Law Commons^™

Limiting Liability Through Bankruptcy, G. Marcus Cole

Journal Articles

The purpose of this Article is to expose that function of bankruptcy law that distinguished it from English and Colonial insolvency law, and to determine the scope of and need for bankruptcy law to perform that function in contemporary society. I posit that the distinguishing character of bankruptcy law was, and continues to be, its ability to serve as a temporal asset partitioning device. By asset partition, I mean the ability of a structure to sequester the assets of an owner of an enterprise from the reach of the creditors of that enterprise, or the assets of the enterprise from …

On War As Hell, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

This article addresses the question of the proper international standard for war reparations. War reparations are especially hard on the credibility and efficacy of international law. Wars are hard because the suffering is so great and reparations so onerous that often there is no mutuality of interest between the victorious governments and their own constituent victims. Wars force victorious States to make hard choices between looking backward to repair the harm caused to constituent victims and looking forward to a relationship with a potential strong and strategic ally. Just as the conduct of war, in its great features, is...policy itself, …

Reconciling The Nlra And Irca: Can An Undocumented Worker Receive Back Pay? An Analysis Of Hoffman Plastic Compound, Inc. V. Nlrb, Barbara J. Fick

Journal Articles

This article previews the Supreme Court case Hoffman Plastic Compound, Inc., v. NLRB, 535 U.S. 137 (2002). The author expected the Court to address in this case the apparent conflict between the National Labor Relations Act's goal of the prevention of unfair labor practices and the Immigration Reform and Control Act's denial of employment to undocumented aliens. This issue arose because of an award of back pay to an undocumented worker who was fired because of his union organizing activities.

"Money Can't Buy Me Love": A Contrast Between Damages In Family Law And Contract, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

As my contribution to this symposium in David's honor, I submit the law and economics section of the damages chapter of our joint enterprise, Understanding Contracts. Because of David's failing health, my own involvement with the publisher never reached contract stage. The chapter concludes with a problem that illustrates some of the intricacies of mixing family law and contract. David and I grappled for some time with the answer to the problem, coming at it from our different points of view. On one occasion, David, with a twinkle, told me there was only one place where I was "absolutely wrong." …

God Bless America, John J. Coughlin

Journal Articles

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the friars at St. Francis of Assisi Church on West 31st Street in Manhattan had just prayed matins, the ancient morning prayer of the Catholic Church. Afterwards, Fr. Mychael Judge, O.F.M., and his brother Franciscans were enjoying the simple pleasure of their first cup of coffee of the day in the peace of Friary's Refectory. Directly across the street from the Church, an ominous all-alarm bell began to sound in the firehouse, while Fr. Mychael's fire department beeper went off. As he had done so many times previously, the Chaplain to the New …

International Remedies In National Criminal Cases: Icj Judgment In Germany V. United States, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

In Germany v. United States (2001), the International Court of Justice ruled that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations confers judicially enforceable rights on foreign nationals detained for prolonged periods or sentenced to severe penalties without notice of their right to communicate with their consulates. The Court also ruled that states which fail to give timely notice cannot later invoke procedural default to bar individuals from judicial relief. However, the Court did not clearly address other issues, such as requiring individuals to show prejudice to the outcome of the trial, or denial of certain remedies for Convention violations, which may …

The Right Questions About School Choice: Education, Religious Freedom, And The Common Good, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

As this Essay goes to press, the Supreme Court is considering whether Ohio's school-choice program violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In my view, the Ohio program is sound public policy, and it is consistent with the Justices' present understanding of the Establishment Clause. I also believe that the Court will and should permit this experiment, and our conversations about its merits, to continue. The purpose of this Essay, though, is not to predict or evaluate ex ante the Court's decision. Instead, my primary aim is to suggest and then sketch a few broad themes that--once the …

Choosing The Judges Who Choose The President, John Copeland Nagle

Journal Articles

The stakes for the selection of judges have never been so high. Federal and state court judges have ruled on such divisive issues as education funding, exclusionary zoning, capital punishment, same-sex marriages, school prayer, affirmative action, partial birth abortion, and legislative redistricting.

The selection of those who possess such awesome powers is bound to be contested. But the mode of choosing judges is a secondary question. The debate concerning the selection of judges is fueled by a broader debate about the appropriate role of judges.

