Law Commons^™

The Perils Of Online Legal Research: A Caveat For Diligent Counsel, J. Thomas Sullivan

Faculty Scholarship

Online legal research is emerging as a preferred tool for judges, attorneys, and lawstudents, providing a vast amount ofnearly real-time legal resources at the speed of electronic search. This article analyzes the risk of error associated with the immediacy of online opinion publishing and how the uncertainty ofaccuracy potentially compromises the litigator's ability to provide accurate advice.

Agenda: Hard Times On The Colorado River: Drought, Growth And The Future Of The Compact, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center, Western Water Assessment (Program), Colorado Water Conservation Board, Center For Advanced Decision Support For Water And Environmental Systems, Hydrosphere Resource Consultants, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, Colorado Foundation For Water Education, Patrick, Miller & Kropf, P.C., William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

Hard Times on the Colorado River: Drought, Growth and the Future of the Compact (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Sponsors and Contributors: Colorado Water Conservation Board, Center for Advanced Decision Support for Water and Environmental Systems, Western Water Assessment, CU-CIRES/NOAA, Hydrosphere Resource Consultants, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, Colorado Foundation for Water Education, Patrick, Miller & Kropf, P.C., William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The Colorado River is approaching a crossroads. For the first time in its history, satisfying water demands in one state may require curtailing legally-recognized uses in another. This is not the first instance of water shortages in the region, and conflict among the seven Colorado River states is certainly not new. But the potential shortages on …

Slides: Gila River Indian Community Water Settlement, Rodney B. Lewis

Hard Times on the Colorado River: Drought, Growth and the Future of the Compact (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Presenter: Rodney B. Lewis, Gila River Tribal Attorney.

60 slides.

The Calculation Of Prejudgment Interest, Michael S. Knoll, Jeffrey M. Colon

All Faculty Scholarship

This Essay describes the proper method of calculating prejudgment interest based on sound financial principles. Using the paradigm that the claim plaintiff holds in litigation represents an involuntary loan from plaintiff to defendant and recognizing that in bankruptcy courts treat legal claims similarly to unsecured debt, we argue that prejudgment interest should be computed using the defendant's unsecured borrowing rate. Furthermore, we argue that courts should use a short-term, floating interest rate rather than a long-term rate in order to provide the proper incentive for the parties to settle. We criticize alternative bases for awarding prejudgment interest and address modifications …

Shifting The Focus From The Myth Of "The Vanishing Trial" To Complex Conflict Management Systems, Or I Learned Almost Everything I Need To Know About Conflict Resolution From Marc Galanter, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

To say that The Vanishing Trial is a myth is not to suggest that the facts or analysis in Professor Marc Galanter's seminal report on the vanishing trial are fictional or inaccurate. Indeed, he marshals a massive amount of data to show that the number of trials and the trial rates have been declining for the past four decades, particularly in the federal courts. The report documents an apparent paradox: the proportion of cases going to trial has dropped sharply during the past forty years despite substantial increases in many other legal indicators including the number of lawyers, the number …

Lessons For Patent Policy From Empirical Research On Patent Litigation, Michael J. Meurer, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

This Article reviews empirical patent litigation research to reveal patent policy lessons. First, the Article presents facts about patent litigation. Next, it analyzes the patent premium. Patent litigation research reveals little about the magnitude of the patent premium, but the research reveals the strategies firms use to capture the patent premium and the patent policy instruments that determine the patent premium. Next, the Article evaluates the patent prosecution process and notes that making efforts to refine a patent application can affect the value of the patent. The Article then identifies reforms for improving PTO performance. Finally, the Article discusses policy …

Unleashing A Gatekeeper: Why The Sec Should Mandate Disclosure Of Details Concerning Directors' And Officers' Liability Insurance Policies, Sean J. Griffith

All Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explores the connection between corporate governance and D&O insurance. It argues that D&O insurers act as gatekeepers and guarantors of corporate governance, screening and pricing corporate governance risks to maintain the profitability of their risk pools. As a result, D&O insurance premiums provide the insurer’s assessment of a firm’s governance quality. Most basically, firms with relatively worse corporate governance pay higher D&O premiums. This simple relationship could signal important information to investors and other capital market participants. Unfortunately, the signal is not being sent. Corporations lack the incentive to produce this disclosure themselves, and U.S. securities regulators do …

The Global Enforcement Of Human Rights: The Unintended Consequences Of Transnational Litigation, Andrea Boggio

History and Social Sciences Faculty Journal Articles

In the last few years, a growing number of individuals whose basic rights are violated have filed transnational human rights claims in foreign countries. By placing the individual as a holder of basic rights at the core of the process of development, the capability approach, as put forward by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, provides a fertile theoretical framework to assess translational human rights litigation.

