Law Commons^™

Possessing Intangibles, João Marinotti

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The concept of possession is currently considered inapplicable to intangible assets, whether data, cryptocurrency, or NFTs. Under this view, intangible assets categorically fall outside the purview of property law’s foundational doctrines. Such sweeping conclusions stem from a misunderstanding of the role of possession in property law. This Article refutes the idea that possession constitutes—or even requires—physical control by distinguishing possession from another foundational concept, that of thinghood. It highlights possession’s unique purpose within the property process: conveying the status of in rem claims. In property law, the concept of possession conveys to third parties the allocation of property rights and …

The American Experience With Employee Noncompete Clauses: Constraints On Employees Flourish And Do Real Damage In The Land Of Economic Liberty, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Xiaohan Sun, Phillip J. Jones

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Agreements not to compete are generally an anathema to free market advocates. Independent profit maximization is one of the fundamental assumptions of the neoclassical economic model and necessary to its conclusion that markets yield results that are Paraeto efficient. Consistent with this theory, and practical experience, agreements among competitors, or potential competitors, to divide a market, or fix price or quantity are per se violations under our antitrust laws.

Despite this fact, even some ardent free market advocates have argued on behalf of the enforcement of covenants not to compete in the employment relationship. The traditional economic argument in favor …

La Liberté D’Expression Aux États-Unis Et En France, Elisabeth Zoller

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

A chapter from the Ministry's report, RÉPUBLIQUE ÉCOLE LAÏCITÉ

"Should Supreme Court Justices Fear Access To Their Papers? An Empirical Study Of The Use Of Three Archival Collections", Susan Demaine, Benjamin J. Keele

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Susan deMaine's contribution to this volume is "Should Supreme Court Justices Fear Access to Their Papers? An Empirical Study of the Use of Three Archival Collections." Co-authored by Benjamin J. Keele.

US. Supreme Court justices typically donate their working papers to archives upon their retirement, often with lengthy embargoes. 1 Researchers have debated whether the justices should be required to retain and disclose their papers as government · records, but there has been little study of how the papers are used in scholarly and journalistic discussions of the Court.· This empirical study examines how the papers of Justices William Brennan, …

"Exploring Citation Count Methods Of Measuring Faculty Scholarly Impact", Margaret Kiel-Morse

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Margaret Kiel-Morse's contribution to this volume is "Exploring Citation Count Methods of Measuring Faculty Scholarly Impact."

After US News & World Report's announcement in 2019 that they will provide a separate ranking of law schools based on faculty scholarly impact, scrutinizing the various methods of assessing scholarly impact has been a hot topic. The various methods include reputation surveys, citation counts, and publication counts. This paper focuses on citation counts. Several methods of conducting citation counts have been circulated since the 1990s, notably Brian Leiter 's studies using Westlaw 's Law Reviews and Journals database; the Leiter study updates conducted …

The Right To Privacy And Data Protection In Times Of Armed Conflict, Asaf Lubin, Russell Buchan

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Contemporary warfare yields a profound impact on the rights to privacy and data protection. Technological advances in the fields of electronic surveillance, predictive algorithms, big data analytics, user-generated evidence, artificial intelligence, cloud storage, facial recognition, and cryptography are redefining the scope, nature, and contours of military operations. Yet, international humanitarian law offers very few, if any, lex specialis rules for the lawful processing, analysis, dissemination, and retention of personal information. This edited anthology offers a pioneering account of the current and potential future application of digital rights in armed conflict.

In Part I Mary Ellen O’Connell, Tal Mimran and Yuval …

The Reasonable Intelligence Agency, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Article 57(2) of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions requires parties to an armed conflict to “do everything feasible to verify” their objects of attack and take “all precautions” to minimize civilian casualties and unintentional damage to civilian property. This obligation has been interpreted in international law to require state parties to set up an “effective intelligence gathering system” that would properly identify targets using all technical means at the disposal of the combating forces.

But existing law has failed to define what “effective intelligence” looks like. Quite the opposite. Modern history is filled with examples of intelligence …

Human Rights, Constitutional Rights, And Judicial Review: Comparing And Assessing Michael Perry's Early And Contemporary Arguments, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this Essay, I explore, compare, and evaluate two theoretical models of judicial review in individual rights cases, each proposed by Professor Michael J. Perry, albeit in books separated by three and a half decades. In his 1982 book, The Constitution, the Courts, and Human Rights: An Inquiry into the Legitimacy of Constitutional Policymaking by the Judiciary, Early Perry embraced an aggressive form of judicial activism, urging the Supreme Court to test political judgments through an open-ended search for political-moral truth. Contemporary Perry, by contrast, takes a very different approach. In his 2017 book, A Global Political Morality: Human Rights, …

"Capturing Impact: Telling The Story Of Your Scholarship Beyond The Citation Count", Ashley A. Ahlbrand

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Ashley Ahlbrand's contribution to this volume is "Capturing Impact: Telling the Story of Your Scholarship Beyond the Citation Count."

