Copyright (c) 2009 University of Illinois College of Law All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/uilaw Recent documents in University of Illinois College of Law en-us Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:32:59 PST 3600 http://works.bepress.com/michael_leroy/7 http://works.bepress.com/michael_leroy/7 Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:47:20 PDT Partisan election of judges is a growing concern as large contributions pour into judicial elections. State judges raised $157 million for their campaign funds from 1999 to 2006. Caperton v. A.T. Massey Co. Inc., 129 S.Ct. 2252 (2009), ruled that a state supreme court justice who cast the deciding vote for a company whose president contributed $2.3 million to his campaign violated the losing company's due process rights. I examine whether partisan judicial elections affect court review of arbitrator rulings (called awards) in employment disputes. For this study, I added a new variable-- method for selecting judges-- to my database of 223 state court rulings from 1975-2008. I relate this empirical research to a strategic model of corporate avoidance of liability in employment disputes. Some employers avoid lawsuits by requiring employment arbitration, and implementing favorable arbitration rules. When awards are appealed to court, employers continue to influence the outcome by designating the court for reviewing an award. This model suggests that some employers would expand their influence by strategically supporting judges who run for office in political campaigns. I found that in state trial courts where an award was challenged, employees won only 32.1% of cases before party-affiliated judges. But in states where judges were appointed or elected in non-partisan races, employees prevailed in 52.7% of the cases. The partisan election effect was not observed, however, in appellate cases. Employees won 43.2% of cases before party-affiliated judges, and 50.0% of cases before judges who were appointed or elected in non-partisan races. My results provide preliminary and limited support for the concern that partisan judicial elections produce unequal justice for ordinary people who are not large campaign donors. But, there are important caveats. This study did not determine whether judges in these cases actually accepted campaign support from employer groups. These judges may have ruled through a more ideological prism than appointed and non-partisan judges. In the same vein, the finding of no partisan effect at the appellate level is not conclusive--and does not mean that party-affiliated appellate judges are as neutral as their appointed counterparts. Even in partisan judicial elections, it appears that only some appellate candidates raise war chests and declare campaign positions. A seemingly biased judge, such as the justice in Caperton, can be outvoted by more neutral judges on the appellate panel, thereby muffling the effect of campaign spending in partisan elections. My findings do not prove that employers seek venue before judges who receive their campaign contributions, but they offer preliminary statistical evidence that suggests that this is possible. The fact that employers can designate venue in an arbitration contract reinforces this possibility. In sum, the shocking example in Caperton, along with the preliminary data in my study, suggests that employers are able to expand the liability-avoidance model by donating to judges who would review their arbitration awards. Michael Leroy Dispute Resolution Employment Practice Judges Jurisdiction http://works.bepress.com/clifford_henson/3 http://works.bepress.com/clifford_henson/3 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:39:43 PDT Setting an application deadline is an important decision for a law school admissions committee because the deadline partly determines the quantity and quality of applications that a law school receives. As such, information that would help an admissions committee set its deadline appropriately and strategically is valuable. The intention of this essay is to provide such information. To do so, we treat law school admissions as a market and set up an econometric model, which provides information on how various types of schools set their deadlines. From this, we interpret a number of strategies in which law schools seem to engage. We find that better law schools tend to set earlier deadlines, generally. However, we also find that the most elite schools tend to set later deadlines than the general model would predict while medium-quality law schools tend to set deadlines earlier than the general model would predict. We use economic theory to interpret these deviations from the general model as strategic signaling of quality to potential applicants. Furthermore, we find that some in-state tuition reciprocity agreements may significantly affect deadlines. Clifford Chad Henson Law and Economics Economics Legal Education http://works.bepress.com/joseph_yockey/1 http://works.bepress.com/joseph_yockey/1 Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:25:38 PDT Developments in corporate law continue to give shareholders greater levels of power over public companies. Instead of using their power to seek changes within firms through such traditional means as proxy contests and litigation, shareholders are increasingly relying on private negotiations with directors as a key component of their governance activities. Regulations enacted in response to the recent financial crisis will likely trigger even more widespread use of negotiations in the years to come. In this Article, I analyze the legal and policy implications generated by the use of private negotiations as a means of