Law Commons^™

The Myth Of Dna Trade Secrecy, Jacob S. Sherkow

UC Law Journal

Are DNA sequences subject to trade secrecy protection? At least three decades of scholarship has assumed so even while there is no explicit statutory authority directly on point and very few reported decisions in the area. And yet, an investigation into the elements of trade secrecy law— read in light of rapid advances in DNA and genomic sequencing—suggests the answer is probably, no. Those advances include the rise of cheap, accurate, easy, fast, and readily available DNA sequencing services, including the recent availability of whole human genome sequencing for less than a monthly cell phone bill. This cuts against some …

The Business Of Abortion: Access To Capital Post Dobbs, Itay Ravid, Jonathan Zandberg

UC Law Journal

Access to credit—that is, the ability to receive financial leverage that could help jump-start businesses—is one of the most significant barriers preventing millions of American women from opening new businesses. Congress has attempted to address this issue since the 1970s, with legislation like the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). Nevertheless, studies continue to show a persistent gender gap in access to credit. Scholars have offered a host of explanations for this gap, focusing on both the supply and demand sides of the equation.

This Article contributes to this growing scholarly exploration by offering a new, overlooked explanation for this gap: …

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Torn Between The Two: Practicing Law Or Religion, Amna Qamer

UC Law Journal

United States courts have long struggled to define the intersection of public institutions and religious practices. Though higher education institutions aim to enrich their campuses with diverse communities, they often fail to cultivate an inclusive culture for them. One minority community that has long faced experiences of exclusion is Muslim law students.

According to the Pew Research Center, Islam is the fastest-growing religion worldwide. Despite their growing presence, Muslims remain a minority and face exorbitant levels of Islamophobia. Due to these issues, law schools lack familiarity with Muslim practices and are hesitant to learn, making it challenging for Muslim students …

Big Capital & The Carceral State, Laura I. Appleman

UC Law Journal

Who is accountable for the imposition of punishment in our carceral system? The answer used to be much simpler, as we held local, state, and federal government actors responsible. In recent decades, however, our correctional system has become increasingly privatized, with deeply troubling results. All aspects of the carceral state—whether prisons, jails, juvenile detention, rehabilitation, forensic hospitals, bail, or electronic monitoring—have dramatically increased their use of privatized correctional services.

With this new world of privatized corrections, we frequently don’t know whom can be held accountable when wrongdoing occurs. The bulk of our correctional services are now provided by complicated web …

Care And Custody In Federal Bank Robbery, Victor Qiu

UC Law Journal

By the time federal appellate courts began to examine the withdrawal of money from an ATM and the question of to whom that money belongs pursuant to the first paragraph of the Federal Bank Robbery Act (“FBRA”), 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), the FBRA had been law for over seventy years and automated teller machines (“ATM”) had been in use for around thirty-five years. Since then, the circuit courts have disagreed as to whom the money belongs when an individual forces a victim to withdraw money and give it to the perpetrator. This question stems from competing methods of statutory interpretation …

The Duty To Diversify And The Logic Of Indexing, Richard A. Booth

UC Law Journal

Index funds, such as those that track the S&P 500, are popular with investors because they offer maximum diversification—and thus minimum risk—with management fees that are far lower than those charged by traditional, actively managed stock-picking mutual funds. As a result, investors have flocked to such funds, which have grown dramatically in size. But many observers find this trend alarming because they see index funds as a threat to both corporate governance and competition.

Most critics have focused on the passivity of index funds, which they see as a failure of fund managers to do their duty as stockholders to …

Creating Compliance Climates, Craig Cowie

UC Law Journal

Relatively few regulated entities are the targets of enforcement activity or otherwise have direct contact with regulators. Given that absence of direct contact, this Article posits that regulators influence behavior by creating “compliance climates” that project regulators’ priorities into the market. These climates are what drive participants’ behavior. This Article begins by defining compliance climates and describing, as examples, two diametrically opposed climates created by Directors of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”). It then identifies constraints on the creation of compliance climates. In particular, the Article demonstrates significant limitations on using new enforcement actions or rulemakings to set compliance …

