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Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Law

Privatization As Delegation, Gillian E. Metzger Jan 2003

Privatization As Delegation, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

Recent expansions in privatization of government programs mean that the constitutional paradigm of a sharp separation between public and private is increasingly at odds with the blurred public-private character of modern governance. While substantial scholarship exists addressing the administrative and policy impact of expanded privatization, heretofore little effort has been made to address this disconnect between constitutional law and new administrative reality. This Article seeks to remedy that deficiency. It argues that current state action doctrine is fundamentally inadequate to address the constitutional challenge presented by privatization. Current doctrine is insufficiently keyed to the ways that privatization involves delegation of …


Prosecutors And Their Agents, Agents And Their Prosecutors, Daniel C. Richman Jan 2003

Prosecutors And Their Agents, Agents And Their Prosecutors, Daniel C. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

This Article seeks to describe the dynamics of interaction between federal prosecutors and federal enforcement agents, and to suggest how these dynamics affect the exercise of enforcement discretion. After considering the virtues and pitfalls of both hierarchical and coordinate organizational modes, the Article offers a normative model that views prosecutors and agents as members of a "working group," with each side monitoring the other. It concludes by exploring how this model can be furthered or frustrated with various procedural and structural changes.


A Theory Of Self-Enforcing Indefinite Agreements, Robert E. Scott Jan 2003

A Theory Of Self-Enforcing Indefinite Agreements, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

One of the core principles of contract law is the requirement of definiteness. Conventional wisdom holds, however, that the indefiniteness doctrine is largely ignored by courts. In this Article, Professor Scott examines the contemporary case law on indefinite contracts and his review yields three striking findings. First, there is a surprisingly high volume of litigation. Second, the indefiniteness doctrine lives on in the common law of contracts. Third, a large number of the indefiniteness cases involve contracts that are "deliberately" incomplete – that is, parties have declined to condition performance on available, verifiable measures that could be specified in the …


The Attorney As Gatekeeper: An Agenda For The Sec, John C. Coffee Jr. Jan 2003

The Attorney As Gatekeeper: An Agenda For The Sec, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Section 307 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act authorizes the SEC to prescribe "minimum standards of professional conduct" for attorneys "appearing or practicing" before it. Although the initial debate has focused on issues of confidentiality, this terse statutory provision frames and seemingly federalizes a much larger question: What is the role of the corporate attorney in public securities transactions? Is the attorney's role that of (a) an advocate, (b) a transaction cost engineer, or, more broadly, (c) a gatekeeper – that is, a reputational intermediary with some responsibility to monitor the accuracy of corporate disclosures? Skeptics of any gatekeeper role for attorneys …


Supreme Court Review Of State-Court Determinations Of State Law In Constitutional Cases, Henry Paul Monaghan Jan 2003

Supreme Court Review Of State-Court Determinations Of State Law In Constitutional Cases, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

The decision in Bush v. Gore and particularly Chief Justice Rehnquist's concurring opinion were widely criticized for their unwarranted intrusion upon the "authoritative" status of the Florida Supreme Court in determining the meaning of Florida election law. This Article rejects the merits of that criticism. It proposes the thesis that the Supreme Court has ancillary jurisdiction to review state-court determinations of state law in cases where the Constitution or ftderal law imposes a duty of fidelity to prior state law (t1) and the claim is that the state court materially and impermissibly departed from that law at a …


A Comment On Grutter And Gratz V. Bollinger, Lee C. Bollinger Jan 2003

A Comment On Grutter And Gratz V. Bollinger, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

Now that the Supreme Court has definitively resolved (at least for a generation) the issue of the constitutionality of affirmative action in American higher education, thereby continuing without major adjustment what has been the practice in our selective colleges and universities for more or less the last thirty years, it is easy to forget how different the United States would have looked in the years ahead if only one vote had shifted to the dissenting side. Just how precipitous and long-lasting the decline in racial and ethnic diversity would have been is a complicated matter, but that it would have …