Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment and Other Coercive Behavioral Interventions as Criminal Sanctions: Reflections on Vitek v. Jones

This Article inquires into the substantive limits on the power of government to impose coercive behavioral interventions on criminal offenders solely because of a criminal conviction and sentence

An Everyday Lawyer’s Shakespeare

This summer, I enjoyed a unique opportunity to explore Shakespeare’s critique of law with a small group of students and a dear colleague in a study abroad program at the University of Arkansas Rome Center. I want to share my reflections on this singularly rewarding experience

Does Sustainability Require a New Theory of Property Rights?

This is the published version

Construction Law Apologetics

This Article challenges the legal academy’s perceptions and offers an alternative assessment of the relationship between the construction industry and law. Part I reviews practical reasons for teaching construction law to law students. In brief, Part I first demonstrates how a construction law course pairs advanced instruction in several topics introduced in the core curriculum, such as contracts, torts, civil procedure, evidence, remedies, and dispute resolution, with lessons on adapting legal knowledge to the specialized construction industry practice. Next, it explains how studying construction law can prepare students to represent clients in a wide range of complex commercial matters that require expertise in transactional practice, advocacy, and dispute resolution. Then, Part II makes the case for greater scholarly engagement with the legal aspects of the built environment, exploring some especially promising contract and tort topics in detail before briefly suggesting other potential research projects. Part III concludes by proposing an ongoing dialogue between construction lawyers and the legal academy

El derecho a la alegría

Vivimos las paradojas de una sociedad que al tiempo que amplía su noción de cultura, busca hacer de ella un campo de acción específico, que caracterice un sector productivo delimitado en el cual las inversiones rindan cuenta de su aporte al desarrollo social. Separar el ámbito cultural del de la educación es un modelo conceptual y administrativo que tiene poco que ver con la historia de nuestras instituciones, con nuestro contexto social, y que seguramente termina por ir en detrimento del desarrollo cultural del conjunto de la sociedad. Los resultados positivos de la reciente valorización de la cultura, por lo pronto, están en el campo de la cultura ciudadana, son el saldo de la manera de actuar de nuestros gobernantes y de algunas acciones de las instituciones políticas, más que de la institucionalidad cultural. Esta, por el contrario, no tiene liderazgo transversal, es aislada y puntual, lo que tal vez se debe a que finalmente se mantiene atada a una concepción tradicional de lo que es bello y lo que constituye su importancia