Law Commons^™

Difficult Questions For The Senate Minority, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

This column is the first in a biweekly Constitutional Connections series that will examine the constitutional implications of various topics in the news. The author, John Greabe, teaches constitutional law and related subject at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. He also serves on the board of trustees of the New Hampshire Institute for Civics Education.

Plea Bargaining And Prosecutorial Motives, Charlie Gerstein

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

This Article argues that the structure of the plea-bargaining system—which the Supreme Court recently recognized “is the criminal justice system”—hinges on something previously unappreciated by scholars and unaddressed in criminal procedure doctrine: prosecutors’ motives. This Article addresses that problem by studying the prosecutor’s disclosure obligations when defendants plead guilty. Courts and commentators have been divided for years over whether Brady v. Maryland applies when defendants plead guilty. But the current split blinds us to more important, and more vexing, aspects of the problem. The fact is, there already is a disclosure obligation, albeit a hidden one. Armed with an …

Unconventional Methods For A Traditional Setting: The Use Of Virtual Reality To Reduce Implicit Racial Bias In The Courtroom, Natalie Salmanowitz

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

The presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial lie at the core of the United States justice system. While existing rules and practices serve to uphold these principles, the administration of justice is significantly compromised by a covert but influential factor: namely, implicit racial biases. These biases can lead to automatic associations between race and guilt, as well as impact the way in which judges and jurors interpret information throughout a trial. Despite the well-documented presence of implicit racial biases, few steps have been taken to ameliorate the problem in the courtroom setting. This Article discusses the …

Table Of Contents, Volume 15, Number 1, 2016, Editorial Board

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

Table of Contents for Volume 15, Issue Number One.

Masthead, Volume 15, Number 1, 2016, Editorial Board

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

Masthead for Volume 15, Issue Number One.

Taking Stock: Why The Supreme Court’S Decision To Apply The Market-Value Standard In Horne Ii Further Complicates The Just Compensation Requirement, Greg Seidner

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

The Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause does not prevent the federal (or a state) government from taking private property. It merely sets as a condition that the government pay the owner “just compensation” for the taking. Precisely what constitutes just compensation, however, is a tricky matter. One method for determining just compensation is the “market-value” method, which requires the government to pay the owner the property’s market value. But where a taking is only partial, that is, where the government takes only a portion of private property, the property that remains with the owner may see an increase or decrease in …

The Results Of Deliberation, Maggie Wittlin

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

When evaluating whether to sue, prosecute, settle, or plead, trial lawyers must predict the future—they need to estimate how likely they are to win a given case in a given jurisdiction. Social scientists have used mock juror studies to produce a vast body of literature showing how different variables influence juror decision making. But few of these studies account for jury deliberation, so they present an impoverished picture of how these effects play out in trials and are of limited usefulness.

This Article helps lawyers better predict the future by presenting a novel computer model that extrapolates findings about jurors …

The Compatibility Of Forward-Looking And Backward-Looking Accounts Of Tort Law, Michael Pressman

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

This Article is the first to argue that forward-looking and backward-looking accounts of tort law are intrinsically compatible with one another. This theoretical point is of great importance and will bring about a paradigm shift in tort theory—and, more generally, in legal theory. This is because the long-standing debate between corrective justice theorists and economic theorists about the purpose of tort law (with active participants including Posner, Calabresi, Coleman, Weinrib, Rawls, and countless others) is based on the universal assumption that forward-looking and backward-looking accounts of tort law are incompatible. This assumption, however, is false, and this Article explains why …

Patent Law, Copyright Law, And The Girl Germs Effect, Ann Bartow

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "Inventors pursue patents and authors receive copyrights.

No special education is required for either endeavor, and nothing

precludes a person from being both an author and an inventor.

Inventors working on patentable industrial projects geared

toward commercial exploitation tend to be scientists or engineers.

Authors, with the exception of those writing computer code, tend

to be educated or trained in the creative arts, such as visual art,

performance art, music, dance, acting, creative writing, film

making, and architectural drawing. There is a well-warranted

societal supposition that most of the inventors of patentable

inventions are male. Assumptions about the genders …

Riding Circuit: Bringing The Law To Those Who Need It, Susan Zago

Law Faculty Scholarship

This article surveys the Access to Justice movement in the United States and proposes including more types of professionals to develop longer term solutions that will alleviate barriers to the court system. This article discusses the need to expand the access to justice concept to reach beyond the courthouse to address civil legal issues before they blossom into litigation. Mobile outreach providing preventive lawyering and early treatment of societal problems can prevent delays and the bottleneck that many courts are seeing with the vast numbers of Self-Represented Litigants. A team of professionals including lawyers, social workers, nurses, counselors, translators and …

My Turn: 'We The People' And The Garland Nomination, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "Because I teach constitutional law, a friend recently asked me whether Judge Merrick Garland or President Obama might successfully sue to compel the Senate to take action on the nomination of Judge Garland to fill the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court.

