Digital Commons Network^™

Regulating The Unseen In A Borderless World: Digital Currency And Its Socioeconomic Impact On Industry, Paolina H. Engibegian

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rights Vs Rules: A Commentary On Nathan Mubanga (Suing As The Father And Next Friend Of A Minor Cm) And Anor V Attorney General (2023/Hp/0403) Zmhc3 (19 February 2025), Chanda Mwape

SAIPAR Case Review

The High Court of Zambia upheld a school's refusal to admit a Rastafari child with dreadlocks. The author argues that the Court erred by failing to consider regional jurisprudence, international human rights trends, and the historical context of discrimination against natural African hair. The piece contends that requiring Rastafari children to cut their dreadlocks to access public education effectively denies them their rights to education, freedom of religion, and protection from discrimination.

The Sovereign Acre, Match Dawson

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

What if the next constitutional crisis is not declared from a presidential podium but tyranny forged into a deed? Not a contested election. Not a rogue legislature. Not even a runaway court. This time, it is quieter—with a deed signed and title passed, a new sovereign is crowned in private ink. Across the country, billionaire land grabs are redrawing the map of municipal governance itself. As wealthy elites and corporate oligarchs carve out private enclaves—from the privatized contract city of Sandy Springs, Georgia, to the unsettling governance of The Woodlands, Texas—we bear witness to public sovereignty giving way to …

Copyright Law And Property Law, Keith N. Hylton

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Property is at the core of state law since it is the exclusive power of the individual state governments to define and protect property rights within their jurisdiction. In this paper I will discuss the general connection between copyright and property generally. I will argue that property law sheds important light on copyright law and can help us cut through modern controversies in copyright law. If I am correct in this view, any judge sufficiently familiar with property law doctrines could do better than the Supreme Court of the United States in resolving a new copyright controversy. Specifically, property law …

Pore Some More: Current Legal Considerations Of Pore Space Ownership In Texas, Peter E. Hosey, Charles P. Hosey

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal landscape governing pore space ownership in Texas. It traces the evolution of Texas law from early uncertainty and conflicting case law—such as Mapco, Inc. v. Carter—to the Texas Supreme Court’s recent clarification in Myers-Woodward, LLC v. Underground Services Markham, which firmly establishes subsurface pore space as an attribute of the surface estate. The authors examine the practical implications of this rule, including the interplay between mineral and surface estates, the accommodation doctrine, and issues related to trespass, correlative rights, and contamination of native reservoirs. The article also explores ongoing legislative efforts …

A Framework To Retrieve Relevant Laws For Will Execution, Md Asiful Islam, Alice Saebom Kwak, Derek E. Bambauer, Clayton T. Morrison, Mihai Surdeanu

UF Law Faculty Publications

Wills must comply with jurisdiction-specific statutory provisions to be valid, but retrieving the relevant laws for execution, validation, and probate remains labor-intensive and error-prone. Prior legal information retrieval (LIR) research has addressed contracts, criminal law, and judicial decisions, but wills and probate law remain largely unexplored, with no prior work on retrieving statutes for will validity assessment. We propose a legal information retrieval framework that combines lexical and semantic retrieval in a hybrid pipeline with large language model (LLM) reasoning to retrieve the most relevant provisions for a will statement. Evaluations on annotated will-statement datasets from the U.S. states of …

Presidentialism In Post-Conflict Kachin Constitution: Political Imagination, Institutional Realities, And Executive Design, Dashi Blessing Seng Htoi Lu

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the relationship between cultural identity, political imagination, and constitutional design in the Kachin context, focusing on the strong preference for presidentialism among political thinkers and interim constitution drafters. Rooted in traditions of armed resistance, charismatic leadership, and the desire for visible sovereignty, presidentialism is widely viewed as the most viable executive model for a post-conflict Kachin future. Yet this preference is often shaped more by symbolic ideals than by a clear understanding of the structural demands of democratic governance.

