Law Commons^™

Golden Gate University's 14 New Year's Resolutions For Law Schools In 2014, Wes R. Porter

Publications

New Year's resolution-making isn't just for people, but should be a requirement for higher education, particularly law schools, according to Professor Wes Porter, Director of Golden Gate University's Law Litigation Center. "Law schools that continually embrace fresh teaching techniques graduate the smartest students possible," says Professor Porter. To help law schools kick-start 2014, he offers 14 New Year's Resolutions for Law Schools.

Blame Congress, Not Prosecutors, For The Absurdity Of Mandatory Minimums, Wes R. Porter

Publications

Contrary to public perception, prosecutors do not "coerce" or "threaten" otherwise innocent people to plead guilty using mandatory minimum sentences. "Mandatory minimums," as they are called, are minimum terms of imprisonment for specific offenses imposed by statute instead of a judge. Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York joined the chorus of critics in an October 2013 court statement, when he said that "[p]rosecutors routinely threaten ultra-harsh, enhanced mandatory sentences that no one - not even the prosecutors themselves - thinks are appropriate." Of course, some federal prosecutors do act badly - …

Benson V Marin County: Severing A Joint Tenancy As A Property Tax Change Of Ownership, Roger Bernhardt

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No abstract provided.

A Flaw In California's Cap-And-Trade Plan, Alan Ramo, Janet Redman

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California has made clear its intention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But is it taking the right steps to do so? The state has set a goal of returning to 1990 emissions levels by 2020. It has adopted renewable energy standards, driven the national trend in controlling automobile emissions and instituted a cap-and-trade program aimed at curbing climate pollution from power plants, refineries and other "stationary sources" of emissions. But a low-profile bill scheduled for consideration by the Legislature next year has exposed that, at least as far as its cap-and-trade program is concerned, California may be off-track. As it …

Joannou V Rancho Palos Verdes: Earthquake Movement & Lot Lines, Roger Bernhardt

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No abstract provided.

Your Career: A Path To Scholarship, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

Golden Gate Dean Rachel Van Cleave interviews Professor Benedetta Faedi Duramy about her journey through academia.

Viewpoint: Coming Together, Crafting Solutions, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

I have previously called for greater collaboration among a broad variety of lawyers to address the critical issues facing legal education and the legal profession. Private lawyers, government attorneys, public interest lawyers, legal educators, and even law school regulators must come together at the table for the betterment of the profession. Last week, two conferences made some initial and very positive strides in this direction. The NALP Foundation and West LegalEdcenter held a one-day forum, Tomorrow's Law Practice: A Forum on the Market, Demand and Opportunities for Lawyers; and the Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Initiative held its annual conference entitled, Connecting …

Food Insecurity Impacts On The U.S. Poor As The World Warms, Helen Kang

Publications

Studies exploring the vulnerability of human populations to climate change-induced food insecurity have understandably focused on developing nations, where 98 percent of the world’s hungry are. The threat to food security in those regions is indeed a critical issue as climate change affects every aspect of food security: food availability or amount of food production; food access, which refers to the ability of a person or community to acquire an adequate supply of available food; utilization or the ability to attain necessary nutrition from the acquired food; and stability, which refers to the ability to consistently access food in adequate …

Finally, Overtime Coverage For All Domestic Workers In California!, Hina B. Shah

Publications

After nearly 75 years of exclusion from federal and state labor protections, domestic workers have finally scored two important victories in their fight for equal treatment. Late last week, Governor Brown signed AB 241, extending California overtime protections to domestic workers who spend a significant amount of time caring for children, elderly and people with disabilities. One week earlier the federal Department of Labor finalized new rules that significantly extend federal minimum wage and overtime protections to domestic workers who care for the elderly and people with disabilities. Together, these actions extend overtime coverage to all domestic workers in California.

Value(S) Of Lawyers, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

Top concerns facing legal educators and the legal profession today are the cost and quality of a legal education and the job market for graduates. President Barack Obama's comments in August about whether law school should be shortened to two years have generated healthy discussions about the trifecta we are grappling with: cost, quality and employment. These are critical issues. However, it is important not to lose sight of both the value of the legal profession as well as our fundamental values as lawyers and what model might best support these.

Law Schools’ Untapped Resources: Using Advocacy Professors To Achieve Real Change In Legal Education, Wes R. Porter

Publications

If the current law school model is dilapidated, then the remodel requires more than a face-lift; it requires real structural and architectural changes. Legal education (finally) must cater to the needs of students. By most accounts, that means teaching students the knowledge, skills, and values required to serve clients and solve problems. However, to reinvent legal education in a meaningful way, law schools must involve and elevate their former second-class citizens on the faculty: advocacy professors, clinicians, and legal writing instructors. These faculty members already teach, and have long taught, in the way that would represent real change in law …

Tweeting - For Better Case Analysis, Wes R. Porter

Publications

Teaching case analysis is always a challenge. The skill of case analysis is critical for our courses and mock trial teams - and for a career in litigation. While jury addresses, witness examinations, and motions in limine involve case analysis, we miss something when this skill is not isolated from other parts of trial presentation. We sought to better segregate the skill of case analysis and diagnose related issues independently. We focused more on case analysis in our advocacy curriculum and created a consistent, written requirement (expectation) to segregate the the skill of case analysis.

Reinforcing Demands For Gender Justice: The War Crimes Tribunal Of Bangladesh, Zakia Afrin

Publications

Ferdousi was one of the first women who came forward to acknowledge being a victim of rape and sexual slavery during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971. Today she has become part of the youth movement in Bangladesh, known as the Shahbag movement, supporting the International Crimes Tribunal and demanding the maximum penalty for those who are found guilty. In 2010, the Bangladesh Government, led by Sheikh Hasina, set up the International Crimes Tribunal and charged as many as 12 individuals for participating and assisting in war crimes and crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s war of independence from Pakistan. …

Early Disclosure Would Gut Judicial Complaint System, Susan Rutberg, Peter Keane

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No abstract provided.

Future Of The Legal Profession, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

Many books and articles in the last few years describe a "profession in crisis" with no shortage of demons to blame: many equity partners in large law firms pursuing ever increasing profits, tenured law professors sitting on big salaries with no incentive to change how they teach, accrediting institutions imposing expensive regulation on law schools, and the examples of finger-pointing continue. In the words of YouTube sensation Kid President, "I think we all need a pep talk."

Viewpoint: Happier Law Students, One Client At A Time, Susan Rutberg

Publications

It's not your parents' legal education anymore. To lawyers who came of age in days of yore, legal education today would be almost unrecognizable. True, students still learn how to analyze appellate opinions, and at some schools, still survive the socratic method. But at Golden Gate University and an increasing number of other schools, legal education consists of multiple opportunities to intertwine theory and practice; build oral and written communication skills, learn the values of the profession and shape professional identity, both in and beyond the classroom.

Marriage And The Court: San Francisco's Role In The Debate, Kathleen Morris

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No abstract provided.

Practice Perfect, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

Institutions of higher education and law schools in particular are currently addressing new questions about the value and form of the education they offer, due, in part, to economic reality, practical necessity, and public scrutiny. Changes in the nature of the legal profession and the market, the cost of legal education, and most recently the purpose of the third year of law school, have each been at the center of professional conversations, public debate and media stories about reform.

Like my colleagues at other law schools, I am certainly involved with these critical conversations. I am also working with GGU …

Professor William Gallagher: The Practice Of Intellectual Property Law - In The Classroom, Lisa Lomba

Publications

In recent years there has been a lot of buzz in legal education about the need for law schools to produce more “practice ready” graduates. GGU Law has long prided itself on providing rigorous, practical legal education, and Professor William Gallagher’s course, IP Litigation: Trademark and Copyright, is at the forefront of this tradition.

Professor Mort Cohen: An Advocate Professor's Journey, Leeor Neta

Publications

Professor Mort Cohen has taught at GGU Law for 30 years. In addition to teaching, Cohen has taken on pro bono cases as an advocate, most recently in service of the elderly and mentally ill. In 2012, Cohen successfully represented two individuals and the California Association of Mental Health Patients Rights Advocates in K.G. Et al v. Meredith as a Marin County Public Guardian. In an unprecedented, unanimous decision, a three-judge panel in The California Court of Appeal, First District stated that patients could not be treated with mind-altering drugs without their informed consent. It further stated that the County …

Trademarks As Search Engine Keywords: Much Ado About Something?, David Franklyn, David A. Hyman

Publications

We report on the results of a two-part study, including three online consumer surveys and a coding study of the results when 2500 trademarks were run through three search engines. Consumer goals and expectations turn out to be quite heterogeneous: a majority of consumers use brand names to search primarily for the branded goods, but most consumers are open to purchasing competing products. We find little evidence of traditional actionable consumer confusion regarding the source of goods, but only a small minority of consumers correctly and consistently distinguished paid ads from unpaid search results, or noticed the labels that search …

Viewpoint: Sentencing Guidelines Needn't Be Scrapped, Wes R. Porter

Publications

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York has offered an important voice on a wide range of issues in federal practice, typically from the bench. In 2011, for example, he refused to rubber-stamp a $285 million proposed civil settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and banking giant Citigroup. Rakoff recently sounded off from the podium on the current state of federal sentencing. On March 7, as the keynote speaker at the 27th Annual National Institute on White Collar Crime in Las Vegas, Rakoff railed against the numerical calculations and formulaic approach that still drives …

Build On Your Law School Success, Angela Dalfen, Leeor Neta

Publications

Much — perhaps too much — has been written about the skills one needs to obtain a legal job. From our point of view as administrators on either end of the law school experience, it is clear that many of the attributes sought by law school admissions committees are akin to those sought by prospective employers. We counsel students and attorneys to consider how the "soft skills" they relied on to gain entry to law school will serve them equally well as job seekers.

