Digital Commons Network^™

Drive-By Mediation And Other Opportunistic Distortions Of Process, Nancy A. Welsh

Faculty Scholarship

Many states in the United States, along with many nations, have implemented special benefits and privileges to encourage parties’ use of mediation to assist their communication, negotiation, and ultimate resolution of disputes. This is despite how loosely mediation is defined. This Article discusses how vague definitions, paired with special benefits and privileges, are incentivizing both the opportunistic distortion of mediation and the use of mediation for improper purposes. In Texas, for example, judges are extraordinarily limited in their ability to disapprove parents’ mediated child custody agreements—even if there is reason to worry that an agreement is contrary to the best …

Judicial Enforcement Of Evidence Law, G. Alexander Nunn

Faculty Scholarship

The truth matters. At least it should. In the courtroom, truth can serve as the cornerstone of justice, liberating the innocent, vindicating victims, and holding the guilty to account. Indeed, truth is such a normative imperative that an entire legal discipline now focuses on fostering its discovery at trial—evidence law. By regulating both the reliability of proof and the rationality of cognitive inferences, evidence law seeks to help factfinders discern truth and reach an accurate verdict. And given the importance of that role, one might naturally assume that the strict enforcement of evidence law would be a legal mandate of …

Traditional And Computational Canons, Eric H. Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

As part of the rise of modern textualism, dictionaries and linguistic canons have become a ubiquitous part of legal interpretation. One longstanding question is whether judges citing these tools sincerely attempt to follow the meaning of a text, or if their invocation is merely window-dressing for a preferred outcome. The practical significance of this question extends across all major doctrinal areas, and with the Supreme Court’s overturning of Chevron deference, its importance is only to grow, as courts are now instructed to use every tool at their disposal to resolve ambiguity when interpreting a law. This Article is the first …

The Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Introduction, Jennifer S. Martin, Colin P. Marks, Wayne Barnes

Faculty Scholarship

The survey that follows highlights the most important developments of 2024 dealing with domestic and international sales of goods, personal property leases, payments, letters of credit, documents of title, investment securities, and secured transactions. Along with the usual descriptions of interesting judicial decisions highlighted in the survey, there has also been legislative progress. The 2022 Amendments to the Uniform Commercial Code ("U.C.C.") (the "2022 Amendments")' have been adopted in thirty-one states plus the District of Colombia and introduced in six states.

The Crime Of Being Immoral, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Despite a general abhorrence of retrospective laws as a matter of legal theory and Constitutional dictate, US. courts continue-in es sence-to create new crimes by injecting fazzy moral considerations into determinations under the federal fraud statutes. They do so by deeming a failure to act with "moral uprightness" sufficient to consti tute criminal fraud. Under such an amorphous standard, the unwitting find themselves in a legal bind, even though their conduct may not in volve any of the traditional elements of common-law fraud. This Article traces the roots of novel fraud theories with tools drawn from legal theory, linguistics, and …

A Speaker-Based Approach To Content Moderation: The Case Of Livestreaming, Maayan Perel

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Livestreams on social media represent a unique form of User-Generated Content. Delivering events and experiences in real time, while turning passive listeners into an involved audience, livestreaming facilitates users’ engagement and participation. Streaming promotes freedom of expression and facilitates diversity and pluralism in news reporting. It further allows users to maintain truth and authenticity in a potentially fabricated realm of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). Speakers are eager to capitalize on the instantaneous nature of livestreaming; some are using it to document newsworthy events or promote business interests, and others exploiting it by spreading unlawful and malicious content in pursuit of …

Tort Immunity Waiver For Vaccine Injuries: Ethical And Legal Perspectives, Tammy W. Cowart, Gregory L. Bock

Accounting, Finance, Information Systems, and Business-Law Faculty Publications and Presentations

The COVID pandemic highlighted the importance of vaccine development and availability worldwide. Operation Warp-Speed in the United States accelerated vaccine production by several major pharmaceutical manufacturers, averting some of the normal administrative processes. The result has been a financial windfall for those companies. Some recent data has shown that the COVID vaccine can cause negative side effects in some patients. There are provisions in U.S. law that allow victims of vaccine injuries to recover compensation through the court system. However, even then tort remedies are limited by federal law. Since the review process was rushed during the pandemic, should tort …

