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Legal After-Shocks on the Energy Seismograph: Judicial Prohibition of Recent State Regulation and Promotion of Power
Get PDF“If Congress won\u27t act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.” ~ President Obama, State of the Union Speech, February 2014
As set forth above, as a result of unilateral executive action, critical technology and modern American society are changing fundamentally. But is this form of executive action legal? There are significant unresolved legal issues as to what can and cannot be accomplished with executive action alone, without concurrence of Congress. Now before the Supreme Court for decision is the question of whether the executive branch can unilaterally alter its interpretation of regulatory law.
This article examines the legal ‘flex’ of executive power within Constitutional governance. Unilateral executive branch regulation and interpretation is now controlling how private industry uses technology. The article examines pivotal executive actions taken through the “back door” with no legislative concurrence. And this issue assumes center stage when presidential control of the executive branch changes. Unilateral executive action is changing the fundamental technology for one of the most important inventions in history. The article places in legal context each variant type of executive action
The Cure for the Distracted Mind: Why Law Schools Should Teach Mindfulness
Get PDFBuilding on scientific evidence that mindfulness meditation can improve attention, learning, working memory capacity, academic achievement, empathy, self-compassion, and creativity, and that it can reduce stress and anxiety, this article proposes that mindfulness should be an essential element in law school curriculum. Part I discusses how distractedness has impacted attention and learning. Part II describes the last decade of research showing the cognitive and physical benefits of mindfulness. Part III discusses the critique of the traditional law school format and advocates that law schools should follow medicine and industry in using mindfulness training to address these issues
Law School Rules, Regulations and policies, 8/2015 (digital version)
No full texthttps://dc.suffolk.edu/suls-catalogs/1084/thumbnail.jp
Suffolk Journal, vol. 75, no. 20, 4/1/2015 (April Fool\u27s Issue)
Get PDFhttps://dc.suffolk.edu/journal/1604/thumbnail.jp
Lose the Battle, Win the War: The Use, Dangers, and Problems Surrounding Rules 806 and 608(B), and How They Can Be Fixed
Get PDFThe Quintessential Political Problem: Current Conditions Justifying Current Burdens and the Modern Shift in Election Law Scrutiny
Get PDFBarcelona, Spain as a Model for the Creation of Innovation Districts and Sustainable Social Housing Without Spatial Segregation
Get PDFSuburban growth in the post-World War II era led to the deterioration of central cities as the migration of more affluent households left a greater concentration of the poor and minorities in the core. To some extent, the twenty-first century’s global networking economy is reversing this trend because the workplace now thrives on the collaboration of a highly skilled labor force working in close proximity to each other. A number of cities have revitalized under-utilized urban areas, including obsolete industrial sectors, by turning them into vibrant cityscapes that provide an attractive environment for an information and technology driven economy. Barcelona, Spain’s new innovation district provides an excellent model for the successful transformation of an industrial area into a viable entrepreneurial core of mixed uses and green space. Known as the 22@ Project, the innovation district provides a structure for the creation of knowledge, technology, and scientific based businesses, 4,000 social housing units, and green space as well as the infrastructure necessary to support the new activities.
This article explores how Barcelona’s innovation district can serve as an exemplar for the regeneration of urban areas into productive networking hubs in the United States. It examines the key elements of Barcelona’s plan to regenerate an under-utilized industrial area. In particular, the article focuses on the 22@ Project’s subsidized housing element and evaluates its applicability to other metropolitan regions.
