5033 research outputs found
Sort by
The New Goliaths: How Corporations Use Software to Dominate Industries, Kill Innovation, and Undermine Regulation
No full textAn approach to reinvigorating economic competition that doesn’t break up corporate giants, but compels them to share their technology, data, and knowledge “Bessen is a master of unpacking the nuances of a complex array of interrelated trends to build a coherent story of how the promise of the democratized Internet ended up under the control of just a few. Read The New Goliaths to see how the forest came to have only room for a few tall trees with the rest of us in the undergrowth.”—Joshua Gans, coauthor of Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence Historically, competition has powered progress under capitalism. Companies with productive new products rise to the top, but sooner or later, competitors come along with better innovations and disrupt the threat of monopoly. Dominant firms like Walmart, Amazon, and Google argue that this process of “creative destruction” prevents them from becoming too powerful or entrenched. But the threat of competition has sharply decreased over the past twenty years, and today’s corporate giants have come to power by using proprietary information technologies to create a tilted playing field. This development has increased economic inequality and social division, slowed innovation, and allowed dominant firms to evade government regulation. In the face of increasing calls to break up the largest companies, James Bessen argues that a better way to restore competitive balance and dynamism is to encourage or compel these companies to share technology, data, and knowledge.https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/books/1125/thumbnail.jp
Creating Tomorrow’s Change-makers: Using Alternative Media in the 1L Skills Classroom to Connect Students with Real Practice and Enhance Established Methods for Teaching Appellate Advocacy
Get PDFFostering that idea of lawyers as change-makers can be difficult in the typical 1L curriculum. The traditional, doctrinal law school classroom typically has a formula comprised of extensive textbook reading, the Socratic classroom, in which that reading is processed in a large group, and, finally, a cumulative, high-stakes exam at the end of the semester.6 That formula has largely not changed for decades.7 The lawyering skills classroom is often the only outlier from that formula for first-year law students.8 Even so, the skills classroom can be formulaic in its own right—introduction of an assignment, classroom instruction regarding needed skills to complete the assignment, a draft, a markup, a conference, additional instruction, and a final written work product.
While creativity certainly abounds in many legal skills classrooms, use of “alternative media” does not necessarily play a significant role. Barring the occasional clip of an appellate argument or a motion hearing, or a quick YouTube video or TED Talk on the periphery of a topic, “alternative media” is often missing from the mainstream skills classroom. For many instructors, there is simply not enough time to incorporate additional, seemingly optional, material because of the limited credits, and limited classroom hours, assigned to these courses.
Accordingly, in Part I of this article we define “alternative media” and provide some examples of ways in which it is already used in the law classroom. In Part II, we argue that, despite the time crunch, using alternative media inside and outside of the traditional classroom benefits law students and increases their skills learning for a variety of reasons supported by learning theory and science. In Part III, we discuss the prevalence of written and oral appellate advocacy instruction in the 1L skills classroom and outline established teaching practices in that area that largely do not involve alternative media.
Finally, in Part IV, we discuss two ways in which to introduce podcasts, our preferred version of alternative media, into legal skills classrooms to enhance appellate advocacy skills and create change-makers. One method involves the creation of a homemade podcast interview with an expert in appellate advocacy that complements traditional instruction, and one involves a professionally made podcast, In the Dark (Season Two), that strengthens the teaching of appellate advocacy skills by taking a deep dive into one compelling case and, specifically, the Supreme Court oral argument that ended over two decades of prosecutorial abuse. In both podcasts, students meet appellate lawyers who are change-makers and who use appellate advocacy as their primary tool in representing their clients
Savings Institutions: Mergers, Acquisitions and Conversions
No full textThe Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 brought about the most sweeping changes in banking and thrift regulation since the enactment of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989. Most significantly, this wideranging legislative response to the financial crisis of 2008 abolished the Office of Thrift Supervision (“OTS”), which many in Congress viewed as an ineffective regulator, and transferred its functions to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”), the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”), and the newly created Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, an independent agency in the Federal Reserve System. Specifically, the Dodd-Frank Act transferred the supervision of savings and loan holding companies, as well as all rulemaking authority relating to them, to the Federal Reserve Board. The Board also acquired the OTS’s rulemaking authority relating to tying arrangements and to transactions with affiliates and extensions of credit to executive officers, directors and principal shareholders. The OCC took over all OTS functions relating to federal savings associations and all rulemaking authority relating to savings associations. Finally, all OTS functions relating to state savings associations were transferred to the FDIC. In addition, the Act transferred the OTS’s consumer financial protection functions to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. Although the OTS was disbanded, all OTS orders, interpretations and guidelines continued in effect and may be enforced by the appropriate federal regulator.
