Law Commons^™

Disparate Impact And The Role Of Classification And Motivation In Equal Protection Law After Inclusive Communities, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Agency Costs Of Teamwork, Jeremy Mcclane

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Data Institutionalism: A Reply To Andrew Woods, Zachary D. Clopton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In "Against Data Exceptionalism," Andrew K. Woods explores “one of the greatest societal and technological shifts in recent years,” which manifests in the “same old” questions about government power. The global cloud is an important feature of modern technological life that has significant consequences for individual privacy, law enforcement, and governance. Yet, as Woods suggests, the legal challenges presented by the cloud have analogies in age-old puzzles of public and private international law.

Identifying these connections is a conceptual advance, and this contribution should not be understated. But, to my mind, the most telling statement in Woods’s excellent article comes …

How To Think About Religious Freedom In An Egalitarian Age, Nelson Tebbe

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Underwriting Sustainable Homeownership: The Federal Housing Administration And The Low Down Payment Loan, David Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The United States Federal Housing Administration (“FHA”) has been a versatile tool of government since it was created during the Great Depression. The FHA was created in large part to inject liquidity into a moribund mortgage market. It succeeded wonderfully, with rapid growth during the late 1930s. The federal government repositioned it a number of times over the following decades to achieve a variety of additional social goals. These goals included supporting civilian mobilization during World War II; helping veterans returning from the War; stabilizing urban housing markets during the 1960s; and expanding minority homeownership rates during the 1990s. It …

The Final Legal-Writing Class: Parting Wisdom For Students, Joel Atlas, Estelle Mckee, Andrea J. Mooney

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The last class of a legal-writing course is a beginning rather than an end for our students. Soon, they will have the opportunity to employ, in real life, the skills they have learned in the course. And professors want their students not only to succeed, but to excel, in practice. To help realize this goal, and as a fitting finale to the course, a professor may choose to provide students with tips for the immediate and long-term future in their profession.

Sharing The Prosperity: Why We Still Need Organized Labor, Angela B. Cornell

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Today economic inequality is greater in the United States than in any other advanced nation. Bringing the minimum wage up to a true living wage is a crucial step forward, as are other employment-related benefits like broadening access to overtime and instituting paid sick leave. But employment statutes such as minimum-wage regulations cannot replace the broad-based benefits that come from organized labor. Unionization places the ability to influence what happens in the workplace directly in workers’ own hands, even as it creates institutions that can advocate for working people at the community, state, and national level. Under an effective labor-law …

The Unresolved Interpretive Ambiguity Of Patent Claims, Oskar Liivak

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Claims are at the heart of every major patent related issue. Most importantly, they determine a patent's potent rights of exclusion. Yet, we cannot predict how courts will set the exact boundaries of claims. This renders smooth operation of the patent system near impossible. For some time, scholars have theorized that a basic policy disagreement is a source of this uncertainty. Some judges favor narrower patents, some favor broader and judges will naturally tend toward their policy preference. Policy disagreements result in claim uncertainty. Recently, scholars Tun- Jen Chiang and Lawrence Solum have taken this view further arguing that this …

Ensuring That Homeownership Is Sustainable, David Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This short article argues that the Federal Housing Administration has suffered as a result of many of the same unrealistic underwriting assumptions that led to problems for many lenders during the 2000s. It, too, was harmed by a housing market as bad as any since the Great Depression. As a result, the federal government announced in 2013 that the FHA would require the first bailout in the agency’s history. While facing financial challenges, the FHA has also come under attack for the poor execution of policies designed to expand homeownership opportunities.

Leading commentators have called for the federal government to …

Strategic Rulemaking Disclosure, Jennifer Nou, Edward H. Stiglitz

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Congressional enactments and executive orders instruct agencies to publish their anticipated rules in what is known as the Unified Agenda. The Agenda’s stated purpose is to ensure that political actors can monitor regulatory development. Agencies have come under fire in recent years, however, for conspicuous omissions and irregularities. Critics allege that agencies hide their regulations from the public strategically, that is, to thwart potential political opposition. Others contend that such behavior is benign, perhaps the inevitable result of changing internal priorities or unforeseen events.