When we conduct research, what is our end goal? Who is our audience? Since the mid-20th century, with the development, first, of journal citation indexes, then journal impact factors, then journal citation metrics for individuals, academia has seen increased pressure to publish and be cited in journals within one 's discipline. These citation metrics are used to compare schools and to evaluate scholars for promotion and tenure, for grant consideration, and for bestowing other awards and honors. Discipline-specific journal citations tend …

Climate Change, West Virginia V. Epa, And The Sec's Distinctive Statutory Mandate., Cynthia A. Williams, Donna M. Nagy, Jill E. Fisch, George S. Georgiev

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In March 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule that would require publicly traded companies to provide investors with various climate-related disclosures. See The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors, 87 Fed. Reg. 21344 (Apr. 11, 2022) (the Proposal). The rule has generated extensive debate; to date, the SEC has received more than 4,000 substantive comment letters and more than 10,000 form letters. Commenters have raised a variety of concerns about the Proposal, including questioning the extent to which the SEC has the authority to mandate climate-related disclosure. Since the Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling …

Tax Now Or Tax Never: Political Optionality And The Case For Current-Assessment Tax Reform, David Gamage, John R. Brooks

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The U.S. income tax system is broken. Due to the realization doctrine and taxpayers’ consequent ability to defer taxation of gains, taxpayers can easily minimize or avoid the taxation of investment income, a failure that is magnified many times over when considering the ultra-wealthy. As a result, this small group of taxpayers commands an enormous share of national wealth yet pays paltry taxes relative to the economic income their wealth produces—a predicament that this Article condemns as being economically, politically, and socially harmful.

The conventional view among tax law experts has assumed that the problems created by the realization doctrine …

Escaping Circularity: The Fourth Amendment And Property Law, João Marinotti

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The Supreme Court’s “reasonable expectation of privacy” test under the Fourth Amendment has often been criticized as circular, and hence subjective and unpredictable. The Court is presumed to base its decisions on society’s expectations of privacy, while society’s expectations of privacy are themselves presumed to be based on the Court’s judgements. As a solution to this problem, property law has been repeatedly propounded as an allegedly independent, autonomous area of law from which the Supreme Court can glean reasonable expectations of privacy without falling back into tautological reasoning.

Such an approach presupposes that property law is not itself circular. If …

The 'Impractical And Anomalous' Consequences Of Territorial Inequity, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Located in the South Pacific Ocean, American Samoa is one of five populated “unincorporated territories” of the United States. It is unique, though, as those born there are not recognized as American citizens at birth and instead are deemed “noncitizen U.S. nationals.” They enjoy some, but not all, constitutional protections. Two federal appellate courts—the D.C. Circuit (in 2015) and the Tenth Circuit (in 2021)—have ruled that this classification does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. Both courts have stated that it would be “impractical” and “anomalous” to extend birthright citizenship to the American Samoan community.

Drawing upon a powerful …

The Immigrant Struggle For Effective Counsel: An Empirical Assessment, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Recently, in Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, the Supreme Court upheld 8 U.S.C. § 1252(e)(2), a statutory provision placing restrictions on certain noncitizens from seeking habeas review in the federal judiciary. The Court focused on the Constitution’s Suspension Clause, but it also discussed the Due Process Clause, declaring that there was no violation there either.

One question which flows from this decision is whether the federal courts will soon be precluded from hearing other types of claims brought by noncitizens. Consider ineffective assistance of counsel petitions, which in the immigration law context are rooted in the Due Process Clause. …

Weathering State And Local Budget Storms: Fiscal Federalism With An Uncooperative Congress, David Gamage, Darien Shanske, Gladriel Shobe, Adam Thimmesch

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Throughout most of 2020, state and local governments faced severe budget crises as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased demand for state welfare services and rising state expenses related to controlling the spread of COVID-19 stretched state and local budgets to their breaking points. At the same time, layoffs, business closures, and social distancing measures reduced states’ primary sources of tax revenues. The traditional practice of American fiscal federalism is for the federal government to step in to provide aid during a national emergency of this magnitude, because state and local governments lack the federal government’s monetary and fiscal …

Does U.S. Federal Employment Law Now Cover Caste Discrimination Based On Untouchability?: If All Else Fails There Is The Possible Application Of Bostock V. Clayton County, Kevin D. Brown, Lalit Khandare, Annapurna Waughray, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Theodore M. Shaw

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article discusses the issue of whether a victim of caste discrimination based on untouchability can assert a claim of intentional employment discrimination under Title VII or Section 1981. This article contends that there are legitimate arguments that this form of discrimination is a form of religious discrimination under Title VII. The question of whether caste discrimination is a form of race or national origin discrimination under Title VII or Section 1981 depends upon how the courts apply these definitions to caste discrimination based on untouchability. There are legitimate arguments that this form of discrimination is recognized within the concept …

