Law Commons^™

Roger Williams University School Of Law Alumni Association 2023 Holiday Reception, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Defragging Feminist Cyberlaw, Amanda Levendowski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 1996, Judge Frank Easterbrook famously observed that any effort to create a field called cyberlaw would be “doomed to be shallow and miss unifying principles.” He was wrong, but not for the reason other scholars have stated. Feminism is a unifying principle of cyberlaw, which alternately amplifies and abridges the feminist values of consent, safety, and accessibility. Cyberlaw simply hasn’t been understood that way—until now.

In computer science, “defragging” means bringing together disparate pieces of data so they are easier to access. Inspired by that process, this Article offers a new approach to cyberlaw that illustrates how feminist values …

Are Compelled Arbitration Clauses In Coaches’ Contracts With The Nfl Effective And Fair To All Parties?, Andreas Kouzouloglou

CJCR Blog

Employment agreements between football coaches and the NFL grants the NFL commissioner “the full, and complete, and final jurisdiction and authority to arbitrate” various forms of disputes between the two parties. There is one case that is currently being litigated challenging the legality of this arbitration provision. In Flores v. NFL, the plaintiffs attack the clause for being overbroad and unconscionable. Arbitration agreements can be an effective way to settle disputes as an alternative to litigation, but sometimes when there is unequal bargaining power resulting in one entity in complete control of the process, the negative consequences outweigh potential benefits. …

“The Biggest Problem With You…”: Racial Profiling And Canada’S Program Of Extra-Territorial Migrant Interdiction, Simon Wallace, Benjamin Perryman, Gábor Lukács, Sean Rehaag

All Papers

On April 3, 2019, Andrea and Attila Kiss tried to board an Air Canada Rouge flight from Budapest to Toronto. Andrea’s sister was ailing, and the couple planned to visit Canada for two months to support her family. Their travel was legitimate and lawful. Their documents were in order. But when they lined up to check in, Andrea made a mental note of a fact that was about to become relevant: as members of the Hungarian Roma community, they were the only racialized people in line.

Andrea and Attila did not reach the check-in counter. They were stopped and pulled …

Research On Renewable Energy Project Opposition Selected For Environmental Law And Policy Annual Review Award, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

A publication co-authored by Indiana University Maurer School of Law Dean Christiana Ochoa and 2021 Law School alumna Kacey Cook has been selected to appear in the 17th edition of the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review.

“Deals in the Heartland: Renewable Energy Projects, Local Resistance, and How Law Can Help” was authored by Ochoa, Cook, and University of Minnesota Law School third-year student Hanna Weil and was published in January 2023 in the Minnesota Law Review.

Expecting Specific Performance, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, David Hoffman, Emily Campbell

Articles

Using a series of surveys and experiments, we find that ordinary people think that courts will give them exactly what they bargained for after breach of contract; in other words, specific performance is the expected contractual remedy. This expectation is widespread even for the diverse array of deals where the legal remedy is traditionally limited to money damages. But for a significant fraction of people, the focus on equity seems to be a naïve belief that is open to updating. In the studies reported here, individuals were less likely to anticipate specific performance when they were briefly introduced to the …

Ndls Communicator: Week Of 11.27.23, Notre Dame Law School

NDLS Communicator

The Latest News

• Jay Tidmarsh presented his paper (co-authored with Tladi Marumo) on the subject of class representatives and class objectors at the University of Texas Law School on November 13.
• Paul Miller and Sam Bray have just published "Christianity and Equity,” which is a chapter in "The Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Law," edited by John Witte, Jr. and Rafael Domingo.
• Mark Hill KC and David H. McIlroy from the London Law Programme also contributed chapters in the handbook.
• Mary Ellen O’Connell has two new publications out. "The Role of Natural Law in the Rise and Decline of European …

Mmu: 11/27/23–12/03/23, Student Bar Association

Monday Morning Update

This Week @ NDLS

Mass Times

Commons Daily Menu

General Announcements

A Comparative Analysis Of The Animal Protection Laws In The United States And Switzerland, Kelly Ziyu Xia

CICLR Online

In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” This statement underlines the significance of how a society cares for those under its dominion, particularly those who are defenseless. Animal welfare laws vary widely across the globe, reflecting the diverse approaches taken by different countries to protect the interests of animals. While the United States has made commendable strides, the current legal framework for animal protection remains inadequate. Both Switzerland and the United States have federal laws that aim to protect animal welfare, but …

The Urgent Issue Of Suicide In Nyc Jails, Kathleen Leuty

ERSJ Blog

Half of the people currently detained in New York City jails have a mental health diagnosis. Since 2020, the number of incarcerated people with a serious mental illness in New York City jails has nearly doubled—from 672 to 1,207 people. The medical support offered to those in jail suffering from mental illness, however, has not seen corresponding growth. The number of medical appointments missed by those incarcerated in New York City is staggering: “the monthly number of missed medical visits has spiked by 21%, from 9,259 in August 2022 to 11,176 in June 2023, outpacing growth in the jail population.” …

