What\u27s on First?: Organizing the Casebook and Molding the Mind

This study empirically tests the proposition that law students adopt different conceptions of the judge’s role in adjudication based on whether they first study intentional torts, negligence, or strict liability. The authors conducted an anonymous survey of more than 450 students enrolled in eight law schools at the beginning, mid-point, and end of the first semester of law school. The students were prompted to indicate to what extent they believed the judge’s role to be one of rule application and, conversely, to what extent it was one of considering social, economic, and ideological factors. The survey found that while all three groups of students shifted toward a belief that judges consider social, economic, and ideological factors, the degree of the shift differed in a statistically significant way depending on which torts their professors taught first. These differences persisted throughout the semester, even after they studied other torts. Further, these differences were observed even when the analysis controlled for law school ranking and were more pronounced among students attending the highest ranked schools. In interpreting the survey results, the authors employ sociologist Erving Goffman’s theory of “frame analysis” and the work of cognitive psychologists including Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman on “anchoring.” The Article concludes that the category of tort liability to which students are first exposed affects the “frame” or “lens” through which they view the judicial process. This frame becomes anchored and persists throughout the study of other tort categories. The lessons about the nature of the judging process learned implicitly through the professor’s choice of topic sequence may be even more important than the substantive topics themselves

Inducing Private Wildfire Risk Mitigation: Experimental Investigation of Measures on Adjacent Public Lands

Increasing private wildfire risk mitigation is an important part of the larger forest restoration policy challenge. Data from an economic experiment are used to evaluate the effectiveness of providing fuel treatments on public land adjacent to private land to induce private wildfire risk mitigation. Results show evidence of “crowding out” where public spending can decrease the level of private risk mitigation. However, a policy prescription that ameliorates this crowding out is identified. Participants undertake more mitigation when fuel treatments on publicly owned lands are conditional on a threshold level of private mitigation effort and information describing each participant’s spending is provided. Key Words:

Chronicity and Mental Health Service Utilization for Anxiety, Mood, and Substance Use Disorders among Black Men in the United States; Ethnicity and Nativity Differences.

This study investigated ethnic and nativity differences in the chronicity and treatment of psychiatric disorders of African American and Caribbean Black men in the U.S. Data were analyzed from the National Survey of American Life, a population-based study which included 1859 self-identified Black men (1222 African American, 176 Caribbean Black men born within the U.S., and 461 Caribbean Black men born outside the U.S.). Lifetime and twelve-month prevalence of DSM-IV mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders (including Bipolar I and Dysthmia), disorder chronicity, and rate of mental health services use among those meeting criteria for a lifetime psychiatric disorder were examined. Logistic regression models were employed to determine ethnic differences in chronicity, and treatment utilization for disorders. While rates of DSM-IV disorders were generally low in this community sample of Black men, their disorders were chronic and remained untreated. Caribbean Black men born in the U.S. had higher prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and Alcohol Abuse Disorder compared with African American men. Foreign born Caribbean Black men experienced greater chronicity in Social Phobia and Generalized Anxiety Disorder compared to other Black Men. Utilization of mental health service was low for all groups of Black Men, but lowest for the foreign born Caribbean Black men. Results underscore the large unmet needs of both African American and Caribbean Black men in the United States. Results also highlight the role of ethnicity and nativity in mental disorder chronicity and mental health service utilization patterns of Black men

Glimmerglass Volume 47 Number 12 (1988)

Official Student Newspaper Issue is 8 pages long

Glimmerglass Volume 47 Number 13 (1988)

Official Student Newspaper Issue is 8 pages long

Glimmerglass Volume 47 Number 14 (1988)

Official Student Newspaper Issue is 12 pages long

Glimmerglass Volume 47 Number 17 (1988)

Official Student Newspaper Issue is 8 pages long

Glimmerglass Volume 47 Number 15 (1988)

Official Student Newspaper Issue is 8 pages long