Vol. 78, No. 7, July
2005
Book Reviews
Cultural Property Law: A
Practitioner's Guide to the Management, Protection, and Preservation of
Heritage Resources
By Sherry Hutt, Caroline M. Bolanco, Walter E. Stern &
Stan N. Harris (Chicago, IL: ABA Environment, Energy & Resources
Section, 2004). 288 pgs. $99.95. Order, (800) 285-2221.
Reviewed by Sarah Hatch
The term "cultural property" encompasses objects such as buried
treasure, priceless art, sacred religious items, and ancestors' graves.
This book examines the laws that govern things that are capable of
capturing one's imagination, heart, and soul.
Cultural Property Law: A Practitioner's Guide to the Management,
Protection, and Preservation of Heritage Resources is a good tool
for museum board members, anthropologists, artists, and art dealers, and
the attorneys who represent them. This book provides an accessible and
concise summary of the myriad legal issues pertaining to cultural
property. These include, among others, the laws governing museum
management and care of collections, the repatriation of Native American
funerary and religious objects, and the impact of theft on the arts
trade, archaeological digs, and shipwreck recoveries. To achieve this
brevity, however, the authors sacrificed the depth of discussion that an
experienced practitioner might find useful.
The book's organization facilitates its utility. Most of the chapters
examine the federal and state laws governing the management of cultural
property, whether the property is found on private or tribal land, in
parks, or underwater. The remaining chapters focus on the trade and
movement of art and other cultural property within the United States and
abroad. Each chapter ends with an "Issues" section that elucidates
potential issues arising under the examined laws and a "Frequently Asked
Questions" section. These sections showcase the diverse experiences of
the book's attorney authors.
Given the potential emotional impact of attempts to recover or keep
cultural property, greater attention to case law could have made the
book more interesting to read, albeit less useful as a quick reference.
However, readers desiring such content or more depth will find the
book's bibliography and list of Web sites to be rich resources for
further reading or study.
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Go Directly to Jail: The
Criminalization of Almost Everything
By Gene Healy, editor (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2004).
192 pgs. $17.95. Order, www.nbnbooks.com.
Reviewed by Timothy McAllister
Federal regulation run amok, duplication of existing state laws, the
erosion of Constitutional provisions, and the expansion of federal
regulation to a degree of legal incomprehensibility are the central
themes of the collection of essays published as Go Directly to Jail:
The Criminalization of Almost Everything. This book is comprised of
five essays that specifically target federal medical legislation
(HIPAA), environmental protections, laws regulating businesses, federal
gun control, and the general overextension of federal criminal
legislation.
As might be expected of such a collection, it contains extreme
examples that barely pass the "laugh test" of legality, but there are
far fewer of these than one would expect. This collection of essays
deals head on with the serious issue of the federal government
overstepping its bounds in a broad spectrum of issues.
The individual essays originally were published separately between
1997 and 2003, and one is, thankfully, outdated. One of Erik Luna's two
well-written essays deals with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which
have since been affected by the January 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling
in United States v. Booker. Many of the same issues that Luna
expounds on are further extrapolated in the Court's multi-voiced
Booker ruling.
The mushrooming of regulatory law in the last 30 years has resulted
in a system that: is excessively complex (in 1998 the Healthcare
Leadership Council president stated that 132,720 pages of federal health
care rules and regulations affect the Mayo Clinic); is excessively
intrusive (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act section 6927(a)
renders it a crime to refuse entry for warrantless searches by EPA
investigators); has diminished the concept of intent to break the law
(knowledge of a "problem" by line employees implies that the corporation
managers had full knowledge of the "problem"); and has diminished
constitutional protections (stipulations of the Federal Sentencing
Guidelines, which previously allowed evidence considered in sentencing
that was not considered by the jury, thereby eroding the Fourth
Amendment, and the federal prosecution of laws that should rightfully be
prosecuted under the auspices of the state, thereby eroding the Tenth
Amendment).
Go Directly to Jail is a good overview of the increasing
number of regulatory laws that result in increased costs of business,
squandered governmental resources, an overburdened court system, and the
dilution of criminal acts. When the government criminalizes almost
everything, it trivializes true criminal behavior.
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Patent, Copyright & Trademark: An
Intellectual Property Desk Reference, 7th Ed.
By Stephen Elias & Richard Stim (Berkeley, CA: Nolo,
2004). 560 pgs. $39.99. Order, www.nolo.com.
Reviewed by Michael J. Gratz
This desk reference is a plain English guide to the often confusing
and complex area of intellectual property (IP) law. The book starts with
a general introduction that breaks down the subject into the four
traditional categories of patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade
secrets. The introduction also briefly explains unfair competition,
important international IP law considerations, and how the four
categories may overlap. As a bonus feature, a useful chart lists
creative works, inventions, and so on, and whether they fall under trade
secrets, copyrights, patents, trademarks, unfair competition, or "no
rights." The introduction ends with a listing of other "self-help" or
"how to" IP resources.