Almost certainly not, I told him. Under settled precedent, a judge would dismiss such a case as raising a non-legal ''political" question. It would be very difficult to develop acceptable decisional standards for such a claim. Moreover, courts are reluctant to entertain lawsuits challenging mechanisms that the Senate uses to oversee the judiciary."

Resource Guide For Addiction And Mental Health Care Consumers: Answering Questions About Insurance Coverage And Parity For Addiction And Mental Health Care Services, Lucy C. Hodder, Michele D. Merritt, Margaret H. Schmidt, Jacqueline Botchman, Caitlyn Ebert, Marguerite Corvini, Kate Crary, Bridget Drake

Law Faculty Scholarship

Navigating the maze of health insurance coverage can be difficult. For individuals with addiction or mental illness, the process of getting treatment approved and paid for by health insurance can be overwhelming. As a result, many people give up when their health insurance company denies coverage for needed services. This Guide can help people learn how to access health insurance and use their coverage to pay for treatment. This Guide also provides a basic explanation of consumers’ rights under the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act.

Contextual Healing: What To Do About Scandalous Trademarks And Lanham Act 2(A), Megan M. Carpenter

Law Faculty Scholarship

Offensive trademarks have come to the forefront of trademark policy and practice in recent years. While it was once true that more attention had been paid to Lanham Act section 2(a) in the pages of law reviews than in the courts, recent prominent cases have focused attention on the ban on registration of offensive marks and the widespread impact of this ban on trademark owners.

In this Article, I answer the fundamental question: Given the problems that my previous research has identified, what should be done about the 2(a) bar on registration of scandalous trademarks? This Article argues, as a …

Outliving Love: Marital Estrangement In An African Insurance Market, Casey Golomski

Anthropology

Marital estrangement and formal divorce are vital conjunctures for married women’s kinship relations and life course, where a horizon of future possibilities are revalued and negotiated at the interstices of custom, law, and social and ritual obligations. In this article, after delineating the forms of customary and civil marriage and the possibilities for divorce or estrangement from each, I describe how some married women in Swaziland and South Africa mediate this complex social field for their children and families through pensions and continuing to pay for their partners’ insurance coverage. This was not solely out of avarice to reap future …

Authenticity Key To Success In Life And In Legal Information, Susan Drisko Zago

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "Authenticity is defined as something that is not false or an imitation. Savvy consumers pay a premium for an authentic product and treat with suspicion a product that does not ring true.

We have a system of trademark and copyright protections that protect a company’s intellectual property rights and brands and consumer protections to protect the consumer from counterfeit and unsafe products. Now, there is model legislation that will provide a systematic way to protect, preserve and provide better electronic access to the bread and butter of our legal profession: our official state legal documents."

Lockdown In Manchester Is A Slippery Slope, Risa Evans

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "Liberty. Security. Both are essential to a good life. But of course, neither is absolute, and at times circumstances demand that a society trade some measure of liberty for security. The tricky part is deciding when and how to draw the line."

The Non-Uniform Commercial Code: The Creeping, Problematic Application Of Article 9 To Determine Outcomes In Foreclosure Cases, Morgan L. Weinstein

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “This article will discuss the operation of two portions of the Uniform Commercial Code (“U.C.C.”) on mortgage foreclosure law. Article 3 of the U.C.C. governs negotiable instruments, whereas Article 9 governs secured transactions. For decades, courts have utilized Article 3 to determine the rights of lenders and their assigns to enforce mortgage promissory notes and to foreclose mortgages thereon. However, certain jurisdictions do not utilize the U.C.C. in foreclosure cases, whereas other jurisdictions have recently begun to look to Article 9 instead. This article argues that the Uniform Commercial Code should receive more uniform application, with Article 3 as …

Table Of Contents, Volume 14, Number Two, 2016

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

Table of Contents for Volume 14, Issue Number Two.

Masthead, Volume 14, Number Two, 2016

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

Masthead for Volume 14, Issue Number Two.

