Law Commons^™

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Business And Corporate Law, Katherine Ennis Wychulis, David S. Haddock Ii

University of Richmond Law Review

This article reviews recent developments in the law affecting Virginia businesses and corporations. Part II discusses recent judicial decisions in Virginia courts involving businesses and corporations. Part III discusses several acts of the 1995 session of the Virginia General Assembly that amend Virginia's corporate, partnership, limited liability company and securities act statutes.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Employment Law, Paul G. Beers

University of Richmond Law Review

This article focuses upon Virginia employment law between June 1994 and May 1995. Special topics, such as public sector employment and unemployment compensation, lie outside the scope of this article, as do developments under federal statutes.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Wills, Trusts, And Estates, J. Rodney Johnson

University of Richmond Law Review

The 1995 Session of the General Assembly enacted legislation dealing with wills, trusts, and estates that added, amended, or repealed a number of sections of the Code of Virginia. In addition to this legislation, there were five Supreme Court of Virginia opinions and one Fourth Circuit opinion in the year ending June 1, 1995 that involved issues of interest to both the general practitioner and the specialist in wills, trusts, and estates. This article analyzes each of these legislative and judicial developments.

Quantifying Liability Under The Architect's Standard Of Care, Murray H. Wright, David E. Boelzner

University of Richmond Law Review

In recent years, architects and other design professionals have become the targets of claims arising from problems encountered in construction projects. In addition to incurring the costs of defending such claims, these design professionals (or their insurers) have often found themselves absorbing the liability for many "errors and omissions" that are difficult to defend when individually excerpted from a substantial project. This treatment of claims for defective design reflects a distortion of the architect's professional standard of care that is justified neither by the contractual liability assumed by the architect nor by the economic balance among the parties involved in …

The United States Supreme Court's Expansive Approach To The Federal Arbitration Act: A Look At The Past, Present, And Future Of Section 2, Preston Douglas Wigner

University of Richmond Law Review

The Federal Arbitration Act ["FAA"] was enacted in 1925 to ensure the validity and enforcement of arbitration agreements in contracts involving maritime transactions or interstate commerce. Intending the Act to be a simple method by which an opportunity would be given to enforce written arbitration agreements, Congress enacted what has become a confusing and controversial statute. Because of the absence of an in-depth discussion regarding the scope and applicability of the Act, Congress placed unintended burdens upon the courts to decipher congressional intent. Of particular concern to the courts was the authority by which Congress enacted the FAA.

Expert Witness Testimony: Back To The Future, L. Timothy Perrin

University of Richmond Law Review

Expert witnesses are at once detested and treasured. The scorn is significant because of the increasingly prominent role experts play in both civil and criminal litigation. Experts are seen as mercenaries, prostitutes or hired guns, witnesses devoid of principle who sell their opinions to the highest bidder. Experts are not impartial professionals who explain difficult concepts to the trier of fact. Rather, experts become advocates for the side who hired them. The consequences of this role change are not desirable: experts testify to matters beyond their expertise, render opinions that are unreliable, speculative or outside what the experts would be …

Northern Rockies Report On 1994 Natural Resources Legislation, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

I want to report on certain political developments in the Big Sky states which will help to illuminate why 1994 was such a dismal year for national legislation relating to Montana natural resources by emphasizing the ongoing wilderness debate. Representative Pat Williams (D-Mont.), who fist won election to the House of Representatives in 1978, developed, introduced and skillfully shepherded through the House a wilderness bill that would have created approximately 1.7 million acres of new wilderness. The legislation would also have released much land for multiple use, particularly for resource development, and would have designated considerable additional acreage for further …

An Update On The 1993 Federal Rules Amendments And The Montana Civil Rules, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias' recommendations to the Montana Supreme Court regarding the newly amended F.R.C.P. Rules 11 and 26.

Losing The Littoral Zone, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Review of John Stilgoe, Alongshore (1994)

Judge William W. Schwarzer And Automatic Disclosure, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Tribute to Senior United States District Judge William W. Schwarzer upon his retirement as Director of the Federal Judicial Center.

Refining Federal Civil Justice Reform In Montana, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 (CJRA) has reached the mid-point of its implementation nationally and in the Montana Federal District Court. At this juncture, one of the most important aspects of statutory effectuation is evaluation of the experimentation that federal district courts have conducted under the legislation. The timing is particularly propitious in the Montana federal district because the court recently completed the annual assessment of statutory implementation that the CJRA requires. These developments in civil justice reform, particularly relating to evaluation of the experimentation which has occurred, warrant examination. This Article undertakes that effort.

The Article first …

The Judicial Amendments Act Of 1994, Carl W. Tobias, Margaret L. Sanner

Law Faculty Publications

This 1995 essay briefly examines the Judicial Amendments Act of 1994 in an attempt to familiarize federal court judges, lawyers and parties, as well as other individuals and entities that may be interested in the operations of the courts, with the enactment.

Marriage And Divorce: Legal Foundations, Azizah Y. Al-Hibri

Law Faculty Publications

This unique reference is a comprehensive encyclopedia dedicated to the institutions, religion, politics, and culture in Muslim societies throughout the world. Placing particular emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World contains over 750 articles in four volumes on Muslims in the Arab heartland as well as South and Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

An invaluable resource, the Encyclopedia offers extensive comparative and systematic analyses of Islamic beliefs, institutions, movements, practices, and peoples on an international scale. The alphabetically arranged articles range from brief 500-word essays to major interpretive and synthetic treatment …

Why Congress Should Reject Revision Of Rule 11, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The United States House of Representatives recently passed the Attorney Accountability Act of 1995. Section 2 of the measure would modify existing Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 by prescribing two-way fee-shifting in diversity cases. Section 3 of the bill would amend Federal Rule of Evidence 702 in ways that limit expert testimony, ostensibly to increase “honesty in testimony.” Section 4 of the legislation would substantially revise the 1993 amendment of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, effectively returning to the 1983 version of the provision. This essay emphasizes section 4 of the Attorney Accountability Act, because I believe that …

Foreword, Christopher N. Crowe

University of Richmond Law Review

The University of Richmond Law Review is pleased to present the second annual Allen Chair Symposium issue. The editorial board hopes that this special issue of the Law Review contributes to the national and international discourse on the state of human rights law.

Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, And The Fight For Women's Rights, Melvin I. Urofsky

University of Richmond Law Review

One of the more interesting, and at times more strident, debates in recent years is between a faction of the feminist coalition, proposing new and harsher methods of eliminating pornography and of punishing those who produce and purvey it, and civil libertarians, including many other feminists, who oppose such measures primarily on First Amendment grounds. The debate extends well beyond the cloistered halls of academe, and is far from arcane or hypothetical.

Changes In The Clean Water Act Since Kepone: Would They Have Made A Difference?, Wiliam Goldfarb

University of Richmond Law Review

In the anti-regulatory climate that currently pervades the American political scene, it is important to emphasize the palpable and significant accomplishments of environmental regulation. One measure of the success of environmental law during the past twenty-five years is that long-term, relatively localized environmental contamination-such as the pollution of the lower James River by Kepone between 1966 and 1975-probably can no longer occur in the United States. Major environmental statutes, enacted during the decade between 1976 and 1986, have precluded continuing environmental abuses of this scope and magnitude. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, establishes a compre- …

Federal Minimums: Insufficient To Save The Bay, Roy A. Hoagland, Jean G. Watts

University of Richmond Law Review

In this era of deregulation, streamlining, and government reform, the voices of state government often ring out the philosophy of "no stricter than federal law" when discussing environmental initiatives. The argument that federal minimums can serve as a minimalistic, one-size-fits-all framework for environmental protection not only contradicts the same voices' arguments for flexibility and site-specific solutions, but also ignores the reality that federal minimums alone simply cannot and will not restore our waters, conserve our land, or protect our air.

The Inconsistency Of Virginia's Execution Of The Npdes Permit Program: The Foreclosure Of Citizen Attorneys General From State And Federal Courts, D. Brennen Keene

University of Richmond Law Review

The above mentioned goals and policies of the Clean Water Act suggest that Congress intended to create a partnership between the federal government, state governments, and the public to help abate pollution of the nation's waters. This intent is illustrated by the fact that permits issued to dischargers of pollutants into navigable waters can be issued by either the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or a state agency. Unfortunately, the goal of public involvement is lost in "the confusion caused by this poorly drafted and astonishingly imprecise statute." The resulting inconsistent system forecloses some members of the public from participating in …

Letter From The Editor, Richard P. Klau

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Over the last eight months, several people have asked why we decided to publish The Journal exclusively online. These concerns are not insignificant -- any embrace of a new technology should be made without blinders on. We were excited by the possibilities of publishing online, but the fears that we would not be taken seriously were very real. These fears have, however, been overcome by the enthusiasm which has greeted The Journal.

