Law Commons^™

The Undignified First Amendment, Douglas E. Edlin

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Many commonly understand the constitutional right of free speech as an individual right of expression. One reason for this is the ascendance of the dignitarian or autonomy theory of free speech, which has supplanted the marketplace and democratic conceptions as the predominant theory of speech rights in the United States. As a result, scholars, judges, and citizens usually focus on the rights of speakers. But the United States Constitution does not describe a right to speak; the First Amendment protects a right to speech. This article argues that the preoccupation with the dignitarian basis for speech as expression has distorted …

Standards In Assessing Notice Of Reasonable Security Measures In Trade Secret Law, Tazeen Hussain

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

No abstract provided.

Opt Out Or Pipe Down, You Traded Your Data Away: Balancing Computer Crime Prevention, Third-Party Data, And Individual Privacy Rights, Ken Sterling

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

This article explores the complex issue of governments’ access to thirdparty user data without search warrants in the detection, prevention, and prosecution of computer crimes. Topics under analysis include balancing data privacy and public safety, the application of the Fourth Amendment, and seminal court cases such as Riley, Carpenter, and Smith v. Maryland. Cybercrime poses a significant threat to society, businesses, individuals, and governments. While privacy advocates argue for warrant-based access to user data, individuals readily “opt in” and share their data with companies, raising the question of why stricter standards should apply to government use. This article proposes that …

The Tragedy Of The Ai Anticommons, Shelby Ponton

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

Should AI companies be allowed to “train” their models on the copy- righted works of others without consent or compensation? Legally, can they? These questions are being litigated in courts across the United States right now. When a resource, such as AI, is engulfed in effective rights of exclusion from a vast array of battling rightsholders, that resource is susceptible to un- derutilization. This phenomenon is referred to as a tragedy of the anticom- mons. This Article highlights how AI is subject to an anticommons weak- ness. If the millions of intellectual property holders, whose intellectual property these AI models …

Editor-In-Chief’S Forward, Zoë Grimaldi

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

“It’S Not Ok To Not Be Ok”: Suicide, California’S Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, And The Constitution, Christina Strohmann

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Individuals who commit suicide are not incompetent or even making an irrational decision. Yet state laws, such as the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act in California, continue to allow mental health professionals to lock up suicidal patients in psychiatric facilities against the patient’s will. These commitments, however, are not always beneficial, and in many instances are detrimental to both the patient and the mental health professional. Patients can be traumatized from the experience, feel more suicidal from lack of hope and feelings of betrayal. Mental health professionals cannot effectively treat suicidal patients when providers are fearful of liability or when their patients refuse …

Masthead

UC Law Business Journal

No abstract provided.

Stock-Based Compensation In Startups: Employee Implications & Potential Solutions, Alec Galustian

UC Law Business Journal

Stock-based compensation remains prevalent in the United States private market, particularly among high-growth private companies, yet concerns persist regarding its potential drawbacks. This paper focuses on stock-based compensation in startup companies, delving into the legal frameworks behind the practice and identifying regulatory gaps. It examines well-known advantages of stock-based compensation, common misconceptions, and highlights its many disadvantages, primarily from the perspective of a startup employee. These drawbacks stem from the lack of private company disclosure obligations, illiquidity and lock-in concerns, and regulatory changes favoring the private market. This paper also explores a trend in the SEC’s tone toward increased regulation …

The Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence, Justice Gordon Goodman

UC Law Business Journal

No abstract provided.

Changing California’S Proposition 13 'Change In Ownership' Language To Solve Current State Tax Revenue Deficits And Reassessing Its Accompanying Statutes, Caleb Moser

UC Law Business Journal

No abstract provided.

From Data Co-Opting To Data Co-Oping: Using New Corporate Structures, Data Corporate-Hood, And Data Personhood To Prioritize Data Privacy, Jonathan Askin

UC Law Business Journal

The stakes of information ownership and control have risen dramatically since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, after which tens of millions of people in the United States recognized that companies harvest massive swathes of data incidental to our activities and that seemingly innocuous information, such as rideshare or location data, credit card payments, or even monthly cyclical health trackers (i.e., menstruation or birth control) could potentially expose them to civil or criminal liability when linked to a chain of causation in jurisdictions penalizing voluntary abortion.2 Data scientists recognize the scale, scope, and massive power …

Development Of An Online Tool To Support Financial And Legal Planning In Dementia, Irene Tessaro, Sarah M. Hooper, Denise Watt, David Menestres, David Farrell

Faculty Scholarship

Objective: To develop, assess, and refine an online educational tool, Plan for Clarity, to support financial and legal planning in dementia.

