Law Commons^™

Encounters With Sources, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

A reference encounter with The Congressional Globe leads Ms. Whisner to ruminate on a librarian's relationship with sources.

Finding Out What They Want To Know, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

A skilled reference librarian knows more than simply where and how to look up information. Recognizing the importance of knowing what to look for as well, Ms. Whisner discusses the venerable reference interview and its role in this key aspect of patron services.

Book Review - Textbook Of Research Ethics: Theory And Practice, Elizabeth Pendo

Book Reviews

An intense and deeply divided debate is taking place over the testing of a short course of AZT to prevent maternal-fetal transmission of HIV in the developing world.' A long course of AZT-administered to HIV-infected pregnant women during their pregnancy and immediately before labor, and then to their newborn children for six weeks-is generally accepted in the United States as providing extensive protection against maternal-fetal transmission of HIV Given the expense and lengthy administration of the long course, American researchers in the developing world designed studies to test the efficacy of a shorter course of AZT administered during late pregnancy …

Protecting The Oceanic Gardens Of Eden: International Law Issues In Deep-Sea Vent Resource Conservation And Management, Craig Allen

Articles

This article seeks to stimulate the nascent discussion on legal questions presented by access to, and use of, deep-sea hydrothermal vent sites and resources and to help guide ocean policy analysts in their efforts to formulate and implement appropriate conservation and management measures adapted to the unique multiple-use conflicts posed by the vent phenomena. The inquiry is timely and important for the vent communities, some of which are already showing signs of the human footprint—a footprint that may in the not too distant future include the tracks of submarine bulldozers as they set about the job of seabed mining.

The …

The Emperor's New Clothes: The Shocking Truth About Digital Signatures And Internet Commerce, Jane K. Winn

Articles

This Article critiques a specific set of assumptions about specific application of digital signature technology: that contracts will be formed over the Internet among parties with no prior relationships through reliance on digital signature certificates issued by trusted third parties to establish the identity of the parties. This application for digital signature technology was once seen as both its most ambitious and most promising application because, for parties with no prior knowledge of each other, there is not yet a reliable system of online identities in Internet commerce.

Parties with an ongoing commercial relationship can absorb the cost of offline …

Should It Be A Free For All? The Challenge Of Extending Trade Dress Protection To The Look And Feel Of Web Sites, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

In the e-commerce world, a company's web site becomes the primary communication center with the customer. The web site is where the company displays products, presents marketing materials, and provides sales and post-sales support. Increasingly, companies are spending valuable resources to build and maintain their web sites. With the rapid change in web technology, many web sites now feature more than just ordinary text. Color, clipart, graphics, designs, animations, and sounds are now part of the overall appearance of web sites. Yet copying an image from a web site is just one click away. What protection is available to the …

Victimized Twice -- The Intersection Of Domestic Violence And The Workplace: Legal Reform Through Curriculum Development, Lea B. Vaughn

Articles

Domestic violence is at least a two-fold problem for American society. On the one hand, it is one of the leading causes of violence at the workplace against women. On the other, it prevents many women from attaining the economic security that would enable them to escape violence. After describing the background of this problem, this paper will canvass current legal remedies that are available to help battered women achieve economic security. This survey leads to the conclusion that the current pastiche of remedies is often ineffective because of their piecemeal approach to the problem, or because current doctrine does …

The Miccosukee Indians And Environmental Law: A Confederacy Of Hope, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

Two legal orphans have found each other. The older one is "Indian Law," a confused, embarrassing, and twisted body of legal rules that "explain" the relationships between the United States and its native peoples. The newer one is "Environmental Law," a complex and jumbled stew of cases and statutes that "prescribe" proper behavior between modern Americans and the natural world.

