Law Commons^™

When Machines Can Be Judge, Jury, And Executioner: Justice In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence (Book Review), Stacy Fowler

Faculty Articles

In When Machines Can Be Judge, Jury, and Executioner, former federal judge Katherine Forrest raises concerns over the pervasive use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the American justice system to produce risks and need assessments (RNA) regarding the probability of recidivism for citizens charged with a crime. Forrest’s argument centers on AI’s primary focus on utilitarian outcomes when assessing liberty for individual citizens. This approach leads Forrest to the conclusion that in its current form, AI is “ill-suited to the criminal justice context.” Forrest contends that AI should instead be programmed to focus on John Rawl’ 'concept of justice as …

Policy's Place In Pedestrian Infrastructure (Book Review), Michael L. Smith

Faculty Articles

Angie Schmitt's Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America delves into the complex, multi-layered phenomenon of how traffic infrastructure and policies systematically disadvantage pedestrians and contribute to thousands of deaths and injuries each year. Despite the breadth of the problem and its often-technical aspects, Schmitt presents the problem in an engaging and approachable manner through a step-by-step analysis combining background, statistics, and anecdotes.

While Right of Way tends to focus on infrastructure design, it offers much for legal scholars, lawyers, and policymakers. Schmitt addresses several policy issues at length in the book. But …

Ethical Lawyering: The Role Of Honor, Conscience, And Codes (Reviewing Michael S. Ariens, The Lawyer’S Conscience: A History Of American Lawyer Ethics), Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

Michael Ariens’ new book, The Lawyer’s Conscience: A History of American Lawyer Ethics, is a monumental work, rooted in his decades of excellent scholarship in the fields of attorney professional responsibility and legal history. The Lawyer’s Conscience captures the great sweep and key features of the roughly 250-year period in American legal ethics running from colonial times to the present day. Richly detailed and vividly presented, the story takes the reader on a grand tour of the landmark events and changing ideas that have defined the aspirations, responsibilities, and accountability of members of the American legal profession.

Lawyers, Mistakes, And Moral Growth, Vincent R. Johnson

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Vincent R. Johnson, professor at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas, reviews The Man in the Ditch: A Redemption Story for Today by Dallas attorney Mike H. Bassett.

Lawyers, Mistakes, And Moral Growth (Reviewing Mike H. Bassett, The Man In The Ditch: A Redemption Story For Today), Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

In the literature of legal ethics, relatively little is said about the psychic turmoil that lawyers face while anticipating or defending a grievance, malpractice claim, or criminal charge. Even less is said about how lawyers who are found guilty of violating professional standards should go about rebuilding their reputations and personal lives after such proceedings have run their course, often with embarrassing results having been made public. Against this bleak backdrop, a dazzlingly introspective and hopeful book about lawyers and their mistakes-and about their suffering and possible moral growth-has been published.

In The Midst Of Change, A Few Truths Remain—A Review Of Trazenfeld And Jarvis’S Florida Legal Malpractice Law, Jan L. Jacobowitz Ms.

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Abstract forthcoming.

Borrowing American Ideas To Improve Chinese Tort Law, Yongxia Wang

St. Mary's Law Journal

As China develops its modern jurisprudence it faces a choice between emulating the legal frameworks of civil law countries or common law countries. Thus far, the civil law path has allowed for a rapid expansion of Chinese tort law, but jurists have found difficulty in applying such generalized statutory schemes with the absence of supporting judicial interpretation. Cognizant of the differences between the public policy of common law countries and China, Vincent Johnson’s Mastering Torts (Měiguó Qīnquán Fǎ) provides this guidance through the lens of American tort law. The hornbook takes care to simplify the role of judicial …

Slavery And Freedom In Texas: Stories From The Courtroom, 1821-1871 (Book Review), Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Borders Of The Law: Critical Legal Histories Of The North American West (Book Review), Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Legal Malpractice Claims: What The Data Indicate, Vincent R. Johnson

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Abstract forthcoming

John Henry Wigmore And The Rules Of Evidence: The Hidden Origins Of Modern Law (Book Review), Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Other Rights Revolution: Conservative Lawyers And The Remaking Of American Government (Book Review), Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Glass Half Full: The Decline And Rebirth Of The Legal Profession (Book Review), Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Against The Profit Motive: The Salary Revolution In American Government, 1780–1940 (Book Review), Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

