Law Commons^™

Legal Academia And The Blindness Of The Elites, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Marked!, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

The White Whale: Bringing Emotion And Relevance To The Contemporary Trusts And Estates Course, Wayne M. Gazur

Publications

No abstract provided.

Penalty Default Licenses: A Case For Uncertainty, Kristelia A. García

Publications

Research on the statutory license for certain types of copyright-protected content has revealed an unlikely symbiosis between uncertainty and efficiency. Contrary to received wisdom, which tells us that in order to increase efficiency, we must increase stability, this Article suggests that uncertainty can actually be used to increase efficiency in the marketplace. In the music industry, the battle over terrestrial performance rights--that is, the right of a copyright holder to collect royalties for plays of a sound recording on terrestrial radio--has raged for decades. In June 2012, in a deal that circumvented the statutory license for sound recordings for the …

Torn Between Two Selves: Should Law Care More About Experiencing Selves Or Remembering Selves?, Peter H. Huang

Publications

Based upon psychological research and neuroscience studies about subjective well-being, 2002 Nobel Laureate in Economics Daniel Kahneman poses a riddle about which of these two selves should count: experiencing selves or remembering selves. Our remembered emotions (memories) are usually rosier than our experienced emotions, and people are motivated by their predicted emotions, which tend to coincide with their emotional memories. This Article advocates that law should care more about experiencing selves than remembering selves if and when experiences result in chronic health or stress consequences that either (1) societies care about more than people do (because of externalities, public bads, …

Grazing In Wilderness Areas, Mark Squillace

Publications

Domestic livestock grazing is naturally in tension with wilderness. Wilderness areas are not truly "untrammeled by man" when they host managed livestock grazing. Yet the compromise that allowed livestock grazing in wilderness areas was surely one of the greatest in the history of the conservation movement. Without it, Congress might never have passed a wilderness bill or designated countless wilderness areas throughout the country. The grazing exception--and the Congressional Grazing Guidelines that afford specific protections for grazers--made it possible to secure bipartisan support for wilderness bills in even the most conservative western states.

Notwithstanding this success, the ecology of some …

Regulating The Internet Of Things: First Steps Toward Managing Discrimination, Privacy, Security, And Consent, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

The consumer "Internet of Things" is suddenly reality, not science fiction. Electronic sensors are now ubiquitous in our smartphones, cars, homes, electric systems, health-care devices, fitness monitors, and workplaces. These connected, sensor-based devices create new types and unprecedented quantities of detailed, high-quality information about our everyday actions, habits, personalities, and preferences. Much of this undoubtedly increases social welfare. For example, insurers can price automobile coverage more accurately by using sensors to measure exactly how you drive (e.g., Progressive 's Snapshot system), which should theoretically lower the overall cost of insurance. But the Internet of Things raises new and difficult questions …

Congratulations To The 2014 Recipients Of The Oakley Advocacy And Pagi Awards!, Susan Nevelow Mart

Publications

No abstract provided.

Copyright Crime And Punishment: The First Amendment's Proportionality Puzzle, Margot Kaminski

Publications

The United States is often considered to be the most speech-protective country in the world. Paradoxically, the features that have led to this reputation have created areas in which the United States is in fact less speech protective than other countries. The Supreme Court's increasing use of a categorical approach to the First Amendment has created a growing divide between the US. approach to reconciling copyright and free expression and the proportionality analysis adopted by most of the rest of the world.

In practice, the U.S. categorical approach to the First Amendment minimizes opportunities for judicial oversight of copyright. Consequently, …

A Journalist Takes On The History Of White Supremacy, Daria Roithmayr

Publications

No abstract provided.

Branding The Post-Closing Dispute, Jennifer Sullivan

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No abstract provided.

Organized Identity Theft Groups And Structure, Karen Skinner

Publications

No abstract provided.

