Law Commons^™

Roger C. Cramton And The Availability Of Legal Services, Thomas D. Morgan

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Ordinary Heroism Of Lawyers: A Tribute To Roger C. Cramton, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Justiciability, Federalism, And The Administrative State, Zachary D. Clopton

Cornell Law Review

Article III provides that the judicial power of the United States extends to certain justiciable cases and controversies. So if a plaintiff bringing a federal claim lacks constitutional standing or her dispute is moot under Article III, then a federal court should dismiss. But this dismissal need not end the story. This Article suggests a simple, forward-looking reading of case-or-controversy dismissals: they should be understood as invitations to legislators to consider other pathways for adjudication. A case dismissed for lack of standing, for mootness, or for requesting an advisory opinion might be a candidate for resolution in a state court …

The End Of Bargaining In The Digital Age, Saul Levmore, Frank Fagan

Cornell Law Review

Bargaining is a fundamental characteristic of many markets and legal disputes, but it can be a source of inefficiency. Buyers often waste resources by searching for information about past prices, where a seller already holds that information. A second—and novel—source of social loss is that some buyers will avoid otherwise beneficial bargains and sellers with negotiable prices because they recognize the seller’s advantage in any haggling match. They might also hide information that reveals their willingness to pay. This Article argues for mandated disclosure of past prices, and occasionally settlements, where these have been negotiable. The rule requires uniform or …

Too Big To Supervise: The Rise Of Financial Conglomerates And The Decline Of Discretionary Oversight In Banking, Lev Menand

Cornell Law Review

The authority of government officials to define and eliminate “unsafe and unsound” banking practices is one of the oldest and broadest powers in U.S. banking law. But this authority has been neglected in the recent literature, in part because of a movement in the 1990s to convert many supervisory judgments about “safety and soundness” into bright-line rules. This movement did not entirely do away with discretionary oversight, but it refocused supervisors on compliance, risk management, and governance—in other words, on internal bank processes.

Drawing on the rules versus standards debate, this Article develops a taxonomy for parsing the various approaches …

Don't Take Me Out To That Ballpark: State Action, Government Speech, And Chief Wahoo After Matal, Robert H. Hendricks

Cornell Law Review

Close your eyes and imagine yourself driving to a concert. On the way, you pass a car bearing a license plate with the image of a Confederate flag. You pause, and ask . . . Did the state approve that license plate? Does the state endorse the use of the Confederate flag? You keep driving. Eventually you reach the concert and walk in. To your surprise, an Asian- American band named “The Slants” is opening. You pause, and ask . . . I thought the government approves trademarks? Does the Patent and Trademark Office endorse derogatory slurs? These questions strike …

Roger C. Cramton And The Legal Services Corporation, Charles W. Wolfram

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Preferencing Educational Choice: The Constitutional Limits, Derek W. Black

Cornell Law Review

Rapidly expanding charter and voucher programs are establishing a new education paradigm in which access to traditional public schools is no longer guaranteed. In some areas, charter and voucher programs are on a trajectory to phase out traditional public schools altogether. This Article argues that this trend and its effects violate the constitutional right to public education embedded in all fifty state constitutions.

Importantly, this Article departs from past constitutional arguments against charter and voucher programs. Past arguments have attempted to prohibit such programs entirely and have assumed, with little evidentiary support, that they endanger statewide education systems. Unsurprisingly, litigation …

The Constitutional Politics Heller Launched, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Cooperative Federalism Approach To Shareholder Arbitration, Zachary D. Clopton, Verity Winship

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Arbitration dominates private law across an ever-expanding range of fields. Its latest target, however, may not be a new field as much as a new form: mandatory arbitration provisions built into corporate charters and bylaws. Recent developments in corporate law coupled with signals from the Securities and Exchange Commission suggest that regulators may be newly receptive to shareholder arbitration. What they do next may have dramatic consequences for whether and how corporate and securities laws are enforced.

