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Legal Theory Blog 

Thoughts about current developments in normative legal theory and jurisprudence.
Post Frequency: 67.6/day Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 13:55:00 Recent Entries: 5612
By Larry Solum
Go to Legal Theory Blog, find other Academic blogs, or browse all law blogs.
Book Announcement: Democratic Authority by Estlund in Paperback
Posted on September 10, 2009Democratic Authority A Philosophical Framework David M. Estlund To read the entire book description or a sample chapter, please visit: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8571.html Democracy is not naturally plausible. Why turn such important matters over to masses of people who have no expertise?...
Pojanowski on Deference to Agency Interpretations of Common Law
Posted on September 10, 2009Jeffrey Pojanowski (University of Virginia - School of Law) has posted Reason and Reasonableness in Review of Agency Decisions ( Northwestern University Law Review, Vol. 104, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Long after the Erie Railroad v. Tompkins,...
Shavell & Polinsky on Product Liability
Posted on September 09, 2009Steven Shavell and A. Mitchell Polinsky (Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School) have posted The Uneasy Case for Product Liability on SSRN. Here is the abstract: We explain in this Article that the benefits of product liability may well...
Kornfeld on the International Joint Commission of the Boundaries Waters Treaty
Posted on September 09, 2009Itzchak E. Kornfeld (Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Faculty of Law) has posted Polycentrism and the International Joint Commission (Wayne Law Review, Vol. 54, p. 1695, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Courts are called upon everyday to resolve....
Leader-Elliott on Duff on Criminal Law
Posted on September 09, 2009Ian D. Leader-Elliott (University of Adelaid) has posted A Critical Reading of R. A. Duff, Answering for Crime (Adelaide Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: 'Answering for Crime' is an essay in rational reconstruction of the substantive...
Janger on Virtual Territory & Bankruptcy Harmonization
Posted on September 09, 2009Edward J. Janger (Brooklyn Law School) has posted Virtual Territoriality on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Current efforts to unify the laws of secured credit and bankruptcy are predicated on the belief that regularizing the law of debtor?s rights and...
Tebbe on Privatization & the First Amendment
Posted on September 09, 2009Nelson Tebbe (Brooklyn Law School) has posted Privatizing and Publicizing Speech (Northwestern University Law Review Collogquy, Vol. 104, p. 70, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: When and how should governments be permitted to use private-law mechanisms to manage...
Costello on the Irish Court of Admiralty in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
Posted on September 09, 2009Kevin Costello (University College Dublin (UCD) - School of Law) has posted The Court of Admiralty of Ireland, 1745-1756 (American Journal of Legal History) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In the mid-eighteenth century the Irish Court of Admiralty formed...
Landau on Deference in Executive Detention Cases
Posted on September 08, 2009Joseph Benjamin Landau (Columbia Law School) has posted Muscular Procedure: Conditional Deference in the Executive Detention Cases (Washington Law Review, Vol. 84, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Although much of the prevailing scholarship surrounding the 9/11 decisions tends...
Raeder on Lininger on Giles
Posted on September 08, 2009Myrna Raeder (Southwestern University School of Law) has posted Being Heard after Giles: Comments on the Sound of Silence (Texas Law Review, Vol. 87, p. 105, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This is a comment on Tom Lininger?s...
Gallagher on Bessen & Meurer on Patent Failure
Posted on September 08, 2009William T. Gallagher (Golden Gate University School of Law) has posted Book Review of Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk, by James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer (Princeton Univ. Press, 2008) on SSRN. Here is...
Bascuas on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines
Posted on September 08, 2009Ricardo J. Bascuas (University of Miami - School of Law) has posted The American Inquisition: Sentencing after the Federal Guidelines on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Despite the series of important Supreme Court sentencing decisions of the past ten years,...
Appell on Child-Centered Jurisprudence
Posted on September 08, 2009Annette Ruth Appell (Washington University School of Law in St. Louis) has posted The Pre-Political Child of Child-Centered Juriprusdence (Houston Law Review, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Using age as a category of analysis,...
Keckler on Howard on Lawyers
Posted on September 08, 2009Charles N.W. Keckler (Dickinson School of Law, Penn State) has posted Lawyered Up on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Book Review Essay uses the prism of a popular and much-discussed recent critique of law in America, Phillip K. Howard's...
Virelli on the Evolution Instruction & Administrative Law
Posted on September 07, 2009Louis J. Virelli III (Stetson University College of Law) has posted Administrative Evolution on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The debate over teaching evolution in public school science classes is rapidly evolving. Opponents of evolution instruction have recently introduced new...
Moffat on Fuller & Substantive Justice
Posted on September 07, 2009Robert C. Moffat has posted Searching for Substantive Justice: Lessons from Lon Fuller?s Natural Law (Iowa Journal of Gender, Race & Justice, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The goal of this essay is to provide some perspective in...
Inazu on the History of the Right of Association
Posted on September 07, 2009John D. Inazu (Duke University School of Law) has posted The Strange Origins of the Constitutional Right of Association (Tennessee Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Although much has been written about the freedom of association and...
