Courts Commons^™

Better Briefs, Lydia Fearing

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Abstract forthcoming

Keep Suing All The Lawyers: Recent Developments In Claims Against Lawyers For Aiding & Abetting A Client’S Breach Of Fiduciary Duty, Katerina P. Lewinbuk

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Lawyers have increasingly become subject to liability under various legal theories, ranging from traditional legal malpractice or negligence liability claims to various third-party actions. Most recently, state and federal courts across the country have recognized attorney liability for aiding and abetting a client’s breach of fiduciary duty. This Article will address the current status of the cause of action for a lawyer’s aiding and abetting her client’s breach of fiduciary duty, explain the commonalities and distinguish nuances as outlined by particular states, examine recent decisions by federal courts that have recognized the cause of action, and culminate in its conclusion …

The Right To An Independent Judiciary And The Avoidance Of Constitutional Conflict: The Burger Court’S Flawed Reasoning In Chandler V. Judicial Council Of The Tenth Circuit And Its Unfortunate Legacy, Joshua E. Kastenberg

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

In 1970, the United States Supreme Court issued Chandler v. Judicial Council of the Tenth Circuit in which five Justices determined that the federal courts of appeals possessed an administrative authority to manage the district court judges within an appellate court’s respective circuit. The decision enabled the Tenth Circuit to decide the fitness of a judge to preside over cases without a formal motion from a litigant. Although Congress had enabled the courts of appeals to oversee basic judicial functions (such as temporarily assigning district court judges to overworked districts), Congress did not intend to grant the power to remove …

Policy Considerations And Implications In United States V. Bryant, Jessica Larsen

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Judge Merhige's Environmental Decisions: Expert Handling Of Groundbreaking Environmental Rulings And Complex Federal Jurisdictional Questions, Jim Vines

University of Richmond Law Review

It is a special privilege for me to contribute to this edition of the University of Richmond Law Review honoring Judge Robert R. Merhige, Jr. Here, I seek to highlight his contributions to United States environmental law. In 1988 and 1989, I was one of two recent law school graduates who clerked for Judge Merhige (“please call me by my first name; it’s ‘Judge’”). The Judge was a larger than life figure. As a federal trial judge, historically important and intellectually challenging cases seemed to find their way into his court in a volume not matched in many other federal …

You Could Have Told Me That In The First Place: Five Tips That Might Have Saved A Young Lawyer A Lot Of Trouble, Jay O'Keeffe

University of Richmond Law Review

I will open with a confession: I have very, very little to contribute to legal scholarship. My day-to-day work as a lawyer and a parent keeps me busy. My career to date as a generalist has not led me to develop any great substantive expertise in a particular area of the law. Even my war stories are boring because they cluster around briefs, procedural defaults, and oral arguments. But I do have one thing to offer. I have been lucky in my career to work in “Biglaw,” then at a medium-sized firm of about fifty lawyers, and most recently at …

The Honorable Robert R. Merhige, Jr.: A Series On His Life And Career, Stephen N. Scaife

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Conscience Of Virginia: Judge Robert R. Merhige, Jr., And The Politics Of School Desegregation, Robert A. Pratt

University of Richmond Law Review

The United States Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared that segregation in public education violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. For the millions of African Americans who had endured decades of separate and unequal schooling, this decision was a resounding reaffirmation of the nation’s commitment to equal justice under the law. But those who expected segregated schools to end overnight were in for a rude awakening. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (“NAACP”), which had led the legal assault against segregation since its founding in 1909, was encouraged …

The Honorable Robert R. Merhige, Jr.: A Judge Ahead Of His Time, Wayne A. Logan

University of Richmond Law Review

When one thinks about it, it is really quite incredible: a Brooklyn-born son of Lebanese and Irish immigrants with a distinct New York accent, standing well under six feet tall, attends a small North Carolina college on a basketball scholarship; serves with distinction in a bombing squadron in World War II; graduates from the University of Richmond School of Law (paying his way by serving as a night librarian); excels at the practice of law in a city (Richmond) not renowned for its receptivity to Yankees; wins election as president of the city’s Bar; and upon being appointed to the …

Personal Reflections On The Honorable Robert R. Merhige, Jr.: A Judge, Mentor, And Friend, Mary Kelly Tate

University of Richmond Law Review

Twenty-six years—half my lifetime—have passed since I joined Judge Merhige’s court family as his law clerk. I attempt here to sketch my personal impressions, distilling what to me was most remarkable about Robert R. Merhige, Jr. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this dynamic man turned legendary judge—a man I revered from the moment I met him—is more vivid to me now than he was to my younger self.

Litigation Academy Helps Lawyers Hone Skills 4-30-2018, Katie Mulvaney, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Epistemic Peerhood In The Law, R. George Wright

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

We thus have, at this point, a preliminary sense of the importance of some possible choices in deciding whose voices and participation should be taken seriously, as that of our epistemic peers, in deciding legal questions. This Article addresses these preliminary understandings in several legal contexts. We can do so most profitably on the basis of a better, fuller, and more specific understanding of the crucial idea of epistemic peerhood. It is thus the idea of epistemic peerhood itself that this Article addresses immediately below.

