Law Commons^™

Deficiencies In The Judicial Classification Of Cryptocurrencies Indicating The Need For Legislative Alternatives, Ethan Johnson

Journal of Legislation

The cryptocurrency industry is desperate for regulatory clarification, which would stabilize and secure cryptocurrency and, ultimately, promote increased investment. How the United States ultimately chooses to pursue cryptocurrency regulation has massive implications for future investment and the development of this technology. Disagreement over how to classify cryptocurrency under the investment contract test created in SEC v. Howey, including the recent Second Circuit split, has led to calls for resolving legislation. Cryptocurrency legislation has recently been passed by the European Union, and there are currently proposals for legislation before Congress in the United States.

This Note considers the context surrounding …

The Great War (Taylor's Version): Examining The New Era Of Recording Artists & Master Recording Ownership, Victoria B. Villanueva

Journal of Legislation

In 2019, Taylor Swift took to social media to voice her unease with the recent sale of her entire master recording catalogue to Ithaca Holdings, a sale that allegedly occurred without her explicit permission. Following a series of negotiations, holdouts, and ultimate deadlock, Swift made the critical and costly decision to re-record and re-release each of those six albums under her sole ownership in an effort to reclaim them as her own work—re-recordings publicly denoted by “Taylor’s Version”. This highly-publicized feud brought to the public’s attention a decades-long conflict between the recording artist and the recording company, one that has …

Notre Dame Lawyers Connect Winter 2025, Notre Dame Law School

Notre Dame Lawyers Connect

Merry Christmas from Notre Dame Law School

Justice Amy Coney Barrett Moot Court Tournament

Celebrating Service at Notre Dame Law School's Public Interest Banquet

Notre Dame Law School Partners with Harvey AI

Salvi Family Gift Empowers the Next Generation of Trial Lawyers at Notre Dame Law School

Save the Date Second Annual Alumni Affinity Weekend: March 20-21, 2026

West Coast Alumni Events

Notre Dame Homecoming Recap

From South Bend to SCOTUS

Faculty Profile: Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell, Globally Influential Scholar of International Law and Peace

Professor Sherif Girgis named a member of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters

2025-26 …

Intrinsic Human Equality: A Critical Overview Of Recent And Historical Theory, Robert Diab

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Demanding Or Dodging Death: Reconciling The Inconsistencies In Medicine, Katherine Drabiak

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Safeguarding Children From State Intervention, Salihah R. Denman

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

2025–2026 Bulletin Of Information, Notre Dame Law School

Bulletins of Information

CONTENTS

• Admissions Information
• Academic Calendar
• Tuition and Fees
• Academic Requirements
• Off-Campus Programs
• Department of Veteran Affairs Pending Payment Policy
• Senior Administrative Leadership
• Hoynes Code

Informing Choice: The Role Of Adoption In Women’S Pregnancy Decision-Making, Elizabeth R. Kirk, Ryan Hanlon

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Don’T Trust The Vibes: A Better Test For Pop Music Copyright Infringement, Lauryn M. Sparger

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Sidgwick’S “Move”: A Reply, T. A. Cavanaugh

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The State Of The Russian Media Through The Lens Of Democratization: 1991 As The Peak Of Openness In Russia’S Media Laws, Antonina Semivolos

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Failures Of The Biologics Price Competition And Innovation Act, Nick Corwin

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Join The Military And Lose Your Kids: An Exploration Of The Adverse Effects Of Military Service In Child Custody Determinations, Cortland T. B. Boechler

Journal of Legislation

Servicemembers do not lose their fundamental rights when they join the military, but in practicality, many lose their parental rights the moment they enlist. Many servicemembers lose custody because judges often interpret service and duty relocations as incongruent to the best interest of the child. Presumably, many judges lack the understanding that military service brings familial stability. That being the case, Congress should add a provision in the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act requiring judges to consider all the benefits of military service in the "best interest of the child" analysis. This solution gives military parents a fighting chance to keep …

Why We Need A Merger Cap: An Antitrust Lesson From General Electric, Carl T. Bogus

