Digital Commons Network^™

Disclosure Duties And Responsibilities, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Contract disclosure rules differ in structure, function, and design. Though scholars often treat all these rules under the rubric of duty, in fact they fall into two broad categories. Disclosure duties treat the failure to disclose as a legal wrong; disclosure responsibilities attach positive legal consequences to disclosure but do not treat nondisclosure as a legal wrong. Disclosure duties can be further divided. Specified disclosure duties, which typically apply to consumer and other mass-market transactions, provide detailed guidance regarding both what information to disclose and how to disclose it. Generic disclosure duties, such as the tort of nondisclosure, provide broad …

The Court Of Small Things, The Curse Of Legal Superstition: The Precipitous Decline Of Small Claims Court, Why It Matters, And What Can Be Done About It, Telia Mary U. Williams

Nevada Law Journal

This Article addresses the precipitous decline of small claims courts in the United States and argues that their erosion is more than administrative; it is a democratic and constitutional crisis. Small claims courts were once the laboratories of everyday justice, where ordinary citizens could access law without lawyers, ritual, or mystery. The seemingly minor disputes of the small claims court illuminate the democratic soul of American law. Yet, over recent decades, filings have declined dramatically, and the locus of power has shifted from the poor to repeat-player institutional actors. This is in part due to what I call, “legal superstition,” …

Human Rights, Between Peace And Dignity, Ryan Liss

Michigan Journal of International Law

Today, it seems self-evident that human rights are enshrined at the international level because they protect universal human dignity—a cosmopolitan entitlement that cannot be left to the contingencies of domestic law. The prevalence of this received wisdom, however, masks a fundamental transformation in the idea of human rights over the last century. When human rights were first enshrined in international law—during and following the Second World War— their international status was not seen to be justified primarily by the inherent dignity of persons, but by the instrumental role human rights were understood to play in securing interstate peace. This article …

Public Perceptions Of Family Caregiving Of Children Versus Older Adults, Elizabeth S. Scott, Tamar Kricheli-Katz

Faculty Scholarship

The population of older adults in the United States is growing at a rapid rate, both because people are living longer lives and because older adults are an increasingly large share of the population as baby boomers age. It is predicted that by 2030, one in ¿ve adults in the United States will be of retirement age, and one in six people worldwide will be age 60 or older. By 2034 there will be more adults age 65 and older in this country than minor children under age 18.

Among the important consequences of this demographic trend will be a …

A Blind Eye To Justice: Blind Pleas In The American Courtroom, Meghan Koza, Makayla Nolen, Stuti Kokkalera

Journal of Criminal Justice and Law

Over 90% of criminal court cases are decided through plea negotiations, rather than through a jury or bench trial. Within the broader context of plea negotiations is the use of a “blind” or “open” plea, where defendants consent to the court’s decision without a chance to participate in the bargaining process. In entering blind pleas, defendants must waive constitutional trial rights with the hope that they will be given a more lenient sentence but are largely left in the dark during the process. This study aims to provide a national overview of the utilization of blind pleas in the United …

Calvip Cohort 4 Local Evaluation Report: Peace And Justice Law Center’S Legal Services To Support Gang Desistance, Nyla Baxter-Williamson Ma, Kirsten Chaplin Ma, Tori Luna Ma, Topher Mcdougal Phd

Kroc IPJ Research and Resources

This Local Evaluation Report assesses the implementation and outcomes of the Peace and Justice Law Center’s Legal Services to Support Gang Desistance (LSSGD) project, funded by the California Board of State and Community Correction’s California Violence Intervention and Prevention Program (CalVIP) Grant, Cohort 4. Through LSSGD, PJLC sought to provide direct legal services to current or formerly gang-involved individuals, as well as those treated by law enforcement as gang-involved, to reduce legal obstacles to desistance, expand access to lawful employment, promote family stability, and improve trust in legal institutions. The Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice (Kroc IPJ) …

Policing Sex Trafficking: 'They’Re Never Taught, You Know', Anila S. Duro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research shows that victims of sex trafficking are most likely to first come in contact with the police (Baldwin et al, 2011; Twigg, 2017) and at times police have not been able to categorize cases of prostitution as trafficking even when trafficking elements were very clear (Dank et al, 2017; Dempsey, 2017; Farrell & Cronin, 2015). Despite the legal definition of trafficking, the terms prostitution, sex work, and sex trafficking are sometimes used interchangeably by law enforcement, whereas at other times, these words refer to different sets of circumstances and have different criminalization outcomes.  Research in this area is limited …

Jurisdictional Waters, Jamison E. Colburn

Michigan Law Review

A review of Waters of the United States: POTUS, SCOTUS, WOTUS, and the Politics of a National Resource. By Royal C. Gardner.

Immobilizing Migrants, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

Michigan Law Review

A review of The Migrant’s Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration. By Brianna Nofil.

