Cashing by the hour: Why large law firms prefer hourly fees over contingent fees

Large law firms seem to prefer hourly fees over contingent fees. Thispaper provides a moral hazard explanation for this pattern of behavior.Contingent legal fees align the interests of the attorney with those ofthe client, but not necessarily with those of the partnership. We showthat the choice of hourly fees is a solution to an agency problem withmultiple principals, where the interests of one principal (law firm)collide with the interests of the other principal (client).

Towards equivalent health care of prisoners: European soft law and public health policy in Geneva.

Prisoners have a right to health care and to be protected against inhumane and degrading treatment. Health care personnel and public policy makers play a central role in the protection of these rights and in the pursuit of public health goals. This article examines the legal framework for prison medicine in the canton of Geneva, Switzerland and provides examples of this framework that has shaped prisoners' medical care, including preventive measures. Geneva constitutes an intriguing example of how the Council of Europe standards concerning prison medicine have acquired a legal role in a Swiss canton. Learning how these factors have influenced implementation of prison medicine standards in Geneva may be helpful to public health managers elsewhere and encourage the use of similar strategies.

An agenda-setting model of electoral competition

This paper presents a model of electoral competition focusing on the formation of thepublic agenda. An incumbent government and a challenger party in opposition competein elections by choosing the issues that will key out their campaigns. Giving salience toan issue implies proposing an innovative policy proposal, alternative to the status-quo.Parties trade off the issues with high salience in voters concerns and those with broadagreement on some alternative policy proposal. Each party expects a higher probabilityof victory if the issue it chooses becomes salient in the voters decision. But remarkably,the issues which are considered the most important ones by a majority of votes may notbe given salience during the electoral campaign. An incumbent government may survivein spite of its bad policy performance if there is no sufficiently broad agreement on apolicy alternative. We illustrate the analytical potential of the model with the case of theUnited States presidential election in 2004.

Consumer Advisory Bulletin, The "Right-to-Cancel" Law - Know Your Rights!, May 2006

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: The "Right-to-Cancel" Law - Know Your Rights!

Consumer Advisory Bulletin, "Lemon Law" -- Know Your Rights!, February 2003

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: Iowa's "Lemon Law" -- Know Your Rights!

Setting the rules of the game: The choice of electoral systems in advanced democracies

The origins of electoral systems have received scant attention in the literature. Looking at the history of electoral rules in the advanced world in the last century, this paper shows that the existing wide variation in electoral rules across nations can be traced to the strategic decisions that the current ruling parties, anticipating the coordinating consequences of different electoral regimes, make to maximize their representation according to the following conditions. On the one hand, as long as the electoral arena does not change substantially and the current electoral regime serves the ruling parties well, the latter have no incentives to modify the electoral regime. On the other hand, as soon as the electoral arena changes (due to the entry of new voters or a change in their preferences), the ruling parties will entertain changing the electoral system, depending on two main conditions: the emergence of new parties and the coordinating capacities of the old ruling parties. Accordingly, if the new parties are strong, the old parties shift from plurality/majority rules to proportional representation (PR) only if the latter are locked into a 'non-Duvergerian' equilibrium; i.e. if no old party enjoys a dominant position (the case of most small European states)--conversely, they do not if a Duvergerian equilibrium exists (the case of Great Britain). Similarly, whenever the new entrants are weak, a non-PR system is maintained, regardless of the structure of the old party system (the case of the USA). The paper discusses as well the role of trade and ethnic and religious heterogeneity in the adoption of PR rules.

