Law Commons^™

The Wild, Wild West Of Laboratory Developed Tests, John Gilmore

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Since the 1950’s, scientists have built novel technologies to screen for genetic diseases and other biological irregularities. Recently, researchers have developed a method called “liquid biopsy” (as opposed to a standard tissue biopsy) that uses a liquid sample (e.g., blood) to non‑invasively spot biomarkers indicating different types of cancers in the patient’s body. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has fully cleared a small number of liquid biopsy tests under its rigorous and expensive review process, most biotech companies have instead followed a less restrictive regulatory path through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which label …

Law Library Blog (April 2023): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Exams In The Time Of Chatgpt, Margaret Ryznar

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Invaluable guidance has emerged regarding online teaching in recent years, but less so concerning online and take-home final exams. This article offers various methods to administer such exams while maintaining their integrity—after asking artificial intelligence writing tool ChatGPT for its views on the matter. The sophisticated response of the chatbot, which students can use in their written work, only raises the stakes of figuring out how to administer exams fairly.

Jd-Next: A Valid And Reliable Tool To Predict Diverse Students’ Success In Law School, Jessica Findley, Adriana Cimetta, Heidi Burross, Katherine Cheng, Matt Charles, Cayley Balser, Ran Li, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

Admissions tests have increasingly come under attack by those seeking to broaden access and reduce disparities in higher education. Meanwhile, in other sectors there is a movement towards “work-sample” or “proximal” testing. Especially for underrepresented students, the goal is to measure not just the accumulated knowledge and skills that they would bring to a new academic program, but also their ability to grow and learn through the program. The JD-Next is a fully online, noncredit, 7- to 10-week course to train potential JD students in case reading and analysis skills, prior to their first year of law school. This study …

A Quarter Century Of Challenges And Progress In Education, And An Agenda For The Next Quarter Century, Albert H. Kauffman

Faculty Articles

As a native Texan who attended intentionally segregated Texas public schools, then an effectively segregated Texas public law school, litigated many cases against discrimination in Texas education, and now teaches Texas education law, I have what I think to be informed opinions on where we have been, where we are going, and what we should do next. I will briefly describe our sad history of discrimination in segregation, school finance, testing, higher education, and lack of responsiveness to newer issues in education at all levels. I will then summarize some of our ongoing challenges and some possible approaches that I …

Testing Privilege: Coaching Bar Takers Towards “Minimum Competency” During The 2020 Pandemic, Benjamin Afton Cavanaugh

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

School Of Law Grad Walk & Virtual Ceremony 05/21/2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden, Jill Rodrigues

School of Law Commencement (1996- )

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (May 2021): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

The State Of The State Action Doctrine: A Search For Accountability, Jordan Goodson

Touro Law Review

The state action doctrine is notoriously confusing and contradictory. It is also a weak mechanism for enforcing the constitutional accountability of both State and private actors. Many solutions to the doctrine's varied issues have been posed, but as of yet its problems have not been resolved. In fact, they continue to worsen, as increasing privatization combines with the doctrine's restrictions to narrow constitutional liability to the point of potential nullity. This article examines the doctrine's failures through the specific lens of accountability, demonstrating through analysis of recent caselaw how the doctrine — along with creating confusion and countless circuit splits …

Law Library Blog (October 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Law School News: F.A.Q. Update: Covid-19 And Rwu Law 03-30-2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (February 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

The Nature And Value Of Sporting Tests And Contests, R. Scott Kretchmar

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Testing — And Mostly Rejecting — The Folk Wisdom Of The Effective Appellate Brief, Steven R. Morrison, Brian Darby

Saint Louis University Law Journal

There is a great deal of folk wisdom regarding how to draft an effective appellate brief. Judges and lawyers offer advice that briefs should be short, should present relatively few issues, should always be followed by a reply brief, and so forth. There is little doubt that aspiring appellate advocates, law professors who teach writing, appellate court clerks, and appellate court judges look to this folk wisdom to learn how to write effective appellate briefs, teach the skill, and evaluate, by proxies, which briefs are likely to be the best.

But this folk wisdom has never been empirically tested. We …

The Profit And Loss Report On Animal Rights: How Profit Maximization Has Driven The Stagnation Of The Legal Identification Of Animals As Property, Anthony M. Doss

University of Massachusetts Law Review

The concern for the wellbeing and humane treatment of animals continues to grow in the United States. However, while public opinion on how animals should be treated has largely changed, the legal classification for animals has not. Nonhuman animals today, just as in centuries past, keep only a property classification in the law. This classification, which we humans assign to furniture, jewelry, and paper plates, comes with a set of legal rights held exclusively by the owner of the property. These rights bestow upon the owner the abilities to sell, use, and destroy the property as they see fit with …

Counting Zeros: The Every Student Succeeds Act And The Testing Opt-Out Movement, Paul A. Hoversten

Michigan Law Review Online

The story begins with threatening letters. In October 2014, the U.S. Department of Education reminded Colorado’s chief state school officer that the department “ha[d], in fact, withheld Title I, Part A administrative funds . . . from a number of States for failure to comply with the assessment requirements” under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Given the occasion, the department implied, it wouldn’t hesitate to be ruthless.

