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Third-party litigation funding is an emerging industry that provides financial backing to plaintiffs. Typically, third-party litigation funders provide money in exchange for a percentage of damage returns. If the plaintiff's claim fails, then the third-party litigation funder loses its investment. To decide whether a given plaintiff's claim is a good investment, the thirdparty litigation funder assesses the claim's merits by conducting due diligence over a large swath of documents. Often, these documents are protected by attorney-client privilege. Under normal waiver rules for attorney-client privilege, when privileged documents are disclosed to a third party, the privilege holder impliedly waives the privilege protection. As an exemption from normal waiver rules for attorney-client privilege, the common interest doctrine has developed, preventing a waiver when a disclosure is made to a third party sharing a common legal interest with the privilege holder. Courts vary in their approaches to defining what constitutes a common legal interest, but typically the third-party litigation funder's commercial interest in a lawsuit is insufficient. Although superficially this may appear a legitimate result (as the funders invest in a lawsuit without providing any direct legal assistance), it is largely incongruent with how courts apply the common interest doctrine for insurers and re-insurers. Most courts find that insurers of defendants (and re-insurers of insurers defending claims) have sufficiently common legal interests with privilege holders to invoke the common interest exemption from normal waiver rules. In these insurance situations, sharing liability--to the extent that it constitutes a collaborative effort towards a joint defense of a claim--is sufficient to indicate a common legal interest. These insurers allow defendants to share the inherent risks with their lawsuits. Consequently, third-party litigation funders deserve the same protection (afforded to insurers and re-insurers) offered by the common interest doctrine. Recognizing the common interest doctrine to protect documents disclosed to insurers and third-party litigation funders effectuates the policy goal of attorney-client privilege; it enables litigants to most effectively obtain legal counsel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars have offered explanations as to why women are underrepresented at all levels of government. Conventional wisdom states that fewer women are in public office due to lower ambition, and that the presence of gendered perceptions among women considering elected office contributes to women’s disinterest in the political arena. Using original survey data, this article expands the theory of gendered perceptions to current state-level appointed officeholders to explain their levels of interest in pursuing higher public office. The results indicate that gendered perceptions affect the progressive ambitions of appointees; like studies of ambition in elected officials, this study of appointed officials finds that women are generally less ambitious, and unlike studies of ambition in elected officials, this study of appointed officials finds that women with higher self-assessments are less ambitious rather than more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing available polling questions administered between 2002 and 2010, we review trends in public opinion about stem cell research. We specifically assess questions measuring public attention, knowledge, trust, and policy preferences. Across years, despite their consistently low levels of scientific knowledge and understanding, an increasing proportion of Americans supported government funding for embryonic stem cell research and viewed such research as morally acceptable. Variations related to question-wording effects, however, indicate that Americans remain relatively ambivalent about the moral trade-offs involved in research, suggesting that public opinion could change in relation to focusing events and political conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group populations take many different types of actions in order to influence government, but how those actions are received depends on the traits of group populations. This article uses data on national-level voluntary associations in the United States from 1974 to 1999 to investigate group survival and discuss how it affects representation. The results demonstrate the existence of density dependence, significant positive effects for group-level resources, group-level characteristics, and government attention on group survival. These findings also include counterintuitive significant negative effects for public attention suggesting that increases in public attention lead to group replacement rather than group survival. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The degree of psychological engagement in political campaigns is a key factor influencing participation in U.S. elections. Unfortunately, no resources exist that offer comparable over time survey measures of campaign engagement in the electorate. Results from a diverse array of U.S. public opinion surveys administered from 1952 through 2010 are used to explore trends about interest in elections, attention to campaigns, and enthusiasm for the candidates. Trends are examined both over the course of a single campaign and across election cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Candidate debates are unique in modern politics in their potential to draw widespread attention to policy reasoning, but game-framed postdebate coverage may interfere with this potentially deliberative moment. Two experiments tested effects of policy- versus game-framing of postdebate coverage on audience use of policy reasons, using a new dependent variable we develop and label spontaneous policy reasoning (SPR). In Study 1, a game-framed postdebate story decreased SPR relative to no postdebate story, while exposure to a policy-framed story increased SPR. Study 2 added manipulations of the timing and wording of the reason-giving prompt, replicating the framing effects in another context while validating SPR as a spontaneous tendency to give reasons distinct from existing measures of the ability to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although virtually every person in the United States will purchase or consume a funeral-related product or service, relatively little is understood about the processes a consumer undertakes in making these expensive decisions in stressful circumstances. Regulation of the industry has been contentious from the outset, and there have been numerous questions as to regulatory effectiveness. This article outlines and discusses issues related to the death care industry with particular attention to consumer interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The underachievement, lack of inclusion, and backward progression of African American men within American society, and particularly within the educational arena, has once again surfaced as a trend that demands immediate attention. However, the challenges of reversing the negative circumstances facing African American men requires transforming a broad array of social, political, economical, psychological, and educational issues that are deeply rooted in the very power structure of America. On one hand, the society espouses rhetoric of concern and desire to elevate Black males, but, on the other hand, practices a policy of oppression, prejudice, and disregard. Put differently, the experience of the Black man in America seems to be one in which he is called "mister" but is treated with a "niggardly" regard. And the result is the positioning of Black males at the lower rungs of society and their experiencing underachievement in almost all aspects of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on capturing student interest in astrobiology through dilemmas and paradoxes. Astrobiology is a relatively new scientific discipline that has been fully embraced and funded by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The goal of astrobiology is to study the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe. Despite the seemingly innate appeal of a course on extraterrestrial life, when it comes right down to it, an astrobiology course is still a natural science course at its core. In response, the author created a series of probing essential questions that tie central concepts in astrobiology to dilemmas, paradoxes and moral questions with the goal of intellectually engaging students in the human side of the astrobiology enterprise. The author uses these questions as discussion starters and, occasionally, as an opportunity for students to participate in a five-minute free writing activity.

