By David Hahn. Full text here. Abstract: “The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) Office of Appeals employs a cadre of individuals to preside over “collection due process” hearings. These hearings are meant to avoid litigation in the United States Tax Court by resolving disputes internally. “CDP officers” exercise significant authority and discretion over taxpayers’ cases, and…

Note: I Get By with a Little Help from My 750-Dollar-Per-Tablet Friends: A Model Act for States to Prevent Dramatic Pharmaceutical Price Increases By Alexander Walsdorf. Full Text Here. What can be done to prevent pharmaceutical companies from dramatically increasing the price of their drugs or other products? The past few years have seen multiple…

By Mike Sikora. Full text here In articulating the Mayo test for patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the Supreme Court effectively replaced decades of judicial tests with a single streamlined analysis. Large-scale invalidations of software, business method, and communications patents swiftly followed, yet biotechnology patents have largely been spared. Even so, it may simply be…

Note: Punishing the Pettifogger’s Practice: Applying the Sanction Power of 28 U.S.C. § 1927 to Law Firms By Joseph T. Janochoski. Full text here. The federal statute 28 U.S.C. § 1927 permits litigants to seek repayment of, and courts to sanction in the form of, “the excess costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees reasonably incurred” as…

Note: Left To Languish: The Importance of Expanding the Due Process Rights of Immigration Detainees By Maisie A. Baldwin. Full text here. Modern immigration detention in the United States is nearly indistinguishable from criminal detention—and often, the same facilities are used to house immigration and criminal detainees side by side. Detainees in both systems may…

By Taylor Mayhall. Full text here. More than fifty U.S. coal mining companies have gone bankrupt since 2012. When a coal mining company goes bankrupt, its ability to clean up, or reclaim, its mines becomes questionable, and the burden may end up falling on taxpayers. This Note addresses the struggle to hold U.S. coal mining…

By Trevor Matthews. Full text here. Can school districts force students with disabilities to attend schools that segregate them from their peers without disabilities? Case law resulting from federal special education law, particularly the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), has generally indicated that the answer to this question is yes. In fact, in 2015, almost…

By Devin T. Driscoll. Full text here. This Note explores the creation of so-called problem-solving courts, including state drug courts and federal reentry courts, as well as the future of this kind of reform within the federal criminal justice system. It traces the development of problem-solving courts, beginning first with state drug courts in the…

By Claire Williams. Full text here. Access to housing has been a central issue throughout much of the United States’ history. Both government and private actors furthered and reinforced segregated and substandard housing for people of color. From the time of its passage, the Fair Housing Act and antidiscrimination litigation has been an important tool for…

By Lauren Clatch. Full text here. Plea bargaining is a central feature of the American criminal justice system. Traditional legal scholarship on plea bargaining, influenced by the subdiscipline of law and economics, assumes that criminal defendants simply compare the two criminal sanctions being offered—the criminal charge and sentence in the plea bargain versus the criminal charge…