Law Commons^™

Sanctioning A Tyranny: The Diminishment Of Ex Parte Young, Expansion Of Hans Immunity, And Denial Of Indian Rights In Coeur D'Alene Tribe, John P. Lavelle

Faculty Scholarship

This Article analyzes a recent decision of the Supreme Court that illustrates the enormous destructive power of the Rehnquist Court's peculiar brand of anti-tribal activism, Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe. Coeur d'Alene Tribe is likely to heighten the urgency with which Eleventh Amendment scholars have called for an overruling of Hans to ameliorate the damage that Hans and its progeny already have done to the regime of federally protected rights under the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States-a regime at the core of the Framers' vision of paramount federal law and essential to securing true liberty for all …

A Partnership With The Bar: A Law Library's Experience In Taking A Leadership Role In Cle Training On Legal Research, Marsha Baum

Faculty Scholarship

UNM Law Library had a very positive experience in developing and co-sponsoring a legal research CLE with the New Mexico Bar's Center for Legal Education. We offered a two-part legal research program on print and digital resources.

Herding Cats: Improving Law School Teaching, Ted Occhialino, Michael M. Simon, Robert L. Fried

Faculty Scholarship

What makes a good law teacher? Is excellence in teaching largely a matter of intellectual brilliance, of superior organization and delivery of material, of friendliness and fairness to one's students? Or does it have more to do with style, with stage presence, with the ability to engage an audience in the act of reflective and spontaneous thinking?

We conducted a survey, described below, of programs to improve teaching in law schools. We found that the efforts law schools make to improve teaching are generally focused on newer faculty and take place in the emotionally charged context of tenure decisions. Few …

Brief Of Intervenor, Women’S Legal Education And Action Fund (Leaf), M.V.H., Laura Spitz

Faculty Scholarship

LEAF submits that the heterosexual definition of spouse ins. 29 of the Family Law Act R. S.O. 1990 c. F .3 completely denies lesbians who otherwise meet the tl:1reshoid criteria to apply for a support award. The effect of this denial violates lesbians' right to equal benefit and protection of the law contrary to s. 15(1) of the Charter, and cannot be justified under s.1 of the Charter.

The General Allotment Act "Eligibility" Hoax: Distortions Of Law, Policy, And History In Derogation Of Indian Tribes, John P. Lavelle

Faculty Scholarship

A review of the essay, "Federal Indian Identification Policy: A Usurption of Indigenous Sovereignty in Native North America," in the collection of essays, The State of Native America, by M. Annette Jaimes.

Translating Legal Terms In Context, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

This article reviews a number of Spanish/English legal dictionaries, evaluating the relative merits and features of each. Translating legal terms requires an understanding of both the legal context in which the term is used and the legal context in which the translation is intended. Thus, this review of legal dictionaries concentrates on evaluating the authors'/editors' understanding of how the terms are used in the two legal cultures, as well as in two different languages.

Introduction: Latcrit Theory: Mapping It's Intellectual And Political Foundations And Future Self-Critical Directions, Margaret E. Montoya

Faculty Scholarship

The third annual gathering of LatCrit scholars has resulted in this cluster of essays and articles that continue the work of defining the foundations and the future directions of this legal scholarship movement. As described in some of the articles within this cluster, LatCrit has had the benefit of learning valuable lessons from other slightly older schools of critical legal theory, most particularly from the Critical Race Theory ("CRT") Workshop. The LatCrit movement has been strengthened because scholars identified primarily with CRT working with and alongside scholars identified primarily with LatCrit have struggled to recognize, name and address the hetero-normativity …

From Nation State To Failed State: International Protection From Human Rights Abuses By Non-State Agents, Jennifer Moore

Faculty Scholarship

In her seminal 1951 work The Origins of Totalitarianism, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt examined historical developments in Europe during the period between the two World Wars and declared that "the transformation of the state from an instrument of the law into an instrument of the nation had been completed." While Arendt focused on threats to individual and minority rights posed by the repressive "nation-state," her critique also identified the complicity of an international legal system that accorded undue deference to sovereign prerogative. The collapse of the League of Nations, the ascendancy of the Nazi Party in Germany, and the …

Entrenching Interests: State Supermajority Requirements To Raise Taxes, Max J. Minzner

Faculty Scholarship

At the opening of the 104th Congress, the new Republican majority imposed the first supermajority requirement "limited to particular cases" in the history of Congress. The unanswered question is whether the Rule is a good idea, particularly whether this Rule is well designed. The states have extensive experience with supermajority requirements for tax increases. This article attempts to answer the question of supermajority design. If alterations in the tax code are to be restricted, how should they be limited? To what type of bills should a supermajority requirement apply? At what level should the requirement be implemented? When and how …

Testimony, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

[On The] Road Back In: Community Lawyering In Indigenous Communities, Christine Zuni Cruz

Faculty Scholarship

The idea of professional success,especially in the elite legal profession, as being closely linked to community or having corresponding value to the community has directly affected my view of individual lawyering. Excerpts reprinted in: Social Justice: Professionals, Communities and Law, 11 (Mahoney, Calmore, Wildman, eds., 2003); Lawyers Ethics and The Pursuit of Social Justice and Ethics 201 (Susan D. Carle, ed., 2005); Clinical Anthology, Readings for Live-Client Clinics, (2d Ed., A.J. Hurder, et al., eds., 2011).

A Comparative Analysis Of Women's Issues: Toward A Contextualized Approach, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

"This Article proposes a methodology for comparative analysis of women's rights using insights from critical race theory and feminism. Comparative analysis by a Western scholar must reconcile a perspective developed in the United States with respect for another culture. In discussing women's rights, lawyers, judges, students and sociologists have justified certain women's situations as an inherent aspect of culture. For example, traditional "female genital surgery" has been defended as a "mere bodily mutilation" that is the "sine qua non of the whole teaching of tribal law, religion, and morality." In Mexico, "machismo" has been justified as an immutable characteristic of …

Not Him, Sister's Stories & Teresita (Poems), Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Intermediate Sanctions: Controlling The Tax-Exempt Organization Manager, Alex Ritchie

Faculty Scholarship

On August 4, 1988, the Department of the Treasury issued proposed intermediate sanctions regulations that allow the Internal Revenue Service to impose significant excise taxes on executives of tax-exempt organizations who receive compensation in excess of reasonable compensation or in excess of amounts that would ordinarily be paid for like services by like enterprises. Exempt organization theory holds that government provides a tax exemption to further social goals, but those goals are frustrated when management has conflicting incentives. In a for-profit entity, management and firm owners have conflicting goals when control is separated from ownership, but in a tax-exempt entity, …

Ali To Flood To Marshall: The Most Triumphant Of Words, Alfred Dennis Mathewson

Faculty Scholarship

I am honored to participate in this commentary on the Curt Flood Act of 1998.1 I shall not, however, provide a detailed analysis of its provisions. Instead I Will reflect upon my reactions to the Act. To be honest, I am disappointed. Negotiated by the Major League owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association through collective bargaining and modified by Congress, the Act is certain to become a staple of legislative drafting courses for decades. As others in this commentary may have stated, it is as notable for what it purports to do as for what Congress purports it …

Commercial And Corporate Lawyers 'N The Hood, Alfred Dennis Mathewson

Faculty Scholarship

I shall begin the development of this proposition with a theme from a "Last Lecture" I was asked to deliver by the UNM Campus Ministries several years ago. I was asked to pretend that I would die immediately after giving the lecture. I opened the lecture with a story my mother used to tell us about the time she was traveling on Trailways with two of my older brothers, then toddlers. The bus driver asked her to move to the back of the bus. She had not wanted to get up but decided that compliance with the demand was in …

Emphasizing Torts In Claims Of Discrimination Against Black Female Athletes, Alfred Dennis Mathewson

Faculty Scholarship

In Black Women, Gender Equity and the Function at the Junction, I argued that an equality-based legal regime does not provide an adequate remedy for African-American female athletes. Instead I suggested that a tort-based regime may be more appropriate. I did so knowing that gender and racial discrimination are torts and I did not intend to suggest otherwise. They are statutory torts founded upon equality principles. What I intended was to draw more upon the general tort principles involved in an antidiscrimination action. I specifically invoked the notion of using mass tort theories. I wish to sketch a brief but …

Measuring Gender Equity, Alfred Dennis Mathewson, Robert D. Rogers

Faculty Scholarship

It is our intent to provide some insight into the development of compliance plans with an eye toward a university's athletic program policy. In Part I, we explore conventional attempts to measure relative demand and its use in litigated cases. In Part II, we describe the measurement instrument we used to conduct the empirical study. Our study is distinguished from conventional efforts in two respects.2 7 First, we did not seek to measure the number of athletes with interest and ability. Rather we sought to measure the relative amounts of athletic participation that would be consumed if a university satisfied …

Gagged But Not Bound: The Ineffectiveness Of The Rules Governing Judicial Campaign Speech, Max J. Minzner

Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that while the text and the history of the gag rule would seem to indicate that implied commitments are prohibited, candidates have a wide variety of methods available to signal voters how they might decide cases if they reach the bench. Courts have failed to recognize the importance of limiting speech other than traditional policy promises due to a failure to adequately consider the most important motivating factor behind the gag rule: providing litigants impartial adjudication. Because courts have not made this the primary consideration in the gag rule cases, speech occurs in campaigns that would otherwise …