Law Commons^™

Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence For Lawyers: Resistance Is Futile: Candor, Supervision, And Fees, Cliff Mckinney

Arkansas Law Notes

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Borg deliver their iconic warning to every species they encounter: “Resistance is futile.” The line resonates because it conveys the inevitability that once the Borg arrive, escape is no longer an option.

For lawyers, the duties of candor, supervision, and fairness in fees are just as inescapable. ABA Formal Opinion 512 (“ABA Opinion”) makes clear that, regardless of how powerful artificial intelligence becomes, it cannot relieve attorneys of their obligation. Attorneys must verify what they file, oversee how their colleagues use the technology, and ensure that clients are charged fairly. This installment examines …

Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence For Lawyers: You Will Be Assimilated: Best Practices For Lawyers Using Artificial Intelligence, Cliff Mckinney

Arkansas Law Notes

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Borg, a species augmented with artificial intelligence, give a chilling ultimatum to every civilization they encounter: “You will be assimilated.” The warning is terrifying because it suggests not destruction, but absorption with the loss of independence to a relentless collective.

For lawyers, the rise of artificial intelligence carries a similar threat of assimilation. Artificial intelligence is already entering law practice, whether lawyers welcome it or not. The real question is not if lawyers will be assimilated into a future integrated with artificial intelligence, but how they will use these tools without sacrificing judgment, …

Facing State-Created Danger In Facial Recognition Technology, Esha Jain

Washington Law Review

When the police wrongfully arrest someone, that person faces distinct harms. Various scholarship, news articles, and studies document that AI-powered facial recognition technology (FRT) disproportionately misidentifies individuals from marginalized racial groups when used irresponsibly. Many of those sources indicate that police reliance on FRT without adequate vetting results in wrongful arrests. Yet law enforcement continues to misuse FRT.

This Comment contends that the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 state-created danger doctrine offers a potential remedy for plaintiffs harmed by police reliance on FRT. To prevail under this doctrine, plaintiffs must prove affirmative conduct, deliberate indifference, and proximate causation. If successful, these …

Bankrupt Crypto Organizations, Kara Bruce, Christopher K. Odinet, Andrea Tosato

Faculty Scholarship

This Article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the intersection between decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and American bankruptcy law. DAOs are blockchain-based entities that enable individuals to pursue common goals using decentralized decision-making and automated governance. Since their recent emergence, DAOs have proliferated dramatically—with over 20,000 organizations managing over $20 billion in assets and engaging in activities ranging from investment management to real estate and even attempting to purchase historic copies of the U.S. Constitution. Yet like any other organization, DAOs can fail, creating an urgent need to understand what happens when unstoppable code meets immovable bankruptcy law.

Our investigation …

Pornographic Deepfakes And Ugly Social Facts: The Costs Of A Normative Approach To Defamation, Kathleen Ross

Michigan Law Review

Around the world, women and girls are being victimized by pornographic deepfakes— alarmingly convincing, sexually exploitative images and videos generated using artificial intelligence (AI). Facing statutory gaps, victims may turn to traditional tort law claims to recover for the injuries inflicted by pornographic deepfakes. Defamation law, which protects against reputational injuries caused by false statements, is a particularly compelling arena for vindicating the interests invaded by a pornographic deepfake—interests which are, at their heart, social and reputational. Fortunately for deepfake victims, a pornographic deepfake will often satisfy defamation’s basic elements: A false and defamatory communication that concerns the victim and …

Transformative Technology Or Blatant Theft: Reassessing Fair Use In The Era Of Generative Ai, Tsai-Lin Hsieh, Tsai-Fang Chen

Cardozo Law Review

The rapid proliferation of generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) applications in recent years has sparked a global “AI frenzy.” Yet, the rise of new AI technologies has also raised concerns about copyright infringement, particularly regarding whether generative AI developers should be held liable for using copyrighted works as training inputs and generating outputs that compete with original works. In response, AI developers have invoked a long line of technological fair use precedents to defend against any potential copyright infringement claims. The purpose of this Article is to offer insights into whether generative AI is a transformative technology that deserves fair use …

The Regulatory Framework For Crowdsourced Online Dispute Resolution: Revisiting The Dispute Resolution Triangle, Yun Zhao, Zhiming Xiao