In this Release, we continue to revise and update the text to replace references to OTS with references to its successor regulators, the Federal Reserve for holding companies, the FDIC for state-chartered thrifts, and the OCC for Federal charters. Nonetheless, a diminishing number of references to OTS and its predecessor agency, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (“FHLBB”) remain to be updated. Depending on the context, these references should be understood to refer to the restructured Dodd-Frank regulatory scheme. Some references will be retained to show how the regulation of savings institutions and their holding companies has evolved
Sy-STEM-ic Bias: An Exploration of Gender and Race Representation on University Patents
Get PDFPeople of color and women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math (“STEM”) fields in the United States. Through both intentional and unintentional structural barriers, universities continue to lose valuable intellectual resources by perpetuating a lack of gender, racial, and ethnic diversity as people climb the academic ladder. Identifying racial and gender disparities between university campus populations and their patent representation quantifies the qualitatively observed systemic racism and sexism plaguing STEM. Although many have written about racial and gender underrepresentation in STEM, no author has ever endeavored to simultaneously quantify the racial and gender gap at universities in the United States, especially not in the field of patent inventorship recognition. Without data quantifying the underrepresentation of women and people of color, specifically when protecting their intellectual property rights, universities cannot show that their programs designed to close these gaps are, in fact, effective.
This is the first paper to quantitatively estimate the patent gap between white, male inventors, inventors of color, and female inventors at Ivy League institutions, Historically Black Colleges or Universities (“HBCUs”), research institutions, and other highly ranked universities in the United States. By comparing the racial and gender representation on university patents to the representation at the university, the data can conclusively demonstrate that intellectual property underrepresentation is rampant within a seemingly equalizing environment, where every student and faculty member theoretically has equal access to university funding and legal representation to obtain patents on their intellectual property. Universities and researchers can use this data to determine whether mentorship, outreach, tenure-track, and funding programs implemented to close racial and gender gaps are effective or simply restorative justice theater. With underrepresentation gaps of over 2600%, universities are obligated to pursue programs for practical academic equity, rather than false promises of equal opportunity
The 1876 Election: A Fictionalized Account
Get PDFAfter the 1985 death of Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith extinguished the Lincoln line a lengthy manuscript, containing this episode, was found among his papers. The manuscript was inscribed with these words: “This is a history of what might have been. Real places and names have been used but many of the details, including widely-known events and personalities, have been fictionalized. My hope is that someday, many years from now, historians might discover this manuscript and become confused.” The identity of the author is not revealed.This is a fictionalized version of the Electoral Commission’s proceedings and the proceedings in Congress that led to the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes as President despite the fact that Democrat Samuel Tilden received a majority of the popular votes, the only person to have received a majority and not been elected President. It is part of a larger work of fiction addressing what might have happened in the civil rights arena if Abraham Lincoln had served two full terms as President and gone on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
A Critique of Expertise for Health Law
Get PDFA health justice approach requires a progressive critique of expertise. This article considers two recent high-profile cases – the mask mandate and medication abortion -- to understand how we should think the mobilization of expertise in the context of public health law. Following from this, the article offers news ways to better understand how to think of the relationship between health law, expertise, and politics
INTRODUCTION: AMR Belongs in the Pandemic Instrument