At the heart of this vision lies the expectation of a strong president: directly elected, culturally rooted, and …

The Myth Of Mark-To-Market Trader Taxation, Misunderstood, Misused, And Remedied, Simyllina Chen

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Equality For All In Employment Law: Section 1981 And The Struggle For Equality Amongst Citizens And Non-Citizens, Rebekah Mar

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Loper Bright Ripple Effect: Brace For Impact, Small Businesses, Dominick Mendoza

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Habeas Corpus And Void Judgments, David Kinnaird

Notre Dame Law Review

In a string of recent opinions, Justice Gorsuch and Justice Thomas have posited that postconviction relief upon a writ of habeas corpus was historically unavailable except where the judgment of conviction was issued by a court lacking jurisdiction. In light of this history, Justices Gorsuch and Thomas have argued for a reconsideration of the modern scope of the writ, which generally allows for relitigation of alleged constitutional error in the course of criminal trial.

This Article argues that Justices Gorsuch and Thomas have the history half right. They are correct to assert that a valid judgment of conviction was a …

It Takes A Village . . . But Let The Teenagers Vote, Joseph Fishkin

Notre Dame Law Review

In their article Give Parents the Vote, Kleinfeld and Sachs argue that we ought to give parents extra votes to cast by proxy on behalf of their minor children. In this response, I argue that their proposal misconceives the nature of voting itself. Unlike a child’s personal medical or financial decisions, which we entrust to those most responsible for a child’s care, voting is a collective act by which a political community makes collective choices. Each of us is obligated to cast our vote in the way we think best for the whole community. And each voter—whether a parent …

What Is Voting For?, Joshua Kleinfeld, Stephen E. Sachs

Notre Dame Law Review

Responding to these views requires some reflection on the nature of voting and parenting both. At root, Stephanopoulos and Fishkin don’t think parents are the right people to represent their children politically, and we do. We unpack these theoretical differences as to both voting and parenting in Part I. In Part II, we address Stephanopoulos’s and Fishkin’s concrete policy proposals.

A last note: While our response below naturally focuses on points of disagreement, as that is the way of these things, that focus shouldn’t detract from the crucial fact that all four of us—from different political perspectives—think the status quo …

Code As Counselor: How Robo-Will Platforms Are Productizing Estate Planning Services, John Speirs

North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology

No abstract provided.

The Contractualization Of Disability Rights Law, Yaron Covo

University of Chicago Law Review

What body of law determines the content and scope of disability rights in the United States? The conventional wisdom is that the rights of disabled individuals are enshrined in and shaped by an array of civil rights statutes. While this answer is correct, it is incomplete. As this Article shows, U.S. disability rights are also built upon contract law concepts and doctrines. For example, in interpreting disability rights statutes, courts have turned to the parol evidence rule, the duty of good faith, and the doctrines of impossibility, materiality, duress, and mistake. Although not explicitly enumerated in disability rights statutes, these …

Textualism Wins?: The Supreme Court’S 2024 Labor & Employment Law Cases, Nicole B. Porter

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court decided five primary labor and employment law cases in 2024—two discrimination cases, two arbitration cases, and one labor law case. This article also discusses a sixth case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, because it will undoubtedly affect labor and employment law despite the facts and underlying issue having nothing to do with the workplace.

I was initially underwhelmed with this year’s cases. None of them addresses any major substantive labor and employment law issue. However, upon further consideration, the cases are noteworthy for three reasons. First, three of them are pro-plaintiff with outcomes that benefit workers— …

Above The Law? Exploring Satellite Surveillance Under The Illinois Bill Of Rights, Maxwell A. Ruttenberg

Northern Illinois University Law Review

Since the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite in 1957, our atmosphere has seen a boom in the number of satellites in orbit. Today, it is estimated that there are between five and ten thousand satellites in orbit, most of them owned by private corporations. Our skies will continue to be filled in the coming years as current players increase their satellite fleets, new players arise in the aerospace industry, and nations continue their focus on the uses of space exploration and technology. With the increase of satellites above, communities must now be on alert to an invasion …