The Intrusive State: Restrictions On Gender-Affirming Healthcare For Minors, Exceptions To The Doctrine Of Parental Consent, And Reliance On Science And Medical Expertise, Lois W. Weithorn

UC Law Journal

The provision of gender-affirming medical care to transgender or gender diverse (“TGD”) youth is currently the subject of substantial controversy despite an overwhelming consensus in the healthcare community as to the safety and potential benefits of recommended treatments. Much of the debate is fueled by misinformation and inaccurate characterization of research and practice. Against this backdrop, twenty-three states enacted restrictions or complete prohibitions on access to gender-affirming medical care for adolescents between 2021 and the time of this writing in early 2024. The policies typically place healthcare practitioners who provide such services at risk of license revocation. Some statutes create …

Paying The Penultimate Price: Compensating Predeath Pain And Suffering In California, Daniel Cassee

UC Law Journal

Senate Bill 447, California’s recent lift of the ban on recovery of damages for a decedent’s pain, suffering, and disfigurement in survival actions marks a necessary change in the state’s tort law, avoiding the arbitrary and even shocking outcomes that occurred under the former statutory regime. When the California State Legislature revisits the survival statute prior to the recent amendment’s sunset in 2026, it should choose to keep predeath noneconomic damages as part of the available recovery in a death case. However, the lack of in-state case law discussing predeath noneconomic damages will require California courts and lawmakers to look …

Labor Law’S Preemption Problem: Glacier Northwest And What The Fate Of Garmon Means For American Workers, Alexander S. Whistler

UC Law Journal

The Supreme Court’s 2022–2023 term was, unsurprisingly, terrible for millions of Americans. From the environment to affirmative action to student loan forgiveness, the Court remained committed to its project of reshaping the nation’s laws in its conservative image. But despite its well-demonstrated antipathy for organized labor, the Court in Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters managed to leave a long-standing, purportedly worker-friendly doctrine in federal labor law largely intact. Glacier Northwest presented the question of whether an employer may sue a union in state court for damages over a strike that allegedly causes property destruction, or whether, under the …

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Washington Cares: Other States Should Too, Evelyn Wynn

UC Law Journal

The United States is facing a growing challenge in financing long-term care as the population ages and the demand for these services continues to grow. The cost of long-term care can be exorbitant, with many individuals and families struggling to afford the care they need. The baby boomer generation and their families are facing the challenges of aging, which will be exacerbated by a lack of funding for long-term care. Given unmarketable private insurance policies and Medicaid’s spend down strategy, among other issues, the United States needs a feasible financing solution for long-term care.

In response to this challenge, Washington …

Proactive International Law, Michal Saliternik, Sivan Shlomo Agon

UC Law Journal

This Article challenges the centuries-old reactive and past-oriented approach of international law. It suggests that while the reactive paradigm has facilitated practical solutions to the concrete problems faced by the international community, this paradigm has also led international law to become backward-looking and short-sighted, thereby hindering the discipline from acting in anticipation of long-term problems and developments.

Against this backdrop, this Article calls for a conceptual shift. It argues that the time has come to couple international law’s traditional reactive paradigm with a more proactive, forward-looking approach that is geared toward the future, with a view to preventing risks and …

Dirty Secret: The Laundering Of Foreign Arbitral Awards, Charles H. Brower Ii

UC Law Journal

This Article addresses an undertheorized but important topic: the laundering of foreign arbitral awards. Prevailing parties in foreign arbitrations often obtain judgments confirming their awards at the place of arbitration. Fifty years ago, the Second Circuit established the so-called “parallel entitlements” doctrine, pursuant to which prevailing parties can seek enforcement of the foreign award under federal law, or enforcement of the foreign confirmation judgment under state law, or both.

