Law Commons^™

Rethinking Transparency In U.S. Elections, Rebecca Green

Faculty Publications

Bush v. Gore catapulted this country into a crisis of confidence in the management of our elections. Despite reforms since 2000, public confidence in election administration continues to wane. Are dead people on the rolls? Are noncitizens voting? Are provisional ballots wrongly rejected? State election transparency statutes meant to reassure the public that elections are producing legitimate results are often conflicting, vague, and even nonexistent. Exacerbating the problem, the last two decades have witnessed huge changes that offset the transparency balance. Dramatic changes in how Americans vote, how elections are administered, and who scrutinizes the election process call for a …

Teece's Competing Through Innovation, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay reviews David J. Teece's book, Competing Through Innovation: Technological Strategies and Antitrust Policies (2013).

Judging In The Age Of Technology, Fredric I. Lederer

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The Indie Lawyer Of The Future: How New Technology, Cultural Trends, And Market Forces Can Transform The Solo Practice Of Law, Lucille Jewel

Scholarly Works

This article is about individual lawyers innovating in the practice of law. New technology, cultural trends, and market forces have the potential to awaken latent markets for one-to-one legal services grounded in the sharing economy, the commons, DIY businesses, and other similar endeavors. These forces might reshape the solo practice of law, which in turn might induce structural change in the legal system itself. Despite the mass commoditization of many law products, there is a potentially new market for craft-oriented lawyers who directly connect with clients.

When we connect the sharing economy and the cultural values that support it with …

Changing Spaces, Lauren M. Collins

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

As print collections shrink in favor of the electronic delivery of information, library space—once needed to hold the volumes we counted on to justify our existence—is no longer necessary for that purpose. Those who manage law libraries with large footprints are regularly asked to justify the continued maintenance of space that houses much smaller collections. Even those with smaller library spaces find themselves, at the very least, with more space than they had before and facing decisions about its use. This article discusses the ways in which several law libraries have altered their spaces while also adding to students' learning, …

The Debilitating Effect Of Exclusive Rights: Patents And Productive Inefficiency, William Hubbard

All Faculty Scholarship

Are we underestimating the costs of patent protection? Scholars have long recognized that patent law is a double-edged sword. While patents promote innovation, they also limit the number of people who can benefit from new inventions. In the past, policy makers striving to balance the costs and benefits of patents have analyzed patent law through the lens of traditional, neoclassical economics. This Article argues that this approach is fundamentally flawed because traditional economics rely on an inaccurate oversimplification: that individuals and firms always maximize profits. In actuality, so-called "productive inefficiencies" often prevent profit maximization. For example, cognitive biases, bounded rationality, …

2014 Martz Summer Conference Poster Session, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, University Of Colorado Boulder. Airwatergas Sustainability Research Network

Water and Air Quality Issues in Oil and Gas Development: The Evolving Framework of Regulation and Management (Martz Summer Conference, June 5-6)

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This Conference is presented by the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment, in conjunction with the Air-Water-Gas Sustainability Research Network. Technological advances for extracting oil and gas from shale deposits have ushered in a new era of energy development in key resource-rich pockets throughout the US. In this event, we review the ongoing efforts of governments and industry to develop the regulatory and management practices necessary to protect water and air resources, drawing on the latest scientific research to tackle areas of uncertainty and to inform future action.

Technology And Client Communications: Preparing Law Students And New Lawyers To Make Choices That Comply With The Ethical Duties Of Confidentiality, Competence, And Communication, Kristin J. Hazelwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

That the use of technology has radically changed the legal profession is beyond dispute. Through technology, lawyers can now represent clients in faraway states and countries, and they can represent even local clients through a “virtual law office.” Gone are the times in which the lawyer’s choices for communicating with clients primarily involve preparing formal business letters to convey advice, holding in-person client meetings in the office, or conducting telephone calls with clients on landlines from the confines of the lawyer’s office. Not only do lawyers have choices about how to communicate with their clients, but they also frequently choose …

Agenda: Fracking, Water Quality And Public Health: Examining Current Laws And Regulations, Network For Public Health Law, American Society Of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Public Health Law Research Program

Fracking, Water Quality and Public Health: Examining Current Laws and Regulations (March 20)

Improved technology developments in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as "fracking," have resulted in an oil and gas production boom nationwide. Fracking involves pumping pressurized water, sand, and chemicals down wells to crack bedrock, freeing petroleum and natural gas. Wastewater discharges, hydraulic fracturing fluid releases, and other accidental spills pose potential water quality risks, sparking concern for public health.

This webinar will examine the laws and regulations governing water quality issues related to fracking, recent state court decisions affecting regulations, and implications for public health.

Some Thoughts On Technology And The Practice Of Law, Fredric I. Lederer

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Personal Curtilage: Fourth Amendment Security In Public, Andrew Ferguson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Do citizens have any Fourth Amendment protection from sense-enhancing surveillance technologies in public? This article engages a timely question as new surveillance technologies have redefined expectations of privacy in public spaces.This article proposes a new theory of Fourth Amendment security based on the ancient theory of curtilage protection for private property. Curtilage has long been understood as a legal fiction that expands the protection of the home beyond the formal structures of the house. Curtilage recognizes a buffer zone beyond the four corners of the home that deserves protection, even in public, even if accessible to public view. Based on …

Keep Your Eyes On Eyes In The Sky, Hillary B. Farber

Faculty Publications

To date, eight states have passed bills regulating domestic drone use by government and private individuals. This leaves us with a question: If a city of more than 60,000 residents and a global company with a customer base in the hundreds of millions are racing to the sky, how are we as a commonwealth of 6.6 million to truly launch ourselves into the debate and protect what little privacy we have left?

