The year 2018 marked ten years since the global financial meltdown. This Article focuses on the current state of consumer protection in the United States and considers the effectiveness of various post-meltdown government initiatives geared towards consumer protection. As the current administration dismantles many post-crisis initiatives, such as the Dodd-Frank Act, this Article considers the future of consumer protection and what Americans need moving forward.

This Article explains why we should view the experiences of LGBTQ youth in the child welfare system as an essential part of the debate over religious liberty and LGBTQ equality. It further describes why it is necessary to include eliminating LGBTQ-based child welfare inequality within a broader vision of a fully inclusive LGBTQ antidiscrimination regime. To accomplish these goals, this Article recasts religious exemptions involving LGBTQ child welfare through the lens of historical theories of sexual deviance in the fields of criminology, psychology, and sociology.

How do administrative agencies interpret statutes? This Article looks behind the black box of agency statutory interpretation to review how administrative agencies use canons of construction and other tools of statutory interpretation to decide cases. Surveying over 7000 cases heard by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1993–2016, I analyze the statutory methodologies the Board uses in its decisions in order to uncover patterns over time. Overall, I find no ideological coherence to statutory methodology. Board members often use statutory methodologies with dueling purposes, with majority and dissenting Board members using the same statutory methodology to support contrasting outcomes. The Board has also changed how it interprets statutes over time, relying in recent years more on policy pronouncements and textual debates and less on precedent or legislative history as the primary method of interpretation. After analyzing the empirical data, I set forth policy recommendations for how agencies should interpret statutes.

By Chrystin Ondersma. Full text here. For individuals struggling to make ends meet, an emergency expense or sudden drop in income can be catastrophic. Often credit is the only option available in such emergencies, but taking out credit can worsen an already precarious financial situation—individuals and families may go without food or electricity in order to…

By Stavros Gadinis and Amelia Miazad. Full text here. Although corporate wrongdoing can reach an immense scale with disastrous ramifications, holding boards accountable has long been perceived as elusive. Under both state fiduciary duty law and federal securities doctrine, directors and officers are liable only if they were aware of corporate failures or reckless in ignoring…

By Bijal Shah. Full text here. Coordination is a mechanism for administrative control. Indeed, it is well-known that the President and agencies themselves initiate it for a variety of substantive and self-interested reasons. This Article is the first to establish that Congress also creates frameworks of interagency coordination, and it bases this contention in the largest…

By John H. Matheson & Vilena Nicolet. Full text here. In the past several decades, the corporate governance landscape has changed dramatically and positively. Recently, shareholders have found new ways to directly impact the governance regime and the board of directors. These new means derive from various sources, including a more favorable regulatory environment and the…

By Robin C. Feldman & Mark A. Lemley. Full text here. Patent reform is a hotly contested issue, occupying the attention of Congress, the Supreme Court, and many of the most innovative companies in the world. Most of that dispute centers on patent enforcement, and in particular on the role of non-practicing entities (NPEs) or “patent…

By Fiona Doherty. Full text here. This Article introduces the concept of “Testing Periods” to explain how U.S. courts sort criminal defendants for incarceratory and non-incarceratory results. A Testing Period is a time period during which a criminal defendant agrees to abide by a set of prospective rules (such as avoiding “dirty urines” and remaining…