The debate about the merits of arbitration is well worn, but its application to shareholder claims opens the door to a different set …

Vol. 103, No. 5 Table Of Contents

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Mob-Legislating": Jasta's Addition To The Terrorism Exception To Foreign Sovereign Immunity, Rachael E. Hancock

Cornell Law Review

This Note explores the issues with the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that JASTA attempts to address, the likelihood of JASTA’s success, and whether or not JASTA is a desirable solution. Though the relatively recent nature of this addition renders the long-term impact difficult to assess, an examination of foreign sovereign immunity doctrine’s origins, evolution, and purpose provides sufficient information to make predictions about potential problems with JASTA. Part I briefly tracks the history of foreign sovereign immunity in the United States and the transition from an absolutist approach to a restricted approach. Part I also discusses the codification of the …

What Is Discriminatory Intent?, Aziz Z. Huq

Cornell Law Review

The Constitution’s protection of racial and religious groups is organized around the concept of discriminatory intent. But the Supreme Court has never provided a crisp, single definition of ‘discriminatory intent’ that applies across different institutions and public policy contexts. Instead, current jurisprudence tacks among numerous, competing conceptions of unconstitutional intent. Amplifying the doctrine’s complexity, the Court has also taken conflicting approaches to the question of how to go about substantiating impermissible motives with admissible evidence.

The Court’s pluralistic view of intent is in theory plausible, and perhaps even unavoidable. But its lack of any consistent approach in practice to the …

Antitrust And The Design Of Production, Herbert Hovenkamp

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Prioritizing Privacy In The Courts And Beyond, Babette Boliek

Cornell Law Review

Big data has affected American life and business in a variety of ways—inspiring both technological development and industrial change. The legal protections for a person’s right to his or her own personal information, however, have not matched the growth in the collection and aggregation of data. These legal shortcomings are exacerbated when third party privacy interests are at stake in litigation. Judicial orders to compel sensitive data are expressly permitted even under the few privacy statutes that may limit data transfers. Historically, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure favor generous disclosure of information. But as litigation becomes more technical and …

Balanced Judicial Realism In The Service Of Justice: Judge Richard D. Cudahy, Elizabeth Mertz, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

There is a quiet irony to be found in scholarly writings about the judiciary, which often center around high-profile jurists selected as the “great” judges. But there are great judges who do not receive or even want such widespread recognition, and who do not discuss their philosophy of judging—they simply focus on the job in front of them. Judges who operate with humility can often be very quiet about their legacies—brushing the issue off, as if uncomfortable with the attention. Anyone who knew Judge Richard D. Cudahy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit will recognize …

Truthfulness As An Ethical Form Of Life, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This essay, a contribution to a symposium at Duquesne Law School entitled Resurrecting Truth in American Law and Public Discourse, was inspired by an observation made by Bernard Williams, in his paper “Saint-Just’s Illusion.” Williams noted that the issue of moral objectivity always come back to what to do with disagreement in matters of morality, and what sorts of considerations might lead the other party out of error. And in his book, Truth and Truthfulness, Williams argued (among other things, in a rich and subtle work) that the dispositions of truthfulness cultivated by citizens of a liberal political community are …

The Shadow Payment System, Dan Awrey, Kristin Van Zwieten

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Banking, derivatives, and structured finance may attract the lion's share of accolades and approbation in global finance-but payment systems are where the money is. Historically, payment systems in most jurisdictions have been legally and operationally intertwined with the conventional banking system. The stability of these payment systems has thus parasitically benefited from the unique prudential regulatory strategies imposed on deposit-taking banks. These strategies include emergency liquidity assistance or "lender of last resort" facilities, deposit guarantee schemes, and special bankruptcy or "resolution" regimes for failing banks. Importantly, these strategies have the practical effect of relaxing the strict application of corporate bankruptcy …

The Capital Commons: Digital Money And Citizens' Finance In A Productive Commercial Republic, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

All societies must address two questions where the organization of productive activity is concerned. The first is whether production will be mainly publicly managed, privately managed, or 'mixed.' The second is whether the financing of production will be mainly publicly managed, privately managed, or mixed.

In the American commercial republic, we seem more or less to have answered the 'who does production' question to our own satisfaction. From the founding era to the present, we have elected to leave production primarily, though not of course solely, 'in private hands.' Where the financing of production is concerned, on the other hand, …

A Jury Of Your [Redacted]: The Rise And Implications Of Anonymous Juries, Leonardo Mangat

Cornell Law Library Prize for Exemplary Student Research Papers

Since their relatively recent beginnings in 1977, when the first completely anonymous jury was empaneled in a federal court in New York, anonymous juries have been used across a litany of cases: organized crime, terrorism, murder, sports scandals, police killings, and even gubernatorial corruption. And their use is on the rise. An anonymous jury is a type of jury that a court may empanel in a criminal trial; if one is used, then information that might otherwise identify jurors is withheld from the parties, the public, or some combination thereof, often for varying lengths of time.