In response to increases in cohabitation in the United States, researchers have recently focused on differences between cohabiting and marital unions. One consistent finding is a higher rate of domestic violence among cohabiting couples as compared with married couples. A prominent explanation for this finding is that cohabitation is governed by a different set of institutionalized controls than marriage. This article explores an alternative explanation, namely, that differences in selection out of cohabitation and marriage, including selection of the least-violent cohabiting couples into marriage and the most-violent married couples into divorce, lead to higher observed rates of violence among cohabiting couples in cross-sectional samples. Our results suggest that researchers should be cautious when making comparisons between married and cohabiting couples in which the dependent variable of interest is related to selection into and out of relationship status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses on the author's interests in farm dining and sand drawings in the U.S. It provides information on the number of years that the author understand about his interests. It narrates how the author has associated the nature with his interest and its impact on the challenges he encountered.

Analyzing data from the 2000 American National Election Study, we examined the role of news media in facilitating issue voting. We found that respondents who paid greater attention to news coverage of the election were more likely to hold specific opinions on campaign issues. Voters who devoted greater attention to news media were also more aware of where each candidate stood on various policy issues. These two political cognition's (issue opinionation and knowledge of candidate issue positions) were important conditions for issue voting. We found that those who devoted greater attention to news media were more concerned about the issues when making electoral choices. Beyond and above demographic predispositions, we conclude that issue voting is also a function of paying attention to news media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the influence of self and societal interests on political attitudes in the United States. Relevance of self-sacrifice in making public policy opinions; Significance of value commitments in explaining government-sponsored solutions for societal problems; Connection between public policy preferences and political self-interests.

Discusses the impact of law on the social interests in the U.S. Definition of public interests; Employee's claim in terms of a policy of assuring a minimum or a standard human life; Consideration of individual interests in the domestic relations as subsumed under the social interest in the security of social institutions; Provisions of the common law.

The article discusses the author's views on increasing interest in the personal stories of nurses in the U.S. In October 1900, the very first issue of American Journal of Nursing (AJN) included the travel diary of M. Eugénie Hibbard, superintending sister on the American hospital ship Maine, who chronicled her voyage from London to Cape Town. The author's interest in nurses' stories first was aroused by Patricia Benner's article, "From Novice to Expert," in the March 1982 issue of AJN which was based on her famous research on expert nursing practice. The author mentions some of nurses' poems, anecdotes, profiles and personal stories including his favorite book "Tenderly Lift Me: Nurses Honored, Celebrated, and Remembered," by Jeanne Bryner. These works certainly brighten and enhance clinical practice.

The article reports that the researchers of the major trial on breast cancer have stated the interest of Elias Zerhouni, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, to meet them after National Cancer Institute director John Niederhuber hold their approved fund. It states that the trial involves the investigation of the post-menopausal women with risk of developing breast cancer. It likewise claims that the investigation aimed to ask this women on the efficacy of letrozole and raloxifene, the two cancer drugs, in preventing cancer. Scientists who lead the trials had protested violently on the decision of Niederhuber and delivered a 13-page appeal to Zerhuni urging him to interfere it. Contrastingly, Bruce Chabner of Massachusetts General Hospital defended Niederhuber's decision.