Law Commons^™

In The (Canadian) Shadow Of Islamic Law: Translating Mahr As A Bargaining Endowment, Pascale Fournier

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article addresses the dilemmas of Muslim women living in Canada as they negotiate between the constitutional and juridical systems of the dominant society, on the one hand, and the Muslim community, on the other. It will examine the ideological assumptions about law and multiculturalism that have worked to depoliticize the stakes of law in Marion Boyd's report, Protecting Choice, Promoting Inclusion. With the Islamic institution of mahr in the background, this article suggests a methodology to evaluate the costs and benefits of abstract legal rules as they are actually used by the parties in the "shadow of the law" …

Panel Report: Investigative Journalism And National Security, Zachary D. Streit

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The panel discussion explores the tension between government secrecy and media transparency, focusing on the challenges investigative journalists face in reporting on national security issues. The participants argue that while some secrecy is necessary for national security, excessive classification hampers transparency and accountability. They discuss legal battles, over-classification, and the need for a balance between protecting sensitive information and the public's right to know.

The Blogging Of Everyday Life, Tama Leaver

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Writing in the early 1980s, Michel de Certeau, one of the most influential theorists of 'the everyday', warned:

Marginality is today no longer limited to minority groups, but is rather massive and pervasive; this cultural activity of the non-producers of culture, an activity that is unsigned, unreadable, and unsymbolized, remains the only one possible for all those who nevertheless buy and pay for the showy products through which a productivist economy articulates itself. Marginality is becoming a universal. A marginal group has now become a silent majority.[1]

Throughout The Practice of Everyday Life, de Certeau argues for …

Inside The Administrative State: A Critical Look At The Practice Of Presidential Control, Lisa Schultz Bressman, Michael P. Vandenbergh

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

From the inception of the administrative state, scholars have proposed various models of agency decision-making to render such decision-making accountable and effective, only to see those models falter when confronted by actual practice. Until now, the presidential control model has been largely impervious to this pattern. That model, which brings agency decision-making under the direction of the President, has strengthened over time, winning broad scholarly endorsement and bipartisan political support. But it, like prior models, relies on abstractions - for example, that the President represents public preferences and resists parochial pressures - that do not hold up as a factual …

My Patent, Your Patent, Or Our Patent? Inventorship Disputes Within Academic Research Groups, Sean B. Seymore

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The statutory requirement of identifying the first and true inventor is often muddled by the mores and practices of academic science. Unfortunately, and despite claims of scientists and attorneys to the contrary, I contend that the inventive entity is not discovered but rather determined in and through social relationships. Although universities should always strive to promulgate policies which fully comport with the law, the biggest incentive for universities to insist on correct inventorship is financial. I argue that the rise in mentee claims for sole or joint inventorship, as well as the ever-present threat of an inequitable conduct defense in …

Patients And Biobanks, Ellen Wright Clayton

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The question about the privacy of medical information can be stated simply: To what extent can and should patients control what the medical record contains and who has access to it and for what purposes? Patients often have apparently conflicting views on this subject. On the one hand, we, as patients, say that we prize privacy and that we fear that information will be used to harm us. On the other hand, we value the benefits that come from improved communication among providers, such as having our visits covered by third party payers and advances in medical science, which often …

Emotional Competence, "Rational Understanding," And The Criminal Defendant, Terry A. Maroney

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Adjudicative competence, more commonly referred to as competence to stand trial, is a highly under-theorized area of law. Though it is well established that, to be competent, a criminal defendant must have a "rational" as well as 'factual" understanding of her situation, the meaning of such "rational understanding" has gone largely undefined. Given the large number of criminal prosecutions in which competence is at issue, the doctrine's instability stands in stark contrast to its importance. This Article argues that adjudicative competence, properly understood, asks whether a criminal defendant has capacity to participate meaningfully in the host of decisions potentially required …

State Executive Lawmaking In Crisis, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Courts and scholars have largely overlooked the constitutional source and scope of a state executive's powers to avert and respond to crises. This Article addresses how actual and perceived legal barriers to executive authority under state constitutions can have major consequences beyond a state's borders during times of crisis. It proposes to empower state executives to address federal and regional goals without any previous authorization from the state legislature-a presumption of state executive lawmaking, subject to state legislative override, which would give a state or local executive expansive lawmaking authority within its system of government to address national and regional …

Constitutional Avoidance In The Executive Branch, Trevor W. Morrison

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

When executive branch actors interpret statutes, should they use the same methods as the courts? This Article takes up the question by considering a rule frequently invoked by the courts-the canon of constitutional avoidance. In addition to being a cardinal principle of judicial statutory interpretation, the avoidance canon also appears regularly and prominently in the work of the executive branch. It has played a central role, for example, in some of the most hotly debated episodes of executive branch statutory interpretation in the "war on terror." Typically, executive invocations of avoidance are supported by citation to one or more Supreme …

Why (Only) Esops?, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Social Reproduction And Religious Reproduction: A Democratic-Communitarian Analysis Of The Yoder Problem, Josh Chafetz

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In 1972, Wisconsin v. Yoder presented the Supreme Court with a sharp clash between the state's interest in social reproduction through education -- that is, society's interest in using the educational system to perpetuate its collective way of life among the next generation -- and the parents' interest in religious reproduction -- that is, their interest in passing their religious beliefs on to their children. This Article will take up the challenge of that clash, a clash which continues to be central to current debates over issues like intelligent design in the classroom. This Article engages with the competing theories …

Use It Or Pretenders Will Abuse It: The Importance Of Archival Legal Information, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Archival information about the legal system should inform policymaking. Despite claims of soaring civil damages awards, modem historical data show no to little growth in tort awards and no real growth in punitive damages awards. The data also show a dramatic forty-year decline in trial rates from more than ten percent of case dispositions to less than two percent. The decline needs to be explained in part by using archival data. Contrary to perceptions underlying the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, little systematic evidence exists that state and federal courts process class actions significantly different. These results contradict the …

Educating Students About The Critiquing Process In A Lawyering Skills Class, Joel Atlas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The extreme performance anxiety of first-year law students along with the alien experience of receiving copious comments on their writing creates a potent, and potentially paralyzing, potion for stress. With that as a backdrop, lawyering skills teachers ought to educate students about the process of critiquing they will experience in a lawyering skills course.

