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
ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT BY ARBITRATION: DOJ’S USE OF ARBITRATION IN UNITED STATES V. NOVELIS PUTS MATTER OF CONSUMER PROTECTION IN QUESTIONABLE HANDS
By: Hugh Fleming, Volume 104 Staff Member The suit filed by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division against Novelis, Inc. began like any other antitrust enforcement action under the Clayton Act,[1] but quickly took an unusual turn: the parties decided to submit…
THE INTERNATIONAL SPECIAL PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE: MINIMIZING PRESIDENTIAL INFLUENCE IN PROSECUTION OF POLITICAL CRIMES AND CORRUPTION
By: Rachel Wydra, Volume 104 Staff Member I. ROGER STONE AND PRESIDENTIAL INFLUENCE OVER CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS One of the more recent developments in the long saga of the Mueller investigation was the filing of two different government recommendations for the sentencing of Roger Stone.[1] Stone, …
CASH NOT WELCOME HERE: THE TREND (AND BACKLASH) TOWARDS CASHLESS RETAIL
By: Matthew Cavanaugh, Volume 104 Staff Member Michael Rosen really wanted a pair of headphones. So much so, in fact, that he filed a lawsuit against Continental Airlines (now United Airlines).[1] In 2011, Rosen, an attorney, brought four separate claims against the airline based on…
WHEN CROSS-EXAMINATION INTO A VICTIM’S IMMIGRATION STATUS CROSSES THE LINE: THE RELEVANCY AND RISK OF PREJUDICE OF U VISA EVIDENCE
By: Nick Wolfson, Volume 104 Staff Member Although undocumented immigrants are more likely than citizens to be the victims of crimes committed in the United States, undocumented immigrants are less likely to report those crimes to law enforcement.[1] Fear of removal (deportation) is one reason…
ESPORTS AND THE DUAL DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM
By: Michael Arin, Volume 104 Editor Riot Games, the publisher of the games League of Legends and Valorant, recently released their North America Community Competition Guidelines,[1] which detail conditions for the use of their intellectual property during third-party organized competition.[2] The guidelines include restraints on…
WHEN FINAL MEANS FINAL: AN OVERVIEW OF WHEN A CRIMINAL SENTENCE IS IMPOSED WITH THE FIRST STEP ACT
By: Dan Otsuki, Volume 104 Staff Member Take a moment and consider you are watching a high-profile, maybe even celebrity criminal trial streaming online. Imagine further the jury, after months of listening to testimony and days of deliberating, comes back with a guilty verdict. We…
TELESCOPE MEDIA GROUP V. LUCERO: EIGHT CIRCUIT STRENGTHENS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ARGUMENTS WHILE UNDERMINING IMPORTANT ANTI-DISCRIMINATION STATUTE
By: Cat Ulrich, Volume 104 Staff Member Minnesota has a long tradition of protecting minorities from discrimination[1], including those in the LGBTQ+ community.[2] One of the most important tools Minnesota has to protect against discrimination is the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA).[3] MHRA states that…
SECOND CHANCES: MINNESOTA SHOULD BAN DE FACTO LIFE SENTENCES FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS
By: Alina Yasis, Volume 104 Staff Member In the past few decades, advances in psychology and neuroscience have provided us with empirical data supporting the commonsense notion that the brain of a child or adolescent differs significantly from an adult brain.[1] Since the landmark decisions…
FACEBOOK AND THE FRAGMENTED FREE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS
By: Jonathan Baker, Volume 104 Staff Member When the Framers adopted formal protections to free speech with the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, information exchange and dissemination primarily occurred through “individuals talking one to another, . . . addressing town meetings[,]” or the publication…
NO MORE POLITICAL ADS! WHY TWITTER’S DECISION TO BAN ALL POLITICAL AND CAUSE-BASED ADS IS REALLY OKAY
By: Jenna Hensel, Volume 104 Staff Member “Confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh!” said President Donald Trump in a political ad posted to Facebook.[1] This is one of many political ads posted on social media by politicians. Social media companies such as Twitter are not regulated by…
