Posts Tagged ‘Law review’
March 14, 2013
How Facebook deals with death (via The Media Online)
Kristina Sherry (J.D. Candidate, Pepperdine University) has published “What Happens to Our Facebook Accounts When We Die?: Probate versus Policy and the Fate of Social-Media Assets Postmortem”, Pepperdine Law Review, Vol. 40, No. 1, 2013. The abstract reads:
More than 580,000 Facebook users in the U.S. will die this year, raising numerous legal questions as to the disposition of their Facebook pages and similar “digital assets” left in a state of legal limbo. While access to and ownership of decedents’ email accounts has been philosophized for nearly a decade, this comment focuses on the additional legal uncertainties posed by “digital death” in the more amorphous realm of “social media.” Part II explores the implications of digital death by conceptualizing digital assets and surveying the underlying legal principles of contractual policies, probate, property, and privacy concerns. Part III surveys current law surrounding digital death, emphasizing a 2010 Oklahoma statute granting executors and administrators power over decedents’ “social networking” accounts. Parts III and IV consider what the current state of the law means for individuals facing death (i.e. everyone) as social media interacts with both (1) probate law and (2) social-media services’ policies as reflected in their terms of service. Part V explores how the law and proposed solutions may address the salient policy goals of honoring decedents’ postmortem wishes while meanwhile respecting privacy; preserving digital assets; and minimizing probate, litigation and other paperwork-type hassles. Ultimately this comment suggests while state or even federal legislation may call attention to the importance of digital estate planning, a better solution likely lies between the two extremes of the probate-versus-policy power struggle, and that social-media services themselves may be in the better position to quell the perfect storm of legal uncertainty that looms.
Download a pdf copy of the article at SSRN here.
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Tags:Death, Digital asset, Facebook, Law review, Oklahoma, Pepperdine University, Probate, Social media
Posted in adhesion, contract, contract of adhesion, decedent, digital, digital legacy, estate, Facebook, online, property, social media, Terms of Service | Leave a Comment »
March 13, 2013
Matthew Lafferman (JD Candidate, George Mason University – School of Law) has published “Do Facebook and Twitter Make You a Public Figure?: How to Apply the Gertz Public Figure Doctrine to Social Media”, Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2012. Here’s the abstract:
In Gertz v. Welch, the Supreme Court expanded First Amendment protections to defamation law by requiring a plaintiff who qualified as a public figure to prove a higher burden of proof to recover for damages under a defamation suit. The Court relied on two major rationales to delineate the Gertz doctrine: public figures “voluntarily exposed themselves to increased risk of injury” and had “significantly greater access to the channels of effective communication.” Applying this doctrine to online media poses challenges, specifically when applied to social media platforms. Many scholars have recognized that social media users have equal access to the same basic media features, rendering the Gertz Court’s access-to the-media rationale inapplicable when applied to social media. A 216% rise in defamation suits against Internet users in the last three years alone, due to the recent discovery that most homeowner’s insurance policies cover libel liability, signals an almost inevitable rise in defamation suits that will eventually force courts to face the challenge of applying the Gertz public figure doctrine to social media.
This Comment offers an approach that reconciles the problems of applying the public figure doctrine to social media. This Comment argues that courts should require defendants to overcome certain initial presumptions by clear and convincing evidence before designating a social media user an involuntary public figure or a general public figure. Moreover, when recommending an approach for courts to identify voluntary activity on a social network for limited-purpose public figures, courts should avoid defining mere access to social media as voluntary activity and instead conclude such access is an extension of an individual’s private life. This approach would allow courts to apply much of the currently existing public figure doctrine to social media and help courts avoid the negative legal and policy consequences of abolishing the doctrine altogether.
A pdf copy of the paper is available for download at SSRN here.
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Tags:First Amendment to the United States Constitution, George Mason University School of Law, Law review, Public Figure, Social media, Supreme Court of the United States, Twitter
Posted in defamation, Defamation Law, Facebook, First Amendment, free speech, Freedom of expression, freedom of speech, Gertz v. Welch, Public Figure, SCOTUS, social media, Twitter, United States, United States Supreme Court | Leave a Comment »
January 8, 2013
Ben Trachtenberg (University of Missouri School of Law) has posted “Law School Marketing and Legal Ethics”, Nebraska Law Review (June 2013) forthcoming/University of Missouri School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2012-41. Here’s the abstract:
Law schools have misled prospective students for years about the value of legal education. In some cases, law school officials have engaged in outright deceit, knowingly spreading false information about their schools. More commonly, they have presented statistics — especially those concerning the employment outcomes of law graduates — in ways nearly guaranteed to confuse readers. These deceptions and sharp practices violate the norms of the legal profession, a profession that scrupulously regulates the advertising of legal services. The deceptions also violate ethical rules prohibiting lawyers from engaging in dishonesty, misrepresentation, and deceit.