Reflections And Revisionism: Rethinking The U.S. Response To Covid-19, Wendy E. Parmet

Michigan Law Review

A review of In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us. By Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee.

Fourth Amendment Anti-Theory, Matthew Tokson

Michigan Law Review

A review of The Digital Fourth Amendment: Privacy and Policing in Our Online World. By Orin Kerr.

Legal Ethics Of Ai Snake Oil: Navigating The Hype, Harm, And Hope Of Legal Ai, Drew Simshaw

Michigan Law Review

A review of AI Snake Oil.By Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor.

Lessons Learned: Helping Researchers Help The Intelligence Community, Sydney Rose Rothstein, Kristen Patel, Arthur Paul Pedersen

Public Administration - All Scholarship

The present paper argues that decades of debate have not established whether Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) works in intelligence analysis. Reviewing more than fifty English-language studies and commentaries from 2025 – 2026, it identifies only eight empirical, direct tests of ACH relevant to intelligence work, none of which demonstrates success or failure at improving analytic decision-making. It traces a conceptual error in these otherwise methodologically sound experiments to Richards J. Heuer Jr.’s 1999 Psychology of Intelligence Analysis: researchers conflated Heuer’s account of satisficing with confirmation bias and evaluated individual accuracy, belief change, or hypothesis ranking rather than whether …

The Post-Process Apostasy: Canaries, Calculators And Cathedrals, Thomas O. Main

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Who's Afraid Of Copyright And Ai?, Deborah R. Gerhardt

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Copyright and AI need not be a copyright no man’s land. Recent decisions by the Copyright Office have gotten so much media attention that many creators are unsure if they can secure copyright protection if they use AI as a creative tool. The proposed creative control paradigm can help us all tackle the challenge of determining when works created with the assistance of AI are copyrightable. Instead of relying on long-established nuanced precedent for protecting works generated with new technology, the Copyright Office asserts that any content generated with assistance from AI tools is unprotectable. This position is radically inconsistent …

The School To Prison Pipeline From The Inside Out: Survivor Narraitves, Nina M. Koufalias

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the lived experiences of two Latino men who traversed the school-to-prison pipeline in the 1980s. The purpose of this study is to investigate how intersecting systems of racism, ableism, poverty, and exclusionary school practices shaped their educational trajectories and contributed to their incarceration. Three overarching research questions guide this inquiry: (1) What can be learned from the stories of two formerly incarcerated relatives that sheds light on how the school-to-prison pipeline is lived? (2) How do their narratives illustrate the impacts of exclusionary discipline policies, such as zero-tolerance, on educational opportunities and life outcomes? (3) How does …

Ai, Medicine, And Social Determinants Of Health Data, Ryan Doyloo, Nicholson Price

Articles

This article examines how medical AI systems are incorporating SDoH data and the governance challenges that follow. The authors show that while SDoH integration can enhance clinical workflows and predictive accuracy — potentially improving outcomes for underserved populations — it also introduces acute risks of proxy discrimination, where facially neutral variables replicate protected characteristics. Surveying U.S., EU, and international frameworks, the authors argue that existing regimes lack clear ex ante guidance to distinguish beneficial from harmful uses of SDoH data. In response, they advance post-market monitoring as a pragmatic and scalable pathway: generating real-world, SDoH-stratified evidence that can support enforcement, …

Exploring The Limits Of Qualified Immunity Under Harlow’S Discretionary Function Test, James E. Pfander, Alexander A. Reinert

Articles

No abstract provided.

Option Market Value-Based Reaction And Anticipation Of Corporate-Related Decisions By The United States Supreme Court., Yehuda Davis, Suresh Govindaraj, Yi Liu, Kate Suslava

Faculty Journal Articles

Our paper studies the option market reactions to judicial decisions in the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) relating to cases where at least one party involved is a public firm. Prior research finds the stock market is unable to anticipate SCOTUS's actions and registers a significant negative stock market reaction to the grant of certiorari (acceptance of a petition to review a lower court's decision) for respondents and, surprisingly, for petitioners as well. We show the negative price reaction for both petitioner and respondent firms is a consequence of increased uncertainty. We also provide evidence that on the day certiorari …

Rehabilitation Or Retribution? A Socio-Legal Comparison Of Criminal Sanctions And Social Reintegration In Indonesia And Spain, Ridwan Arifin, Izan Mateo Cassandro

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

This study examines the legal, institutional, and socio-cultural mechanisms influencing the social reintegration of ex-offenders in Indonesia and Spain. Despite a global trend toward rehabilitative approaches, practical implementation reveals significant divergence due to structural, cultural, and economic factors. Indonesia’s penal system, guided by Law No. 22 of 2022 and the new Criminal Code (KUHP), emphasizes statutory rehabilitation and vocational and spiritual programs. However, challenges such as prison overcrowding, limited post-release support, and societal stigma constrain effectiveness. Judicial decisions indicate cautious application of restorative provisions, reflecting both public expectations and institutional limitations. In Spain, rehabilitation is constitutionally entrenched under Article 25(2) …

