FIU Law and University of Miami School of Law Co-Hosted the First Workshop in a Zoom Summer Brown Bag

FIU College of Law and University of Miami School of Law co-hosted the First Workshop in a Zoom Summer Brown Bag. Amber Polk (FIU College of Law) presented Toxic Battery: Pollution as a Dignitary Tort, this paper argues that a restaurant\u27s discharge of nonharmium should be considered offensive battery, polluting our bodies, and calls for its legal recognition to address pollution cases where traditional laws fail. William H Widen (UM School of Law) presented two of his papers, A Reasonable Driver Standard for Automated Vehicle Safety and Winning the Imitation Game: Setting Safety Expectations for Automated Vehicles.https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/faculty-workshops/1070/thumbnail.jp

The External Sector of Cuba’s Economy: Performance and Challenges

Amid ongoing economic reforms, Cuba faces its most severe crisis since the 1990s Soviet Union collapse. Transitioning into a service-oriented economy, it grapples with inefficiencies, a feeble production base, and a struggling external sector. Traditionally reliant on sugar, Cuba now depends on international tourism and professional services for hard currency. However, these lack domestic production ties, limiting economic impact. Systemic constraints, a trade deficit, and dependence on imports compound challenges. Fading Venezuelan support, U.S. sanctions, the COVID-19 pandemic, and geopolitical events exacerbate economic woes. This study delves into GDP growth, trade, financial struggles, and external factors, highlighting critical hurdles impeding Cuba\u27s economic development

Toxic Narratives, Toxic Communities and the Administrative Violence of Environmental Enforcement

Professor Alyse Bertenthal from the Wake Forest University School of Law presented her work Toxic Narratives, Toxic Communities and the Administrative Violence of Environmental Enforcement. This paper explores the concept of administrative violence in the enforcement of environmental laws, revealing how marginalized communities continue to bear the brunt of environmental harms due to systemic bureaucratic norms, despite policy reforms.https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/faculty-workshops/1073/thumbnail.jp

On the \u3cem\u3eWhy\u3c/em\u3e of Same-Sex Marriage in Cuba

Cuba is expected to revise its family code soon and the legal availability of marriage to a person of the same sex will be among the anticipated revisions. This essay pushes past the assumption that same-sex marriage operates as an obvious item along any nation’s progressive path, or a universally desirable and sensible legal advance, and inquires as to the why. In a country that is markedly less religious than its neighbors, has a low marriage rate accompanied by a comparatively high divorce rate, and socializes resources such as health care such that they do not depend on marital ties, why is same-sex marriage a legal objective

Understanding Civil Rights Litigation, Third Edition

The third edition: Covers all aspects of civil rights and constitutional litigation, including the history of civil rights legislation in the United States; the substantive elements of Section 1983 and Bivens causes of action; individual immunity defenses; governmental liability and immunity; procedural and jurisdictional hurdles; abstention; and remedies. Explores the doctrinal areas that have undergone substantial changes or challenges since the prior edition, including the retraction of Bivens; the extension, criticism, and cross-ideological calls for reform of qualified immunity; the narrowing of abstention; debates over the scope of injunctive relief; and the Supreme Court\u27s increasing engagement earlier in constitutional cases. Explores new applications of long-standing doctrines, including controversies over when social-media companies and public officials act under color of state law in controlling who has access to sites and pages. Adds new and expanded Puzzles for most topics within the book. These short problems, drawn from news stories, lawsuits, and lower-court decisions, challenge students to work through and apply the doctrine. The book can serve as a primary source for a problem-centered civil rights courses. Includes appendices containing the United States Constitution, Emancipation Proclamation, and selected substantive, jurisdictional, and procedural federal statutes and rules that govern in civil rights and constitutional litigation.https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/faculty_books/1309/thumbnail.jp

Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Panes of Equity Partnership

This Article, prepared for a “micro-symposium” on Professor Kerri Stone’s monograph Panes of the Glass Ceiling (2022), explores the partnership pay gap in large law firms and the role of high-profile litigation in facilitating pay equity. There is a rich literature and extensive data on the gender attainment gap in elite law firms, particularly with regard to women’s attrition from practice and poor representation within the partnership ranks. Less attention has been paid to the way in which the exceptional women who achieve equity partner status continue to lag behind their male peers. This Article explores “Women v. BigLaw,” a cluster of equal pay cases brought by women partners in the late 2010s against elite firms. Using Stone’s work as a lens, it reveals how the same unspoken beliefs that underlie the law firm glass ceiling operate above it, placing women partners at the bottom of a new compensation hierarchy centered on origination credit. Due to historical allocations, a culture of deference toward male rainmakers, and implicitly biased attorney development and evaluation practices, origination operates as a form of “legacy credit” that locks in preexisting entitlements favoring male partners. Despite this, gender equity in law practice has been framed principally as a professional value, not a legal imperative. Women v. BigLaw and the unprecedented use of the court system by women lawyers reveals, however, that partnership pay practices pose a liability risk to firms. This new reality may incentivize structural change in ways that attention to gender equity as a managerial and professional goal could not