Articles, Essays, & Tributes
If Lived Experience Could Speak: A Method for Repairing Epistemic Violence in Law and the Legal Academy
BY TERRELL CARTER and RACHEL LÓPEZ. Full text. Terrell Carter grew up only a stone’s throw from Drexel University, the institution of higher learning where the other coauthor of this Article, Rachel López, would find her academic home years later. Even as a child, Terrell remembers feeling like other institutions that were miles away, like…
Informed Bystanders’ Duty to Warn
By GILAT J. BACHAR. Full text. Should bystanders with credible knowledge about prospective harm owe a duty of care to future victims? This urgent question comes up in various contexts, from former employers who withhold information about a serial harasser to data brokers who are silent about stalkers that track personal information. Under established common…
Lawyering in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
By JONATHAN H. CHOI, AMY B. MONAHAN, AND DANIEL SCHWARCZ. Full text. We conducted the first randomized controlled trial to study the effect of AI assistance on human legal analysis. We randomly assigned law school students to complete realistic legal tasks either with or without the assistance of GPT-4, tracking how long the students took…
Repurposed Energy
By ALEXANDRA B. KLASS & HANNAH WISEMAN. Full Text. Wildfires, weather extremes, and other conditions induced partially by climate change add urgency to the project of accelerating the clean energy transition from fossil fuels to zero-carbon energy infrastructure. Yet the hurdles to accomplishing such a massive industrial-scale transition are daunting. Indeed, large renewable energy generation…
Reconstruction, and the Unfulfilled Promise of Antitrust
By BENNETT CAPERS and GREGORY DAY. Full Text. Wealth inequality remains as wide, and as troubling, as it was a half-century ago. While scholars have offered various explanations, there is a contributor that has escaped serious scrutiny: state monopoly power. It is not just that there is a long history of states and municipalities using…
Notes
Definite Convictions: United States v. Alt and the Seventh Circuit’s Prohibition on Defining “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt”
By SAMUEL BUISMAN. Full Text. The Seventh Circuit prohibits judges and attorneys from defining “beyond a reasonable doubt” to jurors. While United States v. Alt crystalized this prohibition in early 2023, the circuit has effectively banned definition of the phrase for much longer. Yet, a growing consensus of psychological research into the standard reveals that…
As Punishment for Arrests: Involuntary Servitude Under the Housekeeping Exception to the Thirteenth Amendment
By ELISSA BOWLING. Full Text. The Thirteenth Amendment reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Yet, in contemporary American jails and prisons, pretrial detainees have been forced to perform…
May Contain Peanuts, Eggs, and a “Natural” Solution: How to Challenge Food Manufacturers’ Harmful Use of Precautionary Allergen Labels
By JJ MARK. Full Text. Food allergies are one of the most pressing health issues of our time. Around thirty-three million Americans currently have food allergies, thirteen million of which are severe or life-threatening. These numbers continue to increase at alarming rates, with an estimated one in thirteen children being diagnosed with food allergies every…
Headnotes
Defining Common and Individual Issues in Class Actions: What a Reasonable Jury Could Do
Defining Common and Individual Issues in Class Actions: What a Reasonable Jury Could Do By Aaron D. Van Oort and John L. Rockenbach Full essay here. The distinction between common and individual issues is the single most important concept in the modern class action, and…
The Supreme Court’s Opinion in SEC v. Jarkesy Has the Potential To Be Extremely Destructive
The Supreme Court’s Opinion in SEC v. Jarkesy Has the Potential To Be Extremely Destructive By Richard J. Pierce, Jr. Full essay here. In this essay, Professor Pierce describes the legal framework within which the Supreme Court decided whether an agency could adjudicate a class…
Substance over Symbolism: Do We Need Benefit Corporation Laws?
BY CHENG-CHI (KIRIN) CHANG. Full essay here. Benefit corporation laws have gained traction as mechanisms to integrate societal and environmental objectives into business operations, yet they are arguably superfluous within the existing legal framework. The prevailing belief that corporations must prioritize shareholder wealth above all…
A Great American Gun Myth: Race and the Naming of the “Saturday Night Special”
By Jennifer L. Behrens and Joseph Blocher. Full Text. At a time when Second Amendment doctrine has taken a strongly historical turn and gun rights advocates have increasingly argued that gun regulation itself is historically racist, it is especially important that historical claims about race…
Refining the Dangerousness Standard in Felon Disarmament
By Jamie G. McWilliam. Full Text. To some, 18 U.S.C. 922(g) is a necessary safeguard that keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous persons. To others, it strips classes of non-violent people of their natural and constitutional rights. This statute makes it a crime…
“Proven” Safety Regulations: Massachusetts 1805 Proving Law As Historical Analogue for Modern Gun Safety Laws
By Billy Clark. Full Text. Concerned by the public health threats posed by certain firearms, the Massachusetts legislature enacts a law to set safety standards for firearms in the Commonwealth. Firearm dealers across the State, including some of the leading manufacturers of the day, not…
Curbing Gun Violence Under PLCAA and Bruen: State Attorney General–Driven Solutions to the Surging Epidemic
By David Lamb. Full Text. At the same time that the deadly toll of gun violence continues to grow in the U.S., now taking nearly 50,000 lives per year, federal lawmakers and courts have increasingly constrained government authorities’ tools for fighting the epidemic. Pursuant to…
De Novo Blog
WHY DOES THE UNITED STATES FAIL TO ADDRESS THE GREEN SUKUK AS AN IDEAL VEHICLE FOR ENVIRONMENT-FORWARD PROJECTS?
