Social Welfare Law Commons^™

Transforming Legal Aid, Ronald W. Staudt

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Minnesota Mandates: County Government Fiscal Stress In An Era Of Declining State Support, Selena Krueth

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Minnesota counties are experiencing more than just financial burdens from state mandates these days. Counties and local governments currently are seeking the most effective solution of implementing state mandates; leaving behind the argument of no mandates without funding to "give us mandates that work". In my analysis I combined county budgetary and demographic data, with phone survey data gathered from Minnesota counties. I anticipate results that will show a wide variety in county administrator attitudes towards state mandates and varying local capacity to meet them. Costly state mandates, such as health services, and large county populations have proven significant in …

Children's Health Insurance Program: The Dynamics Of Federalism And Health Care Policy, Erik White

Political Science Theses and Capstones

On February 4^th, 2009, President Obama signed into law the reauthorization of the Children Health Insurance Program. The federal government will now spend 30 billion dollars towards the goal of ensuring that more children in the United States are insured. I investigate this particular health care policy and look at the different dynamics that affect the ultimate goal of universal health insurance for children. Because this program allows for state flexibility under broad federal guidelines, one is able to look at individual states, and their particular actions and characteristics, to determine the best approach to insuring the most …

Why Paretians Can’T Prescribe: Preferences, Principles, And Imperatives In Law And Policy, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Recent years have witnessed two linked revivals in the legal academy. The first is renewed interest in articulating a normative “master principle” by which legal rules might be evaluated. The second is renewed interest in the prospect that a variant of Benthamite “utility” might serve as the requisite touchstone. One influential such variant now in circulation is what the Article calls “Paretian welfarism.”

This Article rejects Paretian welfarism and advocates an alternative it calls “fair welfare.” It does so because Paretian welfarism is inconsistent with ethical, social, and legal prescription, while fair welfare is what we have been groping for …

Judicial Adherence To A Minimum Core Approach To Socio-Economic Rights – A Comparative Perspective, Joie Chowdhury

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

Today’s world is witness to extraordinary inequality and the most desperate poverty. Millions of people across the world have no access to adequate food or water, basic health care or minimum levels of education. There are many avenues through which to approach the issue of improving socio-economic conditions. Courts, especially recently, have in certain countries, been seeking to ameliorate these conditions, to some extent, through the means of socio-economic rights adjudication.

For courts to effectively empower people to realize their socio-economic rights, attention to implementation of judgments is essential. A strong normative base for such judgments is just as crucial, …

Effectiveness Of Reemployment Strategies, Christopher J. O'Leary

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Congress Needs To Help Victims Of Foreclosures, Bernadette Atuahene

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Laboratories Of Destitution: Democratic Experimentalsim And The Failure Of Antipoverty Law, David A. Super

Faculty Scholarship

Democratic experimentalism, the procedural component of the “new governance” movement, has won widespread acceptance in calling for decentralization, deliberation, deregulation, and experimentation. Democratic experimentalists claim that this approach offers pragmatic solutions to social problems. Although the democratic experimentalist movement formally began only a decade ago, antipoverty law has reflected its major principles since the 1960s. This experiment has gone badly, weakening antipoverty programs. Key elements of this participatory approach to antipoverty law – decentralization, privatization, and the substitution of ad hoc problemsolving for individual rights – all contributed to the calamity that low-income people suffered during and after Hurricane Katrina. …

Brief For Amicus Curiae David A. Super: Supporting Plaintiff-Appellants Urging Reversal, In Howard V. Hawkins (2009)., David A. Super

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court has consistently held that congressional intent governs whether federal statutes are privately enforceable. Where Congress has been silent, a line of cases culminating in Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273 (2002), prescribes a formula for inferring congressional intent from the structure of a statute. Here, however, Congress has not been silent: the Food and Nutrition Act specifies the amount of retroactive benefits that may be awarded households in “any judicial action arising under this Act” and makes certain records of state agencies “available for review in any action filed by a household to enforce any provision …

Migration, Development, And The Promise Of Cedaw For Rural Women, Lisa R. Pruitt

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I of this Essay provides an overview of the rural-to-urban migration phenomenon, a trend the author calls the urban juggernaut. This Part includes a discussion of forces compelling the migration, and it also considers consequences for those who are left behind when their family members and neighbors migrate to cities. Part II explores women's roles in food production in the developing world, and it considers the extent to which international development efforts encourage or entail urbanization. Part III attends to the potential of human rights for this population, analyzing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination …

100 Years Strong: Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services And The On-Going Pursuit For Equal Rights And Equal Justice, Tom I. Romero

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

As the lead essay in the Hamline Journal of Public Law and Policy's symposium issue on "Barriers to Justice: Responding to the Needs of the Low-Income Population in America," our essay provides a narrative account of the history of legal aid in Minnesota. From its humble origins in the basement of a mutual aid society in 1909 to the recent broad based community-lawyering programs for immigrants, the disabled, and those families who were hurt by predatory lending practices at the start of the 21st century, this is an "insiders" legal history concerning the values, people, and public private collaborative practices …

Orphan Train Myths And Legal Reality , Rebecca S. Trammell

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

The Law And The Host Of The Canterbury Tales, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 51 (2009), Frederick B. Jonassen

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Responsible Development? The Need For Revision To Seattle's Inclusionary Housing Plan, Jay A. Riffkin

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment explores how Seattle's enactment of a limited inclusionary housing plan can effectively meet the challenges of responsible development, both satisfying the city's need for density and affordability and maintaining an economic environment conducive to developer profitability. Although Seattle's current inclusionary housing plan may give adequate incentives to developers, the city needs to move away from its current voluntary plan and toward a mandatory plan that balances increasing developer incentives with a demand for affordable onsite development to serve a broader spectrum of income levels. Part II of this Comment lays out the background of exclusionary and inclusionary zoning …

A Comment On Untangling The Safety Net: Protecting Federal Benefits From Freezes, Fees, And Garnishment, By Allen C. Myers, Phillip T. Lacy

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recruiting And Selecting Child Welfare Staff, Michelle Graef, Megan Paul, Tara L. Myers

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

In this chapter, the focus is on recruiting and selecting new staff and on the steps agencies can take to ensure that they are doing the best possible job to attract and hire a high-performing, committed workforce. This chapter reviews a number of strategies for improving recruitment and selection processes and provides case examples from the authors' work with child protection agencies in several states. These projects have been accomplished by a team of researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Center on Children, Families, and the Law (CCFL). Some of the techniques described here will be familiar, whereas others are …

100 Years Strong: Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services And The On-Going Pursuit For Equal Rights And Equal Justice, Tom I. Romero Ii, Bruce A. Beneke

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Putting Children Last: How Washington Has Failed To Protect The Dependent Child's Best Interest In Visitation, Jennifer K. Smith

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment proposes three amendments to the Washington Visitation Statute that would ensure juvenile courts properly focus on the long-term best interests of children and reduce children's exposure to abuse in the visitation setting. To analyze the existing tension between the rights of parents and the rights of children, Part II of this Comment traces the development of family rights and state intervention under Roman, constitutional, and Washington law. In particular, this Part focuses on the origins of parental rights, the parens patriae right of states, and the rights of children. Part III addresses the dependency process in Washington by …

Foreword: Poverty Law Issue, Ann Juergens

Faculty Scholarship

This Poverty Law Issue provides testimony as to why and how the legal profession, the government, and society can better provide justice for people of small means. Overall, this Poverty Law Issue contributes to understanding how we may ensure that the difficulty of poverty borne by our fellow citizens does not become compounded by injustice. For when justice is compromised for one group, its integrity as a whole may rightly be questioned.

Restoring Legal Aid To The Poor: A Call To End Draconian And Wasteful Restrictions, Rebekah Diller, Emily Savner

Fordham Urban Law Journal

A growing number of national, state, and local voices have called for reform of the legal services restrictions. Reports by Access to Justice and legal services commissions in eighteen states have identified the restrictions as substantial barriers to justice.Others have spoken out about the harms of the restrictions, and particularly their application to non-LSC funds. Describing a lawsuit filed by Oregon against the “program integrity rule,” Governor Ted Kulongoski said: “The important point is that for the first time a state is now party to a suit that attempts to free Legal Aid from restrictions that serve no purpose other …

Untangling The Safety Net: Protecting Federal Benefits From Freezes, Fees, And Garnishmentt, Allen C. Myers

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Whose Safety Net? Reflections On "Untangling", Henry L. Woodward

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Deleveraging Microfinance: Principles For Managing Voluntary Debt Workouts Of Microfinance Institutions, Deborah Burand

Articles

This paper focuses on the challenges of responding to a deleveraging of the microfinance sector and offers guidelines for stakeholders in microfinance-regulators, policymakers, investors (debt and equity), donors, and microfinance providers-for how to address these challenges in the context of a microfinance institution debt workout so as to minimize undue disruption and damage to the microfinance sector as a whole.

