Legal Regime and Contractual Flexibility: A Comparison of Business's Organizational Choices in France and the United States during the Era of Industrialization

We compare the law governing business organizational forms inFrance and the United States during the nineteenth century andfind that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the contractingenvironment in the U.S. was neither freer nor more flexiblethan in France. U.S. businesses had a more limited menu of organizationalchoices and also much less ability to adapt the basic formsto meet their needs. Moreover, American law did not evolve anymore readily in response to economic change than French law.In both nations, major changes in the rules governing organizationalforms required the passage of new statutes.     

Immigration and Naturalization Service--documentary requirements: derivative third and sixth preference and nonpreference immigrants; reference to form 1-551. Final rule

This rule limits the exclusion provision contained in section 212(a)(32) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(32) to aliens who are coming to the United States principally to perform services as members of the medical profession and not to their derivative beneficiaries.     

The Canadian Legal Profession

This article seeks to weave together the limited information available on the legal professions of the Canadian provinces. Following the same general format as the other comparative studies in this series, it also offers several critical observations of special interest to readers in the United States, whose experience the Canadian bar so closely tracks. The phenomenon of stratification—familiar to American observers—is clearly visible in the Canadian legal profession. Combined with other centrifugal forces, it threatens the unity of a profession which, until recently, has managed to preserve a high degree of cohesion in training, ideology, and institutional structures. On the other hand, in certain respects, the Canadian experience seems to differ from that of the United States, especially in the strength and peculiar structure of publicly funded legal aid schemes, in the profession's continuing formal autonomy and relative immunity from public regulation, and in its long-lasting attachment to apprenticeship as a necessary stage in professional formation. These and other convergences and divergences between the two countries raise questions of general significance: To what extent do the similarities between Canada and the United States verify the assumption implicit in the theoretical literature (principally Abel, Freidson, and Larson) that there is an empirical referent for something called legal professionalism? And to what extent do the differences suggest that containing societies contribute distinctive characteristics to their legal professions, whose qualities are therefore highly contingent?     

Exile,Choice, and Loyalism: Taking and Restoring Dignity in the American Revolution

Taking a cue from Bernadette Atuahene's concept of “dignity takings” and her insight that government expropriation inflicts more than economic injury, this essay analyzes how American revolutionaries defined political membership, penalized and expropriated British loyalists, and then allowed some to join the American polity in the decade after the Revolution. Many recovered their property, professions, and legal privileges. However, because most loyalists could choose to remain loyal or join the Revolution, they did not lose human dignity as Atuahene defines it. Case studies of two reintegrating lawyers, Richard Harison and William Rawle, explore loyalism, the loss of dignities that loyalists suffered, and some paths toward reintegration. Their appointment as federal attorneys helped make the government conversant in the common law, British statutes, and the law of nations, which in turn supported the Federalist goal of reintegrating the United States into the Atlantic World: achieving, in other words, national dignity.     

Physicians' conflicts of interest in Japan and the United States: lessons for the United States

Japanese health policy shows that even with physician ownership and the absence of for-profit, investor-owned health care, physicians' conflicts of interest thrive. Physician dispensing of drugs and ownership of hospitals and clinics were justified in Japan as ways to avoid commercialization of medicine. Instead, they create physicians' conflicts and fuel patient overuse of services. Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) has responded by introducing per-diem payment, thereby creating incentives to decrease services in ways similar to those of American managed care organizations, but with none of their benefits, such as coordination of care, oversight of physicians practices, and quality assurance. Although the United States and Japanese health care systems are organized and financed differently there is convergence in the source of their physicians' conflicts and the way they are addressed. The United States is starting to integrate institutional and physician payment and align their incentives, in a traditional Japanese way. In so doing, the United States creates new physicians' conflicts and reduces the role of countervailing incentives and power, an advantage of previous policy. Japan, in turn, has combined incentives to increase and decrease services, thus moving closer to the U.S. policy.     

