Washington Law Review typically holds an annual symposium, which provides the framework for one of our issues. Scholars that have contributed a piece in our issue are invited to speak and engage in dialogue with each other, and with the community at University of Washington School of Law. These symposia provide an opportunity for participants to add depth to their print contributions and allow our community an opportunity to access ideas and build connections.
Honoring the late Washington State Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Utter, the symposium focused on current issues in state constitutional law in areas that were of special concern to Justice Utter during his years on the Court. Substantive areas included: Justice Utter and the impact of “teaching opinions” on state constitutional jurisprudence; separation of powers, accountability and judicial independence; access to justice; international law and state constitutional jurisprudence; state constitutional interpretation; and law school education and state constitutional law.
DATE: OCTOBER 23, 2015
Healthcare is the single largest sector of the economy, it is undergoing extensive and controversial reform, and the central goals of reform–universal coverage and cost control–have not yet been achieved. Since the Affordable Care Act relies heavily on private markets to provide health services and health insurance, competition will play a crucial role in reform. Yet, competition policy issues are especially challenging in healthcare, where markets are distorted by the fee-for-service payment system, insurance coverage, and market power. Competition can help correct these distortions, enhancing access and affordability, but it can also threaten the supply of doctors, new drugs, and higher levels of care. The challenge is to develop policies that achieve the right balance of these goals.
The symposium addresses the key current competition issues in healthcare, including: whether the government should be tougher or more lenient on hospital mergers, given their potential for both higher prices and improved care; whether Accountable Care Organizations, a major initiative of the Affordable Care Act, need to be more closely monitored by the federal antitrust agencies or instead subject to direct regulation; whether the efficiencies of hospital-physician integration can be realized without converting doctors into hospital employees; whether lower courts are correctly evaluating reverse payment patent settlements in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Actavis decision; whether the FDA should limit off-label uses of prescription drugs; whether the nation should make greater use of buyer power as a cost control device, allowing the federal government, for example, to negotiate prescription drug prices or letting insurance companies consolidate to obtain bigger discounts from hospitals and doctors; whether a more flexible regulatory environment is likely to produce a more diverse and cost-effective healthcare workforce; and whether market innovations are likely to improve the delivery of assisted reproductive services.
DATE: SEPTEMBER 18, 2015
PAPERS PUBLISHED IN: VOLUME 91, NUMBER 1
Campbell at 21 aims to explore one of the most famous and important copyright cases of the 20th century, Campbell v. Acuff Rose. Campbell was decided twenty-one years ago, and has had a profound influence on fair use, and on applications of the “transformativeness” test of that doctrine as it applies to new technology. Campbell enshrined the “transformativeness” test (first proposed by Judge Pierre N. Leval of the Second Circuit), and it has now become one of the central–and, empirically, the most reliably predictive of the–factors in fair use analysis. The fair use doctrine has been at the center of recent litigation, and will continue to garner judicial attention and academic conversation for years to come.
DATE: APRIL 17, 2015
PAPERS PUBLISHED IN: VOLUME 90, NUMBER 2
Mandatory disclosure is a popular form of regulation. From privacy to healthcare, politics to “payola,” laws requiring disclosure have proliferated in recent decades. This symposium featured panel discussions by top scholars and practitioners on why we love—or love to hate—disclosure, why it seems to never work, and what solutions exist.
DATE: FEBRUARY 28, 2013
PAPERS PUBLISHED IN: VOLUME 88, NUMBER 2
Robert Post, Dean of Yale Law School, published his provocative book, Democracy, Expertise, and Academic Freedom: A First Amendment Jurisprudence for the Modern Age in 2012. A panel of noted First Amendment scholars and practitioners joined Dean Post to discuss his theory of democratic competence and how the First Amendment can and should protect the manner in which professionals produce expert speech.
Please see the following links (mp4) or (wmv) for a video of Professor Post’s presentation and the panel discussion that followed.
DATE: JANUARY 12, 2012
PAPERS PUBLISHED IN: VOLUME 87, NUMBER 2
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