Law Commons^™

Cls Wasn't Killed By A Question, John Henry Schlegel

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Narrative, Disability, And Identity, David M. Engel, Frank W. Munger

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The Hidden Victims Of Tort Reform: Women, Children, And The Elderly, Lucinda M. Finley

Journal Articles

I have conducted empirical research from several states on how juries in medical malpractice and other tort suits allocate their damage awards between economic loss damages and noneconomic loss damages. I then compared cases in which men are the victims and cases in which women are the victims. This research demonstrates that while overall men tend to recover greater total damages, juries consistently award women more in noneconomic loss damages than men, and that the noneconomic portion of women's total damage awards is significantly greater than the percentage of men's tort recoveries attributable to noneconomic damages. Consequently, any cap on …

Shopping For Religion: The Change In Everyday Religious Practice And Its Importance To The Law, Rebecca Redwood French

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No abstract provided.

Le 'Noble Mensonge' De L'Amérique Après Le 11 Septembre [Written As Constituting A Nation, Making A Home, After September 11th], David A. Westbrook

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No abstract provided.

Lawyers And Biblical Prophets, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

This is part of a broader exploration of the suggestion that the biblical prophets-Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Nathan, and the others-are sources of ethical reflection and moral example for modern American lawyers. The suggestion appears to be unusual; I am not sure why.

The Prophets were, more than anything else, lawyers-as their successors, the Rabbis of the Talmud, were. They were neither teachers nor bureaucrats, not elected officials or priests or preachers. And the comparison is not an ancient curiosity:

Much of what admirable lawyer-heroes have done in modern America has been prophetic in the biblical sense-that is, what they …

Racial Purity Laws In The United States And Nazi Germany: The Targeting Process, Judy Scales-Trent

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No abstract provided.

Of Duncan, Peter And Thomas Kuhn, John Henry Schlegel

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No abstract provided.

Re-Interpreting The Effect Of Rights: Career Narratives And The Americans With Disabilities Act, David M. Engel, Frank W. Munger

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No abstract provided.

Transgressing The Border Between Protection And Empowerment For Domestic Violence Victims And Older Children: Empowerment As Protection In The Foster Care System, Susan Vivian Mangold

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No abstract provided.

Why Retire The Feminization Of Poverty Construct?, Athena D. Mutua

Journal Articles

The "feminization of poverty" concept should be retired, if it has not already been so. It should be retired, even though the concept has been extremely powerful as a discursive construct. In a phrase, the idea captured a seemingly universal phenomenon, inspired theoretical research into the nexus between women and poverty, and summoned coalitions of women by marking an agenda for, and among, women across the boundaries of race, ethnicity, and nationality. In short, it has been a war cry, demanding and framing analyses of women's poverty, and justifying and inspiring women's collective action. Nevertheless, the feminization of poverty construct …

Langdell's Auto-Da-Fé, John Henry Schlegel

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No abstract provided.

Protection, Privatization And Profit In The Foster Care System, Susan Vivian Mangold

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No abstract provided.

African Women In France: Immigration, Family And Work, Judy Scales-Trent

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No abstract provided.

1998 Presidential Address—Making Connections: Law And Society Researchers And Their Subjects, David M. Engel

Journal Articles

This essay explores the theme of the 1998 annual meeting of the Law and Society Association: "Making Connections across Disciplines, Theories, and Methods," focusing in particular on the connections between researcher and subject and between researcher and researcher. The essay discusses three recent articles, by Joseph Sanders and V. Lee Hamilton, by Barbara Yngvesson, and by Margaret Montoya. These articles illustrate recent creative efforts by law and society researchers to forge new kinds of connections to their subjects. The articles also illustrate fundamentally different conceptions of the role of the researcher and of the methodologies on which sociolegal studies might …

Lamas, Oracles, Channels, And The Law: Reconsidering Religion And Social Theory, Rebecca Redwood French

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No abstract provided.

Cultural Criticism Of Law, Guyora Binder, Robert Weisberg

Journal Articles

Professors Binder and Weisberg expound a "cultural criticism" of law that views law as an arena for composing, representing, and contesting identity, and that treats identity as constitutive of the interests that motivate instrumental action. They explicate this critical method by reference to "New Historicist" literary criticism, postmodern social theory, and Nietzchean aesthetics. They illustrate this method by reviewing recent scholarship of two kinds: First, they explore how legal disputes take on expressive meaning for parties and observers against the background of legal norms regulating or recognizing identities. Second, they examine "readings" of the representations of character, credit, and value …

Dynastic Realms And Secular States: Introduction, David M. Engel

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No abstract provided.

