Law Commons^™

The World’S Inaction Perpetuates Eritrean Slavery: An International Legal Community Issue, Ruchi Behera

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Organs For Sale: Does Autonomy Necessitate The Right To Commodify?, Reghan Pattwell

Student Works

No abstract provided.

The Recruiting Rating Service Industry’S Impact On College Athletics, Michael Rica

Student Works

No abstract provided.

School Pronoun Policy Divide: How The Expansion Of Free Exercise May Help Teachers Challenge Mandatory Student Pronoun Reporting Policies, Mathew Mazer

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Animal Abuse The Gateway Crime: The Need For Statewide Animal Abuse Registries, Nina Stefanelli

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Ai Text-To-Image Tools: Evaluating Risks Of Defamation, Olivia Mao

Student Works

No abstract provided.

‘Good God’: How Civil Litigation Evolved To Hold Religious Entities Accountable For Clergy Sexual Abuse, Jake Helfand

Student Works

No abstract provided.

A Shift To Neutral Principles: Why Tort Liability Is Growing For Religious Institutions, Kyle M. Ryan

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Refusal Of Religious Accommodations Causes Discrimination In The Workplace, Sophia A. Herrera

Student Works

No abstract provided.

The False Promise Of Jurisdiction Stripping, Daniel Epps, Alan M. Trammell

Scholarship@WashULaw

Jurisdiction stripping is seen as a nuclear option. Its logic is simple: by depriving federal courts of jurisdiction over some set of cases, Congress ensures those courts cannot render bad decisions. In theory, it frees up the political branches and the states to act without fear of judicial second-guessing. To its proponents, it offers the ultimate check on unelected and unaccountable judges. To critics, it poses a grave threat to the separation of powers. Both sides agree, though, that jurisdiction stripping is a powerful weapon. On this understanding, politicians, activists, and scholars throughout American history have proposed jurisdiction stripping measures …

Voting Under The Federal Constitution, Travis Crum

Scholarship@WashULaw

There is no explicit, affirmative right to vote in the federal Constitution. At the Founding, States had total discretion to choose their electorate. Although that electorate was the most democratic in history, the franchise was largely limited to property-owning White men. Over the course of two centuries, the United States democratized, albeit in fits and starts. The right to vote was often expanded in response to wartime service and mobilization.

A series of constitutional amendments prohibited discrimination in voting on account of race (Fifteenth), sex (Nineteenth), inability to pay a poll tax (Twenty-Fourth), and age (Twenty-Sixth). These amendments were worded …

Contract-Wrapped Property, Danielle D'Onfro

Scholarship@WashULaw

For nearly two centuries, the law has allowed servitudes that “run with” real property while consistently refusing to permit servitudes attached to personal property. That is, owners of land can establish new, specific requirements for the property that bind all future owners—but owners of chattels cannot. In recent decades, however, firms have increasingly begun relying on contract provisions that purport to bind future owners of chattels. These developments began in the context of software licensing, but they have started to migrate to chattels not encumbered by software. Courts encountering these provisions have mostly missed their significance, focusing instead on questions …

Introduction To The Symposium On Digital Evidence, Melinda (M.J.) Durkee, Megiddo Tamar

Scholarship@WashULaw

The past few decades have seen radical advances in the availability and use of digital evidence in multiple areas of international law. Witnesses snap cellphone photos of unfolding atrocities and post them online, while others share updates in real time through messaging apps. Immigration officers search cell phones. Private citizens launch open-source online investigations. Investigators scrape social media posts. Digital experts verify authenticity with satellite geolocation. These new types of evidence and digitally facilitated methods and patterns of evidence gathering and analysis are revolutionizing the everyday practice of international law, drawing in an ever-wider circle of actors who can contribute …

Rethinking Antebellum Bankruptcy, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