Basic Trial Advocacy, Michael W. Mullane

Maine Law Review

Mary Crates taught me to “begin as you mean to go on.” Peter Murray's book is a good place to begin for those embarking on a life of trial advocacy. For those of us whose beginnings are distant and often painful memories, it is an excellent reminder of where we meant to go. Trial advocacy is an infinitely complex task. This simple fact is both its joy and curse. Teaching trial advocacy is equally difficult. There is no “never” and no “always.” There is a host of commonly accepted maxims, many of which are contradictory on their face and all …

Report Of The Maine Commission On Gender, Justice, And The Courts, Maine Commission On Gender, Justice, And The Courts

Maine Law Review

The Commission on Gender, Justice, and the Courts was established by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in January 1993, pursuant to a resolution adopted by the Conference of Chief Justices in 1988 urging the creation of task forces to study gender bias and minority concerns within court systems. In recent years, forty-one states, the District of Columbia, and two federal circuits have established task forces on gender bias in the courts as part of a continuing effort to achieve equality for women and men in American society. These jurisdictions recognized that access to a neutral and unbiased court is essential …

A Matter Of Interpretation: Federal Courts And The Law, Charles R. Priest

Maine Law Review

Justice Scalia's engaging essay, “Common-Law Courts in a Civil-Law System: The Role of United States Federal Courts in Interpreting the Constitution and Laws,” and the four comments it provokes, should provide lawyers, judges, and other lawmakers with an interesting evening. Instead of presenting a theoretical view of the role of the federal courts in interpretation, Justice Scalia sketches out a case for “textualism.” “Textualism” is one of several currently contending methods of interpreting statutes and the United States Constitution, and is currently popular among federal judges who see their role as restricting government's powers to those expressly stated in the …

Newsroom: Court As Classroom 03-01-2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: A Mentor And A Friend 2-21-2018, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Lottery Docket, Daniel Epps, William Ortman

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Contents

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Debunking The Ncaa's Myth That Amateurism Conforms With Antitrust Law: A Legal And Statistical Analysis, Thomas A. Baker Iii, Marc Edelman, Nicholas M. Watanabe

Tennessee Law Review

This article provides the first detailed study to show that paying college football players does not decrease fan interest in watching college football-substantially debunking the NCAA's myth that amateurism conforms to the requirements of antitrust law. Part I of this article details the history of collegiate sports in the United States and the NCAA's amateurism rules. Part II examines the origins and evolution of the NCAA's procompetitive presumption defense of amateurism; a legal fiction that presumes consumer interest in amateurism justifies a quasi-antitrust exemption for the NCAA's "no pay" rules. Part III sets the framework for our empirical study by …

Faithful Execution: The Persistent Myth Of Widespread Prosecutorial Misconduct, Timothy C. Harker

Tennessee Law Review

Professors, politicians, activists, journalists, and bloggers alike stand ready to denounce prosecutorial misconduct-the more egregious the misconduct, the more vociferous the denunciation, and rightly so. Ordinarily, such public denunciation would have a salubrious effect. Unfortunately, this remedial process has been hijacked by those who insist that prosecutorial misconduct is widespread and has infected all facets of the criminal justice system, to the detriment of defendants and the consternation of the public. Their vitriol precludes a dispassionate evaluation of the criminal justice system generally and prosecutorial misconduct specifically. This article demonstrates that, contrary to expectations, prosecutorial misconduct occurs with reassuring infrequency. …

Restoring Fairness To Campus Sex Tribunals, Cynthia V. Ward

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contents

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Fighting Chance? Small Family Farmers And How Little We Know, Jamey Mavis Lowdermilk

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tribute To Spenser F. Powell, John L. Sobieski Jr., Marshall Jensen

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Backyard Breeding: Regulatory Nuisance, Crime Precursor, Lisa Milot

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contents

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The New Digital Wild West: Regulating The Explosion Of Initial Coin Offerings, Randolph A. Robinson Ii

Tennessee Law Review

In less than a calendar year, initial coin offerings or "ICOs" have become the fastest growing capital market in the world. In 2016, an entity called The DAO raised $160 million by selling crypto-tokens to over 15,000 individual purchasers around the globe. This massive fund raise would give rise to an entirely new capital ecosystem. In 2017, initial coin offerings would explode, raising a collective $5.1 billion. All of this was done without a single registration being filed with the SEC, and many of these initial coin offerings-including several $100 million raises-were based on little more than a white paper …

Defamation Per Se And Transgender Status: When Macro-Level Value Judgments About Equality Trump Micro-Level Reputational Injury, Clay Calvert, Ashton T. Hampton, Austin Vining

Tennessee Law Review

This Article uses the September 2017 defamation decision in Simmons v. American Media, Inc. as a springboard for examining defamatory meaning and reputational injury. Specifically, it focuses on cases in which judges acknowledge that plaintiffs have suffered reputational harm yet rule for defendants because promoting the cultural value of equality weighs against redress. In Simmons, a normative, axiological judgment-that the law should neither sanction nor ratify prejudicial views about transgender individuals prevailed at the trial court level over a celebrity's ability to recover for alleged reputational harm. Simmons sits at a dangerous intersection: a crossroads where a noble judicial desire …

Is A Cake Worth A Thousand Words? Masterpiece Cakeshop And The Impact Of Antidiscrimination Laws On The Marketplace Of Ideas, Scott W. Gaylord

Tennessee Law Review

All laws discriminate. Some discriminate in ways that are innocuous (like driving on the right side of the road). Others result in discrimination that is invidious (like segregation laws). And still others, like public accommodations laws, are meant to preclude discrimination against certain groups of individuals. Such antidiscrimination laws also discriminate, but they generally do so against offensive or undesirable conduct, which is unprotected under the Constitution. But what happens when antidiscrimination laws are applied to the expression of individuals or for-profit businesses? In particular, what happens when a state attempts to require a for-profit business to design and create …