In Against the Profit Motive, Nicholas R. Parrillo expertly explains how and why state and federal governments moved from paying their employees fees to paying them salaries. The book offers insights into the history of government finance and administrative law, shifting dramatically in time, subject matter, and geography. The book begins with a helpful fifty-page introductory summary and then is divided into two parts, each of which considers a type of activity that generated fees for government officers: facilitative payments and bounties. Further, Against the Profit Motive illustrates, in the disparate areas of criminal law enforcement, tax collection, and naval …

The Invention Of Murder: How The Victorians Revelled In Death And Detection And Created Modern Crime (Book Review), Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

The Invention of Murder, by Judith Flanders, is an extraordinary achievement—an exhaustively researched history of 19th-century Great Britain written with verve. Flanders uses the conceit of murder to immerse the reader in 19th-century legal, cultural, and social history. Her depth of knowledge appears to encompass everything related to every murder during this place and time. As a legal history, the book explains a number of developments in English law. As a cultural history, the book discusses the importance in the early 19th century of broadsides, penny-bloods, illegal penny-gaffs, licensed plays, and newspapers; all centered around murder and mayhem. As a …

Tocqueville's Nightmare: The Administrative State Emerges In America, 1900-1940 (Book Review), Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’S Intended To Help, And Why Universities Won’T Admit It (Book Review), Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

Mismatch is one of the most important books about law and public policy published recently. The authors, Richard H. Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr., offer a provocative and deeply researched conclusion: empirical evidence strongly suggests that affirmative action in the admission of African-Americans and Hispanics to selective colleges and law schools is more harmful than helpful.

The problem of underrepresentation of African-Americans and Hispanics in the American legal profession is a continuing problem. But the work of Richard Sander strongly indicates that relying on the power of affirmative action has generated deleterious effects for those this “solution” was designed to …

The Collini Case: A Novel (Book Review), Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

Ferdinand von Schirach is a German criminal defense lawyer who has previously published two vivid and brilliant short story collections. His latest book, The Collini Case: A Novel, like his short stories, gives the reader telling details that offer insights into the human condition. But The Collini Case seems less interested in its characters than in teaching about the continuing stain of Germany’s past. This leads von Schirach to use stock figures who have suffered stock tragedies and who engage in stock actions. The novel is simply not realistic enough to suspend disbelief, and only barely avoids being a melodrama. …

Autonomy And Acute Psychosis: When Choices Collide, Dora W. Klein

Faculty Articles

Professor Elyn Saks is a well-recognized expert in mental health law, and is training to become a psychoanalyst. Her latest book reflects her continued interest in mental health issues, but this book differs from her previous works because it is written in the voice of someone who has a personal stake in the topic.

In The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness, Saks recounts her own experience of schizophrenia, the most serious of all mental illnesses. Beginning with some “little quirks” in childhood and progressing to full-fledged psychosis by her first year at Yale Law School, Sak’s illness caused …

The New Thought Police: Inside The Left’S Assault On Free Speech And Free Minds (Book Review), John W. Teeter Jr

Faculty Articles

Attacks on political correctness have grown both plentiful and rather tiresome. Such tomes occasionally score valid ideological points, but one grows weary of the bitter repetitiveness of it all. The New Thought Police might seem to offer a little novelty to the litany. Bruce is undeniably bright, impassioned, and edgy. Her book, however, is decidedly a mixed bag. The best parts center on her controversial role as a feminist spokeswoman during the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Bruce cogently emphasized that the case was a tragic paradigm of domestic violence rather than a racist conspiracy against a black cultural icon.

Bruce’s …

Face At The Bottom Of The Well (Book Review), Willy E. Rice

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Law (Teaching) (Book Review), Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

The satiric novel, as a “message” novel, can provide unvarnished truths about the object of satire. Institutions of higher learning, particularly law schools, and the denizens of those institutions, are prime subjects for satire because they take themselves so seriously. Unfortunately, though, The Socratic Method by Michael Levin takes itself as seriously as the law school it is criticizing.

One of the hazards of the satiric novel is that the message may overwhelm the plot and characterization. Levin, in his zeal to awaken the reader to the torture of the law school, and particularly the torture of the law school …