Law Commons^™

Is The End Of Roe V. Wade Near? Leaked Scotus Brief Says Yes, Nicole Huberfeld, Linda C. Mcclain

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Protesters on both sides of the abortion debate descended on the US Supreme Court Monday night and into Tuesday after a leaked secret draft of a US Supreme Court opinion indicated that a majority of justices support overturning Roe v. Wade, after almost 50 years of legalized abortion rights in America. If finalized, possibly as soon as this summer, the bombshell could trigger a cultural tsunami across American life, forcing some women to travel to another state for an abortion and putting the divisive issue at the heart of the fall midterm elections.

“She’S Earned This”: Angela Onwuachi-Willig Rejoices In Historic Confirmation, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

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Angela Onwuachi-Willig, the dean of Boston University’s School of Law—the first Black woman to be dean of a top-20 law school—is rejoicing. The first Black woman has been confirmed to the US Supreme Court.

Onwuachi-Willig has had Ketanji Brown Jackson’s back from the moment President Biden announced he would nominate the federal judge to the nation’s highest court.

Bu Celebrates Ketanji Brown Jackson’S Rise To Us Supreme Court, Nicole Huberfeld

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The operative word about Ketanji Brown Jackson is “first.” Once she is sworn in to the US Supreme Court, after being confirmed by the Senate Thursday 53-47 (three Republicans joined Democrats in supporting her), she will be the first Black woman on the high court in its 233 years. And she will be the first former public defender to join the court. Brown Jackson—the daughter of a lawyer and a school principal and currently a federal appellate judge in Washington, D.C.—won Senate confirmation after a bruising hearing last week where Republican senators tried to label her as an extreme liberal …

Law Dean’S Letter Urges Confirmation Of Biden’S Historic Scotus Pick, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

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In a letter citing Black women’s underrepresentation on the federal bench, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, dean of the BU School of Law, and more than 200 other Black women law deans and professors urged the US Senate on Friday to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, to the nation’s highest court “swiftly and with bipartisan support.”

The Proposed Separation Of Powers Restoration Act Goes Too Far, Jack M. Beermann

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If passed, the Separation of Powers Restoration Act would require federal courts conducting judicial review of agency action to decide “de novo all relevant questions of law, including the interpretation of constitutional and statutory provisions and rules.” Although I have long been highly critical of Chevron, see, e.g., Jack M. Beermann, End the Failed Chevron Experiment Now: How Chevron Has Failed and Why It Can and Should be Overruled, 42 Conn. L. Rev. 9 (2010), and also have misgivings about Auer deference, I fear that the proposed Act goes too far in completely eliminating deference to agency legal determinations.

Internet Payment Blockades: Sopa And Pipa In Disguise? Or Worse?, Stacey Dogan

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The law of intermediary liability in intellectual property reflects a constant struggle for balance. On the one hand, rights owners frustrated by the game of whack-a-mole have good reason to look for more efficient ways to stanch the flow of infringement. While this concern is not a new one, the global reach and decentralization of the Internet have exacerbated it. On the flipside, consumers, technology developers, and others fret about the impact of broad liability: it can impede speech, limit competition, and impose a drag on economic sectors with only a peripheral relationship to infringement. As the Supreme Court put …

Rethinking Notice, Jack M. Beermann

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APA § 553 (b)(3) requires agencies engaged in informal rulemaking to provide notice of "either the terms or substance of the proposed rule or a description of the subjects and issues involved." In most cases, agencies publish the complete text of their proposed rules, together with a preamble describing the need for the rule and the major considerations of policy and law that are raised by the proposal. Comments often convince agencies to make changes to their proposed rules. This, of course, is the whole point of the process. Difficulties arise, however, when, in reaction to comments, agencies promulgate rules …

Separation Of Powers And The Middle Way, Jack M. Beermann

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Composer Arnold Schoenberg famously once quipped that “the middle way is the one that surely does not lead to Rome.” The idea behind this thought, I gather, is that intellectual compromise does not lead to the truth. John Manning’s recently published article, Separation of Powers as Ordinary Interpretation, 124 Harv. L. Rev. 1940 (2011), proves Schoenberg’s principle wrong, at least with regard to separation of powers. In this article, Manning, the Bruce Bromley Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, persuasively demonstrates that neither extreme in current debates about separation of powers is correct, and that a true understanding …