By Samuel D. Posnick. Full text here. The 2013 revelation of Goldman Sachs’ unsavory aluminum warehousing practices led to public uproar and political backlash. In November 2014, Congress released a damning report detailing Wall Street’s involvement in numerous commodities markets and finding rampant manipulation. As a result, the Federal Reserve is reexamining its regulation of financial…

By Maxwell Mensinger. Full text here. The notion of a “next frontier” is in perpetual flux. Our understanding thereof shifts towards those concepts with the potential for change and growth. A century ago, with the development of commercial flight, airspace seemed to qualify as the next frontier. Today, drone technology has revitalized this same interest in…

By Nicholas R. Bednar. Full text here. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has turned the particular social group standard into a game of semantics. This Note argues that this game’s evidentiary requirements disfavor pro se asylum applicants by requiring sociological evidence—primarily in the form of expert testimony. An applicant applying for asylum on the basis…

By Mathew L. Morrison. Full text here. The LGBT community has made great strides in attaining legal rights, beginning largely with Lawrence v. Texas and, to date, culminating with Windsor v. United States. These decisions have granted a broad array of rights, and many argue that the right of same-sex couples to marry nationwide is inevitable.…

By Annie Soo Yeon Ahn. Full text here. Currently, despite the vast and attractive Internet market, the Supreme Court has not ruled definitively on which test should govern personal jurisdiction in cases involving transactions on the Internet. As a result, different tests and diverging results have developed concerning the constitutionality of specific jurisdiction on the Internet,…

By Nicole Wanlass. Full text here. A number of contracts contain clauses mandating that any disputes arising under the contract must be resolved through arbitration by a particular forum. However, disputes over these contracts can end up in court when the exclusive arbitration forum cannot, or will not, arbitrate them. Under 9 U.S.C. § 5, a…

By Ann E. Motl. Full text here. Inter partes review (IPR) is a relatively new proceeding before the Patent and Trademark Office in which a petitioner requests administrative patent judges to review an issued patent and declare its claims invalid. After IPR, the petitioner can continue to litigate patent validity in federal court. However, this second…

By Max S. Meckstroth. Full text here. In 1972, the Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia, holding that the death penalty was being applied arbitrarily and capriciously—rendering its application unconstitutional. Three years later, while the death penalty was still considered unconstitutional, the Supreme Court in Faretta v. California held that the Sixth Amendment implied the right…

By Alicia J. Paller. Full text here. If you Google “egg freezing,” you will find numerous newspaper and magazine articles discussing this new reproductive technology. You will also encounter countless clinics currently helping women extract and freeze their eggs. You might find an occasional warning about the potential risks associated with egg freezing, as the media…

By Noah Lewellen. Full text here. Decisions in the Supreme Court and, more recently, the Ninth Circuit have cast doubt on the role of statistical significance in drug development. In United States v. Harkonen, the defendant Harkonen was convicted of fraud for advertising successful testing of a drug when, in fact, the tests had not revealed…