Methods: A Delphi mixed-method study with three rounds of anonymous review by lay and professional stakeholders was designed to reach consensus about the content of the online tool and explore the socio-cultural and behavioral factors that could affect access and use.

Results: Consensus showed that the online tool covered key information, knowledge, and communication skills for financial and legal planning. Study themes: 1) the online tool had to be easy to navigate with relevant, easily understood …

Racial And Gender Bias In Child Maltreatment Reporting Decisions: Results Of A Randomized Vignette Experiment, Ian Ayres, Sonia Qin, Pranjal Drall

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

In this randomized vignette experiment, we asked 4,000 respondents through a YouGov survey to decide how likely they would be to report potential instances of child maltreatment to authorities. We used racialized and gendered names to suggest the identities of the parents and children in each of the ten vignettes that were based on real-life events. We find that respondents were less likely to report potential child maltreatment when the vignette used non-white names to describe the family participants. Respondents were less likely to report when a male child was involved, and more likely to report when a male parent …

Masthead

UC Law SF International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Old Wine In A New Bottle? – An Empirical Evaluation Of The Judicial Reforms In China In The 2010s, Peter C.H. Chan

UC Law SF International Law Review

This article provides an empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of the judicial reform measures implemented in China in the 2010s. Among other objectives, the reforms aimed to strengthen the independence of judges, the financial autonomy of courts and the professionalism of adjudicators. Critics have questioned the success of the reforms, citing continued government intervention with adjudication and unchanged structural problems with courts. To date, there has been limited empirical literature focusing specifically on the judicial reform measures in the 2010s in China. This article provides a glimpse into what really was happening on the ground since the reforms through the …

A One-State Solution To The Arab- Israeli/Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Recommendation Supported By A Review Of The Historical Record And Current Context, Samuel Horowitz

UC Law SF International Law Review

This article examines the legal underpinning of the creation of the state of Israel and historical documents to note that despite calls for a two-state solution at the UN, a one-state solution to the conflict is not necessarily precluded. It then identifies why both the status quo and the proposed two state solution are problematic and untenable. Lastly, it looks to the example of South Africa because of similarities between South Africa and modern day Israel/Palestine. It concludes that the creation of a single state, following the example of post-apartheid South Africa, is the only solution to the conflict that …

“Whale Wars” — Are The Japanese Whaling Just Because They Can? A Testament Of Failed International Whaling Policy, Katy Rotzin

UC Law SF International Law Review

This paper analyzes whaling law and practices in Japan. This paper briefly compares Japanese whaling to whaling in Norway and Iceland, as well as Indigenous whaling but mainly focuses on Japan’s domestic ethos around “whaling culture,” their policies, which perpetuate whaling even though the industry is no longer profitable, and their unique relationship with the International Whaling Commission. This paper further analyzes the International Whaling Commission’s main document, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, and its inability to keep rogue nations in check, and recommends that anti-whaling nations combine both soft law and sanctions to pressure Japan to …

From The Editor-In-Chief, Jacklin Lee

UC Law SF International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ccpa/Cpra: Consumers Bear The Burden As Companies Bear The Crown, Jacklin Lee

UC Law SF International Law Review

Examining the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) is important for understanding United States privacy law. They were pioneering legislation in that the CCPA was one of the first comprehensive state-level privacy laws in the United States when it was enacted in 2018, introducing new rights for California residents regarding their personal information and imposed obligations on businesses handling data. The CPRA, passed in 2020, builds upon CCPA and further enhances privacy protections. These laws have served as models for subsequent privacy legislation at both the state and federal levels. They embody key principles …

Negotiating Pluralism: Dilemmas Of Decentralization In The Middle East, Asli Ü. Bâli, Omar M. Dajani

UC Law Journal

This Article explores the potential of decentralized governance and territorial arrangements to address the overlapping governance crises and identity conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa (the “MENA”). Despite an extensive literature on decentralization and federalism in comparative law and politics, few studies have considered such initiatives in this region. By undertaking a qualitative comparison of decentralizing initiatives in four MENA countries—Tunisia, Iran, Syria, and Yemen—this Article provides the first sustained examination of these understudied cases and in the process suggests a variety of region-wide implications.