corporate governance. I make two related claims. First, I contend that negotiations provide shareholders and boards with several unique benefits that make them a more desirable method for resolving intra-firm differences than traditional means of corporate communication. In this sense, negotiations add value by filling a governance gap. Secondly, however, I argue that board-shareholder negotiations may never realize their full potential in governance due to current restrictions on corporate speech - namely, the SEC's Regulation FD. The way in which Regulation FD impedes private negotiations stands at odds with many of the SEC's own policy goals. To address this tension, additional regulatory intervention will be required for negotiations to continue to play a valuable role in governance. Joseph W. Yockey Corporations Law and Economics http://works.bepress.com/paul_stancil/1 http://works.bepress.com/paul_stancil/1 Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:52:19 PDT Procedural rules in U.S. courts often have predictable and systemic substantive consequences. Yet the vast majority of procedural rules are drafted, debated, and ultimately enacted by a committee rulemaking process substantially removed from significant legislative or executive supervision. This Article explores the dynamics of the committee rulemaking process through a game-theoretical lens. The model reveals that inferior players in the committee rulemaking game--advisory committees, the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, the Judicial Conference and the Supreme Court--are sometimes able to arbitrage Congressional transaction costs to obtain results at odds with the results Congress would prefer in a world without transaction costs. The Article presents two real-world examples of possible transaction-cost arbitrage, one involving the 1993 adoption of the "initial disclosures" requirement under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and one involving the implementation of the "means test" requirement of the 2005 bankruptcy reform statute. Though the normative implications of committee rulemaking are ambiguous, the dynamics of the game suggest that a better preference fit between Congress and the membership of the various advisory committees would mitigate the risks of transaction cost arbitrage substantially while retaining most of the advantages of the committee rulemaking system. Paul J. Stancil Administrative Law Economics Practice and Procedure http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/23 http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/23 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:30:29 PDT The University of Iowa is planning to spend concerted effort implementing Verde during the first six months of 2008. This presentation will cover what we were able to accomplish during that time. Iowa will be focusing on the SFX-Verde synchronization, followed closely by adding licensing information to display through SFX (particularly for ILL concerns and for selectors to get information regarding our archival access). We will also be working on the connection with ALEPH in preparation for SUSHI statistics. By the end of the six months we also hope to have established basic workflows for new materials as well as for A&I databases. Wendy C. Robertson http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/22 http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/22 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:22:35 PDT The University of Iowa has licensed the use of Ulrich's subject headings to use instead of the SFX categories. We have replaced the Ulrich's terminology with our own terms, but have used their assignments as the basis of our categories. This presentation will explain how we have worked with the Ulrich's file and how we keep our subjects updated. Wendy C. Robertson http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/21 http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/21 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:20:25 PDT This presentation describes the use of Ulrich subject headings, modified to local terminology, in place of the SFx categories. Wendy C. Robertson http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/20 http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/20 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:13:17 PDT This session will discuss implementation of Automated Summary Holdings Statements at the University of Iowa Libraries. At Iowa, we needed to consider and adjust to varying prediction pattern practices between library units, data conversion decisions and requirements. Planning, configuration, testing, obstacles, successes and ongoing workflow will be covered. Wendy C. Robertson http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/19 http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/19 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:02:15 PDT Every month we get a lot of update reports for changes in the KB and we also have additional statistical reports. What should we be doing with all these reports? What are the most useful ones? Which ones should we be sure to pay attention to? Join this discussion to share what we do with these reports. Wendy C. Robertson http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/18 http://works.bepress.com/wendy_robertson/18 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:41:09 PDT The University of Iowa Libraries regularly runs a data extraction from the serials module. This session will focus on how we manipulate the data by moving it into a spreadsheet or database management program. The output can be used to develop specialized and routine reports. Janet Hulm