Law Commons^™

Providing Legal Services For The Middle Class In Cyberspace: The Promise And Challenge Of On-Line Dispute Resolution, Louise Ellen Teitz

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

What Big Eyes And Ears You Have!: A New Regime For Covert Governmental Surveillance, Mark G. Young

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Jurors, Judges, And The Mistreatment Of Risk By The Courts, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A sample of almost 500 jury-eligible citizens considered a series of experimental situations involving accidents. The juror sample did not properly apply negligence rules, as their errors were particularly great for low-probability, large-loss cases. They also penalized corporations for undertaking corporate risk analyses that seek to trade off cost versus risk reduction benefits. Jurors' damages assessments were also more prone to error than were responses by a sample of state judges. Judges were less prone to erroneous risk beliefs and less subject to the zero-risk mentality.

The Most Dangerous Justice Rides Again: Revisiting The Power Pageant Of The Justices, Paul H. Edelman, Jim Chen

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Who is the most powerful Supreme Court Justice? In 1996 we measured voting power on the Court according to each Justice's ability to form five-member coalitions. From the set of all coalitions formed by the Court during its 1994 and 1995 Terms, we developed a generalized Banzhaf index of the Justices' relative strength. Generally speaking, participating in a greater number of unique coalitions translates into greater judicial voting power. To supplement the small number of decisions then available, we derived hypothetical five-Justice coalitions from the intersections of actually observed coalitions involving more than five members. Professor Lynn Baker contested our …

"Apprendi" And Plea Bargaining, Nancy J. King, Susan Riva Klein

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Before "Apprendi", prosecutors using recidivism as a club could, and did, regularly insist that defendants admit aggravating facts as part of the plea or face additional time. When the prosecutor's threats of added time were not persuasive and the proof of aggravating facts weak, the defendant prior to "Apprendi" could refuse to admit to the aggravating fact, and plead guilty only to the offense without the aggravating fact. Nothing about "Apprendi" gives additional leverage to the prosecutor in this situation. A defendant who, prior to "Apprendi", decided to risk trial rather than face the aggravated sentence will make the same …

Perceptions Of Prison Guards By Prison Visitors And Nonvisitors, Frances N. Huber

Masters Theses

Social interaction has been found to be a large factor in the recidivism of criminals. Many prison inmates have limited access to social interaction with other inmates as well as those outside of prison. This creates tension between inmates, guards, and society. The breakdown of barriers to open communication between inmates and others may be beneficial to the rehabilitation of criminals. Providing more access to visitations, telephone calls, and electronic mail reduces inmate aggression and encourages compliance to the prison and social rules. In addition, interaction with those outside of the prison acts as a continual reminder to an inmate …

Court Fixing, Tracey E. George

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article critically examines the existing social science evidence on the relative importance of various individual factors on judicial behavior and adds to that evidence by considering the influence of prior academic experience on judges. Researchers have not focused much attention on the importance of a judge's background as a full-time law professor and legal scholar, although more than thirteen percent of courts of appeals appointees were former law professors. Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan both viewed the federal judiciary (particularly the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals) as integral to their policy agendas, and both further believed that …

Paradoxes Of Fair Division, Paul H. Edelman, Steven J. Brams, Peter C. Fishburn

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Paradoxes, if they do not define a field, render its problems intriguing and often perplexing, especially insofar as the paradoxes remain unresolved. Voting theory, for example, has been greatly stimulated by the Condorcet paradox, which is the discovery by the Marquis de Condorcet that there may be no alternative that is preferred by a majority to every other alternative, producing so-called cyclical majorities. Its modern extension and generalization is Arrow's theorem, which says, roughly speaking, that a certain set of reasonable conditions for aggregating individuals' preferences into some social choice are inconsistent. In the last fifty years, hundreds of books …

Evolutionary Analysis In Law: Some Objections Considered, Owen D. Jones

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article appears in a special issue of the Brooklyn Law Review on DNA: Lessons from the Past - Problems for the Future. It first addresses why law needs insights from behavioral biology, and then identifies and responds to a variety of structural and conceptual barriers to such evolutionary analysis in law.

Should Shareholders Have A Greater Say Over Executive Pay??, Randall S. Thomas, Brian R. Cheffins

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Executive pay arrangements in Britain's publicly quoted companies have been subjected to much criticism in recent years. Proposals that shareholders should have a greater direct say over managerial remuneration have been a by-product of the concerns expressed. Debate on this point, however, has been largely speculative. This is because there is little evidence available in the United Kingdom indicating how shareholders would exercise any new powers they might be given. This paper addresses the evidentiary gap by drawing upon the experience in the United States, where empirical work indicates that shareholder voting only operates as a potential check when pay …

