Law Commons^™

Even Laypeople Use Legalese, Eric H. Martinez, Francis Mollica, Edward Gibson

Faculty Scholarship

Whereas principles of communicative efficiency and legal doctrine dictate that laws be comprehensible to the common world, empirical evidence suggests legal documents are largely incomprehensible to lawyers and laypeople alike. Here, a corpus analysis (n=59 million words) first replicated and extended prior work revealing laws to contain strikingly higher rates of complex syntactic structures relative to six baseline genres of English.

Next, two pre-registered text generation experiments (n=286) tested two leading hypotheses regarding how these complex structures enter into legal documents in the first place. In line with the magic spell hypothesis, we found people tasked with writing official laws …

Sexual Assault Victims Face A Penalty For Adjacent Consent, Jillian J. Jordan, Roseanna Sommers

Articles

Sexual assault is pervasively underreported, and victims are often blamed and stigmatized. We highlight an important but overlooked factor that may contribute to these outcomes: adjacent consent. Even when a rape is objected to verbally and physically, and accomplished only through violent force, respondents see the victim as less virtuous and deserving of support if she previously consented to something sexual with her perpetrator (e.g., kissing, foreplay, sex on a prior occasion). Our findings are striking in an age of “no means no” and “affirmative consent”—and notably hold among even young and politically progressive respondents who do not otherwise disapprove …

The Chronic Growing Problem: Environmental And Social Justice Concerns With Indoor Cannabis Grows, Gina S. Warren

Cardozo Law Review

The rapid legalization of recreational marijuana across states has created environmental and social justice issues, particularly with indoor cultivation. Despite its federal illegality, twenty-four states and various territories have legalized marijuana, igniting a surge in indoor cultivation that bears significant environmental and social consequences. Indoor cultivation facilities require massive energy inputs, resulting in grid strain, pollution, and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, the placement of these facilities often occurs in historically marginalized low-income communities, furthering environmental injustice and social harms, as these areas are disproportionately affected by the pollutants emitted from the cultivation processes, such as molds, bacteria, …

Global Guidance For Just Transition Policy: Policy Brief, Anna Dell'amico, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Lara Wallis, Alexandra A.K. Meisea

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

In 2015, the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted Guidelines for a Just Transition Towards Environmentally Sustainable Economies and Societies for All, providing authoritative and valuable international guidance for just transitions. CCSI has conducted a comparative analysis of the application of the ILO Guidelines in South Africa and Germany and examined the extent to which the ILO Guidelines address energy transition challenges facing developing countries.

This CCSI Policy Brief summarizes the comparison between South Africa’s and Germany’s just transition policies and the ILO Guidelines. It also summarizes CCSI’s findings and recommendations to shape further guidance on just energy transition policymaking from …

Global Guidance For Just Transition Policy, Anna Dell'amico, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Lara Wallis, Alexandra A.K. Meisea

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

In 2015, the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted Guidelines for a Just Transition Towards Environmentally Sustainable Economies and Societies for All, providing authoritative and valuable international guidance for just transitions. CCSI has conducted a comparative analysis of the application of the ILO Guidelines in South Africa and Germany and examined the extent to which the ILO Guidelines address energy transition challenges facing developing countries.

The CCSI report, Global Guidance for Just Transition Policy, provides detailed context on South Africa’s and Germany’s national socio-political and energy conditions and policies, and comprehensively examines the legal and policy instruments adopted by both countries …

Prioritization Of The Draft Provisions On Procedural And Cross-Cutting Issues, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Prioritization of the Draft Provisions on Procedural and Cross-Cutting Issues is a joint submission to the Secretariat's request for comments on the prioritization of the draft provisions on procedural and cross-cutting issues. The submission calls for an approach to classification and prioritization that allows Working sufficient time to address issues that are particularly pressing in ISDS reform debates, including, for instance, draft provisions 10 (shareholder claims), 12 (right to regulate), and 23 (assessment of damages and compensation).

Climate Allocation Compass, A Framework For Real-World Decarbonization (Compass-Frwd), Perrine Toledano, Ajay S. Jagdish, Maria Diez Andres, Ana M. Camelo Vega, Rob Furdak, Christina Bastin, Matt Goldklang, Jane Smyth

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Climate finance currently falls far short of what's required to achieve net-zero targets. In a collaboration with the Man Group, we offer a framework setting out how investors can help to close this gap.