Benson on the Normative Interpretation of the Misfeasance-Nonfeasance Distinction
Posted on September 07, 2009Peter Benson (University of Toronto - Faculty of Law) has posted Misfeasance as an Organizing Normative Idea in Private Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In tort, we say, there is liability for misfeasance but not nonfeasance. When courts...
Perlman on Model Rule of Professional Conduct 5.2(b)
Posted on September 07, 2009Andrew M. Perlman (Suffolk University Law School) has posted The Silliest Rule of Professional Conduct: Model Rule 5.2(b) (The Professional Lawyer, Volume 19, No. 3, p. 14, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Rule 5.2(b) provides that a subordinate....
Legal Theory Lexicon: Rules, Standards, and Principles
Posted on September 06, 2009Introduction Early on in law school, law students begin to realize that legal norms are not all cut from the same cloth. Some rules provide "bright lines," others "fuzzy lines," and yet others, no lines at all. The "reasonable person"...
Legal Theory Bookworm
Posted on September 05, 2009The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends Creon's Ghost Law, Justice, and the Humanities by Joseph Tomain. Here is a description: his book examines the enduring problem of the relationship between man's law and a ?higher? law from the perspective of core....
Download of the Week
Posted on September 05, 2009The Download of the Week is Specific Performance and the Thirteenth Amendment by Nathan B. Oman. Here is the abstract: Black-letter law declares that a contract to perform personal services cannot be specifically enforced. Many courts, scholars, and commentators have...
Money on Citizenship Policy
Posted on September 04, 2009Jeannette Money (University of California, Davis) has posted Immigrants as Fellow Citizens? on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The paper proposes a theory of citizenship policy that incorporates politicians' incentives to maximize their returns generated by the differences between rights...
Knowles on Spooner on Antislavery Violence & the Constitutionality of Slavery
Posted on September 04, 2009Helen J. Knowles (State University of New York - SUNY at Oswego) has posted 'The Pen is Mightier than the Sword': Lysander Spooner?s Constitutional Response to Increasing Abolitionist Violence in the 1850's on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Like many...
Lehavi on Rules & Standards in Property Law
Posted on September 04, 2009Amnon Lehavi (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah - Radzyner School of Law) has posted The Standards of Property on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Much scholarly attention has been paid recently to the optimal design of legal norms as constituting either clear-cut...
Ruan on Rule 68 Offers of Judgment & Failure to Pay Lawful Wage Class Actions
Posted on September 04, 2009Nantiya Ruan (University of Denver Sturm College of Law) has posted Facilitating Wage Theft: How Courts Use Procedural Rules to Undermine Substantive Rights of Low-Wage Workers on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In race and sex discrimination class actions, if...
Krakoff on Frickey on American Indian Law
Posted on September 04, 2009Sarah Krakoff (University of Colorado Law School) has posted The Last Indian Raid in Kansas: Context, Colonialism, and Philip P. Frickey's Contributions to American Indian Law (California Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: To many, American Indian...
Pease on Lands Council v. McNair
Posted on September 04, 2009Craig M. Pease (Vermont Law School) has posted It's Owls All the Way Down (Environmental Forum, p.18, May 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In Lands Council v. McNair, the scientific question presented was whether Forest Service analysts employed....
Mishra on Conflicts of Interest Between Municipalities & Officials in Section 1983 Litigation
Posted on September 03, 2009Dina Mishra has posted When the Interests of Municipalities and Their Officials Diverge: Municipal Dual Representation and Conflicts of Interest in § 1983 Litigation (Yale Law Journal, Vol. 119, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In many cases, municipal...
Herstein on Nussbaum on Butler
Posted on September 03, 2009Ori J. Herstein (Columbia University) has posted Justifying Subversion: Why Nussbaum Got (the Better Interpretation of) Butler Wrong (19 Buffalo Journal of Gender, Law & Social Policy (forthcoming 2010)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Deconstructive and poststructuralist theories are...
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Did I harass someone?
Oh, yes. This can be taken in as so many things, especially since you had testif...
How to evict a roommate?
First, in most jurisdictions "self-help" is not a remedy available to any party ...
I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
This has happened 3 or 4 times a month now- they have turned the electric off 2 days consecutively, the water off about 9 or 10 times now, and our heat has broken 5 times (once it would not shut off, and we were forced t
i say stick with the apartment. eventually, everything possible will be replaced...
The company I worked for forced me to quit instead of dealing with someone harassing me, what can I do?
Look up CONSTRUCTIVE DISCHARGE...................this looks like what happened t...

Did I harass someone?
Oh, yes. This can be taken in as so many things, especially since you had testif...
How to evict a roommate?
First, in most jurisdictions "self-help" is not a remedy available to any party ...
I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
This has happened 3 or 4 times a month now- they have turned the electric off 2 days consecutively, the water off about 9 or 10 times now, and our heat has broken 5 times (once it would not shut off, and we were forced t
i say stick with the apartment. eventually, everything possible will be replaced...
The company I worked for forced me to quit instead of dealing with someone harassing me, what can I do?
Look up CONSTRUCTIVE DISCHARGE...................this looks like what happened t...








