Whose Claim Is This Anyway? Third-Party Litigation Funding
By Maya Steinitz. Full text here. Third-party litigation funding, or litigation finance, is a new industry composed of institutional investors who invest in litigation by providing finance in return for an ownership stake in a legal claim and a contingency in the recovery. Its emergence has been recognized as one of the most significant developments in…
Continue ReadingErie′s Suppressed Premise
By Michael Steven Green. Full text here. The Erie doctrine is usually understood as a limitation on federal courts’ power. The Article concerns the unexplored role that the Erie doctrine has in limiting the power of state courts. According to Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, a federal court must follow state supreme court decisions when interpreting…
Continue ReadingConstitutional Spaces
By Allan Erbsen. Full text here. The Article is the first to systematically consider the Constitution’s identification, definition, and integration of the physical spaces in which it applies. Knowing how the Constitution addresses a particular problem often requires knowing where the problem arises. Yet despite the importance and pervasiveness of spatial references in the Constitution, commentators…
Continue ReadingNote: Expanding the Role of Trade Preference Programs
By Monica Patel. Full text here. Trade preference programs lower trade barriers for developing countries and open opportunities in consumer-driven markets which, in turn, increases their trade and economic growth. One example of a trade preference program in the United States is the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program that provides duty-free treatment for about 4800…
Continue ReadingNote: Turning Winners into Losers: Ponzi Scheme Avoidance Law and the Inequity of Clawbacks
By Karen E. Nelson. Full text here. The sentencing of Bernard Madoff in 2008 closed a chapter in the saga of one of the most extensive and destructive Ponzi schemes in American history. But the fallout from the fraud is just beginning. While every investor in a Ponzi scheme suffers financially once the fraud is exposed,…
Continue ReadingNote: Hold Fast the Keys to the Kingdom: Federal Administrative Agencies and the Need for Brady Disclosure
By Justin Goetz. Full text here. Due process protections for defendants vary greatly between the numerous federal agencies vested with civil enforcement powers. Many of these agencies fail to provide defendants with basic safeguards, including the protections available in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. As federal administrative agencies continue to increase both the scope of…
Continue ReadingThe Role of Dissenting Opinions
By Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Full text here.
Continue ReadingStrategic Enforcement
By Margaret H. Lemos & Alex Stein. Full text here. Doctrine and scholarship recognize two basic models of enforcing the law: the comprehensive model, under which law enforcers try to apprehend and punish every violator within the bounds of feasibility; and the randomized model, under which law enforcers economize their efforts by apprehending a small number…
Continue ReadingAnticompetitive Effect
By Hon. Richard D. Cudahy & Alan Devlin. Full text here. Despite receiving thorough analytic treatment from the judiciary and academy, and notwithstanding its sophisticated doctrine, antitrust law remains dogged by a profound incongruity, for precisely what the law condemns remains elusive. Certainly, there is widespread agreement that the antitrust laws exist to promote some…
Continue ReadingDual Illegality and Geoambiguous Law: A New Rule for Extraterritorial Application of U.S. Law
By Jeffrey A. Meyer. Full text here. Scores of federal criminal and civil statutes are “geoambiguous”—they do not say whether they apply to conduct that takes place in foreign countries. This is a vital concern in an age of exploding globalization. The Supreme Court regularly cites a “presumption against extraterritoriality,” but just as often overlooks it…
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