Fairness And Fair Use In Generative Ai, Matthew Sag

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Reply Brief For Petitioner, Ferguson V. America, Brian Wolfman, Madeline H. Meth

Faculty Scholarship

The Government concedes that the circuits are divided over whether 28 U.S.C. § 2255 limits a district court’s discretion in reviewing 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) motions. And because it cannot dispute that this issue is cleanly presented, unaffected by the Sentencing Commission’s policy statement, and exceptionally important, it instead rewrites the question presented. The Government’s effort to replace a question about the relationship (if any) between Section 3582(c)(1)(A) and Section 2255 with one about whether the district court abused its discretion should be rejected, and with it the Government’s attempt to gloss over the intractable circuit split, its misguided argument …

Week Of November 20, 2023 - November 24, 2023, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Today at Cardozo 2023

No abstract provided.

Ups And Teamster: Setting A New Bar For Negotiations And Conflict Resolution, Angel Zheng

CJCR Blog

On July 25th, 2023, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (“Teamster”) reached a tentative agreement with United Parcel Service (“UPS”), affecting more than 340,000 UPS workers. A month later, on August 22nd, 86% of the union members voted in favor of ratifying the National Master Agreement. The negotiated agreement not only prevented one of the largest strikes in U.S. history, but also raised the bar for all workers in the labor movement. This entire conflict demonstrates the importance of negotiations and dispute resolution because negotiation was able to help avoid a major strike and negotiate a favorable contract.

This post was …

Vol. 65, No. 13 (November 20, 2023)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

Ndls Communicator: Week Of 11.20.23, Notre Dame Law School

NDLS Communicator

The Latest News

• Notre Dame Law School establishes new Global Human Rights Clinic.
• Diane Desierto is currently representing Nobel laureate Maria Ressa in her defense against cyber libel charges at the Philippine Supreme Court.
• The Religious Liberty Clinic filed an amicus brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon case St. Timothy's Episcopal Church et al. v. City of Brookings, advocating for religious organizations’ freedom to serve the hungry.
• The Religious Liberty Clinic filed an amicus brief in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, urging the court to protect a sacred site in San Antonio, Texas, that …

All Grown Up: Qualified Immunity, Student Rights, And The Way Forward, Matthew Mcknight, Angela Guo

Duke Law Journal Online

No abstract provided.

Mmu: 11/20/23–11/26/23, Student Bar Association

Monday Morning Update

This Week @ NDLS

Mass Times

Commons Daily Menu

General Announcements

The Bharatiya Sakshya Bill, 2023: A New And Unimproved Evidence Act, Kunal Ambasta

Popular Media

The secrecy in drafting the bill to replace the Evidence Act is reminiscent of colonial legislation by committee. The lack of consultation has meant that the interpretative confusions in existing law remain unresolved.

Randy Kiser’S New Book On Professional Judgment For Lawyers, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

This post describes Randall Kiser’s book, Professional Judgment for Lawyers. He defines professional judgment as “the deliberate synthesis of an attorney’s knowledge, experience, skills, discernment, and character to ethically advance a client’s interest.” The book combines empirical research, cognitive and social psychology, organizational behavior, legal ethics, and neuroscience to improve decision-making by attorneys, clients, judges, arbitrators, mediators, and juries.

Cardozo Law News Brief: November 17, 2023, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Brief 2023

Featured Faculty:

• Samuel Weinstein
• Jessica Roth
• Alexander Reinert
• Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum
• Pamela Foohey
• Edward Zelinsky
• Michel Rosenfeld

Does Speaker Johnson's Election Forewarn Federal Anti-Lgbt Legislation?, Gerald Dryden

ERSJ Blog

On October 25, 2023, fourth-term Representative of Louisiana Mike Johnson was elected Speaker of the House. Within three weeks, he laid the groundwork to avoid the feared projected partial government shut down. So why does Johnson consistently score a zero on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard? The answer has long caused controversy: Speaker Johnson is ardently anti-LGBTQ+.

This post was originally published on the Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights and Social Justice website on November 17, 2023. The original post can be accessed via the Archived Link button above.

