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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Decline In Tax Adviser Professionalism In American Society, John S. Dzienkowski, Robert J. Peroni May 2016

The Decline In Tax Adviser Professionalism In American Society, John S. Dzienkowski, Robert J. Peroni

Fordham Law Review

In Part I, this Article briefly examines the debate over the proper role of the tax professional in representing clients. Part II discusses whether tax professionals owe special duties to the tax system. Part III analyzes how the tax professionals’ involvement in several waves of tax shelter abuses is in sharp contrast to the high-minded rhetoric of the tax ethics debate. This part also discusses changes in the legal and accounting professions that have contributed to the current state of taxpayer representation. This Article advocates for the position that tax professionals owe a duty to the tax system and such …


Up The Chute, Down The Ladder: Shifting Priorities Through Structured Dismissals In Bankruptcy, Bethany K. Smith May 2016

Up The Chute, Down The Ladder: Shifting Priorities Through Structured Dismissals In Bankruptcy, Bethany K. Smith

Fordham Law Review

In a structured dismissal of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, a bankruptcy court approves case dismissal alongside a stakeholder agreement as to the manner in which the estate is to be dealt with once the case has been dismissed. Such orders are controversial in that they are not explicitly authorized through the U.S. Bankruptcy Code (“the Code”) and are especially controversial where the accompanying agreement seeks to distribute estate property in contravention of the priority scheme laid out in § 507 of the Code. Where the agreement violates this so-called waterfall payment method, bankruptcy courts are faced with difficult questions: …


Rhetoric And Reality In The Tax Law Of Charity, Linda Sugin May 2016

Rhetoric And Reality In The Tax Law Of Charity, Linda Sugin

Fordham Law Review

This Article contrasts the rhetoric of public benefit connected to charity in the law with the reality of private control of charitable organizations. It argues that the tension between the rhetoric and reality have produced norms of entitlement that undermine taxation. It offers an approach to the role of charity under the law by defining the obligations of government in a just society, qualifying the economic framework dominant in the literature concerning charities, and identifying what private charity can achieve that governments cannot. This Article concludes by endorsing the charitable deduction in the tax law on terms consistent with this …


Foreword: We Are What We Tax, Mary Louise Fellows, Grace Heinecke, Linda Sugin May 2016

Foreword: We Are What We Tax, Mary Louise Fellows, Grace Heinecke, Linda Sugin

Fordham Law Review

On November 12 and 13, 2015, the Fordham Law Review hosted a symposium entitled We Are What We Tax. We invited scholars with a wide array of expertise inside and outside of the tax arena to consider how tax laws have shaped public and private institutions, cultural norms and hierarchies, and societal values.


The Social Boundaries Of Corporate Taxation, Sloan G. Speck May 2016

The Social Boundaries Of Corporate Taxation, Sloan G. Speck

Fordham Law Review

This Article argues that, while important, efficiency considerations should not function as the sole arbiter of the boundary between corporate and conduit tax treatment. First, classical corporate taxation is, in many ways, deeply embedded within a larger network of legal and social meanings. Classical corporate taxation operates in concert with, rather than separately from, these legal and social meanings. For this reason, the rules governing entities’ tax classification should take these interrelationships into account, if not as a primary norm, then as a secondary consideration when empirical or other uncertainties preclude a clear choice based on efficiency. The social boundaries …


Liberalism, Philanthropy, And Praxis: Realigning The Philanthropy Of The Republic And The Social Teaching Of The Church, Rob Atkinson May 2016

Liberalism, Philanthropy, And Praxis: Realigning The Philanthropy Of The Republic And The Social Teaching Of The Church, Rob Atkinson

Fordham Law Review

This Article seeks a common ground for theists of the Abrahamist religious faiths and agnostics in the Socratic philosophical tradition on the role that the liberal state should play in advancing the two coordinate aims of traditional philanthropy: helping society’s least well off and advancing the highest forms of human excellence. It focuses particularly on Abrahamists who are orthodox Catholics and Socratics who are left-liberals, distinguishing their broad views on the liberal state’s proper philanthropic role from the far narrower views of libertarians and other right-liberals. It concludes that adherents of Catholic Social Teaching and advocates of secular left-liberalism can …