By: Sarah Snebold, Volume 105 Staff Member Within a globalized economy, it would be foolish to turn a blind eye to Islamic finance and its respective market. Islamic finance presents the ability to tap into emerging markets within the Middle East, Africa and Asia.[1] Citigroup…
A GALAXY NOT SO FAR AWAY: THE STATES STRIKE BACK AT BIG TECH OVER GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK’S ALLEGED “JEDI BLUE” PRICE-FIXING SCHEME
By: Avery Bennett, Volume 105 Staff Member INTRODUCTION Recently, mounting scrutiny and criticism of technology companies’ business practices have led to well publicized calls for investigations and probes into potentially anticompetitive behavior.[1] Amid these calls to curb the industry’s power, state officials have revealed a…
PRESERVING THE E-MARKET OF IDEAS: HOW A NARROW “RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN” EXCEPTION TO SECTION 230 CAN COMBAT DIGITAL HARASSMENT WITHOUT DECIMATING DIGITAL DISCOURSE
By: Jordan Francis, Volume 105 Staff Member Depending on who you ask, we have either handed the levers of public discourse over to the maleficent interests of “Big Tech,” thereby making the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world the arbiters of truth and justice, or we…
PATENT PLEDGING PROBLEMS: THE OPEN COVID PLEDGE AND LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS TO LICENSING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN GLOBAL EMERGENCIES
By: Marra Clay, Volume 105 Staff Member The American intellectual property system has a single primary goal: to encourage creators to make new things that benefit society in exchange for an exclusive right to use and license the creation for a limited time.[1] The United…
A POLL TAX BY ANY OTHER NAME: HOW THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ERRED IN UPHOLDING FLORIDA’S PAY-TO-VOTE REQUIREMENT AND WHAT COMES NEXT
By: Dina Kostrow, Volume 105 Staff Member Until recently, Florida was one of only a few states in which citizens convicted of a felony permanently lost the right to vote.[1] In 2018, it looked like the tide was turning. A 64.55% super-majority of Florida voters…
CRUEL AND UNUSUAL: THE SUPREME COURT’S FAILURE TO PROTECT DEATH ROW PRISONERS DURING THE GOVERNMENT’S RECENT RUSH OF EXECUTIONS
By: Julia Potach, Volume 105 Staff Member On July 14, 2020, the federal government executed death row prisoner, Daniel Lewis Lee, and carried out its first federal execution in 17 years.[1] One year earlier, former Attorney General William Barr cleared the way for the government…
RITTMANN V. AMAZON.COM: A WRONG TURN FOR GIG WORKERS LOOKING FOR CLARITY IN THE FEDERAL ARBITRATION ACT
By Zach Krenz, Volume 105 Staffer The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) makes arbitration clauses enforceable. Section 2, which outlines the breadth of the Act, states that arbitration provisions in contracts “involving commerce . . . shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable. . . .”[1] Section…
GETTING WHAT’S DUE: INCARCERATED INDIVIDUALS AND COVID STIMULUS PAYMENTS
By: Mollie Wagoner, Vol. 105 Staff Member In the wake of the pandemic, Congress issued two rounds of payments, commonly referred to as stimulus checks, to a large swath of the American public in an attempt to offset the economic struggles caused by COVID. While…
THE UBIQUITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA DICTATES THE RESULT: WHY THE SUPREME COURT SHOULD AFFIRM THE THIRD CIRCUIT IN MAHANOY AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT V. B.L. AS A MATTER OF NON-DISCRIMINATION
By: Miriam Solomon, Volume 105 Staff Member In B.L. v. Mahanoy Area School District, the plaintiff, a sophomore in high school, was removed from the school cheerleading team after the team coaches learned of a post B.L. made on Snapchat. After participating on the school’s…
THE CASE FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE TO TRANSFORM BLACK EDUCATION IN MINNESOTA
Brandie Burris, Volume 105 Staff Member and Incoming EIC for Volume 106 INTRODUCTION Although elected officials and community leaders regularly celebrate Minnesota’s recognition as a leader in public education,[1] these awards and statements hide the true picture.[2] In reality, Minnesota’s public schools, even in…