The procedures for choosing those judges are caught up in this larger substantive debate, and …

The Fable Of Entry: Bounded Rationality, Market Discipline, And Legal Policy, Avishalom Tor

Journal Articles

Legal scholars have recently advanced a behavioral approach to the law and economics school of thought, replacing the traditionally assumed rational actor with an empirically based, boundedly rational decision maker. In response, advocates of traditional law and economics have asserted that boundedly rational behavior is of little significance for the analysis of economic activities in market environments, most notably because competitive pressures will eliminate such behavior. This article argues, however, that bounded rationality has important effects on the market even under conditions of intense competition. Through a study of the competition among new entrants into industry, this analysis examines the …

Using The Pervasive Method Of Teaching Legal Ethics In A Property Course, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

The first-year introductory course in property law is about all that is left of the traditional black-box curriculum. It is where beginning law students cope with and despair of the arcana of English common law; where, with more detachment than, say, in the torts course, analysis of appellate opinions is what "thinking like a lawyer" means, with no more than peripheral and begrudging attention to modem legislation and administrative law; where legal reasoning is a stretching exercise and initiatory discipline. And, incidentally, surviving bravely the rude invasion of teachers of public law, it is where a teaching lawyer can point …

Empirical Work In Family Law, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Until fairly recently, researchers have not done much theoretical work on the subject of family law. Although the move towards theoretical work is a positive one, unfortunately, most of the latest reforms in family law have been uninformed by empirical studies. Furthermore, the few empirical studies that have been conducted are replete with intractable problems.

In this essay, Margaret Brinig discusses some of the problems researchers have encountered in their attempts to conduct empirical work in the area of family law. For example, most researchers have used state cross-sectional data for their experiments. Reliance on this type of data can …

Mr. Dooley And Mr. Gallup: Public Opinion And Constitutional Change In The 1930s, Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

Scholars interested in the development of political and constitutional culture during the 1930s sometimes draw inferences about popular preferences on various issues of social and economic policy from the results of presidential and congressional elections. A review of contemporary public opinion polls taken by George Gallup for the American Institute of Public Opinion and by Elmo Roper for the Fortune Magazine survey offers a more granular understanding of popular views on the public policy issues of the day. This article canvasses all of the public opinion polls taken by Gallup and Roper between 1935, when they began publishing their results, …

The Rehnquist Court And Criminal Procedure, Stephen F. Smith

Journal Articles

Much of recent discussions of conservative judicial activism has concerned the revival of federalism-based limits on Congress during the Rehnquist Court. The allure of federalism as a topic for discussion is understandable, yet I argue that constitutional criminal procedure provides a better context within which to test the Rehnquist Court's commitment to judicial restraint. In this Essay, I examine the topic at hand against the background of the many important developments that have taken place in criminal procedure on Rehnquist's watch. The results of this examination are surprising because they suggest that activism is not necessarily the antithesis of restraint. …

Using Therapeutic Jurisprudence To Bridge The Juvenile Justice And Mental Health Systems, Michael S. Jenuwine, Gene Griffin

Journal Articles

The article reviews the concept of therapeutic jurisprudence, integrating mental health principles into the juvenile justice system and the sentencing of juveniles. It discusses reasons why mental health and juvenile justice systems have not worked well together in the United States. The author describes current theories of juvenile justice and community health that would allow these systems to work better together, such as Balanced and Restorative Justice and the Child and Adolescent Service System Program. He explains how these theories can be better integrated into the juvenile justice system and argues that the best hope for therapeutic jurisprudence lies in …

How Much Does Legal Status Matter? Adoptions By Kin Caregivers, Margaret F. Brinig, Steven L. Nock

Journal Articles

Virtually all the legislation dealing with families that include children begins with a "best interests of the child" premise.' Most, if not all, of the litigated results at least seem to maximize the outcomes for adults. This discrepancy should not be surprising, for both substantive and procedural reasons.

The substantive reason, as even the Supreme Court has noted, is that most of the time, what is good for parents will also be good for children. Moreover, having parents who possess many "rights" allow them to better exercise their parental responsibilities. From a procedural perspective, adults are usually the named parties …

Domestic Partnership: Missing The Target?, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Chapter 6, Domestic Partnerships, like many other parts' of the ALI Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution, functions as a set of default rules. Under the ALI Principles for domestic partnerships, therefore, if the parties meet state presumptive requirements for domestic partnerships and have not otherwise contracted, the rules of Chapter 6 apply. Usually, law sets default provisions to 1) what most parties would want; or 2) to what will promote efficiency. I will discuss these two concepts in turn, illustrating how the ALI domestic partnerships provisions satisfy neither ex ante hypothetical bargaining nor efficiency criteria, and thus that …