The cases are generative both in addressing ongoing debates about the merits of …

More T In Esg: Tax As A Crucial Component Of Esg, Lisa Chen

UC Law Journal

ESG is a framework used to assess the sustainability of a company and to measure financial risk arising from potential environmental, social, and governance issues. Investors and consumers typically rely on ESG ratings generated by third-party ratings agencies to evaluate a company’s ESG quality. Critics of ESG assert that ESG ratings are misleading because neither the rating agencies nor the ESG disclosures used to generate ratings are regulated. Despite these criticisms, demand for ESG-related products has grown four-fold in the last decade, reflecting the change in societal expectations regarding corporate behavior.

Given this demand, U.S. companies have rushed to adopt …

The Myth Of Slavery Abolition, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

UC Law Journal

In many countries today, slavery and the slave trade continue with impunity. International human rights law prohibits both abuses, but states are rarely held accountable and people who are enslaved or slave traded rarely receive redress. This Article offers a novel account of why international human rights law advocacy neglects slavery and the slave trade. Specifically, this Article demonstrates that the abolition of the Transatlantic and East African slave trades was achieved through a legal framework that marginalized the human rights of enslaved persons while consolidating empire. In the wake of World War II, prohibitions on slavery and the slave …

Would A Successful Ftc Noncompete Ban Reduce Lawsuits Against Employees Who Change Jobs?, Charles Tait Graves

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

What Practitioners Can Do For Law Students And What Law Students Can Do For Practitioners, Shanin Specter

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Restoring Reasonable Expectations To Privacy At Work In The Face Of Modern Electronic Monitoring Practices, Rafi Bortnick

UC Law Journal

This Note argues that stronger legal protections are necessary in California to protect workers’ dignitary interests in the workplace in the face of prevalent electronic monitoring. In particular, those protections should be grounded in a respect for a worker’s personhood rather than property rights relating to worker data collected by employers. In California, workers have some limited privacy and autonomy protections found in common law, the state constitution, and various statutes. Caselaw and legislative enactments have recognized the value of protecting personhood. The passage of the California Privacy Rights Act in 2020 marked a shift toward privacy protections grounded in …

Editorial Forward, Executive Board

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Breaking Bias: A Singular Chapter Solution For Racial Equity In Consumer Bankruptcy, Jerron Wheeler

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

This article explores the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, revealing a looming medical debt crisis among Black families, while examining the intersection of racial bias, attorney practices, and the existing two-chapter consumer bankruptcy system. Proposing a solution, the article advocates for the consolidation of Chapters 7 and 13 into a single chapter, citing the Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2020 (CBRA) as a potential remedy. Further, this article argues that a single chapter would simplify the bankruptcy process, reducing the influence of attorney bias and promoting uniform eligibility criteria. This approach aims to make debt relief more accessible, especially for …

Masthead

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Forced Pooling: The Unconstitutional Taking Of Private Property, Kevin J. Lynch

UC Law Journal

Our society’s continued addiction to fossil fuels poses an existential threat to our future. The scientific consensus clearly tells us that we must stop burning fossil fuels as fast as possible. This poses a huge political challenge, as many people make a lot of money from the fossil fuel industry, and they resist change. But an overlooked legal doctrine shows that we are not even going after the lowest hanging fruit. Oil and gas rights are often privately held in the United States. Some owners of those rights would be happy to leave their oil and gas safely in the …

Monopolization By Exploiting People’S Inertia? On The Doj’S 2020 Complaint Against Google And Revenue Sharing Agreements As Non-Compete Arrangements, Omar Vasquez Duque

UC Law Journal

In October 2020, the Department of Justice sued Google for paying Apple and several other search engine distributors to set Google as its users’ default. The complaint alleges that Google’s agreements constitute de facto exclusive dealing arrangements because people only rarely change defaults. Although the complaint correctly asserts that this arrangement violates antitrust law, it misapprehends the mechanism of the anticompetitive harm.

The Google–Apple agreement is more accurately modeled as an arrangement that deters actual competitors from reaching a significant distribution channel and discourages a key potential competitor from entering search. If a potential competitor is paid for a preferred …