Collateral Damage: When Should The Determinations Of Administrative Adjudications Have Collateral Estoppel Effect In Subsequent Adjudications?, Matthew Faust May 2016

Collateral Damage: When Should The Determinations Of Administrative Adjudications Have Collateral Estoppel Effect In Subsequent Adjudications?, Matthew Faust

Fordham Law Review

Collateral estoppel is an equitable doctrine under which a court gives issue-preclusive effect to findings of fact or law made in previous proceedings. The U.S. Supreme Court has recently held that under certain circumstances, the determinations of administrative adjudications have collateral estoppel effect in federal court. The Court, however, did not address under which circumstances the determinations of administrative adjudications should have collateral estoppel effect in subsequent administrative adjudications. There has been little clear and consistent reasoning in lower federal courts about when collateral estoppel should apply in administrative adjudications, and administrative agencies vary widely in their application of collateral …


Keeping Shareholder Activism Alive: A Comparative Approach To Outlawing Dead Hand Proxy Puts In Delaware, Danielle A. Rapaccioli May 2016

Keeping Shareholder Activism Alive: A Comparative Approach To Outlawing Dead Hand Proxy Puts In Delaware, Danielle A. Rapaccioli

Fordham Law Review

Current trends in shareholder activism have brought to light the competing interests of management and stockholders. With a rise in shareholder activism, firms are continuing to include change in control provisions, known as proxy puts, in their debt agreements to counter activist success. Recent litigation regarding the use of these provisions has created a debate as to whether these provisions are valid under Delaware law. Moreover, companies and lending institutions have morphed these provisions into a more restrictive form, known as “dead hand proxy puts.” The controversy analyzed in this Note arises out of the use of dead hand proxy …


Perpetuating Inequality By Taxing Wealth, Goldburn P. Maynard Jr. May 2016

Perpetuating Inequality By Taxing Wealth, Goldburn P. Maynard Jr.

Fordham Law Review

This Article attempts to correct this shortcoming in the progressive argument by returning narrative to its central place in the estate tax debate. Drawing on psychological insights, I hope to underscore the difficulty of the effort to preserve progressive taxation and combat wealth inequality.


The Corruption Of Liberal And Social Democracies, Timothy K. Kuhner May 2016

The Corruption Of Liberal And Social Democracies, Timothy K. Kuhner

Fordham Law Review

Thomas Piketty repeats throughout Capital in the Twenty-First Century that today’s levels of inequality are not inevitable, much less natural, and has connected the state of democracy worldwide to rising economic inequality. Wealth transfers from the state to the private sector, wealth transfers from labor to capital, and tax laws favorable to the concentration of wealth require that the participatory and representative facets of democracy be kept in check. Beyond suitable material conditions, the growth and maintenance of inequality necessitates a justificatory ideology. This Article explores the possibility that the laws of political finance can help connect the dots. Legal …


How Individual Income Tax Policy Affects Entrepreneurship, David Clingingsmith, Scott Shane May 2016

How Individual Income Tax Policy Affects Entrepreneurship, David Clingingsmith, Scott Shane

Fordham Law Review

This Article reviews the empirical literature on the effects of individual income tax policy on entrepreneurship. We find no evidence of consensus, even on relatively narrow questions such as whether individual income tax rates deter or encourage entrepreneurial entry. We believe the absence of consensus reflects both the complexity of mechanisms connecting tax policy to entrepreneurial decision making and the infeasibility of employing the most reliable empirical methods, such as experiments, in this domain.


The Semantics Of Sin Tax: Politics, Morality, And Fiscal Imposition, Bruce G. Carruthers May 2016

The Semantics Of Sin Tax: Politics, Morality, And Fiscal Imposition, Bruce G. Carruthers

Fordham Law Review

In this Article, I consider how negative social meanings can be projected through public revenue systems and propose to examine the link between taxation and representation in a new light.7 First, I discuss how social meanings are attached to money and then explain how, through the use of earmarking, this works in the case of tax revenues. I next briefly review the history of sin taxes at both the state and federal levels. Finally, I use computational linguistic methods to suggest that the fiscal significance of sin taxes, and their cultural significance, are loosely coupled.


