Cartoon Contracts and the Proactive Visualization of Law

Contracts have always relied on text first, foremost, and usually exclusively. Yet, this approach leaves many users of contracts in the dark as to the actual meaning of the transactional documents and instruments they enter into. The average contract routinely uses language that only lawyers, law-trained readers, and highly literate persons can truly understand. There is a movement in the law in the United States and many other nations called the visualization of law movement that attempts to bridge these gaps in contractual communication by using highly visual instruments. In appropriate circumstances, even cartoons and comic book forms of sequential narrative have been used to communicate contract terms to all parties, but particularly to contractors who are illiterate or lessthan-fully literate in the language of the instrument. The goal of this Article is to apply the lens of visual legal rhetoric and visual literacy to the current visualization movement in Proactive Law and Legal Design in their efforts to promote visual, non-verbal communication in contracts through cartoon, comic book, and highly pictorial legal instruments. The lens will be applied to evaluate and critique five aspects of proactive visual legal instruments: • Immediate Visual Context • Immediate Verbal Context • Visual Cultural Context • Mise en Scène and Arrangement • Visual Rhetoric, Ethics and Professionalism This Article analyzes whether highly visual contracts and legal instruments fulfill the potential for greater access to and understanding of contract terms particularly with audiences whose language skills and cultural experience might make the comprehension and acceptance of purely verbal contracts more difficult. When visuals can overcome barriers in communication that words alone cannot, contracts and other legal instruments can be made more universal in their application, interpretation, performance, and enforcement

Why Write?

Introduction to the Winter 2016 issue of the UMass Law Review, written by Alexander O. Rovzar, Editor-in-Chief

The Perfect Storm: A Look at the Robinhood Shutdown and the Shady Security Practices of Payment for Order Flow, Gamification, and Clickwrap Agreements

SEC guidelines and Federal Courts have stated, and recently upheld, that brokerdealers do not owe a fiduciary duty to retail investors if they do not provide them with investment advice, but this opens up retail investors to significant and costly mistreatment by financial institutions with no avenue for recourse. Using payment for order flow, gamification, and click-wrap agreements by broker-dealers creates a conflict of interest between themselves and the retail investors they act on behalf of. This article argues that retail investors should have an avenue of recourse against financial institutions when they breach their duty to these investors by failing to act in their best interest. This article will focus on the Robinhood shutdown, the recent Best Interest regulation, and how the practices mentioned above can harm retail investors if misused. Additionally, this article will explore the current SEC standing on these practices and certain financial institutions’ perceptions of them. Lastly, it will pose the implementation of a broad fiduciary duty on those financial institutions and brokers that use these practices

Towards an Understanding of Critical Race Theory: Dispelling False Claims and Misrepresentations

The Article discusses critical race theory as a paradigm shift, and further dispels the notion that it promotes a form of Marxism. With the rise of political attitudes toward seeking legislation to denounce CRT, it is incumbent upon those in legal studies to investigate and bring the value of CRT into the forefront. The purpose of this Article is to open a new discussion on these issues, rooted in promoting cultural competency in the legal profession

Tradition and Function in the Autos-da-fé of the Goa Inquisition

ABSTRACT: The decision to establish a branch of the Inquisition in Goa created a unique reality in the Portuguese empire: that of having an inquisitorial tribunal exerting jurisdiction over a majority of people who had recently converted to Catholicism in an entirely colonial setting. This tribunal operated within a society marked by efforts to convert and eradicate the visible signs of gentilidade, that is, the cultural, ritual, and material expressions of the world of the “gentiles.” The aim of this article is to analyze the practices of carrying out autos-da-fé in Goa that were affected by a series of features specific to the Estado da Índia. First, we address how the social-religious landscape of the Estado da Índia’s population led to changes in the Goa Inquisition’s attitudes toward religious offenses, which, in turn, generated a need to find alternative discourses for the legitimacy of the court’s own function—namely, in the auto-da-fé sermons. We then consider the variables of time and space in the celebration of these ceremonies and the challenges of implementing Portuguese parameters in Goa. Finally, we explore two of the main moments in this public ritual: first, the procession, which became a space for the promotion of secondary sectors of colonial society, and then the auto-da-fé itself, which had to balance the exaltation of inquisitorial action while recognizing the importance of the two main representatives of the Estado da Índia, the viceroy and the archbishop. KEYWORDS: auto-da-fé; Goa Inquisition; idolatry; Judaism RESUMO: A decisão de estabelecer um ramo da Inquisição em Goa criou uma realidade única no império português: a de ter um tribunal inquisitorial a exercer jurisdição sobre uma maioria de pessoas recentemente convertidas ao catolicismo num ambiente inteiramente colonial. Este tribunal funcionava numa sociedade marcada pelo esforço de conversão e erradicação dos sinais visíveis da “gentilidade”, isto é, das expressões culturais, rituais e materiais do mundo dos “gentios”. O  objetivo deste artigo é analisar as práticas dos autos-da-fé em Goa, marcadas por um conjunto de características próprias do Estado da Índia. Em primeiro lugar, abordaremos a forma como o panorama sócio-religioso da população do Estado da Índia conduziu a mudanças nas atitudes da Inquisição de Goa face aos delitos religiosos que, por sua vez, geraram a necessidade de encontrar discursos alternativos para a legitimação da própria função do tribunal, nomeadamente nos sermões dos autos-da-fé. Em  segundo lugar, consideraremos as variáveis de tempo e espaço na celebração destas cerimónias e os desafios da implementação dos parâmetros portugueses em Goa. Por fim, abordaremos dois dos principais momentos deste ritual público: por um lado, o cortejo e a forma como se tornou um espaço de promoção de sectores secundários da sociedade colonial; por outro lado, o próprio auto-da-fé e a forma como teve de equilibrar a exaltação da ação inquisitorial com o reconhecimento da importância das duas principais individualidades do Estado da Índia, o vice-rei e o arcebispo. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Auto-da-fé; Inquisição de Goa; Idolatria; Judaísm

Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be: Analyzing the SEC’s Reaction to Crypto Lending

In June 2021, the largest U.S.-based crypto exchange, Coinbase, announced plans to allow its customers to earn 4% interest on deposits of certain cryptoassets through a new “Coinbase Lend” program. Despite a positive reaction from its customers, on September 7, 2021, Coinbase announced it had received a notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the effect that the Commission had preliminarily concluded that the proposed Lend program was a security and that Coinbase would be in violation of the federal securities laws if it proceeded. The threat of enforcement caused Coinbase to terminate the program. Shortly thereafter, in the wake of several state enforcement actions, the SEC also announced a settlement with BlockFi that terminated its crypto lending program in the U.S. Neither of these actions conclusively explained the test that the SEC was using to determine when a crypto lending program involves the issuance of a security. This article considers the appropriate test for evaluating crypto lending programs and concludes that in many cases, the appropriate test should look at whether there are “notes” that fit within the definition of security. This article suggests that the SEC is applying the federal securities laws too broadly without offering sufficient explanation for its interpretations and that the Coinbase Lend program in particular should not have been shuttered. The article concludes that continuing regulatory uncertainty as to the scope of the federal securities laws is depriving U.S. citizens of potentially valuable opportunities

No-Injury and Piggyback Class Actions: When Product-Defect Class Actions Do Not Benefit Consumers

Class counsel are more frequently filing product-based class actions that, whether successful or not, offer few practical benefits to real consumers or class members. These no-benefit class actions cause the unnecessary expense of the courts’ time and resources, and they often fail to provide actual value to class members while still producing substantial attorneys’ fees. This article explores why strategic vagueness in plaintiffs’ filings and a lack of vigorous analysis by the courts have allowed no-benefit class actions to unnecessarily consume court resources. The article concludes by offering suggestions for how courts can alleviate some of this pressure, primarily by requiring judges to follow and enforce Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 23(b)(3) as the rule was written and intended

Detention Status Review Process in Transnational Armed Conflict: Al Maquleh v. Gates, and the Parwan Detention Facility

This article will first set out a brief history and description of the airfield at Bagram and the detention facilities there. Second, it will explore the standards under international law and the implement ation of national regulations by which the detention status of individuals detained by U.S. military forces is determined, when such individuals may be released from detention, and the significance of the evolving concept of transnational armed conflict to these determinations. Third, it will review the U.S. Supreme Court‘s decision in Boumediene, explore the Court‘s analysis in reaching its decision, and identify what the Court found to be the most important factors in terms of applying its analysis to these types of detainee cases. The fourth part of the article will do the same for the D.C. District Court‘s decision in al Maqaleh, and will specifically note where the decision appears to misapply the Boumediene analysis and to find facts not in keeping with the actual situation of the Parwan Detention Facility. Fifth, this article will review the D.C. Circuit Court‘s formulation of the Boumediene analysis in the same fashion. Sixth, this article will describe the new status determination procedures in detail and explain why they are sufficient to obviate the need for the extension of the Suspension Clause to the Parwan Detention Facility. Finally, were the Suspension Clause deemed applicable to the Parwan Detention Facility, this article will explain why these procedures would be an adequate substitute for habeas corpus proceedings, and why they could serve as an adequate model for current and future U.S. military detention operations outside the U.S. in cases of transnational armed conflict between the U.S. and non-state actors

Time for Change: Bringing Massachusetts Homestead and Personal Property Exemptions into the Twenty-First Century

There are presently two pieces of legislation pending on Beacon Hill that are intended to offer amendments to the Homestead Statute and Exemption Statute that would offer meaningful changes and real relief for the citizens of the Commonwealth. This article provides a brief history of the two statutory schemes, provides some comparisons to the schemes in other states, and highlights the changes sought by the proposed amendments