What Law Schools Must Change to Train Transactional Lawyers

Not all lawyers litigate, but you would not know that from the first-year curriculum at most law schools. Despite 50% of lawyers working in transactional practices, schools do not incorporate its legal doctrines or skills in the foundational first year. That the Progressives pushed through antitrust laws and the New Dealers founded the modern administrative state reframed how people use the law, particularly in transactional practices, and should be given equal weight as the appellate-based common law in any legal introduction. Nevertheless, the law school model created by Christopher Columbus Langdell in the 1870s remains dominant. As this review of fifty-four law schools’ required curricula shows, law schools have largely retained Langdell’s curriculum. This negatively affects young transactional lawyers because their critical first year does not show them the law as a preventative, problem-solving practice. This Article proposes fundamental changes to the way law schools prepare students to be transactional and other types of attorneys by reframing the first year from various common law topics to a focus on practice areas. This Article argues that it is faculty, fear, and funding that prevent fundamental change to the first year and other required curriculum even as change is necessary for the health of law schools and the legal profession. This Article concludes that, in the face of curriculum stagnation, the ABA accrediting body and bar examiners should recognize these changes by requiring and testing these “new” areas of law

Pre-Enforcement Litigation Needed for Taxing Procedures

Courts have opened tax guidance to procedural attack. Consequently, taxpayers who are found to owe tax may challenge the validity of the guidance implementing the tax if the procedure used by the Treasury Department in adopting the guidance failed to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, in particular, with notice-and-comment. This increased willingness to consider tax guidance’s procedural defects offers little to most taxpayers unless they are also given a better means to raise procedural challenges. Under current law and in most circumstances, generally, taxpayers can bring a challenge only after they have been found to owe taxes in an audit and completed an internal IRS appeal process. This delay in the ability to challenge guidance reduces the likelihood taxpayers will challenge the procedure used to create a particular rule. Moreover, delayed litigation requires taxpayers to plan their affairs under the umbrella of guidance that might not survive a procedural challenge. To the extent procedural challenges are accepted in the tax context, this Article argues Congress should narrowly repeal its prior limitations on pre-enforcement litigation of those procedures. Everyone affected by the guidance should be permitted to litigate procedural questions for a period of time post-promulgation without the necessity of being found to owe taxes. This narrow exception would increase the certainty of tax guidance and encourage greater public participation in the guidance-formation process in a way that is sensitive to the fact that litigation imposes costs on the Treasury Department

Inhibition of ErbB2 and Thymidylate Synthase by a Multi-Targeted Small-Interfering RNA in Human Breast Cancer Cell Lines

The therapeutic potential of a novel multi-targeted small-interfering RNA (siRNA) was investigated in human breast cancer cells. Previous studies had identified an siRNA that specifically and potently inhibited expression of thymidylate synthase (TS) by directly targeting human TS mRNA. TS is a folate-dependent enzyme that catalyzes the key reaction involved in synthesizing nucleotide precursors for DNA biosynthesis, and as such, it plays a critical role in maintaining cell growth. The goal of this thesis was to design and develop a novel siRNA molecule that targeted TS mRNA as well as a cellular mRNA that encodes a different cellular protein involved in cancer cell growth and proliferation, such as a member of the ErbB family. Gene sequence analysis was performed and identified an overlapping sequence between TS and ErbB2 mRNAs. An siRNA duplex was then designed to simultaneously target human TS and ErbB2 mRNA. Transfection of the multi-targeted siRNA (TS1M17) revealed that both ErbB2 and TS proteins were significantly suppressed in a time and dose-dependent manner in ErbB2-overexpressing human breast cancer SKBR3 cells. The corresponding mRNA levels, as determined by RT-PCR, were also decreased. Protein levels of other ErbB family members, including ErbB1 and ErbB3, remained unchanged with siRNA treatment. An ErbB2-specific siRNA (B2450) inhibited ErbB2, but had no effect on TS expression demonstrating the specificity of the multi-targeted siRNA against both TS and ErbB2. Mismatched (TS1-Mismatch) and control (GL2) siRNAs had no inhibitory effects on expression of the two target proteins. Suppression of activated ErbB2, as determined by expression of phosphorylated ErbB2 protein, was observed with transfection of TS1M17 siRNA. In addition, the expression of downstream signaling proteins, such as phosphorylated mitogen activated protein kinase (p-MAPK), p27Kip1, p21Cip1, cyclin D1, and survivin were significantly changed. In contrast, control siRNAs did not exert any inhibitory effects on downstream signaling. Taken together, these findings suggest that TS1M17 siRNA inhibits signaling of the ErbB2 pathway. The effect of TS1M17 siRNA on cytotoxicity was analyzed by WST-1 assay. Upon transfection into SKBR3 cells, the TS1M17 siRNA significantly suppressed cell proliferation with an IC50 value of 0.65 nM, which is 154-fold more potent than ErbB2- and TS-specific siRNAs. This study suggests that targeting expression of ErbB2 and TS, two key proteins involved in distinct and critical pathways for cancer growth and proliferation, with a single siRNA molecule may provide a novel approach for cancer chemotherapy

An Empirical Study of Innocent Spouse Relief: Do Courts Implement Congress\u27s Legislative Intent?

