Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Constitutional Law (39)
- Law and Gender (34)
- Legal Profession (28)
- Civil Rights and Discrimination (24)
- Criminal Law (22)
-
- Courts (21)
- Criminal Procedure (16)
- Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility (15)
- Public Law and Legal Theory (14)
- Judges (12)
- Labor and Employment Law (12)
- Law and Politics (12)
- Jurisprudence (11)
- Family Law (10)
- Law and Economics (10)
- State and Local Government Law (10)
- Law and Race (9)
- Legal Education (9)
- Civil Law (8)
- International Law (8)
- Law and Philosophy (7)
- First Amendment (6)
- Human Rights Law (6)
- Law and Psychology (6)
- Administrative Law (5)
- Public Interest (5)
- Sexuality and the Law (5)
- Environmental Law (4)
- Keyword
-
- Legal profession (9)
- Feminism (8)
- Lawyers (8)
- Nation-building (8)
- Rural (7)
-
- Legal education (6)
- Pro bono (6)
- Rural law (6)
- Women (6)
- Coffin lecture (5)
- Land use (5)
- Maine (5)
- Rural policy (5)
- Access to justice (4)
- Children (4)
- First amendment (4)
- Gender (4)
- Indigent (4)
- Public defender (4)
- Right to counsel (4)
- Rural identity (4)
- Constitutional (3)
- Constitutional law (3)
- Courts (3)
- Discrimination (3)
- Due process (3)
- Economic development (3)
- Economy (3)
- Employment discrimination (3)
- Legal aid (3)
- Publication Year
- Publication Type
Articles 91 - 120 of 130
Full-Text Articles in Law and Society
Who's Afraid Of Judicial Activism? Reconceptualizing A Traditional Paradigm In The Context Of Specialized Domestic Violence Court Programs, Jennifer L. Thompson
Who's Afraid Of Judicial Activism? Reconceptualizing A Traditional Paradigm In The Context Of Specialized Domestic Violence Court Programs, Jennifer L. Thompson
Maine Law Review
The Specialized Domestic Violence Pilot Project (Pilot Project), implemented in York and Portland in July and August 2002, is the result of the collaborative efforts of the District Court system, law enforcement, prosecutors, members of the defense bar, and various community agencies offering services to victims and perpetrators. District court judges are largely responsible for overseeing the changes in court procedures and implementing the new protocols in domestic violence cases. The Pilot Project, and the changes it is making to the role that courts play in domestic violence cases, represents a significant departure from the procedures followed by traditional court …
Strengthening Democracy: The Challenge Of Public Interest Law, Scott Harshbarger
Strengthening Democracy: The Challenge Of Public Interest Law, Scott Harshbarger
Maine Law Review
The Twelfth Annual Frank M. Coffin Lecture on Law and Public Service was held in the fall of 2003. Scott Harshbarger, former President of Common Cause and Massachusetts Attorney General, delivered the lecture. Established in 1992, the lecture honors Judge Frank M. Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, an inspiration, mentor, and friend to the University of Maine School of Law.
Distinguished Jurist-In-Residence Lecture: Sentencing Reform: When Everyone Behaves Badly, Nancy Gertner
Distinguished Jurist-In-Residence Lecture: Sentencing Reform: When Everyone Behaves Badly, Nancy Gertner
Maine Law Review
Sentencing is different from almost all functions of the government and surely different from the other functions of the judiciary. It is the moment when state power meets an individual directly. It necessarily involves issues that are distinct from those in other areas of the law. It requires a court to focus on the defendant, to craft a punishment proportionate to the offense and to the offender. It should come as no surprise that in countries across the world, common law and civil code, totalitarian and free, judges have been given great discretion in sentencing. To be sure, that power …
Reflections On The Challenging Proliferation Of Mental Health Issues In The District Court And The Need For Judicial Education, Jessie B. Gunther
Reflections On The Challenging Proliferation Of Mental Health Issues In The District Court And The Need For Judicial Education, Jessie B. Gunther
Maine Law Review
Maine's courts constantly deal with litigants with mental health issues. Historically, our decisions have relied on expert testimony addressing specific issues of responsibility, risk, and treatment. In recent years, by my observation, court involvement in the treatment process has increased, but the availability of expert evidence has decreased. Thus, we as judges have become the ultimate decision-makers regarding litigants' mental health treatment in both criminal and civil contexts, without supporting expert testimony. In the face of this development, three interconnected issues arise. The first issue is whether judges should even attempt to fill the void caused by lack of expert …
Judges, Racism, And The Problem Of Actual Innocence, Stephen J. Fortunato Jr.