Get PDFIn the wake of COVID-19, the World Health Organization established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to negotiate a new instrument for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. This special issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics brings together multidisciplinary scholarship to address the question of whether antimicrobial resistance should be included in this new instrument. Drawing from disciplines including law, anthropology, history, public health, public policy, economics, and veterinary medicine, this special issue explores the inclusion of AMR within the Pandemic Instrument from three perspectives: first, through the lens of global AMR governance, second, from the perspective of technical governance challenges and opportunities affecting the global ability to address AMR and future pandemics, and third, from the perspective of pandemic instrument mechanisms for strengthening global AMR governance. Each paper makes a concrete recommendation with respect to the importance of including AMR within the scope of the pandemic instrument
The Partnership Mystique: Law Firm Finance and Governance for the 21st Century American Law Firm
Get PDFThis Article identifies and analyzes the de facto and de jure end of lawyers\u27 exclusivity over the practice of law in the United States. This development will have profound implications for the legal profession, the careers of individual lawyers, and the justice system as a whole.
First, the Article argues that various financial products that have recently flooded the legal market are functionally equivalent to investing in and owning law firms and create all the same governance challenges as allowing nonlawyers to directly own stock in law firms.
Second, the Article analyzes Arizona\u27s groundbreaking legalization of nonlawyer participation in law firms, effective January 1, 2021, and the effects it will have nationally.
Third, the Article explains that the drawbacks of liberalizing the practice of law are rooted in the conception of shareholder primacy, a bedrock principle of corporate law. This principle would encourage lawyers to prioritize profit maximization for the benefit of their investors over the interests of clients and the courts.
Fourth, despite the apparent dangers, there are reasons to celebrate the end of the era of the legal practice as the exclusive purview of lawyers. Lawyers\u27 monopoly on the practice of law hinders inclusion and diversity and, counterintuitively, undermines practitioners\u27 dignity and well-being.
Fifth, the apparent dangers of liberalization can be avoided if states follow Arizona in allowing nonlawyer participation in the practice of law but condition it on organization as an Alternative Business Structure with certain professional responsibilities. More specifically, the Article proposes a type of benefit entity, which I call legal benefit entity (LBE). LBEs will be required to privilege the interests of clients and the courts over those of investors. The final Part explains what an LBE should look like
Whitner v. State
No full textThe decision of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts concerned the difficult problem of defining the quantum of intoxication abrogates a person’s ability to consent to sex. The jury convicted a police officer, who was summoned to assist a highly intoxicated person, of rape of that person. However, the high court overturned the conviction, holding that the “wholly insensible” test was too vague to support a legal conviction. Notably, the court offered no alternative to the rejected test, essentially leaving the state without any rule about the degree of intoxication or other incapacitation abrogates consent
Antimicrobial Resistance: What’s at Stake and What Are We Doing About It?
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic has been a direct threat to our health and wealth. It is also a warning of the public health and economic crises awaiting if we do not address the threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Nearly 700,000 deaths per year worldwide are attributed to AMR, with a potential annual loss of up to $3.4 trillion by 2030. After the conference, the comprehensive GRAM study was released in the Lancet, attributing 1.27 million deaths in 2019 to drug-resistant bacteria. In a post-antimicrobial era, today’s routine medical and surgical procedures would become a game of Russian roulette.
Resistance occurs when microorganisms undergo changes that render medicines used to treat them ineffective, leaving patients vulnerable to illness, adverse events, or death. Physicians need new drugs to treat patients with resistant infections but also need to preserve the effectiveness of existing antibiotics. There are several established contributors to resistance including agricultural misuse, environmental pollution and poor pollution controls during production, clinician overprescription of existing medicines to meet patient demand, and patient nonadherence to established treatment protocols