Research Needs In The Colorado River Basin: A Summary Of Policy-Related Topics To Explore Further In Support Of Solution-Oriented Decision-Making, Colorado River Governance Initiative, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment Western Water Policy Program

Books, Reports, and Studies

14 p. ; 28 cm

Restoring Sacred Waters: A Guide To Protecting Tribal Non-Consumptive Water Uses In The Colorado River Basin, Julie Nania, Julia Guarino, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Books, Reports, and Studies

105 p. : color illustrations ; 28 cm

Introduction -- Gathering information and starting the process -- Indian federal reserved water rights -- Using Indian federal reserved water rights for instream flows -- Negotiating for non-consumptive uses in settlement agreements -- Protecting non-consumptive uses in tribal water codes -- Other legal tools -- Irrigating for instream flows and traditional plants -- Summary and key points

Sentencing Terrorist Crimes, Wadie E. Said

Publications

The legal framework behind the sentencing of individuals convicted of committing terrorist crimes has received little scholarly attention, even with the proliferation of such prosecutions in the eleven years following the attacks of September 11, 2001. This lack of attention is particularly striking in light of the robust and multifaceted scholarship that deals with the challenges inherent in criminal sentencing more generally, driven in no small part by the comparatively large number of sentencing decisions issued by the United States Supreme Court over the past thirteen years. Reduced to its essence, the Supreme Court's sentencing jurisprudence requires district courts to …

Citizens United, States Divided: An Empirical Analysis Of Independent Political Spending, Douglas M. Spencer, Abby K. Wood

Publications

What effect has Citizens United v. FEC had on independent spending in American politics? Previous attempts to answer this question have focused solely on federal elections, where there is no baseline for comparing changes in spending behavior. We overcome this limitation by examining the effects of Citizens United as a natural experiment on the states. Before Citizens United, about half of the states banned corporate independent expenditures and thus were "treated" by the Supreme Court's decision, which invalidated these state laws. We rely on recently released state-level data to compare spending in "treated" states to spending in the "control" states, …

All-Sis Sourcebook For Teaching Legal Research, Karen Skinner

Publications

No abstract provided.

The 'Shock And Awe' Approach To Legal Research: Helping Students Understand Their Research Deficiencies So That They Are Better Prepared To Learn Legal Research, Karen Skinner

Publications

This article discusses the unique approach that the law librarians at the University of Southern California use during first-year legal research to expose student overconfidence in research skills and to teach a new framework for improving those skills.

Career Management From The Trenches: Some Suggestions From The Aall Economic Status Committee, Karen Skinner

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Effectiveness Of Social Media: Does It Measure Up?, Karen Skinner

Publications

No abstract provided.

Murder, Minority, Victims, And Mercy, Aya Gruber

University of Colorado Law Review

Should the jury have acquitted George Zimmerman of Trayvon Martin's murder? Should enraged husbands receive a pass for killing their cheating wives? Should the law treat a homosexual advance as adequate provocation for killing? Criminal law scholars generally answer these questions with a resounding "no." Theorists argue that criminal laws should not reflect bigoted perceptions of African Americans, women, and gays by permitting judges and jurors to treat those who kill racial and gender minorities with undue mercy. According to this view, murder defenses like provocation should be restricted to ensure that those who kill minority victims receive the harshest …

Preserving Baseball's Integrity Through Proper Drug Testing: Time For The Major League Baseball Players Association To Let Go Of Its Collective Bargaining Reins, Wolfgang S. Weber

University of Colorado Law Review

For the first time in seventeen years, voters did not select a single baseball player to be inducted into the 2013 Baseball Hall of Fame. In response to this news, Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt regrettably stated, "[E]veryone was guilty. Either you used Performance Enhancing Drugs or you did nothing to stop their use. . . . This generation got rich. Seems there was a price to pay." In 2013 alone, Major League Baseball (MLB) issued fourteen suspensions for Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) abuse. The regularity of these suspensions reveals players' willingness to continuously attempt to exploit flaws in the …

Food For Thought: Genetically Modified Seeds As De Facto Standard-Essential Patents, Benjamin M. Cole, Brent J. Horton, Ryan Vacca

University of Colorado Law Review

For several years, courts have improperly calculated damages in cases involving the unlicensed use of genetically modified (GM) seed technology. In particular, when courts determine patent damages based on the hypothetical negotiation method, they err in exaggerating these damages to a point where no rational negotiator would agree. In response, we propose a limited affirmative defense of an implied license due to the patent's status as a de facto standard-essential patent. To be classified as a de facto standard-essential patent, the farmer must prove three elements that reflect the peculiarities of GM seeds used in farming: (1) dominance, (2) impracticability, …