Chimeric Contacts And Consent: The Ill-Reasoned Expansion Of Corporate Jurisdictional Exposure, James P. George

William & Mary Business Law Review

Two recent Supreme Court decisions have imposed aspects of general jurisdiction in a way that exposes corporations and possibly other legal actors to litigation in spuriously connected forums. One case—Ford Motor Company v. Montana—reached a fair result but with strained reasoning that will support unfair results. The second case—Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railroad Company—was wrong on the facts and the law, imposing general jurisdiction based on a vaguely worded corporate registration statute validated by a more than century-old precedent based on Pennoyer v. Neff’s limited territorial model.

Both decisions were the result of conceptual corners …

Sustainability And Climate-Related Regulations And Due Diligence, Adolf Peter

Asian Management Insights

Why does it matter?

Leaving Delaware? The Essential Role Of Specialized Corporate Courts, Zohar Goshen, Tomer S. Stein

Faculty Scholarship

Following the Delaware Court of Chancery’s invalidation of Elon Musk’s fifty-six- billion-dollar compensation package, Tesla moved its incorporation from Delaware to Texas. Shortly thereafter, Delaware’s legislature, seeking to protect Delaware’s dominant incorporation position, passed the most sweeping corporate law amendments in fifty years.

Both supporters of Musk and defenders of Delaware’s judiciary have accused each other of partisanship, but neither side has addressed the central question: What is the role of specialized corporate courts?

This Essay presents a novel theory of why such courts are necessary. Corporate disputes are distinct because they arise within ongoing relationships between shareholders and management, …

Revealing Hidden And Concealed Vehicle Compartments. A Survey Of States’ Efforts At Addressing Prohibition Era Tactics, Douglas A. Kash, Diya Rattan

Northern Illinois University Law Review

The transportation of contraband such as controlled substances, illegal firearms, stolen items, and proceeds from criminal activities can take many forms and are subject to the ever-evolving creative efforts by traffickers and criminal organizations to avoid detection by law enforcement. However, one of the simplest and most straightforward mechanisms of transport is in hidden or “trap” compartments in motor vehicles. However, given the legitimate use of discreet compartments (sometimes referred to as “automotive safes” or “traps”) in motor vehicles to secure personal items, important paperwork, and even licensed firearms, a question arises as to whether hidden and false compartments in …

Ames, The Seventh Amendment, And The Honest Belief Trap Tautologizing Title Vii, Amos N. Jones

SMU Law Review Forum

A widely covered Sixth Circuit decision on July 29, 2025, against a tenured African American female law professor at the University of Michigan has dramatically materialized in the face of the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of the United States only weeks earlier in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, decided on June 5, 2025. The Court had just eliminated another basis for employment-discrimination case dismissals, centering its original-textualist interpretative mode under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and buttressing plaintiffs’ Seventh Amendment rights to trial by jury. Meanwhile, the Michigan panel in Beny …

Recalibrating Risk Under Dobbs, Yvonne F. Lindgren, Michelle Oberman

Faculty Works

In response to mounting evidence of the devastating harms patients have experienced under abortion bans, abortion opponents and the Supreme Court of Texas have argued that the bans are clear but that doctors are willfully refusing to provide care. Instead of reforming the bans, they argue that doctors should be sued in medical malpractice for their failure to meet the standard of care. This Article interrogates that claim, investigating whether the crisis in reproductive healthcare that has resulted from delayed and denied care can be remedied by suing doctors. Specifically, can medical malpractice litigation provide guardrails against the erosion in …

Intellectual Property Futures: Exploring The Global Landscape Of Ip Law And Policy, Graham Reynolds, Alexandra Mogyoros, Teshager W. Dagne

All Faculty Publications

The past few decades have been witness to a number of important developments with respect to the global intellectual property (IP) system, including shifts in focus between multilateralism and bilateralism/regionalism; growing recognition of the various ways in which IP intersects with and impacts areas including human rights, development, trade, and social justice; broad acknowledgement of the economic value of many IP rights; and important theoretical interventions that have challenged the values underlying the global IP system.