An Unconstitutional Stereotype: Catholic Schools As Pervasively Sectarian, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

The Supreme Court first held public assistance to religious schools unconstitutional in 1971 in Lemon v. Kurtzman. From then until now the concept of “pervasively sectarian” has played a central role in “parochaid” jurisprudence; every holding against “direct” aid has rested upon it as a necessary premise. “Pervasively sectarian” refers to the assertedly religious (“sectarian”) character of the entire curriculum at parochial schools. Religion, it is said, so permeates the whole educational program that “direct aid” to any aspect of that program inescapably aids religion itself. And that, it is said, violates the Establishment Clause. Because aid statutes typically aim …

Activism As Restraint: Lessons From Criminal Procedure, Stephen F. Smith

Journal Articles

In this Article, I advance a limited defense of judicial activism by the Burger and Rehnquist Courts in constitutional criminal procedure. My basic claim is that even if the so-called "Counterrevolution" in criminal procedure is viewed as activist -- as I think much of it must be -- it nevertheless was normatively defensible as a necessary condition, in a “second-best” world, of reaching an equilibrium closer to the judicial restraint model than would be possible if activism were only a one-way ratchet. Though my thesis supplies a justification for the Burger and Rehnquist Court's basic approach to legal change, it …

Lawful Self-Defense To Terrorism, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

On October 7,2001, the United States and the United Kingdom launched operation Enduring Freedom. Enduring Freedom was a massive aerial and land operation on the territory of Afghanistan in response to the September 11 terror attacks on the United States. The two governments justified Enduring Freedom as an exercise of lawful self-defense. This article examines the elements of self-defense, applying them to Enduring Freedom. At the outset, Enduring Freedom did indeed meet the conditions of lawful self-defense, but later stages of the operation may have gone beyond the bounds of proportionality. The article also looks at the alternatives to self-defense …

Electronic Real Estate Records: A Model For Action, Arthur R. Gaudio

Faculty Scholarship

The legal, technological, and structural components are in place to allow the legal community to embark on the process of creating a uniform real property recording act. Certain jurisdictions have started the process by adopting various provisions allowing counties to implement electronic recording systems. These provisions are, however, disparate and inconsistent. Given the inconsistencies in the manner in which the electronic recording systems are developing, national commercial and lending practices would have a difficult time attempting to comply with all the possible permutations. In the near future, Fannie Mae, the Property Records Industry Association, and the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance …

An Elective Advanced Course, Jeanne M. Kaiser, Beth Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

The Authors discuss Legal Research and Writing course requirements at Western New England College School of Law. Although the students must complete a qualified writing course, previously there was no general advanced legal research and writing course. However, recently Western New England College School of Law has offered an Advanced Legal Research and Writing tutorial as an elective. This course is taught by a member of the Legal Research and Writing faculty on a rotating basis.

Financial Holding Company Liability After Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Eric J. Gouvin

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the extent to which financial holding companies formed under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB Act) will bear the costs of the failure of their bank subsidiaries. Pre-GLB Act banking law provided numerous ways to impose liability on bank holding companies for bank failure. The GLB Act itself added some provisions dealing with holding company liability, providing protections for receivers of failed institutions and adding ammunition to the regulators' "source of strength" theory for imposing liability on bank holding companies, and, by extension, on financial holding companies. But despite tinkering at the edges, the GLB Act did not provide …

In Memoriam: John M. Brumbaugh, Howard S. Chasanow, Frederic N. Smalkin, Susan Leviton, Tanya Washington, Edward S. Abrams, Alan D. Hornstein

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Symposium - Welfare Reform Ends In 2002: What's Ahead For Low-Income And No-Income Families? Introduction, Karen Syma Czapanskiy

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reconciling Welfare Devolution And Due Process Protection, Cheryl M. Miller

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Parents, Children, And Work-First Welfare Reform: Where Is The C In Tanf?, Karen Syma Czapanskiy

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Services Corp. V. Velazquez: A Problematic Commingling Of Unconstitutional Conditions And Public Fora Analyses Yields A New Grey Area For Free Speech, Christopher A. Gozdor

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Authoritative Lawsaying Power Of The State Supreme Court And The United States Supreme Court: Conflicts Of Judicial Othodoxy In The Bush-Gore Litigation, Ann Althouse

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Equal Protection, The Conscientious Judge, And The 2000 Presidential Election, Jonathan L. Entin

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Do Appearances Matter?: Judicial Impartiality And The Supreme Court In Bush V. Gore, Sherrilyn A. Ifill

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.