By Roxanne Thorelli. Full text here. One of the newest social enterprise business forms—the benefit corporation—is becoming increasingly popular throughout the United States. Since its formal beginnings in 2010, thirty states and the District of Columbia have passed benefit corporation legislation, and seven other states are currently in the process of passing legislation. The benefit corporation…

By Gerald S. Kerska. Full text here. State-mandated occupational licensing laws are prevalent in the United States. Indeed, one-quarter of all Americans need a license to engage in their professions. Over the past decade, the most onerous of these regulations have come under attack in federal court for violating the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses…

By James M. Sweeney. Full text here. Traditional laws—statutes, judicial opinions, and regulations—are not eligible for copyright protection. This principle is firmly established in over one hundred years of case law, despite the Copyright Code not expressly addressing the eligibility of laws. This has caused little controversy. In the last few decades, however, federal agencies have…

By Charles Barrera Moore. Full text here. The International Criminal Court (ICC) was initially lauded for expanding the scope of crimes considered to violate international norms; however, as inclusive as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court has been for gender-based crimes, the ICC has yet to extend the same benefits to the lesbian,…

By Kristin M. McGaver. Full text here. There is an extensive history and tradition of labeling Supreme Court Justices as “swing voters” and “swing Justices.” And yet, the content of these labels remain woefully unclear. Modern uses of the terms fall on a continuum, conveying negative to positive sentiments with no clear definition. Complicating things further,…

By Elliot Ko. Full text here. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from intentionally discriminating against employees because of their race or gender. It also prohibits employers from adopting even facially-neutral employment practices that have a “disparate impact” on women or racial minorities. But what exactly is a “disparate impact”? Does…

By Luke Haqq. Full text here. The massive increase of microcephalic infants in recent years as a result of the pandemic spread of Zika virus has reinvigorated public responses to birth defect risks. However, the possibility of fetal abnormalities attends every pregnancy, yet public tools have not been efficiently leveraged to respond to this reality. This…

By Robert C. Gallup. Full text here. Where the Tax Code and the collections industry collide, unique tax situations arise which leave taxpayers with little recourse. Creditors are required to “discharge” debt for tax purposes at specific times governed by Treasury Regulations, but they are still very much interested in and able to collect the debt.…

By Taylor C. Stippel. Full text here. Since the mid-1990s, courts have construed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to allow for the imposition of individual liability on private sector supervisors. Reasoning that the FMLA’s definition of “employer” parallels the definition of “employer” in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and noting that individual liability…

By Alysha L. Bohanon. Full text here. Government entities increasingly rely on their social media pages to inform and interact with their constituents. These posts can attract a wide range of comments from the public—some of which are thoughtful and informed, while others are downright hateful, racist, threatening, or vulgar. May a government entity remove…