Law Commons^™

Lessons From La Morenita Del Tepeyac, Ana M. Novoa

Faculty Articles

The concept that the powerful and wealthy have the absolute obligation to offer political, financial, and social liberation to those at the margins of society should have special importance to those who are lawyers and professionals of color. People spend considerable time working through, working in, and centered in the dominant, or caucasian European culture. The legal system regularly fails to see, accept, realize, or believe when truth is presented at the margins. Nonetheless, it is at the margins that true legal and personal reform take place. Even in a friendly environment, where people are encouraged to step outside the …

Employment Law - Racial Discrimination - Circumstantial Evidence Of Racial Discrimination May Be Introduced To Raise A Genuine Issue Of Material Fact, Patricia W. Moore

Faculty Articles

In Hopson v. DaimlerChrysler, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided whether summary judgment was appropriate for the defendant on racial discrimination claims based on violations of Title VII, 42 United States Code § 2000e-2000e-17 and the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, Michigan Compiled Laws Annotated 37.2101.

Evidentiary Tactics: Selecting The “Best” Evidence To Simplify The Case, Edward J. Imwinkelried, David A. Schlueter

Faculty Articles

In the early 1990s, the American Bar Association Special Committee on Jury Comprehension released the results of surveys of jurors. These jurors had participated in complex federal and state cases. The researchers asked the jurors what complaints they had against the attorneys who had tried the cases. By a wide margin, the primary complaint was that the litigators went overboard and swamped the jury with information, particularly an excessive number of exhibits.

At trial, the attorney must exorcise the demons of complexity and confusion. There are strategies and tactics that should be employed to reduce cases to manageable portions that …

Secured Transactions History: The Impact Of Southern Staple Agriculture On The First Chattel Mortgage Acts In The Anglo-American World, George Lee Flint Jr, Marie Juliet Alfaro

Faculty Articles

The development of secured transaction law in colonial America was spurred by a litigious conflict between the recognizance and the chattel mortgage. The recognizance was the admission and recording of a debt before the court in order to secure credit. However, court hearings were infrequent in the colonies and often logistically impractical to the average farmer or merchant. The chattel mortgage was a more informal and practical solution to providing lines of credit on personal property. Without a system for recording chattel mortgages, lenders could not be sure in their investments.

In the southern colonies, the emergence of staple crops, …

Are Women More Ethical Lawyers – An Empirical Study, Patricia W. Moore, Kevin M. Simmons

Faculty Articles

We first noticed a possible "gender gap" in attorney discipline when we ran across the Oklahoma Disciplinary Commission's annual report for the year 2000. Women currently constitute 27% of Oklahoma attorneys, but 0% of the disciplined attorneys—none of the seventeen named—were women. Wondering whether the Oklahoma figures were aberrational, we attempted to locate research concerning gender and attorney discipline. But there have been few such studies, although “[p]robably no issue in the social sciences receives more attention than the difference between men and women.”

We thus embarked upon a national study of disciplinary actions decided in 2000. After collecting, coding, …

A Continuing Whimsical Search For The True Meaning Of The Term “Product” In Products Liability Litigation, Charles E. Cantú

Faculty Articles

More than a decade has elapsed since an initial attempt was made to discern the true meaning of the term product in products liability litigation. At the time, a brief history of events leading up to the adoption of Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts was outlined, and it was emphasized that what had at first seemed so simple subsequently proved to be somewhat complex.

An examination of cases involving the sales/service transaction, as well as those involving real estate, blood, electricity, component parts, water, computer software, and ideas, sometimes held that what was involved was a product. …

Texas Annual Survey: Securities Regulation, George Lee Flint Jr

Faculty Articles

The ease of becoming judgment proof in Texas, with liberal exemptions from execution of judgment, makes secondary liability very important. Texas statutes provide for four such liability theories: aiding and abetting, control person liability, third party actual awareness liability, and third party beneficiary liability. In addition to these four liability theories, federal law adds primary liability for some secondary parties.

The 78th Texas Legislature made two changes geared toward reducing the cost to the State of Texas in operating the State Securities Board. The Board also made several rule changes to increase revenues and to make other non-substantive changes. Moreover, …