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Full-Text Articles in Law

Targeting Poverty In The Courts: Improving The Measurement Of Ability To Pay, Meghan M. O'Neil, Jj Prescott Mar 2019

Targeting Poverty In The Courts: Improving The Measurement Of Ability To Pay, Meghan M. O'Neil, Jj Prescott

Law & Economics Working Papers

Ability-to-pay determinations are essential when governments use money-based alternative sanctions, like fines, to enforce laws. One longstanding difficulty in the U.S. has been the extreme lack of guidance on how courts are to determine a litigant’s ability to pay. The result has been a seat-of-the-pants approach that is inefficient and inaccurate, and, as a consequence, very socially costly. Fortunately, online platform technology presents a promising avenue for reform. In particular, platform technology offers the potential to increase litigant access, reduce costs, and ensure consistent and fair treatment—all of which should lead to more accurate sanctions. We use interviews, surveys, and …


A Search For The Truth Or Trial By Ordeal: When Prosecutors Cross-Examine Adolescents How Should Courts Respond, Frank E. Vandervort Nov 2010

A Search For The Truth Or Trial By Ordeal: When Prosecutors Cross-Examine Adolescents How Should Courts Respond, Frank E. Vandervort

Articles

It is an axiom of the law that cross-examination is, in John Henry Wigmore's words, the "greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth." In part because of its perceived utility in getting to the truth of a matter, courts are generally reluctant, despite broad authority to do so, to step in and to govern the conduct of cross-examination. But is cross-examination invariably calculated to ascertain the truth? While most lawyers are familiar with Wigmore's famous quotation, few are familiar with the caveat that shortly follows it: "A lawyer can do anything with cross-examination.. . . He may, …


China's Judicial System And Judicial Reform, Nicholas C. Howson Jan 2010

China's Judicial System And Judicial Reform, Nicholas C. Howson

Other Publications

The following is an extract from the statement delivered by Michigan Law School Professor Nicholas Howson at the inaugural “China-U.S. Rule of Law Dialogue” held at Beijing’s Tsinghua University July 29-30, 2010, and convened by Tsinghua Law Dean Wang Zhenmin and Harvard Law School Professor and East Asian Legal Studies Director William Alford, and with the support of the China-United States Exchange Foundation chaired by C.H. Tung, first chief executive and president of the Executive Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The dialogue was organized as a private meeting between senior PRC law professors and U.S.-based Chinese law …


The United Nations, The European Union, And The King Of Sweden: Economic Sanctions And Individual Rights In A Plural World Order, Daniel Halberstam, Eric Stein Jan 2009

The United Nations, The European Union, And The King Of Sweden: Economic Sanctions And Individual Rights In A Plural World Order, Daniel Halberstam, Eric Stein

Articles

In the last decade, economic sanctions have become a major instrumentality of the UN Security Council in the struggle against terrorism and lawless violence endangering peace. It is not surprising that innocents would be ensnarled, along with culprits, in the nets of the so-called "smart" or "targeted" sanctions, which are directed against named individuals and groups (as opposed to delinquent States). In such rare cases, as the individual concerned searches for a legal remedy, significant issues of fundamental human rights may arise at the levels of the international, regional, and national legal orders. This essay explores these issues. After examining …


Double-Consciousness In Constitutional Adjudication, Richard A. Primus Jan 2007

Double-Consciousness In Constitutional Adjudication, Richard A. Primus

Articles

Constitutional theorists are familiar with epistemic and consequentialist reasons why judges might allow their decision making to be shaped by strongly held public opinion. The epistemic approach treats public opinion as an expert indicator, while the consequentialistapproach counsels judges to compromise legally correct interpretations so as not to antagonize a hostile public. But there is also a third reason, which we can think ofas constitutive. In limited circumstances, the fact that the public strongly holds a given view can be one of the factors that together constitute the correct answer to a constitutional question. In those circumstances, what the public …


For Such A Time As This, John W. Reed Jan 2006

For Such A Time As This, John W. Reed

Other Publications

This essay is based on a talk at the annual meeting of the International Society of Barristers at Scottsdale, Arizona on March 17, 2006.


