Law Commons^™

Responsibilities Of Judges And Advocates In Civil And Common Law: Some Lingering Misconceptions Concerning Civil Lawsuits, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Angelo Dondi

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No abstract provided.

Preemption In The Rehnquist Court: A Preliminary Empirical Assessment, Michael S. Greve, Jonathan Klick

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The federal preemption of state law has emerged as a prominent field of study for legal scholars and political scientists. This rise to prominence of a technical and often dull field of jurisprudence is due to a number of developments-increasingly frequent federal statutory preemptions; the states' unprecedented aggressiveness in regulating business transactions, the expansion of corporate liability under state common law and the increased resort of corporate defendants to federal preemption defenses; and, not least, the Rehnquist Court's discovery of federalism and states' rights.

Unfortunately, the preemption debate has been marred by misperceptions and a lack of reliable data. Extravagant …

Mandatory Waiting Periods For Abortions And Female Mental Health, Jonathan Klick

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Proponents of laws requiring a waiting period before a woman can receive an abortion argue that these cooling off periods protect against rash decisions on the part of women in the event of unplanned pregnancies. Opponents claim, at best, waiting periods have no effect on decision-making and, at worst, they subject women to additional mental anguish and stress. In this article, I examine these competing claims using adult female suicide rates at the state level as a proxy for mental health. Panel data analyses suggest that the adoption of mandatory waiting periods reduce suicide rates by about 10 percent, and …

Forget The Fundamentals: Fixing Substantive Due Process, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

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No abstract provided.

The Chief Justice's Special Authority And The Norms Of Judicial Power, Theodore Ruger

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No abstract provided.

Aggregation On The Couch: The Strategic Uses Of Ambiguity And Hypocrisy, Stephen B. Burbank

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In this Essay, Professor Burbank comments on the essays by Professors Nagareda and Issacharoff. Welcoming the opportunity to revisit the interplay between procedure and substantive law and the question of democratic accountability that Professor Nagareda’s essay presents, Professor Burbank concludes that the parts of that essay are greater than the whole. He finds that Professor Nagareda’s pursuit of unifying themes and a general normative theory leads to inconsistencies in classification between procedure and substance and to an impoverished vision of institutional legitimacy. Professor Burbank voices concern that this quest, which is also evident in the current draft of the American …

Alternative Career Resolution Ii: Changing The Tenure Of Supreme Court Justices, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.

Final Report Of The Maldivian Penal Law & Sentencing Codification Project: Text Of Draft Code (Volume 1) And Official Commentary (Volume 2), Paul H. Robinson, Criminal Law Research Group -- University Of Pennsylvania

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The United Nations Development Programme and the Government of the Maldives commissioned the drafting of a penal code based upon existing Maldivian law, which meant primarily a codification of Shari'a. This is the Final Report of that codification project. A description of the process that produced this Report and the drafting principles behind it, as well as a discussion of the special challenges of codifying Islamic criminal law, are contained in an article at http://ssrn.com/abstract=941443.

Popular Constitutionalism And The Rule Of Recognition: Whose Practices Ground U.S. Law?, Matthew D. Adler

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The law within each legal system is a function of the practices of some social group. In short, law is a kind of socially grounded norm. H.L.A Hart famously developed this view in his book, The Concept of Law, by arguing that law derives from a social rule, the so-called “rule of recognition.” But the proposition that social facts play a foundational role in producing law is a point of consensus for all modern jurisprudents in the Anglo-American tradition: not just Hart and his followers in the positivist school, most prominently Joseph Raz and Jules Coleman, but also the anti-positivist …

The Tuna Court: Law And Norms In The World's Premier Fish Market, Eric Feldman

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Legal scholars have long emphasized the corrosive impact of conflict on long-term commercial and interpersonal relationships. To minimize the negative consequences of such conflict, members of close-knit groups who anticipate future interactions create ways of resolving their disputes with reference to internal group norms rather than relying on state-mandated legal rules. From farmers in California’s Shasta County to jewelers in midtown Manhattan and neighbors in Sanders County, the literature describes people who create norms of conflict management that are faster and less expensive than relying on formal law, and lessen the harm that conflict causes to their relationships. This article …