Framing Middle-Class Insecurity: Tax And The Ideology Of Unequal Economic Growth, Martha T. Mccluskey May 2016

Framing Middle-Class Insecurity: Tax And The Ideology Of Unequal Economic Growth, Martha T. Mccluskey

Fordham Law Review

This Article first explains how the prevailing discourse frames federal tax support for the middle class as either consumption or redistribution, both of which appear to be essentially unproductive and potentially destructive. Second, this Article examines the expansion of state and local tax support for elite private capital. In contrast to tax support favoring the middle class, this upper-class support is accepted widely as necessary for productive economic development. Operating below the radar of prominent tax debates, this state and local tax policy reveals more starkly and perversely how prevailing views of tax rationalize inequality and austerity. This Article concludes …


Beyond Citizens United, Nicholas Almendares, Catherine Hafer May 2016

Beyond Citizens United, Nicholas Almendares, Catherine Hafer

Fordham Law Review

The doctrine announced in Citizens United rendered most efforts to regulate campaign financing unconstitutional. We argue, however, that the doctrine allows for a novel approach to the concerns inherent in campaign financing that does not directly infringe on political speech, because it operates later in the process, after the election. This approach allows us to address a broad range of these issues and to do so with legal tools that are readily available. We describe two applications of our approach in this Article. First, we argue that courts should use a modified rational basis review when a law implicates the …


A Copyright Right Of Publicity, Reid Kress Weisbord May 2016

A Copyright Right Of Publicity, Reid Kress Weisbord

Fordham Law Review

This Article identifies a striking asymmetry in the law’s disparate treatment of publicity-rights holders and copyright holders. State-law publicity rights generally protect individuals from unauthorized use of their name and likeness by others. Publicity-claim liability, however, is limited by the First Amendment’s protection for expressive speech embodying a “transformative use” of the publicity-rights holder’s identity. This Article examines for the first time a further limitation imposed by copyright law: when a publicity-rights holder’s identity is transformatively depicted in a copyrighted work without consent, the author’s copyright can produce the peculiar result of enjoining the publicity-rights holder from using or engaging …


Read This Note Or Else!: Conviction Under 18 U.S.C. § 875(C) For Recklessly Making A Threat, Maria A. Brusco May 2016

Read This Note Or Else!: Conviction Under 18 U.S.C. § 875(C) For Recklessly Making A Threat, Maria A. Brusco

Fordham Law Review

What does it mean to make a threat, and under what circumstances can a speaker be convicted for making one? This Note examines these questions in light of Elonis v. United States, a Supreme Court case decided in June 2015. There, the Court held that when a speaker subjectively intends a statement be taken as a threat or knows that it will be taken as a threat, she may be convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). The Court did not decide whether a speaker who recklessly makes a threat may be convicted under the statute. This Note argues that …


No Misrepresentation Needed: Excepting Discharge For Actual Fraud Under 11 U.S.C. § 523 Without Misrepresentation, Morgan Green May 2016

No Misrepresentation Needed: Excepting Discharge For Actual Fraud Under 11 U.S.C. § 523 Without Misrepresentation, Morgan Green

Fordham Law Review

Imagine buying a game from a seller and promising to repay him at a later date. However, instead of repayment, you decide to give the game to your friend, who in turn allows you to use it. Then your friend declares bankruptcy to discharge the price of the game from his debts, thus allowing you both to use it without paying. This repayment runaround is the issue that the First and Fifth Circuits were asked to decide in two recent cases. Specifically, the question was whether a debt incurred by “actual fraud” may be discharged by the recipient of the …


Time, Due Process, And Representation: An Empirical And Legal Analysis Of Continuances In Immigration Court, David Hausman, Jayashri Srikantiah Apr 2016

Time, Due Process, And Representation: An Empirical And Legal Analysis Of Continuances In Immigration Court, David Hausman, Jayashri Srikantiah