Journal of Legislation

This Article makes a modest proposal from a radical perspective. The proposal is this: Once a firm reaches a certain size, it should be prohibited from growing larger through mergers or acquisitions. The radical perspective is that antitrust law should be concerned with corporate size. It was a century ago that Louis D. Brandeis coined the term “curse of bigness,” and his concern about the social and political consequences of corporate size has long since fallen out of favor. Today, the consensus view is that antitrust should be concerned exclusively with economics. Current doctrine allows corporations to merge, provided only …

Volume 51, Issue I - Full Combined Issue

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

303 Creative, Exclusive Private Enforcement, And Blue-State Revenge, Howard M. Wasserman, Charles W. “Rocky” Rhodes

Journal of Legislation

Red states have made exclusive private enforcement schemes targeting locally unpopular but constitutionally protected conduct a cornerstone of culture-war legal strategy. Laws such the Texas Heartbeat Act (“S.B. 8”) in 2021 and anti-“WOKE” laws forego public enforcement in favor of private enforcement; this forces targeted federal rights-holders to vindicate their rights by raising the law’s constitutional invalidity as a defense to liability rather than through pre-enforcement offensive litigation against the government or government officials responsible for enforcing the law. This threatens rights-holders with a wave of costly and burdensome litigation and liability.

Blue states and liberal scholars and advocates have …

Notre Dame Lawyers Connect: Winter 2025, Notre Dame Law School

Notre Dame Lawyers Connect

Special Education Law Clinic launched to support families of children with disabilities

Dean G. Marcus Cole: State of the Law School for Alumni

Inaugural Justice Amy Coney Barrett Moot Court Tournament at Notre Dame Law School culminates in strong competition and awards top teams

Notre Dame Law School delegation visits Strathmore Law School, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, and the University of Cape Town

Notre Dame Lawyer Magazine

Upcoming Events

• Notre Dame Affinity Alumni Reunion Weekend: March 21-22, 2025
• Save the Date: 2025 Law Homecoming Weekend September 19 & 20

Faculty - Rev. Patrick E. Reidy, C.S.C., and Nell …

Bank Of America Foundation Fellowship 2015–2024, Bank Of America Foundation, Notre Dame Law School

Student, Faculty, and Staff Awards

The Bank of American Foundation Fellowship, launched in 2015, covers the cost of salary and benefits for two graduating class members to work for two years at a city agency or nonprofit organization of their choice. The fellows’ work must advance community sustainability and provide legal services to low-income or underrepresented populations.

Smith-Doheny Legal Ethics Award, Notre Dame Law School

Student, Faculty, and Staff Awards

The Smith-Doheny Legal Ethics Writing Competition

The annual writing competition is open to all U.S. and Canadian law school students. Entries should be concerned with any issue within the general category of legal ethics. Entries must be original, unpublished work, a minimum of 5,000 words and a maximum of 15,000 words, inclusive of footnotes. Coauthored essays may be submitted. Submissions will be judged by a panel of faculty of the Notre Dame Law School. A monetary prize will be awarded to one winning entrant.

Daniel J. Adam Memorial Award, Notre Dame Law School

Student, Faculty, and Staff Awards

Created in 2004 by the Class of 2001 to honor the boxing talent and unrelenting spirit of charity and compassion of Daniel Adams. The award is presented annually to the outstanding law school boxer in each year's Bengal Bouts Tournament at Notre Dame.

Murphy Fellowship, Notre Dame Law School

Student, Faculty, and Staff Awards

The Murphy Fellowship, named in honor of longtime former Notre Dame law professor Edward J. Murphy, is awarded annually to first-year law students selected through a written application process. Fellows participate in the programming of both the Program on Church, State & Society and the Religious Liberty Initiative. In addition, they will have the opportunity, during their second and third years, to participate in the Law School’s Religious Liberty Clinic.

A. Harold Weber Moot Court Competition Award 1980-81 To 2024-2025, Notre Dame Law School

Student, Faculty, and Staff Awards

For outstanding achievement in art of Oral Advocacy 1980–1981 through 2024–2025.
Discontinued in the 2024–2025 academic year.

