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Category: Bring Back the ’90s

Update on Confirmation Process

Update on Confirmation Process

The following piece is a part of NULR of Note’s “Bring Back The ‘90s” initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. Writing in 1990, not long after the conclusion of Robert Bork’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, I noted the growing—although not uncontested—consensus that senators should attempt to shape constitutional meaning by aggressively inquiring about the nominee’s beliefs about interpretive methods, legal philosophy, doctrines, and even specific cases. I lamented…

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Two Conceptions of Rights: Twenty-Five Years Later

Two Conceptions of Rights: Twenty-Five Years Later

The following piece is a part of NULR of Note’s “Bring Back The ‘90s” initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. It is both gratifying and disheartening to be asked to comment on my now twenty-five-year-old Article, From Cannibalism to Caesareans: Two Conceptions of Fundamental Rights. It is gratifying to think that the thesis of that Article remains worth discussing a quarter of a century later, but disheartening to…

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Neuroscience and the Active Jury

Neuroscience and the Active Jury

The following piece is a part of NULR of Note’s “Bring Back The ‘90s” initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. In 1990, the Northwestern University Law Review published The Competency and Responsibility of Jurors in Deciding Cases, 85 Nw. U. L. Rev. 190 (1990). The Article conceptualized the jury “as a democratic representative of the community through its verdicts” and argued that because of this democratic role, it should…

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Accountability (or Lack Thereof) of Corporate Officers and Directors

Accountability (or Lack Thereof) of Corporate Officers and Directors

The following piece is a part of NULR of Note’s “Bring Back The ‘90s” initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. In assessing the liability of corporate actors, courts have fairly consistently resolved contests of doctrine in favor of corporate law principles as opposed to tort law principles.  Corporate law traditionally protects officers and directors from personal liability for tortious acts committed in their corporate roles unless they actively…

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Limited Liability and the Efficient Allocation of Resources: Twenty-Five Years Later

Limited Liability and the Efficient Allocation of Resources: Twenty-Five Years Later

The following piece is a part of NULR of Note’s “Bring Back The ‘90s” initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. In Limited Liability and the Efficient Allocation of Resources, 89 Nw. U. L. Rev. 140 (1994), I responded to a chorus of scholars who suggested that limited liability for corporations had outlived its usefulness—a thesis that was based in large part on the mistaken assumption that limited liability…

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An Education Right Long Denied; An Education Crisis Thus Continues

An Education Right Long Denied; An Education Crisis Thus Continues

The following piece is a part of NULR of Note’s “Bring Back The ‘90s” initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. Most Americans would probably be surprised to discover that there is no right under the Constitution to require that the government must provide children with a decent education. Yet, that has been the situation at least since the 1973 seminal case of San Antonio Independent School District v….

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Role of Private Parties in Public Governance

Role of Private Parties in Public Governance

The following piece is a part of NULR of Note’s “Bring Back The ‘90s” initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. In Fragmenting the Unitary Executive, I explored the constitutionality of congressional delegations to private parties outside of the federal government.  The Supreme Court, pursuant to the Due Process Clause, had invalidated a few congressional delegations to private parties earlier in the century (see, e.g., Carter v. Carter Coal)…

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Trade Scholarship Must Evolve

Trade Scholarship Must Evolve

The following piece is a part of NULR of Note’s “Bring Back The ‘90s” initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. Twenty-four years ago, when I wrote Trade Without Values, the international trade regime provoked substantial scholarly and public debate. Legal scholars embraced the legalistic approaches of the newly created World Trade Organization, and vigorously debated issues such as standing and the scope of its jurisdiction. Public debate, on…

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World-Weariness

World-Weariness

The following piece is a part of NULR of Note’s “Bring Back The ‘90s” initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. It started with the 1988 campaign to block Robert Bork’s appointment to the Supreme Court. A reporter leaked to the press a handwritten list of videotapes that the would-be Justice had rented from a Washington, DC store. In response to that privacy invasion, Congress enacted the 1988 Video…

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Is it Only a Crime? Domestic Violence, Vulnerability, and the Carceral State

Is it Only a Crime? Domestic Violence, Vulnerability, and the Carceral State

The following piece is a part of NULR of Note’s “Bring Back The ‘90s” initiative, aimed at exploring the evolution of legal thinking over the past three decades. For more, click here. When I wrote Isn’t It a Crime: Feminist Perspectives on Spousal Immunity and Spousal Violence for the Northwestern Law Review back in the ’90s, I sought to add to the discussion about the prosecution of domestic violence crimes. I focused not on mandatory arrest policies or no-drop prosecution policies, but on the spousal privilege…

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