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
From “Let Us Pray” to “Let Us Reconsider”
FROM “LET US PRAY” TO “LET US RECONSIDER”: THE FOURTH CIRCUIT GRANTS EN BANC REVIEW IN LUND V. ROWAN COUNTY By: Rachel Leitschuck, Volume 101 Staff Member “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . .…
Minnesota Supreme Court Elections
MINNESOTA SUPREME COURT ELECTIONS: CONSIDERING CONCERNS AND CRITICISMS By: Sara Lewenstein, Volume 101 Staff Member On, Tuesday, August 9, 2016, 173,884 voters turned out for primary elections in Minnesota.[1] In some districts, the only item on the ballot was a statewide election for a seat…
It Takes Turner
IT TAKES TURNER: HOW STORIES SHAPE US By: Maisie Baldwin, Volume 101 Staff Member Anyone who’s been on any form of social media since early 2015 has likely read Brock Turner’s name. His name has come up in a variety of contexts: evidence of the…
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt
WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH V. HELLERSTEDT: A REAFFIRMATION OF REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS By: Payton George, Volume 101 Staff Member On June 27, 2016, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.[1] In an opinion heralded by pro-choice supporters,[2] Justice Breyer,…
Does Mother Nature Get a Vote?
DOES MOTHER NATURE GET A VOTE? OUR NEXT PRESIDENT COULD IMPACT AMERICA’S INVOLVEMENT IN THE PARIS AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE By: Taylor Mayhall, Volume 101 Staff Member Last December, representatives from 195 countries assembled in Paris to converse about a subject which they all felt…
Dan’s Flaw
DAN’S [F]LAW: STATUTORY FAILURE TO ENFORCE ETHICAL BEHAVIOR IN CLINICAL DRUG TRIALS By: Noah Lewellen,* Volume 99 Articles Submission Editor I. INTRODUCTION Paul, a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, bursts into a lecture hall, loudly claims to see monsters sitting in the seats, and…
Case Comment: Bhogaita v. Altamonte
EVERY DOG CAN HAVE HIS DAY IN COURT: THE USE OF ANIMALS AS DEMONSTRATIVE EXHIBITS By: Kyle R. Kroll, Volume 100 Online Managing Editor In Bhogaita v. Altamonte, the Eleventh Circuit recently decided whether to allow a dog in the courtroom as a demonstrative exhibit.[1]…
Revisiting Water Bankruptcy
REVISITING WATER BANKRUPTCY IN CALIFORNIA’S FOURTH YEAR OF DROUGHT By Olivia Moe, Volume 100Managing Editor This spring, as “extreme” to “exceptional” drought stretched across most of California—indicating that a four-year streak of drought was not about to resolve itself[1]—Governor Jerry Brown issued an unprecedented order…
Defying Auer Deference
DEFYING AUER DEFERENCE: SKIDMORE AS A SOLUTION TO CONSERVATIVE CONCERNS IN PEREZ v. MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSOCIATION By: Nicholas R. Bednar, Volume 100 Lead Articles Editor* On March 9, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers…
Patent Reform Primer
WHAT’S UNDER THE BRIDGE? A PATENT REFORM PRIMER By Ann E. Motl, Volume 99 Online Managing Editor Just a few years after passing the most sweeping changes in patent law since 1952, Congress is considering patent reform again.[1] Whereas the America Invents Act of 2011…
