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The substitution order
No full textA Borzoi Book -title page verso; From Martin Clark--praised by Entertainment Weekly as our best legal-thriller writer --comes a wickedly clever, tenderhearted, and intricately plotted novel about a hard-luck lawyer\u27s refusal to concede defeat, even as fate, the court system, and a gang of untouchable con artists conspire against him. Kevin Moore, once a high-flying Virginia attorney, hits rock bottom after an inexplicably tumultuous summer leaves him disbarred and separated from his wife. Short on cash and looking for work, he lands in the middle of nowhere with a job at SUBstitution, the world\u27s saddest sandwich shop. His closest confidants: a rambunctious rescue puppy and the twenty-year-old computer whiz manning the restaurant counter beside him. He\u27s determined to set his life right again, but the troubles keep coming. And when a bizarre, mysterious stranger wanders into the shop armed with a threatening invitation to join a multimillion-dollar scam, Kevin will need every bit of his legal savvy just to stay out of prison. A remarkable tour of the law\u27s tricks and hidden trapdoors, The Substitution Order is both wise and ingenious, a wildly entertaining novel that will keep you guessing--and rooting for its tenacious hero--until the very last page -- Provided by publisherhttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2020/1006/thumbnail.jp
The Boardwalk option
No full textWhen Robert Worth relocated his law practice to the Venice Beach boardwalk, he never thought he\u27d be cutting movie deals. But when his pal Reyes needs legal help with his film project, Robert agrees to look into it. The road to Hollywood fame takes a crooked turn after a potential billionaire backer turns up dead in his Brentwood mansion--and Reyes is arrested for first-degree murder. Robert may not have any criminal-law experience, but with the help of his girlfriend, Gia, and his buddy Erik, a retired cop, he takes the case. He even zeroes in on the logical prime suspect. Appearances can be deceiving, however, in a city where the truth often ends up on the cutting room floor. It\u27ll take an aggressive lawyer with a fine-tuned BS detector to find the real killer in a sunlit town full of shady characters--unless his own death becomes the next Hollywood option --Amazon.com; A beach lawyer novel --Coverhttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2020/1008/thumbnail.jp
An equal justice
No full textA legal thriller --Front cover; Inside a prestigious law firm, a rookie lawyer is pulled into a dark maze of lies and violence. An ambitious Stanford graduate, David Adams has begun a fast-track career at Austin\u27s most prestigious law firm. It\u27s a personal victory for the rising superstar--a satisfying reversal from his impoverished and despairing childhood. Now he has the life he\u27s always wanted: an extravagant salary, a high-rise condo, a luxury SUV, and no limit to how far he can go in the eyes of the top partners. But after the shocking suicide of a fellow associate--one who, in his final hours, offered David an ominous warning--he feels the pull of powerful forces behind the corporation\u27s enviable trappings. The suicide leads unexpectedly to David\u27s discovery of a secret enclave of the city\u27s homeless, where he can\u27t help but feel an affinity to these outcast souls. Nor can he ignore the feeling that they hold the key to the truth behind a dark conspiracy. When one of his new street friends is murdered, David\u27s clear doubts about his employer start shifting into a dark reality. Now torn between two worlds, David must surrender all that he\u27s achieved to fight for a larger cause of justice--and become his firm\u27s most dangerous acquisition. --Provided by publisherhttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2020/1020/thumbnail.jp
Shifting Liability with Licensing: An Empirical Analysis of Medical Malpractice and Scope-of-Practice Laws
No full textMedical malpractice liability plays an important role in the healthcare system, as evidenced by the many studies finding that changes in malpractice liability risk induce changes in the delivery and consumption of care. Importantly, the effect of malpractice liability depends on who is held liable, and recent developments in the healthcare system have clouded which providers face the risk of liability in certain situations. In particular, as the United States continues to face a physician shortage, nurse practitioners (NPs) have assumed greater roles within the healthcare system. Their ability to provide care, however, depends on state scope-of-practice (SOP) laws which often mandate that physicians supervise NPs’ practices. These mandatory supervision laws can facilitate the ability of injured patients to use various familiar doctrines, e. g. respondeat superior and negligent supervision, to hold supervising physicians liable based on the acts of NPs. As healthcare becomes increasingly team-based and as NPs deliver more care traditionally provided by physicians, understanding the interaction between malpractice liability and SOP laws will become critical.
