The Eleventh Annual Albert A. DeStefano Lecture On Corporate, Securities & Financial Law At The Fordham Corporate Law Center: Are Federal Judges Competent? Dilettantes In An Age Of Economic Expertise

The title of my little talk here tonight is “Are Federal Judges Competent?” This naturally raises the question of whether I am competent to answer that question. I put this question to myself, and, after careful consideration of both sides of the argument, concluded that I am competent to determine whether I am competent. As H. L. Mencken once said, “A judge is a law student who grades his own exams.

Expanding Leader Capability: An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Daily Practices for Leader Development

Leadership is, at its essence, an influence relationship between people. Leaders are often thought of as those who are able to influence people to take actions oriented toward achieving specific goals and objectives. While many books have been written, and myriad scholarly research studies conducted enumerating countless personal characteristics, qualities, and skills of the exemplary leader, little has been done to understand and convey the ways in which an individual might go about cultivating these virtues; which are often said to include charisma, empathy, communication skills, and others. Through a multiple single-subject design, this research examines the individual-level effect of a set of somatic daily practices for leader development—techniques integrated into everyday activities such as walking, sitting, and driving a car—based on the underlying principles of the Japanese art of aikido. The daily practices were designed to address 3 abilities at the individual level that are believed to be important to the leadership relationship: (a) focusing and sustaining the focus of attention, (b) establishing and maintaining genuine connections to other people, and (c) reducing and minimizing tension and stress. These 3 abilities function as facilitators of the individual skills, characteristics, and qualities that are thought to contribute to leader capability. Five study participants were taught the daily practices for leader development. Participants were asked to apply the practices as often as possible during the 12-week study period. They met with the researcher for 1 hour each week to review the practices and share their experiences implementing them. The Center for Creative Leadership’s Benchmarks 360-Degree Leader Assessment Inventory was used to measure leader ability before and after. Participants provided weekly self-assessments of attention, connection, and tension/stress. All 5 leaders made measurable improvements in one or more of the 3 ability areas of attention, connection, and tension/stress. Both the self-assessment data from the study participants and, in some cases, the external 360-degree assessment rating data from peers, superiors, and direct reports, showed meaningful improvement over the 12-week period. The findings indicated that, in a relatively short period of time, individual leaders can make dramatic changes in deeply habituated leadership-related behaviors. The electronic version of this dissertation is at OhioLINK ETD Center, www.etd.ohiolink.edu

Labor Migration and Social Networking: Maasai Labor Migrants in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Tanzania’s Maasai communities have historically occupied the northern and northeastern regions of the country, employing semi-nomadic and pastoralist practices. However, since the late 1990s, influxes of young, male Wamaasai have migrated to urban centers seeking economic and social opportunity, to diversify income when environmental changes limit the efficacy of pastoralism, and for other various reasons to be discussed herein. This research investigates the rural to urban migration of Maasai labor migrants from the northern regions to the coastal economic center of Dar es Salaam, utilizing ethnographic research and structured conversations. Further, this research explores the processes through which urban Wamaasai reconcile aspects of their identity perceived to be ‘traditional’ with their post-migration urban lifestyles, the challenges urban migration presents, and the resulting community networking techniques employed to mitigate the risks associated with migration within Dar es Salaam. Special attention is paid to the social incorporation of Maasai migrants in terms of the acquisition of social capital, access to government and non-profit resources, and ethnolinguistic group dynamics in the migration destination. This work uncovers the nuanced and innovative ways in which Wamaasai translate group membership into tactics for survival and success after urban migration

The Law and Sociology of Boilerplate

In my view, the scholarship presented at this symposium demonstrates that, in order to analyze form contracts and boilerplate successfully, one must carry out a set of operations that embodies an approach I will call law and sociology. But I presume I was invited to be a commentator at this conference on boilerplate not because the article I wrote on one branch of the subject awhile back exemplified this methodological approach, but because it took a rather strong substantive position. And so I think I ought first to say a brief word about that. The article in question concerned contracts of adhesion in, roughly speaking, the consumer context, and the position I took was that what I called the invisible terms of those contracts-the large number of terms not disciplined by the actual bargaining or shopping behavior of consumers even in price-competitive markets--ought to be treated by the law as presumptively unenforceable. The burden should be put on drafting firms to show their form terms were worth judicial enforcement rather than on adherents to the forms to show the terms were unconscionable; and if this burden were not met, the courts should apply the general, legally implied default terms instead of the drafter\u27s terms. This was not then, and is not now, the law, but I would not be candid if I did not say that I still think that, as regards the domain I was addressing, I was right