Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Enhancing Efficiency And Accessibility For Federal Trademark Protection: Leveraging Blockchain Technology For Prosecution, Maintenance, And Enforcement Processes., Julia Ashley-Burd Mainini

Featured Student Work

This paper conducts an analysis of the intersection between Blockchain Technology and Intellectual Property Law, with a specific focus on Trademark Law in the United States. It explores the potential utilization of Blockchain Technology to enhance the efficiency and accessibility of prosecution, maintenance, and enforcement processes for attorneys, applicants, and registrants. Additionally, the paper examines areas within the Lanham Act that could benefit from updates to promote the adoption of Blockchain Technology in trademark-related procedures.

A Guide To Emtala, Kaylee Jacobson

Law Student Works

This Pathfinder research guide provides an overview of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). This guide is intended for both attorneys in the field and hospital compliance departments. It is essential for attorneys to understand both the requirements of an EMTALA claim and the circuit splits on interpretation. Hospital compliance departments have an interest in understanding EMTALA for preventative and response measures.

This guide walks the researcher through a brief background on EMTALA and how to research the federal statute using primary, secondary, and news-based sources. The goal is to equip them with the necessary tools to perform …

Enforceability Of Exculpatory Clauses In Missouri, Samantha Cusumano

Law Student Works

Today, a vast majority of contracts signed by consumers contain provisions that release one or both of the parties from liability if personal injury occurs during the course of the contract. These provisions are referred to as liability waivers, exculpatory clauses, limitations of liability, or liability releases, and these terms are often used interchangeably within this pathfinder and in legal research relating to this topic. The effect of these provisions is that the signing party waives their right to file future claims against the other party in the event of injury or loss and relieves the drafting party of any …

Writing It Right: Advice About Written Advocacy From The Washington Court Of Appeals, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

This article concerns “Briefly Speaking: Brief Writing—Best Practices,” a collection of sound advice that appears on the website of the Washington Court of Appeals, the state’s intermediate appellate court. The court’s judges explore strategies of appellate practice, but that is not all. In this article, I select five of the court’s insights about effective written expression, insights that can enhance the quality not only of brief writing, but also of much other legal writing.

We Need To Understand How Chatgpt Can Be Used For A Contract Drafting Class And Change Our Pedagogy To Compensate, Ben Fernandez

UF Law Faculty Publications

You might think ChatGPT would not work well to assist students in a law school class on Contract Drafting. The model was not created for that purpose and it has no legal training. But you would be wrong. There are deficiencies but they can easily be compensated for. A student who knows what they are doing can use the model to do the work for a drafting class. As a result, law professors who teach Contract Drafting need to understand how to use ChatGPT, and how effective it can be as a drafting tool. And we also need to think …

Industrial Jurisdiction, Daniel Z. Epstein

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

William Novak’s New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State reveals how the current administrative state evolved to control economic activity through an incremental rejection of state-based common law and police powers in favor of centralized public regulation. This review identifies the business case for the administrative state and presents the first academic treatment of pro-regulation testimony from business interests during congressional consideration of the Interstate Commerce Act. In so doing, this review shows how the concept of industry is as much a legal concept as it is an economic one. This review argues that the nature of regulatory …

Training Is Everything: Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, And “Fair Training”, Andrew W. Torrance, Bill Tomlinson

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In this Essay, we analyze the arguments in favor of, and against, viewing the use of copyrighted works in training sets for AI as fair use. We call this form of fair use “fair training.” We identify both strong and spurious arguments on both sides of this debate. In addition, we attempt to take a broader perspective, weighing the societal costs (e.g., replacement of certain forms of human employment) and benefits (e.g., the possibility of novel AI-based approaches to global issues such as environmental disruption) of allowing AI to make easy use of copyrighted works as training sets to facilitate …

Emergency Room To The Courtroom: Providing Abortion Care Under Emtala And State Abortion Bans, Natasha Rappazzo

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

After the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, states began to broadly criminalize abortion. Abortion is criminalized and restricted even in situations that constitute an emergency medical condition under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (“EMTALA”). State abortion bans with limited medical exceptions conflict with EMTALA’s protections for emergency screening and stabilization. Legal challenges to the scope of EMTALA show a growing divide and uncertainty on emergency abortion care in the United States. This Comment will discuss why physicians cannot confidently provide quality and competent abortion care without the …

Using The Common Law Of Contracts To Police Abusive Terms In Hospital Admissions Agreements: Balancing Freedom Of Contract With Fairness, George A. Nation Iii

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Standard hospital admissions contracts (“HACs”) often contain provisions that are shockingly unfair, but are easily overlooked or misunderstood by patients. Hospitals rely on the common law of contracts, especially the doctrine of freedom of contract, to claim that these provisions should be enforced. Many courts have accepted the freedom of contract argument and enforced some or all of these provisions.