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Crowdsourced Online Dispute Resolution (CODR) constitutes a transformative approach to digital-era disputes, fundamentally reconceptualizing dispute resolution through distributed participant networks rather than merely digitizing traditional alternative dispute resolution. Anchored in Katsh and Rifkin’s dispute resolution triangle (trust, convenience, expertise) and Perritt’s co-regulatory governance model, this paper analyzes CODR’s evolution from early systems such as iCourthouse to contemporary implementations. Case studies of eBay Community Court (contractual self-regulation prioritizing convenience) and Xianyu Small Court (state-aligned hybrid governance optimizing expertise through algorithmic juror specialization) demonstrate how platforms operationalize these theoretical frameworks. The legal analysis examines jurisdictional fragmentation and enforcement challenges, revealing how regulatory …

Outbound Investment Restrictions And International Law’S Challenge, Harlan Grant Cohen

Seattle University Law Review

The Outbound Investment Rule, restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors, has largely been portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the …

Resilient Dispute Resolution Systems For International Energy Conflicts, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Seattle University Law Review

Energy-related conflicts are on the rise, spanning diverse issues such as the impacts of rare mineral mining on local communities, the impacts of sanctions on energy investments due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and the impacts of expanded subsidies on the electric vehicle and solar panel industries. Increasingly, companies, communities, and governments are clashing over the challenges of pursuing disparate and sometimes competing energy policies. This Article argues that dispute resolution mechanisms in the energy investment sector must be fundamentally rethought. Traditional semi-adjudicatory models, which focus on winners and losers, fail to accommodate the complex and multifaceted nature of contemporary energy …

Restricting Data Flows Is A Sign Of Weakness, Nikolas Guggenberger

Seattle University Law Review

There has been a seismic shift in American attitudes toward the free flow of data across borders.  In less than a decade, the United States has transitioned from condemning barriers to digital trade to constructing a digital fortress of its own. It passed legislation requiring TikTok’s parent company to divest its U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban affecting 170 million U.S. users, citing national security concerns about its ties to China and the potential for data surveillance and content manipulation. Upon legal challenge by TikTok on First Amendment grounds, the Supreme Court affirmed the ban’s constitutionality. Recent federal legislation …

Product Nationality And Corporate Identity, Trang (Mae) Nguyen

Seattle University Law Review

Global supply chains have long depended on a deceptively technical device: the attribution of a “nationality” to goods. A trade law principle, rules of origin assign products an “economic passport” that governs how they are treated at the border, including what markets they may enter and which tariff rates apply. In recent years, however, product nationality has taken on a new and far more ambitious role. As U.S. trade policy increasingly intersects with national security and human rights policy, policymakers rely on nationality-based measures to police supply chain linkages, curb geopolitical issues, and discipline firms for their links to forced …

Global Supply Chain Resilience In Emerging Technologies: A Case Study Of Bitcoin Mining, Kishanthi Parella, Carla L. Reyes

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has put into motion bold plans in critical and emerging technologies to bolster its national and economic security.  For example, the federal government created a national bitcoin strategic reserve and a stockpile of other cryptocurrency; while several states have committed to or are considering similar goals.  However, the security of these reserves is dependent on two types of supply chains within the Bitcoin mining industry: analogue supply chains, relating to the physical components needed for Bitcoin mining, and data supply chains, relating to the complex and layered logistical network of actors that create input into the software …

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Approaches To Shaping International Outer Space Law And Norms, Ariel G. Silverman

Seattle University Law Review

This article explores convergences and divergencies in the United States and PRC’s responses to the stalemate in the United Nations over the future of outer space resource governance. I do so by systematically analyzing these leading space-faring nations’ policy-positions and tactics deployed to shape norms around three substantive areas of outer space resource governance: rights of ownership and scope of utilization of space resources, mechanization of the “benefits sharing” principle, and the rights and responsibilities of the private sector. I theorize that these leading space-faring nations have adopted divergent approaches due to their differing historical relationships with international law and …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Third-Party Funding: Balancing Transparency, National Security, And Access To Justice, Victoria Shannon Sahani

Seattle University Law Review

Many lawmakers who have recently become aware of the multi-billion-dollar global third-party funding industry are raising new national security concerns that further complicate preexisting, longstanding debates about transparency, disclosure, access to justice, and the best way to regulate third-party funding. In response, this Article briefly asserts three main points relating to the question of how best to regulate third-party funding. First, this Article explains the third-party funding industry, including its global regulatory landscape and how it serves three distinct populations: consumers, businesses, and law firms. Second, this Article explains that third-party funding is one tool that can help expand access …

The Field Of International Business Transactions Law, Kathleen Claussen

Seattle University Law Review

This Article studies the evolution of the scholarly subfield referred to as the law of “international business transactions” (IBT). It reviews data on academic articles, courses, textbooks and other signifiers of the growth of this research area. Beginning around 1960, scholars began to use the term “international business transactions” and by the 1980s, several law schools were offering a course by that title. A handful of dedicated textbooks soon followed. These data reflect a gradual increase in research on the topic of IBT, particularly in the United States, but also considerable diversity of subject matters covered by those works. The …

Kim Gyeong-Seok And The Origins Of Northeast Asia’S Corporate Accountability Movement For War And Colonialism, Timothy Webster

Seattle University Law Review

For the past three decades, a transnational reparations movement has unfolded across Northeast Asia. Hundreds of victims—assisted by attorneys, academics, and activists—seek remedies from Japan for various atrocities committed during World War II, colonialism, and other historical injustices.  They press their claims in street protests, legislative hearings, dramatic performances, and other fora.  The “comfort women” are the best known of these claimants; their global redress campaign ex-tends from noisy protests outside of Japan’s embassy in Seoul, to mute statues in raucous boroughs of Berlin.  More obscure, though larger in number, were the roughly one million Koreans who performed forced labor …

Navigating Compliance In A Geopolitical Era: The Case Of Chinese Multinationals In The United States, Ji Li

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines how Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) approach compliance in the United States amid deepening geo-political rivalry and intensified regulatory scrutiny. Drawing on original survey data, this Article maps variations in compliance structures, staffing, and governance mechanisms across Chinese firms and identifies key determinants such as industry-specific regulatory intensity, listing status, and organizational imprinting from headquarters. The analysis employs a dual institutional framework to explain how compliance systems emerge from the interplay between host-state regulatory demands and home-state institutional legacies, producing hybrid structures that blend local adaptation with headquarters-driven replication. Findings reveal that while certain compliance features—such as committee …

When Tokenized Real-World Assets Collide With Real World, Biying Cheng, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The city of Detroit filed a public nuisance lawsuit in July of last year in the Michigan Circuit Court for the Third Judicial Circuit against Real Token, its co-founders and 165 affiliated entities, alleging building code and safety violations across over 400 Detroit residential properties.[1] RealT is a blockchain real estate platform that sells fractional interests in individual U.S. rental properties through the issuance of crypto security tokens.

On July 22, the judge issued a temporary restraining order — later converted into a preliminary injunction on Nov. 4 — barring RealT from collecting rent, pursuing evictions without a certificate of …

Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence For Lawyers: That Is The Sound Of Inevitability: Legislatures And Regulators Step In, Cliff Mckinney

Arkansas Law Notes

In The Matrix, the evil artificial intelligence entity, Agent Smith, corners the human hero, Neo, on the subway tracks. Agent Smith says, “You hear that Mr. Anderson? . . . That is the sound of inevitability. . . .” And if there is one thing that is inevitable, it is that regulations will quickly develop around the way that we interact with and utilize artificial intelligence.

No matter how innovative or disruptive artificial intelligence may be, lawmakers and regulators will not allow it to operate unchecked. Congress recently elected not to impose a moratorium on state regulation, and California has …

Wildearth Guardians V. U.S. Dept. Of Agric. Animal And Plant Health Inspection Serv. Wildlife Services, Luke A. Zagar

Public Land & Resources Law Review

WildEarth Guardians v. U.S. Dept. of Agric. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Serv. Wildlife Services considers whether Predator Damage Management (“PDM”) programs in Wilderness Areas violate the Wilderness Act and whether the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services (“Wildlife Services”) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) in issuing its Final Environmental Assessment (“EA”) and Finding of No Significant Impact (“FONSI”). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed its prior holding in Forest Guardians v. Naimal & Plant Health Inspection Serv., finding that “the Wilderness Act does not prohibit Wildlife Service …

Learn How To Negotiate Your Salary !, Cardozo Office Of Career Services, Cardozo Business Law Society, Women In Tech Law Society

2025–2026 Flyers

Come learn how to ask for a raise from employment law expert Maria Caceres-Boneau of Littler Mendelson. After her presentation, we will break out into mock negotiation sessions with practitioners for 10 minutes (7 minutes of negotiating, 3 minutes of feedback). Following the negotiations, we will host a small reception!

ALL STUDENTS WELCOME !

Fight For Your Right: An Analysis Of A Musician’S Ability To Terminate A Copyright Assignment Of A Music Recording, Ian Waldron

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

In 2019, musicians joined together to launch two separate lawsuits against Sony Music Entertainment (“Sony”) and Universal Music Group (“UMG”) after the record labels ignored the musicians’ copyright termination notices. Copyright termination is a powerful tool that allows the original owner of a work, under some circumstances, to regain possession years after they have assigned it to another party. To defend their actions, UMG and Sony countered that since the recordings were created under a record deal, they were works for hire and the musicians acted as employees. Therefore, under the record label’s theory, the musicians would have no ownership …

A Shareholder’S Guide To Blowing Up 100 Years Of Delaware Corporate Law: Intellectual Property And Corporate Governance After Delaware Senate Bill No. 313, Avery C. Hill

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

This note examines the intersection between shareholders agreements and intellectual property ownership in Delaware corporations after Delaware Senate Bill No. 313. Delaware corporate governance law has created extensive statutory and case law balancing the competing interests of corporate actors. The board of directors maintains an exclusive right to manage the affairs of a corporation, unless otherwise provided in the certificate of incorporation. Delaware law defers to director’s management authority through the business judgement rule, but fiduciary duties govern a director’s responsibly to shareholders. Shareholders maintain rights such as voting for the board of directors, receiving distributions, and selling shares, but …

Victims’ Rights Or The Public’S Right To Know: Rethinking The Boundaries Of The Right Of Publicity In True Crime, Millicent F. Dye

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Advancements in technology and the development of new online platforms have paved the way for true crime to become one of the most popular genres today. While some believe true crime content is akin to news reporting, others have raised ethical concerns and believe that victims’ identities should be protected by a right of publicity.  The key is to find a balance between protecting victims and protecting free speech. This Note explores the right of publicity laws in a select few countries and addresses the shortcomings of the current approaches. This Note asserts that certain true crime content must be …

Unplugging The Federal Right Of Publicity: Why Existing Laws Can Protect Artists Without A Federal Right Of Publicity, Ashley L. Burgess

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence(AI)in music creation has sparked concern over how the rights of artists can remain adequately protected from unauthorized uses of their voices, likeliness, and stylistic elements. A popular proposed solution to this complex problem is the creation of a federal right of publicity. Proponents of this solution stress that it would provide artists with a unified legal framework to better protect the commercialized use of their identity.

This paper argues that a federal right of publicity is neither necessary nor the most efficient solution to address the challenges posed by AI music. A federal right …

No Patent Attorney In Their Right Mind: How Jepson Claims Clarify Subject Matter Eligibility Post-Mayo, Jared M. Brown

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Patent practitioners have gradually shelved Jepson claims for four decades. In those four decades, Supreme Court patent subject matter eligibility jurisprudence has taken a roller-coaster ride from an ancient point-of-novelty approach through the days of Diamond v. Diehr and back to a modernized arguably point-of-novelty-focused approach again in Mayo and Alice. In the absence of congressional action, the Federal Circuit has been left to deal with the aftermath. The inventive landscape—particularly with regard to biotech and software—is shifting fast, and our patent scheme is struggling to keep up.

In the case of software inventions, the Federal Circuit has largely …

Patents In Paradise: The Evolution Of Patent Law In The Cayman Islands, Andrew W. Torrance, Andrew P. Morriss, Lisa C. Friedman

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

This study examines the Cayman Islands’ unique position in the global intellectual property (IP) landscape, contrasting its success as an exporter of financial and legal services with the inherently domestic nature of patent protection. We hypothesize that due to this limitation, the Cayman Islands functions as a strategic, cost-effective jurisdiction for augmenting patent protection initially obtained elsewhere. Our research provides the first comprehensive analysis of Caymanian patents, and through a quantitative examination of patent family data—including filing trends, economic valuation, geographic distribution, and assignee profiles—we find strong empirical evidence to support this thesis.
Our findings reveal a disproportionate presence of …

Toward A Transformative Fair Use Standard After Warhol, Sangwook Park

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

The Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith narrowed the transformative fair use inquiry but left unresolved where derivative adaptation ends and genuine transformation begins. This article proposes that the Purpose-Expression Shift (PES) Framework can supply that missing line, a dual-pronged standard rooted in § 107(1) that asks (1) whether the secondary work serves a purpose meaningfully different from the original and (2) whether its expressive alterations are tailored to realize that new purpose. Mapping two decades of case law onto a four-quadrant matrix, this article shows how the PES Framework can predict outcomes under first factor …