Law Commons^™

Protecting One's Own Privacy In A Big Data Economy, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

Big Data is the vast quantities of information amenable to large-scale collection, storage, and analysis. Using such data, companies and researchers can deploy complex algorithms and artificial intelligence technologies to reveal otherwise unascertained patterns, links, behaviors, trends, identities, and practical knowledge. The information that comprises Big Data arises from government and business practices, consumer transactions, and the digital applications sometimes referred to as the “Internet of Things.” Individuals invisibly contribute to Big Data whenever they live digital lifestyles or otherwise participate in the digital economy, such as when they shop with a credit card, get treated at a hospital, apply …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Fall 2016

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Peter Singer, Drowning Children, And Pro Bono, John M.A. Dipippa

Faculty Scholarship

This Article uses the ethicist Peter Singer's principles to examine and critique the legal profession's pro bono efforts in the face of the persistent gap between the public's legal needs and their ability to meet them. Singer argues that adults should jump into a pond to save a drowning child. Using the drowning child as an analogy, this Article argues that lawyers are morally obligated to (1)increase the amount of their pro bono efforts, (2) be more selective in the cases they take, and (3) be significantly more generous in their financial support for legal services providers. These obligations are …

Fundamental Differences: How The Legal Lineage Of Obergefell Can Help Us Frame A Response To It, Donald Roth

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

No abstract provided.

Attorneys, Document Discovery, And Discipline, Paula Schaefer

Scholarly Works

Despite the growing use of sanctions and recent amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure aimed at improving discovery practice, many lawyers continue to play fast and loose with the rules of discovery governing (paper and electronic) documents. Nonetheless, most lawyers never face discipline for their discovery misconduct. This article argues that federal courts could make more effective use of attorney discipline systems to improve document discovery in civil cases.

What will be effective depends on why discovery misconduct occurs. There are multiple reasons why lawyers may engage in such misconduct – from ignorance of the rules to intentional, …

Crime, Morality, And Republicanism, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

One of the abiding concerns of the philosophy of law has been to establish the relationship between law and morality. Within the criminal law, this concern often takes the form of debates over legal moralism--that is, "the position that immorality is sufficient for criminalization" (Alexander 2003: 131). This paper approaches these debates from the perspective of the recently revived republican tradition in politics and law. Contrary to what is usually taken to be liberalism's hostility to legal moralism, and especially to attempts to promote virtue through the criminal law, the republican approach takes the promotion of virtue to be one …

Thurgood Marshall Memorial Lecture: A Keynote Address By Mahzarin Banaji: Blindspot: Hidden Biases Of Good People 04-14-2016, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Is The United States Prepared For A Major Zika Virus Outbreak?, Lawrence O. Gostin, James G. Hodge Jr.

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Zika virus has emerged as a global public health crisis with active transmission in the Americas and Caribbean. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), and recently WHO reported there is a scientific consensus that Zika is a cause of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). In the U.S. the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) activated its emergency operations center at its highest capacity. President Obama requested $1.86 billion in emergency funding. Shamefully, Congress has yet to appropriate the funding needed for Zika preparedness, and the President has had to reallocate Ebola …

Heredity In The Epigenetic Era: Are We Facing A Politics Of Reproductive Obligations?, Michael J. Crawford

Biological Sciences Publications

Recent research in the emerging field of epigenetics has implications with the potential to re-ignite acrimony in the discourse of reproductive rights, medical ethics, and the role of the state in our homes and in our lives. For scientists, epigenetics has profoundly realigned our understanding of heredity: epigenetics provides a mechanism through which the environmental challenges met in one generation can be inscribed and transmitted to future offspring. Although both genetic parents have the potential to transmit heritable epigenetic changes to their offspring, mothers have a particularly potent effect because nutrition in the uterine environment can exert a supplemental effect …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Spring 2016

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Reconsidering Constitutional Protection For Health Information Privacy, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

What kinds of health information should be reported to government for civil purposes? Several competing trends encourage efforts to reassess the scope of constitutional protection for health information: the social and commercial value of health information; the amount of data held by third parties, from health care providers to internet servers; critiques of the third party doctrine exception to Fourth Amendment protection; and concerns about the loss of privacy. This article describes a variety of civil purposes for which health information is collected today. A close analysis of cases applying the third party doctrine, administrative search principles, and the special …