The Roe Repeal Behind Bars: Prison Pregnancies In A Post-Dobbs World, Hani Fish-Bieler

ERSJ Blog

165,000 women are estimated to be incarcerated in the United States. These are disproportionately women of color, as Black women are incarcerated at a rate two times higher than that of white women. Around 58,000 pregnant individuals are processed into jails, prisons, and other detention facilities in the United States every year. Approximately 6 to 10 percent of women are pregnant when they enter prison or jail, and about 1400 newborns are born to women in custody. This population has been and will continue to face the challenging effects of the Supreme Court’s 2022 repeal of Roe v. Wade in …

The Unreasonable Effectiveness Of Large Language Models In Zero-Shot Semantic Annotation Of Legal Texts, Jaromir Savelka, Kevin D. Ashley

Articles

The emergence of ChatGPT has sensitized the general public, including the legal profession, to large language models' (LLMs) potential uses (e.g., document drafting, question answering, and summarization). Although recent studies have shown how well the technology performs in diverse semantic annotation tasks focused on legal texts, an influx of newer, more capable (GPT-4) or cost-effective (GPT-3.5-turbo) models requires another analysis. This paper addresses recent developments in the ability of LLMs to semantically annotate legal texts in zero-shot learning settings. Given the transition to mature generative AI systems, we examine the performance of GPT-4 and GPT-3.5-turbo(-16k), comparing it to the previous …

Navigating The World Of Tiktok Influencers And Using Adr Methods To Negotiate Brand Deals And Contracts, Peri Ayzidor

CJCR Blog

Anyone using social media in the last three years has been exposed to or heard of TikTok. With over 1.4 billion monthly active users, the social media platform TikTok has taken the world by storm. It allows users to create videos lasting from 15 seconds to three minutes, covering thousands of categories, from makeup tutorials to tutoring explanations. The app has been a particular hit for influencers. An influencer is someone who has the power to impact the purchasing decisions of others because of a certain appeal or relationship with the audience. Many influencers have taken advantage of the app’s …

California’S 2023 Legislative Cycle: Governor Newsom Provides Victories And Losses For The Labor Movement, Victoria Chan

GGU Law Review Blog

During the 2023 legislative cycle, the California Legislature sent more than 900 bills to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk for his review. Of the 900 bills, thirteen bills were sponsored by the California Labor Federation (CLF) in support of major labor initiatives. The CLF is a coalition of 1,200 unions dedicated to protecting workers. The CLF indicated that this past legislative year was a “fantastic year for organized labor in the [California] State Legislature,” specifically, thirteen of its sponsored bills passed the California Legislature and arrived at the Governor’s desk for his review.

Below is a preview of two workers’ rights …

Promises And Pitfalls: Former Lprs Quest For A Second Chance, Jeanin Alvarado

GGU Law Review Blog

Every year, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removes thousands of immigrants from the United States. In the fiscal year between October 2021 and September 2022, ICE executed the removal of 72,117 noncitizens, which is a 22% increase from the previous fiscal year. Of those removals, 44,096 noncitizens had criminal convictions or pending charges. According to the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as of January 2022, an estimated 12.9 million lawful permanent residents (LPRs) live in the United States. About 970,000 of these LPRs obtained status before 1980, while the remaining 11.9 million obtained status …

Applicants Beware: Chinese Trademark Fraud Is Rampant, And It Is Affecting U.S. Trademarks, Lily Barash

CICLR Online

If you are looking to file a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), you should raise your vigilance. When the COVID-19 pandemic sent people in the United States into emergency lockdown, brick and mortar businesses closed their doors and people started opening their minds. People found new, and more, ways to be creative and e-commerce began to boom. With budding ideas, creators and companies recognized the imperativeness of protecting their intellectual property. The USPTO announced that as of June 17, 2021, it had experienced an increase of roughly 63% in trademark applications filed over the …

Historical Kinship And Categorical Mischief: The Use And Misuse Of Doctrinal Borrowing In Intellectual Property Law, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian

Journal Articles

Analogies are ubiquitous in legal reasoning, and, in copyright jurisprudence, courts frequently turn to patent law for guidance. From introducing doctrines meant to regulate online intermediaries to evaluating the constitutionality of resurrecting copyrights to works from the public domain, judges turn to patent law analogies to lend ballast to their decisions. At other times, however, patent analogies with copyright law are quickly discarded and differences between the two regimes highlighted. Why? In examining the transplantation of doctrinal frameworks from one intellectual property field to another, this Article assesses the circumstances in which courts engage in doctrinal borrowing, discerns their rationale …

Defeating The Empire Of Forms, David Hoffman

Articles

For generations, contract scholars have waged a faint-hearted campaign against form contracts. It’s widely believed that adhesive forms are unread and chock full of terms that courts will not, or should not, enforce. Most think that the market for contract terms is broken, for both employees and consumer adherents. And yet forms are so embedded in our economy that it’s hard to imagine modern commercial life without them. Scholars thus push calibrated, careful solutions that walk a deeply rutted path. Notwithstanding hundreds of proposals calling for their retrenchment, the empire of forms has continued to advance into new areas of …