This article exposes how pitches aimed at prospective students, including the seemingly straightforward recitation of statistics on law school websites, still paint an unduly rosy picture of the legal employment market. Focusing on Rule 8.4(c) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the article explains that law school officials have exposed themselves to professional discipline, which may offer a solution to the pervasive problem of misleading law school marketing.
Download a pdf copy of the article via SSRN here.
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Tags:American Bar Association, Association of American Law Schools, Education, Law, Law review, Law school
Posted in AALS, ABA, accountability, employment, ethics, law school, law school marketing, legal education, Legal Ethics, legal marketing, legal profession, NALP, scamblogs | Leave a Comment »
September 27, 2011
Helge Dedek (McGill University – Faculty of Law) and Alexandra Carbone, student-at-law (Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP) have posted “Complexity of Transnational Sources: Reports to the XVIIIth International Congress of Comparative Law”, ISAIDAT Law Review, Special Issue 3. The abstract reads:
In this report to the International Academy of Comparative Law, we describe the Canadian response to the transnational challenge while in particular focusing on the “complexity” of transnational law as one of its most challenging characteristics. Our inquiry is divided into two sections that address two different aspects of this complexity. First, we set out to find a trace of a specifically Canadian “legal culture” in response to the challenge that global legal pluralism poses to a legal discourse accustomed to thinking in terms of national positive law and national sovereignty; we will outline the reactions in academia, legal education, and the judiciary. Second, we turn to another, maybe less lofty aspect: the fact that the application of law is made technically more difficult by the proliferation of transnational legal sources. In this second section, we will outline the intricacies of the implementation of international instruments in Canadian law, and discuss the problematic repercussions of the technical complexification of law in core areas of private law, with a focus on the “plight” of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) in Canada.
A copy of the article is available for download on SSRN here.
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Tags:Canada, CISG, Comparative Law, International law, Law, Law of Canada, Law review, United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods
Posted in CISG, comparative law, international law, Transnational, Transnational Law, Transnational Legal Theory, transnational litigation | Leave a Comment »
July 28, 2011
Wilbert Coffin. David Milgaard. Guy Paul Morin. Donald Marshall, Jr.. Thomas Sophonow. Stephen Truscott. A shameful legacy of those wrongfully convicted by the Canadian criminal justice system.
In the United States, according to The Innocence Project:
There have been 273 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.
• The first DNA exoneration took place in 1989. Exonerations have been won in 34 states; since 2000, there have been 206 exonerations.
• 17 of the 273 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row.
• The average length of time served by exonerees is 13 years. The total number of years served is approximately 3,524.
• The average age of exonerees at the time of their wrongful convictions was 27.”
What are the root causes of wrongful convictions and how can they be avoided in the future? Kent Roach (University of Toronto – Faculty of Law) attempts to provide an answer from a Canadian perspective in his post entitled “Wrongful Convictions in Canada”, University of Cincinnati Law Review, forthcoming. Here’s the abstract:
This article provides an overview of wrongful convictions in Canada. The first part examines the number of wrongful convictions concluding that the 40-70 known wrongful convictions are likely the tip of the iceberg given that they mostly arise in homicide and/or sexual assault cases and that a number of recently revealed cases suggests that wrongful convictions may occur in guilty plea cases. The next part uses the Donald Marshall Jr and Tammy Marquardt cases as case studies of the two main forms of overturning wrongful convictions: petitions to the federal Minister of Justice to re-open cases and out of time appeals, both with fresh evidence. The article then examines the main causes of wrongful convictions and the role that police, prosecutors, providers of forensic evidence, defence counsel and judges and juries play in wrongful convictions and the remedies that have been proposed by various public inquiries and sometimes implemented in Canada to deal with those causes. The last part of this article will examine compensation for the wrongfully convicted including the steps that Canada has taken to comply with Article 14(6) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with respect to compensation.
A copy of the paper may be downloaded from SSRN here.
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Tags:Canada, Crime and Justice, Kent Roach, Law review, Miscarriage of justice, Plea, United States, University of Toronto Faculty of Law
Posted in criminal law, wrongful convictions | Leave a Comment »
Antonin I. Pribetic