Science-Related Rhetoric And Action By United States Presidents From 1977-2017, Amanda E. Shea

Interdisciplinary Studies

Presidential rhetoric and executive action have played an important role in shaping how scientific issues are presented to the American public. This project examined how United States presidents from Jimmy Carter through Barack Obama (1977–2017) employed science-related rhetoric and policy regarding climate science and reproductive health. Findings suggest that reproductive health remained a partisan issue throughout the study period, while climate science shifted from a largely bipartisan concern to a more partisan one over time. The results also indicate that presidential rhetoric and executive action were not always aligned, with several administrations using science-related rhetoric more extensively than corresponding policy.

The Spirit Of Jubilee, Christopher D. Hampson

BYU Law Review

The Jubilee texts of the Hebrew Bible call for debts to be forgiven and enslaved persons freed every seven years and for farmland to be restored to families every fifty years. Tightly woven into the legal, narrative, and prophetic vision of the text, the Jubilee tradition offers an inspiring and dramatic vision of socioeconomic justice for multiple religious traditions. Yet the American legal tradition, which purports to draw on its religious heritage for inspiration and moral authority, has not fully drawn on the Jubilee tradition for a contemporary vision of equality and justice. This Essay seeks to rekindle that conversation. …

Slavery And The Myth Of Religious Liberty, Audra Lyn Savage

BYU Law Review

This is a story about two ships. One is semi-mythical. The other is half-forgotten but brutally real. The first ship is the story of early settlers who sailed from Europe to escape religious persecution and—through hard work, perseverance, and righteous rebellion—built a nation upon the fundamental freedom of religious liberty for all. The second ship represents the painful history of America, with its millions of Africans stolen from their homeland, placed in unimaginable conditions, and stripped of their language, heritage, and most significantly, their beliefs. Current religious liberty jurisprudence centers around the historical understanding of the creation and ratification of …

The Martha Wright-Reed Act: How The Fcc Took One Step Forward For Communication Equality For Deaf Individuals In Correctional Facilities And How It Could Be Expanded, Ashley Seebold

Seattle University Law Review

For decades, phone companies preyed on incarcerated individuals and their loved ones due to the lack of regulation of jail phone calls.2 In 2021, the average cost of a fifteen-minute jail phone call was about $3.3 In 2022, the average cost rose to $5.74, while some individuals faced an extreme charge of $24.82 for the same amount of time.4 In the early 2000s, consumer advocate and concerned grandmother Martha Wright-Reed called upon the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fix the imbalance so she could speak to her incarcerated grandson.5 Eventually, in 2023, the FCC answered her call to action and …

The Bluebook: An Insider’S Perspective, M. Burke Craighead

Michigan Law Review

A review of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Edited by Columbia Law Review Association, Harvard Law Review Association, University of Pennsylvania Law Review and The Yale Law Journal.

The Court And The Killing State, Eric Berger

Michigan Law Review

A review of Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection. By Corinna Barrett Lain.

Of Climate Justice And Magical Realism, Sonya Ziaja

Michigan Law Review

A review of Climate Justice: What Rich Nations Owe the World—and the Future. By Cass R. Sunstein.

When Lawyers Protest, Renee Knake Jefferson

Michigan Law Review

A review of Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present, and Future of the American Legal Profession. By Ray Brescia and a review of Canceling Lawyers: Case Studies of Accountability, Toleration, and Regret. By W. Bradley Wendel.

Communicative Administration: The Administrative State Beyond Legal Administration, Daniel E. Walters

Faculty Scholarship

On many dimensions, the administrative state is at the nadir of its power. The Supreme Court has tightened administrative law controls on agency power, and the Trump Administration has stormed the bureaucracy in an unprecedented blitz designed to kneecap agency capacity and independence. For better or worse, many agencies and their civil servants are being sidelined as meaningful actors in the administration of government. Yet this familiar account doesn’t tell the entire story. At the same time that agencies are being stripped of the power to implement law—what this Article calls “legal administration”— they are steadily accumulating extensive and largely …

Addressing The Stale Line Of Sports-Betting Behavior: Examining The Economic Shortfalls And Tax Solutions In Legalizing Sports Betting, Peyton Rameas

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Sports betting is a form of gambling that does not suffer from the same negative social stigma as casino gambling despite its equally addictive properties and damaging impact on household consumption. While sports betting was previously banned in most of the United States, following the Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association decision, which empowered states to regulate sports betting within their borders, a wave of states that previously banned all forms of sports betting legalized the practice. Unsurprisingly, this rapid legalization of sports betting was accompanied by a flurry of statewide regulations, leading to disparate consumer protection across the states. …