Your View: ‘Do Not Track’ Should Apply To Drivers, Too, Hillary B. Farber

Faculty Publications

Location tracking data can reveal quite a bit of information about a person when it is all pieced together. Just by knowing where and when a person frequents certain places we can know about his/her recreational habits, religious affiliations, professional affiliations, relationship status, personal health and hygiene, social preferences and contacts, and so much more. That is why it is so important to regulate the use of location tracking technology. There are a variety of efforts afoot to rein in government use of such technology – this op-ed is concerned with automated license plate readers.

Making Patents Useful, Sean B. Seymore

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

It is axiomatic in patent law that an invention must be useful. The utility requirement has been a part of the statutory scheme since the Patent Act of 1790. But what does it mean to be useful? The abstract and imprecise nature of the term combined with the lack of objective criteria for assessing it make utility the most malleable patentability requirement. As the invention landscape has evolved over time, the Patent Office and the courts have exploited this malleability to create technologically specific utility standards — de minimis for some inventions, but considerably more stringent for others. This has …

“Where Does A Wise Man Hide A Leaf?” : Modernising The Laws Of Disclosure In The Information Age, Denise Huiwen Wong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Litigation practice has been significantly altered by the advent of electronically stored information in daily corporate life. It is argued that the laws of disclosure should be updated to recognise that technology-assisted document review via keyword searching is crucial in ensuring that the costs of litigation are well managed. In order to facilitate keyword searching, a new legal concept of accuracy in the selection of keywords should be introduced into the laws of disclosure. At the same time, despite the adversarial nature of litigation, it is imperative that parties approach electronic disclosure with a spirit of collaboration in order to …

Texting And The Friction Of Writing, Lindsey P. Gustafson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Regulating Electronic Legal Support Across State And National Boundaries, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

Technology and globalization are changing the practice of law and creating new challenges for lawyer regulation. Middle-class litigants who struggle to afford legal services — but are comfortable using online resources — are increasingly seeking and finding legal support online. State and national boundaries dissolve in the online marketplace, making it easy for attorneys to provide services to litigants in other jurisdictions. Differences in national economies make it cost effective for both clients and lawyers to engage in transnational practice, so that attorneys in India and other jurisdictions can offer legal support and advice to American litigants for as little …

Failing Expectations: Fourth Amendment Doctrine In The Era Of Total Surveillance, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Today’s reasonable expectation test and the third-party doctrine have little to nothing to offer by way of privacy protection if users today are at least conflicted about whether transactional noncontent data should be shared with third parties, including law enforcement officials. This uncertainty about how to define public expectation as a descriptive matter has compelled courts to defer to legislatures to find out what public expectation ought to be more as a matter of prudence than doctrine. Courts and others presume that legislatures are far better than courts at defining public expectations about emergent technologies.This Essay argues that the reasonable …

Fighting Fire With Fire: Technology In Child Sex Trafficking, Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

The scourge of child sex trafficking is as complex as it is alarming. It is speculated that the “Triple A Engine” effect of the Internet (Affordability, Access, and Anonymity) plays a role in the sex trafficking of children. For example, much media coverage and political action has recently taken place regarding online ad sites such as backpage.com facilitating child sex trafficking. However, as with many aspects of child sex trafficking, obtaining actual measurements and hard data is challenging due to the nature of the crime, the lack of a uniform description, and inherent under-reporting. That is why Microsoft Corporation awarded …

The Natural Complexity Of Patent Eligibility, Jacob S. Sherkow

Articles & Chapters

It has long been assumed that the doctrine of patent eligibility’s prohibition of patents on “laws of nature,” “natural phenomena,” and “products of nature” rests on legalistic interpretations of those terms. But there is good reason to doubt this assumption. Since the doctrine’s inception, the Supreme Court has yet to provide any framework, formula, or factors explaining these “natural” terms. Rather, the Court has increasingly fixated on a list of scientific tropes, such as gravity, the heat of the Sun, and extracted metals, that it believes are true examples of “natural laws,” “phenomena,” and “products.”

An actual examination of scientific …

Copyright’S Private Ordering And The 'Next Great Copyright Act', Jennifer E. Rothman

All Faculty Scholarship

Private ordering plays a significant role in the application of intellectual property laws, especially in the context of copyright law. In this Article, I highlight some of the dominant modes of private ordering and consider what formal copyright law should do, if anything, to engage with private ordering in the copyright space. I conclude that there is not one single approach that copyright law should take with regard to private ordering, but instead several different approaches. In some instances, the best option is for the law to get out of the way and simply continue to provide room for various …

Toward A Closer Integration Of Law And Computer Science, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

Legal issues increasingly arise in increasingly complex technological contexts. Prominent recent examples include the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), network neutrality, the increasing availability of location information, and the NSA’s surveillance program. Other emerging issues include data privacy, online video distribution, patent policy, and spectrum policy. In short, the rapid rate of technological change has increasingly shown that law and engineering can no longer remain compartmentalized into separate spheres. The logical response would be to embed the interaction between law and policy deeper into the fabric of both fields. An essential step would …