Severability And Liberty, Randy J. Kozel

Journal Articles

In US federal courts and the courts of many states, the presumption of statutory severability leads judges to separate a statute’s unlawful elements from its lawful ones. This article contends that the presumption becomes problematic when the effect of severing is to restrict the constitutional rights of a group whom the legislature exempted from regulation. Presumptive severability draws on a conception of judicial review that aspires to minimize interference with enacted legislation. But there is a countervailing constitutional interest in protecting exempted groups from restrictions on their liberty unless and until the legislature directs otherwise. It is these competing strands …

Administering Presidential Elections And Counting Electoral Votes After Trump V. Anderson, Derek T. Muller

Journal Articles

In the landmark case Trump v. Anderson, the Supreme Court unanimously held that states lack the unilateral power to exclude presidential candidates from the ballot on the basis of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But while the Court was united in its essential holding, the Justices fractured in their reasoning, leaving significant questions about Congress's role in enforcing Section 3 against presidential candidates.

This Article examines the fault lines in Trump v. Anderson and analyzes how Congress's power to count electoral votes under the Twelfth Amendment intersects with its authority to enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. …

Are Nonprofit Tax Exemptions And Deductions “Federal Financial Assistance”? Should They Be?, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

Two recent federal court decisions have reignited the debate over whether “Federal financial assistance” as used in four federal anti-discrimination statutes includes the tax benefits enjoyed by most nonprofit organizations. Both courts concluded that it does. While an appellate court reversed one decision, and the other case settled without appellate review, these holdings create significant uncertainty. And this uncertainty affects the more than 1.8 million tax-exempt nonprofits, many if not most of which do not receive federal financial assistance through other channels and so could safely conclude these statutes do not reach them, absent these decisions.

This Article first considers …

Too Essential To Fail: Lessons From County Fiscal Crises, Michael A. Francus

Journal Articles

This Article draws out the lessons of counties for municipal finance. To do so, the Article begins by unpacking the municipal finance regulations that have provided counties with extraordinary fiscal safety. The Article then turns to case studies of the eleven counties that either filed for bankruptcy or had state fiscal interventions since the passage of the Bankruptcy Code in 1978. Those case studies show how counties' finances can (in rare cases) go wrong despite well-designed municipal finance regulations. The case studies also show how counties have successfully responded to those crises through bankruptcy and fiscal intervention.

Using that analysis, …

Medellín Manifesto On Transnational Value Chains And International Law, Diane Desierto

Journal Articles

Global Value Chains (GVCs) have been heralded as the ‘new world of trade’, yet they branch far beyond what has traditionally been considered ‘trade’—they interact with and are informed by multiple legal regimes often in ways unrelated to the theoretical and practical bases of those regimes. Building on the 2016 IGLP Manifesto, which sought to place law at the centre of GVC research, the Medellín Manifesto’s aspiration is to establish a research agenda that is specifically focused on international law: one that treats GVCs as amorphous and transnational legal creatures—they are transnational value chains (TVCs); one that recognises that the …

The Abuses Of History In Constitutional Interpretation, Sherif Girgis

Journal Articles

From the Article

Jack Balkin’s Memory and Authority powerfully describes the kaleidoscopic quality of historical arguments in constitutional law. The book also moves easily between description and prescription. This Essay explores whether it moves too easily from one to the other. I consider whether the book’s analysis is so keen to capture our actual practices that it leaves itself too few resources for evaluating them—whether its account of history’s uses, made expansive by a zeal to fit how lawyers actually reason, crowds out any robust account of how they ought not to reason. While I am inclined to think so, …

Rearticulating Labor Rights, Stefan M. Mcdaniel

Journal Articles

From the Article

In principle, Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) guarantees most private-sector employees the right to be free from employer interference when they band together in pursuit of shared interests. In practice, most workers—especially the “pre-organizational” workers who have no contact with a union—cannot use their Section 7 rights because they do not know they exist. In 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (the Board), the agency which administers the NLRA, promulgated a Rule requiring employers to post notice of workers’ rights. The Rule happened to succumb to legal challenge but would, in any case, …

Understanding Brady Violations, Jennifer Mason Mcaward

Journal Articles

This largest-ever study of adjudicated violations of Brady v. Maryland provides a detailed and nuanced understanding of who suppresses material evidence in criminal cases, as well as why, how, where, and how often. Its findings complicate the conventional wisdom that Brady violations are the work of nefarious prosecutors who intentionally withhold material evidence from criminal defendants. While it is true that “bad faith” permeates this area of constitutional noncompliance, a substantial minority of Brady cases stem from “good faith” errors by prosecutors and suppression by law enforcement officers. Most Brady violations occur in a small number of states, and most …