欧美宪法社会学比较透视

宪法社会学是关于宪法的社会学研究,是宪法学与社会学交叉融合的产物,旨在发现人类政治生活中的真实规则。在欧洲和北美,宪法社会学已经形成了多元化的学术传统。其中,德国的宪法社会学侧重于从政治与历史的角度切入,偏好史论结合,思辨色彩浓厚。法国的宪法社会学具有客观的、旁观者的叙事风格。英国的宪法社会学打上了判例法或不成文宪法的痕迹,致力于素描一部活生生的宪法,仿佛人类学家的调查报告。美国虽然承袭了英国的判例法制度,但美国的宪法社会学透出强烈的现实主义意味,宪法背后的经济关系、利益格局得到了凸显。梳理欧美宪法社会学的学术传统,比较欧美各国宪法社会学的不同旨趣,有助于为当代中国宪法社会学的稳步发展提供理论与方法论上的启示。     

Why hasn't integrated health care developed widely in the United States and not at all in England?

There have been influential advocates for financing and organizing health care in the United States and England based on the model of integrated health care delivery systems (IHCDSs). Despite good evidence that a few IHCDSs provide high-quality health care economically, such organizations are rare and localized in a few market areas in the United States and are absent in the English National Health Service (NHS). The explanation of why this is so includes various contributory factors: the way the development of the medical profession in each country pursued specialization; the division in British medicine between general practitioners and specialists; and the characteristics that we identify of established successful IHCDSs, which created formidable barriers to entry for a new IHCDS. This explains why currently the most promising organizational developments in U.S. health care are hybrids resulting from vertical integration. In England government policies of an "internal market," as adopted in the 1990s and currently, were and are based on a purchaser-provider split with the objectives that providers would compete and be funded by a system in which "money follows the patient." These policies recognize the division in British medicine, which also means that it is difficult to implement a reorganized English NHS based on high-performing IHCDSs.     

Autonomy and death

In this Article, Professor Clark explores the contours of the current debate over physician-assisted death. She beings by focusing on the legal issues raised by statutory attempts to either legalize or criminalize physician-assisted death, with particular emphasis on the constitutional questions that are currently before the United States Supreme Court. She then examines physician-assisted death from both medical and societal perspectives. Professor Clark uses a thought experiment in which assisted death is facilitated by persons other than physicians, and in doing so, questions whether physicians are the proper persons in whom to rest power over assisted death. She points out the irony in a process that would set up physicians as protectors of individual autonomy, and ultimately concludes that by deferring to the medical profession in this process, we risk losing the very autonomy that assisted death is designed to effectuate.     

Traffick jam: a policy review of the United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000

The United States enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 to combat organized networks specializing in the illicit transport of human beings across political and geographical boundaries. This response has engendered conflicting definitions and competing agendas attributable to the definition set forth by the TVPA, which divides the crime into ‘sex’ verses ‘labor’ trafficking. The European Union (EU) adopted a different and detailed definition introduced by the United Nations. This paper explores the disparity in anti-trafficking policies of the United States and the EU. By contrasting these efforts, recommendations to strengthen U.S. policy by adapting certain EU practices to an American context are suggested.     

Sources of countervailing power in medicine.

In recent years a substantial literature has emerged on the alleged deprofessionalization and proletarianization of physicians. The contention is that corporatization is transforming the practice of medicine, divesting physicians of control over many features of their work, consistent with the needs of advanced capitalism. I examine the hypothesis skeptically, differentiating between the cultural role of medicine, the political and social legitimacy of medical concepts, and the personal autonomy of the individual physician. I suggest that while physicians are less autonomous than they used to be, the constraints imposed on them fall within a medical paradigm. From a cultural or social perspective, medicine is more central to the economy and more powerful than ever before. As its centrality and importance increase, there is more at stake, and interests compete more aggressively. I conclude that there is little evidence in support of the hypothesis.     

Legal Mobilization on the Terrain of the State: Creating a Field of Immigrant Rights Lawyering in France and the United States

Scholarship on law and social movements has focused attention primarily on the United States, and secondarily on countries that share the Anglo‐American legal tradition. The politics of law and social movements in other national legal contexts remains underexamined. The analysis in this article contrasts legal mobilizations for immigrant rights in France and the United States, and explores the relations between national fields of power and legal practices. I trace the institutionalization of immigrant rights legal organizations in each country and argue that the divergent organizational forms and litigation strategies adopted by professionalized movement organizations reflect the dynamics of the nationally distinct fields of power relations within which law reform has been conducted. My analysis links the material and symbolic resources available to law reformers to the relative authority of private and public juridical actors in each state.     

