With the announcement of Eduardo M. Peñalver as the new Allan R. Tessler Dean of Cornell Law School we’re highlighting his scholarship on our repository this week.

Peñalver taught at Cornell from 2006-2012 before moving on to the University of Chicago prior to his upcoming tenure as dean. Many of his publications are already featured on Scholarship@Cornell Law and highlight his work in property and land use, as well as law and religion. The publications can be found, here.

For more on the latest scholarly articles from the law school faculty visit the repository at Scholarship@Cornell Law.

eisenberg_2000As the Cornell Law School mourns the death of Professor Theodore Eisenberg, the Law Library is taking a moment to feature his groundbreaking legal scholarship.

A pioneer in the field of empirical legal studies, the uniqueness of his scholarship was equally matched by his productivity, authoring or coauthoring over 125 scholarly articles and writing or contributing to over 20 books. Additionally he founded the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies in 2004, which is consistently regarded as one of the most influential publications in the field.

Many of Professor Eisenberg’s works are currently featured on our Scholarship@Cornell Law repository, where his use of statistical methodology to gain new insights into punitive damages, capital juries and myriad of other diverse topics is on full display and serves as a tribute to the legacy of one of Cornell Law’s true intellectual and creative forces.

The end of one year and the begenning of a new one always seems to bring with it a trove of lists taking stock of the best and worst of the previous year. Never one to miss an opportunity to list things, we thought we’d highlight one of our own featuring the top ten most downloaded papers in the history of the Scholarship@Cornell Law Repository. Some on the list are more recent publications, while one others have been around for a decade or more.

Top Ten Downloads:

African Customary Law, Customs, and Women’s Rights
Muna Ndulo

Basic Indian Legal Literature for Foreign Legal Professionals
Uma Narayan

Overview of Legal Systems in the Asia-Pacific Region: India
Navoneel Dayanand

Overview of Legal Systems in the Asia-Pacific Region: South Korea
Oh Seung Jin

Legal Education in China: English Language Materials
Roderick O’Brien

Legalization of Prostitution in Thailand: A Challenge to Feminism and Societal Conscience
Virada Somswasdi

A Study of Islamic Family Law in Malaysia: A Select Bibliography
Raihana Abdullah

Introduction to the Italian Legal System. The Allocation of Normative Powers: Issues In Law Finding
Marinella Baschiera

Larger Board Size and Decreasing Firm Value in Small Firms
Theodore Eisenberg, Stefan Sundgren, and Martin T. Wells

Legal Treatment of Cohabitation in the United States
Cynthia Grant Bowman

 

Last month the Supreme Court announced it would address the issue of the death penalty and the mentally disabled. The scenario is one that Cornell Professor John Blume has published on frequently throughout his career and he has recently been quoted in media reports detailing the court’s decision to clarify its death penalty jurisprudence by granting cert in Hall v. Florida.

In Hall, the defendant faces the death penalty in Florida and the Court is considering whether his situation mirrors that of the Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002) when the court held that executions of mentally disabled criminals are ‘cruel and unusual punishments’ prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

The Scholarship@Cornell Law repository is featuring two of Blume’s publications dealing directly with Atkins and the issue of mental disability in death penalty cases.

The first, co-authored with Sheri Lynn Johnson and Christopher Seeds is titled An Empirical Look at Atkins v. Virginia and its Application in Capital Cases, 76 Tenn. L. Rev. 625 (2009). The article looks at data of decisions post-Atkins to examine the implications it has had on factually similar cases. The second, Of Atkins and Men: Deviations from Clinical Definitions of Mental Retardation in Death Penalty Cases, 18 Cornell J. L. & Pol’y 689 (2009) also co-authored with Johnson and Seeds, examines the cross-jurisdictional similarities and differences of how states’ define mental disability post-Atkins.

For more on the latest scholarly articles from Professor Blume and the rest of the law school faculty visit the repository at Scholarship@Cornell Law.

Professor Robert C. Hockett has been exploring the idea of using eminent domain as a way to relieve underwater mortgages in several of his recent publications. The research is more than just theory, as the city of Richmond, California took steps this summer to put such a plan into action, while several other municipalities are exploring the idea as well.

The Scholarship@Cornell Law repository is featuring one of Professor Hockett’s recent publications on this topic titled: “A Federalist Blessing in Disguise: From National Inaction to Local Action on Underwater Mortgages”, originally appearing in the Harvard Law and Policy Review earlier this year and co-authored with John Vlahoplus of the advisory firm Mortgage Resolution Partners.

