Law Commons^™

Sneaking Around In The Legal Profession: Interjurisdictional Unauthorized Practice By Transactional Lawyers, Charles W. Wolfram

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The quiet clubbiness that once characterized the practice of law in the United States is rapidly disappearing as new realities announce their clamorous arrival. Evaporating at a great rate—judging speed of change in historical terms—are many traditionally accepted and functionally important features of the legal profession of another day. Disappearing or dead are such sturdy former fixtures as the exclusivity of traditional bar self-policing. Also gone is the at-one-time widely acknowledged hegemony of the American Bar Association as the exclusive source of lawyer code pronouncements on lawyer disciplinary regulation. Courts, under the thrall of bar associations, at one time claimed …

State Constitutions, School Finance Litigation, And The "Third Wave": From Equity To Adequacy, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Comment On Text, Time And Audience Understanding In Constitutional Law, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Betting The Bank: How Derivatives Trading Under Conditions Of Uncertainty Can Increase Risks And Erode Returns In Financial Markets, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

On April 12, 1994, Procter & Gamble Co. announced that it had incurred pre-tax losses of $157 million from trading in leveraged interest rate swaps, a form of financial derivative. At the time that figure seemed enormous. Yet within a year, Procter & Gamble's misfortune had been overshadowed by that of Orange County, a wealthy California enclave that lost an estimated $2.5 billion of its investment fund as a result of dealings in reverse-repurchase agreements, inverse floaters, and other arcane instruments. Recent months have seen further losses by investment funds, government entities, and even colleges and Native American tribes. Perhaps …

Lawyers And Butlers: The Remains Of Amoral Ethics, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Information Technology And Legal Ethics: Expanding The Teaching And Understanding Of Legal Ethics Through The Creation Of A New Generation Of Electronic Reference Materials, Roger C. Cramton, Peter W. Martin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

How Juries Decide Death: The Contributions Of The Capital Jury Project, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In 1988 I concluded a review of what was then known about capital jury decision-making with the following observations: “[T]he penalty phase presents significant incongruities. The jurors are charged with representing the community's judgment, yet the voir dire and challenge processes have eliminated significant segments of the public from the jury. Jurors have been influenced by preceding events during voir dire questioning and the trial in pivotal ways, yet they are instructed to focus only on aggravating and mitigating evidence. They are told to ignore their emotions in perhaps one of the most emotionally charged decisions they will ever make, …

Exorcising The Evil Of Forum-Shopping, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Most of the business of litigation comprises pretrial disputes. A common and important dispute is over where adjudication should take place. Civil litigators deal with nearly as many change-of-venue motions as trials. The battle over venue often constitutes the critical issue in a case.

The American way is to provide plaintiffs with a wide choice of venues for suit. But the American way has its drawbacks. To counter these drawbacks, an integral part of our court systems, and in particular the federal court system, is the scheme of transfer of venue "in the interest of justice." However, the leading evaluative …

Prospecting The Internet, Peter W. Martin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Potential clients, legal information and expert forums are waiting for lawyers on the 'Net. An innovator in online legal services explains why you need to be there.

The Court Vs. Educational Standards, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Labor And The Global Economy: Four Approaches To Transnational Labor Regulation, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

State Constitutional Litigation, Educational Finance, And Legal Impact: An Empirical Analysis, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Politics And The Judiciary: The Influence Of Judicial Background On Case Outcomes, Orley Ashenfelter, Theodore Eisenberg, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

It is widely believed that the background and worldview of judges influence their decisions. This article uses the fact that judges are assigned their cases randomly to assess the effect of judicial background on the outcome of cases from the day-to-day docket in three federal trial courts. Unlike the political science findings of ideological influence in published opinions, we find little evidence that judges differ in their decisions with respect to the mass of case outcomes. Characteristics of the judges or the political party of the judge's appointing president are not significant predictors of judicial decisions.

Optimal Issue Separation In Modern Products Liability Litigation, James A. Henderson Jr., Fred Bertram, Michael J. Toke

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Federal Rules Of Evidence--Past, Present, And Future: A Twenty-Year Perspective, Faust Rossi

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Essay surveys three major transformations in state and federal rules of evidence since the introduction of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The Rules have not only inspired a movement toward codification in the states, they have also liberalized the admission of expert testimony and hearsay. This partially explains thirteen states' reluctance to codify. Judges have furthered this trend by admitting far more discretionary hearsay evidence than Congress intended. Professor Rossi doubts this expansion of the hearsay exceptions would have occurred without the adoption of the FRE and suggests that the newly formed Advisory Committee will produce greater substantive changes …

Property Rules And Liability Rules: The Cathedral In Another Light, James E. Krier, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Ronald Coase's essay on "The Problem of Social Cost" introduced the world to transaction costs, and the introduction laid the foundation for an ongoing cottage industry in law and economics. And of all the law-and-economics scholarship built on Coase's insights, perhaps the most widely known and influential contribution has been Calabresi and Melamed's discussion of what they called "property rules" and "liability rules." Those rules and the methodology behind them are our subjects here.

We have a number of objectives, the most basic of which is to provide a much needed primer for those students, scholars, and lawyers who are …

Settlement Class Actions And The Limits Of Adjudication, James A. Henderson Jr.

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This paper is the Comment for a symposium on Individualized Justice, Mass Torts, and "Settlement Class Actions."

Developing Countries And Multilateral Trade Agreements: Law And The Promise Of Development, Chantal Thomas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mass Torts And The Rhetoric Of Crisis, John A. Siliciano

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Agreeing To Disagree Over Excessive Trading, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Are Stock Markets Costly Casinos? Disagreement, Market Failure, And Securities Regulation, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Judicial (Self-)Portraits: Judicial Discourse In The French Legal System, Mitchel De S.-O.-L'E. Lasser

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The French legal system, according to its official pronouncements, functions on a rigid conception of the interpretive and creative role of the civil, private law judge. This conception may be thought of as an "official portrait": It is an image or representation of the judge and of the nature of the judicial role. The official portrait, which represents an interpretive ideology that posits a perfectly grammatical mode of reading the legal code, has been the source of much confusion, especially to common lawyers. This portrait's predominance in the French legal system, and its effect on French judicial practice, has never …

Remembering Banks, Robert B. Kent

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Separation Of The Religious And The Secular: A Foundational Challenge To First Amendment Theory, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Prediction And The Rule Of Law, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ex Post ≠ Ex Ante: Determining Liability In Hindsight, Kim A. Kamin, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Participants in three conditions (foresight, hindsight, and a modified hindsight condition designed to ameliorate the hindsight effect) assessed whether a municipality should take, or have taken, precautions to protect a riparian property owner from flood damage. In the foresight condition, participants reviewed evidence in the context of an administrative hearing. Hindsight participants reviewed parallel materials in the context of a trial. Three quarters of the participants in foresight concluded that a flood was too unlikely to justify further precautions—a decision that a majority of the participants in hindsight found to be negligent. Participants in hindsight also gave higher estimates for …

Breakfast With Justice Blackmun, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

International Law: A South African Perspective, By John Dugard [Book Review], Muna Ndulo

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Individualized Justice, Mass Torts, And "Settlement Class Actions": An Introduction, Roger C. Cramton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

United Nations Observer Mission In South Africa (Unomsa): Security Council Resolutions 772 (1992) And 894 (1994) And The South African Transition: Preventive Diplomacy And Peacekeeping, Muna Ndulo

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.