Seeing Is Believing: Identifying The “Ideal Manifestation Of Hidden Disability” In Ontario’S And Quebec’S Social Benefits Tribunals, Pascale Malenfant

Dalhousie Law Journal

The phenomenon of disability skepticism, especially in relation to “hidden” disabilities like chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), has fostered a culture of doubt among medical, legal, and public entities. This paper explores the intersection of such skepticism with the social benefits adjudication processes in Ontario and Quebec. In drawing parallels to feminist critiques of the “ideal victim” in sexual assault cases, it argues that the tribunals’ biased framework for believability is based on a claimant’s conformity to stereotypical expectations of what an “ideal” claimant with a hidden disability looks like. By comparatively examining 10 years worth of Ontario and Quebec tribunal …

Curricular Choices: Misconceptions Regarding Law School Courses, Constance Backhouse, Holland Stille, Avery Esford

Dalhousie Law Journal

Canadian law schools offer their upper-year students a wealth of optional curricular choices. Yet many students choose narrowly and poorly. This article addresses the misconceptions that many hold as they select their second- and third-year courses. Often students believe they need certain courses to get a job, to prepare for articling, to pass the bar exams, or to prepare for future legal careers. In most cases, these concerns are erroneous. This article urges students to choose based on factual evidence rather than imagined anxieties and on personal interest rather than the “group think” rigidity that infects much of the curricular …

Sovereign Indignity And Immunity, Chun Hin Jeffrey Tsoi

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Sovereign immunity, even if not understood as a monarchical relic, embodies the notion of indignity for a government having to answer to allegations of transgressions. This Essay proposes an argument to challenge the doctrine’s theoretical basis, especially with respect to the federal government in federal court. But there is first a threshold question to be answered: has the doctrine of federal sovereign immunity been practically mooted by the “death” of Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents? One needs an express cause of action to sue the federal government absent Bivens, and if one has an express cause of action, under …

Rethinking Appeals In Arbitration, Abdi Aidid

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The question of whether arbitration awards should be appealable, or at least subject to enhanced judicial review, is heavily contested in the scholarly literature. This Article explains that arguments favoring or rejecting appellate review have focused on stylized conceptions of arbitration either as a species of contract or as a substitute for adjudication. This Article argues that these two dominant approaches—termed here the “contractarian” and “arbitration-as-adjudication” models—fail to adequately describe modern arbitration practice. Thus, any argument for or against appellate review that rests heavily on either of the two conceptions is unconvincing. Instead, this Article argues that the question of …

Subsistence As Resistance: Reconceptualizing The Theory Of Progressive Property To Incubate Resistance To Consumerism, D.S. Pensley

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This Article reconceptualizes the theory of progressive property by juxtaposing legal theory with the empirical study of a subsistence economy in the U.S. Subarctic. Progressive property holds that owners are bound by obligations to non-owners as a means to achieve human flourishing. The theory is constrained by the primacy of private property in Western thought, and it also lacks the ecological ethic required for sustainability. Drawing from my fieldwork, I suggest that human flourishing must additionally incubate resistance to consumerism.

Federal statute, 16 U.S.C. § 3113, defines subsistence as “the customary and traditional uses by rural Alaska residents of wild, …

Look What You Made Me Do, Russell M. Gold

Washington and Lee Law Review

We have understood for centuries that crime is both the product of social forces and individual choice. We know now that crime is affected by economic deprivation, addiction, trauma, and mental health issues. But American criminal legal processes hide this reality by coercing defendants into expressing a profoundly simple narrative: crime is solely individual choice to do wrong. This coerced narrative finds defendants during a plea colloquy standing up in court saying that they are pleading guilty because they are guilty and for no other reason. A defendant who goes off-script to tell the judge that they have been repeatedly …

Class Of 2028 Incoming Il Law Students, St. Mary's University School Of Law, St. Mary's University School Of Law

Incoming 1L Photos (Facebooks)

No abstract provided.

