The Battle to Protect the American Public Will Become Even More Difficult
Richard J. Pierce, Jr. · April 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 845 (2011) Rena Steinzor and Sidney Shapiro’s The People’s Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public: Special interests, Government, and Threats to Health, Safety and the Environment is compulsory reading for anyone who is interested in the performance of regulatory agencies.... Read More
Money for Senate Seats and Other Seventeenth Amendment Politicking: How to Amend the Constitution to Prevent Political Scandal During the Filling of Senate Vacancies
Daniel T. Shedd · April 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 960 (2011) Currently, thirty-three states permit their governors to appoint replacements to the United States Senate without any checks on the appointment procedure. As the previous two anecdotes illustrate, this practice can lead to political gamesmanship and political scandals that decrease public trust in... Read More
American Idol: The Domestic and International Implications of Preferencing the Highly Educated and Highly Skilled in U.S. Immigration Law
Kayleigh Scalzo · April 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 926 (2011) In the category of employment-based (“EB”) immigration, the INA gives significant preference to highly skilled and highly educated aliens at the expense of unskilled and skilled aliens. The statute uses language such as “extraordinary ability,” “sustained national or international acclaim,” and “exceptional ability”... Read More
National Standards and Tests: The Worst Solution to America’s Educational Problems . . . Except for All the Others
Thomas F. Risberg · April 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 890 (2011) The No Child Left Behind Act (“NCLB”) requires states to create standards, test those standards, have a certain percentage of students be deemed proficient based on the tests, and show improvement on the tests in order to receive certain federal funds. These... Read More
A Solution to the Spoliation Chaos: Rule 37(e)’s Unfulfilled Potential to Bring Uniformity to Electronic Spoliation Disputes
Alexander B. Hastings · April 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 860 (2011) The need to address electronic discovery and the questions that surround this issue becomes more pressing with each passing day. The Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure (“Judicial Conference”) recently proposed Rule 37(e) to alleviate the worries of parties... Read More
The Paradox of McDonald v. City of Chicago
David S. Cohen · April 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 823 (2011) On the last day of its 2010 Term, the Supreme Court issued the landmark decision of McDonald v. City of Chicago, holding that the Second Amendment is incorporated against state and local governments. On its face, the 5–4 decision is simple enough,... Read More
Back to the Future: Discovery Cost Allocation and Modern Procedural Theory
Martin H. Redish & Colleen McNamara · April 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 773 (2011) This Article questions the current model of discovery cost allocation, which requires the producing party to bear the expenses associated with its opponent’s discovery requests. The current presumption forces the producing party to fund a portion of its opponent’s... Read More
Ethics and Innovation
Charles Silver · February 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 754 (2011) Using the familiar insight that principals and agents can jointly gain by reducing agency costs, this Essay argues (1) that lawyers hoping to attract clients should seek to improve the quality of representation in mass tort cases and to signal their reliability and... Read More
Client Representation vs. Case Administration: The ALI Looks at Legal Ethics Issues in Aggregate Settlements
Thomas D. Morgan · February 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 734 (2011) This Essay discusses the approach the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation take to the issue of aggregate settlements. Contrary to Rule 1.8(g) of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, and contrary to most of the decided... Read More
The Absence of Legal Ethics in the ALI’s Principles of Aggregate Litigation: A Missed Opportunity – And More
Nancy J. Moore · February 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 717 (2011) There is little discussion of legal ethics in the American Law Institute’s recently adopted Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation, either in the blackletter rules or the comments. The primary exception is that the Principles devote several sections to the so-called... Read More