Fordham Law Review

Since 2014, U.S. immigration courts have expedited the cases of many children and families fleeing persecution in Mexico and Central America. This Article conducts an empirical and legal analysis of this policy, revealing that reasonable time between immigration court hearings is necessary to protect the statutory and constitutional rights to legal representation. A large majority of immigrants facing deportation- including those part of the recent surge of children and families from Central America and Mexico-appear at their first deportation hearing without a lawyer, often because they cannot afford one. When an immigrant appears without a lawyer and does not expressly …


Recalling The Lawyers: The Nhtsa, Gm, And The Chevrolet Cobalt, Bernard W. Bell Apr 2016

Recalling The Lawyers: The Nhtsa, Gm, And The Chevrolet Cobalt, Bernard W. Bell

Fordham Law Review

This Article summarizes product safety and vehicle safety law and recounts General Motors Company’s (GM) response to the Cobalt ignition switch defect, paying particular attention to the actions of GM’s in-house and outside counsel. This Article then considers the legality and prudence of a regulatory agency’s imposition of gatekeeping responsibilities on such counsel.


Lawyering Within The Domain Of Expertise, David Mcgowan Apr 2016

Lawyering Within The Domain Of Expertise, David Mcgowan

Fordham Law Review

This Article uses the history of patent prosecution to assess the relationship between the practice of law and the claim of an administrative agency to possess and to employ expertise.


Moving Beyond “Reasonable”: Clarifying The Ftc’S Use Of Its Unfairness Authority In Data Security Enforcement Actions, Timothy E. Deal Apr 2016

Moving Beyond “Reasonable”: Clarifying The Ftc’S Use Of Its Unfairness Authority In Data Security Enforcement Actions, Timothy E. Deal

Fordham Law Review

Data security breaches, which compromise private consumer information, seem to be an ever-increasing threat. To stem this tide, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has relied upon its authority to enforce the prohibition against unfair business practices under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (“section 5”) to hold companies accountable when they fail to employ data security measures that could prevent breaches. Specifically, the FTC brings enforcement actions when it finds that companies have failed to implement “reasonable” data security measures. However, companies and scholars argue that the FTC has not provided adequate notice of which data security practices …


Are Campus Sexual Assault Tribunals Fair?: The Need For Judicial Review And Additional Due Process Protections In Light Of New Case Law, Emily D. Safko Apr 2016

Are Campus Sexual Assault Tribunals Fair?: The Need For Judicial Review And Additional Due Process Protections In Light Of New Case Law, Emily D. Safko

Fordham Law Review

The pervasiveness of sexual assault on college and university campuses and the schools’ failures to take sexual assault seriously have resulted in recent reforms to college campus disciplinary proceedings. The federal government has largely prompted this wave of reform through Title IX, requiring schools to employ particular policies and procedures for investigating and adjudicating sexual assault as a condition of receiving federal funds. Although the federal government’s mandates may be properly motivated, these reforms are criticized because they encourage schools to enact procedures that are heavily stacked against those accused of sexual assault. Consequently, students alleging that they have been …


The Conscious Parallelism Of Wolf Packs: Applying The Antitrust Conspiracy Framework To Section 13(D) Activist Group Formation, William R. Tevlin Apr 2016

The Conscious Parallelism Of Wolf Packs: Applying The Antitrust Conspiracy Framework To Section 13(D) Activist Group Formation, William R. Tevlin

Fordham Law Review

Section 13(d) of the Williams Act requires all persons and groups that acquire 5 percent or more of an issuer’s outstanding stock to disclose their holdings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Whether a group is formed under section 13(d) often is unclear. The legal precedent is ambiguous; courts give more weight to certain forms of circumstantial evidence than others without explaining why. With the substantial increase of hedge fund activism—in particular, the wolf pack tactic—further clarity or uniformity is necessary. A “wolf pack” is a loose association of hedge funds that employs parallel activist strategies toward a target corporation …


Lawyers In The Shadow Of The Regulatory State: Transnational Governance On Business And Human Rights, Milton C. Regan Jr., Kath Hall Apr 2016

Lawyers In The Shadow Of The Regulatory State: Transnational Governance On Business And Human Rights, Milton C. Regan Jr., Kath Hall