Management-Based Strategies For Improving Private Sector Environmental Performance, Cary Coglianese, Jennifer Nash

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Improvements in environmental quality depend in large measure on changes in private sector management. In recognition of this fact, government and industry have begun in recent years to focus directly on shaping the internal management practices of private firms. New management-based strategies can take many forms, but unlike conventional regulatory approaches they are linked by their distinctive focus on management practices, rather than on environmental technologies or emissions targets. This article offers the first sustained analysis of both public and private sector initiatives designed specifically to improve firms' environmental management. Synthesizing the results of a conference of leading scholars and …

Section 83(B) Election For Restricted Stock: A Joint Tax Perspective, Michael S. Knoll

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In the wake of the Financial Accounting Standard Board's decision to require firms that grant employee stock options (ESOs) to treat such options as an expense, many large and sophisticated firms are switching from ESOs to restricted stock. Restricted stock - stock granted to an employee as part of her compensation and subject to the condition that if she leaves the firm within a period of time (often 3 years) she forfeits the stock - appears to be on its way to becoming the dominant form of equity-based pay in the United States. Yet, in spite of its prominence, little …

Constitutional Decision Rules For Juries, Catherine T. Struve

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Recent scholarship on constitutional decision rules distinguishes courts from other constitutional decision makers, but has not explored distinctions - within the judicial institution - between judges and juries. Correlatively, social science literature on jury comprehension has proposed methods for improving jury instructions, but that literature has not considered in any detail the doctrinal complexities of constitutional law. This Article, drawing upon both fields, presents an agenda for crafting constitutional decision rules specifically for juries. Implementing this agenda will enhance the adjudication of constitutional tort claims, and could also render constitutional doctrine more accessible to non-lawyers.

"A Teaching, Suggestion, Or Motivation To Combine": Bringing Structure And Clarity To The Obviousness Analysis, R. Polk Wagner

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No abstract provided.

Comments On Stealth Marketing And Editorial Integrity, R. Polk Wagner

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No abstract provided.

Network Neutrality And The Economics Of Congestion, Christopher S. Yoo

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No abstract provided.

The Equilibrium Content Of Corporate Federalism, William W. Bratton, Joseph A. Mccahery

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No abstract provided.

Supersize Pay, Incentive Compatibility, And The Volatile Shareholder Interest, William W. Bratton

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No abstract provided.

Meta-Blackmail And The Evidentiary Theory: Still Taking Motives Seriously, Mitchell N. Berman

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For generations, criminal law theorists, moral and political philosophers, and economists have struggled to resolve one of the law's great puzzles: whether, why, and under what circumstances the law should criminalize the conditional threat to do what is lawful. This is the so-called paradox of blackmail. Although libertarians have insisted that blackmail should be lawful, most commentators agree that at least some forms of blackmail are properly criminalized, disagreeing over the proper rationale. In his provocative article, Meta-blackmail, Russell Christopher presents a wholly novel argument in support of the libertarian conclusion. Christopher's argument relies upon the imaginary device of a …

Foreword (Documentaries & The Law Symposium Issue): Engaging Documentaries Seriously, Regina Austin

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No abstract provided.

The Need For A Reduced Workweek In The United States, Vicki Schultz, Allison K. Hoffman

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This paper argues that a reduced workweek offers a way to alleviate work-family conflict without exacerbating the sex-based division of labor in paid work and unpaid family work. We distinguish our position from two other approaches: (1) one that compensates unpaid family work directly (through such policies as traditional welfare provision, or alimony), policies we argue can discourage women from labor force attachment and contribute to sex-stereotyping and sex-segregated employment; and (2) an approach that spurs employers to accommodate workers' family responsibilities (through such policies as part-time work for parents), policies workers often avoid out of a well founded fear …