Judges, Racism, And The Problem Of Actual Innocence, Stephen J. Fortunato Jr.
Maine Law Review
The facts and data are in and the conclusion they compel is bleak: the American criminal justice system and its showpiece, the criminal trial, harbor at their core a systemic racism. For decades, criminologists, law professors, sociologists, government statisticians, and others have been collecting and collating data on crime, punishment, and incarceration in the United States. These intrepid scholars have looked at crime, criminals, and the justice system from all angles—the race of defendants and victims; the relationship of poverty to criminality; severity of crime; severity of punishment; incarceration rates for different racial groups; sentencing and sentence disparities; and so …
Where Have All The Soldiers Gone Ii: Military Veterans In Congress And The State Of Civil-Military Relations, Donald N. Zillman
Where Have All The Soldiers Gone Ii: Military Veterans In Congress And The State Of Civil-Military Relations, Donald N. Zillman
Maine Law Review
In a 1997 essay in these pages, I reported on the fact that a declining number of senators and members of the House of Representatives were veterans of military service. At the height of the Vietnam War, roughly 70% of the members of Congress were veterans. By 1991, the Congress that approved the use of force against Iraq in Operation Desert Storm had only slightly more veterans than non-veterans. Three Congresses later, the percentage of veterans had dropped to 32%. The explanation for the decline is almost certainly not that the American voter no longer likes to elect veterans to …
Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc. V. State: Balancing The Public's Right To Know Against The Privacy Rights Of Victims Of Sexual Abuse, Kenleigh A. Nicoletta
Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc. V. State: Balancing The Public's Right To Know Against The Privacy Rights Of Victims Of Sexual Abuse, Kenleigh A. Nicoletta
Maine Law Review
In Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc. v. State, a sharply divided Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that release of records relating to Attorney General G. Steven Rowe's investigation of alleged sexual abuse by Catholic priests was warranted under Maine's Freedom of Access Act (FOAA). Although such investigative records are designated confidential by statute, the majority held that the public's interest in the contents of the records mandated their disclosure after all information identifying persons other than the deceased priests had been redacted. The concurrence asserted that the majority had reached the correct conclusion, but in so …
Consent Decrees, The Enlightenment, And The "Modern" Social Contract: A Case Study From Bates, Olmstead, And Maine's Separation Of Powers Doctrine, Dana E. Prescott
Consent Decrees, The Enlightenment, And The "Modern" Social Contract: A Case Study From Bates, Olmstead, And Maine's Separation Of Powers Doctrine, Dana E. Prescott
Maine Law Review
On December 17, 2004, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, issued its decision in Bates v. Department of Behavioral & Developmental Services, which affirmed in part, and vacated in part, the decision of Superior Court Chief Justice Nancy Mills, and remanded for further proceedings in the so-called Augusta Mental Health Institute (AMHI) Consent Decree case. In the underlying litigation, patients at the mental health hospital filed motions for sanctions and findings of contempt alleging the State of Maine failed to comply with the 1990 Consent Decree and incorporated settlement agreement. After a seventeen-day trial on whether …
Alexis De Tocqueville And American Constitutional Law: On Democracy, The Majority Will, Individual Rights, Federalism, Religion, Civic Associations And Originalist Constitutional Theory, Philip C. Kissam
Maine Law Review
Count Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America has been said to be "at once the best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on America. " This praise should perhaps be tempered by consideration of Tocqueville' s purposes and the historical circumstances within which he worked and understood both democracy and America. Yet Tocqueville's insights into American democracy as of the 1830s undoubtedly constitute a rich source of constitutional thought-either as support for particular constitutional principles or as constitutional ideas that should be contested. In a recent notable instance, John McGinnis has argued that Tocqueville's ideas …
Boumediene V. Bush: Flashpoint In The Ongoing Struggle To Determine The Rights Of Guantanamo Detainees, Michael J. Anderson
Boumediene V. Bush: Flashpoint In The Ongoing Struggle To Determine The Rights Of Guantanamo Detainees, Michael J. Anderson
Maine Law Review
Following the harrowing events of September 11, 2001, and pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed soon thereafter by Congress, the United States Armed Forces began capturing and detaining individuals at the Naval Air Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The choice of where to house these detainees was not random. Internal memoranda from the Justice Department reveal that the Naval Base was selected as a means of avoiding any legal entanglements that might ensue from such imprisonment. What resulted was what some commentators have called a “legal black hole” at Guantanamo, a place where any individual …
The Role Of Public Interest Groups In Nation-Building: A Maine Lawyer's Experience In Mongolia, Richard A. Spencer
