Law Commons^™

Doe V. Grievance Committee: On The Interpretation Of Ethical Rules, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Through A Glass, Darkly: How The Court Sees Motions To Disqualify Criminal Defense Lawyers , Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

Although raised frequently in the lower courts, the question of what the trial judge's role is in conflict-of-interest cases has, for nearly half a century, lurked in the background of the Supreme Court's decisions concerning the scope of a criminal defendant's right to the undivided loyalty of his attorney. Last term, as its conflict-of-interest jurisprudence reached middle age, the Court had the opportunity to articulate its views on that question. In Wheat v. United States, the Court held that a trial judge has discretion to disqualify defense counsel, even over the defendant's objection, if a serious possibility for a conflict …

Drug Legalization: The Importance Of Asking The Right Question Symposium On Drug Decriminalization, Mark A.R. Kleinman, Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

As a policy analysis, this article's central argument is that that the costs imposed by markets in licit psychoactives are significantly greater than those imposed by drug prohibition.

Report: Foreword, John D. Feerick, Cyrus Vance

Faculty Scholarship

The last few years have been particularly bad for government integrity in New York. Since 1985, New York City has been rocked by a series of highly publicized scandals, arguably the worst since the days of Tammany Hall. One borough president was convicted of felonies; another committed suicide while under investigation; a congressman was recently convicted of bribery and extortion; former party chairmen in two boroughs were convicted of serious crimes; and a number of agency heads, judges, and lesser officials either have been convicted or forced to resign under a cloud of suspicion. And the City does not have …

The Uniform Rules On The Liability Of Operators Of Transport Terminals, Joseph Sweeney

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Symposium On Law And Medicine, Clark C. Havighurst

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Setting Limits On Autonomy: Saving Money In An Aging Society, Robert L. Schwartz

Faculty Scholarship

In Setting Limits Dr. Daniel Callahan poses a solution: the termination of some kinds of treatment for the very elderly. His solution undercuts autonomy of the individual. This Article describes the values served by autonomy and explains why autonomy is so basic to making health care decisions and why its importance is especially great in the United States. Of course, autonomy is not absolute. This Article will define those classes of cases in which autonomy can be trumped by other interests. The Article will next determine whether the class of cases defined by Dr. Callahan fits within that definition. Finally, …

Considering Political Alternatives To "Hard Look" Review, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

That is absolutely right. I am sufficiently confused by the facts that are already on the table – two of them in particular. One (the dog that I thought was barking in that interesting first chart Don Elliott put up, on which he did not remark), is that the first two periods of judicial review he showed us had 337 and 294 cases of judicial review each; for the third period, for the same length of time, the figure is about 800. Something is going on there. The other is just a square conflict that our moderator is much better …

Unstable Coalitions: Corporate Governance As A Multi-Player Game, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

This is an article written in honor of Professor Donald Schwartz, a leading figure in academic corporate law for over two decades, but also a man nearly unique in his willingness to move beyond corporate law to the general study of corporate behavior. In this light, this article will not explore the latest wrinkle in the law – the most recent case, latest SEC ruling, or newest takeover defense tactic – but will instead ask if there are new ways in which we should try to talk about corporate law and corporate behavior. These were questions that Don Schwartz repeatedly …

Legislative Theory And The Rule Of Law: Some Comments On Rubin, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Rubin's article is an admirable piece of work on many levels, from its attention to jurisprudence to its concern with the practical changes in the Congress and its function, and their implications. In commenting on it, I mean to restrict myself to the latter subjects. These are the matters that have the closest tangency to my own work and produce for me the strongest response. Professor Rubin has given us a compelling statement of the problems posed for contemporary constitutional and legislative theory by one transformation in statutory practice accompanying the rise of the administrative state, the change from …

Facing Up: A Reply, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

We are all familiar with the peculiar feeling of coming across one's past objectified, as when one overhears others telling how they perceived a certain event in which one played the hero's role. Reading the contributions to this issue was a bit like that. In particular, it made me realise how I have abused the tolerant paper by writing all too much, while leaving so many hostages to fortune, so many loose ends, and expressing so many half-baked ideas. It is also embarrassing because it is like a summons to the confessional, to repent my sins of omission and commission, …

Some Comments On Professor Neuborne's Paper, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to comment upon Professor Neuborne's paper; it is a provoking effort to make sense out of important aspects of the first amendment. At the outset, I should say that there is much in the paper with which I agree. But for the purposes of this essay I will focus on points of disagreement.

