Law Commons^™

Some Tips On Using Collaborative Exercises, Paula Lustbader

Faculty Articles

This article outlines the teaching method of collaborative learning, which is apparently effective but difficult to properly administer. It provides teachers with a variety of ways to effectively employ this method.

In Slime And Darkness: The Metaphor Of Filth In Criminal Justice, Martha Grace Duncan

Faculty Articles

An article such as this one, which seeks to examine the labyrinthine chains of meanings that we associate with illegal behavior, cries out for an interdisciplinary approach. Specifically, it demands a source that can reveal our unconscious as well as our conscious associations. Such a source is classical literature -- works of fiction that, by virtue of being read and loved through centuries and across continents, have proven their capacity to strike a responsive chord in their readers. Therefore, in Part II of this Article, I employ the classics, supplemented by occasional examples from contemporary fiction, history, and theology, to …

Diana: A Human Rights Database, Ronald Slye, Nicholas D. Finke, Taylor Fitchett, Harold Koh

Faculty Articles

The article identifies a growing need to incorporate scholarly works and resources into a technological medium. Specifically, it outlines DIANA, a project that aims to promote creation, organization, dissemination, and preservation of primary and secondary electronic materials that are critical to human rights research. The article covers some background and introduces expected next steps for the project.

Upon Leaving A Firm: Tell The Truth Or Hide The Ball, Charles E. Cantú, Jared Woodfull V

Faculty Articles

Over the last fifteen years, two divergent common law views have emerged regarding the enforceability of noncompetition clauses between attorneys. The first is exemplified by two Oregon appellate cases and the landmark New York Court of Appeals’ decision, Cohen v. Lord, Day & Lord, whereby noncompetition clauses between attorneys were found void as against public policy. The second adopts a contrary opinion, questioning the conventional wisdom that those who seek legal advice must be afforded the broadest possible choice of counsel.

At present, a balancing test is used to reject the per se impermissibility of noncompetition clauses between lawyers. However, …

Wouldn’T You Like To Be An Expert, Too?, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

It was once an open secret among lawyers that finding an expert to testify on your client’s behalf was one of the easiest aspects of litigating. Lawyers not in possession of private lists of experts easily located persons willing and able to sell their expertise in the back pages of the state bar journal, in advertisements in legal newspapers, and in direct mail appeals from companies whose business is selling expertise. One consequence was that the phrase “a battle of the experts” came about, and people began referring to both lawyers and experts as “hired guns.” Another consequence was a …

Between The Buttons: Employer Distribution Of Antiunion Insignia, John W. Teeter Jr

Faculty Articles

Employers should be forbidden from offering antiunion insignia to their workers. This is not contrary to current labor rules that allow employers and their supervisors to wear insignia. The workers' rights would still be safeguarded because employees would remain free to buy or create their own antiunion insignia. The goal is to protect the right of workers to debate, campaign, and vote on unionization with no harm to legitimate needs for self expression.

Generally, workers are entitled to wear campaign insignia regardless of whether it supports or decries unionization. In this manner, workers can openly proclaim their beliefs and seek …

Gays And Lesbians In The Military: A Rationally Based Solution To A Legal Rubik’S Cube, David A. Schlueter

Faculty Articles

This article addresses legislation which was an attempt to accommodate homosexuals serving in the military. The author concludes that Congress had a rational basis for adopting a policy of limited accommodation. The issue of homosexuals in the armed forces presented Congress with a significant challenge to the exercise of its constitutionally-based powers to regulate the military. Prior to the enactment of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, homosexuals were banned from service in the United States military. Congress had the option to continue the ban on homosexuals in the military, become fully accommodating by allowing them to serve openly, or …

Foreword: Understanding The Place Of Limited Liability Companies In The Spectrum Of Business Forms, Charles O'Kelley

Faculty Articles

This article is the forward to the Symposium on Oregon's Limited Company Act. For most of this century, state law has provided participants in jointly-owned business ventures with three principal business forms the corporation, the general partnership, and the limited partnership. In the past four years, over two-thirds of the states, including Oregon, have enacted legislation authorizing a new business form-the limited liability company (LLC). It appears likely that the LLC will soon supplant the two forms of partnership as a principal business form, and that it will challenge the corporation as the form of choice for closely held firms.

