Section: Features
64 results


Features Spring 2015
Schneider on the Failure of Mandated Disclosure
Mandated disclosure is a Lorelei, luring lawmakers onto the rocks of regulatory failure. Mandated disclosure is alluring because it addresses a real problem, the problem of a world in which non-specialists must make choices requiring specialist knowledge. Its solution is charmingly simple: If people face unfamiliar and complex decisions, give them information until the decision is familiar and comprehensible.


Features Spring 2015
The Memory of Detroit—and Beyond
Alumnus Clarence M. Burton traveled the globe to acquire historical documents. His collection—including some 500,000 books and 250,000 images—spans 400 years of North American history and is regarded as one of the best in the nation. On May 21, the Detroit Public Library will commemorate its 150th anniversary and the 100th anniversary of the Burton Historical Collection.


Features Fall 2014
Bagenstos on Class-Not-Race
Throughout the civil rights era, strong voices have argued that policy interventions should focus on class or socioeconomic status, not race. At times, this position-taking has seemed merely tactical, opportunistic, or in bad faith. I am more interested in the people who clearly mean it.


Features Spring 2014
Detroit Center for Family Advocacy: Keeping Families Together
The Detroit Center for Family Advocacy (CFA), founded by Vivek Sankaran, ’01, a clinical professor of law in the Law School’s Child Advocacy Law Clinic, works like this: An attorney from the center partners with a social worker and family advocate to remove legal barriers and safety risks that otherwise might cause a child to be put in the foster care system.


Features Fall 2014
Transforming What It Means to “Go to Court”
What if your day in court didn’t have to be in court? That’s the idea that led Michigan Law Professor J.J. Prescott and Ben Gubernick, ’11, his former student, to invent a first-of-its-kind technology that helps people interact with courts online, at any time of day, without needing to hire an attorney.


Features Fall 2014
Good Fortune: An Angel Investor Helps Entrepreneurs Soar
“An entrepreneur can’t do everything themselves, so they need a team around them,” says Geoff Entress, ’98, a Seattle-based investor who has backed more than 125 companies in the last 15 years. Today, the Pittsburgh native is a venture partner with Voyager Capital, sits on the boards of 11 companies, and is what’s called an angel investor—that is, someone who provides personal capital to businesses trying to get off the ground.


Features Fall 2014
Lawyer-turned-entrepreneur Starts Luxe Loungewear Line
Jamie Loeks Duffield, ’12, wanted to be “on the other side of the table.” So she left her associate position at the Miami law firm Shutts and Bowen in July 2013 and returned to Michigan to start Duffield Lane, a loungewear/resort wear line that can be worn at home, out to dinner, or at the beach.


Features Fall 2014
Civil Rights, Women’s Rights
The original Civil Rights Act language did not include orotections based on sex. Martha Griffiths, ’40, had something to say about that.


Features Fall 2014
A Page in Michigan Law History: Printing Course Packs, One Mimeograph at a Time
While the Computer Age has produced countless companies whose origins can be traced to their founders’ dorm rooms, college-age ingenuity didn’t begin with Facebook, Google, or Microsoft. For Ann Arbor-based book printer and manufacturer Edwards Brothers Malloy, it started with the mimeograph.


Features Fall 2014
Startup Central
If you want to be an entrepreneur, understand that you’ll have to be part of a team if you’re going to be successful. This, according to Geoff Entress, ’98, a Seattle-based investor who has backed more than
125 companies in the past 15 years.
More advice from Entress: Be comfortable with risk. Be visionary. Don’t be a jerk. And go to law school.