Sovereign Solutions: Reclaiming Reproductive Autonomy In Oklahoma Indian Country After Dobbs, Morgan Sandler

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In the United States, Native American women face disproportionately high rates of sexual violence and adverse maternal health outcomes. In addition to these ongoing challenges, they continue to face significant barriers to reproductive healthcare access. Oklahoma’s near-total abortion ban—without exceptions for rape or incest—exacerbates these negative trends, particularly for Native women and the Two-Spirit community. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, approximately 42 percent of Oklahoma’s land area is recognized as Indian Country. This Comment explores how Oklahoma’s abortion ban disproportionately impacts Native women due to systemic inequities stemming from the federal government’s long history of …

Case Global: A Winning Tradition, Case Western Reserve University School Of Law, The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center

Case Global Newsletter

Volume 17, No. 1 (2025)

• CWRU once again ranked among the best in 2025 PreLaw magazine and US News & World Report rankings of International Law Program...
• Case Western Journal of International Law Tackles the Need to Update the Geneva Conventions
• Building on a Winning Tradition
• CWRU Launches New International Development Law Lab
• CWRU Establishes Spring Break in the Hague Program
• Professor Michael Scharf leads Team to Prepare Ukrainian Judges and Prosecutors to Try Environmental War Crimes
• Professor Rapp teaches Comparative Law to Saudi Administrative Judges in Riyadh
• Yemen Accountability Project publishes two new White Papers
• Immigration Clinic Builds Momentum …

Dispute Resolution Tailored For Digital Assets, Michele Kallo

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

As digital asset markets continue to expand, the need for efficient and reliable dispute resolution mechanisms has grown increasingly pressing. In May 2022, alone, over 200 individual and class action lawsuits related to digital assets were filed, with cases only deepening in nuance. Traditional litigation, with its high costs, slow timelines, and jurisdictional complexities, often falls short in resolving such disputes. In reaction to these limitations, decentralized arbitration platforms have emerged as spaces for dispute resolution. While innovative, these platforms’ susceptibility to issues such as market volatility, barriers to juror diversity, and impartiality limitations raise questions about their effectiveness as …

Effectiveness Is Not A Criterion Here: The Curriculum Marketplace And The Students It Leaves Behind, Serena E. Roche

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Is Your Data Good, Bad, Or Neutral?: Redefining Concreteness For Data Breach Harms, Jeeyoon Lim

Fordham Law Review

In recent years, the Supreme Court has tightened federal court standing requirements for intangible harms, including statutory harms. In TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, the Court held that a mere statutory violation, absent a common-law analogue, is not sufficiently concrete to grant standing. The Court did not provide clear guidance as to how stringent the common-law analogue analysis must be, other than that it does not require an “exact duplicate.” Because of the ever-evolving nature of digital data, data breach victims attempting to enforce their statutory right to privacy in federal court have struggled to rely on tradition and history …

Ethical Sourcing In The Context Of Health Data Supply Chain Management: A Value Sensitive Design Approach, Camille Nebeker Edd, Ms, Ellen Wright Clayton, Et Al.

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Abstract

Objective

The Bridge2AI program is establishing rules of practice for creating ethically sourced health data repositories to support the effective use of ML/AI in biomedical and behavioral research. Given the initially undefined nature of ethically sourced data, this work concurrently developed definitions and guidelines alongside repository creation, grounded in a practical, operational framework.

Materials and Methods

A Value Sensitive Design (VSD) approach was used to explore ethical tensions across stages of health data repository development. The conceptual investigation drew from supply chain management (SCM) processes to (1) identify actors who would interact with or be affected by the data …

Attribution As Architecture In The Digital Age, Laura A. Heymann

Faculty Publications

As technology changes, one thing remains constant: human creators seem to care about attribution, whether as creators or as audience members. Current U.S. law lacks the means for many creators to effectively address attributional interests, and experience has shown that top-down, imposed technological solutions can fail to gain the necessary buy-in and adoption. The best approach, examples suggest, is for platforms to think of attribution as part of the architecture of their systems, but to take their cues from user-developed, individualized solutions, which will not only be more responsive to user interests but also allow adaptation as interests change and …

Domestic Military Deployments After Trump V. United States, Chris Mirasola

William & Mary Law Review

The current legal regime governing domestic military deployments was, largely, born of the Civil War. While conflict was ongoing, Congress enacted what are now a pair of statutes criminalizing military interference with federal elections. And as a coda to Reconstruction, Congress criminalized using the military as a civilian law enforcement force. Over the past 160 years, successive Congresses and Presidents have steadily chipped away at these crucial criminal-law protections. In 2024, the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States further undermined the limitations that remained.

