Law and Society Commons^™

Exiling The Poor: The Clash Of Redevelopment And Fair Housing In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Anita Sinha, Judith Browne-Dianis

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Recovering The Social Value Of Jurisdictional Redundancy, Alexandra Lahav

Faculty Articles and Papers

This essay, written for the Tulane Law Review Symposium on the Problem of Multidistrict Litigation, argues that the focus of proceduralists on centralization as a solution to the problems posed by modern litigation is misplaced. It is time to refocus on the social value of the multiple centers of authority that jurisdictional redundancy permits. This essay presents the case for multi-centered litigation with particular focus on the potential uses of the Multidistrict Litigation Act to realize pluralist values. The descriptive claim put forward by the essay is that jurisdictional redundancy is imbedded in our federalist system and our preference for …

Unchaste And Incredible: The Use Of Gendered Conceptions Of Honor In Impeachment, Julia Simon-Kerr

Faculty Articles and Papers

This paper demonstrates that the American rules for impeaching witnesses developed against a cultural background that equated a woman's honor, and thus her credibility, with her sexual virtue. The idea that a woman's chastity informs her credibility did not originate in rape trials and the confusing interplay between questions of consent and sexual history. Rather, gendered notions of honor so permeated American legal culture that attorneys routinely attempted to impeach female witnesses by invoking their sexual histories in cases involving such diverse claims as title to land, assault, arson, and wrongful death. But while many courts initially accepted the notion …

Irony, Ángel Oquendo

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

The Jurisprudence Of Love, Barbara L. Atwell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this article explores the concept of Love as an energetic, vibrational, and spiritual force. Part II provides an overview of what Love means in practice. Part III explores two areas of the law--access to health care and global warming--and suggests that significant improvements to those laws would be generated by a Love-based approach to the law.

Policies To Expand Minority Entrepreneurship: Closing Comments, Michael S. Barr

Book Chapters

This essay is based on comments delivered at the Conference on on Entrepreneurship in Low- and Moderate-Income Communities, November 3-4, 2005. This has been a productive conversation. In my closing comments, I want to shift our focus somewhat, from entrepreneurship in low-income communities to minority entrepreneurship generally. I want to do so because many minority entrepreneurs are connected to or hire from low-income communities, and because minority entrepreneurs face critical barriers even when they attempt to create and grow firms outside of distressed communities. In this comment, I want to highlight key barriers and suggest five steps for Congress, the …

Motivational Law , Arnold S. Rosenberg

Cleveland State Law Review

After defining the concept of motivational law and giving several examples in Parts II.A and II.B, I discuss in Part II.C how motivational law fits into theories of law. In Part II.D, I explore the boundaries of motivational law and what it means to say that a law is "motivational." Part III.A examines motivational law as a type of intrinsic social control, and Part III.B explains how motivational law works through moral community-building, naming and shaming, cognitive dissonance and cognitive biases. Part IV.A asks why motivational law often fails, IV.B looks at the equivocal evidence of the efficacy of religious …

Capital In Chaos: The Subprime Mortgage Crisis And The Social Capital Response , Raymond H. Brescia

Cleveland State Law Review

Can law create trust? Can law make people more trustworthy? These are some of the questions posed by scholars across the political spectrum interested in the impact of law on society. There is no shortage of arguments on both sides of these questions: that law can be a tool for promoting trust, or destroying it. This Article is an attempt to address these questions through an analysis of a single market, to explore the interplay between law and trust in a situation of abject market failure: the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States. Initially, I will introduce the concept …

Introduction, Taunya Lovell Banks

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

What Does Documentary Filmmaking Have To Do With Practicing Law?, Peggy Cooper Davis

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

The Corruption Of Civilizations, Timothy K. Kuhner

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Gender And Nation-Building: Family Law As Legal Architecture Symposium - Nation Building: A Legal Architecture: Articles And Essays, Tracy E. Higgins, Rachel P. Fink

Faculty Scholarship

Although the discipline of family law in the western legal tradition transcends the public/private law boundary in many ways, it is the argument of this Essay that family law, in the private law sense of defining the rights and obligations of members of a family, forms an important part of the legal architecture of nation-building in at least three ways. First, access to the resources of the nation-state devolves through biologically and culturally gendered national boundaries, both reflecting and reinforcing the differential status of men and women in the sphere of the family. Second, the social institution of the family …

Human Rights Ngos In East Africa: Defining The Challenges, Makau Wa Mutua

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 1 in Human Rights NGOS in East Africa: Political and Normative Tensions, Makau Mutua, ed.