The Church And The Law, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

The image I want to use to talk about the church in the state, from a Christian lawyer's point of view, is in two of the novels of the late theological storyteller Walker Percy. We Percy readers first saw the image in Love in the Ruins. Percy's sub-title for that novel was "The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World." His setting is the not-too-distant future in North America. Social climate and civil discourse are even worse than they are now. Percy's central figure, Dr. Thomas More, the bad Catholic, and a few …

Post-Totalitarian Politics, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

This review essay examines two Hegelian responses to the unexpected collapse of communism, both published in 1992: The End of History by Francis Fukuyama and Civil Society and Political Theory by Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato. Fukuyama’s book famously predicted that the triumph of markets would lead to the end of armed conflict. Cohen & Arato celebrated the role of civil society activists in overthrowing communism, and proposed that first world progressives follow a similar path to reform. This review essay argues that Fukuyama’s interpretation of Hegel as a cold war liberal ignores Hegel’s warnings about the anomic and antisocial …

Origin Myths: Narratives Of Authority, Resistance, Disability, And Law, David M. Engel

Journal Articles

Origin stories are a distinctive form of narrative. In their account of how something "began to be," such stories connect past and present, clarify the meanings of important events, reaffirm core norms and values, and assert particular understandings of social order and individual identity. The parents of children with disabilities tell strikingly similar origin stories about the day their child was first diagnosed. Such stories not only explore the meanings of a transformative event but also draw implicit connections between past encounters with medical specialists and present encounters with educational specialists as mandated by an important federal statute. This article, …

New York Times Co V Sullivan: The 'Actual Malice' – Standard And Editorial Decision-Making, Geoffrey Bennett, Russel L. Weaver

Journal Articles

In an effort to explore conflicting views of the New York Times decision, this article compares how the British media functions under Britain's more restrictive defamation laws with how the US media functions under the actual malice standard. It does so based on interviews with reporters, editors, defamation lawyers, and others involved in the media in an effort to understand how they decide which stories to publish, and to gain some understanding of how libel laws affect editorial decision-making.

Litigation Across Space And Time: Courts, Conflict, And Social Change, David M. Engel

Journal Articles

One of the problems facing researchers who have studied courts across time and space has been the cultural variability of seemingly uniform analytic categories, including conceptions of time and space themselves. This article proposes that we take such variations in meaning as a starting point for comparative studies of courts and social change rather than viewing them as were "noise" in the system. Litigation in Chiangmai, Thailand, is presented as an example. Changing conceptions of "space" in Thailand from the nineteenth century to the present illustrate the transformation of legal and political authority as well as the proliferation of normative …

A Judge Shapes And Manages Institutional Reform: School Desegregation In Buffalo, Judy Scales-Trent

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No abstract provided.

A Republican Agenda For Hobbesian America?, Elizabeth B. Mensch, Alan Freeman

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No abstract provided.

The Legal Community And The Transformation Of Disputes: The Settlement Of Injunction Actions, James B. Atleson

Journal Articles

Lawyers in cases involving injunctions against picketing represent clients in situations of great immediacy. A significant number of injunction actions are settled with reductions in picketing despite a seemingly restrictive statute and a highly organized workforce. This study of legal culture examines the role of lawyers in striving to create predictability, especially in regard to judges and the police, and in transforming conflicts of value into disputes over interests that can be resolved without resort to formal adjudication.

Religion, Revival, And The Ruling Class: A Critical History Of Trinity Church, Elizabeth B. Mensch

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No abstract provided.

Reflections On Labor, Power, And Society, James B. Atleson

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No abstract provided.

The Oven Bird's Song: Insiders, Outsiders, And Personal Injuries In An American Community, David M. Engel

Journal Articles

In "Sander County" Illinois, concerns about litigiousness in the local population tended to focus on personal injury suits, although such cases were very rarely brought. This article explores the roots of these concerns in the ideology of the rural community and in the reactions of many residents to social, cultural, and economic changes that created a pervasive sense of social disintegration and loss. Personal injury claims are contrasted with contract actions, which were far more numerous yet were generally viewed with approval and did not give rise to perceptions of litigiousness or greed. The distinction is explained in terms of …

Notes Toward An Intimate, Opinionated, And Affectionate History Of The Conference On Critical Legal Studies, John Henry Schlegel

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.