Law Commons^™

Len Riskin Pulls It All Together In Managing Conflict Mindfully, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

This post describes Len Riskin’s impressive career and summarizes themes in his book, Managing Conflict Mindfully: Don’t Believe Everything You Think. He argues that people can wisely manage conflict by learning to use and integrate three sets of ideas and techniques – negotiation, mindfulness, and internal family systems (IFS). You can think of IFS as the conversation or negotiation between different voices in our heads. Rather than conceiving people as having only a single “unitary” self, IFS recognizes the “multiplicity” of our selves.

Masthead

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Filming Dilemma: The Potential Speech Cost Presented By Camera Coverage Of Defamation Cases, Alexandra M. Gutierrez

Missouri Law Review

For the better part of the last century, journalists have used free press and free-speech principles to advocate for camera access to newsworthy trials. But it was not until 2022 that news organizations succeeded in broadcasting defamation proceedings, and—in the process—gave libel litigants a novel opportunity to present their stories both to jurors and to the public at large. Because news organizations are themselves frequent targets of defamation lawsuits, this development may not be a categorical good for the press. The filming of defamation proceedings could provide motivated litigants with one more incentive to sue real and perceived critics, insofar …

Copyright

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Rosenbloom: Can A Return To The “Matter Of Public Concern” Standard In Defamation Cases Quiet Sullivan’S Skeptics?, Amy Kristin Sanders

Missouri Law Review

As a vocal minority increasingly airs their displeasure with the actual malice rule the U.S. Supreme Court established in New York Times v. Sullivan, media defense attorneys find themselves searching for way to pushback against the possible erosion of a key First Amendment protection for free speech. This article calls for a reconsideration of the “matter of public concern” standard that a plurality of the Court promulgated in Rosenbloom v. Metromedia. The article outlines the chief concerns brought by those who wish to reconsider the requirement that public officials and public figures prove reckless disregard for the truth to recover …

Let’S Not Talk About It: How Courts Apply Constitutional Avoidance And Qualified Immunity As A Shield For Law Enforcement Officers, Hanna M. Metzler

Missouri Law Review

On the night of December 8, 2015, Nicholas Gilbert was pronounced dead following a tragic incident at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (“SLMPD”) station. Was the cause of death excessive force by SLMPD officers? Well, it is wishful thinking to expect a straightforward answer. It is no secret that recent actions of law enforcement officers have garnered unfettered attention from activist movements across the country. Despite the force of movements like Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police, qualified immunity works to protect law enforcement officers against claims that may arise in their line of duty and consistently prevails …

A Duty To Impeach: Libel And Modern Liberalism After Dobbs, Matthew L. Schafer

Missouri Law Review

The conservative legal establishment is waging war on modern liberalism with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization marking its most recent victory. Against this backdrop, this Article contends that attacks from the right on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan—the Court’s defining First Amendment decision that places political speech at the center of free speech doctrine—are motivated not by bona fide doctrinal disagreements but rather the cynical belief that the specter of defamation liability unrestrained by Sullivan will silence political opponents and, in turn, hasten the end of modern liberalism. So while the battle over Sullivan may not have the …

Faculty List

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Untangling Defamation Law: Guideposts For Reform, Lyrissa Lidsky

Missouri Law Review

This article, which is based on a keynote address given at the 2023 Missouri Law Review Symposium, addresses the past and predicted future of defamation law in hopes of galvanizing needed reforms. As a necessary backdrop, this article explains why today’s defamation law remains so complex, tracks reforms over the last half century, and explains why the common law of defamation has not adapted adequately to the challenges posed by cheap speech in the digital era. The article then turns to assessing the complaints of defamation law’s most prominent would-be reformers and finds them to rest on an incomplete understanding …

All The Rumors Are True: Verification, Actual Malice, And Celebrity Gossip, Jasmine E. Mcnealy

Missouri Law Review

More than half of Americans get their news from social media. These spaces – social media platforms, video and audio recommender systems, social news and gossip boards – have their own fact-checking and editorial cultures that, although not the exact same as those found in newsrooms, offer similar controls for the distribution of information. While imperfect, just like the controls of traditional media, these fact-checking cultures may offer a response to recent US judicial rejection of actual malice and provide a route of inquiry for courts examining evidence to determine if a defamation plaintiff has met the heightened standard. This …

