Georgetown University Law Center

About: Georgetown University Law Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supreme court & Public health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.

A Tale of Two Sweeping Clauses

Abstract: Whenever the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution gets discussed, most of the attention naturally gravitates toward the principle of equality and natural rights background of the Declaration, which have played such important roles in American history. The question then becomes whether, or to what extent, the Constitution embodies these background principles. This Essay focuses attention on a less familiar connection between these two documents, which bears on the issue of government powers rather than of individual rights. The Essay argues that some of the most influential founders considered the Declaration to be, in effect, the "first constitution" of the United States, whose reference to the power "to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do" vested the United States with implied national powers; and that this key provision of the Declaration later inspired the "all other powers" provision of the Necessary and Proper Clause.

The New Legal Criticism

Abstract: Professors Hanoch Dagan and Avihay Dorfman’s article Just Relationships is a fundamental reinterpretation of the moral ideals of large swaths of private law. Its significance, however, may go beyond even that broad ambition. In this Response, I suggest that Just Relationships is also an exemplar — perhaps par excellence — of an emergent form of critical discourse, which may itself foreshadow a paradigm shift in contemporary critical legal scholarship. That new form of scholarship might usefully be dubbed “the new legal criticism.” The label serves partly as an echo of the “New Criticism” movement that emerged in literary criticism in the middle of the twentieth-century, which, in methodological ways, the new legal criticism very much resembles. But primarily, the label “new legal criticism” suggests that this ascendant group of legal scholars articulates a different point of departure for critical thinking about law — particularly for critical thinking about private law — from that which most immediately preceded it in twentieth century legal thought: the critical legal studies movement. Part I describes new legal criticism and compares it with the critical legal scholarship movements of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Part II further expands my claim that Just Relationships is a good exemplar of the new legal criticism by looking at the roles played by relational justice in Dagan and Dorfman’s explication of their jurisprudential claims. Part III looks at the limits of new legal criticism, again as exemplified by Just Relationships. I will explore whether the reliance of the new legal criticism on law itself in the development of the idea of justice limits its potency as a form of criticism by comparing the authors’ discussion of discrimination in housing with a subject they do not address, at-will employment. Finally, the conclusion explores possible avenues of further exploration within the authors’ chosen field — private law, largely understood — and within the parameters set by the new legal criticism’s premises.

Do Blogs Influence SSRN Downloads? Empirically Testing the Volokh and Slashdot Effects

Abstract: SSRN's download statistics are criticized for being biased in favor of bloggers. Just how does the supposed bias work, and how strong is it? This paper reports the results of a small empirical study undertaken in April, 2007. While guest-blogging at the Volokh Conspiracy, the author used a small computer program to collect SSRN Abstract View and Download statistics every fifteen minutes. The study took on an unexpected dimension when links to some of the author's blog posts appeared in an article on the Slashdot website, one of the most widely-read technology websites. This allowed the author to compare the Volokh Effect with the better known and more often studied Slashdot Effect. This is a quickly-compiled draft summarizing and analyzing the results. The odds are very good that the author is collecting data about this abstract page, as well.

Clarity in Criminal Law

Abstract: Over the past thirty years, thousands of new federal criminal laws have been enacted, many of which are unclear and leave prosecutors and courts to now define the boundaries of the criminal code. Tolerating unclear laws in the criminal arena has always been problematic, but it is especially so in this era of overcriminalization and excessive punishment, where a lack of clarity can result in arbitrary application of criminal statutes and the sentencing consequences of a conviction are so severe. Although several justices have noted the lack of clarity in the criminal law, the Court as a whole has not fully reacted. This Article suggests what that reaction should be. It argues for a more robust review of unclear federal criminal laws, using amplified versions of two tools already at the Court’s disposal: the rule of lenity and void for vagueness doctrine. Employing those doctrines vigorously would, in effect, create a clear statement rule in criminal law.

Interchange Regulation: Implications for Credit Unions

Abstract: This research brief reviews the potential implications of the Durbin Interchange Amendment on credit unions based on an original survey of credit unions debit and credit card programs.