Fordham Law Review

Lawyers are beginning to play an important role in strengthening the system of transnational governance that regulates business and human rights. In setting the background to our discussion of lawyers’ role in this context, Part I of this Article provides a general overview of the emergence of the transnational governance regime. Part II then describes some of the governance instruments that attempt to prevent and rectify the adverse human rights impacts of business activities. Part III discusses the extent to which lawyers are advising their business clients on human rights issues, the factors that may inhibit or encourage the provision …


Ethics For Examiners, Daniel J. Bussel Apr 2016

Ethics For Examiners, Daniel J. Bussel

Fordham Law Review

The inquisitorial bankruptcy examiner is sui generis in our system. He faces unique ethical quandaries and considerations, which require a code of ethics tailored to his role if he is to achieve fully the promise of improving Chapter 11 through the introduction of inquisitorial investigative methods. This Article attempts to point the way toward guidelines that will regulate the conduct of examiners to mitigate real, potential, and perceived abuses.


The Changing Odds Of The Chancery Lottery, Marianna Wonder Apr 2016

The Changing Odds Of The Chancery Lottery, Marianna Wonder

Fordham Law Review

Delaware is home to the majority of shareholder class action litigations related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A). These cases usually result in settlements that provide shareholders with only disclosure in exchange for a broad release of future claims, which encompasses unknown and federal security claims. The Delaware Court of Chancery must review and approve these settlements under Delaware Rule 23(e), which has been interpreted as creating a fiduciary duty for the court to protect the interests of absent shareholders. Nevertheless, Delaware has a history of routinely approving disclosure-only settlements with laxity. Recently, members of the court have begun discussing the …


Inside Lawyers: Friends Or Gatekeepers?, Sung Hui Kim Apr 2016

Inside Lawyers: Friends Or Gatekeepers?, Sung Hui Kim

Fordham Law Review

Part I of this Article sets the stage by contrasting two alternative proposals to reform the inside lawyer's role—my reform and Hamermesh's counterreform. Part II discusses the primary empirical disagreements between the two approaches. Part III interrogates the propriety and the utility of invoking the “lawyer as friend” analogy as a model to guide inside counsel's relationships with managers.


The Laws Of Agency Lawyering, George M. Cohen Apr 2016

The Laws Of Agency Lawyering, George M. Cohen

Fordham Law Review

The great variety of agency rules governing lawyers raises interesting questions that are worth exploring. This Article begins that exploration. Part I lays the groundwork by briefly examining how the ABA Model Rules treat regulatory lawyering to raise the question of what regulatory gaps the agency rules might be expected to fill. Part II sets forth several possible theories of agency rule variation. Part III compares agency rules along a number of dimensions, examines some similarities and differences across agencies as well as between the agency rules and the Model Rules, and offers speculations about what may be driving the …


Foreword: Lawyering In The Regulatory State, Nancy J. Moore Apr 2016

Foreword: Lawyering In The Regulatory State, Nancy J. Moore

Fordham Law Review

The authors use a variety of methodologies, including traditional legal analysis, as well as empirical and historical research. Finally, they focus on such diverse issues as the role of agencies in facilitating access to justice, the lawyer’s role as gatekeeper in agency litigation and regulatory compliance, and the unique role of the in-house lawyer, both private and public. Taken together, they open a large window on the complex work of many lawyers who are often overlooked in the legal profession’s literature.


Nothing Could Be Finer?: The Role Of Agency General Counsel In North And South Carolina, Elizabeth Chambliss, Dana Remus Apr 2016

Nothing Could Be Finer?: The Role Of Agency General Counsel In North And South Carolina, Elizabeth Chambliss, Dana Remus

Fordham Law Review

This Article examines the role of agency general counsel in North and South Carolina. The two states offer a rich comparative context for research on agency general counsel. Though closely linked in both name and culture, they have different executive structures and recent political histories, and the agency counseling function has evolved and is currently organized in different ways. These structural and political differences at the state level illuminate commonalities and differences at the agency level and provide an accessible starting point for broader state-level research. Part I examines the structural evolution of the agency general counsel position and the …