This Article suggests that courts are in error to enforce these harsh provisions against patients. This Article focuses on four harsh provisions commonly found in HACs. First is the payment provision which is opaque, misleading, and designed to allow hospitals …

“What’S Brewin’ With Bruen?” Why, And How, We Must Permit Certain Felons To Possess Firearms, Samuel Roos

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In the summer of 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decided New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, outlining a new test for the constitutionality of statutes regulating firearm possession. The result has been chaos. In less than a year, U.S.C. § 922(n) and § 922(g)(8), which criminalize possession by specific people involved in the criminal justice system, have been held unconstitutional. Challenges to other federal firearm regulations are flooding the courts.

Notably, § 922(g)(1), which criminalizes possession of a firearm by any person with a felony in their criminal history, has been vigorously challenged. Few courts have yet …

A Theory Of Federalization Doctrine, Gerald S. Dickinson

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The doctrine of federalization—the practice of the U.S. Supreme Court consulting state laws or adopting state court doctrines to guide and inform federal constitutional law—is an underappreciated field of study within American constitutional law. Compared to the vast collection of scholarly literature and judicial rulings addressing the outsized influence Supreme Court doctrine and federal constitutional law exert over state court doctrines and state legislative enactments, the opposite phenomenon of the states shaping Supreme Court doctrine and federal constitutional law has been under-addressed. This lack of attention to such a singular feature of American federalism is striking and has resulted in …

The Presumption Of Constitutionality And The Demise Of Economic Liberties, James Huffman

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

For over two centuries the United States Supreme Court has embraced a presumption of constitutionality that places the burden of proof on those challenging the constitutionality of governmental actions. Usually, the presumption is stated as a given, but when explained it is most often said to be founded in republicanism and due respect for the co-equal branches of government. Thus, the presumption constitutes a deference to the constitutional interpretations of the elected branches of government. This majoritarian view of the Constitution’s foundational principle is counter to the dominant view of the Constitution’s founders. They designed a government constituted of numerous …

Introduction For Roger Williams University Law Review, Symposium Issue, 2023-24, Gregory W. Bowman

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

One Tort, Four Iracs, And Five Lessons About Rule Support Cases, Alissa Bauer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Israel-Lebanon Maritime Border Agreement: Does Lebanon Implicitly Recognize The State Of Israel?, Mireille Rebeiz

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In October 2022, Lebanon and Israel signed a Maritime Border Agreement brokered by the United States of America. Lebanon does not recognize Israeli statehood, and the two States have been at war since 1948. This Article seeks to examine the following legal question: Does the signing of the Maritime Border Agreement imply Lebanese recognition of Israeli statehood? In response, this Article begins with a brief examination of the history of the territorial and border disputes between Lebanon and Israel (discussed in Section I), then proceeds to analyze the definition of statehood and the two theories of statehood recognition. International law …

The Paradox Of The Paradox Of Democracy, Raymond H. Brescia

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion, authors Zac Gershberg and Sean Illing argue that democracies contain the capacity for their own destruction because they promote open communication but such communication can be manipulated by authoritarian forces. They argue further that with contemporary communications technologies the descent into fascism is even more likely. The authors argue that in order to confront these threats, democratic nations must increase media literacy within the citizenry and strengthen local journalism. Given the grave nature of the threats the authors have exposed, these solutions do not appear up to …

Expungement In Pennsylvania After Pardon: Excluded By Clean Slate Limited Access, Joseph H. O’Donnell

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Pennsylvania law provides several methods to protect or dispose of a criminal record. Methods to protect a criminal record from public view include expungement, limited access, clean slate limited access, and pardon. Expungement is a relatively limited right in Pennsylvania, but individuals do have a right to expungement upon receipt of a governor’s pardon. This right was created by case law. However, not every state follows this model. The recently enacted Clean Slate Limited Access Act created automated sealing for certain offenses, including cases where the Governor issued a pardon. This created a system of double protection for criminal records …

Legalbench: A Collaboratively Built Benchmark For Measuring Legal Reasoning In Large Language Models, Neel Guha, Julian Nyarko, Daniel E. Ho, Christopher Ré, Adam Chilton, Aditya Narayana, Alex Chohlas-Wood, Austin Peters, Brandon Waldon, Daniel Rockmore, Diego A. Zambrano, Dmitry Talisman, Enam Hoque, Faiz Surani, Frank Fagan, Galit Sarfaty, Gregory M. Dickinson, Haggai Porat, Jason Hegland, Jessica Wu, Joe Nudell, Joel Niklaus, John Nay, Jonathan H. Choi, Kevin Tobia, Margaret Hagan, Megan Ma, Michael A. Livermore, Nikon Rasumov-Rahe, Nils Holzenberger, Noam Kolt, Peter Henderson, Sean Rehaag, Sharad Goel, Shang Gao, Spencer Williams, Sunny Gandhi, Tom Zur, Varun Iyer, Zehua Li