Mass Arbitration And Democratic Legitimacy, David Horton

University of Colorado Law Review

This Article reviews Margaret Jane Radin's dazzling new book, Boilerplate. Radin makes two central claims about the widespread use of adhesion contracts. First, she argues that the heavy saturation of fine print causes "normative degradation," the erosion of contract law's bedrock requirement of consent. Second, and more provocatively, she contends that the lockstep use of standard forms permits private actors to override the public laws and thus causes "democratic degradation." This Article uses developments in consumer and employment arbitration as a proving ground for Radin's democratic degradation thesis. Spurred on by the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of the Federal …

Swing State Rulings On Restrictive Voting Laws Highlight The Need For Comprehensive Electoral Reform, Michael Lavigne

University of Colorado Law Review

The right to elect our leaders has been one of the defining features of America's political system from its very beginning. Throughout the two and a half centuries that the United States has existed, that right to vote has gradually been expanded to previously disenfranchised groups, and strengthened through legislation like the Voting Rights Act, Help America Vote Act, and National Voter Registration Act. However, recent elections-such as Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004-have shown that the right to vote can still be undermined by incompetent or conflicted officials. Additionally, measures whose purpose is ostensibly to prevent voter fraud, …

Misadventures In Indian Law: The Supreme Court's Patchak Decision, Anna O'Brien

University of Colorado Law Review

"After today, any person may sue under the Administrative Procedure Act . .. to divest the Federal Government of title to and possession of land held in trust for Indian tribes . . . so long as the complaint does not assert a personal interest in the land.' - Justice Sotomayor, dissenting in Match-E-Be-Nash- She- Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians v. Patchak. Ever since European colonization of the Americas began in the fifteenth century, there has been friction between the new arrivals and the native inhabitants. The United States has dealt with its "Indian problem" through assimilation, reservations, and eventually, …

Holistic Climate Change Governance: Towards Mitigation And Adaptation Synthesis, Katherine Trisolini

University of Colorado Law Review

Climate change already has begun destabilizing natural systems, prompting unprecedented heat waves, droughts, floods, and severe storms. While scientists admonish us that greenhouse gases must be cut deeply and quickly to avoid the worst impacts, past emissions have committed the planet to some further warming. Resulting physical changes will require a legal system that functions amidst extreme weather, rising seas, and scientific uncertainty about the stability of natural systems upon which we relied in designing institutions and infrastructure. An effective response requires both substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to limit the harm ("mitigation') and significant adaptation. Scholars and policymakers …

Meaningful Consultation With Tribal Governments: A Uniform Standard To Guarantee That Federal Agencies Properly Consider Their Concerns, Michael Eitner

University of Colorado Law Review

"Mount Tenabo is the source of our creation stories and is a central part of our spiritual world view. . . . It holds the Puha, or life force, of the Creator. We pray to the Mountain for renewal, which comes from Mt. Tenabo's special place in Western Shoshone religion.' ' - Sandy Dann, Western Shoshone The obligation that federal agencies consult with Indian tribes regarding undertakings that impact tribal interests is grounded in various statutes, implementing regulations, and Executive Order 13,175. Currently, tribes confront a variety of approaches to consultation because each agency develops its own standards for conducting …

Won't You Be My Neighbor? The Fallout From The Colorado Supreme Court's Decision In Cogcc V. Gvca, Luke Mecklenburg

University of Colorado Law Review

This Casenote asserts that the Colorado Supreme Court's decision in COGCC v. GVCA, while legally adequate, condones a harmful public policy that necessitates legislative correction. The case pitted two landowners whose property was adjacent to a proposed well that would drill down within a three-mile radius of an underground nuclear detonation site known as the Rulison blast zone, as well as a citizens'group from the Rulison area, against the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC). Using different canons of statutory interpretation, the Colorado Court of Appeals and the Colorado Supreme Court reached opposite decisions, but in the end a …

Unbundling Federalism: Colorado's Legalization Of Marijuana And Federalism's Many Forms, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

University of Colorado Law Review

This short Essay argues that various attributes we associate with federalism should not be deemed necessary components of federalism as a definitional or normative matter. Using Colorado's recent legalization of marijuana as a case study, it shows how two such attributes-an autonomous realm of state action and independent state officials with distinctive interests-can be pulled apart. State officials often further their interests and effectively oppose federal policy when they participate in the same statutory scheme as federal actors instead of operating in a separate, autonomous sphere. At the same time, state officials frequently rely on the autonomous lawmaking and executive …