Half Past Inexcusable: The Lanham Act Needs To Disassociate With The Doctrine Of Laches, Jared Gillen

Missouri Law Review

Who condones time’s ability to place such an incessant stranglehold on one’s emotions? Well, no one, but it is inevitable: time dictates every facet of life. For example, a brief glance at the clock elicits a myriad of potential responses. One possibility is anticipation: painstakingly watching the clock count down the hours, minutes, and seconds until the weekend. The feeling is excruciating. However, the instant the minute hand aligns with that pesky 12 provides an instantaneous, captivating sense of relief. There is no feeling like 5 PM. Conversely, no amount of begging or pleading with Father Time can change the …

Form Over Substance: How Tort Reform Policy Prevailed Over Constitutional Protection, Kate Frerking

Missouri Law Review

Tort reform has become a prominent and contested issue as legislatures around the country are seeking to reconsider and rewrite the rules of civil tort litigation. Missouri, like many other states, focuses its effort on legislative remedy limitations in the form of statutory caps on noneconomic damages—attractive targets for nationwide reform efforts. There is uncertainty as to whether, and to what extent, this reform measure implicates the constitutional right to trial by jury. The Missouri Supreme Court addressed this issue in Ordinola v. University Physician Associates, and it affirmed the statutory caps on noneconomic damages imposed by the Missouri General …

Internet Famous: Are Online Influencers And Micro-Celebrities Public Figures Under Defamation Law?, Frank D. Lomonte, Stephanie J. Leibert

Missouri Law Review

Social media and video-sharing sites have introduced the concept of “micro-celebrity,” a person who attains fame – rapidly, and potentially fleetingly – among a niche audience of internet users for doing something colorful. As with anyone who participates in the sometimes sharp-elbowed give-and-take of online discourse, these niche celebrities are increasingly being drawn into controversies that can result in litigation. For nearly 60 years, the Supreme Court’s Sullivan standard has afforded critics an extra measure of breathing space when they comment on the conduct of “public” personalities –people with outsized influence, and the ability to defend themselves effectively through counterspeech. …

Did The Washington Supreme Court Rule Correctly On The Capital Gains Tax?, David Gamage, Jared Walczak

Faculty Publications

The following two essays are David Gamage’s and Jared Walczak’s opening statements in their debate over Quinn v. Washington,1 the recent Washington Supreme Court decision upholding a state tax on capital gains as an excise tax. Gamage and Walczak, who differ on the decision’s merits and its implications for future Washington tax jurisprudence, intend to follow these statements with rebuttals and conclusions in a subsequent article.

Tort Reform & The Takings Clause, Bailey D. Barnes

Faculty Publications

The United States tort reform movement has capped noneconomic damage awards in many jurisdictions, thereby preventing the most injured plaintiffs from being fully compensated for their suffering. While litigants have asserted numerous state constitutional challenges to these tort recovery limits, with varying degrees of success, aggrieved plaintiffs have underutilized the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause. This Article advocates that judicial reduction of a jury's noneconomic damage calculation after the court has informed the successful plaintiff of the full verdict is a regulatory taking in violation of the federal Takings Clause, as incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

A Takings …

Jurisdictional Conflicts In Adult Guardianship, David M. English

Faculty Publications

The case of Britney Spears has shined a spotlight on guardianship, a subject area in which there has been increasing interest in recent years. The events surrounding Ms. Spears s case all occurred in a single jurisdiction, California. But with Americas increasingly mobile population, an individual for whom a guardianship is sought may have contacts with multiple states and, in some cases, foreign countries. Furthermore, following the appointment of a guardian, the guardian or individual subject to guardianship may move to another jurisdiction; it may become necessary to transfer the guardianship proceeding to another jurisdiction or seek ratification of a …

What Lawyers Can Teach Their Employed Law Students About 'Impactful Legal Writing', Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

This article concerns the value of teaching employed law students about the potency of “impactful legal writing” – legal writing that can have a substantial impact on someone other than the student writer. Much of the employer’s most instructive teaching about impactful legal writing occurs at the beginning of an assignment, rather than solely during review after the student has completed the assignment. This article identifies four ways an employed law student’s impactful writing when fulfilling assignments differs from the effect of students’ academic writing in law school. Each of the four ways enables the employer to deliver practical lessons …

