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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Normative Molecule: Patent Rights And Dna, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
The Normative Molecule: Patent Rights And Dna, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Faculty Scholarship
Throughout the biotechnology age, fears about the distortionary effects of property and other legal institutions upon the health and self-determination of individuals and societies have accompanied more popularly sensational fears about unscrupulous choices within the scientific community itself. Still, for most of that time the prevailing legal regime both in the United States and in Europe remained generally permissive of ownership of, and exclusionary power over, the fruits of much biomedical research, though this leniency took different forms and came about in different ways. In particular, the policy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to grant patents on …
When Should The First Amendment Protect Judges From Their Unethical Speech?, Lynne H. Rambo
When Should The First Amendment Protect Judges From Their Unethical Speech?, Lynne H. Rambo
Faculty Scholarship
Judges harm the judicial institution when they engage in inflammatory or overtly political extrajudicial speech. The judiciary can be effective only when it has the trust of the citizenry, and judicial statements of that sort render it impossible for citizens to see judges as neutral and contemplative arbiters. This lack of confidence would seem especially dangerous in times like these, when the citizenry is as polarized as it has ever been.
Ethical codes across the country (based on the Model Code of Judicial Conduct) prohibit judges from making these partisan, prejudicial or otherwise improper remarks. Any discipline can be undone, …
Gender As A Variable In Natural-Language Processing: Ethical Considerations, Brian N. Larson
Gender As A Variable In Natural-Language Processing: Ethical Considerations, Brian N. Larson
Faculty Scholarship
Researchers and practitioners in naturallanguage processing (NLP) and related fields should attend to ethical principles in study design, ascription of categories/variables to study participants, and reporting of findings or results. This paper discusses theoretical and ethical frameworks for using gender as a variable in NLP studies and proposes four guidelines for researchers and practitioners. The principles outlined here should guide practitioners, researchers, and peer reviewers, and they may be applicable to other social categories, such as race, applied to human beings connected to NLP research.
Virtuous Billing, Randy D. Gordon, Nancy B. Rapoport
Virtuous Billing, Randy D. Gordon, Nancy B. Rapoport
Faculty Scholarship
Aristotle tells us, in his Nicomachean Ethics, that we become ethical by building good habits and we become unethical by building bad habits: “excellence of character results from habit, whence it has acquired its name (êthikê) by a slight modification of the word ethos (habit).” Excellence of character comes from following the right habits. Thinking of ethics as habit-forming may sound unusual to the modern mind, but not to Aristotle or the medieval thinkers who grew up in his long shadow. “Habit” in Greek is “ethos,” from which we get our modern word, “ethical.” In Latin, habits are moralis, which …
Promoting Public Protection Through An “Attorney Integrity” System: Lessons From The Australian Experience With Proactive Regulation Of Lawyers, Susan Saab Fortney
Promoting Public Protection Through An “Attorney Integrity” System: Lessons From The Australian Experience With Proactive Regulation Of Lawyers, Susan Saab Fortney
Faculty Scholarship
This essay uses the Australian proactive approach to regulating attorneys as a springboard to discussing the role of proactive regulation of lawyers in advancing public protection. The essay provides information on the genesis and implementation of “proactive management-based regulation, the system in Australia. The essay reviews key research findings from empirical studies on the impact of the new system on complaints registered against lawyers and the conduct of lawyers in firms. The essay suggests possibilities for using management-based principles to improve lawyer regulation and conduct in the United States and other jurisdictions. The author concludes with a challenge for regulators …
High Court Pretense, Lower Court Candor: Judicial Impartiality After Capterton V. Massey Coal Co., Lynne H. Rambo
High Court Pretense, Lower Court Candor: Judicial Impartiality After Capterton V. Massey Coal Co., Lynne H. Rambo
Faculty Scholarship