To examine these competing hypotheses, this Article uses a new dataset spanning over thirty years of …

Coming To Grips With The Ethical Challenges For Capital Post-Conviction Representation Posed By Martinez V. Ryan, John H. Blume, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In its groundbreaking decision in Martinez v. Ryan, 556 U.S. 1 (2012), the Supreme Court of the United States held that inadequate assistance of post-conviction counsel could be sufficient “cause” to excuse a procedural default thus allowing a federal court in habeas corpus proceedings to reach the merits of an otherwise barred claim that an inmate was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel at trial. The upshot of Martinez is that, if state post-conviction counsel unreasonably (and prejudicially) fails to raise a viable claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, then there is “cause” …

Sloppy, Sloppy, Sloppy: The State Of The Mortgage Market, David Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Much of the discussion about the recent California Supreme Court case Yvanova v New Century Mortgage Corp. (2016) 62 C4th 919 has focused on the scope of the Court’s narrow holding, “a borrower who has suffered a nonjudicial foreclosure [in California] does not lack standing to sue for wrongful foreclosure based on an allegedly void assignment merely because he or she was in default on the loan and was not a party to the challenged assignment.” 62 C4th at 924.This is an important question, no doubt, but I want to spend a little time contemplating the types of sloppy behavior …

Cfpb Collection Activities Comment Letter, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Different Types Of Participation In Constitution Making Processes: Towards A Conceptualisation, Abrak Saati

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

Though participatory constitution making processes in post-conflict states and in states transitioning from authoritarian rule have become a new trend, scholarly research has yet to approach the notion of participation in a sharp and distinct way. In this article, I develop a novel approach for differentiating participation in constitution making, depending on the extent of influence that participants are granted, illustrating this reasoning with eight empirical cases from the African continent.

Would A Corporate Death Penalty Be Cruel And Unusual Punishment, Drew Isler Grossman

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Cornell Journal Of Law And Public Policy: Celebrating 25 Years, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Wage Compression As A Democratic Ideal, Stephen Plass

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Vilifying The Vigilante: A Narrowed Scope Of Citizen's Arrest, Ira P. Robbins

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Tipping The Pickering Balance: A Proposal For Heightened First Amendment Protection For The Teaching And Scholarship Of Public University Professors, Joseph J. Martins

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

It's Common Sense: Why The Common Core Is Not Coercive, Jeremy Bacharach Siegfried

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Celebrating The 25th Anniversary Of The Cornell Journal Of Law And Public Policy, Jeffrey Ng

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Remarks From The Volume 1 Board Of Editors, Nicky Goren, Maria Fernandez-Williams

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Res Judicata As Requisite For Justice, Kevin M. Clermont

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

From historical, jurisprudential, and comparative perspectives, this Article tries to synthesize res judicata while integrating it with the rest of law. From near their beginnings, all systems of justice have delivered a core of res judicata comprising the substance of bar and defense preclusion. This core is universal not because it represents a universal value, but rather because it responds to a universal institutional need. Any justice system must have adjudicators; to be effective, their judgments must mean something with bindingness; and the minimal bindingness is that, except in specified circumstances, the disgruntled cannot undo a judgment in an effort …

The 2015 Changes To The Federal Rules Matter For Your Patent Case And Tech Business: Getting In The Courthouse Door Just Got Tougher, Matthew D'Amore

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Changing Market For Criminal Law Casebooks, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In the following Review, I analyze the leading criminal law casebooks on the market and describe the ways in which they do — and do not — respond to the needs of criminal law teachers. At least part of the issue is the changing nature of law teaching — what actually happens in the classroom has changed in the last three decades. Moreover, there may be less uniformity in classroom practice than in the past; in other words, what works in one law school might not work in another, due in part to the changing profile of law students, as …

Executive Opportunism, Presidential Signing Statements, And The Separation Of Powers, Daniel B. Rodriguez, Edward H. Stiglitz, Barry R. Weingast

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Executive discretion over policy outcomes is an inevitable feature of our political system. However, in recent years, the President has sought to expand his discretion through a variety of controversial and legally questionable tactics. Through a series of simple separation of powers models, we study one such tactic, employed by both Democratic and Republican presidents: the use of signing statements, which purport to have status in the interpretation of statutory meaning. Our models also show that signing statements upset the constitutional vision of lawmaking and, in a wide range of cases, exacerbate legislative gridlock. We argue that courts should not …

Supreme Court Tie In Teacher Case Delivers A Crucial Victory To Unions, Angela B. Cornell

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Fhfa Duty To Serve Comment Letter, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

No abstract provided.

A Path-Dependent Deadlock: Institutional Causes Of The Euro Crisis, Samuel Dahan

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Islamic Law And War Crimes Trials: The Possibility And Challenges Of A War Crimes Tribunal Against The Assad Regime And Isil, Julian D. Veintmilla

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.