Legal Affairs


November \| December 2005 Litmus Tests By Lincoln Caplan Letters SCENES Leaving One-Child Behind Chinese immigrants seek asylum in America from China's one-child policy. By Michelle Chen Display Cases Ralph Nader's museum of tort law will include relics from famous lawsuits—if it ever gets built. By Laura Longhine Uneasy Riders Myrtle Beach's separate and unequal biker rallies. By Paul Wachter Not Bloody Guilty British lawyers are rushing to the defense of death-row inmates—in the American South. By Dana Mulhauser TERMS OF ART Oh, Behave! Congress's recent efforts to punish federal judges flout the Constitution; it says so in the Good Behavior Clause. By Todd David Peterson THE PRUDENT JURIST Does a law firm have to keep your e-mail question confidential? By William H. Simon ARGUMENTS "Loser Pays" Doesn't When lawsuit losers are forced to pay the legal fees of winners, the cost of litigation for everyone goes up. By Herbert M. Kritzer $tats Tell baseball to dream on. By Alan Schwarz Outranked and Underrated Rankings of law schools are inherently misleading. Ratings can reveal their strengths and weaknesses. By Norman Bradburn
FEATURES Behind the Hedge In the untamed world of hedge funds, rigged deals and manipulated markets help the wealthy thrive while ordinary investors wither. By David Skeel The Enemy Among Us They have grown smaller and quieter over the past decade, but citizen militias are still locked and loaded in rural America. Is the FBI paying attention? By Geoffrey Gagnon A Blueprint for the Future The federal government has embarked on the biggest courthouse building spree in history, hired the nation's finest architects to do the designing, and touched off a rancorous debate over what the courthouses of tomorrow should look like. By Daniel Brook Viagra Natural Maca, a plant grown in the Andean highlands, is believed to boost male potency. The Quechua Indians cultivate it; a New Jersey company owns the patent on it. The Americans call the work that led to the patent bioprospecting. Others say it's stealing. By Brendan I. Koerner Artfully Made-up Americans bought $6.4 billion worth of cosmeceutical skin care products last year. But customers who read between the fine lines discover that the most potent active ingredient is their own gullibility. By Erika Kawalek REVIEWS academy Fundamental Imports The European origins of American civil liberties (and the American Civil Liberties Union). By Mark Tushnet practice Second Look at the Second City Chicago lawyers changed a lot in 20 years. By William Henderson Elsewhere The taxonomy of lawyer jokes and other ideas from the nation's law reviews. academy Born on the Fourth of July America's Constitution was redeemed by the Declaration of Independence that came before it, not 75 years later by the Civil War. By Murray Dry EXHIBIT Kurdish Masks

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