Victor D. López's Blog: Victor D. Lopez, page 73

My last Amazon book giveaway for awhile: Mindscapes: Ten SF and Speculative Fiction Short Stories

The reader response to my three giveaways for my Mindscapes short story collection last month was much higher than I had anticipated. As a result what was to be a single trial give-away turned into three and now a fourth and final one for this month. You can enter at the following link: https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/57bef69f6b727c97. My one and only giveaway for the Kindle version of my Intellectual Property general reference book is also still ongoing and should end by Amazon choosing a winner in another week or so. (The link for that giveaway is https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/d07a803485634cb0.

I would be grateful if you could forward teh links to anyone you think my be interested in the books. Thank you!

Traffic enforcement by camera: a public safety tool or just a cash cow for cash- strapped municipalities?

My friend and Hofstra University colleague Eugene Maccarrone and I published an article in 2015 on the popular trend across the U.S. of local municipalities resorting to traffic enforcement by the use of unattended cameras. Red light cameras, speed-trap cameras, stop sign cameras and even school bus cameras intended to catch violators. Under the guise of “traffic safety”, cash strapped municipalities have rushed to install cameras in cities large and small–very often at no cost to them with revenue sharing arrangements that often allow vendors who own, install, calibrate and maintain these cameras to get a percentage of the ticket revenue they generate. Although the justification for what is a lucrative revenue generator for municipalities is accident reduction, the evidence does not always back up that claim. Red light cameras which represent by far the most ubiquitous use of this type of technology, for example, do tend to reduce accidents related to individuals running red lights–but they also increase the incidence of rear-end collisions as drivers stop short for fear of running a yellow light that may turn to red as the approach the intersection and are struck from behind by drivers following too close behind them and often accelerating to try to “beat the light” and avoid a ticket.

Nor is safety the only issue involved in traffic enforcement by camera as the technology raises issues of privacy, fairness, and due process (e.g., only drivers of cars and motorcycles are subjected to what has essentially become strict liability offenses while pedestrians, skateboarders, bicyclists and others can flaunt the law with impunity when cameras are present, but not when actual police officers are present to hand out citations).

You can read the entire article at the link below.

López, V. D., Maccarrone, E. T. Traffic Enforcement by Camera: Privacy and Due Process in the Age of Big Brother Law Journal for Social Justice (Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University), Vol 5. Spring 2015.

Intellectual Property Kindle Book Giveaway Still Ongoing

A Giveaway for a copy of my Intellectual Property Law: A Practical Guide to Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks and Trade Secrets (Kindle Edition) is still open. Please enter if you have not done so or forward this message to anyone who may be interested in the book. ($8.99 regular price and $18.95 for the soft cover version). There is no purchase necessary. You can enter here:  https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/d07a803485634cb0

Unlike my law-related college textbooks and scholarly articles, this book is intended as a primer in the law of intellectual property for the general public. It should be of particular interest to authors, artists, librarians, entrepreneurs, managers and inventors. Unfortunately, unlike most of my other Kindle titles, this one does not appear to be available for library purchase for reasons I cannot fathom. The paperback version, however, is distributed to libraries so that you could request your library purchase the book if you’d like to see the full paperback version. (The Kindle edition omits a significant amount of material in the appendices that would not be readable on the small Kindle screen. The primary text, however, is the same in both the Kindle and oversized (approximately 9.5″ by 11″) paperback versions.

Intellectual Property Law (Kindle Edition)
See this #AmazonGiveaway for a chance to win: Intellectual Property Law: A Practical Guide to Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks and Trade Secrets (Kindle Edition). NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. See Official Rules http://amzn.to/GArules.


BY VICTOR D. LOPEZ

End of Days: Free for a limited time only

My speculative fiction short stories are difficult to classify, as they range widely in subject matter, tone and point of view. Some (Eternal Quest and What Price to Live the Dream) are about love, the sacrifices that true friendship exacts and the folly of even the wisest among us blindly pursuing truth in all the wrong places.  Some are about inner space–a universe in each of us which is both extraordinarily powerful and meaningless depending on one’s perspective (Mergs, or Why Godot Can’t Come). Some are might be classified as psychological horror (Earth Mother, To Sleep, Perchance to Dream . . .). Some are about the laughable, tragic nature of human hubris and its potential for utter destructiveness (End of Days). Some are cautionary tales about where we’re heading as a species (The Days the Dolphins Disappeared, Justice). Some are apocalyptic (End of Days and Mars: Genesis 2.0). In short, they reflect my eclectic tastes and contain layers of meaning beyond what I hope are entertaining narratives. I love science fiction, fantasy and literary fiction, and I always have. I especially love stories and novels that have something meaningful to say and that leave me thinking long after I’ve closed the book and put it on a shelf. I hope that I also write stories (and poetry, for that matter) that can have a similar effect on my gentle readers if given a chance. Goodness know, I try.

Here is what is probably my darkest short story from my Mindscapes collection–one that truly reflects my personal view of cosmology and that I pray could never come to pass but fear it could as the essence of the narrative rings true and could be pulled from the evening news tomorrow, even if my cosmology is completely wrong. It is the only short story I’ve ever written that actually angered my wife who refused to finish it. And it is the only short story that scares me long after the ink has dried. You can access it free of charge from Smashwords for a limited time here:  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view.... Please give it a spin, and please forward to anyone you believe might find it of interest. Thank you!

Should the U.S. Adopt the World-Standard “Loser Pays” System in Civil Litigation?

It is an oft-cited statistical fact that Americans are amongst the world’s most litigious people–a dubious distinction that has little to do with American exceptionalism or even our common law legal system. It is a source of great annoyance to me when I hear some “expert” in the popular media pontificate on the psychological or sociological reasons that supposedly have led to our seeming national obsession with litigation–especially when false comparisons are used to try to explain our supposed innate litigiousness (e.g., comparing the U.S. with Japan and pontificating some more about the psycho-social reasons why the Japanese so seldom resort to the courts in comparison to the American penchant for running to the courthouse as a means of dispute settlement).

While there are of course cultural (and perhaps psychological and other sociological) differences between the U.S. and other developed countries, these differences are tertiary rather than primary reasons for the very real difference in litigiousness and the attendant large number of lawyers as a percentage of the population needed to support it. The real reason for our litigiousness is very simple: we have the distinction of being in a unique minority (largely a minority of one) amongst nations in requiring every litigant to pay for their own legal fees–win or lose.

In most all of the world’s nations, the prevailing party is entitled to either a full or partial reimbursement of their legal fees in most civil actions if they are forced to defend themselves against claims by plaintiffs that ultimately fail. Proponents of the “American System” in which attorneys’ fees are almost always paid for by each litigant–win or lose–largely claim that this is the fairest system of justice and that abandoning it for the “Loser Pays” world standard would result in poor people not bringing law suits for fear of having to pay their own attorney’s fees as well as those of the defendant if they do not prevail in court. It is interesting to note that this was not the reason for abandoning the world standard in colonial times; rather, lawyers simply wanted to raise their fees and feared that if the system was not changed, fewer people (read: claimants with weak cases) would not seek their services and they would lose money.

Make no mistake about it: our system is one devised by lawyers, for their own benefit and not as a means of providing greater access to justice. As a result we have become one of the most litigious nations on earth–and one with the most expensive legal costs and longest waits to access courts with perpetually overcrowded dockets that in large cities require a wait of three to five years to get one’s day in court. My friend and Hofstra University colleague, Gene Maccarrone, collaborated on an article on this subject that should be required reading in every civics course and for every informed citizen. You can read the full text of the article and our conclusions here: North East Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 31, Fall 2014 pp 1-20.

Unauthorized Practice of Law in the U.S.: a Survey and Brief Analysis of the Law

The practice of law in the U.S. is very different from that of most countries around the world for a variety of reasons that include our reliance on the common law system rather than the civil law system espoused by most of the world’s jurisdictions. Unlike in most other countries where paralegals are allowed to perform routine legal tasks, only licensed attorneys are allowed to practice law in the U.S. and paralegals in the U.S. can only world under the direct supervision of an attorney. There are stiff penalties attached to the unauthorized practice of law and the definition of what constitutes the “practice” of law is very broadly defined to include acts that most people would not consider to be the practice of law. Thus many professionals–including accountants, realtors and others–can run afoul of the law through the simple act of giving advice to clients and helping them interpret or fill out contracts, forms and related paperwork. See my article (click on the following link) for a full discussion of the topic. It really should be read by most professionals as ignorance of the law will not limit liability for its breach.

 López, V. D. “Unauthorized Practice of Law in the U.S.: a Survey and Brief Analysis of the Law” North East Journal of Legal  Studies (Vol. 26, Fall 2011).

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS

Here is another of my immigration law refereed journal articles that contains information you will not find quoted on the popular media that belies the conventional wisdom about illegal immigration and its overall positive impact on our society, economy and public safety. The Trump administration’s new focus on an issue that both Democratic and Republican administrations long ignored (for very different reasons) makes reading this article even more compelling than when I first wrote it as a new immigration policy for good or is is certain to be proposed and passed under this administration. You can access the article by clicking here: illegal-immigration-2011-final-draft

Dealing with Uninvited and Unwelcomed Guests: A Survey of Current State Legislative Efforts to Control Illegal Immigration within Their Borders

In 2013 I published an article with the above name in an international refereed journal [Int. J. Public Law and Policy, Vol. Vol. 3, No. 1, 2013 (Geneva, Switzerland)] dealing with the efforts of states at the time, led by Arizona, to attempt to enforce immigration laws when the Obama administration (following a pattern set by previous Democratic and Republican administrations) refused to enforce immigration laws and in fact led efforts to increase illegal immigration by executive orders, including the effort to unilaterally “enact” the Dreamer Act rejected by Congress, an action ultimately found to be Unconstitutional.

