Articles

By Shoba Wadhia. 114 Penn St. L. Rev. ___. *(forthcoming in Iqbal Symposium Issue)

This author welcomes responses to this abstract and the upcoming article.  The author may be contacted at:

• E-mail: ssw11@psu.edu
• Phone: (814) 865-3823

Abstract:

While the impact of the Iqbal decision on notice-pleading standard is striking, its effects on the permissiveness of selective enforcement policies against foreign nationals are minimal, when…

By Jeffrey Rachlinski. 114 Penn St. L. Rev. ___. *(forthcoming in Iqbal Symposium Issue)

This author welcomes responses to this abstract and the upcoming article.  The author may be contacted at:

• Phone: (607) 255-5878
• Fax: (607) 255-7193
• Email: jjr7@cornell.edu

Abstract:

The papers in this symposium highlight three basic lessons of Iqbal.  The first, and most widely noted, is the affirmation of the dramatic change in the…

By Ramzi Kassem. 114 Penn St. L. Rev. ___. *(forthcoming in Iqbal Symposium Issue)

This author welcomes responses to this abstract and the upcoming article.  The author may be contacted at:

• Ph: 718-340-4558
• ramzi.kassem@mail.law.cuny.edu

Abstract:

Iqbal’s Entrenchment of Majority Group Skepticism Towards Discrimination Claims

Part of what prevents democratic governance from devolving into the tyranny of the majority so dreaded by the Framers is an institutionalized…

By Victor C. Romero. 114 Penn St. L. Rev. ___. *(forthcoming in Iqbal Symposium Issue)

This author welcomes responses to this abstract and the upcoming article.  The author may be contacted at:

• E-mail: vcr1@psu.edu
• Phone: (814) 865-8989

Abstract:

In Iqbal, the Court reaffirmed the long-standing equal protection doctrine that government actors can only be held liable for discriminatory conduct when they purposefully rely on a…

By James Pfander. 114 Penn St. L. Rev. ___. *(forthcoming in Iqbal Symposium Issue)

This author welcomes responses to this abstract and the upcoming article.  The author may be contacted at:

• Phone: (312) 503-1325
• E-mail: j-pfander@law.northwestern.edu

Abstract:

Widely noted for the pleading revolution it furthers at the district court level, the Supreme Court’s decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal also makes important changes in the way federal…

By Steven B. Lichtman. 114 Penn St. L. Rev. 415.

As arguably the most ferocious conservative on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas is not usually associated with civil liberties causes, except insofar as popular myth portrays him as hostile to those causes.  Contrary to this mythology, however, Thomas has carved out a definitively speech-protective path in his First Amendment opinions.  While…

The following remarks are reprinted as the Penn State Law Review’s contribution to the 175th anniversary celebration of the Dickinson School of Law.

INTRODUCTION BY GEORGE JOSEPH, ESQUIRE, ‘82
PRESIDENT OF THE GENERAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE DICKINSON SCHOOL OF LAW

Each year, the General Alumni Association of the Dickinson School of Law is proud to conduct an awards ceremony for deserving recipients.…

By Seth Barrett Tillman.  114 Penn St. L. Rev. 391.

Legal academics and the public are fascinated by both constitutional text and the processes by which it is interpreted.  The precise role for legal academics in the interpretation of such charters is controverted.  Doctrine and case law as established by the courts remain the core of academic legal discourse.  Case law is,…

By Devera B. Scott, Esq., Keith J. Feigenbaum, Esq., Kelley M. Huff, Esq., and the Honorable Jan R. Jurden.  114 Penn St. L. Rev. 217.

In the early years of the American democratic experiment, one of the foremost observers of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote that “the courts correct the aberrations of democracy and . . . though they can…

By John Linarelli.  114 Penn St. L. Rev. 119.

Commercial lawyers working across borders know that globalization has changed commercial law.  To think of commercial law as only the law of states is to have an inadequate understanding of the norms governing commercial transactions.  Some have argued for a transnational conception of commercial law, but their grounds of justification have been unpersuasive,…

By William E. Butler.  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 1189.

The mythology of arbitration holds that this method of settling disputes is “private,” “informal” (even when arbitration is institutionalized), “effective,” “expedient,” “neutral,” “flexible,” “confidential,” “expert,” “fair,” and “inexpensive.” This is widely believed to remain the case even though these days arbitrations are “held in place by a complex system of national laws and…

By Richard C. Reuben.  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 1103.