All Papers

The advent of large language models (LLMs) and their adoption by the legal community has given rise to the question: what types of legal reasoning can LLMs perform? To enable greater study of this question, we present LegalBench: a collaboratively constructed legal reasoning benchmark consisting of 162 tasks covering six different types of legal reasoning. LegalBench was built through an interdisciplinary process, in which we collected tasks designed and hand-crafted by legal professionals. Because these subject matter experts took a leading role in construction, tasks either measure legal reasoning capabilities that are practically useful, or measure reasoning skills that lawyers …

The Role Of U.S. Government Regulatioms, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides detailed coverage of information resources on U.S. Government information resources for federal regulations. Features historical background on these regulations, details on the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations, includes information on individuals can participate in the federal regulatory process by commenting on proposed agency regulations via https://regulations.gov/, describes the role of presidential executive orders, refers to recent and upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases involving federal regulations, and describes current congressional legislation seeking to give Congress greater involvement in the federal regulatory process.

Wisconsin's Citation Rule: Unpublished Should Not Mean Uncitable, Jacob Lloyd

Marquette Law Review

Wisconsin’s citation rule stands tall, yet unsupported. It injures Wisconsin practitioners, their clients, and judges in all three levels of Wisconsin’s judicial branch. With little tolerance, Wisconsin Statutes section 809.23(3) precludes the citation of (1) unpublished opinions issued before July 1, 2009, and (2) unauthored, unpublished opinions thereafter. You may be surprised to learn that that means approximately half of Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinions issued each year are uncitable—so, too, are significantly more than half of the opinions it issued before July 1, 2009. Without change, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals will continue to miscategorize its opinions; Wisconsin’s case …

Advice About Written Advocacy From The Washington Court Of Appeals, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (September 2023): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Roger Williams University School Of Law Library Researchfest 8-30-2023, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

An Immodest Proposal: Ai, Llms, And The Case For A Standalone Legal Research Requirement, Sarah C. Slinger, Nicholas Mignanelli, Jordan Jefferson, Susan Drisko Zago

Presentations and Speeches

The legal research course is over a century old. As a law school subject, it predates many doctrinal courses, as well as the advent of clinical legal education. It is several decades older than its sister subject, legal writing. In spite of its age and obvious importance, the place of the legal research course in the law school curriculum remains contested. While some law faculties recognize the value of legal research instruction and require a standalone legal research course in the first year, the vast majority combine it with legal writing (often over the objections of legal writing instructors and …

Meet Our New Faculty: Valena Beety, James Owsley Boyd

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

You’ve read about some of the amazing students we have starting with us next week. Now we’ll introduce you to some of the new faculty who have joined us over the summer. First up is Valena Beety, the Robert H. McKinney Professor of Law. Prof. Beety was most recently Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Academy for Justice at theArizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.

Book Bans, Academic Freedom, And The Academic Law Library: Reflections On An Aall Discussion Den, Olivia Smith Schlinck

Library Staff Online Writings

Discussion Dens are consistently among my favorite programs at the AALL Annual Meeting, and Leslie Street’s Book Bans, Academic Freedom, and the Academic Law Library discussion was truly a highlight of AALL 2023. Street approached this difficult and ever-evolving issue with expertise, passion, and open-mindedness, guiding the group to consider: what can law librarians do to support our colleagues in states facing books bans on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bases?

W&L Law Library Annual Report 2022-2023, The Law Library At Washington And Lee University School Of Law

Law Library Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

Legal Clutter: How Concurring Opinions Create Unnecessary Confusion And Encourage Litigation, Meg Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

Good judges are clear writers. And clear writers avoid legal clutter. Legal clutter occurs when judges publish multiple individually written opinions that are neither useful nor necessary. This essay argues that concurring opinions are the worst form of legal clutter. Unlike majority opinions, concurring opinions are legal asides, musings of sorts—often by a single judge—that add length and confusion to an opinion often without adding meaningful value. Concurring opinions do not change the outcome of a case. Unlike dissenting opinions, they do not claim disagreement with the ultimate decision. Instead, concurring opinions merely offer an idea or viewpoint that failed …

Law Library Blog (August 2023): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Feedback Loops: Appreciators, Coaches, & Evaluators, Patrick Barry

Articles

No individual person is likely to be able to satisfy all of our feedback needs. Which is why I tell my students to assemble a “Feedback Board of Directors.” Focus in particular, I tell them, on recruiting people who can collectively provide what Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen of Harvard Law School identify as the three basic forms of feedback in their book “Thanks for the Feedback”: