Digital Commons Network^™

A Personal Take: An Argument In Favor Of Adopting The Uniform Partition Of Heirs Property Act In Rhode Island, Isiah Dipina, Natasha Varyani

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

State Ai Therapy Regulations – Analyzing The Illinois Wellness And Oversight For Psychological Resources Act, Natalie Browne

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

According to the Harvard Business Review, the top use case for generative artificial intelligence (AI) in 2025 was therapy and companionship. Accordingly, numerous “therapy-specific” AI tools have hit the market in recent years, vying to fill this growing need. However, individuals are also turning to generic large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, to express their deepest anxieties, seek reassurance, and gather advice. While tech optimists assert that AI therapy tools will extend mental health treatment in care deserts, attention-grabbing headlines about such use cases have shattered communities and shocked legislatures. To address growing concerns about AI therapy, Illinois enacted …

2026 Supplement To The Corporations Curriculum - Caremark: The Board's Duty Of Oversight Regarding Work Force Safety And Sexual Misconduct, Sarah Haan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Weight Of Stigma, Rebekah A. King, Michael S. Sinha

All Faculty Scholarship

Many health care providers, both implicitly and explicitly, perpetuate stigma in their treatment of patients classified as obese. While medical professionals understand that a one-size-fits-all approach to treatment is ineffective, patients classified as obese are frequently offered limited treatment options that fail to account for their unique needs. Access to a range of effective treatment options has historically been limited, but new GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines like Wegovy (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide), have shown incredible promise in addressing the obesity crisis. Unfortunately, these transformative drugs are costly, in high demand, and not widely covered by insurance, rendering them inaccessible for …

The Asexual Assumption, Faith K. Whatley-Blaine, Michael S. Sinha

All Faculty Scholarship

Inclusion-focused dating shows such as ‘Love on the Spectrum’ feature individuals with developmental or neurological disabilities on a quest for love. Despite the focus on disability representation, these shows perpetuate stigma against the disabled community by fostering an infantilizing portrayal of individuals with disabilities. This portrayal undermines the premise of encouraging meaningful romantic relationships and reinforces the stigmatizing association of asexuality with disability. This framing aligns with the broader societal narrative that individuals with disabilities are incapable of or lack interest in participating in romantic relationships or physical intimacy.

The stigma that associates asexuality with disability extends beyond mere entertainment, …

Room To Breathe: The Surprising Capaciousness Of Osh Act Preemption, Michael C. Duff

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay is part of a Saint Louis University Law Journal seminar, conducted by the Wefel Center for Employment Law, titled "Shifting Workplace Law in an Era of Federal Vacuums: Business as Usual or Polycrisis?" The symposium presumed that the federal government would be scaling back workforce regulatory enforcement dramatically in the shadow of DOGE and several other developments. The essay focuses on OSHA and more narrowly questions the extent to which the OSH Act preempts state and local efforts to regulate workplace safety and health. The essay shows that unless OSHA promulgates a full-blown “standard” – a tedious form …

Risk And Resistance: How Feminists Transformed The Law And Science Of Aids By Aziza Ahmed, Kailey Tam

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Book review of : Risk and Resistance: How Transformed the Law and Science of AIDS by Aziza Ahmed

Disconsents, Daryl J. Levinson, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Consent is an indispensable standard and organizing principle in any liberal legal order that prizes self-directed autonomy, self-identified preferences, and collective agreement. Yet consent’s capacity to advance those values has become increasingly uncertain in a society beset by power imbalances, information asymmetries, and multiple forms of polarization. In this Article, we document how the rise of neoliberalism has led to greater reliance on consent throughout U.S. law, while at the same time leading to greater doubts about its moral efficacy and empirical feasibility. Connecting and generalizing pathologies of consent-based regulation that have been identified within myriad domains, the Article identifies …

"Activist" Versus "Passive" Investors: A Closer Look At Proxy Contests And The Contemporary Balance Of Advantage, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The era of the hostile takeover has clearly given way to the era of the proxy contest led by an activist hedge fund. Today, a record number of such contests are underway, and they have changed the board composition at many U.S. companies and caused a record number of CEO resignations. But there is a mystery here: when activist funds negotiate for changes with target managements, they often obtain meaningful changes in the board of directors and corporate policies. However, when activists attempt a proxy contest, they have generally been unsuccessful, winning only a small number of seats in a …

Tax In The Echo Chamber, Kathleen Delaney Thomas

Faculty Publications

This Essay explores the concept of social media echo chambers in the context of tax law. Specifically, in addressing this Symposium’s topic of “AI in Tax Law,” the Essay argues that a significant and growing number of taxpayers encounter information about the tax system through their interaction with social media content that is selected by machine-learning algorithms. Tax information, commentary, and advice abound on social media, and nearly eighty percent of those considered Gen-Z or millennials seek out tax and financial advice on social media platforms. Policymakers who are interested in keeping the public informed about the tax system, thereby …

The Arbitrary Myth: Challenging Trademark Law's Elevation Of Arbitrary Marks, Dustin Marlan

Faculty Publications

Under its Abercrombie spectrum, trademark law grants “arbitrary” marks—like APPLE for computers or AMAZON for retail—its highest form of protection, treating them as equivalent to fanciful marks such as KODAK or EXXON. This Article challenges that foundational assumption. Unlike fanciful marks, which are invented and enjoy strong source-identifying capacity due to their novelty, arbitrary marks draw on existing language through catachresis: a rhetorical move that repurposes a common word in novel commercial context. In doing so, arbitrary marks generate layered metaphoric meanings that more closely resemble the associative leaps of suggestive marks, rather than the invented distinctiveness of fanciful ones. …

The Case For Contractual Exculpation Of Lawyers’ Liability: Doctrine, Economics, And Policy, Timothy Ke

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

For over a century, Canadian lawyers have been prohibited from agreeing to contractual clauses limiting, allocating, or excluding their civil liability—a stark contrast to the graduated regimes governing other Canadian professionals and lawyers in major international jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium. This article seeks to initiate a critical conversation about legitimizing such clauses. It anchors its analysis in doctrinal integrity, economic efficiency, and policy, addressing competing objectives in relation to fiduciary responsibility, the market for legal services, and liability insurance. In doing so, this work delineates the benefits and bounds of contractual freedom, …

Space Mining, Richard Painter

Articles

The Trump Administration and U.S. Congress are promoting new ventures to extract valuable minerals from outer space. This Article does not dismiss the idea out of hand, but explores reasons for caution, including practical problems with space mining, its environmental impact, the likelihood that the United States could violate international law, and the risk of armed conflict. These problems are exacerbated by financial conflicts of interest in our government with a handful of billionaires, who have a financial interest in space mining work. The promotion of their agenda could involve wasteful government spending on subsidies for private ventures, with a …

Re-Rethinking Asian Exclusion And Color-Blind Immigration, Gabriel J. Chin

SMU Law Review

During Reconstruction, as Congress debated the place of African-Americans in U.S. society, it evaluated how the principles it articulated would apply to Chinese-Americans. Rather than adopting a race-neutral jurisprudence, it began identifying the ways in which the law could be deployed to deny Asians economic and political opportunities, and the right to immigrate. Ultimately, a joint network of federal and state laws denied Asians the right to naturalize, to own land, and to immigrate. In a rare win, a divided Supreme Court held that the children of Chinese people born in the United States were citizens by virtue of the …

Searches And Seizures Of The Unhoused, Shawn E. Fields

Faculty Scholarship

The United States recorded its largest ever unhoused population in 2024. Acute affordable housing shortages and climate-fueled natural disasters have exacerbated a decades-long unaddressed humanitarian crisis, straining resources in cities and rural areas alike. In response, state and local governments have pivoted to a more punitive approach to houselessness. Draconian "anti-camping" ordinances subject houseless people to fines or arrests while police destroy their property in encampment "sweeps," disconnecting the unhoused from critical social structures. Quality-of-life laws criminalize basic biological functions in public. New York, California, and other states have expanded the reach of involuntary civil commitment procedures, forcibly hospitalizing and …

Table Of Contents

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Policing An Education: Legal And Policy Drivers Of The School-To-Prison Pipeline In Florida Public Schools, Ky'eisha W. Black

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Democratizing Health Data: A Legal Framework For Privacy-Preserving, Government-Led Ai Collaboration, Nicole Nigri

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

A Gap In The Cybertipline: Electronic Service Provider Liability And Child Safety, Brianna Evans-Sheehan

NYLS Law Review

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The online exploitation of children is a widespread problem that requires immediate action. This Note proposes that Congress …

Silver Lining In A Soap Opera: A Boon For Hospital Debtors In The Midst Of In Re Steward's Madness, Mackie S. Garwood

Emory Law Journal

Lost in the technical jargon of the Medicare Statute and Bankruptcy Code are the powers to shape the posterity of hospitals that serve the American public. Distressed health care providers are increasingly turning to Chapter 11 relief, and ultimately the deal market, to salvage their businesses and fully monetize their assets. In the frequent event of an unsuccessful reorganization, hospital failures tank the health and well-being of their surrounding communities.

Hospital buyers regularly acquire a debtor’s Medicare Provider Agreement (Provider Agreement), a one-page form which credentials providers to participate in Medicare. In re Steward Health Care System, LLC, the …

Remedying Labor Violations Of The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement On Both Sides Of The Border, Lourdes A. Perez

Emory Law Journal

The labor provisions of the United States’ Free Trade Agreements contain language that allows labor violations to seep through unpenalized. Parties to the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) sought to rectify this by drafting the most comprehensive labor provisions of any free trade agreement to date by crafting the Facility-Specific Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM). This Mechanism provides that a particular facility found to be in violation of the USMCA labor provisions must enforce a remediation plan that preserves workers’ rights or face the threat of losing its preferential trade status. The most salient way facilities breach the USMCA’s labor provisions is …

Genes For Sale!, Anya E.R. Prince

Emory Law Journal

In March 2025, 23andMe, the flagship direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing company, filed for bankruptcy. Just like that, the genetic information of fifteen million customers was up for sale to the highest bidder, creating a firestorm of reactions from the public, media, state attorneys general, and legislators warning of the dire outcomes that could arise from the sale of such sensitive data. The warnings seemed reasonable, as federal law does little to protect consumers from the widespread sale and misuse of their genetic data.

Yet, in retrospect, the public concerns and media frenzy could potentially be seen as excessive given the …

Unlikely Criminals: Inside The Ivf Drug Grey Market, Maybell Romero

Emory Law Journal

In this Article, I admit to committing crimes, specifically buying fertility drugs on the in vitro fertilization (IVF) drug grey market. Drawing from personal experience, I explore how people wanting to undergo IVF turn to the criminalized fertility drug grey market to access necessary but prohibitively expensive fertility medications that would otherwise be out of reach. In the absence of comprehensive insurance coverage, patients often rely on informal online communities to obtain medications at lower prices, often from other patients whose IVF cycles have been canceled or who have excess drugs. While these transactions fulfill a critical need, they also …

Making Environmental Cancer Risk Legally Visible: Legal Epidemiology, Chemical Regulation, And The Failures Of Cancer Cluster Investigations, Beverley C. Thompson

Emory Law Journal

Environmental cancer risks remain difficult to detect, investigate, and remediate despite decades of federal regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Cancer cluster investigations are designed to identify unusual patterns of cancer and their environmental causes, but fragmented authority, inconsistent methodologies, and narrow investigative frameworks routinely prevent these investigations from addressing population-level harms. By failing to detect and address cancer clusters, public health systems inadvertently perpetuate environmental injustices, disproportionately harming communities already underserved and overburdened by pollution.