The Alternative Dispute Resolution movement of the last quarter of a century has been built on the pillar of party autonomy.  Indeed, the very predicate of the movement is that parties can do a better job of resolving their disputes through private ordering than public courts canthrough public ordering . . .…

By George A. Bermann,  Jack J. Coe, Jr., Christopher R. Drahozal, and Catherine A. Rogers,  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 1333.

In December 2007, the American Law Institute (”ALI”) approved the development of a new Restatement, Third, of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration (the “Restatement”). On February 23, 2009, the Restaters and authors of this Essay presented a Preliminary Draft…

By Sarah R. Cole and Kristen M. Blankley.  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 1051.

In 2007, Public Citizen, a “national, non-profit public interest organization,”  issued a report entitled “The Arbitration Trap: How Credit Card Companies Ensnare Consumers,” concluding that the arbitration process routinely exploits consumers.  Public Citizen drew this sweeping conclusion after analyzing approximately 34,000 points of data the National Arbitration Foundation (“NAF”)…

By Andrea Bjorklund,  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 1269.

In 1993 Samuel Huntington wrote about a looming clash of civilizations – what he predicted would be a cataclysmic showdown between civilizations characterized by different religions, history, languages, and traditions.  Investment arbitration can also be viewed as a clash (albeit non-violent) of civilizations.  It is where international commercial arbitration runs into both techniques…

By Jack J. Coe, Jr., 113 Penn St. L. Rev. 1369.

Among International Commercial Arbitration (“ICA”) specialists, the suggestion that recent years have been eventful would likely pass without objection. In the Anglo-American context alone there have occurred important decisions, legislative proposals to limit arbitration, and the launching of an American Law Institute Restatement on ICA. These developments have punctuated a period…

By Hans Smit.  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 995.

In the beginning, arbitration was straight forward. Once a dispute had arisen, the parties agreed to submit it for resolution to a third party. The courts stayed out of the process. They did not even enforce the agreement to arbitrate. But they did enforce the arbitrator’s decision.

The next step was to enforce the…

By Thomas Carbonneau, 113 Penn St. L. Rev. 1343.

The contemporary law of arbitration originated in North America and Europe.  Among like-minded States with conflicting legal traditions,  arbitration represented a means of transcending the diversity of legal systems. It had the additional advantages of neutrality and enforceability. Arbitration’s regional success and the globalization of national economies eventually gave it a wider, more universal…

By George A. Bermann.  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 1013.

Supreme Court case law teaches us that the federal interest in arbitration does not consist of enforcing agreements to arbitrate according to some sort of abstract or ideal arbitral model, but rather according to the particular arbitral model upon which the parties had agreed.   This body of law is driven by the…

By Larry Catá Backer.  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 671.

Academic and policy engagements with constitutions and constitutionalism have largely been built around unstated frameworks within which legitimated activity can take place. The essay suggests both the disorientation of much of the discussion and proposes an ideological framework that captures the assumptions about which constitutionalist discourse has evolved. Constitutionalism at one time…

By Elizabeth W. King.  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 801.

One of the most familiar ethical issues in the practice of law is the conflict between advocating on behalf of a client and maintaining standards of professional ethics.  As technology in the practice of law increases, lawyers are facing a greater number of ethical challenges.  This paper explores the particular ethical…

By Christian C. Day.  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 461.

Speculators are often portrayed in popular culture as predatory businesspeople. Sometimes they are seen as fools. But, the portraits are often ill-informed. This article studies speculation found in Tulip Mania and the South Sea Bubble. The article then focuses on speculation in debt from the American Revolution. The Gilded Age and…

By Jeffrey Shulman.  113 Penn St. L. Rev. 381.

When Matthew Snyder died fighting for his country, his memory was celebrated, and his loss mourned.  The Westboro Baptist Church conducted a celebration of a different kind by picketing near Matthew’s funeral service.   The church held signs that read, “You are going tohell,” “God hates you,” “Thank God for dead soldiers,”…

By Jayne W. Barnard.  113 Penn St. L. Rev 189.

Legal scholars have expended considerable energy on the study of high-level securities fraud violators-Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski, etc.  There has been little attention, however, to the perpetrators of “retail” securities fraud-the con artists who sell bogus stock over the Internet, orchestrate elaborate pump-and-dump schemes, and create a never-ending array…