The Role Of Public Interest Groups In Nation-Building: A Maine Lawyer's Experience In Mongolia, Richard A. Spencer
Maine Law Review
In 2006, I spent three months in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia working as an environmental lawyer with a small Mongolian human rights group called the Center for Human Rights and Development (CHRD). CHRD was working to stop human trafficking, promote human rights, and protect the environment in the face of extreme poverty, government secrecy, corruption, and a post-Soviet government dominated by former members of the Communist party. During my time assisting the staff at CHRD, I felt I could hear the voice of James Madison echoing through the centuries and across the globe. In The Federalist No. 10, Madison suggested that the …
Volunteer Lawyers And Nation-Building: Using Experience To Serve The World Community, Jean C. Berman
Volunteer Lawyers And Nation-Building: Using Experience To Serve The World Community, Jean C. Berman
Maine Law Review
It is with great pride that I note the participation of four International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP) volunteers in this Symposium of the Maine Law Review. These highly accomplished lawyers, three of whom are from Maine and one from Canada, demonstrate perfectly the premises on which ISLP was founded: first, that the skills and experience of senior-level lawyers from the United States and elsewhere can be of great value to emerging democracies, social justice activists, and nations struggling to overcome poverty; and second, that there is a burgeoning pool of such lawyers, both retired and in active practice, who are …
The Importance Of Commercial Law In The Legal Architecture Of Post-Conflict "New" States, Michael J. Stepek
The Importance Of Commercial Law In The Legal Architecture Of Post-Conflict "New" States, Michael J. Stepek
Maine Law Review
In the era of international relations ushered in by the end of the Cold War, nation-building has become all the rage. In a burst of Wilsonian optimism, Western countries have sought to recreate failed states in their own image, fashioning new governmental institutions from the ashes of violent conflict or civil collapse. These projects became possible in a fresh environment of international consensus that has prevailed since the middle of the 1990s. Developing improved legal institutions has been considered a particularly important component of any state-building project and has been a primary focus of almost all such efforts. A new …
Looking Backward To Address The Future? Transitional Justice, Rising Crime And Nation Building, James L. Cavallaro
Looking Backward To Address The Future? Transitional Justice, Rising Crime And Nation Building, James L. Cavallaro
Maine Law Review
This is not an Article about the Nazi regime’s war on crime, nor does it analyze the possible lawlessness of the Weimar Republic. It does, however, consider the role of crime in transitional states. As such, the observation above is relevant to the issues examined in the pages that follow. Crime and the manipulation of the fear it promotes were essential to the rise of Nazism, the fall of the Weimar Republic, and the historical record of both regimes. I contend that we must recognize the vital role of street crime in the stability and instability of newly democratic and …
Gender And Nation-Building: Family Law As Legal Architecture, Tracy E. Higgins, Rachel P. Fink
Gender And Nation-Building: Family Law As Legal Architecture, Tracy E. Higgins, Rachel P. Fink
Maine Law Review
In considering the legal architecture of nation-building, we might most readily think of public law as our subject insofar as it governs the relationship between the individual and the state, and establishes the institutions of governance and the sources and limits of their power. The essays in this volume, in large part, track this instinct in that they concern themselves with fields such as constitutional law, criminal law, and public international law. Closer to the margin of public and private law are essays dealing with various dimensions of the modern regulatory state, including banking and commercial transactions. In each of …
Culture And Custom In Nation-Building: Law In Afghanistan, Thomas Barfield
Culture And Custom In Nation-Building: Law In Afghanistan, Thomas Barfield
Maine Law Review
Afghanistan’s restoration of the rule of law has set in motion a renewed debate about fundamental legal principles that has not been seen in the West since the time of the Enlightenment: Who is justice for? Who has the right to seek compensation or justice? Does the state or the individual have priority in seeking justice and delivering punishment? Is law a human creation or is it rooted in divine authority? But it is a debate without an audience in the international community that is assisting the Afghan government in restoring its judicial system because the answer appears so self-evident. …
Human Rights And Nation-Building In Cross-Cultural Settings, Burns H. Weston
Human Rights And Nation-Building In Cross-Cultural Settings, Burns H. Weston
Maine Law Review
Values are preferred events, “goods” we cherish; and the value of respect, “conceived as the reciprocal honoring of freedom of choice about participation in value processes,” is “the core value of human rights.” In a world of diverse cultural traditions that is simultaneously distinguished by the widespread universalist claim that “human rights extend in theory to every person on earth without discriminations irrelevant to merit,” the question thus unavoidably arises: when, in human rights decision-making, are cultural differences to be respected and when are they not? The question arises early in the nation-building enterprise where demands to preserve cultural traditions …