Tip Jars At The Law Library Reference Desk, Kelly Kunsch

Faculty Articles

Kelly Kunsch humorously argues for law reference librarians' right to accept tips for their service to the law school community.

Jurisprudence Of Successful Treason: Coup D'Etat & Common Law, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

The first part of this article is a survey of all known judicial responses to coups d'etat in post colonial common law settings. Although these different coups unfolded in diverse contexts the courts validated all incumbent usurper regimes with one exception. Kelsen's theory of revolutionary legality furnished the primary doctrinal vehicle to reach this result. While some courts adopted Kelsen's proposition that efficacy of a coup bestows validity in an unadulterated form, others modified this with or substituted it by doctrines of state necessity, implied mandate, and public policy. Following Kelsen, they fail to distinguish between legitimacy and validity of …

Rate Regulation At The Crossroads Of Usury And Unconscionability: The Case For Regulating Abusive Commercial And Consumer Interest Rates Under The Unconscionability Standard, Steven W. Bender

Faculty Articles

This article builds on the argument that the usury solution is flawed and urges a compromise between usury and market control that employs the variable fairness standard of unconscionability to police unfair interest pricing. The article examines American and comparative usury and unconscionability regulation to develop appropriate guidelines for unconscionability's new duty. It then proposes a model statute articulating the unconscionability standard for consumer loans. Finally, the article advocates employing usury controls under a limited regime of "spot treatment," rather than blanket control, for persisting pockets of lender abuse the unconscionability standard may fail to deter.

1969: The Birth Of Tax Reform, Mark W. Cochran

Faculty Articles

This narrative poem framed from Robert Penn Warren’s epic poem, “Brother to Dragons,” transforms Warren’s poem into a satirical take on tax reform covering the origins, implementation, effectiveness, and future of American tax reform legislation. The poem begins by highlighting economic, political, social, and pop culture events from the American 1960s. The author discusses the emergence of and reasons for tax reform detailing the policy behind reform along with the positive and negative aspects of the original Tax Reform Act of 1969. The first reform attempted to curtail tax shelters by limiting risk write-offs, but exceptions in the reformation allowed …

A Thrice-Told Tale, Or Felix The Cat, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

Few legal scholars would dispute the constitutional, historical, and political importance of the events of 1937, when the Supreme Court, faced with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's plan to reorganize the federal judiciary, ultimately approved a sweeping interpretation of governmental authority to implement socioeconomic legislation. The course of events, although frequently canvassed, has yielded conflicting interpretations of the actions and motivations of the Justices who took part in the fabled "switch in time that saved nine."

Felix Frankfurter arguably played a pivotal role in disseminating a particular history of the events of 1937. Reversing his own privately expressed position of dismay …

Federal Courts And The Regulation Of The Insurance Industry: An Empirical And Historical Analysis Of Courts' Ineffectual Attempts To Harmonize Federal Antitrust, Arbitration, And Insolvency Statutes With The Mccarran-Ferguson Act--1941-1993, Willy E. Rice

Faculty Articles

The movement to reform the McCarran-Ferguson Act is misplaced. The Supreme Court and the lower federal courts are inferior forums for resolving insurance-related controversies. The language of the McCarran-Ferguson Act is unclear, and this lack of clarity created division among the federal courts.

Courts are divided over the definition of “business of insurance” and this causes problems for both consumers and the insurance industry. In addition, the Act also states that the Sherman Act shall apply to any insurance-related agreement or activity involving boycott, coercion, or intimidation; yet again, courts are divided over the applicability of the Sherman Act. Also, …

Fair Notice: Assuring Victims Of Unfair Labor Practices That Their Rights Will Be Respected, John W. Teeter Jr

Faculty Articles

Employers should always be required to read notices aloud to their workers as a standard remedy for violations of the National Labor Relations Act. Such a remedy would be a small but essential step in redressing the harm inflicted on workers by an employer’s unfair labor practices. Such notices are necessary for a series of reasons. First, millions of Americans suffer from reading deficiencies and cannot comprehend a printed notice. Second, even literate employees may not happen to observe the printed notice at the workplace. Third, a mere piece of paper is unlikely to reassure victims of unfair labor practices …

Know The Law: A History Of Legal Specialization, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

Legal specialization is an unexceptional aspect of the profession of law because specialization and concentration are expected of lawyers. There has been a transformation in lawyers’ understanding of the reasons justifying their position in society and, therefore, a transformation in their understanding of what it means to be a “professional.” The ideological reasons for this transformation include: (1) the influence of the ABA in promulgating and proselytizing specialization standards; (2) a continuing insistence by the legal profession of the importance of the idea of a unified bar; (3) the large increase in size and influence of the legal academy, consisting …

The Recycling, Dismantling, And Destruction Of Goods As A Foreseeable Use Under Section 402a Of The Restatement (Second) Of Torts, Charles E. Cantú

Faculty Articles

The past thirty years have witnessed the significant expansion and transformation of products liability law. While much of the initial confusion regarding the application and interpretation of Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts has been settled, some problems remain.

One of these problem areas involves the allocation of liability for injuries resulting from the destruction, dismantling, and recycling of products whose useful lives have come to an end. In this situation, the law has evolved to provide a rule that imposes no liability upon the manufacturer. The courts have reasoned that individuals engaged in reclamation procedures are not …

Erisa: Extracontractual Damages Mandated For Benefit Claims Actions, George Lee Flint Jr

Faculty Articles

Before 1974, participants in employer retirement plans seeking monetary relief for denied benefits were often hindered by procedural and jurisdictional obstacles. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) was passed in an effort to preclude hindrances and establish federally protected causes of action, which include equitable remedies and extracontractual damages. However, a jurisdictional split in the interpretation of ERISA in the federal circuits and among the states continues to impede participants full relief for their injuries. Furthermore, disparaging dicta in the Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Russell incorrectly suggests Congress intentionally foreclosed contractual remedies not …

Recent Army Jag Corps Initiatives To Enhance Human Rights, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Faculty Articles

The Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAGC) has recently undertaken two significant initiatives. These initiatives are designed to enhance human rights training at the United States Army School of the Americas (SOA). First, in August of 1994, an Army judge advocate, Major Dennis Cruz-Perez, was assigned to a field grade officer staff position at the SOA. Second, the International and Operational Law Division, Office of The Judge Advocate General, has developed a new three-hour block of instruction designed to teach students how to conduct and institutionalize human rights training in their own militaries..

The development of a new block of …

Policy Guidance For The Transfer Of Dod Installations To The Government Of Panama, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Faculty Articles

Under the provisions of the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty, all United States military forces will be withdrawn from the Government of Panama (GOP). Additionally, by December 31, 1999, all United States military installations and other facilities will be turned over to the GOP.

To better accomplish the transfer of Department of Defense’s (DOD) installations to the GOP, the Panama Canal Treaty Implementation Plan Agency (TIPA) released a comprehensive policy guidance document (PGD) entitled “Policy Guidance for the Transfer of DOD Installations to the Government of Panama.” Army lawyers have been instrumental in helping draft this document, and the four major …

The Gentleman Who Was Thursday, Emily A. Hartigan

Faculty Articles

When Marie Failinger and I began to play with metaphors as we talked about the scroll to honor Tom Shaffer, we did consider and discard some. From that heap of castoffs, I want to begin big and tell you the clearest discard, the biggest miss: Tom as a peach of a man. The positive side of the image is roundness as an indicator of wholeness, of even feminine circularity, of integrity. The down side of roundness need not be spelled out in detail (and we certainly do not want to suggest fuzziness). . . but there is that one lingering …

When Words Fail Me: Diagramming The Rule Against Perpetuities, Mark Reutlinger

Faculty Articles

Professor Reutlinger discusses the difficulties in teaching the Rule Against Perpetuities—the rule does not lend itself to mere verbal explanation and therefore makes it difficult to teach only through the Socratic method. In this article he offers an explanation and various examples of his "bridging the gap" diagrams as he now uses them in his classroom discussions on the Rule Against Perpetuities.

Oregon Consumer Protection: Outfitting Private Attorneys General For The Lean Years Ahead, Steven W. Bender

Faculty Articles

This article examines Oregon's UTPA with an eye toward legislative and judicial reforms that will strengthen its private cause of action and thereby facilitate private enforcement. First, the scope of the UTPA is examined. Next, private remedies authorized by the UTPA are critiqued. Finally, the role of the DOJ is reformulated in response to declining public resources and increased reliance on private enforcement.

Legal Writing: A Revised View, Chris Rideout, Jill J. Ramsfield

Faculty Articles

This article begins with the premise that most law students will become professional writers: that is, they will make their living from writing, whether in practice or academia. As such, they should be confident and comfortable with legal discourse and composition in practical, social, and intellectual contexts. That confidence must be based on good training throughout their law school careers, and that training must look beyond legal writing problems to solutions. To suggest solutions to legal writing problems, this article examines traditional definitions of legal writing, definitions that may themselves be impeding progress toward more effective training. It then offers …

Appendix: The Sleeves From Our Vest: Naming A Perpetuities Non-Event, Mark Reutlinger, John Weaver

Faculty Articles

Professors Mark Reutlinger and John Weaver examine the conceptual dilemma that Professor Reutlinger encountered in the course of developing the series of diagrams to illustrate the Rule Against Perpetuities described in the accompanying article. To describe it briefly (if not simply), the perpetuities period for a special or testamentary power of appointment begins when the power is created (not exercised), and it ends when the appointed interest vests. Applying the "relation back" doctrine, the appointment is treated, for perpetuities purposes, as if it were a gift by the donor, rather than the donee. Under the "second look" doctrine, however, one …

Snake Pits And Unseen Actors: Constitutional Liability For Indirect Harm, Julie Shapiro

Faculty Articles

The purpose of this article is to find order amidst the chaos that predominates in analysis of indirect harm cases. It is the author’s hope that such an effort will assist courts, scholars, and advocates who continue to be confronted by these cases, as well as identify a focused agenda for future commentary, inquiry, and action.

The Pornographic State, David Skover, Ronald Collins

Faculty Articles

Written as a contribution to the Harvard Symposium on Changing Images of the State, this article explores the realm of Pornotopia, a republic of images, the state that liberal America aspires to be. Imagine a nation in which there is little or no discord about pornography because there is little or no meaningful discourse about it. Imagine a nation in which people gladly trade the reality of human beings for images of that reality, a "virtual reality." Imagine a nation in which there is erotic self­expression but little or no communal expression. Imagine a nation in which sexual war and …

Redefining The Sixth Amendment, John B. Mitchell

Faculty Articles

This article compares public defenders in lower courts with public defenders in superior courts across the country. The article concludes that lower criminal courts suffer from problems of funding and resource allocation and that these issues must be addressed before they can adequately administer justice.

Equal Enforcement For All, George Van Cleve

Faculty Articles

As a premise, there is no reason in this society, at this time, for individuals of any race or economic status to be involuntarily exposed to disproportionate environmental risks. This article argues that if there are disproportionate impacts and you want to do something about it, you tell the government to increase enforcement resources. You tell the government to make sure that there are no exceptions, and that the fact that an employer is a large, local employer and politically influential does not mean that it should get any breaks from anybody for any reason.