Utilitarianism And Wealth Transfer Taxation, Jennifer Bird-Pollan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article is the third in a series examining the continued relevance and philosophical legitimacy of the United States wealth transfer tax system from within a particular philosophical perspective. The article examines the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill and his philosophical progeny and distinguishes the philosophical approach of utilitarianism from contemporary welfare economics, primarily on the basis of the concept of "utility" in each approach. After explicating the utilitarian criteria for ethical action, the article goes on to think through what Mill's utilitarianism says about the taxation of wealth and wealth transfers, the United States federal wealth transfer tax system …

The House Edge: On Gambling And Professional Discipline, Stacey A. Tovino

Scholarly Works

On March 26, 2014, the Iowa Supreme Court revoked the license to practice law of Cedar Rapids attorney Susan Hense. Admitted to the Iowa Bar in 1996, Hense subsequently misappropriated $837,000 in client trust funds to feed her addiction to casino gambling. This Article assesses how attorneys like Hense who are addicted to gambling are treated in professional disciplinary actions, including license suspension, revocation, and reinstatement proceedings. Themes that emerge include public misunderstanding of gambling disorder, stigma against individuals with gambling disorder, statutory recognition of substance addictions but not behavioral addictions, and mandatory attendance at religion based fellowship meetings as …

Collaboration And Intention: Making The Collaborative Family Law Process Safe(R), Margaret Drew

Faculty Publications

Since the beginning of the collaborative family law movement, commentators from various professions have discouraged collaborative lawyers from accepting cases involving intimate partner abuse. The collaborative process, with its face to face meetings and emphasis on transparency and good faith, carries with it many risks for the partner who has been abused and who is attempting to end the relationship with the abusive partner. There may be occasions, however, when the at-risk partner believes that the collaborative process will enhance her safety or at least provide her with less exposure to future harm than other resolution processes. This article will …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Winter 2016

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Last Hurrah: The Kutak Commission And The End Of Optimism, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Sorting: Legal Specialization And The Privatization Of The American Legal Profession, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

Beginning in the 1950s, legal specialization was promoted to the majority of the American legal profession, small firm and solo practice lawyers, by the elite of the bar as the future of legal professionalism. Legal specialization was a form of sorting lawyers, and sorting was contrary to the traditional understanding of an undivided legal profession. Over the course of the next thirty years, this effort succeeded. This new understanding of legal professionalism emphasized the idea of competence based on a deep but particularized knowledge of law. This resulted in a slipping away of the beliefs that law was a public …

Animal Rights Unraveled: Why Abolitionism Collapses Into Welfarism And What It Means For Animal Ethics, Luis E. Chiesa

Journal Articles

Most people support laws that seek to reduce the suffering of animals. Yet animal cruelty statutes and other kinds of animal welfare laws are under sustained attack by the so-called abolitionists. Animal rights abolitionists claim that it is categorically wrong to treat animals as commodities, and animal welfare laws should be opposed because they do not alter the property status of animals. Abolitionists also claim that animal welfare regulations do not meaningfully reduce animal suffering. In fact, abolitionists argue that such statutes likely increase future animal suffering, either by delaying the advent of abolition or by soothing the conscience of …

Running Past Landmines--The Estate Attorney's Dilemma: Ethically Counseling The Client With Alzheimer's Disease, Joseph Karl Grant

Journal Publications

This Article examines the ethical dilemmas faced by attorneys who represent clients suffering from Alzheimer's disease. To do so, this Article raises three (3) hypothetical case studies,and applies the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, and the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel ("ACTEC") Commentaries, where appropriate, to those hypothetical case studies. Additionally, this Article proposes initiatives to ameliorate the lack of awareness and discussion of Alzheimer's disease in the law school curriculum, and finally, modest initiatives that the practicing bar can embrace to further a discussion and awareness among practicing attorneys about the ethical dilemma attorneys face in …

The Ethical Identity Of Sexual Assault Lawyers, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Despite progressive law reforms, sexual assault complainants continue to experience the criminal justice response to the violations that they have suffered as unsatisfactory, if not traumatic. One emerging response to this dilemma involves greater consideration of the ethical boundaries imposed on lawyers that practice sexual assault law. What is the relationship between a criminal lawyer’s ethical duties and the reforms to the law of sexual assault in Canada? How do lawyers themselves understand the ethical limits imposed on their conduct of a sexual assault case? How do lawyers that practice in this area of law comprehend their role in the …

The Scrivener's Dilemma In Divorce Mediation: Promulgating Progressive Professional Parameters, Robert K. Collins

Articles

No abstract provided.