Le juge en droit européen et international = The Judge in European and International Law

Le juge et son rôle ont été thématisés abondamment en théorie du droit, mais toujours sous l'angle du droit et du juge internes. On pensera ainsi aux questions des rapports entre justice et politique ou démocratie, ou encore au rôle créateur de droit du juge en cas de lacune juridique et à la légitimité du droit dit prétorien. Pour autant que l'on considère qu'il s'agisse bien d'un juge, le juge international ou européen et sa fonction judiciaire posent des problèmes de même type certes bien que plus aigus, mais aussi des difficultés nouvelles auxquelles la théorie du droit n'a pas encore donné de réponses. Le présent ouvrage tente d'identifier ces difficultés théoriques propres au juge international ou européen et d'apporter des débuts de réponse. Fruit du sixième colloque doctoral de l'Ecole doctorale Fondements du droit européen et international et quatrième volume de la collection du même nom, il réunit des contributions en anglais et en français rédigées par des doctorants des universités suisses romandes et alémaniques et d'universités européennes partenaires, mais aussi d'intervenants externes invités aux différentes sessions du colloque.

Strategic ambiguity in electoral competition

Many have observed that political candidates running for election areoften purposefully expressing themselves in vague and ambiguous terms. In thispaper we provide a simple formal model of this phenomenon. We model theelectoral competition between two candidates as a two--stage game. In thefirst stage of the game two candidates simultaneously choose their ideologies,and in the second stage they simultaneously choose their level of ambiguity.Our results show that ambiguity, although disliked by voters, may be sustainedin equilibrium. The introduction of ambiguity as a strategic choice variablefor the candidates can also serve to explain why candidates with the sameelectoral objectives end up ``separating'', that is, assuming different ideological positions.

On the origins of electoral systems and political parties. The role of elections in multi-member districts

The old, understudied electoral system composed of multi-member districts, open ballot and plurality rule is presented as the most remote scene of the origin of both political parties and new electoral systems. A survey of the uses of this set of electoral rules in different parts of the world during remote and recent periods shows its wide spread. A model of voting by this electoral system demonstrates that, while it can produce varied and pluralistic representation, it also provides incentives to form factional or partisan candidacies. Famous negative reactions to the emergence of factions and political parties during the 18th and 19th centuries are reinterpreted in this context. Many electoral rules and procedures invented since the second half of the 19th century, including the Australian ballot, single-member districts, limited and cumulative ballots, and proportional representation rules, derived from the search to reduce the effects of the originating multi-member district system in favor of a single party sweep. The general relations between political parties and electoral systems are restated to account for the foundational stage here discussed.

Corporate criminal law and organization incentives: A managerial perspective

Corporate criminal liability puts a serious challenge to the economictheory of enforcement. Are corporate crimes different from other crimes?Are these crimes best deterred by punishing individuals, punishing corporations, or both? What is optimal structure of sanctions? Shouldcorporate liability be criminal or civil? This paper has two majorcontributions to the literature. First, it provides a common analyticalframework to most results presented and largely discussed in the field.In second place, by making use of the framework, we provide new insightsinto how corporations should be punished for the offenses committed bytheir employees.

Audit report on the Webster County Metropolitan Law Enforcement Telecommunications Board for the years ended June 30, 2007 and June 30, 2006

Audit report on the Webster County Metropolitan Law Enforcement Telecommunications Board for the years ended June 30, 2007 and June 30, 2006

Audit report on the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy for the year ended June 30, 2007

Audit report on the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy for the year ended June 30, 2007

Negativity effect in multiparty electoral competition

We construct a dynamic voting model of multiparty competition in order to capture the following facts: voters base their decision on past economicperformance of the parties, and parties and candidates have different objectives. This model may explain the emergence of parties' ideologies,and shows the compatibility of the different objectives of parties and candidates. Together, these results give rise to the formation ofpolitical parties, as infinetely-lived agents with a certain ideology, out of the competition of myopic candidates freely choosing policy positions. We also show that in multicandidate elections held under the plurality system, Hotelling's principle of minimum differentiation is no longer satisfied.

Iowa Law Enforcement Academy Performance Report FY2012

The Iowa Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) was created by an act of the Iowa legislature in 1967 with its purpose being to upgrade law enforcement to professional status. The specific goals were to maximize training opportunities for law enforcement officers, to coordinate training and to set standards for the law enforcement services.