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Vermont Law Leads Again at LegalTech
January 31, 2014
Students and faculty from the Center for Legal Innovation at Vermont Law School will attend LegalTech 2014 in New York City, bringing with them ideas and expertise that are sought after by industry leaders like Google, LexisNexis, and Capital Novus. This is the fourth year Vermont Law has attended the conference, which has resulted in jobs for students and research support for faculty. Considered the largest and most important legal technology event of the year, LegalTech annually draws tens...
January 31, 2014
Students and faculty from the Center for Legal Innovation at Vermont Law School will attend LegalTech 2014 in New York City, bringing with them ideas and expertise that are sought after by industry leaders like Google, LexisNexis, and Capital Novus. This is the fourth year Vermont Law has attended the conference, which has resulted in jobs for students and research support for faculty. Considered the largest and most important legal technology event of the year, LegalTech annually draws tens...
Changes Ahead For Social Media In the Workplace
January 31, 2014
Social media has come a long way over the last few years. Services like Facebook and Twitter are no longer just ways to casually...
January 31, 2014
Social media has come a long way over the last few years. Services like Facebook and Twitter are no longer just ways to casually...
Dispute Resolution Mechanisms for Intractable Medical Futility Disputes
January 31, 2014
Medical futility disputes occur frequently in healthcare facilities across the United States. In this Article, I provide an overview of dispute resolution mechanisms through which healthcare providers can resolve these disputes. In Section I, identify three distinctive features of medical futility disputes. First, they usually concern life-sustaining medical treatment for patients in a hospital’s intensive care unit. Second, these patients typically lack decision making capacity. So, a surrogate...
January 31, 2014
Medical futility disputes occur frequently in healthcare facilities across the United States. In this Article, I provide an overview of dispute resolution mechanisms through which healthcare providers can resolve these disputes. In Section I, identify three distinctive features of medical futility disputes. First, they usually concern life-sustaining medical treatment for patients in a hospital’s intensive care unit. Second, these patients typically lack decision making capacity. So, a surrogate...
Plaintiphobia in the Supreme Court
January 31, 2014
Through the years debate has raged over whether the Supreme Court’s summary judgment trilogy and Twombly-Iqbal pleading decisions had significant practical effects. To address that question, this article introduces a new empirical measure: the difference between the pretrial-adjudication judgment rates for the defendant and for the plaintiff. Plotting that rates’ difference over time suggests that the cases on summary judgment and pleading, which were far and away the two most major alterations...
January 31, 2014
Through the years debate has raged over whether the Supreme Court’s summary judgment trilogy and Twombly-Iqbal pleading decisions had significant practical effects. To address that question, this article introduces a new empirical measure: the difference between the pretrial-adjudication judgment rates for the defendant and for the plaintiff. Plotting that rates’ difference over time suggests that the cases on summary judgment and pleading, which were far and away the two most major alterations...
Plaintiphobia in State Courts Redux? An Empirical Study of State Court Trials on Appeal
January 31, 2014
Prior federal and state civil appeals studies show that appeals courts overturn jury verdicts more than bench decisions and that defendants fare better than plaintiffs on appeal. Attitudinal and selection effect hypotheses may help explain an appellate court tilt that favors defendants. This study builds on and extends our prior work on state civil appeals and examines a comprehensive state court civil appeals data set to test leading theories on appellate outcomes as well as to explore the relation...
January 31, 2014
Prior federal and state civil appeals studies show that appeals courts overturn jury verdicts more than bench decisions and that defendants fare better than plaintiffs on appeal. Attitudinal and selection effect hypotheses may help explain an appellate court tilt that favors defendants. This study builds on and extends our prior work on state civil appeals and examines a comprehensive state court civil appeals data set to test leading theories on appellate outcomes as well as to explore the relation...
Web App Helps Rackspace Settle Legal Dispute
January 30, 2014
Rackspace Hosting recently settled a legal dispute with the help of a locally-developed web application. Mary Brennan...
January 30, 2014
Rackspace Hosting recently settled a legal dispute with the help of a locally-developed web application. Mary Brennan...
Missing the Forest for the Trolls
January 30, 2014
Trolls are a significant feature of the patent system. They account for a large number of suits, now a majority of all patent assertions in the country and an even higher percentage in the information technology (IT) industries. They win both larger judgments and larger settlements than do “practicing entities” (“PEs”) -- those that practice patents and are not principally in the business of collecting money from others that practice them. And they do so despite complaints that trolls assert...
January 30, 2014
Trolls are a significant feature of the patent system. They account for a large number of suits, now a majority of all patent assertions in the country and an even higher percentage in the information technology (IT) industries. They win both larger judgments and larger settlements than do “practicing entities” (“PEs”) -- those that practice patents and are not principally in the business of collecting money from others that practice them. And they do so despite complaints that trolls assert...
Risky Choice in the Limelight
January 30, 2014
This paper examines how risk behavior in the limelight differs from that in anonymity. In two separate experiments we find that subjects are more risk averse in the limelight. However, risky choices are similarly path dependent in the different treatments. Under both limelight and anonymous laboratory conditions, a simple prospect theory model with a path-dependent reference point provides a better explanation for subjects’ behavior than a flexible specification of expected utility theory. Additionally,...
January 30, 2014
This paper examines how risk behavior in the limelight differs from that in anonymity. In two separate experiments we find that subjects are more risk averse in the limelight. However, risky choices are similarly path dependent in the different treatments. Under both limelight and anonymous laboratory conditions, a simple prospect theory model with a path-dependent reference point provides a better explanation for subjects’ behavior than a flexible specification of expected utility theory. Additionally,...
Picture It Settled® Helps Technology Company Settle Longshot Case
January 30, 2014
Picture It Settled® Helps Technology Company Settle Longshot Case Negotiation Moves Predicted Within 3.5% in New Case Study...
January 30, 2014
Picture It Settled® Helps Technology Company Settle Longshot Case Negotiation Moves Predicted Within 3.5% in New Case Study...
“ShalePlay” is Bracewell’s App for Shale Oil Tycoons
January 29, 2014
ShalePlay app for iOS aggregates fracking news, legislation, and studies, which you would expect. It also includes feeds from Bracewell’s blog and @bgenergy Twitter feed (the followers of which are probably a decent place to start finding shale oil tycoons on Twitter). The more-interesting part of the app is its interactive map of shale basins and “shale plays” — which I take to mean “places where fracking is happening.” I imagine most shale oil tycoons already have lots of maps...
January 29, 2014
ShalePlay app for iOS aggregates fracking news, legislation, and studies, which you would expect. It also includes feeds from Bracewell’s blog and @bgenergy Twitter feed (the followers of which are probably a decent place to start finding shale oil tycoons on Twitter). The more-interesting part of the app is its interactive map of shale basins and “shale plays” — which I take to mean “places where fracking is happening.” I imagine most shale oil tycoons already have lots of maps...