Under existing law spouses are jointly and severally liable for taxes assessed with respect to their joint income tax returns. As a result, the IRS may pursue either spouse for any taxes owed on those returns. Because Congress was concerned that the IRS was seeking taxes from the “wrong” spouse under the joint and several liability regime, it expanded relief for “innocent” spouses in 1998. Many critics of this relief complain that, as it is applied, the statute offers too little relief to spouses, generally wives, who sign returns while being deceived or compelled by their mates. However, there has been no empirical study of whether the current relief is, in fact, what Congress intended. This article fills the void by first evaluating the provision’s legislative history to determine what relief Congress intended to provide when it acted in 1998. The article then examines the 444 cases appealing for relief under this provision in order to evaluate whether judges are deciding cases invoking the provision consistent with that congressional objective. This article’s empirical study of the success and failure of the innocent spouse provision from Congress’s perspective concludes that the courts are generally applying innocent spouse relief as Congress intended

Inmates May Work, but Don\u27t Tell Social Security

This Article examines the ways in which inmates are carved out of the protections offered by the Social Security and Medicare systems. By statute, inmates are unable to receive Social Security or disability benefits while incarcerated. Additionally, in many circumstances, their labor does not constitute employment for purposes of calculating quarters of employment for benefits. Therefore, inmates may work their entire prison sentence and, yet, on release discover that they no longer have sufficient years left in their working lives to earn the benefits of Social Security for themselves or their dependents. As the United States grapples with its mass incarceration problem, remedying the narrow issue of Social Security and Medicare entitlement for individuals who are clearly working, and often without the choice of whether to do so, is one way to ease the damage of incarceration on many communities

Remote sensing of inland waters: challenges, progress and future directions

Monitoring and understanding the physical, chemical and biological status of global inland waters are immensely important to scientists and policy makers alike. Whereas conventional monitoring approaches tend to be limited in terms of spatial coverage and temporal frequency, remote sensing has the potential to provide an invaluable complementary source of data at local to global scales. Furthermore, as sensors, methodologies, data availability and the network of researchers and engaged stakeholders in this field develop, increasingly widespread use of remote sensing for operational monitoring of inland waters can be envisaged. This special issue on Remote Sensing of Inland Waters comprises 16 articles on freshwater ecosystems around the world ranging from lakes and reservoirs to river systems using optical data from a range of in situ instruments as well as airborne and satellite platforms. The papers variably focus on the retrieval of in-water optical and biogeochemical parameters as well as information on the biophysical properties of shoreline and benthic vegetation. Methodological advances include refined approaches to adjacency correction, inversion-based retrieval models and in situ inherent optical property measurements in highly turbid waters. Remote sensing data are used to evaluate models and theories of environmental drivers of change in a number of different aquatic ecosystems. The range of contributions to the special issue highlights not only the sophistication of methods and the diversity of applications currently being developed, but also the growing international community active in this field. In this introductory paper we briefly highlight the progress that the community has made over recent decades as well as the challenges that remain. It is argued that the operational use of remote sensing for inland water monitoring is a realistic ambition if we can continue to build on these recent achievements.Output Type: Editoria

Mental health professionals’ perspectives of family-focused practice across child and adult mental health settings: a qualitative synthesis

The shift towards a family-focused approach to practice has been highly endorsed across child and adult mental health services, with increasing policy development and a growing evidence base. The aim of this review was to synthesize the qualitative evidence of professionals’ perspectives and experiences of implementing family-focused practice across these settings. Electronic databases were searched up to March 2018, with nine articles included. The synthesis produced two overarching challenges relating to the organizational and system issues of family-focused practice and clinicians’ attitudes, knowledge, and practice towards addressing the complexity of families’ needs. The findings point to a limited evidence of professionals viewing the benefits of family-focused practice and a lack of coherence relating to professionals’ investment in family-focused practice. These are discussed within policy and implementation factors