Getting Past Democracy, Edward L. Rubin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The tension between our concept of democracy and the government we actually possess is well known, despite our insistent efforts to claim that the term "democracy" accurately describes our governmental system. One area where this tension has been apparent is American constitutionalism. The conflict between our concept of democracy and the institution of judicial review became a political issue when the Supreme Court placed itself in opposition to Progressive Era and New Deal legislation. This same conflict subsequently served as a central concern of the Legal Process School, which indelibly characterized it as the "counter-majoritarian difficulty."' The more far-reaching and …

Director Accountability And The Mediating Role Of The Corporate Board, Margaret M. Blair

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

One of the most pressing questions facing both corporate scholars and business people today is how corporate directors can be made accountable. Before addressing this issue, however, it seems important to consider two antecedent questions: To whom should directors be accountable? And for what? Contemporary corporate scholarship often starts from a "shareholder primacy" perspective that holds that directors of public corporations ought to be accountable only to the shareholders, and ought to be accountable only for maximizing the value of the shareholders' shares. This perspective rests on the conventional contractarian assumption that the shareholders are the sole residual claimants and …

The Challenge Of Punitive Damages Mathematics, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Proposals to provide juries with specific numerical instructions for setting punitive damages should bring greater rationality to punitive damages awards. This approach is tested using evidence from 353 jury-eligible citizens who applied these formulas to a series of legal cases. Few respondents assessed the correct values of punitive damages from the standpoint of deterrence. Anchoring effects of appeals by a plaintiffs lawyer or media coverage of similar awards lead respondents to abandon the punitive damages formula and set punitive damages based on the anchor. Minorities and the less well educated were particularly unwilling or unable to apply the recommended punitive …

Too Clever By Half: The Problem With Novelty In Constitutional Law, Suzanna Sherry

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

As Robert Bennett's article illustrates, the "counter-majoritarian difficulty" remains--some forty years after its christening--a central theme in constitutional scholarship. [See Robert W. Bennett, "Counter-Conversationalism and the Sense of Difficulty", 95 NW. U. L. Rev. 845 (2001) ] Indeed, one might say that reconciling judicial review and democratic institutions is the goal of almost every major constitutional scholar writing today, including Bennett himself. I have suggested elsewhere that scholars as diverse as Richard Epstein, Antonin Scalia, and Robert Bork on the one hand, and Akhil Amar, Bruce Ackerman, and Ronald Dworkin on the other, are all motivated by a desire to …

Brain Plasticity And Spanish Moss In Biolegal Analysis, Erin O'Connor

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The field of law and biology is growing rapidly, and the good scholarship typically has much to do with Owen Jones... The general message that Professor Jones disseminates in his articles is important. Law cannot reach peak effectiveness unless it is built on a sound behavioral model, and no model of human nature is ultimately sound unless it is consistent with the insights from behavioral biology. And the beauty of behavioral biology, for one who uses behavioral models, is that it tells us something about human tastes, preferences, and cognitive biases and limitations.

Supreme Court Monitoring Of The United States Courts Of Appeals En Banc, Tracey E. George, Michael E. Solimine

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article considers systematically whether the Supreme Court is more likely to review an en banc court of appeals decision than a panel decision. First, we consider Supreme Court review of en banc cases during the Rehnquist Court. Then, in a multivariate empirical analysis of a three-circuit subset of those cases, we control for other variables found to influence the Court's certiorari decision, such as Solicitor General or amicus curiae support for the certiorari petition, a dissent from the court of appeal's opinion, an outcome contrary to the Court's ideological composition, and an intercircuit conflict. The discussion is situated in …

The Lawyer's Philosophical Map And The Disputant's Perceptual Map: Impediments To Facilitative Mediation And Lawyering, Chris Guthrie

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Riskin's categorization of mediation has engendered much debate among academics and practitioners. Although most in the mediation community accept Riskin's positive assertion that mediation as currently practiced includes both facilitation and evaluation, a vocal group of purist critics rejects Riskin's pluralist view of mediation on normative grounds. These purist critics -- including such prominent mediator-scholars as Professors Kim Kovach, Lela Love," and Josh Stulberg -- argue that mediation is in fact, and should be, solely a facilitative process "designed to capture the parties' insights, imagination, and ideas that help them to participate in identifying and shaping their preferred outcomes." For …

Homogenized Law: Can The United States Learn From African Mistakes?, Beverly I. Moran

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

For the last fifty years we have seen an outflow of United States laws to developing countries. This legal outflow has caused problems of enforcement in societies that do not share the values, needs or concerns of the law producing state. Using law reform in Eritrea as a case study, the article asks what will happen in the United States when we become the recipient, rather than the exporter, of maladapted laws that serve the purpose of others instead of serving the unique needs of the United States and its economy.

Bibliography Of Tax Articles In High Prestige Non-Specialized Law Journals: A Comparison Of Australia, Britain, Canada And The United States 1954-2001, Beverly I. Moran

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The bibliography surveys all tax articles (but not Notes) from 1954 to 2001 in high prestige law journals in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. The bibliography compares number of articles produced in each country and also shows what areas of interest dominate in each market. For example, Canadian journal produce more scholarship on Comparative Taxation while Australian journals are more likely to publish in the area of Evasion and Avoidance.