Congressional Oversight Of National Security Activities: Improving Information Funnels, Heidi Kitrosser

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Suburb As A Legal Concept: The Problem Of Organization And The Fate Of Municipalities In American Law, Kenneth A. Stahl

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Note, Eugenic Feminism: Mental Hygiene, The Women's Movement, And The Campaign For Eugenic Legal Reform, 1900-1935, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

It is well for every woman, however, to think this matter through and to realize that any women’s movement that is correlated with sterility is doomed to fail and annihilation. What shall it profit us eugenically to have women delve in laboratories, or search the heavens, or rule the nations, if the world is to be peopled by scrubwomen and peasants? – Anna M. Blount, Eugenics, in Woman and the Larger Citizenship, 2847, 2904-05 (Shailer Mathews ed., 1913).

Part I of this article examines the evolution of eugenic thought and policy in the United States between 1880 and 1935, …

Squatters, Pirates, And Entrepreneurs: Is Informality The Solution To The Urban Housing Crisis?, Carmen Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

Giving the poor legal title to the lands they occupy extra-legally (informally) has been widely promoted by the World Bank and by best-selling author Hernando de Soto as a means of addressing both poverty and the scarcity of affordable housing in the urban centers of the global South. Using Bogota, Colombia, as a case study, this article interrogates de Soto's claims about the causes of informality and the benefits of formal title. The article concludes that de Soto's analysis is problematic in three distinct respects. First, de Soto exaggerates the benefits of formal title and fails to consider its risks. …

In The Wake Of Low V. Henry: Is Pre-Suit Discovery Now A Reality In Texas., John G. Lione Jr., Ryan W. Lione

St. Mary's Law Journal

Following the Texas Supreme Court decision in Low v. Henry, the issue of whether an attorney may be liable for filing a “groundless pleading” has come to the forefront of Texas jurisprudence. This recent decision ought to pique Texas attorneys’ attention. In reprimanding egregious attorney conduct, did the Texas Supreme Court’s tightening of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure increase the duties and responsibilities of all Texas attorneys by establishing what may amount to pre-suit discovery? Yet, courts presume pleadings and motions are filed in good faith, and the party seeking sanctions bears the burden of rebutting this presumption. The …

Judicial Policy - Making And The Peculiar Function Of Law, Richard Kay

Faculty Articles and Papers

While the nature of legal systems is a perpetually contested question, it is fairly uncontroversial that each must contain certain essential characteristics. First, each must suppose some picture of the appropriate way for human beings subject to it to live together in society. Second, to secure that proper arrangement, each must employ, to a greater or lesser degree, the device of general rules of conduct. Finally, in all but the simplest systems, the effectiveness of those rules must be guaranteed by some process of adjudication. The relationships among these three factors - social values, legal rules and judging - comprise …

Don't Count Them Out Just Yet: Toward The Plausible Use Of Race-Preference Student Assignment Plans, Leslie Yalof Garfield

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Supreme Court's recent decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 11 could serve to broaden the permissible use of race beyond the boundaries presently permitted by the Court. In this highly fractionalized decision, five justices ultimately agreed that the race-based student assignment plans before their review could not withstand judicial scrutiny. One of these justices, Justice Kennedy, agreed with the plurality's conclusion, but rejected the plurality's assessment that it is never permissible to use race-preference student assignment plans absent evidence of de jure segregation. His concurrence, when read together with …

Law And Economic Change During The Short Twentieth Century, John Henry Schlegel

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 16 in Cambridge History of Law in America, Volume 3: The Twentieth Century and After (1920–), Michael Grossberg & Christopher Tomlins, eds.