Brady Misconduct Remedies: Prior Jeopardy And Ethical Discipline Of Prosecutors, J. Thomas Sullivan

Faculty Scholarship

In an Arkansas capital murder prosecution that resulted in conviction and sentences of death based on the killing of a family offour, defense counsel learned after the conviction had been reversed that a key prosecution witness, the defendant's son, who testified against his father, implicating him in the murders at trial, had also given prosecutors a statement in which he claimed responsibility for the crimes and exculpated his father. Defense counsel moved to dismiss the prosecution on the ground of prosecutorial misconduct, then raised a prior jeopardy claim in an effort to bar retrial by taking an interlocutory appeal to …

The Ethical Identity Of Sexual Assault Lawyers, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Despite progressive law reforms, sexual assault complainants continue to experience the criminal justice response to the violations that they have suffered as unsatisfactory, if not traumatic. One emerging response to this dilemma involves greater consideration of the ethical boundaries imposed on lawyers that practice sexual assault law. What is the relationship between a criminal lawyer’s ethical duties and the reforms to the law of sexual assault in Canada? How do lawyers themselves understand the ethical limits imposed on their conduct of a sexual assault case? How do lawyers that practice in this area of law comprehend their role in the …

Ethical Challenges Of Using Law Student Interns/Externs To Expand Services To Low-Income Older Adults, Eleanor Lanier

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Non-Traditional Contract Drafting, Lori D. Johnson

Scholarly Works

A new generation of contract drafters faces increasing commentary advising them to change traditional contract terms into plain language constructions. Yet, traditional, tested terms have consistent meanings, and when these meanings benefit client objectives, advocates should consider retaining them. This article posits that failing to do so can impact a lawyer’s ethical obligations. Specifically, an attorney’s duties of competence, allocation of authority, diligence, and communication under the Model Rules of Professional Conduct require careful thought about modernizing tested contract terms. These duties require the ethical drafter to research whether the use of a traditional, tested term advances a client goal …

Criminal Justice And (A) Catholic Conscience, Leo E. Strine Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This article is one person's reflections on how an important influence on his own sense of moral values -- Jesus Christ -- affects his thinking about his own approach to his role as a public official in a secular society, using the vital topic of criminal justice as a focal point. This article draws several important lessons from Christ's teachings about the concept of the other that are relevant to issues of criminal justice. Using Catholicism as a framework, this article addresses, among other things, capital punishment and denying the opportunity for redemption; the problem of racial disparities in the …

The Role Of Language Interpretation In Providing A Quality Mediation Process, Alexandra Carter, Shawn Watts

Faculty Scholarship

This paper focuses on the role of language in mediation and the challenges multiple language fluencies bring to the practice. Beginning with a discussion of the process and ethics of mediation as a form of alternative dispute resolution, as distinct from other forms of dispute resolution including arbitration, the paper shifts to consider the importance of language. Language, and more specifically interpretation, plays a central role in the integrity of the mediation process and the quality of its outcomes. Each stage of mediation requires the participants and the mediator understand one another to ensure effective communication and a quality process. …

Internet Ethics, American Law, And Jewish Law: A Comparative Overview, Samuel J. Levine, Gertrude N. Levine

Scholarly Works

Societies are governed by codes of ethics. In developed societies, parts of these codes form a set of laws, enforceable by legal authorities, with or without assistance from the populace. At times, laws are crafted for the benefit of the powerful members of the society, ensuring preservation of their positions and property, while other constituents may ignore, actively disobey, or challenge laws they believe do not support their ethics. Developing and maintaining appropriate social norms is thus particularly critical for sustaining rapidly changing heterogeneous populaces.

The Internet, devised for the purpose of interconnecting diverse computer networks of research and educational …

Modern-Day Monitorships, Veronica Root

Journal Articles

When a sexual abuse scandal rocked Penn State, when Apple engaged in anticompetitive behavior, and when servicers like Bank of America improperly foreclosed upon hundreds of thousands of homeowners, each organization entered into a Modern-Day Monitorship. Modern-Day Monitorships are utilized in an array of contexts to assist in widely varying remediation efforts. They provide outsiders a unique source of information about the efficacy of the tarnished organization’s efforts to remediate misconduct. Yet despite their use in high-profile and serious matters of organizational wrongdoing, they are not an outgrowth of careful study and deliberate planning. Instead, Modern-Day Monitorships have been employed …