Key takeaways:

1. To address the global climate finance gap,CCSI and Man Group have developed the Climate Allocation Compass, a Framework for Real-World Decarbonization (‘Compass-FRWD’).
2. Compass-FRWD is a six-step asset allocation framework designed to guide strategic capital investment across multiple portfolios. It does so by setting financing targets relative to real-world emission gaps, thereby prioritizing sectors and geographies according to decarbonization needs.
3. Compass-FRWD provides a cyclical, investor-level …

Empowering Speech By Moderating It, Danielle Keats Citron, Jonathon W. Penney

Articles & Book Chapters

Content moderation is typically viewed as an affront to free expression. When companies remove online abuse, they face accusations of censorship. Lost in the discussion is the fact that victims of intimate privacy violations and cyberstalking typically-and regrettably-withdraw from on- and offline activities. Online assaults chase targeted individuals offline; they silence victims. Content moderation can secure opportunities for people to speak. Legal and corporate prohibitions against intimate privacy violations and cyberstalking can help provide the reassurance that victims need to stay online. They can endow individuals with a sense of trust so they continue to use networked technologies to express …

Transforming Grassland Conservation: Challenges And Opportunities Across Law, Policy, And Human Dimensions, Conor D. Barnes

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Great Plains social-ecological systems are facing growing pressure from complex, ‘wicked’ problems. Addressing these problems will require integrating ecological resilience and complex systems thinking concepts into our legal framework in order to better reflect the changing ecological reality of the Great Plains and promote flexibility and adaptability in the face of that change. In this dissertation, I examine how past and present policy priorities have affected social-ecological systems on the Great Plains, and how ecological resilience and complex systems thinking might be applied to grassland management policy. In Chapter 2, I examine the rapid progress made in the adoption of …

We're Swarming Again! Swarming, Collectivity, And Trope: The Case Of Extinction Rebellion, Tyler J. Behymer

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the rhetoric of the eco-movement Extinction Rebellion, focusing on the use of swarming and nature tropes to mobilize collective action and revivify contemporary notions of collectivity. Drawing on rhetoric of social movement scholarship, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis, this essay theorizes swarming as a tropological economy that expands the conditions of propriety in the context of collectivity. Through an analysis of Extinction Rebellion’s discourse, this study demonstrates how the naturalization of swarming tropes works in various ways to rewild conventional political discourse, galvanize disruptive collective assembly, and challenge green neoliberalism.

Advisor: Casey Ryan Kelly

Theoretical Justifications For Trade Secrets Protection Of Routine Business Information, Timothy Murphy

Buffalo Law Review

For over a century trade secret law has protected internal business information from misappropriation by departing employees. Over this time, courts developed various limiting doctrines to minimize the impact of this broad protection on employee mobility in particular cases. However, the workplace has changed significantly over this time and these changes raise substantial questions as to whether there is any valid theoretical justification for continuing to protect routine business information under trade secret law. In an environment where the vast majority of trade secrets claims are against former employees, the lack of sound justification for protecting routine business information, the …

Legal Research Instruction In The Nextgen Era, Alyson Drake, Amanda Watson

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Child Privacy In The Digital Era: Is Coppa Enough?, Melannie Sandoval

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Children growing up in the digital age are experiencing an entirely different world than their parents once did. While most adults’ first online experience occurred on a bulky desktop computer, today’s children are born into a society that is largely digitized and where online accessibility is at the swipe of a pocket-sized smartphone. Despite the many benefits that this generation of children enjoys due to the increased access to the internet and innovative technology, parents, child advocates, and privacy experts caution against the dangers that arise when children enter the digital landscape.

Part I of this paper delves into children’s …

Escaping Conditional Constitutionalism: Political Fear And Judicial Power In A Polarized Age, Lee Elton Dionne

Buffalo Law Review

Fear of judicial power in the wrong political hands is on the rise, particularly with respect to the Supreme Court. We confront a crisis of “conditional constitutionalism”—the expectation that the United States Constitution stands for a different set of principles and requires adherence to a different set of rules depending on which party has appointed the Supreme Court majority. Conditional constitutionalism erodes the distinction between supreme law and ordinary legislation for many partisans, rendering support for the constitutional order itself conditional on the partisan composition of the Court. Fear of the Court stems largely from its inability to settle on …

Strengthening Temporary Protected Status Through Executive Action, Emily M. Brown

Buffalo Law Review

The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program protects migrants from deportation when their native countries have been struck by armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary upheaval. Enacted by Congress in 1990, the program largely escaped attention and controversy for many years as presidential administrations of both parties designated, extended, and terminated TPS designations at similar rates. However, beginning in 2017, then-President Trump tried to end TPS protections for 300,000 beneficiaries—more than 95% of the total. His efforts were blocked in federal district courts, and President Biden has since rescinded the terminations and issued many new designations, expanding the program to …

The Enduring Lives Of False Legislative Facts: Asset Forfeiture, Brian Kelly, Taylor De Lavagea

Buffalo Law Review

Federal courts have found asset forfeiture constitutional by relying on assertions that have been accepted as true without being established at trial. These “legislative facts” play a central and enduring role not only in jurisprudence but in the broader public policy debate over forfeiture. To date, these assertions have not been subject to careful empirical review. We test three central legislative facts frequently offered as providing a compelling government interest for the use of forfeiture: (1) that forfeiture provides vital funding for law enforcement activities; (2) that forfeited funds are used to reimburse the victims of crime; and (3) that …