From Dirty To Green: Increasing Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy In Environmental Justice Communities, Deborah N. Behles

Publications

The stifling summer heat that raged across the nation was difficult for everyone, but one group had a more difficult time than others—those who could not afford to cool their homes. Disparities like these will likely only get worse. Poor communities of color that are already vulnerable and disproportionately impacted by pollution will shoulder a larger burden of climate change impacts. These neighborhoods, often called environmental justice communities, have fewer resources to adapt to the effects of climate change. More measures should be taken to increase the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency in environmental justice communities before the …

Environmental Justice As An Essential Tool In Environmental Review Statutes — A New Look At Federal Policies And Civil Rights Protections And California’S Recent Initiatives, Alan Ramo

Publications

Recent litigation by the California Attorney General has sparked renewed interest in the role of environmental justice under federal and state project environmental review laws. Some say that inserting environmental justice into environmental review marks a “radical expansion” of the role of social justice in environmental review. Environmental justice is now a wellestablished federal legal doctrine addressing communities disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards as a result of their social or economic demographics. The doctrine is supported by President Clinton’s executive order, along with agency guidelines and regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), which govern federal project environmental review. …

Socioeconomic Bias In The Judiciary, Michele Benedetto Neitz

Publications

Judges hold a prestigious place in our judicial system, and they earn double the income of the average American household. How does the privileged socioeconomic status of judges affect their decisions on the bench? This Article examines the ethical implications of what Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski recently called the “unselfconscious cultural elitism” of judges.** This elitism can manifest as implicit socioeconomic bias.

Despite the attention paid to income inequality, implicit bias research and judicial bias, no other scholar to date has fully examined the ramifications of implicit socioeconomic bias on the bench. The Article explains that socioeconomic bias …

Empowerment, Fairness, Integration: South African Answers To The Question Of Constitutional Environmental Rights, Eric Christiansen

Publications

This Article will assess the current level of constitutional protection provided by the South African Constitution and its potential to facilitate and influence the uncertain rise of constitutional environmental rights in the modern era. Following this Introduction, Part II recreates and examines the process by which environmental protections became part of the post-apartheid South African Constitution, drawing from original source research. Part III provides a detailed analysis of the textual right that arose from the constitutional process and reviews the core environmental case law of the Constitutional Court so far. And the final section, Part IV, analyzes the viability of …

Federal Judges Need Competing Information To Rival The Misleading Guidelines At Sentencing, Wes R. Porter

Publications

Federal district judges are stuck in a bad marriage with the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines after Booker v. Unittd States. While most of the sentencing debate centers around the struggle over judicial discretion and power to control sentencing outcomes, little attention is given to how poorly we inform the sentencing court's discretion. The information provided to the court at sentencing is lacking and outdated. The Booker Court freed district judges from the "mandatory guideline era" (1988-2005), but also required that district judges continue to calculate, "consult," and explain variances from the applicable guideline range. A sentencing court needs better, competing …

Expanding Local Enforcement Of State And Federal Consumer Protection Laws, Kathleen S. Morris

Publications

This Article calls on Congress and the state legislatures to grant large cities and counties standing to enforce the Federal Trade Commission Act (the FTC Act) and its state statutory counterparts (or little Acts). The FTC Act, a federal law, prohibits businesses from engaging in any "unlawful," "unfair," or "deceptive" acts or practices, and the little Acts apply similarly broad prohibitions in all fifty states. This fifty-one-statute consumer protection regime - which has been the law of the land for several decades - carries enormous promise to halt a wide range of unlawful and harmful corporate practices in their earliest …

Luogo E Spazio, Place And Space: Gender Quotas And Democracy In Italy, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

Space is power. Having a place, a seat, an ability to occupy a particular space can empower, in part by mere presence, but also by enabling a voice to be heard, to provide new perspectives, new ways of thinking and doing. Certainly, the recent Arab Uprisings' and the "Occupy" movement' took the forms they did, at least in part, because the participants understood the importance of physically occupying symbolically loaded spaces and places to promote political and social ideas and ideals. Conversely, exclusion from a place or "negative presence"' often has the effect of silencing and of marginalizing those who …