Development And Nation Building: A Framework For Policy-Oriented Inquiry, W. Michael Reisman
Development And Nation Building: A Framework For Policy-Oriented Inquiry, W. Michael Reisman
Maine Law Review
We use the term “development” to refer to decision processes and decision outcomes which have been designed to induce the shaping and sharing of all values within and among territorial communities in ways and with consequences approximating the goal values of a world order of human dignity. The component of purposive direction toward these postulated goal values distinguishes development from social change more generally. Social change, it will be noted, is an ineluctable feature of social process, for all actors are constantly seeking to change parts of the social process with the aim of making it discriminate in their favor. …
The Legal Architecture Of Nation-Building: An Introduction, Charles H. Norchi
The Legal Architecture Of Nation-Building: An Introduction, Charles H. Norchi
Maine Law Review
In the future, a historian studying the early twenty-first century will observe a trend: numerous lawyers applying their skill sets to the problems of pathological states. Our future historian will note that the topography of the post-Cold War international system was marked by weakly-governed states failing. Fragile states eroded, frayed, and disintegrated under stress, and their internal social processes became highly susceptible to external forces. Powerful non-state actors, including private armies, operated within the porous boundaries of entities that were once functioning polities. Legal authority became divorced from political control as non-state actors wielded naked power, challenging formal state structures …
Honey, You're No June Cleaver: The Power Of "Dropping Pop" To Persuade, Victoria S. Salzmann
Honey, You're No June Cleaver: The Power Of "Dropping Pop" To Persuade, Victoria S. Salzmann
Maine Law Review
Imagine a contentious child-custody hearing in which the husband is testifying about his wife's behavior. If he were to state “she is no June Cleaver,” that testimony would have an immediate impact upon those present. Most people would understand that the husband was making a reference to Mrs. Ward Cleaver, the pearl-clad mother figure from the popular 1950s television show Leave It to Beaver. However, the reference does more than simply call to mind 1950s television. It is a vivid popular-culture allusion that immediately taps into the psyche of anyone familiar with the show. It tells the listener that the …
The Impact Of The Current Economy On Access To Justice, Kathleen A. Mckee
The Impact Of The Current Economy On Access To Justice, Kathleen A. Mckee
Maine Law Review
The adequacy of access to justice in the American legal system is not a newly emergent issue. Discussion acknowledging this right dates back to colonial times. For example, in 1932, the United States Supreme Court noted in the case of Powell v. Alabama that the right to counsel in criminal proceedings can be traced back to colonial times in America. The Court remarked that the right to be heard must encompass the right to be heard by counsel if it is to be meaningful. In the ongoing dialogue on this issue, primacy has been given to the right of criminal …
Reflections Of An Access To Justice Chair, Kermit V. Lipez
Reflections Of An Access To Justice Chair, Kermit V. Lipez
Maine Law Review
From January 2001 to January 2008, I had the privilege of serving as the Chair of Maine’s Justice Action Group. In the legal services world, the Justice Action Group is known as an “Access to Justice” entity. Most states have such entities. Although the missions of these entities may vary somewhat from state to state, they share the same general goals—to increase the resources available to the organizations providing free or reduced fee legal services to low income, disadvantaged, and elderly citizens, and to maximize the use of these resources through coordinated efforts. In Maine, the Justice Action Group, or …
A Foundation Upon Which Justice Is Built: The Chicago Bar Foundation's Innovations To Improve Access To Justice During Tough Economic Times, Danielle Elyce Hirsch
A Foundation Upon Which Justice Is Built: The Chicago Bar Foundation's Innovations To Improve Access To Justice During Tough Economic Times, Danielle Elyce Hirsch
Maine Law Review
“Equal justice for all” is one of the United States’ most proudly proclaimed principles, embellished on courthouse entrances and regularly cited in constitutional decisions. The Illinois Constitution also contains a strong commitment to equal and unimpeded access to our legal system for all of our citizens: “Every person shall find a certain remedy in the laws for all injuries and wrongs which he receives to his person, privacy, property or reputation. He shall obtain justice by law, freely, completely and promptly.” Notwithstanding these constitutional principles, a large number of people with urgent and important issues at stake—such as the custody …
Access To Prescription Drugs: A Normative Economic Approach To Pharmacist Conscience Clause Legislation, Joanna K. Sax
Access To Prescription Drugs: A Normative Economic Approach To Pharmacist Conscience Clause Legislation, Joanna K. Sax
Maine Law Review