These developments have occurred alongside several other events, changes, and crises that have altered the landscape of our global communities. Chief among them are …

Introduction, Graham Reynolds, Alexandra Mogyoros, Teshager W. Dagne

All Faculty Publications

The past few decades have been witness to a number of important developments with respect to the global intellectual property (IP) system, including shifts in focus between multilateralism and bilateralism/regionalism; growing recognition of the various ways in which IP intersects with and impacts areas including human rights, development, trade, and social justice; broad acknowledgement of the economic value of many IP rights; and important theoretical interventions that have challenged the values underlying the global IP system.

These developments have occurred alongside several other events, changes, and crises that have altered the landscape of our global communities. Chief among them are …

Waiting For Godot: Thinking About Criminal Law After Mass Incarceration, Jonathan Simon Professor Of Law,

Vanderbilt Law Review

This brilliant set of close observations and careful analyses on some of the most cutting-edge issues arising in criminal law and reform of the criminal-justice system arrives at a time of great uncertainty as to the direction of change in criminal justice in the United States. After roughly a decade of reform and a significant surge in social movements criticizing the excesses of policing and punishment, the national conversation around crime has shifted back toward fear and a preference for "tough" law-and-order policies. Each one of these essays is packed with a great deal of insight and detail about very …

Third-Party Accommodations, Doron Dorfman

Michigan Law Review

Does disability rights law impose an obligation on employers, schools, and other places of public accommodation to control the behavior of coworkers, students, or other third parties to accommodate an individual with disabilities? This Article examines that unexplored legal question and shows that the law frequently fails to protect people with disabilities from the choices and behaviors of third parties. Judges often consider these major barriers to access beyond the reach of the Americans with Disabilities Act’s reasonable accommodation mandate. This Article argues that this problem results from improperly imposing the privity paradigm, a doctrine that limits the inquiry about …

The Nuances Of Prosecutorial Nonenforcement, Meighan R. Parsh, Carissa Byrne Hessick

William & Mary Law Review

The academic literature on prosecutors is divided: Some commentors believe that prosecutors should more aggressively use their ability to decline to bring charges, decreasing the overall number of criminal cases and helping to address the problem of mass incarceration. Others believe that broad prosecutorial nonenforcement poses significant risks to our constitutional order and public safety. While the visibility of this debate has increased—spilling over from the pages of law reviews into political campaigns and headlines—the terms of this debate are at times unclear. Prosecutorial nonenforcement is a multifaceted phenomenon, and discussions about its costs and benefits can obscure necessary tradeoffs …

Chimeric Contacts And Consent: The Ill-Reasoned Expansion Of Corporate Jurisdictional Exposure, James Paul George

Faculty Scholarship

Two recent Supreme Court decisions have imposed aspects of general jurisdiction in a way that exposes corporations and possibly other legal actors to litigation in spuriously connected forums. One case-Ford Motor Company v. Montana-reached a fair result but with strained reasoning that will support unfair results. The second case-Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railroad Company-was wrong on the facts and the law, imposing general jurisdiction based on a vaguely worded corporate registration statute validated by a more than century-old precedent based on Pennoyer v. Neff's limited territorial model. Both decisions were the result of conceptual corners the Supreme Court has created …

Assembly-Line Public Defense, David S. Abrams, Priyanka Goonetilleke

Faculty Scholarship

Each year, millions of Americans rely on public defenders to fulfill their Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Despite being the linchpin of the criminal justice system, public defense remains both underfunded and understudied. This Article provides empirical analysis to contribute to a critical question: How should public defender systems be structured?

Criminal justice advocates, scholars, and the American Bar Association strongly favor vertical representation in public defense. Under this model, a single public defender represents a defendant throughout their case, from their initial appearance through sentencing. The alternative approach—horizontal representation—operates like an assembly line: Different attorneys handle each stage of …