Colorado could be forgiven for assuming it was authorized to craft its own policies in this arena; according to the Wall Street Journal, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) represented “the …

Government Rule Compliance, Safety, And The Influence Of Regulation On Railroad Trainmen, Carlos Mendoza, Phd

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Operational testing of railroad trainmen on federal government safety rules is a daily occurrence on every railroad in the United States. This constant testing and resulting discipline distracts trainmen from the task at hand, causing a loss of focus which could lead to injury or accidents. Using the social construction framework, this research sought to gain an understanding of trainmen's perception on how operational testing impacts their workplace safety, as well as how they perceive the U.S. federal government influences regulation and discipline. This phenomenological study investigated a segment of railroad employees, the trainmen, because they are operationally tested more …

Open Source, Modular Platforms, And The Challenge Of Fragmentation, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

Open source and modular platforms represent two powerful conceptual paradigms that have fundamentally transformed the software industry. While generally regarded complementary, the freedom inherent in open source rests in uneasy tension with the strict structural requirements required by modularity theory. In particular, third party providers can produce noncompliant components, and excessive experimentation can fragment the platform in ways that reduce its economic benefits for end users and app providers and force app providers to spend resources customizing their code for each variant. The classic solutions to these problems are to rely on some form of testing to ensure that the …

Sorting And Reforming: High-Stakes Testing In The Public Schools, Rachel F. Moran

Akron Law Review

As with “Millionaire,” these practices are widely accepted, roundly applauded, but nevertheless quite controversial. In this article, I will first examine the historical origins of high-stakes testing. Next, I will describe the growing interest in these tests in elementary and secondary schools as well as the tensions that have resulted. Then, I will explore the most significant challenges to the use of high-stakes testing as a requirement for graduation or promotion to another grade. This article will close by contemplating the likely future of the movement for testing and accountability.

Tyranny Of The Meritocracy?: A Disputation Over Testing With Professor Lani Guinier, Dan Subotnik

Dan Subotnik

No abstract provided.

Organization For Economic Co-Operation And Development - Regulation Of Chemicals - In A Council Decision, The Oecd Has Adopted Provisions Designed To Protect Human Health And The Environment Without Creating Barriers To International Chemicals Trade, Walter Ballew Iii

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Cia And Military Testing Of Lsd On Non-Consenting U.S. Service Members And Recovery Through The Va Disability System, B.M. Disbennett

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Testing Sex, Rachel Rebouché

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tyranny Of The Meritocracy?: A Disputation Over Testing With Professor Lani Guinier, Dan Subotnik

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Discharging Student Loans Via Bankruptcy: Undue Hardship Doctrine In The First Circuit, Anthony Bowers

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Student loans are presumptively non-dischargeable through bankruptcy, but the undue hardship doctrine provides an equitable “safety valve” for the indigent. To date, the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals has yet to select a single legal test for determining undue hardship under the United States Bankruptcy Code (“Bankruptcy Code”). Within the jurisdiction of the First Circuit, bankruptcy courts are free to choose an approach to evaluate undue hardship. In an effort to ensure consistency throughout the bankruptcy courts within the First Circuit, it would be ideal if the First Circuit would choose one of the undue hardship tests. However, …

Much Ado About Nothing? A Critical Examination Of Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Dennis Roderick, Susan T. Krumholz

University of Massachusetts Law Review

In the decades since the 1970s there have been several movements designed to impact or alter the workings of the legal system. The most lasting and widespread of these movements has been the development and systemic incorporation of mediation or Alternative Dispute Resolution, especially in the arena of family law but also impacting community disagreements, a variety of commercial disputes, and civil cases in general. However mediation did not significantly impact the practice of criminal law. Rapid growth in the number of individuals being processed through the criminal courts during the 1980s and 1990s shifted the focus to the criminal …

Dna In The Courtroom: The 21st Century Begins, James T. Griffith, Susan L. Leclair

University of Massachusetts Law Review

DNA is one of the most significant discoveries in the field of forensic evidence yet it remains underutilized in the courtroom setting. This article provides an introduction to the scientific principles, structure and composition of DNA in an effort to make DNA more accessible to the judicial process.

Lessons Learned From 9/11: Dna Identification In Mass Fatality Incidents, National Institute Of Justice

University of Massachusetts Law Review

DNA analysis is the gold standard for identification of human remains from mass disasters. Particularly in the absence of traditional anthropological and other physical characteristics, forensic DNA typing allows for identification of any biological sample and the association of body parts, as long as sufficient DNA can be recovered from the samples. This is true even when the victim’s remains are fragmented and the DNA is degraded. While many effective laboratory protocols are available for DNA analysis, the analytical portion is only one part of the identification process.

Contesting A Contestation Of Testing: A Reply To Richard Delgado, Dan Subotnik

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Dan Subotnik responds to Richard Delgado, Standardized Testing as Discrimination: A Reply to Dan Subotnik, 9 U. Mass. L. Rev. 98 (2014).

Race Indeed Above All: A Reply To Professors Andrea Curcio, Carol Chomsky, And Eileen Kaufman, Dan Subotnik

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Dan Subotnik responds to Andrea Curcio, Chomsky, and Eileen Kaufman, Testing, Diversity, and Merit: A Reply to Dan Subotnik and Others, 9 U. Mass. L. Rev. 206 (2014).