Facts Versus Discretion: The Debate Over Immigration Adjudication, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Justice Amy Coney Barrett recently issued her first majority-led immigration opinion in Patel v. Garland (2022). As background, some immigrants looking to avoid deportation may apply for what is called “discretionary relief’ (e.g., asylum or adjustment of status) initially in an immigration court and then, if they lose, at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). These immigration forums fall under the Department of Justice. Prior to Patel, immigrants who lost at the BIA could then ask a federal circuit court to review the factual findings of their case. Now, after Justice Barrett’s decision, Article III review is no longer available …

Four Perspectives On A Sustainable Future In Nosara, Costa Rica, Greg Munno, Álvaro Salas Castro, Tina Nabatchi, Christian M. Freitag

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The town of Nosara on Costa Rica’s Nicoya peninsula is home to a vibrant community of diverse residents and is adjacent to an important turtle nesting site. However, tensions between lifelong residents, more recent transplants, visitors, and developers have increased as more of the world discovers this once-isolated haven. Climate change, income inequality, and alienation from a distant government apparatus have further complicated effective land-use planning and fractured social cohesion. Using a mixed-method approach of in-depth interviews (n = 67), Q methodology (n = 79), and public deliberation (n = 88), we explored residents’ priorities for the future of their …

Developments In The Laws Affecting Electronic Payments And Financial Services, Sarah Jane Hughes, Stephen T. Middlebrook, Tom Kierner

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The past year proved to be a busy period for the regulation of electronic payments and financial services. In this year’s survey, we discuss rulemakings, enforcement actions, and other litigation that has significantly impacted the law governing payments and financial services. Part II addresses the ongoing fight between federal and state authorities over which should properly regulate Fin- Tech entities and describes some new steps the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) has taken to assert its authority in this area. Part III details an enforcement action that California regulators took against a FinTech company they determined had …

Girls, Assaulted, India Thusi

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Girls who are incarcerated share a common trait: They have often experienced multiple forms of sexual assault, at the hands of those close to them and at the hands of the state. The #MeToo movement has exposed how powerful people and institutions have facilitated pervasive sexual violence. However, there has been little attention paid to the ways that incarceration perpetuates sexual exploitation. This Article focuses on incarcerated girls and argues that the state routinely sexually assaults girls by mandating invasive, nonconsensual searches. Unwanted touching and display of private parts are common features of life before and after incarceration—from the sexual …

Gamage, Lederman Sign Letter Of Support For Billionaires Income Tax, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

No abstract provided.

Indiana Law’S Lubin, Sun Help Advise Kosovo Government On Country’S Cybersecurity Act, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

No abstract provided.

New Book From India Thusi Explores Conflicts Between Sex Work And Policing In Johannesburg, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

No abstract provided.

Comparative Research Of The Plea Leniency System Of China, Yuguang Lu

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation mainly discusses the Plea Leniency System that was recently legislated in China. Plea Leniency had completed a 2-year tryout stage, and was officially legalized into the Criminal Procedure Law of China in Oct.2018. The application of pleading procedures seems inevitable around the world, and operates differently in each country. As a result, there exist both similarities and differences between Chinese Plea Leniency and American plea bargaining.

This dissertation contains comparative research, empirical research and case research. Chapters I to III will form the first half of my research. This part contains my retrospective research of pleading procedure’s past …

Arbitrating Copyright Disputes In Egypt, Islam Mohamed

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Egypt is witnessing increasing difficulty in implementing and practicing protectionist policies for intellectual property rights, which includes copyright as a fundamental element. Since the Egyptian judicial system is exclusively concerned with adjudicating all disputes, it has become increasingly burdened in recent decades due to this monopoly. As a result, the Egyptian judiciary is witnessing a significant slowdown in resolving conflicts and procedural obstacles which delay the restitution of Intellectual property rights to its owners. Thus, we believe that applying arbitration will contribute to resolving copyright disputes in advance on one hand and will encourage an attractive climate in such matters …

Conservation Law Center Receives Grants For Internships, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

No abstract provided.

Vol. 61, No. 13 (November 22, 2021)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

Vol. 61, No. 12 (November 15, 2021)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

Vol. 61, No. 11 (November 8, 2021)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

A Pioneer Of The Law & Society Movement: One Eyewitness’S Reflections, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

There is arguably no more seminal a figure in the field of law and society than Professor Marc Galanter. That a Special Issue featuring dedications to several leading academic lights would be hosted by the University of Chicago Law Review is especially significant in terms of Marc’s inclusion because Chicago is where Marc came of age as a student.

Professor Richard Abel, some years back, chronicled Marc’s educational journey in Hyde Park. As Abel tells it—and as Marc has told me over the years—after finishing his B.A. and while continuing to work on his master’s degree from Chicago, Marc enrolled …