The abstract describes the paper as:

Taking “the measure of the national mortgage debt overhang problem as a cluster of local problems warranting local action. It then elaborates on one form of such action that the localized nature of the ongoing mortgage crisis justifies – use of municipal eminent domain authority to purchase underwater loans, then modify them in a manner that benefits debtors, creditors, and their communities alike.”

For more on the latest scholarly articles from Professor Hockett and the rest of the law school faculty visit the repository at Scholarship@Cornell Law.

Perhaps you’ve heard the federal government is currently shut down?

With budget negotiations at an impasse, and another debt ceiling battle looming, the Scholarship@Cornell Law repository is featuring two articles published by members of the law faculty that touch on these respective issues.

Professor Josh Chafetz’s essay “The Phenomenology of Gridlock,” turns the conventional dysfunction narrative on its head, arguing that the hunt for causes of gridlock are misguided. Originally appearing in Notre Dame Law Review’s 2012 “The American Congress: Legal Implications of Gridlock” Symposium, Chafetz argues that gridlock itself is not a phenomenon, but an absence of it, and that looking at why and how legislation occurs is the more fruitful course of action in determining institutional dysfunction.

Also, Professor Michael Dorf and George Washington University’s Neil H. Buchanan tackled the debt ceiling fight last year in companion articles “How to Choose the Least Unconstitutional Option: Lessons for the President (and Others) from the Debt Ceiling Standoff” and “Nullifying the Debt Ceiling Threat Once and for All: Why the President Should Embrace the Least Unconstitutional Option” appearing the Columbia Law Review and Columbia Law Review Sidebar respectively. In the papers, Dorf and Buchanan examine the recent history of the debt ceiling brinksmanship between Congress and The White House and examine the options the President may have to prevent the ceiling from becoming a negotiation tactic every time it needs to be raised. Additionally, visit Professor Dorf’s blog, Dorf on Law, where he’s been posting on the current budget negotiations.

For more on the latest scholarly articles from these authors and the rest of the law school faculty visit the repository at Scholarship@Cornell Law. 

George Washington Fields, former slave and 1890 Cornell Law School graduate

Cornell University has always been “an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.”  Professor Kevin Clermont‘s new book, The Indomitable George Washington Fields, is about Cornell Law School’s first African-American graduate, who received his law degree in 1890, having entered with the school’s very first class in 1887.

Fields was, indeed, indomitable: He was born a slave but escaped from slavery with his mother and siblings during the Civil War.  He attended Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) and then, after working both in the south and the north, Cornell Law School.  After returning to Hampton, Virginia, he practiced law for forty years until his death in 1932.  For most of his years in practice he was blind as the result of an 1896 accident.

The details of Fields’ life, while fleshed out by Clermont in the first part of the book, are primarily presented in Fields’ autobiography, a transcript of which is included in the second part of the book.  Clermont found the manuscript autobiography at the Hampton History Museum after his interest in Fields was piqued by Fields’ thesis advocating abolition of trial by jury.  The thesis is also included in Clermont’s book.

Clermont’s book may be purchased on Amazon.com either as a Kindle e-book or in print.  The book may also be read on ISSUU.

A panel discussion of Green Card Stories, the recent book telling the stories of 50 immigrants to the United States, is now featured in the Book Talks playlist of Cornell Law Library’s YouTube Channel.  Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, the book’s co-editor and Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, moderates the discussion held at Ithaca’s Hangar Theatre in April 2012.

Green Card Stories features essays by Saundra Amrhein, photographs by Ariana Lindquist, and an introduction by Professor Yale-Loehr and Laura J. Danielson.  The book has been honored with several awards, including

 

Peter Martin, Jane M.G. Foster Professor of Law, Emeritus, and co-founder of the Legal Information Institute, has released a new edition of his Introduction to Basic Legal Citation.  With clear explanations of the basic rules of legal citation and cross-references to the most recent editions of both The Bluebook and the ALWD Citation Manual, Professor Martin’s guide will help you solve your vexing citation problems.

Introduction to Basic Legal Citation is available for free in .epub, Kindle, and .pdf at CALI‘s eLangdell bookstore.

 

Femi Cadmus

Congratulations to Femi Cadmus, the Edward Cornell Law Librarian and Associate Dean for Library Services at Cornell Law School, who has been elected to the Executive Board of the American Association of Law Libraries.  AALL is the primary professional organization representing law librarians and related professionals in United States law libraries

Femi’s new role as a leader of AALL complements her interest in the evolving role of the 21st century law library and its administration.  To learn more about her views on this topic, see her recent article (with Julian Aiken and Fred Shapiro), Not Your Parents’ Law Library: A Tale of Two Academic Law Libraries, 16 Green Bag 2d 13 (2012).

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