Though not without its …

Raila Amolo Odinga And Another V Independent Electoral And Boundaries Commission And Others Presidential Petition No. 1 Of 2017, O'Brien Kaaba

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Central Bank Independence In The Southern African Development Community: Legal Reform Progress And Prospects, Mzwanele Mfunwa, Henry Lubinda

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

Public commitments by political leaders to fast-track economic integration in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have been at variance with the extremely slow pace of domesticating the 2009 SADC Central Bank Model Law. This paper identifies specific legislative gaps in the national central bank laws that member states need to address in order to enhance institutional uniformity and promote central bank independence in the SADC region. Countries with recent amendments have made adjustments for more compliance, while others have not done so. The paper recommends that member states should speedily effect the needed legislative alignments if the frequently delayed …

Transfer Mispricing In Africa: Contextual Issues, Edna Kabala, Manenga Ndulo

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

Transfer pricing is a significant tax issue and lies at the core of international trade and globalisation. This brief raises contextual issues and challenges surrounding the experience of transfer mispricing in Africa. The brief comes at a time when African countries have consistently exhibited high real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates in the past two decades, and increased FDI inflows and technological upgrades have aided their high participation in global trade. Despite the profitability of MNEs operations in Africa, the investing firms are paying less in terms of tax. This has created a problem for African countries to raise …

The Maternal Dilemma, Noya Rimalt

Cornell Law Review

When enacting the FMLA and setting a minimum standard of family leave for all eligible employees, Congress was particularly cautious about attacking the stereotype that all women are responsible for family caregiving. As Justice Rehnquist explained in Nevada v. Hibbs, the goal was to encourage men to assume more caretaking responsibilities at home, thus reducing employers' incentives to discriminate against women by basing hiring and promotion decisions on the stereotype of women as mothers. Indeed, the likely contribution of the gender- neutral parental leave legislation to the promotion of gender equality in the division of care-work at home, hence to …

Divide & Concur: Separate Opinions & Legal Change, Thomas B. Bennett, Barry Friedman, Andrew D. Martin, Susan Navarro Smelcer

Cornell Law Review

To the extent concurring opinions elicit commentary at all, it is largely contempt. They are condemned for muddying the clarity of the law, fracturing the court, and diminishing the authoritative voice of the majority. But what if this neglect, or even disdain, of concurring opinions is off the mark? In this article, we argue for the importance of concurring opinions, demonstrating how they serve as the pulse and compass of legal change. Concurring opinions let us know what is happening below the surface of the law, thereby encouraging litigants to push the law in particular directions. This is particularly true …

Making America Safe Again: The Proper Interpretation Of [Section] 1101 (A)(43)(S) Of The Immigration And Nationality Act From Both A Chevron And A Public Policy Perspective, Jon Derenne

Cornell Law Review

The law must give our government every opportunity to protect Americans from the actions of criminal alien residents. This includes interpreting our existing statutes to provide the government with the broadest authority possible to deport resident aliens who violate our laws. As such, the optimal interpretation of the "relating to obstruction of justice" language within the INA is to implement the common sense textual interpretation applied by the Third Circuit, reading the statute broadly to encompass crimes that are listed in the obstruction of justice heading in the U.S. Code, as well as other logically related crimes.

Lawyers' Abuse Of Technology, Cheryl B. Preston

Cornell Law Review

Lawyers are highly educated and, allegedly, of higher than average intelligence, but sometimes individual lawyers demonstrate colossal errors in judgment, especially when insufficiently trained in the new and emerging risks involved with the technological age. For instance, although the internet is a necessary tool for attorneys' and is now a prominent feature in the everyday lives of all actors in the legal system, this technology poses particularized and often unanticipated risks of professional and ethical abuse -- risks that are extraordinary both in quantity and intensity. As Harvard's Director of the Center for the Legal Profession warned: We are "only …

Benefit Corporations: A Proposal For Assessing Liability In Benefit Enforcement Proceedings, Jaime Lee

Cornell Law Review

There has been a growing trend of more socially conscious consumption as a new generation of consumers and business leaders rises to the forefront. This trend has elicited a response from existing corporations and entrepreneurs starting new businesses such that socially-minded goals are taken into account in addition to profit-maximizing goals. Because the traditional corporation models restricted the ability of businesses to serve both socially-conscious and profit-maximizing goals simultaneously, new "fourth sector" corporations that combine aspects of the traditional for-profit, non-profit, and government sectors have been increasing in number. The most notable of these "fourth sector" corporations are benefit corporations, …

Vol. 1, Issue 2 Masthead

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note, Tinenenji Banda

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.