Bankruptcy law has been repeatedly reinvented over time in response to changing circumstances. The Bankruptcy Act of 1841—passed by Congress to address the financial ruin caused by the Panic of 1837—constituted a revolutionary break from its immediate predecessor, the Bankruptcy Act of 1800, which was the nation’s first bankruptcy statute. Although Congress repealed the 1841 Act in 1843, the legislation lasted significantly longer than recognized by scholars. The repeal legislation permitted pending bankruptcy cases to be finally resolved pursuant to the Act’s terms. Because debtors flooded the judicially understaffed 1841 Act system with over 46,000 cases, the Act’s administration continued …

Redistributing Justice, Benjamin Levin, Kate Levine

Scholarship@WashULaw

This article surfaces an obstacle to decarceration hiding in plain sight: progressives’ continued support for the carceral system. Despite increasingly prevalent critiques of criminal law from progressives, there hardly is a consensus on the left in opposition to the carceral state. Many left-leaning academics and activists who may critique the criminal system writ large remain enthusiastic about criminal law in certain areas—often areas where defendants are imagined as powerful and victims as particularly vulnerable. In this article, we offer a novel theory for what animates the seemingly conflicted attitude among progressives toward criminal punishment—the hope that the criminal system can …

Conflicts Of Law And The Abortion War Between The States, Paul S. Berman, Roey Goldstein, Sophie Leff

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

On the subject of abortion, the so-called “United” States of America are becoming more disunited than ever. The U.S. Supreme Court’s precipitous decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the nationwide framework for abortion rights that had uneasily governed the country for fifty years. In the immediate aftermath of that decision, it is becoming increasingly clear that states governed by Republicans and those governed by Democrats are moving quickly and decisively in opposite directions. Since the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the Dobbs case, at least twenty-four states have enacted statutes or state constitutional provisions restricting abortion …

The Intentional Pursuit Of Purpose: Nurturing Students’ Authentic Motivation For Practicing Law, Katya S. Cronin

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

“Why do you want to pursue a career in the law?” Nearly every aspiring attorney answers this question as part of their law school application personal statement. They pour their hopes, dreams, and challenges into the answer to this question—their formative struggles, deeply held values, and resolve to make the world a better place as legal practitioners. Soon after starting law school, however, law students turn their attention from core aspirations to immediate concerns. Forgotten and slowly choked by the thorns of competition, prestige, and external validation, law students’ internal sense of self and purpose begin to wither away until, …

Predictability And Adaptation In Law And Other Markets (Chapter In A Coming Book: Research Handbook On Law And Time), Saul Levmore

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

People and enterprises that are subject to the law find it useful to know what the law is at present, but then also to anticipate future rules. If laws are stable this is easily done. Stability is more common where the judicial branch is concerned, because precedents are often valued, and for good reason. They are more often followed by judges than by those involved in other methods of lawmaking. But in all of lawmaking, and even in the private sphere, there is value to consistency and certainty. And yet, surprises can be attractive if they are not confronted on …

Lost Time: Paying For Delays Associated With Labor Strikes And Traffic Jams (Chapter In A Coming Book: Research Handbook On Law And Time), Saul Levmore

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Waiting is often costly. In many settings, one party delays to impose costs on another. In other settings, delay yields a small gain while imposing significant costs on others who cannot easily bargain. Where the parties can bargain, at least one expects the other to relent and to bring about a settlement that is mutually beneficial. Inasmuch as time offers the opportunity to gather information, compare alternatives, and reach yet better bargains, law does not and should not simply discourage all delays. On the other hand, it is often the case that when parties delay before reaching a bargain, they …

Labor Market Traps, Eric A. Posner

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Some products, notably but not only platforms, increase in value for users as the number of other users increases. These interaction or network effects can result in “product market traps” (Bursztyn et al., 2023) where people who use the product would be better off if they all stopped using it and switched to another product, but cannot because of coordination problems. A parallel but overlooked phenomenon is the labor market trap, where employees would be better off if they collectively left an employer, job, or profession, but cannot because of the difficulty of coordination. Product market and labor market traps …

