The movement for divorce reform in the United States is a natural reaction to the nearly unmixed evil spawned by the fault system of divorce inherited from the English ecclesiastical courts. The need to establish the fault of one spouse in order to obtain dissolution of the marriage led, in many cases, to unnecessary additional discord between the parties where the divorce was contested, collusion between them where it was not, and perjury, subornation of perjury and distortion of our system of justice in either situation. While the conviction that the system must be replaced by something better is not novel, the -first comprehensive no-fault statute enacted in the United States was the California Family Law Act of 1969, which substituted "irreconcilable differences, which have caused the irremediable breakdown of the marriage" as the major test for dissolution of marriage. The state of Iowa followed with its own sweeping legislation in 1970 and the movement for nationwide reform was on in earnest.
In 1993 "The Small Business Entity Tax Pass Through" Act for the first time authorized the organization of limited liability companies (LLCs) in Arkansas. This Act, which will be referred to in this article as the "Arkansas LLC Act" notwithstanding its unique actual name, has been subsequently amended more than once to remove some of the ambiguities created by the initial legislation. In August 1994, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) promulgated a Uniform Limited Liability Company Act (ULLCA). Unfortunately for proponents of uniformity, the ULLCA was introduced after most states (including Arkansas) had already enacted LLC legislation, and the statute never gained the prominence achieved by many other uniform business statutes promulgated by NCCUSL. In 2003, NCCUSL initiated a project to amend and update ULLCA, a project that has often been referred to as the ReUCCLA or RULLCA. This article begins with a review of the current state of law relative to Arkansas LLCs, with a particular focus on potentially problematic provisions in our existing statute. It then provides a general overview of RULLCA, with emphasis on points of similarity and incongruence with our existing LLC Act. Finally, it offers reasons why RULLCA offers advantages that justify the adoption of yet another new business statute in this state.
This Article takes account of the forces that shape revisions of the commercial law and notes the relationship between those forces and the tenor of the resulting codification; Part II peruses Scott's thesis. It responds to his criticism of the UCC drafting and revision processes and describes how uniform commercial law Jurisprudence reveals the incongruities in his analysis. Part III tests Scott's conclusions about private legislatures by considering the realist Jurisprudence of the UCC and compares the UCC's "private legislature" (PL) commercial law to the commercial- law product of a "public legislature," the Bankruptcy Code promulgated by the United States Congress. Part IV focuses on the aspects of the Article 9 revision that Scott used to illustrate the operation of the Schwartz and Scott thesis-the filing system, purchase money security interests, and proceeds of collateral.
In its 2005 Session, the Virginia General Assembly enacted Senate Bill 891,1 thus adopting the Uniform Trust Code ("UTC"), with modifications considered appropriate to this state's institutions, traditions, and jurisprudence. The Virginia Uniform Trust Code ("Virginia UTC"), set forth in new Chapter 31 of Title 55 of the Virginia Code, has an effective date of July 1, 2006, but, once in effect, it will be applicable (with some exceptions) to trusts created before, on, or after that date. The new Virginia UTC, which encompasses the great bulk of the principles and rules that comprise the law of trusts in Virginia, has great relevance and importance to lawyers who specialize in estate planning and to lawyers who represent trustees or trust beneficiaries. It also affects lawyers whose clients, as "thirdparties," have transactional relationships with trustees. The legislation will also affect institutional fiduciaries, accountants, and other non-lawyer professionals whose activities involve administering trusts or advising settlors, trustees, and trust beneficiaries. This article is directed to all of those audiences, with the goal of informing them about the principal features of the legislation and its implications for their practices. In doing so, the article will identify most of the relatively small number of differences between the Virginia UTC and the official text of the UTC as adopted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws ("NCCUSL").
During the past fifteen years, the alternative dispute resolution movement has greatly altered the legal landscape. Courts, legislatures and administrative agencies have enacted more than 2000 laws dealing with mediation and other dispute resolution processes. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) and the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution have recently formed a unique partnership to assess whether a model or uniform mediation statute might remedy some of the problems caused by the current patchwork of often confusing and conflicting mediation laws. The task of drafting a comprehensive mediation statute poses many challenges. The drafters must consider a number of criteria, e.g., efficiency, efficacy and justice, and a number of constituencies, e.g., parties, attorneys and the judicial system, when crafting the provisions of the act. Our task in this article is to focus on one criterion, satisfaction, and one constituency, parties. We approach this task with two modest goals. First, we hope to provide a clear and concise understanding of the factors that promote party satisfaction with mediation. Thus, in the first part of this article, the "understanding" part, we review the empirical research on party satisfaction and propose three sets of factors that affect it: party expectations, process factors and outcome factors. Second, we hope to provide the drafters with guidance on how they might draft provisions to promote party satisfaction. Thus, in the second part of this article, the "promoting" part, we examine, by way of example, how the drafters might craft three statutory provisions in light of the factors we have identified.