These failures are not merely scientific but reflect legal and institutional design choices that determine which cancer risks are visible, investigable, and …

Defamation, Privacy, And The First Amendment: Cases & Problems (3rd Ed.), George Biashvili

Books

I created this resource in anticipation of teaching my Torts II class, which will primarily explore defamation and privacy torts. Though I searched for a suitable coursebook, I found that none contained all of the opinions I consider essential for teaching the nuances and complexities of these subjects. Additionally, I wanted to spare my students the exorbitant price tags associated with traditional law school texts. Hence, I assembled a collection of relevant privacy and defamation cases that align with the objectives of my course. Each case is accompanied by a set of questions to further stimulate class discussion. Where I …

Formal Neutrality And Unequal Liability: How Algorithmic Aversion Distorts Liability For Algorithmic Torts, Gao, Jingkang

Santa Clara Law Review

The shift in the cause of machine-induced harm from mechanical failures to algorithmic decision- making is challenging the applicability of products liability. Because algorithms now operate machines analogously to humans, a doctrinally coherent response is to subject algorithmic torts to a negligence framework that evaluates the reasonableness of decisions rather than the content of algorithms. This approach offers a theoretically grounded, formally neutral, and normatively appealing solution. In practice, however, it may result in unequal liability. Even under a negligence regime, algorithmic decision- makers may face systematically greater liability if injured parties are more inclined to pursue litigation against algorithmic …

What Ai Can’T Say: Oral Competence In Legal Education, Ho, Cynthia M.

Santa Clara Law Review

This Article brings together two critical conversations rarely considered in tandem – the impact of generative AI (GenAI) on legal education and the need for more practical skills – and argues for a shared solution centered on oral communication skills. Law schools have historically devoted substantial attention to teaching students how to write like lawyers, but not how to speak like one. Although a long-standing imbalance, the widespread use of GenAI in written work provides an additional urgent reason to place more emphasis on oral assignments.

This Article argues that doctrinal classes offer an underused, scalable opportunity to develop oral …

Don’T Breathe In: The Dangers Of Ssm Events And Why Repealing Affirmative Defenses Falls Short, Spring, Gillian

Santa Clara Law Review

From the Louisiana and Texas Gulf coasts to Wilmington, California, communities face disproportionately high cancer risks linked to excess hazardous emissions. This article examines the longstanding regulatory gaps that allow industrial facilities to emit excess levels of hazardous air pollution during startup, shutdown, and malfunction (SSM) events. Despite the Clean Air Act’s enacted framework for controlling emissions, the EPA has created exemptions and affirmative defenses that shield polluters from civil penalties even when emissions exceed legal limits. Excess pollution emissions occur when air pollution levels exceed what is considered safe for human ingestion. When communities are subjected to certain pollutants, …

Criminalizing Survival: How The Grants Pass Decision Is Intensifying The Homelessness Crisis In California And Beyond, Riley, Laura

Santa Clara Law Review

This article examines the intensifying criminalization of homelessness in the United States since the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, which removed the ability of people to challenge laws under the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause that prohibit survival behaviors in public places like sitting, sleeping, or lying down. The article explores the legal and practical challenges in documenting criminalization of homelessness, analyzes national and California-specific legislative trends and enforcement practices, and assesses the impacts on unhoused populations. The article concludes with policy recommendations to shift the state of homelessness criminalization from one of punitive …

From Victim To Villain: How Gendered Narratives Shape Drug Courier Trials, Serafina C. Russo

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

This article examines how gendered stereotypes, coercive trafficking dynamics, and permissive evidentiary practices create systemic bias in criminal prosecutions of women, particularly in drug trafficking cases. It highlights how courts often allow expert testimony and generalized narratives that blur neutral analysis with character judgment, inviting jurors to rely on cultural assumptions rather than objective facts. The “blind mule” phenomenon demonstrates the human cost, disproportionately affecting women from marginalized backgrounds, and reflects violations of due process and the presumption of innocence. The article argues for judicial and legislative reforms, including rigorous enforcement and clarification of Rule 704(b), to prevent stereotypes from …