The Link Between Carolene Products and Griswold: How the Right to Privacy Protects Popular Practices from Democratic Failures

This Article proposes that there is, in fact, a constitutional doctrine that protects at least some of these anonymous and diffuse interests-the constitutional right to privacy

The Ties That Bind: The Relationship Between Law Firm Growth and Law Firm Survival

For the better part of the twentieth century, law firms hired, trained, and grew through a stable and predictable pattern: hire new law school graduates, monitor and evaluate their work, and pick promising attorneys from among their ranks and elevate them to partner. Rinse, lather, repeat. A combination of professional norms and organizational inertia made this approach the dominant method of growth among large corporate law firms until changes in legal market broke down these customary practices, ushering in a new era of lawyer mobility. Now, it has become commonplace for lawyers to leave for greener pastures as more law firms seek to grow their practices through lateral hiring. The question that this Article seeks to answer is: what (if any) effect has this change had on the stability of these law firms? Conventional wisdom holds that law firms that grow through entry-level hiring and training young attorneys (a practice long associated with the most prestigious “white shoe” firms) are more stable in the long run than law firms that poach attorneys from other firms via lateral acquisition. But why should hiring inexperienced and untested lawyers result in greater success for the firm than hiring lawyers that are proven to be competent and successful? This Article presents a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between law firm profits, firm growth strategy, and the life course of large American corporate law firms. I draw on an original longitudinal dataset to provide new insights on the determinants and effects of firm growth over a quarter of a century, from 1985 to 2011. I hypothesize that (1) “organic” growth, which relies on entry-level hiring and internal promotion, helps successful firms protect their positions by creating dense firm networks that allow the firm to survive threats to the organization, while (2) “mimetic” growth, which relies on firm merger or mass lateral hiring fails to create these dense networks and thus fails to provide long-term benefit to these firms. Ultimately, my findings both corroborate and complicate the conventional wisdom, with special resonances for what predicts the longevity of corporate law firms. I find that less profitable firms pursued mimetic growth in response to the organic growth of their more successful peers. In addition, controlling for observed potential confounders, those firms that grew organically in response to organizational need were at lower risk for dissolution than firms that intentionally pursued a growth strategy involving mergers and acquisitions. Furthermore, the increase in risk associated with this mimetic growth strategy hits low-status law firms the hardest. I conclude that mimetic growth has the potential to damage firm cohesion and upset the unique internal dynamics of law firms, thus fraying the professional ties that bind clients and lawyers alike to the firm

Political Involvement in Transition: Who Participated, and Electoral Dynamics, In Central and Eastern Europe?

Using surveys conducted in 1991, this paper examines the sociodemographic, experiential and ideological determinants of nonelectoral and electoral political participation in eight postcommunist states of eastern Europe, with comparisons to Germany and the United States. Comparing the postcommunist states to the capitalist ones, we find the determinants of participation in the former largely conform to the patterns in the west, with education playing an especially large role. In the postcommunist states, we found that youth, political anger and antisocialist ideology were important determinants of political protest and party sympathy, but not of the decision to vote in the initial elections. This may have contributed to the elite-mass divisions in these countries, where the elite promoted market-oriented reforms, and the populations responded with II left turns II in subsequent rounds of elections

Beliefs About Inequality

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Political involvement in transition: Who participated in Central and Eastern Europe?

Using surveys conducted in 1991, we find that western individual-level models of participation also largely apply to Eastern Europe during the early transition. In the post-communist states, we find that youth, experienced political injustice, post-materialism and anti-socialist beliefs were important determinants of political protest participation and party sympathy, but not of the decision to vote in the first elections. This may have contributed to divisions in these countries such that elites promoted market-oriented reforms, and the public responded with left-turns in subsequent elections.Also appears in Wil Arts and Loek Halman, eds., New Directions in Quantitative Comparative Sociology (Leiden: Brill, 1999).Note: Link is to the article in a subscription database available to users affiliated with Butler University. Appropriate login information will be required for access. Users not affiliated with Butler University should contact their local librarian for assistance in locating a copy of this article

Fairness Matters: Social Justice and Political Legitimacy in Post-Communist Europe

Examines economic fairness as a factor in popular support for the political system in the five transnational states in Eastern Europe. Impact of egocentric assessments on people\u27s evaluations of the political and economic systems; Description of some literature on the resistant problems of low trust in government and dissatisfaction with government performance in post-communist countries; Effect of economic fairness evaluations on political evaluations within in a comprehensive model of how political evaluations are shaped.Note: Link is to the catalog entry in Butler University\u27s catalog. Users not affiliated with Butler University should check WorldCat (http://www.worldcat.org) for this item in local libraries

Marketing democracy: Changing opinion about inequality and politics in East Central Europe

Using a rich set of data from public opinion surveys conducted in the European post-communist states, this book explores popular attitudes on social, economic, and political justice focusing ultimately on what\u27s fair? People there hope to create societies that are more free and democratic than the old communist systems yet also more egalitarian than most capitalist states. They envision a system where people who work hard can earn good money but also where those in want have their basic needs met. Unusual in allowing both east-west comparisons and examining change over time during a crucial phase of the post-communist transitions, this groundbreaking work goes beyond basic surveys to explore the philosophically and theoretically important concept of justice.Note: Link is to the catalog entry in Butler University\u27s catalog. Users not affiliated with Butler University should check WorldCat (http://www.worldcat.org) for this item in local libraries