Apolitical, impartial judging has always been our judicial ideal. In the last twenty years, however, special interest groups have sought power over (and through) judges by pouring millions into judicial elections, and the Court has recognized their first amendment right to do so. In the midst of this politicization of judicial elections, the Court five years ago reinforced the impartiality ideal, holding very broadly in Caperton v. Massey Coal Co. that it violates due process for a judge to sit whenever there is a “probability of bias,” i.e., whenever the average judge is unlikely to be neutral. Caperton involved a …
Systematically Thinking About Law Firm Ethics: Conference On The Ethical Infrastructure And Culture Of Law Firms, Susan Saab Fortney
Systematically Thinking About Law Firm Ethics: Conference On The Ethical Infrastructure And Culture Of Law Firms, Susan Saab Fortney
Faculty Scholarship
To advance the discourse related to law firm ethics and the impact of formal controls and informal influences on lawyer conduct, we convened on April 5, 2013 the Conference on the Ethical Infrastructure and Culture of Law Firms ("Conference" or "Symposium"). The Conference, conducted under the auspices of the Hofstra Law Review and the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University's Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics, was funded in part by the Abraham J. Gross '78 Conference and Lecture Fund at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University. Experts who have studied issues …
Musings On Mediation, Kleenex, And (Smudged) White Hats, Nancy A. Welsh
Musings On Mediation, Kleenex, And (Smudged) White Hats, Nancy A. Welsh
Faculty Scholarship
This Essay speculates on the global future of mediation. It anticipates that mediation’s popularity will continue to grow both in the U.S. and abroad particularly as courts continue to encourage and institutionalize the process. Meanwhile, the Essay acknowledges the existence and continuing development of a relatively small cadre of elite lawyers and retired judges who serve as private mediators in large, complex matters.
The Essay also raises concerns, though, regarding the current lack of clarity in the goals and procedural characteristics that define mediation. The Essay asserts that such lack of clarity invites abuse of the mediation privilege and exclusionary …
Was Machiavelli Right? Lying In Negotiation And The Art Of Defensive Self-Help, Peter Reilly
Was Machiavelli Right? Lying In Negotiation And The Art Of Defensive Self-Help, Peter Reilly
Faculty Scholarship
The majority of law review articles addressing lying and deception in negotiation have argued, in one form or another, that liars and deceivers could be successfully reined in and controlled if only the applicable ethics rules were strengthened, and if corresponding enforcement powers were sufficiently beefed up and effectively executed. This article takes a different approach, arguing that the applicable ethics rules will likely never be strengthened, and, furthermore, that even if they were, they would be difficult to enforce in any meaningful way, at least in the context of negotiation. The article concludes that lawyers, businesspeople, and everyone else …
I Don't Have Time To Be Ethical: Addressing The Effects Of Billable Hour Pressure, Susan Saab Fortney
I Don't Have Time To Be Ethical: Addressing The Effects Of Billable Hour Pressure, Susan Saab Fortney
Faculty Scholarship
This article discusses the unintended consequences of the billable hour derby and suggests changes to address the deleterious effects of increasing billable hour requirements. A brief introduction identifies law firms’ recent tendency to increase the billable hour requirements to fund the heightened salaries of associates. This article analyzes the results from an empirical study focused on the effects of billable hour expectations and firm cultures. Part I generally reviews the study findings. Part II discusses the work and report of the ABA Commission, while Part III indentifies those issues and approaches that the ABA and firm managers should explore. Recognizing …
Ethics Counsel's Role In Combating The "Ostrich" Tendency, Susan Saab Fortney
Ethics Counsel's Role In Combating The "Ostrich" Tendency, Susan Saab Fortney
Faculty Scholarship
This article focuses on ethics problems related to hourly billing by analyzing the results of a survey of 1000 randomly selected associates in Texas firms who (1) had been licensed for ten or fewer years as of June 1999, and (2) worked in private law firms with more than ten attorneys (the Associate Survey). This article addresses the need for firm managers to clarify how and what their attorneys should bill. The article reports the results from the Associate Survey relating to billing guidance and ethics systems. From the empirical data, the article identifies a need for supervising attorneys to …