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Lance Long, Is There Any Science Behind the Art of Legal Writing, 16 Wyo. L. Rev. 287 (2016)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Rebecca C. Morgan, Family Matters in an Elder Law Practice, 29 Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers 109 (2016)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Kirsten K. Davis, Rhetorical Criticism as Essential Legal Skill: Some Thoughts on Developing Lawyers as “Public Citizens”, 16 Communication Law Review 43 (2016)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
The Model Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers, upon which nearly all fifty state supreme courts base their legal ethics codes, direct lawyers to pursue the public good in their role as "public citizen[s] with special responsibility for justice." Yet, the lawyer as a public citizen is undertheorized in the literature and is not the focus of legal education. And even if this role is deemed important, questions remain of what, exactly, is the lawyer's responsibility as a "public citizen" and what skills a lawyer should possess to fulfill this role.
This essay first describes how the Model Rules of Professional Conduct — the lawyer's ethical rules — rhetorically construct the public citizen role but offer little on how the lawyer should implement this role in her professional life. It then offers how others have attempted to put flesh on the bones of the "public citizen" role so as to have as complete a view as possible of what that role means for lawyers. It explains the generally well-accepted view that law schools have largely failed to teach skills and instill values related to lawyers' roles as public citizens. And, finally, it argues that teaching rhetorical criticism skills in law school can play a central part in giving lawyers the intellectual skills to perform their roles as fiduciaries of the rule of law and participatory democracy and to understand themselves as moral actors in the public sphere.
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Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, Shooting Your Brand in the Foot: What Citizens United Invites, 68 Rutgers U. L. Rev. 1295 (2016)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Part of what makes corporate political spending so fraught is the how valuable brand identity is to the average firm, the heterogeneous political views of customers and shareholders, as well as the increasing political polarization of the many segments of the America public. This means that corporate political spending which associates a brand with one political party is likely to alienate customers or shareholders who feel strongly affiliated with the opposite political party. American consumers have a long tradition of boycotting goods or services for political reasons and American shareholders have a history of divesting to make a political point. Thus there is a nontrivial risk that customers and investors will vote with their dollars when they discover corporate political activity. Furthermore, the ability to boycott or divest has been given a technological boost with the advent of multiple smartphone applications that provide end-users with instantaneous data about the politics behind mass marketed brands. This technology empowers a consumer to buy goods that are more closely aligned with the consumer’s political views and for investors to do the same with stocks. Finally this piece explores how consumer groups and investors have both coordinated efforts to pressure firms to leave the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). This type of orchestrated one-two punch could be the wave of the future for politically active firms.
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Stacey-Rae Simcox, Thirty Years after ‘Walters’ the Mission is Clear, the Execution is Muddled: A Fresh Look at the Supreme Court’s Decision to Deny Veterans the Due Process Right to Hire Attorneys in the VA Benefits Process, 84 U. Cin. L. Rev. 671 (2016)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, Slaves to the Bottom Line: The Corporate Role in Slavery from Nuremberg to Now, 46 Stetson L. Rev. 167 (2016)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Evidence of the inadequacy of our current legal system in dealing with the corporate role in slavery can be found on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court from 2015. Tucked in among the blockbuster cases about abortion, affirmative action, and political corruption in the 2015–2016 Supreme Court term was a little‐noticed certiorari petition from Nestlé U.S.A. asking, essentially, to be dismissed from a case that alleged the company had aided and abetted the slavery of children in Côte d’Ivoire. One of the troubling things about Nestlé U.S.A.’s asking to be let out of the suit was that its legal argument was not an outrageous request given recent Supreme Court cases that make it nearly impossible for human rights plaintiffs to bring successful suits against multinational corporations in U.S. courts.
This Article argues that, at a minimum, U.S. courts need to be reopened as proper fora for hearing civil human rights cases brought against multinational corporations that do significant business in the United States, regardless of where the harm occurred. The reason that American courts should be reopened is not just to give financial relief to victims, but also to change the calculus within corporations to make slave labor as financially unattractive as possible. But, further, this Article argues that we need to get back to the moral clarity of the Nuremberg trials of the industrialists and have the fortitude to actually prosecute corporate actors that knowingly perpetuate slavery.
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Stacey-Rae Simcox, The Need for Better Medical Evidence in VA Disability Compensation Cases and the Argument for More Medical-Legal Partnerships, 68 S.C. L. Rev. 223 (2016)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability compensation process is intended to recompense military veterans who suffer a physical or mental disability caused by their service in the United States military. Anyone who has worked to help a veteran navigate the VA disability compensation system knows that the process can be daunting. A veteran is required to provide evidence to the VA that the disability he suffers is related to his military service. While the VA system does have procedures that are intended to ease the burden of providing this evidence, the overall implementation of the system, particularly when it applies to medical evidence, is not terribly efficient or effective. Recognizing the importance of medical evidence in particular to establish a veteran's entitlement to disability compensation, this Article intends to 1) provide an overview of the veteran's need for medical evidence; 2) discuss some of the issues within the VA system that inhibit a veteran from reaping the statutory benefit Congress intended the VA system to provide; and 3) provide an alternate method of helping veterans to navigate the medical evidentiary requirements of this process. To explore these topics, a case study will be provided in order to examine the issues in more depth.
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Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, A locked iPhone; Unlocked Corporate Constitutional Rights, 164 U. Pa. L. Rev. 287 (2016)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Anne E. Mullins, Jedi or Judge: How the Human Mind Redefines Judicial Opinions, 16 Wyo. L. Rev. 325 (2016)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Judith A.M. Scully, Examining and Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Strategies for a Better Future, 68 Ark. L. Rev. 959 (2016)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.