Heart Of Darkness: New Hampshire Campaign Finance Law Since Citizens United, Jay Surdowski

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Perhaps one of the greatest election law paradoxes in the United States is that New Hampshire—the First in the Nation Presidential Primary State—a State whose citizenry famously prides itself on political engagement—is also a State with some of the most complicated and sporadically enforced campaign finance laws in any jurisdiction. The post-Citizens United world, wherein vast quantities of unlimited and anonymous corporate and individual donations by some of the wealthiest citizens are freely flowing (so-called “Dark Money” because the identities of donors are shielded by law), has only exacerbated the loud creaks of the rickety campaign finance law firmament …

The Arc And Architecture Of Private Enforcement Regimes In The United States And Europe: A View Across The Atlantic, Jason Rathod, Sandeep Veheesan

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

The United States and Europe have traditionally taken very different approaches to the regulation of harmful conduct. Previously, European nations relied almost entirely on the public enforcement of laws, whereas the United States relied on a mix of public and private actors. In the United States, private rights of action have played a central role deterring illegal conduct—and, in fact, provided greater deterrence than public enforcers in some areas of law. They have also allowed injured parties to obtain compensation. Despite their very different histories, the private enforcement systems in the United States and Europe are showing signs of convergence …

Democratizing Startups, Seth C. Oranburg

Law Faculty Scholarship

President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (“JOBS Act”) of 2012 into law to “help entrepreneurs raise the capital they need to put Americans back to work and create an economy that’s built to last.” The goal is to “democratize startups” by making capital available to diverse entrepreneurs in new geographies. Yet the net effect of securities regulations and market conditions is the opposite. Startup companies are encouraged to stay private so capital is consolidating in large, mature firms instead of recycling into new startups. Evidence of consolidation is that once-rare “Unicorns” (billion-dollar startups) now number at least 170. …

[Symposium Remarks By Unh Professor Of History David Bachrach, April 12, 2016 ], David Bachrach

Speaker Remarks

Magna Carta did not emerge de novo in its fully fledged state in the late spring of 1215. The list of baronial demands, made on behalf of the kingdom as a whole, were born out of grievances that, in some cases, dated back more than a century. University of New Hampshire Professor of History David Bachrach discusses several key clauses of the Magna Carta as well as why this document was a touchstone for major political change.

Exhibit On Historical Accord Makes Debut At Law School, David Brooks

Media Coverage

Newspaper article from Concord Monitor newspaper dated April 12, 2016. The article includes a description of the Magna Carta: An Enduring Legacy, 1215-2015 exhibit and symposium, as well as remarks by the University of New Hampshire School of Law Library Director Sue Zago. In addition to details about the exhibit, the article features historic information on the Magna Carta as well as some interesting examples of its present day influence.

“Magna Carta: Enduring Legacy 1215-2015” Traveling Exhibit To Display At Unh School Of Law From April 11 Through April 22, 2016, Matthew Jenks

Publicity Materials

University of New Hampshire School of Law Library blog post written by Cataloging Librarian Matthew Jenks. This short article describes the content of the exhibit, lists viewing hours, and provides information on the symposium event held April 12, 2016. The exhibit sponsors and organizers of the symposium are listed at the end of the article.

An Enduring Legacy: A Symposium On The Magna Carta, University Of New Hampshire School Of Law

Symposium Publicity Materials

Small poster advertising An Enduring Legacy: A Symposium on the Magna Carta held on April 12, 2016 at the University of new Hampshire School of Law Library. This event was organized by several student groups: The American Constitution Society, the Federalist Society, and the Student Bar Association.

“Magna Carta: Enduring Legacy 1215-2015” On Display At Unh School Of Law, University Of New Hampshire School Of Law

Publicity Materials

Page from the University of New Hampshire School of Law web site with details about the hours and location of the exhibit Magna Carta: An Enduring Legacy, 1215-2015.

[Magna Carta Symposium Invitation], University Of New Hampshire School Of Law

Symposium Publicity Materials

Symposium invitation and program of events for An Evening Celebrating the Signing of the Magna Carta held at the University of New Hampshire School of Law on April 12, 2016. The event featured a reception followed by remarks by UNH Professor of History David Bachrach and Professor of Law Marcus Hurn.

Exhibits, Concord Monitor

Media Coverage

Event listing for the exhibit Magna Carta: An Enduring Legacy, 1215-2015 from the print version of the Concord Monitor newspaper.

An Enduring Legacy: A Symposium On The Magna Carta, University Of New Hampshire School Of Law

Symposium Publicity Materials

University of New Hampshire School of Law web page announcement for a symposium held at UNH Law on April 12, 2016 in celebration of the 800^th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta. The symposium included a reception followed by featured remarks by UNH Professor of History David Bachrach and Professor of Law Marcus Hurn.