In Trump, the Supreme Court held that Presidents enjoy, at minimum, a presumption …

The Right To "Be Whole": A Jewish Religious Liberty Argument For Gender Affirming Care For Minors, Sarah Weiner

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Home By Now? “Habitual Residence” And The Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Child Abduction, Emily Mcanally

The International Law Review Association Student Forum

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction (“the Convention”) is a multilateral treaty signed in 1980 which aims “to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed to or retained in any Contracting State”; and to ensure mutual respect of the “rights of custody and access” between the contracting states. As of 2025, there are 103 signatories of the Convention who have committed to taking “all appropriate measures” and employing “the most expeditious procedures available” to ensure that children wrongfully within their territory can be returned home. Although the Convention has existed for nearly half a century, …

Immigrant Entrepreneurship: A Survey Of "Start-Up" & Investor Visa Programs And Their Effects, Candace Yuan

The International Law Review Association Student Forum

Entrepreneurship has positive economic benefits and allows for innovative progress within countries. Immigrants, specifically, are in a unique position to bring new perspectives, backgrounds, and ideas to their host countries, which makes them especially entrepreneurial. In particular, immigrants play key roles in their host country by starting businesses or making investments that lead to job creation, innovation, and increased national productivity. This broader phenomenon is known as Immigrant Entrepreneurship, where immigrants contribute to the economy of their host country by starting new businesses or investing. Immigrant entrepreneurship is a developing but relevant topic, as literature in this arena suggests that …

The Advocate (Fall 2025), Lewis & Clark Law School

The Advocate

No abstract provided.

Law As A Tool Of Empire: A Transhistorical Comparison Of Mandate Palestine And Ancient Rome, Will L. Hisle

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

Through a comparative analysis of Law and Identity in Mandate Palestine by Assaf Likhovski, and A Legal History of Rome by George Mousourakis, this essay demonstrates that law was crucial to the expansion of empire. When read in tandem, these monographs provide a transhistorical framework for viewing law outside of itself, as a mechanism of colonial and imperial domination.

Unpacking Singapore's Leasehold Relativity Table: An Empirical And Legal Analysis, Koon Shing Kwong, Jing Rong Goh, Seng Wei, Edward Ti

Research Collection School Of Economics

In Singapore, most land is state-owned, with the state generally issuing leasehold estates via state leases of not more than 99 years1, depending on the intended land use. Naturally, the value of a leasehold estate, which erodes over time as the lease approaches the end of its term, is a key component of the premium charged for lease renewals, or the tax imposed for permission given in relation to a development that would increase the value of the land. By law, the state valuation of leasehold land is prescribed by a leasehold relativity table colloquially known as ‘Bala’s Curve’ or …

Civil Liability For Invasions Of Privacy: Whither Singapore?, Yu Han Lam

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Intrusions upon privacy are becoming increasingly common in Singapore. Singapore has yet to establish a tort addressing this issue, although the SAL Law Reform Committee has proposed a tort of misuse of private information. Australia has also recently introduced a statutory tort of serious invasion of privacy. This article will argue for the need for a Singapore tort of intrusion upon seclusion, on top of the already proposed tort of misuse of private information, to cover more appropriately instances of intrusions upon privacy.

Interpreting The Private‑ And Public‑Sector Service Criteria For Singapore’S Aspiring Presidential Candidates, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Singapore President's role is not only ceremonial: from 1991, it has encompassed the substantive function of serving as a guardian of public reserves and the integrity of the public service. A person must meet certain qualifying criteria in order to run in a Presidential election. This article focuses on one set of qualifying criteria, namely, the "service criteria": the requirement that candidates have had certain experience in serving in certain roles in the public sector or the private sector. The service criteria were last amended in 2016, and came to the fore in the 2023 Presidential Election following George …