Default Rules In Sales And The Myth Of Contracting Out, James J. White Jan 2002

Default Rules In Sales And The Myth Of Contracting Out, James J. White

Articles

In this article, I trace the dispute in the courts and before the ALI and NCCUSL over the proper contract formation and interpretation default rules. In Part II, I consider the Gateway litigation. In Part III, I deal with UCITA and the revision to Article 2. In Part IV, I consider the merits of the competing default rules.


The Changing Face Of Legal Education: Implications For The Practice Of Law And The Courts, John W. Reed Jan 1999

The Changing Face Of Legal Education: Implications For The Practice Of Law And The Courts, John W. Reed

Other Publications

This is the last Conference of the Sixth Circuit in the 1900's. Though the Third Millennium technically does not begin until 2001, the turn of the "odometer" from the 1999 to 2000 leads us all to think of this as the end of a century and of a millennium. The pivotal date is yet sixth months away, but the pundits are already issuing their lists, both profound and trivial - the greatest inventions, the best books, the worst natural catastrophes, the trial of the century (of which there are at least a half dozen), the most influential thinkers, and on …


The Uniform Probate Code Extends Antilapse-Type Protection To Poorly Drafted Trusts, Lawrence W. Waggoner Jan 1996

The Uniform Probate Code Extends Antilapse-Type Protection To Poorly Drafted Trusts, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

The Uniform Law Commission' promulgated a revised version of Article II of the Uniform Probate Code (UPC or Code) in 1990, and approved a set of technical amendments in 1993. As Director of Research and Chief Reporter for the Joint Editorial Board for the Uniform Probate Code (Board)2 and reporter for the UPC Article II drafting committee, I was privileged to serve as the principal drafter of these provisions. UPC Article II deals with the substantive rules governing donative transfers - intestacy; spouse's elective share; execution, revocation, and revival of wills; rules of construction for wills and other donative transfers; …


Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms: Experience In The United States, Whitmore Gray Jan 1995

Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms: Experience In The United States, Whitmore Gray

Other Publications

The objective of this portion of our conference on judicial reform is to discuss means to promote swift and fair resolution of disputes. Although much of our discussion will center on reform of basic court systems and civil procedure in various countries, my particular focus is on alternatives to traditional institutions and techniques. These alternatives include a variety of what we might call "courtannexed" procedures, that is, procedures that occur during the course of traditional litigation. I will also consider, however, other procedures that might better be characterized as purely "private" techniques for resolving disputes—those that occur before or at …


Discretion And Rules: A Lawyer's View, Carl E. Scheider Jan 1992

Discretion And Rules: A Lawyer's View, Carl E. Scheider

Book Chapters

In modern society the law regulates the complex behavior of millions of people. To do this efficiently-to do this at all-broadly applicable rules must be used. Yet such rules are bound to be incomplete, to be ambiguous, to fail in some cases, to be unfair in others. Some of the drawbacks of rules can be minimized by giving discretion to the administrators and judges who apply them. Yet doing so dilutes the advantages of rules and creates the risk that discretion may be abused. Working out the proper balance of these considerations is both necessary and perplexing in every area …


Evaluating Article 2 Of The Uniform Commercial Code: A Preliminary Empirical Expedition, James J. White May 1977

Evaluating Article 2 Of The Uniform Commercial Code: A Preliminary Empirical Expedition, James J. White

Articles

A proponent of commercial law codification, Mr. Eaton was one of the first American lawyers to perceive that mere codification of the law did not necessarily produce certainty and lack of discord in the law of commercial transactions. Indeed, in the same article Eaton reveals that of the 1,091 cases that had arisen under the Negotiable Instruments Law, only 704 cited the Act and in the other 387 "the Negotiable Instruments Law [was] ignored by the courts in the decisions, and (so far as the reports show) by the counsel in these cases...." Unlike Bentham, Carter, and Field, each of …