Review Of Reforming Medicare: Options, Tradeoffs, And Opportunities, Jill R. Horwitz

Reviews

Medicare needs fixing. The program has its strengths; it is popular among beneficiaries, has very low administrative costs (maybe too low), and, since its inception, has greatly reduced financial risk exposure among beneficiaries. Nevertheless, it is unaffordable and inefficient. Jeanne Lambrew and Henry Aaron take up both of these challenges for Medicare reform in great detail in Reforming Medicare.

The Deficit Reduction Act Of 2005 - Reducing The Number Of Recipients And Applicants Eligible To Receive Medicaid Benefits, Christal Contini

Journal of Law and Health

Medically impaired individuals such as George, as well as disaster victims, mentally handicapped persons, homeless persons, and foster children, will be adversely affected by the new citizenship documentation requirements imposed upon the states by the Act. States will also be adversely affected by the increased administrative costs of implementing the Act's requirements. This note asserts that aspects of the citizenship verification requirements treat citizen applicants worse than immigrant applicants, which violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Amendments should be made to the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations to ease the burden on individuals …

Managing Performance [In Child Welfare Supervision], Megan E. Paul, Michelle Graef, Erika J. Robinson, Kristin Saathoff

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

One of the primary roles of a supervisor is to manage worker performance. Performance management is the "continuous process of identifying, measuring, and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organization" (Aguinis, 2007, p. 2). Supervisors must regularly assess current performance levels and take steps to improve performance in a way that is congruent with agency goals. The ultimate goal is to achieve agency objectives through individual and team performance.

To effectively manage performance, supervisors must know what the performance expectations are for workers and clearly communicate these expectations to workers. …

Echoes Of The Sumptuary Impulse: Considering The Threads Of Social Identity, Economic Protectionism, And Public Morality In The Proposed Design Piracy Prohibition Act, Lucille M. Ponte

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Traditional sumptuary laws, especially those government efforts aimed at regulating public attire, are often considered to be largely dusty relics of pre-industrial societies. Yet cultural legal theorists have long argued that sumptuary codes are still relevant and inextricably linked to the development of our contemporary socio-legal hierarchy. A better understanding of the primary objectives embodied in earlier sumptuary codes can shed important historical light and guidance on issues being discussed in current policy-making arenas, such as the proposed Design Piracy Prohibition Act (DPPA). The proposed law has yielded lively debates amongst legal commentators and industry professionals regarding whether or not …

Of Sweatshops And Human Subsistence: Habermas On Human Rights, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this paper I argue that the discourse theoretic account of human rights defended by Jürgen Habermas contains a fruitful tension that is obscured by its dominant tendency to identify rights with legal claims. This weakness in Habermas’s account becomes manifest when we examine how sweatshops diminish the secure enjoyment of subsistence, which Habermas himself (in recognition of the UDHR) recognizes as a human right. Discourse theories of human rights are unique in tying the legitimacy of human rights to democratic deliberation and consensus. So construed, their specific meaning and force is the outcome of historical political struggle. However, unlike …

Nonprofits And Narrative: Piers Plowman, Anthony Trollope, And Charities Law, Jill R. Horwitz

Articles

What are the narrative possibilities for understanding nonprofit law? Given the porous barriers between nonprofit law and the literature about it, there are many. Here I consider two. First, nonprofit law and nonprofit literature are each enriched and made fully explicable by reference to the other. Nonprofit law has grown in parallel with literature. It may even be that important legal texts, texts about doing and being good, were imported directly from literary sources into law. Second, in writings ranging from sensational journalism to high literature, nonprofit laws and the scandals involving their violations have captured the public imagination for …

Home Sweet Home? The Efficacy Of Rental Restrictions To Promote Neighborhood Stability, Ngai Pindell

Scholarly Works

Homeownership is an enduring and fundamental American tradition whose economic and social benefits are well examined and have received renewed attention in recent articles and books. Tax laws encourage homeownership; debtor-creditor and property laws protect homeowners; and constitutional protections defend homeowners from governmental attempts to exercise eminent domain.

The current economic and housing crises have forced commentators and policymakers to reexamine the connection between traditional conceptions of homeownership and economic stability, particularly for low-income residents. This article questions that traditional conception by exploring how local governments, in an effort to promote regulatory land use goals, frequently limit homeowners' power to …