Professor Neuborne's specific focus is an analysis of the Security and Exchange Commission's (SEC) regulation of speech. The final twenty-one pages of his paper are directly concerned with analysis and criticism of the existing case law on the subject. …

The Meaning Of Morality, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

Many lawyers, both inside and outside the law schools, suffer from insecurity about our discipline. Instead of thinking of ourselves as the curators of a grand tradition in Western thought, many of us think of the law as a collection of doctrinal formulas and rules imposed on us by legislatures and the highest courts. We are always looking elsewhere to find a source of wisdom that will give the law coherence and meaning. At various times in this century we have looked to sociology, anthropology, psychoanalysis and, of course, economics in an effort to ground our ideas in firmer soil. …

Is Law Politics?, Philip Chase Bobbitt

Faculty Scholarship

Red, White, and Blue addresses the pervasive presence of five general theories of American constitutional law. These theories reflect particular jurisprudential ideologies governing, among other things, the legitimacy of certain arguments, the appropriateness of certain occasions for judicial intervention and the constitutional basis for judicial review. What makes this book interesting and important is that it provides an unwitting or at least unself-conscious example of the general theorizing it wishes to explain. For this reason, its descriptions of the particular family of theories that characterize American constitutional jurisprudence are distorted, while it disclaims any account of the particular set of …

Coming Of Age In A Corporate Law Firm: The Economics Of Associate Career Patterns, Ronald J. Gilson, Robert H. Mnookin

Faculty Scholarship

The traditional American corporate law firm, long an oasis of organizational stability, in recent years has been the subject of dramatic change. The manner in which firms divide profits, perhaps the most revealing aspect of law firm organization because it displays the balance the firm has selected between risk-sharing and incentives, has changed in a critical way. From a long standing reliance on seniority that emphasizes risk-sharing, profit division is shifting to a system based on the productivity of individual partners that emphasizes incentives. With what seems to be only a short time lag from the change in how profits …

Corruption, Legal Education And Change In West Africa: A Broader View Of Human Rights, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

"Will we ever move again?" I wondered as I sat with my knees jammed into my chin, sore from the long and bumpy ride on the wooden plank which lined the back of a "bush taxi" – the only public transport between villages in Northern Mali. The "taxi" was actually a rusty and roadworn pickup truck packed with more than two dozen men, women and children, more than I ever imagined could fit in the small, flat space between the cab and the tailgate. "Why are we stopping now?" I smiled at myself as I felt a sense of exasperation …

The Mandatory/Enabling Balance In Corporate Law: An Essay On The Judicial Role, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

A half-filled glass of water can be described as either half full or half empty. The structure of American corporate law – partly enabling, partly mandatory in character – can be viewed in much the same way. Some commentators see American corporate law as primarily composed of mandatory rules that the shareholders themselves cannot waive or modify, In their view, this mandatory component compensates both for the absence of true bargaining among the parties and for the inevitable divergence of interests between the principals (the shareholders) and their agents (the managers and directors). Conversely, other commentators, to whom this Article …

West's 1989 Texas Rules Of Court - One Step Forward, One Step Back, Jim Paulsen, James Hambleton

Faculty Scholarship

As with many of its other publications, West Publishing Company dominates the Texas market with its "desk copies" of Texas court rules. Over the past few years, those rules have undergone considerable mutation--in color, from white to blue to gray to red--and in length, from one volume to two volumes. There have also been numerous substantive changes. In view of the evolving nature of the "Texas Rules of Court" and the widespread use of these desk books by Texas attorneys, we feel it is about time to chronicle a few of the changes, make some constructive suggestions for improvement and, …

Electronic Technology And The Law Firm Librarian, James Hambleton

Faculty Scholarship

Automating the law firm library requires understanding the culture and structure of the firm, and the abilities to work with systems personnel and to select appropriate software. Mr. Hambleton describes these processes and provides examples.

Originalism As Transformative Politics, Lawrence B. Solum

Faculty Scholarship

Part I of this Essay elaborates upon Perry's observations that, as a matter of hermeneutic theory, we all are originalists and we all are non-originalists; theoretically, there is no real distinction between originalism and non-originalism. Part II provides evidence that, as a matter of practice, self-professed distinctions between originalists and non-originalists are even more dubious; non-originalists respect and rely upon originalist arguments, and originalists frequently ignore evidence of the framers' intentions. Part III applies my arguments to Perry's own theory of constitutional interpretation. Perry's view of the relationship between constitutional interpretation and prophecy illustrates a powerful but neglected insight about …