If an award faces obstacles to enforcement under the New York Convention or the Federal Arbitration Act, the prevailing party can still obtain enforcement of the confirmation judgment under the legal …

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Born To Equality: Minor Children, Equal Protection, And State Laws Targeting Lgbtq+ Youth, Nicholas Serafin

UC Law Journal

States throughout the country are targeting LGBTQ+ youth, singling out transgender youth in particular. Part I of this Article provides an overview of laws targeting LGBTQ+ youth, and argues that many of these laws express animus towards and impose a stigma upon LGBTQ+ minor children. Though they are distinct doctrines, the Court has interwoven animus and stigma- based arguments throughout its gay rights jurisprudence to protect LGBTQ+ individuals from state action that imposes dignitary harm. Laws targeting LGBTQ+ youth often evince the same irrational hostility and stigmatizing purpose that the Court rejected decades ago.

Historically the Court’s LGBTQ+ jurisprudence has …

The Case For Downsizing The Corporate Attorney-Client Privilege, Elise Bernlohr Maizel

UC Law Journal

Privilege is a choice. In crafting evidentiary privileges, courts and policymakers have fashioned a rule that concedes that some things are more important than getting to the truth. Indeed, our entire law of privilege stems from the fact that society deems certain relationships important enough to protect their communications even from the truth-seeking process of litigation. The attorney-client relationship is a paradigmatic example. But something has gone seriously wrong with the law’s attempts to transplant protections for an intimate, confessional space for communications between an individual and their attorney onto “artificial creatures of the law”: the modern corporation.

Today’s corporate …

Calculating The Harms Of Political Use Of Popular Music, Jake Linford, Aaron Perzanowski

UC Law Journal

When Donald Trump descended the escalator of Trump Tower to announce his 2016 presidential bid, Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” blared from the loudspeakers. Almost immediately, Young’s management made clear that the campaign’s use of the song was unauthorized. Neil Young was not alone. Trump drew similar objections from dozens of artists during his first two presidential bids. But as a matter of copyright law, it is unclear whether artists can prevent their songs from being played at campaign rallies. Putting the intricacies of copyright licensing aside, what motivates artists to object to the use of their songs …

Trickle-Down Compliance: How Codifying The Mandatory Presidential Audit Can Improve Tax Morale And Tax Compliance, Emma Braden

UC Law Journal

A functioning government requires tax revenue, and democratic legitimacy requires a nation’s leaders be subject to the same laws as its citizens. The president’s tax behavior is an opportunity to address both needs. With a projected increase in the tax gap, there is a need for a politically viable, cost-effective way to increase revenues. In December 2022, the House Ways and Means Committee released a report revealing that the IRS failed to perform mandatory annual audits of former President Donald Trump’s taxes. The revelation imperils public trust in tax administration, requiring a new approach to guarantee accountability for a president’s …

I Spy With My Many Eyes: The Government’S Unbridled Use Of Your Surveillance Cameras, Brian A. Weikel

UC Law Journal

Surveillance cameras are increasingly used by the public and law enforcement to prevent and prosecute criminal activity. Individuals and companies can grant law enforcement access to private cameras for both live monitoring feeds and recorded footage, thereby creating a quasi- public network of private cameras. According to the third-party doctrine, the government can access all information from these surveillance cameras without a subpoena or warrant and without infringing upon Fourth Amendment privacy protections. However, as technology advances and the prevalence of surveillance cameras rises, this per se rule fails to account for one’s reasonable expectation of privacy in the public …

The Unfulfilled Promise Of Environmental Constitutionalism, Amber Polk

UC Law Journal

The political push for the adoption of state-level “green amendments” in the United States has gained significant traction in just the last couple of years. Green amendments add an environmental right to a state’s constitution. Five such amendments were made in the 1970s in Pennsylvania, Montana, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Illinois. This Article looks in depth at the case law that has developed the contours of these constitutional environmental rights in the wake of the political revival of environmental constitutionalism in the United States. I distill two lessons from this jurisprudence. First, constitutional environmental rights are interpreted by the courts as …

Pricing Corporate Governance, Albert H. Choi

UC Law Journal

Scholars and practitioners have long theorized that by penalizing firms with unattractive governance features, the stock market incentivizes firms to adopt the optimal governance structure at their initial public offerings (IPOs). This theory, however, does not seem to match with practice. Not only do many IPO firms offer putatively suboptimal governance arrangements, such as staggered boards and dual-class structures, but these arrangements have been gaining popularity among IPO firms. This Article argues that the IPO market is unlikely to provide the necessary discipline to incentivize companies to adopt the optimal governance package. In particular, when the optimal governance package differs …