Both these children of the law are suspected of subversion—the one is tainted by advocates of separate sovereignties, the other by critics of the American way of life. For Native Americans and environmentalists, their recent legal merger is a confederacy …

Fighting The Probate Mafia: A Dissection Of The Probate Exception To Federal Court Jurisdiction, Peter Nicolas

Articles

Despite the complexity and confusion surrounding the probate exception to federal court jurisdiction-or perhaps because of it-it has been given scant attention in the literature. This Article seeks to fill the gap. Part II of this Article sets forth the current application of the probate exception in the lower federal courts. Part III of this Article examines the statutory and constitutional constraints on the federal courts' exercise of subject matter jurisdiction over probate and probate related matters. Part III concludes that the probate exception is a mere gloss on the statutory grants of subject matter jurisdiction to the federal courts …

Blame It On The Cybersquatters: How Congress Partially Ends The Circus Among The Circuits With The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act?, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

Congress blamed the cybersquatters for the need to pass another trademark cyberlaw. Congress enacted the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”) on November 29, 1999. The ACPA aimed to protect consumers and businesses, to promote the growth of electronic commerce, and to provide clarity in the law for trademark owners by prohibiting cybersquatting activities on the Internet. Prior to the enactment of the ACPA, the Federal Trademark Dilution Act (“FTDA”), which was passed by Congress in 1995 and became effective on January 16, 1996, was hailed as a powerful tool to combat cybersquatters on the Internet. That presumed powerful tool turned …

The Durable Power Of Attorney's Place In The Family Of Fiduciary Relationships, Karen E. Boxx

Articles

The durable power of attorney is a deceptively simple document that allows one person to handle the affairs of an incapacitated person without court supervision. It is merely an agency relationship, established by a written document, that continues during the principal's incapacity. The durable power of attorney has been in widespread use only for about twenty-five years. It is very easy to draft, and its use escapes most court proceedings or even much need for legal assistance.

The durable power of attorney has therefore kept a low profile until now, and any attention it is now receiving focuses primarily on …

Executive Orders And Presidential Commands: Presidents Riding To The Rescue Of The Environment, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

Presidential executive orders are legal and political documents. They are also uniquely personal utterances of the president and the administration. The right words at the appropriate time can motivate and move the human spirit, and they can link this president and this moment to the strongest of ideas. Being personal and tending to the heroic, the executive order can thus be perceived as accomplishing a great public good.

This article will explore the pros and cons of the executive order tool. I will then evaluate a number of executive orders that have impacted contemporary environmental policy. I will conclude by …

Curing Conflicts Of Interest In Clinical Research: Impossible Dreams And Harsh Realities, Patricia C. Kuszler

Articles

This article will explore conflicts of interest in the context of clinical research, focusing on the incentives and practices that foster such conflicts. Part I will briefly define and categorize the revenue streams at play in clinical research—both contemporaneous with the clinical trial, and the downstream, long-term gains available to the researcher and research university. Part II will discuss how these entangled revenue streams result in financial and non-financial conflicts of interest that affect the nature and balance of the research enterprise and potentially endanger patients and human subjects. Part III will summarize current conflicts of interest regulations and policies, …

Attorney-Client Confidentiality And The Assessment Of Claimants Who Allege Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Robert H. Aronson, Lonnie Rosenwald, Gerald M. Rosen

Articles

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was first recognized by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980. A PTSD diagnosis requires an individual or individual's loved ones to have experienced a traumatic event that was a threat to life or physical integrity and caused the individual to react to the incident with a specific number of avoidance, reexperiencing, and hyper-arousal symptoms. Obtaining a PTSD diagnosis can be of great value to a personal-injury plaintiff who claims damages due to a traumatic event. Further, if the traumatic event is unquestioned and the individual reports the classic symptoms, a PTSD diagnosis is relatively easy to …

The Mental Health Provider Privilege In The Wake Of Jaffe V. Redmond, Robert H. Aronson

Articles

Many of the revisions to article V of the Uniform Rules of Evidence involved stylistic, nonsubstantive changes. In particular, all language was made gender neutral. The most substantial revision was to Rule 503, formerly titled "Physician and Psychotherapist-Patient Privilege." This revision broadened the scope of the privilege to include a general "mental health provider" privilege, in accord with the trend in the states and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Jaffee v. Redmond. In Jaffee, the Court recognized for the first time a federal psychotherapist-patient privilege and extended the privilege to confidential communications with a licensed social worker in …

International And Comparative Law Perspectives On Internet Patents, Toshiko Takenaka

Articles

This commentary will focus on the participants' proposals relative to the laws of other countries. Particularly, assuming that the same proposals were to be made in an international negotiation, my commentary reflects potential reactions and responses from Japanese and European delegates.

