Jun 3, 2021 Susan FortneyLegal Profession
In 1999, then-Professor Patrick Schlitz published a provocative article called On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession. Drawing on anecdotal accounts and empirical data, the article examined the perplexing issue of lawyer dissatisfaction. After discussing the explanations for why many lawyers are unhappy and unhealthy, Schlitz recommended strategies for lawyers pursuing career paths in practice settings where they can thrive and practice ethically.
Fast forward 20 years, to the results of an empirical study conducted by Professors Stephen Tang, Vivien Holmes, and Tony Foley and discussed in their article, Ethical Climate, Job Satisfaction and Wellbeing: Observations from an Empirical Study of New Australian Lawyers. This article examines the role ethical climate plays in influencing ethics and the connection between perceived ethicality and lawyer satisfaction. With heightened concern related to lawyer well-being and remote work, I commend the authors for conducting an ambitious study and urge you to read their article to learn more about their findings and recommendations. Continue reading "Why Ethical Climate Matters in Newly Admitted Lawyers’ Workplaces: An Empirical Examination of Ethical Climate, Job Satisfaction, and Lawyer Wellbeing"
Jun 2, 2021 Michael GoodyearIntellectual Property Law
In the past sixteen years, copyright law has undergone important changes. Court have issued major decisions, such as Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin, which clarified the Ninth Circuit’s substantial similarity test and rejected the inverse ratio rule, and Capitol Records, LLC v. Vimeo, LLC, in which the Second Circuit elucidated a more concrete red flag knowledge standard for purposes of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Significant new copyright legislation, in the form of the Music Modernization Act, has also been promulgated. And during this period, fair use jurisprudence has also continued to grow apace. Many of the cases that are now considered copyright law canon for students, academics, and practitioners alike were decided during this period, including Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley, Ltd., Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., Cariou v. Prince, and Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc. Barton Beebe’s recent article analyzing fair use opinions from 1978 to 2019 thus provides a welcome update to his earlier work that covered fair use cases from 1978 through 2005.
Both Beebe’s original article and this update use statistical analyses of all the fair use opinions issued during the period to draw conclusions about how judges have applied the four fair use factors and their subparts. Beebe’s earlier work provided an important statistical analysis baseline for anyone wanting to understand, modify, or improve fair use. This long-awaited update will no doubt prove useful in providing the most recent data on fair use determinations to those in the copyright space. Continue reading "Tracking Change and Continuity in Twenty-First Century Copyright Fair Use"
Jun 1, 2021 Amy MonahanHealth Law
Proposals to allow individuals to buy into a public health insurance program such as Medicare have been circulating for over a decade and have been the subject of much academic work. In The Private Option, Professor Brendan Maher offers an important addition to that literature by exploring how the competition between public and private payors that is inherent in public option proposals is likely to play out with respect to three key functions of health insurance: risk bearing, cost control, and ensuring quality care. It is a careful, highly readable, and non-ideological piece of scholarship that should be helpful to a range of stakeholders – from students trying to understand how health insurance markets function to policymakers trying to weigh the benefits of current health reform proposals. While not Pollyanna-ish, the article is ultimately hopeful, making an underappreciated case for the public option by explaining how competitive pressure from a public payor might result in better private health insurance options.
The article begins by explaining the various roles that health insurers play in the United States, focusing on three primary functions: risk-bearing, cost control, and encouraging quality care. The remainder of the article is devoted to evaluating how private payors might behave in a world in which they must compete against a public option. This evaluation is accomplished by assessing the comparative advantages of public and private payors with respect to the three primary functions of insurers previously identified. With respect to risk-bearing, the article unsurprisingly concludes that public payors have an enormous advantage over private payors. Indeed, Maher admits, if insurers were solely serving a risk-bearing function, no private payor could effectively compete with the government. As a result, it is unlikely that a public option would create genuine competition with respect to the risk-bearing function of insurance. Continue reading "Understanding the Competitive Effects of a Public Option"