The paper shows that transnational claims are problematic in two regards:

1) They undermine development by discouraging foreign companies from investing in countries that are sources of transnational claims and by weakening local governments and …

George's Story: Voice And Transformation Through The Teaching And Practice Of Therapeutic Jurisprudence In A Law School Child Advocacy Clinic, Bernard P. Perlmutter

Articles

No abstract provided.

Jack And Jill Go To Court: Litigating A Peer Sexual Harassment Case Under Title Ix, Susan P. Stuart

Law Faculty Publications

Title IX peer sexual harassment cases present challenges to litigators because of the unique educational environment in which these cases arise. This Article attempts to educate litigators on the prima facie case, evidentiary issues, and the overall presentation of peer sexual harassment cases.

Solving The Digital Piracy Puzzle: Disaggregating Fair Use From The Dmca's Anti-Device Provisions, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Articles

Copyright law has always involved balancing creative pursuits against innovations in copying, distribution and, more recently, encryption technologies. A significant problem for copyright law is that many such technologies can be utilized for both socially useful and socially harmful purposes. It is difficult to regulate such technologies in a way that prevents social harms while at the same time facilitating social benefits. The most recent example of this dynamic is evident in the 2005 United States Supreme Court decision in MGM v Grokster - dealing with digital file-sharing technologies. This article draws from the file sharing debate in considering another …

Foreward: Competing And Complementary Rule Systems: Civil Procedure And Adr, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

This is a foreword to articles submitted as part of the Association of American Law School’s Symposium during at the January 2004 AALS’s Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia entitled "Competing or Complementary Rule Systems? Adjudication, Arbitration and the Procedural World of the Future." The session brought together panelists whose expertises ranged across the academy. The legal academics were joined by the federal district judge now chairing the committee charged by the Judicial Conference of the United States to draft federal civil procedural rules. The stimulating session reflected on the relationship between litigation and non-litigation approaches to dispute resolution. Participants explored …

Anticipating Litigation In Contract Design, Robert E. Scott, George G. Triantis

Faculty Scholarship

Contract theory does not address the question of how parties design contracts under the existing adversarial system, which relies on the parties to establish relevant facts indirectly by the use of evidentiary proxies. In this Article, we advance a theory of contract design in a world of costly litigation. We examine the efficiency of investment at the front end and back end of the contracting process, where we focus on litigation as the back-end stage. In deciding whether to express their obligations in precise or vague terms, contracting parties implicitly allocate costs between the front and back end. When the …

Talk Show Torts Turn Deaf Ear To Plaintiffs, Joseph A. Tomain

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Unconstitutional Courses, Frederic M. Bloom

Publications

By now, we almost expect Congress to fail. Nearly every time the federal courts announce a controversial decision, Congress issues a call to rein in "runaway" federal judges. And nearly every time Congress makes a "jurisdiction-stripping" threat, it comes to nothing.

But if Congress's threats possess little fire, we have still been distracted by their smoke. This Article argues that Congress's noisy calls have obscured another potent threat to the "judicial Power": the Supreme Court itself. On occasion, this Article asserts, the Court reshapes and abuses the "judicial Power"--not through bold pronouncements or obvious doctrinal revisions, but through something more …

Separate And Not Equal: Integrating Civil Procedure And Adr In Legal Academia, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

Traditionally, academics specializing in ADR and civil procedure have not tended to deal with each other's issues. The typical civil procedure course focuses on litigation, and at best throws in a few classes on mediation and negotiation. Similarly, the typical ADR course devotes little or no attention to litigation, law, courts, or administrative institutions. Thus, the two disciplines are taught quite separately. Further, this separation is not equal. While students are required to learn about litigation, and are also offered many additional litigation electives, the ADR curriculum is almost always purely elective, and the classes are much smaller. Yet, the …

Common Law Disclosure Duties And The Sin Of Omission: Testing The Meta-Theories, Kimberly Krawiec, Kathryn Zeiler

Faculty Scholarship

Since ancient times, legal scholars have explored the vexing question of when and what a contracting party must disclose to her counterparty, even in the absence of explicit misleading statements. This fascination has culminated in a set of claims regarding which factors drive courts to impose disclosure duties on informed parties. Most of these claims are based on analysis of a small number of non-randomly selected cases and have not been tested systematically. This article represents the first attempt to systematically test a number of these claims using data coded from 466 case decisions spanning over a wide array of …

Tell Me What You Eat, And I Will Tell Whom To Sue: Big Trouble Ahead For “Big Food"?, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Overweight consumers are seeking damages from purveyors of fast food for obesity-related health problems. Plaintiffs claim that products that are high in fat, sugar, salt and cholesterol are defective. Other potential liability theories include product category liability, failure to warn, failure to disclose nutritional information, deceptive advertising, and negligent marketing. However, in order to prevail at trial, plaintiffs must overcome problems with causation, duty and proximate cause, shifting responsibility, federal preemption, comparative fault, and assumption of risk. If such litigation is successful, it may induce fast-food companies to produce healthier products. Nevertheless, this Article concludes that the problem of obesity, …