Books? Why?, Penny A. Hazelton

Articles

Yes, we still need law books.

Forward To Fundamental Alteration: Addressing Ada Title Ii Integration Lawsuits After Olmstead V. L. C, Steve Calandrillo, Jefferson D.E. Smith

Articles

In 1999, the Supreme Court reviewed the case of Olmstead v. L.C. by Zimring, which has been called the Brown v. Board of Education for the law of disability discrimination. The Court ultimately agreed with the Department of Justice ("DOJ") and held that the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), along with its supplementary Integration Regulation, requires a State that offers treatment to persons with disabilities to provide such treatment in a community setting where such a placement would not be an unreasonable change or a fundamental alteration in the State's program. Advocates of community care have long argued that such …

Commentary: International And Comparative Law Perspectives On Internet Patents, Toshiko Takenaka

Articles

The Internet and e-commerce have created a borderless market. Goods and services sold on the Internet are subject to the patent statutes and regulations of all countries in which customers have access. Because the presence or absence of patent protection—or variations in that protection—hinders the movement of goods and services throughout the Internet, it is necessary to harmonize the protection afforded by Internet patents in their early stages of development. Among the three papers, however, only Professor Chiappetta touched upon the problem of compliance with the provisions in TRIPS. None of the papers paid attention to the feasibility of harmonizing …

Kathleen A. Sullivan: A True Teacher's Teacher, Christine N. Cimini

Articles

This essay is part of a group of five memorial tributes to Professor Kathleen A. Sullivan of the Yale Law School. The group of tributes reflect on the numerous contributions Professor Sullivan made to her colleagues, students, clients and the clinical education community. In this memoriam tribute, the authors explore three themes that Professor Sullivan cared deeply about: thinking critically about confidentiality, privacy and autonomy; incorporating issues of difference into our teaching and practices; and encouraging people (students, clients and colleagues) to find and assert their own voices, even – and especially – when those voices are different than ours.

Responsible Regulation: A Sensible Cost-Benefit, Risk Versus Risk Approach To Federal Health And Safety Regulation, Steve Calandrillo

Articles

Federal health and safety regulations have saved or improved the lives of thousands of Americans, but protecting our citizens from risk entails significant costs. In a world of limited resources, we must spend our regulatory dollars responsibly in order to do the most we can with the money we have. Given the infeasibility of creating a risk-free society, this paper argues that a sensible cost-benefit, risk versus risk approach be taken in the design of U.S. regulatory oversight policy. The goal should always be to further the best interests of the nation, rather than to satisfy the narrow agenda of …

State Escheat Statutes And Possible Treatment Of Stored Value, Electronic Currency, And Other New Payment Mechanisms, Anita Ramasastry

Articles

Unclaimed property and escheatment is governed primarily by state statutory schemes. State unclaimed property statues require that after a specified period of time, unclaimed and abandoned property escheats to the states. The owner of the property may request return of the property upon proof of his or her ownership. Although several states have adopted the Uniform Unclaimed Property Act as their state escheatment statute,' there are variations in these state statutes. Nonetheless, all state statutes deal with traveler's checks and money orders; most also address gift certificates. Notably absent in all of the state statutes, with the exception of North …

Shifting The Paradigm In E-Commerce: Move Over Inherently Distinctive Trademarks, The E-Brand, I-Brand And Generic Domain Names Ascending To Power?, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

“What's in a name!” laments Juliet at her Shakespearean balcony. Four hundred years later, in the world of e-commerce, Juliet's question would be “What's in a domain name?” After spending all of the Montague's wealth, Romeo might be able to respond, “Call me but love.com.” The price tag for some generic domain names cost a small fortune: Sex.com for $250 million, Business.com for $7.5 million, Broadband.com for $6 million, Loans.com for $3 million, Flu.com for $1.4 million, and Bingo.com for $1.1 million.

In 1995, Procter and Gamble registered hundreds of generic domain names and offered them for sale at auction …