Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute
Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of LawNot a member yet
8606 research outputs found
Sort by
Release the River: Recognizing Legal Rights for Natural Objects to Remedy Continuing Issues in American Environmental Law
Get PDFClouded Precedent: \u3cem\u3eTandon v. Newsom\u3c/em\u3e and its Implications for the Shadow Docket
Get PDFThe Supreme Court’s “shadow docket”—the decisions issued outside its procedures for deciding cases on the merits—has drawn increasing attention and criticism from scholars, commentators, and elected representatives. Shadow docket decisions have been criticized on the grounds that they are made without the benefit of full briefing and argument, and because their abbreviated, per curiam opinions can be difficult for lower courts to interpret.
A spate of shadow docket decisions in the context of free-exercise challenges to COVID-19 public health orders culminated in Tandon v. Newsom, a potentially groundbreaking decision that may upend longstanding doctrines governing claims brought under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.1 But Tandon also introduces an element of uncertainty. Will lower courts treat it as they would a merits decision, or will they apply it with caution, given its status as a shadow docket case?
After reviewing the existing literature on the shadow docket and explaining the potential significance of Tandon, this Article examines the initial decisions that have grappled with the case. Noting that some judges have treated Tandon as a major shift in free-exercise law, while others have minimized or essentially ignored it, I suggest that in several respects Tandon is similar to Bush v. Gore, another per curiam opinion that some courts have been reluctant to apply as precedent. The experience of Tandon suggests that pronouncements in the Supreme Court’s shadow docket opinions do not produce the same level of consistency and legal certainty as those in merits opinions, providing further evidence for those arguing that the Court’s current shadow docket practices warrant reform
Baldy Center Podcast Episode 9 Picture
No full textPhoto courtesy of Mufid Majnun on Unsplashhttps://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/baldy_center_images/1008/thumbnail.jp
Baldy Center Podcast Episode 18 Picture
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/baldy_center_images/1015/thumbnail.jp
Citation Sources for Legal Scholarship: Ranking the Top 28 Law Faculties
Get PDFPublished in The Role of Citation in the Law: A Yale Law School Symposium, Michael Chiorazzi, ed.
This study examines the effects of the data source on citation metrics and faculty rankings by comparing three sources of legal scholarship citation data: Google Scholar, Westlaw, and HeinOnline. It compares six years of citations to works by all of the tenured and tenure-track members of the top twenty-eight faculties as determined by two recent legal citation studies. Rankings generated using the Leiter-Sisk method on the data from the three sources showed moderate to high correlation (0. 77 to 0. 96) to each other. Total citations and total publications for each faculty were moderately to highly correlated to rankings, while faculty size showed low to moderate correlation. Citations-per-faculty member showed very high correlation (0.98 to 0.99) to all three sources. Because citations-per-faculty member is such a strong driver of the Leiter-Sisk method, a school could game the rankings by buying out or otherwise moving less-cited or unproductive faculty, thereby reducing the number of faculty and increasing citations-per-faculty member. Use of metrics like the h-index, which only takes highly cited papers into account, or other composite metrics would reduce the opportunity for gaming in this manner.https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/law_librarian_book_sections/1004/thumbnail.jp
Baldy Center Podcast Episode 3 Picture
No full textBook cover courtesy of David A. Westbrook, 2020.https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/baldy_center_images/1002/thumbnail.jp