

ENV 434 Environmental Justice

While discussing the imagined world order, it is evident that the world is not perfect. Over the course of the centuries, the earth has been maimed by humans, whether it be during the agricultural age or throughout the process of industrialization into the modern era. Humans must realize that sooner, rather than later, we must address the environmental destruction we are causing. A specific case, with that such as hydraulic fracturing of shale, otherwise known as fracking, provides as an example of one of the environmental justice issues that is plaguing the earth. However, there are complications. In the consumer …

Algunas Reflexiones Sobre El Régimen De Prevención Del Lavado De Activos Para Las Personas Jurídicas Que Reciben Donaciones O Aportes De Terceros, Tadeo Leandro Fernandez

Tadeo Leandro Fernandez

Accounting For The Government Funding Of Non-Profits And The Planned Parenthood Federation Of America, Rachel E. Brown

Senior Honors Theses

Accounting creates a framework for providing transparency in an organization. This foundation is especially important in not-for-profit entities because government grants and contributions often compose significant portions of overall revenues and receipts. An overview of non-profit standards and the government system of distributing funds provides insight into non-profits as a whole and enables the study of specific organizations. As the nation’s largest provider of abortion and family planning services, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America is an especially important organization to study and understand. It receives significant funds from federal and state governments and should receive equally significant evaluation by …

The 21st Century Fight Over Who Sets The Terms Of The Charity Property Tax Exemption, Evelyn Brody

All Faculty Scholarship

Turning from the substantive issue of defining charity, this article considers the “who” question by examining the roles of the courts, legislatures, municipalities, and charities in determining exemption and payments in lieu of taxes. The three covered topics – constitutional power, statutory interpretation, and the “intermediate sanctions” of user fees and PILOTs – braid together to form the procedural framework for the financial relationship between nonprofit property owners and the taxing jurisdictions that host them. Change the parameters of one, and you change the others. Staying off the rolls or minimizing the tax bite often results from compromise – whether …

Courts, Constituencies, And The Enforcement Of Fiduciary Duties In The Nonprofit Sector, Joseph Mead, Michael Pollack

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Directors of nonprofit organizations owe fiduciary duties to their organizations, but the content of these duties—and how and when courts should enforce these duties—has long been debated among scholars and courts. This debate emerges in several areas, including the level of deference to be shown by courts to nonprofit directors (the business judgment rule), who should be allowed to sue to enforce duties (standing), and the type of relief available to prevailing plaintiffs (remedies). Existing literature explores these legal rules in isolation and in abstraction, generally failing to consider how the rules interact with each other and ignoring the empirical …

Courts, Constituencies, And The Enforcement Of Fiduciary Duties In The Nonprofit Sector, Joseph Mead, Michael C. Pollack

Faculty Articles

Directors of nonprofit organizations owe fiduciary duties to their organizations, but the content of these duties—and how and when courts should enforce these duties—has long been debated among scholars and courts. This debate emerges in several areas, including the level of deference to be shown by courts to nonprofit directors (the business judgment rule), who should be allowed to sue to enforce duties (standing), and the type of relief available to prevailing plaintiffs (remedies). Existing literature explores these legal rules in isolation and in abstraction, generally failing to consider how the rules interact with each other and ignoring the empirical …

The 21st Century Fight Over Who Sets The Terms Of The Charity Property Tax Exemption, Evelyn Brody

Evelyn Brody

New Roles For Non-Lawyers To Increase Access To Justice, Richard Zorza, David Udell

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Commercializing And Protecting Intellectual Property In An Increasingly Open And Fluid World, Terri Lynn Helge, Deborah L. Lively

Terri L. Helge

For all non-profit organizations, intellectual property is important whether it is intellectual property created by the organization or instead is intellectual property used by the organization in the operation of its business.

Joint Ventures Of Nonprofits And For-Profits, Terri Lynn Helge

Terri L. Helge

This article summarizes special tax considerations that should be taken into account when for-profit parties seek to engage in joint ventures with charitable organizations. In particular, there are two areas of concern unique to charitable organizations with respect to joint ventures with for-profit parties. First, certain rules restrict or prohibit a charitable organization's ability to enter into transactions with insiders. Second, a charitable organizations' participation in a joint venture with a taxable party may cause the charitable organization to incur unrelated business taxable income or lose its tax-exempt status. Underlying both of these areas of concern is the overriding concern …

Nuts And Bolts Of Unrelated Business Income Tax, Terri Lynn Helge

Terri L. Helge

This paper summarizes the unrelated business income tax rules as they apply to tax-exempt charitable organizations described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Code. Since the 1950s, the unrelated business income tax has been imposed on a charity’s net income from a regularly carried on trade or business that is unrelated to the charity’s tax-exempt purposes. Often times, the justification for imposing this tax on a charity’s net income from unrelated business activities is that such activities involve unfair competition with the charity’s for-profit counterparts.

