Back in Blue: The Successful Reintegration of Combat Veteran Law Enforcement Officers.

In the past ten plus years, several million national guard and reserve component military personnel have been deployed in support of the global war on terrorism. Tens of thousands of those personnel also serve as full-time law enforcement officers in police and sheriff's offices around the country. Life as a law enforcement officer is tough enough, but when combined with the psychological baggage brought on by months of war, reintegrating into civilian life and the role of a law enforcement officer can be extremely difficult. This article discusses a reintegration program specifically for law enforcement agencies that is designed to promote long-term psychological and social health in combat veteran officers. The program's costs are offset by the many assets (leadership, tactical training, etc.) these men and women bring to the department. By committing to the long-term successful reintegration of these individuals, departments enhance their own forces and improve community safety.

Exploring How AFFECT (A Family Focused Emotion Communication Training) and Self Psychology Are Mutually Enhancing

This paper implicitly advocates for a rapprochement between psychodynamic and behavioral approaches to psychotherapy, by exploring the similarities and differences between self psychology and A Family Focused Emotion Communication Training (AFFECT), a behavioral parent training model. Self psychology, a theory with broad applicability, has been applied to several modalities besides behavioral ones. Generally speaking, self psychology and AFFECT are both relational approaches to psychotherapy that emphasize the impact of parent responsiveness, more specifically empathic attunement, on a child's emotional development and emotion regulation. Differentiating aspects of each model are identified to enhance the other model. AFFECT has relevance for pushing self psychology theory more in the direction of operations, which has implications for enhancing the research potential of self psychology, as well as for the training of the self-psychologist. Conversely, self psychology has relevance for coaching the parent with low self-esteem and decreased self-efficacy in AFFECT, which has potential implications for AFFECT treatment outcomes.

The Jewish Law Firm: Past and Present

The rise and growth of large Jewish law firms in New York City during the second half of the twentieth century was nothing short of an astounding success story. As late as 1950, there was not a single large Jewish law firm in town. By the mid-1960s, six of the largest twenty law firms were Jewish, and by 1980, four of the largest ten prestigious law firms were Jewish firms. Moreover, the accomplishment of the Jewish firms is especially striking because, while the traditional large White Anglo-Saxon Protestant law firms grew at a fast rate during this period, the Jewish firms grew twice as fast, and they did so in spite of experiencing explicit discrimination. What happened? This book chapter is a revised, updated study of the rise and growth of large New York City Jewish law firms. It is based on the public record, with respect to both the law firms themselves and trends in the legal profession generally, and on over twenty in-depth interviews with lawyers who either founded and practiced at these successful Jewish firms, attempted and failed to establish such firms, or were in a position to join these firms but decided instead to join WASP firms. According to the informants interviewed in this chapter, while Jewish law firms benefited from general decline in anti-Semitism and increased demand for corporate legal services, a unique combination of factors explains the incredible rise of the Jewish firms. First, white-shoe ethos caused large WASP firms to stay out of undignified practice areas and effectively created pockets of Jewish practice areas, where the Jewish firms encountered little competition for their services. Second, hiring and promotion discriminatory practices by the large WASP firms helped create a large pool of talented Jewish lawyers from which the Jewish firms could easily recruit. Finally, the Jewish firms benefited from a flip side of bias phenomenon, that is, they benefited from the positive consequences of stereotyping. Paradoxically, the very success of the Jewish firms is reflected in their demise by the early twenty-first century: because systematic large law firm ethno-religious discrimination against Jewish lawyers has become a thing of the past, the very reason for the existence of Jewish law firms has been nullified. As other minority groups, however, continue to struggle for equality within the senior ranks of Big Law, can the experience of the Jewish firms serve as a “separate-but-equal” blueprint for overcoming contemporary forms of discrimination for women, racial, and other minority attorneys? Perhaps not. As this chapter establishes, the success of large Jewish law firms was the result of unique conditions and circumstances between 1945 and 1980, which are unlikely to be replicated. For example, large law firms have become hyper-competitive and are not likely to allow any newcomers the benefit of protected pockets of practice. While smaller “separate-but-equal” specialized firms, for instance, ones exclusively hiring lawyer-mothers occasionally appear, the rise of large “separate-but-equal” firms is improbable.

Industry Professionals Who Attain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Accreditation: An Examination of Motivations in Human Resource (HR) Training and Development

Despite the economy, the green building industry continues to grow and drive the demand for environmentally conscious, highly skilled professionals (USGBC 2009). LEED Accredited Professionals (APs) have the knowledge and skills to meet such demand; however, information is limited regarding LEED APs or their motivations and expectations toward prospective employers. The author surveyed a sample of LEED Accredited architects and found a combination of job and personal factors motivated them to attain accreditation. LEED APs value both a competitive salary and commitment to sustainability in prospective employers. To attract, retain, and utilize LEED APs, executives in this industry must reexamine corporate culture, their willingness to pay for credentialing, and the alignment of their reputation with the desires of potential applicants.

