New York University Law Review 

About: New York University Law Review is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Supreme court & Statute. It has an ISSN identifier of 0028-7881. Over the lifetime, 243 publications have been published receiving 4561 citations.

The Legal Infrastructure of High Technology Industrial Districts: Silicon Valley, Route 128, and Covenants Not to Compete

Abstract: Recent scholarship has argued that the comparative success of the Silicon Valley high technology industrial district and failure of Route 128 outside of Boston, resulted from different patterns of inter-firm employee mobility which, in turn, led to differing patterns of industrial organization: network organization as opposed to traditional vertical integration. The cause of the different patterns of employee mobility is said to be cultural differences between California and Massachusetts. This paper offers a different causal analysis. After reviewing the new economic geography's emphasis on inter-firm knowledge transfers as an agglomeration economy, I focus on the critical role of employee mobility -- the vehicle for inter-firm knowledge transfers -- in facilitating second-stage agglomeration economies: those that allow the district to transcend its original product cycle and reinvent itself. In this account, the legal rules governing employee mobility are a causal antecedent of the construction of each district's culture. In fact, California law prohibits the most effective means of protecting trade secrets embodied in tacit knowledge -- a contractual post-employment covenant not to compete. Massachusetts law, in contrast, allows their enforcement. Consistent with the new economic geography's emphasis on path dependence, the paper shows that California's unusual legal regime dates back to the early 1870's, a serendipitous result of the historical coincidence between the codification movement in the United States and the problems confronting a new state in developing a coherent legal system. The paper concludes with a cautionary note concerning the implications of the analysis for three related subjects: the standard law and economic prescription to fully protect property rights in intellectual property; a disturbing recent line of cases concerning claims of "inevitable disclosure" that threatens to turn trade secret law into the judicial equivalent of a covenant not to compete; and the right strategy for policy analysts assessing reform of a region's legal system to encourage high technology industrial districts.

Privacy as an Aspect of Human Dignity : An Answer to Dean Prosser

Abstract: Introduction Three-quarters of a century have passed since Warren and Brandeis published their germinal article, “The Right of Privacy.” In this period many hundreds of cases, ostensibly founded upon the right to privacy, have been decided, a number of statutes expressly embodying it have been enacted, and a sizeable scholarly literature has been devoted to it. Remarkably enough, however, there remains to this day considerable confusion concerning the nature of the interest which the right to privacy is designed to protect. The confusion is such that in 1956 a distinguished federal judge characterized the state of the law of privacy by likening it to a “haystack in a hurricane.” And, in 1960, the dean of tort scholars wrote a comprehensive article on the subject which, in effect, repudiates Warren and Brandeis by suggesting that privacy is not an independent value at all but rather a composite of the interests in reputation, emotional tranquility and intangible property. My purpose in this article is to propose a general theory of individual privacy which will reconcile the divergent strands of legal development—which will put the straws back into the haystack. The need for such a theory is pressing. In the first place, the disorder in the cases and commentary offends the primary canon of all science that a single general principle of explanation is to be preferred over a congeries of discrete rules.

Group Judgments: Deliberation, Statistical Means, and Information Markets

Abstract: How can groups elicit and aggregate the information held by their individual members? The most obvious answer involves deliberation. For two reasons, however, deliberating groups often fail to make good decisions. First, the statements and acts of some group members convey relevant information, and that information often leads other people not to disclose what they know. Second, social pressures, imposed by some group members, often lead other group members to silence themselves because of fear of disapproval and associated harms. The unfortunate results include the propagation of errors; hidden profiles; cascade effects; and group polarization. A variety of steps should be taken to ensure that deliberating groups obtain the information held by their members. Because of their ability to aggregate privately held information, information markets substantial advantages over group deliberation. These points bear on discussion of normative issues, in which deliberation might also fail to improve group thinking.

The race for talent: highly skilled migrants and competitive immigration regimes

Abstract: The United States has long been the ultimate IQ magnet for highly skilled migrants. But this trend has changed dramatically in recent years. Today, the United States is no longer the sole - nor the most sophisticated - national player engaged in recruiting the best and brightest worldwide. Other attractive immigration destinations, such as Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, have created selective immigration programs designed to attract these highly skilled migrants. Professor Shachar analyzes this growing competition among nations, referring to it as the race for talent. Whereas standard accounts of immigration policymaking focus on domestic politics and global economic pressures, Professor Shachar highlights the significance of interjurisdictional competition. This new perspective explains how and why immigration policymakers in leading destination countries try to emulate - or, if possible, exceed - the skilled-stream recruitment efforts of their international counterparts. These targeted migration programs increasingly serve as a tool to retain or gain an advantage in the new global economy. Indeed, countries are willing to go so far as to offer a talent for citizenship exchange in order to gain the net positive effects associated with skilled migration. Such programs are clearly successful, as evidenced by the increase in the inflow of highly skilled migrants to those countries. Simultaneously, emigrants' home nations have engaged in efforts to reap a share of the welfare-enhancing contributions generated by their highly skilled emigrants, including redefinition of the nation's membership boundaries. This consequence of the race for talent raises significant questions about the relations between citizenship and justice, as well as mobility and distribution, on a global scale. For the United States, which has traditionally enjoyed an unparalleled advantage in recruiting global talent, these new global challenges come at a difficult time. They compound long-standing problems in America's immigration system, which have only become more pronounced in the post-9/11 era.

The Dialectic of Rights and Politics: Perspectives from the Women’s Movement [1986]

Abstract: The idea that legal rights have some intrinsic value is widespread in our culture. A rights claim can make a statement of entitlement that is universal and categorical. Critical legal studies (CLS) scholars question whether rights claims and rights discourse can facilitate social reconstruction. The CLS critique has several interrelated themes which flow from a more general critique of liberalism. CLS scholars argue that liberalism is premised on dichotomies, such as individual and community or self and other, that divide the world into two mutually exclusive spheres. CLS scholars criticize the use of rights claims by social movement groups on related grounds. Feminist theory emphasizes the value of direct and personal experience as the place that theory should begin, as embodied in the phrase "the personal is political". Looking at the gains and losses together, the chapter concludes that the struggles around legal rights have moved the women's movement forward and reinforced a sense of collective experience for the movement.