With President Trump ordering the building of a wall on our Southern border today, immigration law is once again front and center and my article takes on a new relevance and worth a second look. Although the final published article is not publicly available other than through prescription-based services, I am providing the accepted, pre-publication version of the article as I am allowed to do in my personal blogs under the publication agreement.  You can download the article by clicking here: dealing-with-univited-and-unwelcomed-guests-final-accepted-pdf-03-lopez-copy.

Please forward this article to interested parties as it is not otherwise available online.  Thank you.

A cold reading of my newest unpublished free verse poem: “Unsung Heroes: Felipe”

(This is a re-post from my Facebook page.)

Here is a cold reading of my newest free verse poem on the death of my dad (“Unsung Heroes: Felipe”). I wrote it days after my dad’s passing to give out at his wake to people who largely did not know him as most of the central people in his life had passed on, moved away or were otherwise unable to attend due to health issues or other circumstances. I did not want his funeral arrangements to be publicized to my university community at large and only the members of my department were actually notified of his passing. A small group of my dearest friends and family and many of my colleagues attended, but most did not know him. I needed to paint a picture of a deeply honorable, honest man whose passing may have gone largely unnoticed, a mere ripple on a very large pond, but for a handful of people like me for whom it was a tidal wave. It is a poor tribute from a grateful son lucky beyond words to have had him in his life but unable to pay him appropriate homage. He mattered. The world is poorer for his passing in ways no one who did not know him well can ever fully understand. You can access the YouTube file here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMhHLYK92Js

Because I post in a wide range of venues, I apologize if this (like many of my other posts) is repetitive due to prior automatic postings from one or more of my various blogs. I do not spend much time on Facebook and much that is posted on my timeline here comes from other places. But In re-reading some of my old poems over the last week (I’m in that sort of mood, I guess) I wanted to post this one. I wish I were a better writer. I wish I were a better man. I wish I could have been the son he deserved. The fault and shame are mine. No tears can change that. But I loved him with all my heart and he certainly knew that and reciprocated in kind. I hope that is something.

The photo is one I had to make due with when he passed as I was on Long island without access to more than a dozen or so photos. The album Alice lovingly created for me from what we had was meager, and that is one reason I wanted to give some additional verbal snapshots of the man. It was also therapy for me as the poem was written in one sitting with very little editing. The photo was scanned and photoshopped as best I could under time pressure from a photo of my dad, mom and me on my graduation from law school. That is the way I prefer to remember him–healthy, relatively young (younger than I am now), and the man who shaped the man I am today on a happy day for him, my mom and me.

Article: Legislating Relief for the High Cost of College Textbooks

[The following was recently posted by me in my LinkedIn pages. I am reprinting it here in the hope that it may reach a new audience as the subject matter of my original article referenced and linked below is as critical today for students as it was when I first wrote it and, alas, little has changed as predicted in my original article the link to which appears below.]

One of the frustrating realities of scholarly publications is that for those of us in academia they are critically important for the attainment of tenure and promotions and, for those of us who teach in AACSB-accredited institutions, for maintaining our status as Scholarly Academics who can teach both undergraduate and graduate classes. We devote enormous time and resources to research and publication of articles that very few people actually read and cite, generally speaking. To make matters worse, many refereed journals and law reviews require us to assign the copyright to our articles for the privilege of being published in these venues and usually we cannot even post our own work online so that other academics and the general public may find it unless they are specifically searching for it and have access to online databases such as Lexis and West Law (the required databases for meaningful legal research).

Fortunately, many periodicals that were at one time available by subscription only or through prescription-based services are now also available online, though not always indexed effectively by the search engines because of the relatively low volume of traffic they attract. Unfortunately, some of the scholarly articles I’ve published over the past decade are still only available through the traditional research databases of by subscription only (e.g., to a limited number of law libraries in bound formats). But a number have also become available online. Over the next several weeks, I hope to provide links to them here, one at a time.

I’ll start today with my an article that is no less relevant today than when it was first published, as the fledgeling efforts by the federal government and a few states to try to rein in the high cost of college textbooks has not made a significant enough impact on the cost of college textbooks for reasons I noted eight years ago when I wrote the article. You can access the full article by clicking on its title below.

“Legislating Relief for the High Cost of College Textbooks: a Brief Analysis of the Current Law and its  implication for Students, Faculty and the Publishing Industry” Journal of Legal Studies in Business, Vol. 15  (2009).