Manager Training and Development Strategy: A Methodology to Link Strategic Initiatives at Washington and Lee University

Washington and Lee University has developed and implemented a strategic plan and performance development initiative for 2007-2017. In concert with the strategic plan and performance development initiative, supportive manager core competencies have been identified. The deliverable for this capstone project is a documented methodology that supports the strategy for the design and implementation of a manager training and development program that ensures needed competencies are available. The author uses survey data to determine training needs and priorities and, through a review of literature, investigates effective strategies to arrive at a successful implementation methodology. The author presents findings and conclusions regarding design implementation methodology for manager training and development.

The Future Direction of Delaware Law (Including a Brief Exegesis on Fee Shifting Bylaws)

Delaware sets the governance standards for most public companies. The ability to attract corporations could not be explained solely by the existence of a favorable statutory regime. Delaware was not invariably the first or the only state to implement management friendly provisions. Given the interpretive gaps in the statute and the critical importance of the common law in the governance process, courts played an outsized role in setting legal standards. The management friendly nature of the Delaware courts contributed significantly to the state’s attraction to public corporations. A current example of a management friendly trend in the case law had seen the recent decisions setting out the board’s authority to adopt bylaws under Section 109 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (DGCL), particularly those involving the shifting of fees in litigation against the corporation or its directors. The DGCL allows bylaws that address “the business of the corporation, the conduct of its affairs, and its rights or powers or the rights or powers of its stockholders, directors, officers or employees.” The broad parameters are, however, subject to limits. Bylaws cannot be inconsistent with the certificate of incorporation or “the law.” Law includes the common law. The Delaware courts have used the limitations imposed by “the law” to severely restrict the reach of shareholder inspired bylaws. The courts have not used the same principles to impose similar restraints on bylaws adopted by the board of directors. This can be seen with respect to bylaws that restrict or even eliminate the right of shareholders to bring actions against management and the corporation. In ATP Tour, Inc. v. Deutscher Tennis Bund the court approved a fee shifting bylaw that had littl relationship to the internal affairs of the corporation. The decision upheld the bylaw as facially valid.The decision ignored a number of obvious legal infirmities. Among other things, the decision did not adequately address the requirement in Section 109(b) that bylaws be consistent with “the law.” The decision obliquely acknowledged that the provisions would “by their nature, deter litigation” but otherwise made no effort to assess the impact of this deterrence on shareholders causes of action. The provision in fact had the practical effect of restricting, if not eliminating, litigation rights granted by the DGCL and the common law. Perhaps most significantly, however, the bylaws significantly limited common law rights of shareholders to bring actions against the corporation and the board. Given the high dismissal rates for these actions, fee shifting bylaws imposed a meaningful risk of liability on plaintiffs. Moreover, because judgments in derivative suits were paid to the corporation, shareholders serving as plaintiffs confronted the risk of liability without any offsetting direct benefit. By preventing suits in this area, the bylaw effectively insulated the behavior of boards from legal challenge. The ATP decision was poorly reasoned and overstepped acceptable boundaries. The management friendly decision threatened the preeminent role of Delaware in the development of corporate law. The decision raised the specter of federal intervention and the potential for meaningful competition from the states. Because the opinion examined the bylaw in the context of non-stock companies, the reasoning may remain applicable only to those entities and never make the leap to for-profit stock corporations. Nonetheless, the analysis reflects a management friendly approach that does not adequately take into account the impact of the provision on the rights of shareholders.

An Introduction to Conservation Easements in the United States: A Simple Concept and a Complicated Mosaic of Law

The idea of a conservation easement – restrictions on the development and use of land designed to protect the land’s conservation or historic values – can be relatively easily understood. More significant and more challenging is the complex body of state and federal laws that shapes the creation, funding, tax treatment, enforcement, modification, and termination of conservation easements. The explosion in the number of conservation easements over the past four decades has made them one of the most popular land protection mechanisms in the United States. The National Conservation Easement Database estimates that the total number of acres encumbered by conservation easements exceeds 40 million.Because conservation easements are both novel and ubiquitous, understanding how they actual work is essential for practicing lawyers, policymakers, land trust professionals, and students of conservation. This article provides a “quick tour” through some of the most important aspects of the developing mosaic of conservation easement law. It gives the reader a sense of the complex inter-jurisdictional dynamics that shape conservation transactions and disputes about conservation easements. Professors of property law, environmental law, tax law, and environmental studies who wish to cover conservation easements in the context of a more general course can use the article to provide their students with a broad but comprehensive overview of the relevant legal and policy issues.

Background Checks for Firearms Sales and Loans: Law, History, and Policy

This article examines past and present systems requiring that a person receive permission before buying or borrowing a firearm. The article covers laws from the eighteenth century to the present. Such laws have traditionally been rare in the United States. The major exceptions are antebellum laws of the slaves states, and of those same states immediately after the Civil War, which forbade gun ownership by people of color, unless the individual had been granted government permission. Today “universal background checks” are based on a system created by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his “Everytown” lobby. Such laws have been enacted in several states, and also proposed as federal legislation. Besides covering the private sale of firearms, they also cover most loans of firearms and the return of loaned firearms. By requiring that almost all loans and returns may only be processed by a gun store, these laws dangerously constrict responsible firearms activities, such as safety training and safe storage. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California are among the jurisdictions which have enacted less restrictive, more effective legislation which create controls on private firearms sales, without inflicting so much harm on firearms safety.