The brief recounting of the American economy in the twenties and thirties raises obvious questions about law and economic change. Economic change is the shift from one enacted, in both senses, understanding of economic life to another, in the case of the short twentieth century, from an associationalist economy to an impatient economy. This chapter explicates this economic change, and interrogates it in order to understand the role of law in its occurrence. Despite the …

Katrina's Window: Localism, Resegregation, And Equitable Regionalism, David D. Troutt

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law On The Street: Legal Narrative And The Street Law Classroom, Elizabeth L. Macdowell

Scholarly Works

This Article argues that the failure of anti-discrimination law to address the problems of subordination reflects the hegemonic perspective in legal narratives. For the lawyer concerned with social change, it is imperative to identify these narratives and the ways in which they not only inhibit deep social change, but may perpetuate the conditions of subordination. Yet, law school polices against the consciousness necessary for the lawyer to identify the hegemonic narrative in the law, and often instills attitudes, which are antithetical to the project of social change. In this context, Street Law - a practical law course taught by law …

Only Skin Deep: The Cost Of Partisan Politics On Minority Diversity Of The Federal Bench: Why Care Whether Judges Look “Like America” If, Because Of Politics, A “Voice Of Color” Has Become A “Whisper Of Color”?, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

This article explores the difficulties encountered in diversifying the federal bench and why the partisanship of the confirmation process decreases the diversity of viewpoints on the bench. Presidents value diversity in nominating judges. While Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had very contrasting political styles and judicial philosophies, the judges appointed by these two presidents now account for almost 80% of the current active federal minority judges. There has been progress in the area of descriptive diversity; currently 18% of the active federal bench is made up of minority judges according to data compiled from the Judicial Center. However, there …

Immunity For Hire: How The Same-Actor Doctrine Sustains Discrimination In The Contemporary Workplace, Natasha Martin

Faculty Articles

This article provides a doctrinal critique of an employment discrimination principle recognized by the courts-the same-actor inference-based on its incongruence with both cognitive psychological research and the social dynamics of the workplace. The same-actor principle, in its most potent form, provides that where the same decision-maker engages in an alleged adverse employment action within a short period of time of making a positive employment decision, such evidence creates a strong presumption that the decision-maker harbored no unlawful discriminatory animus. The same-actor doctrine was first recognized by the Fourth Circuit in Proud v. Stone, in which the court deemed the nature …

Third-Party Tax Administration: The Case Of Low- And Moderate-Income Households, Michael S. Barr, Jane K. Dokko

Articles

Using a unique household-level data set, this article investigates the taxfiling experiences and refund behavior of low- and moderate-income (LMI) households. We document households' tax-filing behavior, attitudes about the withholding system, use of tax refunds to consume and save, and the mechanisms by which households would prefer to receive their income. We also document the prevalence of the use of tax-preparation services and the receipt of tax refunds and refund-anticipation loans. Finally, we argue that there may be a role for tax administration to enable LMI households to make welfare-improving financial decisions.

Assault Upon The Citadel Of Privity: The Coexistence Of Strict, Privity And Belt V. Oppenheimer, Blend, Harrison & (And) Tate, Inc. Comment., C. John Muller Iv

St. Mary's Law Journal

The practicing attorney must have a complete understanding of legal malpractice liability. Managing this risk can be a precarious responsibility when the law is not clearly defined. This is compounded by the steady erosion of attorney-client privity barriers making it easier for third party non-clients to sue lawyers for legal malpractice. This is the current state of matters in Texas since the Texas Supreme Court decided Belt v. Oppenheimer, Blend, Harrison & Tate, Inc. on May 5, 2006. The Belt court determined personal representatives of an estate may bring a malpractice claim against the decedent’s attorneys. The Belt court was …

Fulfilling Your Professional Responsibilities: Representing A Deaf Client In Texas Recent Development., Matthew S. Compton

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

A Tribute To Ernest A. Raba, Dean (1946-1978), St. Mary's University School Of Law Tribute., Aloysius A. Leopold

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Henry F. Johnson Professor Of Law (1981-2008), St. Mary's University School Of Law Tribute., Bonita K. Roberts

St. Mary's Law Journal

As a way to deal with his loss, this eulogy honors Henry Johnson (1942-2008) by focusing on ten good things about him. As a former English teacher, he valued clarity and precision, which reflects another good thing about Henry: the importance of strong organization. His zest for travel enabled him to share voluminous details about countless countries around the world, including where the best restaurants and wineries were. No description would be complete without emphasizing his love for golf, but the most important thing about Henry was the way he cared for his family, friends, and animals.