Brian Sheppard

• Seton Hall Law

In this article, I discuss how technological development could change the way that we think about the essential features of legality. In particular, I focus on the strengths and weaknesses of machine learning in the context of legislation and adjudication. I argue that the content of those essential features could depend upon our willingness to mak...

Recent empirical research, including my own, has exposed a previously overlooked behavior: instances in which people constrain themselves from doing something that they want to do because they believe a norm obligates them to do so, even though the norm in question does not, on a straightforward reading, contain such an obligation. I label this phe...

The belief that legal argument makes a difference to the resolution of legal disputes is one of the most fundamental tenets of the American legal system. Despite its importance, few have empirically examined whether legal argument matters to the adjudication of a dispute, let alone whether its influence is good or bad. In this article, we discuss o...

This dissertation is a philosophically-minded, empirical study of constraint in the judicial decisionmaking context. It seeks to provide insight into the fundamental questions regarding law’s role in judicial deliberation. Does law make judges more likely to decide in accordance with its dictates? If so, does the specificity of the law’s directive...

The long-running debate about whether judges have adequate resources has begun to boil. State and federal legislatures are slashing court budgets, with many courts receiving up to 20 percent reductions. In recent years, judges have been resigning or retiring in droves. The remaining judicial vacancies are often left unfilled. Those judges that rema...

The Spanish version of this paper can be found at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1950411This report has been prepared for the Commission on Truth and Reconciliation of Honduras. It has two aims: first to give a legal and constitutional analysis of the events surrounding the removal of President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales from power in June 2009 (Part IV...

In her essay Inducing Moral Deliberation: On the Occasional Virtues of Fog, Professor Seana Valentine Shiffrin argued that the unclarity and uncertainty of legal standards as compared to legal rules should not be understood as defects. Shiffrin claimed that these features of standards actually foster citizens’ moral deliberation and democratic enga...

La versión en Inglés de este documento se puede encontrar en http://ssrn.com/abstract=1915214Este reporte ha sido preparado para la Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación. El presente reporte tiene dos fines: primero dar un análisis legal y constitucional sobre los eventos relacionados con la destitución del Presidente José Manuel Zelaya Rosales...

There are several kinds of norms, and this variety can lead to spirited debate about the best norm to employ for the regulation of a particular activity. Should the norm be mandatory or aspirational? A rule or a standard? One important area in which norm-choice has come to the fore is the American Bar Association's oversight of pro bono work. Curre...

A short biography of Josiah Quincy, Jr. printed in an encyclopedia.

Some predicted that Justice Sosman would side with the appellants in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health and hold that the then-existing civil law limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman violated the Massachusetts Constitution. These prognosticators believed that, among other things, Justice Sosman’s service as a board member of Pl...