Public Enforcement And Disability: A United States-South Korea Comparison, Joonghan (Joseph) Jo

UC Law Journal

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted with the hope that it would solve issues regarding discrimination against the disabled. However, the outcome fell short of its aspirations. Many people with disabilities still suffer from ongoing discrimination. This Note argues that the ADA’s heavy reliance on private enforcement is the main reason for this shortcoming. This Note analyzes the effectiveness of public enforcement in South Korea under the Act on the Prohibition of Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities, Remedy Against Infringement of Their Rights (Korean Disability Discrimination Act. This Note then argues that civil law country-style public enforcement based …

“It’S Like I’Ve Got This Music In My Mind”: Protecting Human Authorship In The Age Of Generative Artificial Intelligence, Justine Magowan

UC Law Journal

The music industry stands on the brink of a crisis. With unpredictable judicial standards that are inconsistent across the country, plaintiffs seeking to protect their musical works against copyright infringement face a heavy burden of proof, especially when facing defendants who are more wellknown and more well-funded. Not only that, but plaintiffs may not receive their day in court given that powerhouse artists like Taylor Swift, Sam Smith, and Bruno Mars have chosen to settle rather than defend their musical works in court. Now, Generative Artificial Intelligence (“Generative A.I.”) and A.I.-generated music will inevitably send the music industry into a …

Proving Actionable Racial Disparity Under The California Racial Justice Act, Colleen V. Chien, W. David Ball, William A. Sundstrom

UC Law Journal

Racial disparity is a fact of the United States criminal justice system, but under the Supreme Court’s holding in McCleskey v. Kemp, racial disparities—even sizable, statistically significant disparities—do not establish an equal protection violation without a showing of “purposeful discrimination.” The California Racial Justice Act (CRJA), enacted in 2020 and further amended in 2022, introduced a first-of-its-kind test for actionable racial disparity even in the absence of a showing of intent, allowing for relief when the “totality of the evidence demonstrates a significant difference” in charging, conviction, or sentencing across racial groups when compared to those who are “similarly situated” …

Comparing Reasons For Hate Crime Reporting Using Racialized Legal Status, Pamela Ho

UC Law Journal

In the past decade, Latinxs and Asians in the United States have experienced an increase in hate crime victimization. Previous research has identified correlations between hate crime reporting and race. However, few statistical studies examine the intersection of race, immigration status, and hate crime reporting. This Note explores how racialized legal status applies to Latinx and Asian communities respectively and how racialized legal status affects a hate crime victim’s decision to report the crime to police. This Note then sets forth some recommendations for increasing hate crime reporting rates by Latinx and Asian victims.

“Cancel Culture” And Criminal Justice, Steven Arrigg Koh

UC Law Journal

This Article explores the relationship between two normative systems in modern society: “cancel culture” and criminal justice. It argues that cancel culture—a ubiquitous phenomenon in contemporary life—may rectify deficiencies of over- and under-enforcement in the U.S. criminal justice system. However, the downsides of cancel culture’s structure—imprecise factfinding, potentially disproportionate sanctions leading to collateral consequences, a “thin” conception of the wrongdoer as beyond rehabilitation, and a broader cultural anxiety that “chills” certain human conduct—reflect problematic U.S. punitive impulses that characterize our era of mass incarceration. This Article thus argues that social media reform proposals obscure a deeper necessity: transcendence of blame …

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Restraining Chatgpt, Roee Sarel

UC Law Journal

ChatGPT is a prominent example of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) has stormed into our lives. Within a matter of weeks, this new AI—which produces coherent and humanlike textual answers to questions—managed to become an object of both admiration and anxiety. Can we trust generative AI systems, such as ChatGPT, without regulatory oversight?

Designing an effective legal framework for AI requires answering three main questions: (i) is there a market failure that requires legal intervention?; (ii) should AI be governed through public regulation, tort liability, or a mixture of both?; and (iii) should liability be based on strict liability or a …