Temporary alien workers seeking H-1B classification under the Immigration and Nationality Act--Immigration and Naturalization Service. Interim rule with requests for comments

This interim rule implements certain provisions of the Miscellaneous and Technical Immigration and Naturalization Amendments of 1991, Public Law 102-232, December 12, 1991, as it relates to aliens seeking nonimmigrant classification and admission to the United States under section 101(a)(15)(H) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (Act). Public Law 102-232 altered, among other things, the procedures for petitioning for H-1B nonimmigrants and established new eligibility criteria for foreign physicians seeking employment in the medical profession in the United States. This rule contains the new procedures required by the legislation and makes Service policy consistent with the intent of Congress. This rule sets forth the new filing procedures and eligibility standards and clarifies for businesses and the general public the requirements for classification and admission.     

Expertise in law, medicine, and health care

As the practice of science-based medical evidence has challenged the medical profession to consider the scientific bases for its methods and procedures, on a seemingly parallel path, the United States Supreme Court's 1993 decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals has challenged the legal system to consider the science underlying claims of medical expertise. This article examines how the legal system has responded to that challenge and why the response has been more limited than many had expected; the implications of the legal system's approach to scrutiny of claims of medical expertise for the practice of science-based medical evidence; and, the central elements of any meaningful change in legal assessments of expertise in medicine and health care.     

The conversion of coroner systems to medical examiner systems in the United States: a lull in the action

Coroner and medical examiner systems in the United States conduct death investigations for most deaths that are sudden and unexplained, or which involve external causes such as injury and poisoning. They play a very important role in the criminal justice, public health, public safety, and medical communities, and they also contribute a substantial portion of autopsy-based mortality data to the state and federal mortality statistics systems. Death investigations often involve complex medical issues and necessarily require the involvement of appropriately trained physicians. Over the years, there has been a trend to replace the elected lay coroner systems with systems run by appointed, physician medical examiners. Presently, about 31% of counties in the United States are served by a medical examiners at the county, district, or state level. Between 1960 and 1989, there was considerable conversion to medical examiner systems, but this trend slowed in the 1990s. Since 2000, only 6 counties in the United States have converted to a medical examiner system, no states have converted since 1996, and 1 county has reverted to a sheriff-coroner system. Possible reasons for this decline are discussed, including legislative, political, geographical, financial, population-based, and physician manpower distribution factors. It is important to ensure that all death investigation systems have appropriate access to medically educated and trained physicians such as forensic pathologists.     

The making of the Canadian legal profession: a hybrid heritage

The Canadian legal profession emerged from the confluence of two distinct traditions: the American and the English. The colonies of British North America followed the pre-revolutionary American model of a unified legal profession, according to which all lawyers could practise as barristers and solicitors. American and Canadian lawyers pursued a client- and market-driven, eclectic type of practice that was receptive to innovations – such as the large law firm, the contingency fee, and university legal education – that were strongly resisted in England. On the governance side, however, Canadian lawyers created an indigenous but English-inflected model whereby professional self-governance was delegated to a statutorily-created body that had the power to compel all lawyers to join if they wished to practise law. With their commitment to client-centred service and strong governance, Canadian lawyers long enjoyed a cooperative and productive relationship with provincial governments, unlike the adversarial one characteristic of the United States or the long benign neglect of the legal professions by the English state. It is argued that this historical pattern may help to explain the continuing strength of the self-governance model in Canada at a time when it is being questioned and radically reformed elsewhere in the common law world.     