Supported Decision Making: A Rapid Scoping Review Of Literature On Best Practices, Sheila Wildeman, Caraid Mcginty

Research Papers, Working Papers, Conference Papers

The purpose of this rapid scoping review is to identify principles and best (or “good” ) practices from an emerging academic literature on operationalizing supported decision making. It was produced as part of a suite of materials created by the IIDEAS Network -- an Inclusive, Interdisciplinary Decision-making Empowerment, Advocacy and Support Network composed of interdisciplinary academics working in disability studies, education, law, sociology, health/medicine and theatre, and others engaged in related community-based education, art/drama and advocacy, including two lived experience experts labeled/with intellectual disabilities

Law School News: If There's Life, There's Hope (August 2024), Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (August 2024): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Limits To Asset Manager Adaptation, Madison Condon

Faculty Scholarship

In Our Lives in Their Portfolios, Brett Christophers provides an account of the rise of ‘asset manager society’ – a world in which the infrastructures of public life are converted from public to private ownership. Here I use Christophers’ analysis to comment on growing calls for asset manager investment in climate adaptation. The asset manager business model requires ever-escalating returns, a poor fit with the now unavoidable losses that climate change promises to bring.

Changes In Revenues Associated With Antimicrobial Reimbursement Reforms In Germany, Matt Mcenany, Kevin Outterson

Faculty Scholarship

Policy declarations from the G7 and other high-level meetings call for increased incentives for antimicrobial research and development (R&D). Governments fund push incentives like CARB-X and GARDP, and G7 countries are now designing pull incentives—financial rewards given to manufacturers post-market authorization that are intended to encourage the creation and introduction of novel antimicrobials. Germany has declared previously at the G7 that it has developed a pull incentive that will increase revenues from sales of important new antimicrobials, principally by exempting them from some aspects of health technology benefit assessments and reference pricing, which should result in higher prices. This policy …

Weep The People, Leti Volpp

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Kkk, Immigration Law And Policy, And Donald Trump, Kevin Johnson

UC Law Journal

Many Americans know the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) for its horrific acts of violence directed at African Americans. Although generally overshadowed by that violence, the KKK’s vilification of other groups, including immigrants and religious minorities, long has been central to its quest for white Anglo-Saxon supremacy. This Essay analyzes the enduring legacy of the KKK’s immigration philosophy on contemporary American immigration law and politics. Some modern anti- immigrant advocates champion remarkably similar policies to the Klan’s with racial animus on full display. Former President, and the 2024 Republican nominee for President, Donald Trump is an example.

Bowling With Bumper Rails: How Firearms Examiners Have Duped The Courts And Generated Low Error Rates Only By Avoiding Challenging Comparisons, Richard E. Gutierrez

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Political Representation And Economic Rights In The Shadows Of Citizenship, Allison Brownell Tirres

UC Law Journal

In recent years, the remarkable movement for the political rights of undocumented youth—the so- called “DREAMers”—has catalyzed a critical conversation about the economic rights of all noncitizens. A growing number of states have amended their laws in response to advocacy by and for this particular group of noncitizens. This Essay situates this modern legal development in a broader conceptual and historical frame. It reflects on the relationship between economic rights and political aspirations in this movement, as well as in two other key legal developments in immigration history: the passage of anti-Asian alien land laws in the 1910s and 1920s, …

The Importance Of Counting All Immigrants For Apportionment And Redistricting, Tye Rush, Samuel Hall, Matt A. Barreto

UC Law Journal

How are non-citizens counted and accounted for in representation? Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that all whole persons residing in a state are to be counted for apportionment and districting. Courts have interpreted Section 2’s requirement to include women (before the Nineteenth Amendment), non-citizens, and people under 18 years old. Yet today, some states are attempting to exclude non-citizens from apportionment and representation by using a citizen population calculus. This stands in contrast to more than 225 years of practice and to nearly all modern legal interpretations of representation. In landmark 1960s cases such as Wesberry v. Sanders …

Epilogue: Uc Law Journal – Rice Symposium, Ming Hsu Chen

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

From Uc Hastings To Uc Law Sf: An Examination Of The Renaming Process And Analysis Of Institutional Identity, Oliver Cheng

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Bruen And Its Expansion Of The “Right To Carry” On Terry As A Law Enforcement Tool, Kshitij Mehta

UC Law Journal

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme Court expanded the right to carry firearms, specifically handguns, outside the home. Due to the Court’s conservative rulings, combined with lax and open firearm regulatory regimes in several jurisdictions, gun violence continues to create catastrophic consequences in communities across the country. At the same time, law enforcement agencies already struggle to maintain public safety and public trust under current policing systems. With the rise of firearms in the streets, law enforcement will likely resort to, and double down on, their current use of stop and frisk under …

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.