Law and Society Commons^™

Living The Good Life In The Anthropocene, Karrigan Bork, Karen Bradshaw, Rebecca Bratspies, Cinnamon Carlarne, Bruce Carpenter, Robin Kundis Craig, Sarah Fox, Josh Galperin, Francis Hicks, Keith Hirokawa, Kevin Lynch, Ruhan S. Nagra, Michele Okoh, Jessica Owley, Amber Polk, Melissa Powers, Shannon Roesler, J.B. Ruhl, Danielle Stokes, Anastasia Telesetsky

Articles

The Stockholm Resilience Centre has concluded that the number of "planetary boundaries" we are crossing has increased from three in 2009, when the Centre's researchers first introduced the concept, to six in 2023. Crossing these boundaries means humans are changing basic attributes of planetary systems to the point of risking the future of civilization. And the distinction between "safe" and "just" planetary boundaries raises questions regarding how to conceptualize the "good life." In this latest in a biannual series of essays, members of the Environmental Law Collaborative explore conceptions of the "good" as well as the various elements necessary to …

Table Of Contents - Cardozo Journal Of Equal Rights & Social Justice, Vol. 31, Iss. 1

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Balancing Tradition And Inclusion: Framework Principles For An Afghan Accord, M. Hamed Isar

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article examines the turbulent constitutional history of Afghanistan and proposes a pragmatic constitutional framework balancing Islamic principles with rights, protections, and constraints on power. After analyzing the Taliban’s current extraconstitutional rule and ideological objections to an inclusive order, it makes the case for principled compromise. The first step to constitutional reform for Afghanistan is to recognize that Afghans, the Taliban, and the international community pay a high price for disregarding law and accountability in governance. To that end, this Article canvasses the many factors that could motivate the Taliban to accept the rule of law, despite the constraints it …

Multi-Generation Queer Families: Foregrounding The Lgbtqia+ Children Of Lgbtqia+ People, Bella Mancini Pori, Edward Stein

Articles

In the last several years, state legislatures have passed a disturbing array of anti-queer laws that target queer (especially trans) children. The basic fear animating these laws is that exposure to LGBTQ people or LGBTQ supportive ideas will somehow turn straight children queer. LGBTQ activists have responded to the concern that exposure to queer people or ideas will make children queer by arguing that sexual orientations are innate or immutable. This immutability argument is problematic, first, because it avoids confronting the normative judgment at the heart of the fear of a queer child by failing to say that there is …

Grasping The Third Rail: Restorative Justice And Violent Crime, Olwyn Conway

Washington and Lee Law Review

Restorative justice is a means of responding to harm— including criminal offenses—through active accountability and repair, rather than through passive punishment and isolation. While restorative justice has demonstrated potential to meaningfully improve processes and outcomes for individuals and communities, the implementation of restorative justice programs to address crime—both within and alongside the American criminal system—has been slow, limited, and misplaced. Programs are often directed at low-level, nonviolent offenses that involve little if any cognizable harm. This approach creates two problems. One, it risks net-widening: bringing more citizens under criminal surveillance and carceral control for minor offenses—further diluting the constitutional and …

Masthead, Cardozo Journal Of Equal Rights & Social Justice, Vol. 31 (2024–25)

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Standing For Change: Associational Standing As An Aggregational Mechanism In Tenants' Rights, Hope Peraria

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that tenant associations can serve as an effective vehicle for aggregate lawsuits to vindicate tenants' rights, addressing the persistent enforcement gap in housing rights. By leveraging associational standing, these associations can advocate for shared interests, facilitate community organizing, and complement legal reforms. This approach not only strengthens tenants' collective power but also offers practical solutions to systemic barriers that prevent individuals from asserting their rights.

