UNBUNDLING THE ETHICAL ISSUES OF PRO BONO ADVOCACY: ARTICULATING THE GOALS OF LIMITED‐SCOPE PRO BONO ADVOCACY FOR LIMITED LEGAL SERVICES PROGRAMS

This article seeks to articulate the practical goal of unbundled legal services for the pro bono family law sector as it applies to limited legal services programs (also known as brief advice clinics), through the use of a goal spectrum, derived from the theoretical goal of access to justice. This article briefly discusses the status of the Indiana Rules of Professional Conduct, as they pertain to the ethics of unbundling. This article then focuses extensively on some practical considerations within the ethical issues of both the scope of representation and attorney competence in order to articulate an appropriate goal for unbundled legal services. Finally, the article concludes that service providers in limited legal services programs should explicitly identify and then perform an essential, discrete service that the client needs to have performed in order to help the client meet his or her ultimate objectives. The service provider and the client could then gauge the success of the limited scope representation based on whether and how well the specific service has been provided.     

Parties,ideology and elections: the politics of federal revenues and expenditures forecasting

Some scholars view problems in the accuracy of federal fiscal forecasts as being largely technical in nature .Others intimate that there may be a political component as well. This paper exlpores the relative merits of these two perspectives finding some support for each. Executive forecasts were found to be random with respect to direction of errors , error magnitudes increased in absolute terms over time , and revenues estimate error s tended to cluster in short bursts. Executive forecasting errors were also linked to presidential party , ideology and year in the election cycle.     

Signs of Anthropomorphism: The Case of Natural History Television Documentaries

This article employs Peirce's triadic concept of the sign, and Deleuze's theory of the image-movement to propose a social semiotic account of the ways in which visual signs in British and US natural history anthropomorphicise 'nature'. Peirce's semiotic is employed to critique both realist and relativist accounts of anthropomorphism. Although there may be a causally indexical relation between photographic signs and object, the fact that all signs are constituted by a three-way relationship between sign, object, and interpretant means that natural history documentaries, like the scientific texts that purportedly inform them, are ineluctably anthropomorphic. Deleuze's account of the image-movement is employed to explain why, far from being a dispassionate capturing of 'any-instants-whatsoevers', natural history image-movements organise movement in ways that are mediated by the semiotics of the natural history genre. As such, image-movements also constitute a form of anthropomorphism.     

Government and education news

Abstract

The issue of feedback to students on assessment has been identified by many law schools as an area of high priority. Feedback to students is a key component of quality assessment, student progression and the academic experience of students. However, provision of high quality feedback is also a workload factor for lecturers.

Kingston University and Nottingham Trent University both have identified assessment feedback as an action area in their respective Learning and Teaching Strategies. The learning and teaching co‐ordinators within the Law Schools of these two universities decided to collaborate on a survey of the feedback techniques and practices used.

This study was undertaken to explore strategies to sustain and strengthen the quality of feedback in the context of larger classes, increased student numbers and pressure on resources. The aim was to establish the range of feedback and practices used and to identify student and staff perceptions of existing assessment feedback practices. Using semi‐structured questionnaires, data was collected and analysed in terms of the extent to which assessment feedback was perceived as effective, the extent to which these findings were consistent with the literature and to make recommendations on how assessment feedback could be enhanced.

Findings showed that students clearly distinguished between different features of assessment feedback and evaluated these differently, that there was little consistency in the perceived experience of assessment feedback, and that feedback given often did not meet students’ expectations. Staff perceived that giving good feedback was important but that students seldom acted on feedback. Staff also reported that giving individual written feedback was their preferred method although this is one of the most time‐consuming methods. The conclusions of the study offered practical ways of improving the quality and effectiveness of assessment feedback by revisiting established assumptions about feedback and raising students’ awareness of the various sources, forms and functions of assessment feedback.

For staff, larger classes, increased student diversity and diminishing resources mean that staff will need to work smarter, with regard to providing effective assessment feedback, if there is to be a consistently better student experience of assessment feedback.     

Landmine clearance and land resettlement in Cambodia: Agents of rural development

Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today. New York: Gotham Books, 2006. Paperback, ISBN: 9781592403158, 640 pages.

Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy. UK, US: Macmillan, 2007. Hardcover, ISBN: 9780230016545, 871 pages.

Tim Jeal, Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer. London: Faber and Faber, 2007. Hardcover, ISBN: 0571221025, 496 pages.

Alex Thomson, An Introduction to African Politics (second edition). London: Routledge, 2004. Paperback, ISBN: 9780415282611, 284 pages.

Lorna Lloyd, Diplomacy with a Difference: The Commonwealth Office of High Commissioner, 1880–2006. Leiden and Boston: Marinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007. Hardcover, ISBN: 9789004154971, 353 pages.

Ali A Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Hardcover, ISBN: 9780300136142, 518 pages.

Paul Bremer with Malcolm McConnell, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope. New York: Threshold Editions, 2006. Hardcover, ISBN: 9781416540588, 419 pages.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. Toronto: Alfred A Knopf, 2006. Hardcover, ISBN: 9781400044870, 320 page's.

Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq. New York: Owl Books, 2006. Hardcover, ISBN: 0805080082, 384 pages.

George Packer, The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. Hardcover, ISBN: 0374299633, 481 pages.     

Spherical Photography and Virtual Tours for Presenting Crime Scenes and Forensic Evidence in New Zealand Courtrooms

The delivery of forensic science evidence in a clear and understandable manner is an important aspect of a forensic scientist's role during expert witness delivery in a courtroom trial. This article describes an Integrated Evidence Platform (IEP) system based on spherical photography which allows the audience to view the crime scene via a virtual tour and view the forensic scientist's evidence and results in context. Equipment and software programmes used in the creation of the IEP include a Nikon DSLR camera, a Seitz Roundshot VR Drive, PTGui Pro, and Tourweaver Professional Edition. The IEP enables a clear visualization of the crime scene, with embedded information such as photographs of items of interest, complex forensic evidence, the results of laboratory analyses, and scientific opinion evidence presented in context. The IEP has resulted in significant improvements to the pretrial disclosure of forensic results, enhanced the delivery of evidence in court, and improved the jury's understanding of the spatial relationship between results.