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Office Hours on Mergers and Acquisitions
No full textOffice Hours on Mergers and Acquisitions by Christina Sautter is part of the West Academic Office Hours series. The audiobook provides concise explanations of key topics and questions related to mergers and acquisitions law. Designed to support student learning, it offers clear guidance on complex issues frequently discussed during faculty office hours.https://scholar.smu.edu/facbooks/1074/thumbnail.jp
Solving the Public Defense Crisis in Kansas
Full text linkKansas has a constitutional obligation to provide counsel to any arrested person who cannot afford to hire a private attorney. But attorney shortages in Kansas threaten this core constitutional right. According to the American Bar Association, there are an average of four attorneys per 1,000 people nationwide. However, only six of Kansas’s 105 counties have two or more attorneys per 1,000 people. In 44 counties, there is just one attorney or fewer per 1,000 residents. The situation is particularly worrisome in rural Kansas. In 2023, nearly half of Kansas’s population lived in rural counties, but 80% of its lawyers lived in its six largest counties. Two rural counties— Wichita County and Hodgeman County—had no attorneys at all.https://scholar.smu.edu/deasoncenter/1012/thumbnail.jp
Dissecting the Frog: How a Meme Explains the Westlaw/Lexis and Generational Divide
Full text linkOne of the most controversial elements of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris was a drag show during the opening ceremony that allegedly parodied Christianity by recreating Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. A legal meme emerged showing both images side by side, labeling da Vinci’s painting “Westlaw” and the drag show “Lexis.” In this article, I explain why this meme is funny by showing how the differences between Westlaw and Lexis+, and legal minds’ attitudes towards those differences, offer fascinating parallels to this controversy. Westlaw’s print-focused, grid-oriented organization and aesthetic might appeal to the trained legal mind, but Lexis’s emphasis on discrete information and keyword searching might make the database more appealing to new attorneys and law students who are increasingly unfamiliar with print resources. By embracing the beauty of something new and unfamiliar, attorneys of any age can improve themselves and their profession
Dangers from Regulatory Vacuums in Outer, Inner, and Near Space
Full text linkSpace, “the final frontier,” has become an attractive but increasingly risky market for both public and private investments. Gold rush enthusiasm anticipates solutions to the digital divide via small low earth orbiting satellites, extraction of valuable minerals from asteroids, a vibrant space launch and tourism industry, and expanding earth observation opportunities. Such entrepreneurial boldness juxtaposes with a severe lag in government oversight, consumer safeguards, and essential operational guardrails. The ambitious plans of Elon Musk and other space entrepreneurs could fail—despite recent market success—as SpaceX’s plans for 148 rocket launches in 2024.
Without substantial refinement of global space treaties and effective national regulation, expanding and imprudent use of space resources could render the most valuable regions of space unusable. Satellites could collide or crash into orbiting debris at extremely high speeds, most likely in a crowded orbital region, such as 200–1,200 miles above Earth where low earth orbiting satellites operate.
Even more costly calamities would occur when a valuable, fully operational satellite collides with space debris––such as a deactivated satellite––or when it becomes a target in a test of anti-satellite (ASAT) technology. The likelihood of spacecraft collisions increases substantially when spacefaring nations and private ventures do not nudge useless objects upward, farther into deep space, or on a downward trajectory toward Earth that usually results in complete vaporization. The testing and future use of ASAT technology risks weaponizing space, despite treaty-level commitments to use it solely for peaceful purposes benefitting everyone.
This article explains how national governments have generated or tolerated the proliferation of space debris to potentially dangerous levels without penalty. It further explains that intergovernmental agreements, such as the five space treaties administered by the United Nations and the space resource and spectrum management agreements of the International Telecommunication Union, have neither required space debris mitigation nor sanctioned operators responsible for generating more waste.
The failure to address and resolve proliferating space debris from ASATs and abandoned space objects will increase the potential for calamities that would render space access too risky. The article identifies how intergovernmental agreements can mandate space debris mitigation, impose sanctions for noncompliance, and create financial incentives for recycling and removing existing debris
From Clusters to Frameworks: Synthesis, Engineering, and Application of Sub-2-Nanometer Nanoclusters and Microporous Covalent Organic Frameworks
Full text linkIn this dissertation, we have investigated the complex interplay of atomic composition, structural modifications in covalent organic frameworks (COFs), and atomic-level designs in bimetallic chiral nanoclusters (NCs). By synthesizing COFs and bimetallic NCs, we elucidated how these elements govern their exceptional catalytic, optical, and electronic properties. Our work demonstrates that precise atomic adjustments, tailored pore engineering in COFs, and the strategic use of chiral ligands in NCs enable fine-tuned reactivity and stability. These advancements were applied to enhance photocatalytic performance, optimize iodine adsorption, and facilitate asymmetric A3 coupling reactions, laying a robust foundation for practical applications and future innovations in materials science