The remainder of the book is divided into sections on patent,
copyright, trademark, and trade secret law. Each of these sections
contains a more detailed discussion of the IP category based on
frequently asked questions (FAQs), followed by definitions of key terms
and the full text of applicable statutes for that IP category. Further,
the copyright, patent, and trademark sections include sample
applications (which are misnamed "Forms").
The authors use charts, graphs, drawings, and examples with
hypothetical fact patterns to clarify key concepts. One criticism is
that this work contains a few amateurish, gray-shaded sketches that are
difficult to discern and that poorly illustrate the concepts
discussed.
Overall, this book is a good, easy-to-read resource for the IP novice
or the skilled practitioner looking to refresh the memory or to explain
these complex concepts to a client. Due to the rapid growth and change
in this area of law, it is surprising that this book has not been
republished every year since its inception in 1996. Nevertheless, for
the price, it appears to be a good investment.
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The Arbitrator's Handbook, 2nd
Ed.
By John W. Cooley (Notre Dame, IN: National Institute for
Trial Advocacy, 2005). 469 pgs. $60. Order, (800) 225-6482.
Reviewed by Terry F. Peppard
At more than 450 pages, and with 16 appendices, this text offers much
promise. Regrettably, that promise is left largely unfulfilled.
While the title indicates that the book is aimed at arbitrators, the
preface suggests that it is actually intended for a much broader
audience, including participants in continuing legal education programs,
law students, and arbitration counsel. This attempt to serve all masters
causes the work to be too long. A less ambitious undertaking, aimed
exclusively at practicing or aspiring arbitrators, would almost
certainly have been more effective.
The text also suffers from incompleteness. For example, the author
discusses awards of punitive damages without even mentioning the
critical constitutional dimensions of the issue.
But perhaps the most glaring error in the work is in its treatment of
arbitral motion practice. The author, a former U.S. magistrate and
assistant U.S. attorney, has imported into a 25-page treatment of this
subject (Appendix A) virtually every motion known to federal civil
litigation practice but without allowing for the fundamental differences
between civil litigation and arbitration. As an example, the text lists
ways to analyze a motion to strike pleadings, but it does not note that,
because arbitral cases play out in private settings and before
law-trained professionals, the core reasons for entertaining a motion to
strike irrelevant, frivolous, or scandalous matter from pleadings are
not present in arbitration, as these core reasons might be if the same
documents were intended to be seen in public proceedings by a lay jury.
As another example, the same Appendix A lists ways for an arbitrator to
treat a motion for disqualification of arbitration counsel without
mentioning that state and federal arbitration laws do not grant
arbitrators the power to remove counsel and that the rules of leading
arbitral institutions are, accordingly, silent on the subject. The text
thus does a disservice to readers, who might have benefited from a
mention of the fact that arbitrators do not enjoy all of the powers of
judges.
It is hoped that these shortcomings will be addressed in the next
edition of this title.
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To Review a Book...
The following books are available for review.
Please request the book and writing guidelines from Karlé Lester at
the State Bar of Wisconsin, P.O. Box 7158, Madison, WI 53707-7158, (608)
250-6127, klester@wisbar.org.
Publications and videos available for review
- Annotated Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Art Garwin,
editor (Chicago, IL: ABA Center for Professional Responsibility Judicial
Division, 2004). 507 pgs.
- Anatomy of a Law Firm Merger: How to Make or Break the Deal,
Third Edition, by Hildebrandt International, (Chicago, IL: ABA Law
Practice Management Section, 2004). 208 pgs., CD-ROM.
- Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of
2005, Sheila M. Williams and George M. Basharis (Riverwoods, IL:
CCH Inc., 2005). 400 pgs.
- Compensation Plans for Law Firms, Fourth Edition, edited by
James D. Cotterman (Chicago, IL: ABA Law Practice Management Section,
2004). 192 pgs.
- Discovery Problems and Their Solutions, by Paul W. Grimm,
Charles S. Fax & Paul Mark Sandler (Chicago, IL: ABA Litigation
Section, 2005). 467 pgs.
- Legal Assistant's Practical Guide to Professional
Responsibility, second edition, author/editors Arthur H. Garwin and
Kathleen Hamer (Chicago, IL: ABA Center for Professional Responsibility,
2004). 202 pgs.
- The Lawyer's Guide to Adobe Acrobat, 2d ed., by David L.
Masters (Chicago, IL: ABA Law Practice Management Section, 2005). 192
pgs.
- Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection: Gain an Edge in
Questioning and Selecting Your Jury, second edition, by Jeffrey T.
Frederick (Chicago, IL: ABA General Practice Solo and Small Firm
Section, 2005). 305 pgs. CD-ROM.
Wisconsin Lawyer