Professors Publish Wide Array of Scholarly Work
April 29, 2009 — Articles written by numerous members of the junior faculty of Drexel University's Earle Mack School of Law have recently been published or are slated to appear in the approaching months, reflecting a high level of scholarship.
"Something that often falls by the wayside at new schools is scholarly activity by the faculty," Dean Roger Dennis said. "I am utterly pleased to say that that is not the case at the Earle Mack School of Law."
An article by Assistant Professor Bret Asbury, "Law as Palimpsest: Conceptualizing Contingency in Judicial Opinions," will appear in Alabama Law Review. In this article, Asbury offers the palimpsest, a writing surface that can be cleared while still maintaining traces of prior content, as a conceptual model for analyzing judicial opinions.
Assistant Professor Adam Benforado's article, "Frames of Injustice: The Bias We Overlook," will be published in the Indiana Law Journal. The article explores how the situationist perspective, promoted by Harvard's Project on Law and Mind Sciences, can enrich Yale's Cultural Cognition Project. The article focuses on a shortcoming in a project study of the 2007 Scott v. Harris ruling, in which the U.S. Supreme Court relied on a videotape of a high-speed police chase to conclude that an officer did not commit a Fourth Amendment violation. A second article by Benforado, "The Geography of Criminal Law," will appear in Cardozo Law Review. It outlines a new geographical approach to criminal law incorporating insights from the behavioral sciences. The novel approach offers a unique opportunity to identify and understand heretofore unappreciated dynamics in our laws, practices, and institutions.
Associate Professor Chapin F. Cimino's article, "Virtue and Contract Law," will be published by Oregon Law Review. In it, Cimino argues that Aristotelian virtue theory may offer a better understanding of contract law than the two dominant normative theories - law and economics and individual rights. "Private Law, Public Consequences, and Virtue Jurisprudence," a book review by Cimino, will appear in the University of Pittsburgh Law Review in September. The review essay critiques the anthology "Virtue Jurisprudence," in which editors Lawrence Solum and Colin Farrelly claim that legal theory should be based not on the norms of economics or rights, but on virtue. Cimino teases out three possible relationships between law and virtue, and considers how courts and lawmakers might differently approach some of the current challenges of the economic crisis if virtue theory were indeed the new normative basis of law.
In "No Boy Left Behind? Single-Sex Education and the Essentialist Myth of Masculinity," which appears this year in the Indiana Law Journal, Associate Professor David S. Cohen explores the impact of relaxed rules for single-sex education in elementary and secondary schools under Title IX. Cohen also published "Justice Kennedy's Gendered World" last year in the South Carolina Law Review, where he analyzes the views on sex discrimination contained in opinions of a member of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Associate Professor Richard Frankel's article, "Regulating Privatized Government Through Section 1983," will appear in the University of Chicago Law Review. Frankel's article argues that the delegation of traditional public functions to the private sector should be accompanied by a requirement that such entities properly respect public values and constitutional rights. One way to encourage such respect, he argues, is to eliminate the current private-party immunity from respondeat superior liability under the federal civil rights statute.
"Constitution and 'Extraconstitution': Emergency Powers in Postcolonial Pakistan and India," written by Associate Professor Anil Kalhan, will appear in "Emergency Powers in Asia," an edited volume to be published by Cambridge University Press later this year. The article examines lasting transformations that have resulted in Pakistan and India from both extraconstitutional and constitutional assertions of emergency authority and considers the colonial-era legal frameworks that have enabled centralized control to flourish.
Associate Professor Lisa T. McElroy's article, "From Grimm to Glory: Simulated Oral Argument as a Component of Legal Education's Signature Pedagogy," will appear this year in the Indiana Law Journal. The article argues that for law students and experienced practitioners alike, practicing oral argument may be a starting point, rather than a mere end point, for teaching, learning, and executing the fundamentals of legal analysis. A second article, "See One, Do One, Teach One: Dissecting the Use of Medical Education's Signature Pedagogy in the Law School Curriculum," co-authored with Christine Coughlin of Wake Forest School of Law and Sandy Patrick of Lewis & Clark Law School, has been accepted for publication in the Georgia State Law Review. This article focuses on the applicability for legal education of the "see one, do one, teach one" approach that medical schools use to hone students' inductive and deductive analytical skills.
"After the Bailout: Regulating Systemic Moral Hazard," an article by Associate Professor of Law and Director of Business and Entrepreneurship Law Concentration Karl Okamoto, will appear in the UCLA Law Review. The article lays out for a strategy for regulating financial markets that requires asset managers to put their own money on the line in trading decisions and to use "best practices" in managing risk. A second article, "Teaching Transactional Lawyering," appeared in the inaugural issue of Drexel Law Review this spring.
Associate Professor Donald F. Tibbs' article, "The Jena Six and Black Punishment: Law and Raw Life in the Domain of Nonexistence," co-authored with Tryon P. Woods of Sonoma State University, appears in the Volume 7 of the Seattle Journal for Social Justice. The article discusses the case of six black high-school students charged with attempted murder in a small Louisiana town in 2007 as barometer of racial justice in the post-Civil Rights era.
Associate Professor Emily Zimmerman's article, "An Interdisciplinary Framework for Understanding and Cultivating Law Student Enthusiasm," appearing in the DePaul Law Review, offers a framework for understanding and cultivating keen interest among those who are poised to become practitioners.
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