Self-Discipline, Faith, And Civility: Promoting A Civil Society And Lawyer Professionalism, Honorable Douglas S. Lang

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

All lawyers are bound to assiduously adhere to the Law, including the strictures of legal ethics, professionalism, and all secular law. Moreover, lawyers of faith must adhere to the tenants of their faith as a way of life. The principles of those two sets of imperatives are not only compatible, they are inextricably intertwined. Together, they compel lawyers to treat others civilly and with respect and dignity. This paper demonstrates that lawyers, particularly Catholic lawyers, must unselfishly and civilly live their lives in a way to combat the scourge of incivility in the legal profession and in society. All …

Restoring The Public’S Faith: Character Education And The Supreme Court, Benjamin Rigney

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The current news cycle is full of reports on the alleged ethical scandals rocking the Supreme Court. A significant result of these ethical failures is rapidly declining public trust in the Supreme Court as an institution, which in turn negatively impacts the public’s trust in the entire legal system. The role of judicial ethics is fundamental to the American legal system as illustrated in Charles Geyh’s article, The Architecture of Judicial Ethics, published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Amanda Frost’s article, Judicial Ethics and Supreme Court Exceptionalism, published in the Georgetown Journal of Legal …

The Impact The Monetary Value Of A Case Has On Effort And Productivity Within The Field Of Personal Injury, Maximiliano Elizondo

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

No abstract provided.

Kebijakan Transmigrasi Dalam Kerangka Kesejahteraan Sosial Dan Ketahanan Nasional Di Provinsi Lampung, Heru Susetyo, Satrio Febriyanto, Tien Tis’Aini Latifah, Deden Ardiansyah, Feymi Angelina, Ibrahim Ghifar Hamadi, Najma Izzatul Haq, Nurroby Fatih

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

Transmigration in Lampung Province is part of Indonesia's national transmigration program, which aims to equalize development and reduce the population density of densely populated islands such as Java. Transmigration in Lampung began in 1905 with a colonial approach by the Dutch and continued during the Old Order New Order and began to decline after the 1998 reformation. The challenges of transmigration in Lampung include social and economic problems, integration of immigrants with local communities, and environmental impacts; the next challenge is the availability of health and welfare infrastructure and sustainable development. This study examines the dynamics of transmigration in Lampung …

Privacy Law’S Role In An Information Economy, Sari Mazzurco

Cardozo Law Review

What do we lose when we lose our privacy? A slew of recently enacted state laws suggest that the loss of privacy is merely a loss of individual choice in the market exchange of services for personal information. This Article argues that a loss of privacy risks something greater: the collapse of complex and fluid social identity. Without privacy, individuals cannot nurture their own senses of self because they are no longer free to try on different social roles across diverse relationships. Pervasive, private data collection threatens multifaceted selfhood by eliminating the boundaries that make social roles distinct and hindering …

Providing End-Of-Life Counseling: A Narrative Inquiry, Carol Hecht, Sibyl West

Adultspan Journal

This qualitative study aimed to address the gap in the research related to end-of-life counseling by exploring the experiences of counselors working with clients at end of life. While counseling literature and education are lacking regarding end of life, many counselors will work alongside clients approaching death. The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to better understand the nuanced experiences of counselors providing end-of-life counseling and (b) to explore the supports and preparations helpful for counselors to provide end-of-life counseling. A narrative approach, using the Listening Guide (Gilligan, 2015), was employed to analyze and present the stories of three …

Considerations Of Medicare Telehealth Services With Older Adults, Sonah Kho, Amanda Dediego

Adultspan Journal

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic set in motion a rapid expansion of mental health services offered via telehealth. With this rapid expansion came the need to examine how policy and practice should be shaped in a future where telehealth is considered common in counseling practice. For counselors to understand how to support older adult clients in using telehealth services, they must understand telehealth policy. Following the eligibility of licensed counselors to participate in Medicare, counselors need to stay abreast of regulatory changes regarding restrictions and regulations on use of telehealth for mental and behavioral health services, including video and …

Widiss Honored With Cosell Miller Award, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

An employment law scholar at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law has been honored for her remarkable contributions to the field.

Deborah A. Widiss, professor of law and the John F. Kimberling Chair, was presented the Miller Award at the 19th annual Colloquium on Scholarship in Employment and Labor Law (COSELL) in San Diego on September 13.

