By Charlotte S. Alexander. Full text here. This Article investigates misclassification and antidiscrimination. Misclassification is employers’ practice of classifying workers as independent contractors whom the law would categorize as employees. Misclassified workers are exempt from most federal antidiscrimination statutes, unless they file a discrimination lawsuit and seek reclassification by the court for purposes of the litigation.…

By Robert J. Kaczorowski. Full text here. This Article is an original work of scholarship in several respects. As the title suggests, it presents a novel interpretation of the “original understanding” of the Constitution, which I call the inherent national sovereignty theory. This theory viewed the national government as a sovereign government and Congress as a…

By Courtney Megan Cahill. Full text here. In many states, the only thing that separates a dad from a sperm donor is sex. Under federal law, sperm donations between sexually intimate partners undergoing artificial insemination are exempt from the mandatory—and expensive—testing requirements that apply to sperm donations between persons who are not sexually intimate. And according…

By Wayne A. Logan & Andrew Guthrie Ferguson. Full text here. This Article addresses a matter of fundamental importance to the criminal justice system: the presence of erroneous information in government databases and the limited government accountability and legal remedies for the harm that it causes individuals. While a substantial literature exists on the liberty and…

By Kate Evans. Full text here. Should a victim of persecution be denied protection in the United States if his persecutors forced him to participate in their campaign of terror? In its 2009 decision, Negusie v. Holder, the Supreme Court recognized the “difficult line drawing problems” presented by this question, but failed to offer concrete guidance…

By Dan L. Burk. Full text here. Recent commentary on the patent system has argued that there is little evidence supporting the incentive justification for patenting, so that continued faith in patents constitutes a kind of irrational adherence to myth or falsehood. While an obituary for the incentive theory of patenting is likely premature, the concept…

By Justin Pidot. Full text here. What should the Supreme Court do with a tie vote? A long-standing rule provides that when the Justices are evenly divided, the lower court’s decision is affirmed and the Supreme Court’s order has no precedential effect. While tie votes arise with relative rarity, the recent death of Justice Antonin Scalia…

By Daniel J. Hemel & Lisa Larrimore Ouellette. Full text here. The conventional economic justification for global IP treaties begins from the premise that nation-states, if left to their own devices, will rationally underinvest in innovation incentives such as IP laws, grants, tax credits, and prizes (the “underinvestment hypothesis”). Under this account, nation-states will free-ride on…

By Orly Lobel. Full text here. New digital platform companies are turning everything into an available resource: services, products, spaces, connections, and knowledge, all of which would otherwise be collecting dust. Unsurprisingly then, the platform economy defies conventional regulatory theory. Millions of people are becoming part-time entrepreneurs, disrupting established business models and entrenched market interests, challenging…

By Helen Norton. Full text here. Employers’ lies, misrepresentations, and nondisclosures about workers’ legal rights and other working conditions can skew and sometimes even coerce workers’ important life decisions as well as frustrate key workplace protections. Federal, state, and local governments have long sought to address these substantial harms by prohibiting employers from misrepresenting workers’ rights…