This Article reports novel empirical evidence on the interplay between malpractice liability and SOP laws. Examining a unique dataset of the malpractice premiums charged to physicians in various specialties, I analyze the extent to which SOP laws requiring that physicians supervise the practices of NPs impact the malpractice liability risk faced by physicians. In general, eliminating physician supervision requirements reduce the malpractice risk faced by physicians (as measured by the premiums paid to insure against this risk) by 7.5 %. In addition to elucidating a previously unappreciated interaction between tort law and state SOP laws, this evidence suggests that the imposition of physician supervision requirements may blunt the role of tort law in deterring the provision of unsafe or low-quality care. If SOP laws facilitate the shifting of liability risk from NPs to physicians through various tort doctrines, then neither NPs nor physicians will be appropriately deterred. Indeed, reaching optimal deterrence for one group would necessarily imply suboptimality for the other. This Article reviews several options to address this problem and recommends removing physician supervision requirements from state SOP laws
Lessons from Mexican Folklore: An Essay on U.S. Immigration Policy, Child Separation, and La Llorona
Get PDFPlenary Power and Animus in Immigration Law
Get PDFAfter a campaign denigrating Muslims as sick people blaming the children of Muslim Americans for terrorism and promising to shut down Muslim immigration and mere days after his inauguration President Donald J Trump banned the nationals of seven majorityMuslim countries from entry into the United States In the litigation that followed one question persisted how should courts analyze an exclusion order when the President invokes a national security justification and there is also direct evidence of racial or religious animus The Supreme Court reviews exclusion decisions deferentially for the existence of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason under Kleindienst v Mandel but explicit animus raises a key question what effect if any does explicit presidential animus have on this deferential standard of review brbrIn Trump v Hawaii the Supreme Court reversed the lower court\u27s grant of a preliminary injunction against the third version of the travel ban The majority deferred to the President\u27s national security justification despite smoking gun evidence of antiMuslim animus because it determined that animus was not the sole motive for the travel ban In dissent Justice Sotomayor argued that a reasonable observer would conclude that the travel ban\u27s primary purpose was to express hostility toward Muslims and deference was unwarranted At the root of this debate is a disagreement about the proper analysis of mixed motivesbrbrAnalyzing deference and analogous doctrines in other areas of law this Article argues for a third way that courts should use a mixed motives framework invalidating a contested law where the same law would not have been promulgated but for animus Under this approach plaintiffs must plausibly allege animus with sufficient particularity Upon plaintiff\u27s motion for a preliminary injunction the government must proffer some evidence of an independently sufficient justification apart from animus for the challenged policy Ultimately the plaintiffs must prove that animus was a necessary motive for the contested law This framework invalidates laws lacking sufficient nonanimus justification but permits laws for which animus is not a necessary motive This Article seeks to offer a way for courts to capture better the benefits of immigration deference while minimizing the costsb
Ecumenical Evangelical Legal Thought: The Contributions of Robert F. Cochran, Jr. Overview: Robert Cochran as Scholar and Institutional Entrepreneur
Get PDFThe Case against Expanding Defamation Law
Get PDFIt is axiomatic that defamation law protects reputation This proposition ”common sensical pervasive and influential ”is wrong But it is wrong in a very instructive way and a careful examination of its mistaken assumptions carries deep lessons for First Amendment jurisprudence defamation law and the regulation of falsehoods across legal fields brbrThe key fallacy is the failure to recognize that laws not only affect how individuals behave but also how they think Whenever an allegation is made individuals decide whether and how much to trust it based on myriad factors One such factor is the strictness of defamation laws To the extent strict defamation laws deter purveyors of falsehoods they also make statements appear more trustworthy as individuals will reason that few would brave a falsity in the face of strong financial sanctions Thus strict defamation laws have the unintended consequence of making individuals more susceptible to believe those statements that are actually false brbrThis heretofore unrecognized complexity of defamation law has the potential of tipping the scales in First Amendment jurisprudence towards greater protection of free speech and free press Most urgently these findings give pause to the presidential calls to fight ˜fake news\u27 by expanding libel laws by showing that such laws may well backfire and exaggerate the effect of fake new
Associations and Cities as (Forbidden) Pure Private Attorneys General
Get PDFThe Supreme Court interprets Article III\u27s case-or-controversy language to require a plaintiff to show injury in fact, causation, and redressability. A plaintiff who meets that tripartite test has standing to sue and thus a personal stake in pursuing the litigation. Accord- ingly, in Sierra Club v. Morton, the Supreme Court prohibited pure private attorneys general: litigants who would sue without the requisite personal stake. This limitation extends to organizations. They, too, must show standing on their own account or, under Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Commission, identify a member with Article Ill standing and show how the lawsuit is germane to the organization\u27s purpose. Yet when Hunt interacts with the complexities of modern standing doctrine, it becomes clear that many associations, particularly those that are large or have broad purposes, can show standing for vir- tually any lawsuit. Moreover, recent scholarship has plausibly sug- gested that municipalities can be treated as associations under Hunt; municipalpurposes are so broad, and some cities are so big, that they could litigate almost any case they wish. But the purpose of the ban on pure private attorneys general is to avoid giving any plaintiff a roving commission to enforce the law. Thus, Sierra Club and Hunt are in serious tension. This unnoticed conflict is further evidence of the notorious inco- herence of Article III standing itself and might sensibly trigger a rethinking of the entire doctrine. Such reform seems highly unlikely, however, given nearly fifty years of standing\u27s reign. Alternatively, Congress-which is far better placed than the courts to make nec- essary factual determinations-could take steps to resolve the conflict between Sierra Club and Hunt. But Congress has other priorities. More modestly, the Court could make some changes at the margins of Hunt and Sierra Club, to ameliorate the tension between the two strands of standing doctrine
The midnight call
No full textWho would ever suspect that their mentor, teacher, and friend is a cold-blooded killer? Attorney Jessie Martin didn\u27t--at least not until she answers the midnight call. Late one August night, Jessie\u27s lifelong mentor and friend--and presently a popular, charismatic, and handsome high school teacher--Terrence Butterfield calls. He utters a startling admission: he\u27s killed someone. He pleads for Jessie\u27s help, so out of loyalty she rushes to his aid completely unaware that she\u27s risking her relationship, her career, and her life--and that of her unborn child--to help Terrence. Does Jessie\u27s presence at Terrence\u27s home implicate her in the gruesome murder of the teenage boy found in the basement? Why does Terrence betray Jessie when he has a chance to exonerate her of any charges? Has he been a monster in disguise for all these years? To reclaim her life and prove her innocence, Jessie must untangle the web of lies and reveal the shocking truths behind the homicide. This quest turns out to be the fight of her life: to preserve everything and everyone she holds dearhttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2020/1015/thumbnail.jp