Named in honor of the late Paul Miller, who was the Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law, the Miller Award is presented annually to a senior scholar who has shown “outstanding academic and public …

Prescribed Child Abuse? Using The Americans With Disabilities Act To Deconstruct Discrimination Against Medication For Opioid Use Disorder In Child Abuse & Neglect Proceedings, Makenzie Stuard

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

The opioid crisis has disrupted parent-child relationships across the United States. While states actively seek to remove children from households with current drug use in order to protect the children, state entities often fail to protect the parent-child relationship itself by imposing counterproductive policies and stereotypes on parents who are in treatment for their drug use, which makes maintaining "recovery" and parental rights an uphill battle. This note argues that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides a novel path to root out discrimination in child abuse and neglect proceedings against parents who either take prescribed buprenorphine or are interested …

Robbing Peter To Pay Paul: In The Absence Of School Finance Equity, Texas School Districts Forced To Choose Between Funding Academics Or Safety Reform, Emily Mann

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

This comment addresses the intersection between two discussions frequenting the Texas legislative floor – school safety and school finance. Following the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, Texas public schools are under political pressure to “harden” campuses rapidly and at great expense. Unsurprising, however, the high costs accompanying safety investment, coupled with the lack of financial backing from the state, puts districts in a challenging position. Any discussion of investment in Texas public schools also triggers questions of equity.

Debate over lack of equity across Texas public schools is no stranger to the Texas Supreme Court. Nonetheless, inequity persists in …

Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series: Breaking Bias: A Conversation With Attorney Anu Gupta 9-10-2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Transforming Adversity Into Advocacy 9-4-2024, Andrew Clark, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Elusiveness Of Tax And Constitutional Reform, Susan Pace Hamill

Politics, Justice, Law, and Philosophy

In this chapter, Professor Hamill illustrates that Alabama’s regressive tax policy oppresses poor Alabamians and denies their children a chance for a better future and explains why the 1901 Constitution makes meaningful tax reform impossible. She then shows that Governor Bob Riley’s 2003 failed reform efforts and ten years of unsuccessful civil rights litigation which followed, means reformers must convince Alabama’s citizens at the ballot box. Professor Hamill’s story of her personal experiences as an outspoken reformer, especially the anecdotes of her speaking to thousands of voters at their doors when she was a candidate for the legislature, illuminate why …

Access To Justice As Access To Data, Tanina Rostain

Northwestern University Law Review

This Keynote Address, delivered in celebration of the launch of SCALES, discusses the importance of making local and state court data available for research on the functioning of the American civil justice system. It describes the regulatory and administrative challenges of obtaining high-quality data from courts. It calls for a concerted effort among researchers and policymakers to develop open-source technologies for the development of case management systems and data infrastructure. And it urges researchers to foster a collaborative research ecosystem based on broadly sharing court data.

Felony Disenfranchisement And Voter Turnout: Randomized Trials In Iowa And Washington, Alexander Billy, J.J. Naddeo, Neel U. Sukhatme

Northwestern University Law Review

Prior to the 2022 midterm elections, we conducted large-scale randomized controlled trials in Iowa and Washington aimed at increasing voter turnout among newly enfranchised individuals with past felony convictions. Alongside national and grassroots partners, we designed and implemented experiments to ascertain the effectiveness of alternative outreach mechanisms, including targeted mailers and digital ads. We did not detect statistically significant or economically meaningful effects on voter registration or turnout; most observed effects were precise nulls. The absence of measured impact is likely attributed to low digital engagement with our online ads as well as extensive voter outreach already conducted by our …

Measures Of Justice: Researching And Evaluating Lay Legal Assistance Programs, Tanina Rostain, James Teufel

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In recent years a national movement to train lay advocates and advisors to assist people with their common justice problems has emerged in the United States. A host of new programs have launched that allow trained navigators and justice workers to provide legal assistance. These programs – developed in Alaska, Delaware, South Carolina, Arizona, and Utah, among other places – vary in their substantive focus, the skills they impart, and their approaches to reaching the people and communities they seek to help. The proliferation of lay legal assistance programs creates research imperatives and opportunities. These programs need to be assessed …

Foreword, David L. Schwartz, Kat M. Albrecht

Northwestern University Law Review

Offering a critique is often easier than proposing a solution. This refrain echoed frequently in the months and years that we spent developing what would become the Systematic Content Analysis of Litigation EventS (SCALES) Open Knowledge Network, a project born from the collaborative efforts of experts across various disciplines.