"So I Says To "The Guy,' I Says...": The Constitutionality Of Neutral Pronoun Redaction In Multidefendant Criminal Trials, Bryan M. Shay

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Symposium: Corporate Governance And Environmental Best Practices, Jayne W. Barnard

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Therapeutic Forgetting: The Legal And Ethical Implications Of Memory Dampening, Adam J. Kolber

Vanderbilt Law Review

Neuroscientists have made significant advances in identifying drugs to dampen the intensity of traumatic memories. Such drugs hold promise for victims of terrorism, military conflict, assault, car accidents, and natural disasters who might otherwise suffer for many years from intense, painful memories. In 2003, the President's Council on Bioethics released a report, entitled Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness, which analyzed memory dampening in some detail. While the Council acknowledged the potential benefits of memory dampening, some Council members were concerned that it may: (1) discourage us from authentically coping with trauma, (2) tamper with personal identity, (3) …

Student Organization Officers 2006-2007, Office Of Registrar

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Conscripting Attorneys To Battle Corporate Fraud Without Shields Or Armor? Reconsidering Retaliatory Discharge In Light Of Sarbanes-Oxley, Kim T. Vu

Michigan Law Review

This Note advocates that federal courts should allow attorneys to bring retaliatory discharge claims under SOX. Traditional rationales prohibiting the claims of retaliatory discharge by attorneys do not apply in the context of Sarbanes-Oxley. This Note contends that the Department of Labor and the federal courts should interpret the whistleblower provisions of § 806 as protecting attorneys who report under § 307. Assuring reporting attorneys that they have protection from retaliation will encourage them to whistleblow and thereby advance SOX's policy goal of ferreting out corporate fraud. Part I explores the legal landscape of retaliatory discharge suits by attorneys. This …

Grade Distribution - Fall Semester 2006, Office Of Registrar

Semester Schedules and Information

No abstract provided.

Class Schedule - Fall 2006, Office Of Registrar

Semester Schedules and Information

No abstract provided.

Dialogue Magazine, Fall 2006

Dialogue, the magazine of the DePaul University College of Law

No abstract provided.

My Two Dads: Disaggregating Biological And Social Paternity, Melanie B. Jacobs

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Examines the question of what the basis for establishing fatherhood should be. Explores how legal parentage is determined, examines the two-parent paradigm, and compares biological and social paternity in order to recognize two legal fathers.

The City Of God And The Cities Of Men: A Response To Jason Carter, Randy Beck

Scholarly Works

Law school seminars sometimes educate the professor as much as the students. That proved true for me in the spring of 2004, when seventeen law students and two colleagues from other departments joined me for a seminar focused on ancient and contemporary perspectives on law found within various Christian theological traditions. One seminar student who repeatedly spurred my own thinking was Jason Carter. Particularly thought provoking was the paper Jason presented in the final weeks of the seminar.

The returns from the 2004 election suggested that Jason had been unusually prescient in his analysis of U.S. religious and political trends. …

Venture Capital, Agency Costs, And The False Dichotomy Of The Corporation, Robert P. Bartlett

Scholarly Works

An implicit dichotomy of the corporation exists in legal scholarship. On one side of the dichotomy rests the publicly held corporation suffering from a significant conflict of interest between its managers and dispersed shareholders; on the other side, the closely held corporation plagued by intershareholder conflict. This Article argues that understanding the agency problems that can exist within a firm demands a rejection of this traditional dichotomy and the theories of the firm built upon it. Using venture capital (VC) finance, this Article demonstrates how this dichotomy obscures how all firms -- public and private -- often face the same …

Gabriel H. Teninbaum On The Witnesses: War Crimes And The Promise Of Justice In The Hague By Eric Stover. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. 230 Pp., Gabriel H. Teninbaum Esq.

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in The Hague by Eric Stover. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. 230 pp.

Sonia Cardenas On Human Rights In The Arab World: Independent Voices. Edited By Anthony Chase And Amr Hamzawy. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 336 Pp., Sonia Cardenas

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights in the Arab World: Independent Voices. Edited by Anthony Chase and Amr Hamzawy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 336 pp.

Rwu School Of Law Enewsletter, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Doctrine Of Precedent In The United States Of America, Mortimer N.S. Sellers

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How Antidiscrimination Law Learned To Live With Racial Inequality, Matthew Lindsay

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores a great paradox at the heart of the prevailing paradigm of American antidiscrimination law: the colorblindness ideal. In theory, and often in practice, that ideal is animated by a genuine commitment to liberal, individualist, race-neutral egalitarianism. For many of its partisans, colorblindness entails not only a negative injunction against race-conscious decisionmaking, but also, crucially, an affirmative program for the achievement of true racial equality. For these proponents, scrupulously race-neutral decisionmaking both advances the interests of racial minorities and embodies the best aspirations of the civil rights movement. In this worldview, colorblindness offers the only true antidote for …

Fulfilling The Promise Of The National Labor Relations Act: A Review Of Taking Back The Worker's Law, Ann C. Hodges

Law Faculty Publications

Ellen Dannin's excellent book, Taking Back the Workers' Law, reminds us of the importance of labor as reflected in the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935.