Essential Elements, Nancy J. King, Susan Riva Klein

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Court has struggled for well over a century with the issue of who has final authority to define what is a "crime" for purposes of applying procedural protections guaranteed by the Constitution in criminal cases. Just as labeling an action "civil" may allow the government to circumvent constitutional criminal procedure entirely, so labeling a fact an "affirmative defense" or a "sentencing factor" instead of an element of the offense may allow the government to escape constitutional criminal procedure selectively, bypassing the burden of proof, pleading, and jury requirements that would otherwise apply to an offense element. In its decision …

Damage Awards In Perspective: Behind The Headline-Grabbing Awards In Exxon Valdez And Engle, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Large punitive damages awards in tobacco litigation, the Exxon Valdez oil spill case, and other cases dominate the public perceptions about damages. These large awards and the mass of compensatory awards can be best understood in relation to other awards. In fact, total awards in tried contract cases have risen faster than tort awards. In the highly visible world of large punitive damages awards, the Exxon Valdez award fits well within the traditional pattern of punitive awards. The largest punitive award, that against the tobacco industry in Engle, is best understood against the background of the tobacco industry's national …

Predicting The Future Of Employment Law: Reflecting Or Refracting Market Forces?, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In this Article I predict how employment law will change in the future. My task is positive rather than normative. I will not argue that the developments I foresee are good ones to be applauded. Rather, they arise "inevitably" from the way the law will react to changes in labor markets.

Of course, as Professor Ronald Dworkin emphasizes, in developing a theory of law one cannot sharply distinguish between the positive and normative. Dworkin points out that even in describing the current legal framework, one must choose what to highlight and what to ignore, a process based on values. When …

Integrating Indian Law Into A First Year Legal Writing Course, Barbara P. Blumenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

When the author designed the appellate problem for first-year law students, she chose Indian Law because the learning experience transcends subject-specificity. The author discusses how she designs the problem and introduces it to students, and notes reactions from students as they research and prepare their brief.

Television And Societal Effects: An Analysis Of Media Images Of African-Americans In Historical Context, Sherri L. Burr

Faculty Scholarship

This paper takes a historical approach to the depictions of African-Americans in television in the five decades since the 1950s and links those images to the changing roles and perceptions of African-Americans in society. Part I discusses the various television shows from the 1950s to the 1990s that featured African-Americans and have had a societal impact. Part II analyzes the chicken/egg relationship between networks and advertisers and asks whether television, given the economic forces affecting it, can be used as a force for change. Part III explores how these television images have affected foreigners and children. Television remains "without a …

A Career Choice Critique Of Legal Ethics Theory, Andrew M. Perlman

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

The article contends that legal ethics theory would benefit from incorporating an oft-overlooked reality of modern law practice: career choices often predetermine the clients that lawyers represent and the legal strategies that attorneys pursue. The problem with many existing ethics models is that they incorrectly assume that lawyers have sufficient autonomy to select their clients and legal strategies. In fact, most types of law practice place such significant restrictions on lawyers' freedom that career choices provide many attorneys with their main source of discretion. The article suggests that, in light of these client selection and strategy choice constraints, theorists need …

Renewable Bar Admission: A Template For Making "Professionalism" Real, Jayne W. Barnard

Faculty Publications

The citizens of this country should expect no less than the highest degree of professionalism when they have entrusted administration of the rule of law-one of the fundamental tenets upon which our society is based-to the legal profession. Re-examination was not originally required of medical specialists, but [the American Board of Medical Specialties] quickly recognized that a lifetime certification, even with required continuing education provided little incentive for doctors to keep up with new medical knowledge and techniques. Similarly, continuing [legal] education requirements alone are not sufficient to assure the integration of new law and procedure into a lawyer's practice. …

Carter, Reagan, And Khomeini: Presidential Transitions And International Law, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

And Now A Word About Secular Humanism, Spirituality, And The Practice Of Justice And Conflict Resolution, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The papers presented in this Dialogue raise very important and moving questions about the relationship of spirituality, moral values, and religion to the practice of law generally, and the practice of conflict resolution specifically. In this Commentary, I want to focus on two related questions: First, where do our moral values, spirituality, and sense of communion or connection come from? And second, how do values derived from various sources of secular humanism inform our practices? For some of us, organized religion is not the primary source of our commitment to the "moral" values that inform our legal and conflict resolution …

Of Judicial Supremacy And Academic Inadequacy, Scott C. Idleman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

If You Build It, They Will Come: Establishing Title Ix Compliance In Interscholastic Sports As A Foundation For Achieving Gender Equity, Amy Bauer

Publications

No abstract provided.