The Scales Project: Making Federal Court Records Free, David L. Schwartz, Kat M. Albrecht, Adam R. Pah, Christopher A. Cotropia, Amy Kristin Sanders, Sarath Sanga, Charlotte S. Alexander, Luís A.N. Amaral, Zachary D. Clopton, Anne M. Tucker, Thomas W. Gaylord, Scott G. Daniel, Nathan Dahlberg

Northwestern University Law Review

Federal court records have been available online for nearly a quarter century, yet they remain frustratingly inaccessible to the public. This is due to two primary barriers: (1) the federal government’s prohibitively high fees to access the records at scale and (2) the unwieldy state of the records themselves, which are mostly text documents scattered across numerous systems. Official datasets produced by the judiciary, as well as third-party data collection efforts, are incomplete, inaccurate, and similarly inaccessible to the public. The result is a de facto data blackout that leaves an entire branch of the federal government shielded from empirical …

Settlement As Construct: Defining And Counting Party Resolution In Federal District Court, Charlotte S. Alexander, Nathan Dahlberg, Anne M. Tucker

Northwestern University Law Review

Most civil cases settle. Yet generating a definitive settlement rate presents complex definitional and empirical problems, both in what should count as a settlement and how to count it. This Essay makes three contributions to better understanding and defining settlement. First, we propose a flexible, empirically informed, operationalizable definition of settlement as party resolution. Second, we exploit a new federal litigation data source to count party resolutions using machine learning models trained on 11 million docket sheet entries. Third, we offer new findings on party resolution frequency and distribution in the federal courts. Settlement is more widely and differently deployed …

Prosecutorial Data Transparency And Data Justice, Caitlin Glass, Kat M. Albrecht, Perry Moriearty

Northwestern University Law Review

The U.S. criminal legal system is notoriously racialized. Though Black and Latinx people make up less than 30% of U.S. residents, they constitute more than 50% of the nearly two million people currently in U.S. prisons and jails. For decades, research has indicated that one group of decision-makers has had an outsized influence on these numbers: prosecutors. From whom to charge to what sentences to recommend, no actor plays a greater role in determining who goes to prison in this country. Highly subjective and lacking in formal guidance and accountability, prosecutorial decisions are especially vulnerable to racial bias. They are …

Lawyerless Litigants, Filing Fees, Transaction Costs, And The Federal Courts: Learning From Scales, Judith Resnik, Henry Wu, Jenn Dikler, David T. Wong, Romina Lilollari, Claire Stobb, Elizabeth Beling, Avital Fried, Anna Selbrede, Jack Sollows, Mikael Tessema, Julia Udell

Northwestern University Law Review

Two Latin phrases describing litigants—pro se (for oneself) and in forma pauperis (IFP, as a poor person)—prompt this inquiry into the relationship between self-representation and requests for filing fee waivers. We sketch the governing legal principles for people seeking relief in the federal courts, the sources of income of the federal judiciary, the differing regimes to which Congress has subjected incarcerated and nonincarcerated people filing civil lawsuits, and analyses enabled by SCALES, a newly available database that coded 2016 and 2017 federal court docket sheets. This Essay’s account of what can be learned and of the data gaps demonstrates the …

The War On Higher Education, Athena D. Mutua, Jonathan Feingold, Angela Harris, Emily M. S. Houh, Matthew Patrick Shaw, Francisco Valdes

Journal Articles

Higher education is under assault in the United States. Tracking authoritarian movements across the globe, domestic attacks on individual professors and academic institutions buttress a broader campaign to undermine multiracial democracy and the institutions that sustain and safeguard it. Reflecting on the past academic year, this essay charts the increasingly brazen right-wing efforts in the U.S. Congress and the States to erode academic freedom and university independence— two pillars of our democratic republic. We also identify a bi-partisan source of higher education’s present precarity: the neoliberal policies that precipitated the privatization and corporatization of universities across the country.

‘Constellations’ And ‘Entanglement’ In The Study Of Legal Pluralism: Reflections On The Scholarship Of Keebet Von Benda-Beckmann, Petra K. Mahy Dr

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

Two key terms permeate the work of Keebet von Benda-Beckmann (and of her co-authors, especially Franz von Benda-Beckmann) in her discussions of legal pluralism: ‘constellations’ and ‘entanglement’. These terms are both concerned with describing the existence of, and interrelationships between, plural legal orders. This article critically analyses these two terms, their usage and implied meanings, and compares them with other alternative concepts employed elsewhere in legal pluralism and cognate literature. With reference to empirical evidence on plural work regulation in Indonesia, I argue that the terms have some descriptive benefits for understanding the realities of plural legal orders, but still …