During the 2000 Session, the General Assembly considered eighty-one technology related bills, forty of which were enacted. This article summarizes the more significant technology bills enacted during this session. One of these bills, House Bill 719,1 enlarged the Joint Commission on Technology and Science ("JCOTS"). The 1997 Virginia General Assembly created JCOTS aas a permanent legislative agency" to "generally study all aspects of technology and science and endeavor to stimulate, encourage, promote, and assist in the development of technology and science in the Commonwealth and sound public policies related thereto." JCOTS, which originally consisted of nine legislators-five delegates and four senators-is now made up of twelve members-seven delegates and five senators. During the 2000 Session, JCOTS recommended and the members of JCOTS patroned fifteen technology related bills. Of these bills, eleven have been enacted.
State childcare parentage laws, that is, laws designating parents for custody, visitation, parental responsibility allocation, parental decisionmaking and/or support purposes, have evolved dramatically in the past half century. The (r)evolution is due to major changes in both reproductive technologies and human conduct. Yet the (r)evolution is incomplete. The (r)evolution is especially incomplete in Illinois. Recent statutory amendments in Illinois chiefly reflect the work of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in its 2000 model Uniform Parentage Act, not its 2017 Uniform Parentage Act. The latter better addresses the effects on childcare parentage of the changes in both reproductive technologies and human conduct. As well, the latest Illinois statutes do not reflect the NCCUSL's 2018 model Uniform Nonparent Child Custody and Visitation Act which also address the changes in the ways in which American families are formed and reformed by expecting and existing legal parents. Finally, the 2019 draft of the American Law Institute Restatement of the Law on Children and the Law has only recently been available to Illinois lawmakers. Any (r)evolution in Illinois childcare parentage laws should not be fully fueled by the NCCUSL or ALI pronouncements. While a few other states have substantially embraced the 2017 UPA, it embodies certain public policy choices over which lawmakers can quite reasonably differ. As well, the 2017 UPA presents significant constitutional challenges. Parentage law (r)evolution in Illinois is chiefly the responsibility of the General Assembly. When asked to develop broad childcare parentage norms, the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously deferred, finding the complex issues merit broad "policy debate" in the General Assembly. Illinois legislators will be challenged when contemplating new parentage laws. The laudable goals of promoting certainty, recognizing the import of *912 blood ties, furthering children's best interests, respecting family members' wishes, protecting parental rights, and enhancing public welfare often cannot be simultaneously pursued. Yet the General Assembly must act. Neither Congress nor the United States Supreme Court is likely to soon demand more national uniformity on parentage. Thus, as with many other family law matters (like marriage dissolution, heirs in probate, and standing to sue in tort), lawmaking on childcare parentage will substantially remain for state lawmakers. This Article first briefly notes some recent significant changes in technology and human conduct impacting legal parentage. Then it examines the federal constitutional boundaries on state childcare parent laws. Next it explores the diverse array of models, statutes and precedents on childcare parentage now operating outside of Illinois. Then it looks at current Illinois parental childcare laws. Finally, the Article elaborates on some of the key questions facing Illinois legislators when considering new childcare parentage norms.
Every year, increasingly more people use the Internet to purchase goods and services. Internet purchases are expected to exceed $20 billion per year in the near future. By the year 2003, industry experts predict Internet purchases by businesses alone will reach $1.3 trillion. Presently, the majority of Internet sales transactions flow through business to business sites. Internet purchases by consumers are expected to reach $144 billion by the year 2003.
Digital signatures enhance the ability of contracting parties to authenticate electronic communication. Sophisticated encryption and decryption technology is used to verify the identity of the other party to the electronic transaction. Digital signature law, necessary for adjudication of disputes between parties in e-commerce, is still in its infancy. This article covers basic digital signature law of the United Nations, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The United Nations' Model Law of Electronic Commerce of 1996 ("MLEC") had many implications. The MLEC approved the utilization of electronic signatures, stated that electronic signatures would have the same legal impact as an ink signature, and remained technologically-neutral, i.e., did not mandate the utilization of any specific type of technology. The admissibility of "advanced" electronic signatures in legal proceedings and seemed to favor the more sophisticated technologies such as public-key-infrastructure ("PKI"). Utilization of PKI would provide the ultimate in digital signature security. The United Kingdom enacted the Electronic Communications Act in 2000. The Act recognized the validity of electronic signatures and affirmed their admissibility as evidence in court. Furthermore, the United Kingdom's Electronic Signatures Regulations went into force in 2002. The purpose of the regulations was to implement certain provisions of the European Union's E-Signatures Directive. However, the United Kingdom remained technologically-neutral. In the 1990s, most states in the United States adopted some form of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, which mandates broad recognition of electronic signatures. In order to achieve more uniformity in the laws of the states, the United States. federal government enacted "E- Sign" in 2000, which preempted all existing state law unless it was the original form of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act. Unfortunately, United States jurisdictions now have a "patchwork quilt" of dissimilar law regarding digital signatures. The United States is technologically-neutral. The article concludes with recommendations for improvement of digital signature laws.
