POSTDECREE LITIGATION Is Joint Custody to Blame?

The Joint Custody Symposium Project examined almost 600 court files in five judicial districts to investigate the common perception that joint custody contributes significantly to relitigation rates. Data indicated that joint custody as a factor accounted for only 10.8% of court returns. Financial concerns accounted for the majority of actions. Disputes over child custody appeared to be related to finances as well. Unfortunately, returns to court do not necessarily resolve the financial needs of divorced parents. The findings suggest that children may be used as pawns in court battles over money that are disguised as parenting concerns, as evidenced by the close relationship found between visitation or custody disputes and child support modification filings.     

Patents and Appropriation: Concerns and Evidence1

For over the past twenty years, the United States has witnessed a pro-patent movement. In response, numerous concerns have been raised, including possible impediments to innovation in cumulative technologies, emergence of anti-commons, barriers to entry and an elevation of costs of innovation associated with defensive patenting, growth in patent litigation and poor quality patents. Although there is little systematic evidence that these concerns have materialized in any substantial way, vigilance is nonetheless warranted.     

Negotiating Integrative Medicine: A Framework for Provider–Patient Conversations

Efforts to integrate complementary and alternative medical (CAM) therapies into conventional medical settings are creating a variety of negotiation challenges between various stakeholders. Focusing on the two-party encounter between physician and patient offers a way to understand the application of principled negotiation to perhaps the most fundamental and emotionally charged place within the health care system in which the introduction of CAM therapies is likely to disrupt relationships and produce conflict. This article suggest ways in which the theory and analysis of principled negotiation can add to current liability and ethical frameworks, and might thereby contribute to optimal future health care by helping to wisely integrate CAM therapies into conventional medical care.     

Virtual law school

This is an account of how legal education may look in 25 years time. It is written in a science fiction style which seems appropriate for a futuristic piece. The account focuses on the central role that information technology will undoubtedly play in the law schools of the future and, in particular, on the crucial part that the Law Courseware Consortium may take in the ‘computerization’ of legal education.     

Foreign advisors and capacity building: The case of Kenya

Approximately 100,000 foreign advisors work in the public sectors of Sub-Saharan African countries at an annual cost of more than $4 billion. The numbers, range of services, and costs of such advisors increased during the 1980s while at the same time donors launched new efforts to build professional capacity in the African civil service. Based on a study of advisors and their counterpart economists in Kenya's Ministry of Planning and National Development, this article addresses three important questions: what are the functions carried out by advisors in the development ministries?; why is it so difficult to retain skilled professionals in the civil service?; and how does the provision of advisors affect the retention of skilled government officers?     

People with special needs and sexual behaviour problems: balancing community and client interests while ensuring effective risk management

Abstract

Deinstitutionalisation movements of the mid-1900s led to changes in policy and practice in the management of people with special needs (defined for this article as people with severe and persistent mental illness, intellectual disabilities and high levels of personality factors that interfere with treatment participation). Although the majority of clients with special needs receive care in community settings and interact more with family, friends and others in the community, some such clients require more rigorous case management. For clients who have offended, especially sexually, community-based services are scarce, and concerns regarding reoffence potential often supersede traditional understandings of diminished capacity. Recent reports suggest that jails and prisons have replaced hospitals as the institutions-of-choice for clients with special needs who engage in inappropriate conduct. This paper examines policies and practices regarding community risk management of people with special needs who have sexually offended. Vignettes are provided to illustrate how some clients and agencies have been affected, and suggestions are made to ensure best practices in risk management and public safety.