Trademarks Along The Infobahn: A First Look At The Emerging Law Of Cybermarks, Dan L. Burk

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Use of the global Internet computer network is rising exponentially. As Internet subscription increases disagreements between users are expected to arise, just as where any sizeable number of human beings interact, disagreements may be expected to arise. To date, on-line disputes have been primarily dealt with via informal solutions, such as the polite conventions of "netiquette" shared by Internet users. However, as the community of Internet users grows increasingly diverse, formal dispute resolution mechanisms, embodied as law and legal institutions, may be called upon by the parties to resolve disagreements. For example, several acrimonious disputes have already arisen over the …

Priority Of Invention In United States Patents: From The Paris Convention To Gatt, John F. Carroll Iv

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Imagine the following: It's New Year's Eve, 1994, and as twilight falls you start to clean off your desk and get ready to go home. On top of your "Out" tray is a copy of a patent application for American Corporation that you filed with the Patent and Trademark Office last week. A-Corp., one of your largest clients, is the nation's largest manufacturer of business office furniture. The patent application is for A-Corp's new "Security Cabinet," a device that protects sensitive computer disks and video- tapes from electromagnetic contamination. The Security Cabinet was unveiled at an office supply trade show …

Overreaching Provisions In Software License Agreements, Michael Liberman

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Historically, software license agreements emerged as the most popular means of protection of proprietary rights in computer software. As a common form of contract and trade secret protection, software licenses coexist with other forms of intellectual property rights such as patent and copyright. The importance of these forms of protection has recently increased. Where the licensor fails to consider the implications of the relation between these forms of protection, the licensor's attempts to maximize contractual protection while restricting the licensee's activities regarding the licensed software may result in overreaching. Under these circumstances, a court may invalidate the license agreement in …

Lawfutures, Or, Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me, When I'M Sixty Four?, Stephen T. Maher

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

I cannot imagine what it was like to practice law without a photocopy machine. In the first years of my practice, I received a few briefs typed the old fashioned way, on onion-skin paper with five sets of carbons in between. But since then, we have witnessed a continuing march of progress in information processing. From the mag card, to the memory typewriter, to the System 6, to the dedicated word processor, to the personal computer and now to the computer network, we have seen technology, when working correctly, providing tremendous assistance in meeting the demands of our busy lives. …

Richmond Law Magazine: Winter 1995

Richmond Law Magazine

Features:

The Information Superhighway

Well-Connected

Technology

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Dancing In The Courthouse": The First Amendment Right Of Access Opens A New Round, Eugene Cerruti

University of Richmond Law Review

Shortly after World War II, concern mounted over the government's ability and tendency to institutionalize secrecy in government. The initial concern was with the anti-communist sleuthing of various legislative bodies which dramatized the power of secretly held information to control the public agenda of both domestic and foreign policy debate. From this emerged the call for a more "open" government and the political claim that the electorate had a "right to know"' the information acquired and relied upon by government officials. For the press in particular, "access" increasingly became the watchword, the icon, of the new era. The mounting pressure …

Lesnick V. Hollingsworth & Vose Co. - The Pure Stream Of Commerce No Longer Flows Through The Fourth Circuit, Lori Elizabeth Jones

University of Richmond Law Review

Personal jurisdiction over nonresidents in a forum state has been problematic in our federal system for quite some time. Today, in order to establish personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant, the nonresident must have minimum contacts with the forum state. While the test may be stated succinctly, determining whether a person or corporation has minimum contacts with the forum state is an extremely complex process, as seen in the line of personal jurisdiction cases following International Shoe Co. v. Washington.

Policy In Wake Of The Incident, Gerald Mccarthy, W. Tayloe Murphy, Gerald Winegrad, Joel B. Eisen

University of Richmond Law Review

The goal of this panel was to examine the policies formed in the wake of the Kepone incident: the environmental laws, the regulations and policies that are designed to safeguard our natural resources to ensure that incidents such as the Kepone incident do not reoccur and if they do, to hold those responsible for environmental damage accountable for their actions.

Federal Minimums: Insufficient To Save The Bay, Roy A. Hoagland, Jean G. Watts

University of Richmond Law Review

In this era of deregulation, streamlining, and government reform, the voices of state government often ring out the philosophy of "no stricter than federal law" when discussing environmental initiatives. The argument that federal minimums can serve as a minimalistic, one-size-fits-all framework for environmental protection not only contradicts the same voices' arguments for flexibility and site-specific solutions, but also ignores the reality that federal minimums alone simply cannot and will not restore our waters, conserve our land, or protect our air.