The article argues that Barcelona’s commitment to avoid social exclusion on the basis of race and income should be emulated by other providers of publicly subsidized housing. It traces the history of spatially segregated public housing in the United States and outlines strategies to increase opportunities for integration in publicly assisted housing. The article analyzes possible constraints upon the provision of inclusionary housing in the United States following the United States Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District. Using the Barcelona innovation district as a guide, the article provides suggestions as to how housing should be planned in an innovation district to maximize the opportunities for economic growth, social cohesion, and enhanced sustainability
Reinventing the Core U.S. Technology Through the Push of New Regulation Leveraging Market Pull
Get PDFUnilateral Presidential executive action is now used to implement new law and regulation, without participation of the Congress pursuant to Article I of the Constitution. Such actions create a visible and controversial legal confrontation regarding separation of powers. Certain unilateral executive action examined in this article is forcing technological and environmental change which is fundamentally transforming society. This article critically analyzes the revolutionary maelstrom forged by the interface of unilateral executive regulatory orders, law, and the ‘invisible hand’ of market dynamics on climate change.After 800 years of Greenhouse Gas concentration levels hovering in the atmosphere between 175-250 part per million (ppm), they have now increased to 400 ppm and are climbing rapidly. This article examines the nuances of executive action and climate change. It analyzes the legality of state and federal regulatory incentive ‘pushes’ forging a fundamental national power change, including recent federal tax incentives and state renewable portfolio standards and net metering regulatory orders. This article then analyzes the invisible ‘pull’ of changing market forces. The article then shifts to analyze courts actions declaring some of these state energy program “pushes” unconstitutional and have stricken them
A Behavioral Theory of Legal Ethics
No full textImagine a lawyer who discovers that a client has several smoking gun documents that will doom the client’s case if produced in discovery. Also assume the client tells the lawyer to use all lawful methods to avoid producing the information. Some legal ethicists argue that the lawyer should comply with the client’s instruction and pursue every permissible tactic, i.e., go right up to the line but not cross it. Critics of this so-called “dominant view” suggest that the lawyer should take into account other considerations, such as the interests of justice or morality. One important practical problem with these competing prescriptions is that they do not help lawyers avoid unethical conduct. For example, even though the dominant view says that lawyers should protect the potentially discoverable documents only to the extent permissible under the law, lawyers who claim to be following the dominant view often cross the line. Similarly, prosecutors who are committed to the pursuit of justice regularly fail to comply with their constitutional obligations to disclose material exculpatory information to defense counsel. These failures raise an important question: why do lawyers who subjectively believe they are complying with prevailing theories of legal ethics — whether the dominant view or its alternatives — fail to apply the theories in the manner scholars intend? This article suggests that the answer lies in social psychology. A vast body of research reveals that situational factors, such as placing a lawyer in a partisan role, can result in behavior that is inconsistent with conventional ethics theories. This article suggests that legal ethicists can develop more accurate and useful theories by accounting for the ways in which partisanship distorts objectivity, just as behavioral economists have drawn on social psychology to develop more accurate and useful understandings of economics
Fair, Reasonable and Adequate According to Who? Cy Pres Distributions that Result in Cheap Settlements and Generous Attorney Fees, But No Financial Benefit to Class Members
Get PDFIn her recent article, Professor Rhonda Wasserman argues that class action settlements that distribute funds cy pres raise a very serious risk of prejudice to absent class members. The problem, she asserts, is the temptation for class counsel to sell out the interests of absent class members in exchange for a discounted settlement for the defendant and a generous fee for class counsel. To illustrate her concern, she cites the 6.5 million to a nascent charity that was controlled -- at least partially -- by the defendant, $3 million to class counsel and nothing to the 3 million absent class members. Professor Wasserman argues that courts cannot have a laissez faire attitude toward protecting absent class members and she proposes a number of procedural reforms to ensure that cy pres distributions are only used when absolutely necessary. While her proposals are likely to provoke increased judicial scrutiny of cy pres distributions, the article stops short of addressing the principal question: when, if ever, is a settlement that distributes funds cy pres “fair, reasonable and adequate” to the absent class members? This Response addresses the principal question omitted from Professor Wasserman’s article and asserts that representations of counsel who are aligned in support of a proposed agreement and stand to gain from its approval are insufficient to find a proposed settlement agreement “fair, reasonable, and adequate.” Rather, Rule 23(e) demands that courts base a fairness finding upon objectively reliable evidence and this Response offers a proposal for how district courts may acquire such evidence