Law Commons^™

The Context Of Ideology: Law, Politics, And Empirical Legal Scholarship, Carolyn Shapiro

All Faculty Scholarship

In their confirmation hearings, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Sotomayor both articulated a vision of the neutral judge who decides cases without resort to personal perspectives or opinions, in short, without ideology. At the other extreme, the dominant model of judicial decisionmaking in political science has long been the attitudinal model, which posits that the Justices’ votes can be explained primarily as expressions of their personal policy preferences, with little or no role for law, legal reasoning, or legal doctrine.

Many traditional legal scholars have criticized such scholarship for its insistence on the primacy of ideology in judicial decisionmaking, even …

Prosecutorial Regulation Versus Prosecutorial Accountability, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No government official has as much unreviewable power or discretion as the prosecutor. Few regulations bind or even guide prosecutorial discretion, and fewer still work well. Most commentators favor more external regulation by legislatures, judges, or bar authorities. Neither across-the-board legislation nor ex post review of individual cases has proven to be effective, however. Drawing on management literature, this article reframes the issue as a principal-agent problem and suggests corporate strategies for better serving the relevant stakeholders. Fear of voters could better check prosecutors, as could victim participation in individual cases. Scholars have largely neglected the most promising avenue of …

Toward A Revised 4.2 No-Contact Rule, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rewarding Prosecutors For Performance, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

Prosecutorial discretion is a problem that most scholars attack from the outside. Most scholars favor external institutional solutions, such as ex ante legislation or ex post judicial and bar review of individual cases of misconduct. At best these approaches can catch the very worst misconduct. They lack inside information and sustained oversight and cannot generate and enforce fine-grained rules to guide prosecutorial decisionmaking. The more promising alternative is to work within prosecutors' offices, to create incentives for good performance. This symposium essay explores a neglected toolbox that head prosecutors can use to influence line prosecutors: compensation and other rewards. Rewards …

The Disabled Lawyers Have Arrived; Have They Been Welcomed With Open Arms Into The Profession? An Empirical Study Of The Disabled Lawyer, Donald H. Stone

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This Article proceeds in seven parts. Part I briefly outlines the ADA's position on reasonable accommodations. Part II addresses how law firms are reacting and responding to the fact that they employ lawyers with mood disorders, such as depression or bipolar disorder, attorneys with learning disabilities, and individuals with alcohol or drug addiction. What disabilities are most often represented? Are lawyers with disabilities apt to receive work modifications to accommodate their disability? Are attorneys with mental illness provided with less stressful case assignments? Are lawyers with substance use disorders and alcohol or drug addiction assigned co-counsel to monitor or offer …

Betraying Truth: Ethics Abuse In Middle East Reporting, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article presents a brief overview of press freedom under the First Amendment, attempts to create a working definition of media “objectivity,” examines various codes of professional ethics for journalists, and analyzes specific cases in which such standards have allegedly been abused or abandoned in Middle East reporting.

Legal And Managerial "Cultures" In Corporate Representation, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The General Counsel Of A Nonprofit Enterprise: Some Questions, Edward B. Rock

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No abstract provided.

Regulating Conflicts Of Interest In Research: The Paper Tiger Needs Real Teeth, Jesse A. Goldner J.D.

All Faculty Scholarship

This article describes the current state of the regulation of financial conflicts of interest in research in the United States. It notes the implications of the changing academic and private research environment and reviews recent empirical research on (1) the perceived implications of such conflicts on clinician and researcher behavior, and (2) the effect of disclosure of such conflicts to potential research participants. The article also details a number of widely publicized research “scandals” involving conflicts of interest and the effects these may have on both public support for research as well as on the quality of care that ultimately …