Freedom Of Communicative Action: A Theory Of The First Amendment Freedom Of Speech, Lawrence B. Solum

Faculty Scholarship

We are still searching for an adequate theory of the first amendment freedom of speech. Despite a plethora of judicial opinions and scholarly articles, there are fundamental conflicts over the meaning of the words "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." This Article examines the possibility that recent developments in social theory can aid our understanding of the freedom of speech. My thesis is that Jiirgen Habermas' theory of communicative action can serve as the basis for an interpretation of the first amendment that fits the general contours of existing first amendment doctrine and provides a …

The Single European Act: A Constitution For The Community?, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

If proof were needed that the European Economic Community is still the product of a careful tempering of integrationist impulses with preoccupations of national sovereignty, the recently ratified Single European Act (Single Act or Act) amply supplies it. Although the Single Act represents the most comprehensive revision to date of the Treaty of Rome (EEC Treaty), which established the European Economic Community (European Community or Community), it also reflects the continuing vitality of the view that functional change within the Community takes priority in time over structural and institutional reform. Rather than place European integration on a new set of …

Delaware's Intermediate Standard For Defensive Tactics: Is There Substance To Proportionality Review?, Ronald J. Gilson, Reinier Kraakman

Faculty Scholarship

The courts have long struggled with a standard for reviewing management's efforts to deter or defeat hostile takeovers. The usual standards of review in corporate law, the business judgment rule and the intrinsic fairness test, do not seem adequate when courts must evaluate defensive measures that implicate both management's business acumen and its loyalty to shareholder interests. Because evaluating a sale of the company is a complex business decision, management's response to a takeover bid resembles the normal business decisions that the business judgment rule largely insulates from judicial review.At the same time, however, a hostile takeover creates a potential …

A House Divided Against Itself: A Comment On "Mastery, Slavery, And Emancipation", Kendall Thomas

Faculty Scholarship

Hegel argues in the preface to the Philosophy of Right that "every individual is a child of his time; so philosophy too is its own time apprehended in thoughts." "It is just as absurd," he maintains, "to fancy [the German word is einbilden: imagine, presume] that a philosophy can transcend its contemporary world as it is to fancy that an individual can overleap his own age, jump over Rhodes." This is a hard saying. It suggests that " '[t]here is not one of our ideas or one of our reflexions which does not carry a date.' " The fact that …

Administrative Law Symposium: Question & Answer With Professors Elliott, Strauss, And Sunstein, Dick Pierce, Donald Elliott, Peter L. Strauss, Cass Sunstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Politics Across Borders: Nonintervention And Nonforcible Influence Over Domestic Affairs, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

It is time for a fresh look at the norm of nonintervention in domestic affairs, as applied to nonforcible efforts to influence another state's internal politics. The existence of such a norm is widely proclaimed, and it is commonly assumed to be a legal obligation rather than a mere practice of comity or aspirational objective. For governments, scholars and international organs alike, the "rule" against interference in internal politics seems to be an article of faith; but despite the frequency of its incantation in international discourse, how the norm applies to nonforcible conduct is inadequately understood.

This article considers the …

The Future And The First Amendment, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

It is my honor and pleasure to deliver this year's Sullivan Lecture. I have an especially warm feeling toward this Law School. Two years ago, at the invitation of your Professor Distelhorst, I participated in the Capital Law School program for teaching American law to Japanese lawyers. For five stimulating weeks I enjoyed the intellectual and social company· of Japanese attorneys, while teaching them the outlines of American constitutional law. Twice a week, in the evening, for three continuous hours, and after a full work day, these dedicated lawyers would willingly become students again and suffer patiently through my highly …

Harry Kalven, The Proust Of The First Amendment, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

Reading A Worthy Tradition makes one nostalgic. For the generation of scholars who cut their first amendment teeth on Harry Kalven's articles, this book offers the experience of a recaptured past. The question is, however, does it offer anything more?

Seasoned To The Use, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

Two recent novels, Presumed Innocent and The Good Mother, have more in common than critical success, longevity on best-seller lists and big-name movie adaptations. Both books are about law: Presumed Innocent is a tale of murder in the big city; The Good Mother is the story of a custody fight over a little girl. Central characters in both books are lawyers. Turow is a lawyer, and Miller thanks lawyers. While the books could be classified in other ways – Presumed Innocent as mystery, The Good Mother as women's fiction – each meets a suggested genre specification of a legal novel: …

Independent Agencies – Independent From Whom?, Sally Katzen, Edward Markey, James Miller, Joseph Grundfest, R. Gaull Silberman, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.