Over the past several years, many states introduced legislation that protects a pharmacist’s decision to refuse to fill a prescription. Termed “conscience clauses,” these pieces of legislation allow a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription because of moral or religious objections without fear of legal repercussions. In 2006, for example, twenty-one states considered legislation that permits pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions; some bills focus on contraception alone, while others are not specific to any one type of medication. Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and South Dakota have state laws that provide legal protection to pharmacists who refuse to fill …
Reflections On Forty Years Of Private Practice And Sustained Pro Bono Advocacy, Stephen H. Oleskey
Reflections On Forty Years Of Private Practice And Sustained Pro Bono Advocacy, Stephen H. Oleskey
Maine Law Review
I am going to address two topics. The first is the one Judge Coffin asked me to address in October 2009, when I was invited to give the 2010 Coffin Lecture: how to combine the private practice of law with an active pro bono practice. The second topic is the one Dean Peter Pitegoff and I agreed to add: a brief discussion of legal developments in national security law since 9/11. My pro bono involvement in Guantanamo Habeas litigation began in 2004 and led directly to my interest in national security law and to my recognition of how difficult it …
The Speeches Of Frank M. Coffin: A Sideline To Judging, Daniel E. Wathen, Barbara Riegelhaupt
The Speeches Of Frank M. Coffin: A Sideline To Judging, Daniel E. Wathen, Barbara Riegelhaupt
Maine Law Review
The Authors of this Article are engaged in a separate project to publish the full collection of law-related speeches delivered by Judge Coffin during his tenure on the bench. That collection in its entirety consists of more than 125 speeches, and it is a treasure trove of thoughts on the judiciary as an institution, the law, judging, the legal profession, legal education, and legal luminaries past and present. The speeches are also worthy of study purely as examples of communication, advocacy, speechcraft, composition, humor, and whimsy. Within the confines of this Article, the modest goal is to provide samples of …
Putting The Restroom Debate To Rest: Addressing Title Ix And Equal Protection In G.G. Ex Rel. Grimm V. Gloucester County School Board, Alexandra A. Harriman
Putting The Restroom Debate To Rest: Addressing Title Ix And Equal Protection In G.G. Ex Rel. Grimm V. Gloucester County School Board, Alexandra A. Harriman
Maine Law Review
Courts, legislatures, and citizens have been debating whether transgender students should use the restroom that corresponds to their biological sex, or whether they can choose to use the facilities which align with their gender identity. The Fourth Circuit decided that Title IX required the latter in G.G. ex. rel. Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, but that didn't settle the issue. To complicate things, the Trump Administration revoked the guidance that the Fourth Circuit had relied on. This Note argues that a court should resolve this once and for all by finding that a school policy that requires students to …
Yershov V. Gannett: Rethinking The Vppa In The 21st Century, Ariel A. Pardee
Yershov V. Gannett: Rethinking The Vppa In The 21st Century, Ariel A. Pardee
Maine Law Review
Almost anyone with a smartphone can recall a time when an online advertisement followed them from webpage to webpage, or mobile browser to mobile application, or even jumped from a mobile device to a desktop web browser. While some people see it as a harmless—or even helpful—quirk of the online world, others find it creepy and intrusive. In the absence of significant government regulation of online advertising practices, particularly aggrieved individuals have sought relief in the courts by alleging violations of ill-fitting statutes drafted decades ago. This note explores just such a case, Yershov v. Gannett, in which the First …
Measuring The Creative Plea Bargain, Thea B. Johnson
Measuring The Creative Plea Bargain, Thea B. Johnson
Faculty Publications
A great deal of criminal law scholarship and practice turns on whether a defendant gets a good deal through plea bargaining. But what is a good deal? And how do defense attorneys secure such deals? Much scholarship measures plea bargains by one metric: how many years the defendant receives at sentencing. In the era of collateral consequences, however, this is no longer an adequate metric as it misses a world of bargaining that happens outside of the sentence. Through empirical research, this Article examines the measure of a good plea and the work that goes into negotiating such a plea. …
Community Development Law, Economic Justice, And The Legal Academy, Peter R. Pitegoff
Community Development Law, Economic Justice, And The Legal Academy, Peter R. Pitegoff
Faculty Publications
The evolution of community economic development (CED) over the past several decades has witnessed dramatic growth in scale and complexity. New approaches to development and related lawyering, and to philosophies underlying these approaches, challenge us to reimagine the framework of CED. From the early days of community development corporations to today’s sophisticated tools of finance and organization, this evolution reflects “why law matters” in pursuit of economic justice and opportunity. Change is visible in new approaches to enterprise development and novel grassroots initiatives that comprise a virtual “sharing economy,” as well as intensified advocacy around low-wage work and efforts to …