Uncovering The Role Of Hubs: A Network Science Perspective On Platform Competition, Raz Agranat

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

This paper offers a novel legal framework to evaluate competition among digital platforms. Drawing on network science, it debunks two prominent approaches in antitrust law, that network effects either lead to a winner-takes-all situation or, conversely, that they safeguard against platform market power abuses. It coins the term “hub-plucking” to highlight a critical dynamic of platform competition that has surprisingly gone unnoticed: the competition between platforms over highly connected “hubs”. Hub-plucking enables rivaling platforms, including new entrants, to instantly acquire market share by seizing hubs. Since many platforms of interest exhibit hubs, hub-plucking is applicable to a multitude of industries …

Predictability And Adaptation In Law And Other Markets (Chapter In A Coming Book: Research Handbook On Law And Time), Saul Levmore

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

People and enterprises that are subject to the law find it useful to know what the law is at present, but then also to anticipate future rules. If laws are stable this is easily done. Stability is more common where the judicial branch is concerned, because precedents are often valued, and for good reason. They are more often followed by judges than by those involved in other methods of lawmaking. But in all of lawmaking, and even in the private sphere, there is value to consistency and certainty. And yet, surprises can be attractive if they are not confronted on …

Lost Time: Paying For Delays Associated With Labor Strikes And Traffic Jams (Chapter In A Coming Book: Research Handbook On Law And Time), Saul Levmore

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

Waiting is often costly. In many settings, one party delays to impose costs on another. In other settings, delay yields a small gain while imposing significant costs on others who cannot easily bargain. Where the parties can bargain, at least one expects the other to relent and to bring about a settlement that is mutually beneficial. Inasmuch as time offers the opportunity to gather information, compare alternatives, and reach yet better bargains, law does not and should not simply discourage all delays. On the other hand, it is often the case that when parties delay before reaching a bargain, they …

The Automated Fourth Amendment, Maneka Sinha

Faculty Scholarship

Courts routinely defer to police officer judgments in reasonable suspicion and probable cause determinations. Increasingly, though, police officers outsource these threshold judgments to new forms of technology that purport to predict and detect crime and identify those responsible. These policing technologies automate core police determinations about whether crime is occurring and who is responsible. Criminal procedure doctrine has failed to insist on some level of scrutiny of—or skepticism about—the reliability of this technology. Through an original study analyzing numerous state and federal court opinions, this Article exposes the implications of law enforcement’s reliance on these practices given the weighty interests …

Increasing Transparency Within City Government Using Blockchain Technology, Jennifer Ayala

Featured Student Work

When the news or a friend mentions blockchain technology, is it typically always referenced in the context of cryptocurrency? While cryptocurrencies do rely on blockchain technology to record financial transactions between people and businesses,

1 government agencies have begun testing how blockchain technology could improve the lives of constituents.2 A notable advantage of implementing blockchain technology within government, however, is that it has the possibility to prevent corruption due to its very nature.3 The City and County of San Francisco has been the latest victim of government corruption in recent years,

4 with the most recent scandal involving the indictment …

Muzzling Backyard Breeding To Enhance Puppy Protection: Ethical Issues Associated With Unregulated Breeding Practices, Elissa Johnson

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Post-Pandemic Access To Healthcare: Legal Implications Of Telehealth Treatment With Buprenorphine For Opioid Use Disorder, Carmela Dolgetta

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Cannabis And Psilocybin: Insurance Reimbursement, Legalization, And Rescheduling, Elena Athanas Markos

Student Works

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Telehealth In Medical Licensing Regulations Post-Pandemic In The United States: A Comparison To The European Union And Australia, Jacquelyn Twaddle

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Securing Subsea Cable Critical Infrastructure, Holes In The Governing Legal Framework In The United States And Internationally, Sydney Brooke Pleasic

Student Works

No abstract provided.