Developing A Pedagogy Of Beneficiary Accountability In The Representation Of Social Justice Non-Profit Organizations, Amber Baylor, Daria Fisher Page

Faculty Scholarship

This article seeks to begin a conversation on how we teach the problem of beneficiary accountability in the representation of organizations with social justice missions: How do we guide students towards a fuller understanding of the moral responsibility to engage and respect the voices of the communities most directly affected by the non-profit organization’s mission? We look at the issue through the pedagogical lens of our experience supervising clinic students, deconstructing the problems of beneficiary accountability that students faced in the representation of two social justice organizations, surveying relevant legal scholarship on organizational representation and community lawyering, and considering alternative …

In Museums We Trust: Analyzing The Mission Of Museums, Deaccessioning Policies, And The Public Trust, Sara Tam

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Thou Shalt Not Electioneer: Religious Nonprofit Political Activity And The Threat “God Pacs” Pose To Democracy And Religion, Jonathan Backer

Michigan Law Review

The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC invalidated a longstanding restriction on corporate and union campaign spending in federal elections, freeing entities with diverse political goals to spend unlimited amounts supporting candidates for federal office. Houses of worship and other religious nonprofits, however, remain strictly prohibited from engaging in partisan political activity as a condition of tax-exempt status under Internal Revenue Code § 501(c)(3). Absent this “electioneering prohibition,” religious nonprofits would be very attractive vehicles for political activity. These 501(c)(3) organizations can attract donors with the incentive of tax deductions for contributions. Moreover, houses of worship need …

Nonprofit Oversight Under Siege: Introduction, Dana Brakman Reiser

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Charitable Choices: The Need For A Uniform Nonprofit Limited Liability Company Act (Unllca), Kenya J. H. Smith

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Uniform laws serve an important role in our society, balancing state autonomy and the need to provide consistent solutions to common problems among the states. The Uniform Law Commission (ULC) is the preeminent authority that promulgates uniform laws. To date, the ULC has promulgated over 150 uniform and model acts. ULC tackles a wide array of issues, including child custody and protection, probate, electronic records, and commercial law. The ULC aims to “provide[ ] states with non-partisan, well-conceived and well-drafted legislation that brings clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law.”

Deaccessioning: A Pragmatic Approach, Ardis E. Strong

Journal of Law and Policy

Art museums are curators of ideas, preservers of culture, and educators on the evolving aesthetics and morals of society. As such, they play an important role in contemporary society and should be accessible to a wide and diverse audience. One important debate in how museums best serve the public interest involves the museum practice of deaccessioning. Historically, policies governing the proceeds museums receive when they deaccession (or remove) work from their collection have strictly limited the use of these funds to the purchase of new art. This policy is based on the idea that museums hold art for the public …

International Organizations: The Work Of The Un In 2015, Javier Etcheverry Boneo, Elizabeth A. Turchi, Renee Dopplick, Jehmal Hudson, Gabrielle Culmer, Poopak Taati

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Benefit Corporations: Providing A New Shield For Corporations With Ideals Beyond Profits, Kristin A. Neubauer

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Relative International Legal Personality Of Non-State Actors, William Thomas Worster

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Non-state actors are increasingly being considered international legal persons on a case-by-case basis. This articles argues that the common thread in making decisions on whether to treat a non-state actor as an international legal person is one of the function that the actor is playing in relation to other international actors. Gone is the traditional notion that only states are international legal persons, and it is now well accepted that international organizations are also persons. More controversial is the status of self-determination peoples, National Liberation Movements, indigenous peoples, insurgents, belligerents, combatants, private corporations, non-governmental organizations, religious organizations, and individuals. This …

Leading New Lawyers: Leadership And Legal Education, Michael J. Madison

Articles

Lawyers may become leaders, but leaders also may become lawyers. The path to leadership can begin in law school. This short essay describes a leadership development course developed and implemented at a law school over the last four years.