Problem-Resolution Lawyering Across The Twenty-First Century Law Curriculum, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

This post highlights an article by Kris Franklin and F. Peter Phillips. They argue, “Framing lawyers’ professional role as helping clients resolve problems – and therefore in turn, conceiving law school coursework as preparation for that role – should alter teaching, learning, and law practice in ways that inevitably improves each.” The article includes “exemplars” of ways to shift the legal curriculum to focus on lawyers as problem resolution partners.

A Proposal For The Joint Development Of Generative Ai For The Dispute Resolution Profession, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

This post by Gary Doernhoefer proposes the development of a data set for the dispute resolution profession as the basis for AI systems. The ideal model would be for a collaboration in the dispute resolution field to create the refined data set, establish guardrails, and set privacy parameters for the use of the data. This would involve a centralized advisory board to address concerns such as (1) privacy requirements for how the queries are received, stored, and used, (2) the expertise needed to curate additional training materials, (3) shared costs of development, and (4) gaining the cooperation of industry authors …

Promoting Women's Advancement In The Judiciary In The Midst Of Backlash: A Comparative Analysis Of Representation And Jurisprudence In Key Domestic And International Fora, Shruti Rana

Faculty Publications

Women's advancement in the judiciary of the United States has been slow and uneven, and has long lagged behind other nations. Parity in representation remains distant, and the gains to date vulnerable to changes in administrations and fluctuating levels of state commitment to gender equality, with the recent global backlash to gender equality and international norms and institutions providing a critical example of this fragility. In this light, this Article argues that gender parity in the judiciary should not be viewed as merely a laudable goal. Rather, representation and parity should be viewed as fundamental state legal obligations under international …

Achieving The Achievable: Realistic Labor Law Reform, Rafael Gely

Faculty Publications

A common reprise among labor activists and scholars has been that for the fortunes of labor to change, the law must change. Prompted perhaps by a seeming surge in labor movement activity over the past few years, including headline-grabbing strikes and recent union victories at several U.S. Starbucks locations, various labor law activists and scholars have called to seize the moment and proposed the enactment of comprehensive labor law reform. We argue in this Article that broad-scale labor law reform is unlikely to be enacted by the current U.S. Congress or even have all its provisions pass muster when potentially …

Copyright

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Intersectional Management: An Analysis Of Cooperation And Competition On American Public Lands, Robin M. Rotman, Abigail M. Hunt

Faculty Publications

The United States government holds public lands in trust for the whole of the American people. This article focuses on National Monuments under the Antiquities Act. It argues that the federal government should renew its approach to the management of these lands by incorporating principles of environmental justice and long- term environmental viability. The article begins by examining the historical and legal foundations of federal lands in the United States, with a focus on the Antiquities Act. It then reflects on recent litigation and political controversy surrounding Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, to illustrate how the …

Real Mediation Systems To Help Parties And Mediators Achieve Their Goals, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This article argues that it is time for a paradigm shift in our current general mediation theory because of numerous problems. Our current theory is incomplete at best and seriously misleading at worst. The traditional mediation models are oversimplified, poorly mapping onto the reality of practice. They combine multiple elements that are not necessarily correlated. Many practitioners ignore them because they are confusing or not helpful. People do not understand the theoretical meanings because the terms are not consistent with commonly understood language. Arguments about what is or is not real or good mediation have spawned unhelpful ideological divisions in …

Achieving The Achievable: Realistic Labor Law Reform, Leonard Bierman, Rafael Gely, William B. Gould Iv

Missouri Law Review

A common reprise among labor activists and scholars has been that for the fortunes of labor to change, the law must change. Prompted perhaps by a seeming surge in labor movement activity over the past few years, including headline-grabbing strikes and recent union victories at several U.S. Starbucks locations, various labor law activists and scholars have called to seize the moment and proposed the enactment of comprehensive labor law reform. We argue in this Article that broad-scale labor law reform is unlikely to be enacted by the current U.S. Congress or even have all its provisions pass muster when potentially …

Copyright

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Faculty List

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.