Health law and mental health law courses in US medical schools

Results of a recent survey of all 127 medical schools in the United States indicate that about two fifths of medical schools offer a separate course that focuses on topics in medicine and law and a number of medical schools integrate health law topics into other courses. Presumably reflecting concern over temporary medical malpractice litigation, most health law courses include informed consent, medical malpractice, privileged/confidential information, and patients' rights. In contrast, schools that offer a course on psychiatry and law are clearly in a minority. It is elective at all but two of the 13 schools with such a course. Although the hours allotted and the format of these courses vary greatly, courses typically cover most of the topics listed on the questionnaire. Most of the courses are led or co-led by a member of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. Information from two additional surveys suggests two related factors that may influence a medical school to present a separate course on health law. Medical licensing boards were surveyed to determine which states require physicians to be examined on health law. In two states that require physicians to pass a separate medical jurisprudence examination for licensure, all four-year medical schools offer a course on health law for medical students. Medical malpractice companies providing coverage in all 50 states and the District of Columbia were surveyed to determine which states have the highest claim rates. The claim rate per 1,000 physicians insured per year was significantly greater in states with health law courses than was the rate in states without such courses.     

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND VIOLENCE: A SUB‐NATIONAL TEST OF INSTITUTIONAL ANOMIE THEORY*

Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory is grounded in the assumption that relatively higher crime rates in the United States are due to (1) the overwhelming influence of economic motives and institutions in society, and (2) the subjugation of all other social institutions to cultural economic interests (e.g., the American Dream). Our analysis is designed to extend the limited body of empirical research on this theory in several ways. First, we seek to test the utility of institutional anomie theory for predicting crime rates across aggregate units within the United States (counties). Second, we draw out the theory's emphasis on instrumental crime and suggest that measures of noneconomic social, political, familial, religious, and educational institutions will be particularly relevant for explaining instrumental as opposed to expressive violence. Third, in contrast to prior research, we develop conceptual reasons to expect that these factors will primarily mediate (as opposed to moderate) the relationship between economically motivating pressures and instrumental violence. Our negative binomial regression analyses of data from the Supplementary Homicide Reports and various censuses indicate that the measures of noneconomic institutions perform well in explaining both instrumental and expressive homicides, but that these measures mediate the impact of economic pressures (as measured by the Gini coefficient of family income inequality) to commit instrumental violence most strongly. Further, we find only very limited support for the more popular moderation hypothesis.     

Hospitals, finance, and health system reform in Britain and the United States, c. 1910-1950: historical revisionism and cross-national comparison

Comparative histories of health system development have been variously influenced by the theoretical approaches of historical institutionalism, political pluralism, and labor mobilization. Britain and the United States have figured significantly in this literature because of their very different trajectories. This article explores the implications of recent research on hospital history in the two countries for existing historiographies, particularly the coming of the National Health Service in Britain. It argues that the two hospital systems initially developed in broadly similar ways, despite the very different outcomes in the 1940s. Thus, applying the conceptual tools used to explain the U.S. trajectory can deepen appreciation of events in Britain. Attention focuses particularly on working-class hospital contributory schemes and their implications for finance, governance, and participation; these are then compared with Blue Cross and U.S. hospital prepayment. While acknowledging the importance of path dependence in shaping attitudes of British bureaucrats toward these schemes, analysis emphasizes their failure in pressure group politics, in contrast to the United States. In both countries labor was also crucial, in the United States sustaining employment-based prepayment and in Britain broadly supporting system reform.     

American Based Biker Gangs: International Organized Crime

Many American based motorcycle clubs have evolved into biker gangs involved in organized crime nationally and internationally. Using the information contained on the national websites of seven biker gangs—Hells Angels, Outlaws, Bandidos, Mongols, Warlocks, Sons of Silence and the Vagos, this article provides a listing of the gangs by chapter in the United States and internationally. These gangs have exported organized crime to the world as they have formed criminal networks with new chapters established outside the Continental United States.     

The Movement to Criminalize Sex Work in the United States

Until recently, prostitution was not a prominent public issue in the United States. Law and public policy were relatively settled. The past decade, however, has witnessed a growing debate over the sex trade and the growth of an organized campaign committed to expanding criminalization. A powerful moral crusade has been successful in reshaping American government policy toward sex work – enhancing penalties for existing offences and creating new crimes. Crusade organizations have advocated a strict abolitionist orientation toward all forms of commercialized sex, which are increasingly conflated with sex trafficking. This paper examines the impact of this movement on legal norms and government policies. I argue that the moral crusade, and its government allies, are responding to the growth of the sex industry in recent years and to fears of its normalization in American society.