Law Commons^™

Who Has The Authority? Opportunities For Reform In Global Health Governance, Luka VujašKović

North Carolina Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Robots In The Sky: The Need For Preemptive International Regulation Of Autonomous Weaponry, Griffin Spencer

North Carolina Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Russia’S Replacement: Kazakhstan As Europe’S Risky But Crucial New Oil Supplier Amidst Eu Sanctions And Embargoes On Russian Oil, Emily Stellman

North Carolina Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Truth Bounties: A Market Solution To Fake News, Yonathan A. Arbel, Michael D. Gilbert

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dueling Discretion: The Imperfect Mechanisms For Removing Elected Prosecutors, Meighan R. Parsh

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

From The Great Recession To The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Financial History Of The United States 2010-2020: A Comparison Of The Government’S Response To The Two Financial Crises That Bookended The 2010 To 2020 Decade, Lissa Lamkin Broome

Faculty Publications

This Article compares the U.S. government’s responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis and the economic crisis triggered by the COVID‑19 pandemic, examining both legislative action and regulatory intervention. It evaluates how the Dodd‑Frank Act reshaped emergency tools and how Congress and regulators adapted or temporarily suspended those constraints in 2020. The analysis focuses on Section 13(3) Federal Reserve lending, the FDIC’s systemic-risk exception, and the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund, showing how their roles differed significantly across the two crises. The Article highlights the far larger and more direct pandemic‑era relief directed to households and small businesses, contrasting it with the …

Using Content And Tone To Deliver Effective Feedback On Legal Research, Nicole Downing

Faculty Publications

This article reviews the important role feedback has in teaching legal research. It draws on educational scholarship to provide an overview of strategic considerations in planning for feedback. By focusing on written feedback as a mode of providing comments to law students, this article applies research on how to use content and tone to deliver effective feedback that engages students by being specific, positive, constructive, and personalized. Examples of how content and tone may be used to improve comments on legal research assessments are provided.

Bad For Adults, Worse For K-12 Students: A Response To Josephine Ross’S Abolishing Police Consent Searches Through Legislation, Barbara A. Fedders

Faculty Publications

This invited Response to Josephine Ross's Abolishing Police Consent Searches Through Legislation: Lessons from Scotland applies Professor Ross's insights about consent searches to the context of K-12 schools. Even more than the adults she discusses, minors in schools are especially susceptible to state displays of authority. As a result, what police and courts refer to as "consent" to a search is more likely to be mere acquiescence. In school with students, as in public with adults, a consent search constitutes a legal fiction.

Nonetheless, this Response suggests that abolition of consent searches in public schools is unlikely. Because administrators have …

Designing Sanctuary, Rick Su

Faculty Publications

In recent decades, a growing number of cities in the United States have adopted “sanctuary policies” that limit local participation in federal immigration enforcement. Existing scholarship has focused on their legality and effect, especially with respect to our nation’s immigration laws. Largely overlooked, however, is the local process through which sanctuary policies are designed and the reasons why cities choose to adopt them through city ordinances, mayoral orders, or employee handbooks. This Article argues that municipal sanctuary policies are far from uniform, and their variation reflects the different local interests and institutional actors behind their adoption and implementation. More specifically, …

Contents, North Carolina Law Review

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transforming Legal Sex, Noa Ben-Asher

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Making A Mother: The Supreme Court And The Constitutive Rhetoric Of Motherhood, Lucy Williams

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Irreconcilable: Mcdonnell Douglas And Summary Judgment, Sandra F. Sperino

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Flanking Feres: The Camp Lejeune Justice Act Of 2022 And The Future Of The Military's Sovereign Immunity, William Rhyne

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Stigma In The Sunshine State: How The Eleventh Circuit Ignored Important Equal Protection Considerations And Contributed To The Panic Against The Transgender Community, Christopher M. Thomas

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

"One Free Rape": The Consequences Of The Post-Notice Approach To Title Ix's Deliberate Indifference Requirement, Sharis Molly Manokian

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rational Investing Or Speculative Fever?: Spacs, Robinhood, And Digital Assets—Securities Markets Or Casinos?, Thomas Lee Hazen

Faculty Publications

This Article focuses on one of the recurring themes, not only in Professor Markham’s most recent volume but also in the earlier ones as well—speculation in the financial markets. The 2010–2020 decade set the stage for a new round of speculative activity starting in 2021. In the Article that follows, I reflect on a new wave of speculation and three current examples of speculative activity. The Article concludes that regulators should be cautious about over-regulation of special-purpose acquisition companies (“SPACs”) and gamified trading. The article also supports the regulation of digital assets (cryptocurrencies and NFTs) as securities.

The Puzzle Of Floating Forum Selection Clauses, John F. Coyle, Robin J. Effron

Faculty Publications

This essay examines floating forum selection clauses—provisions linking the litigation forum to a post-contractual fact such as a party’s future principal place of business, an assignee’s location, or a unilateral designation. Categorizing floating clauses into three types, the authors analyze divergent judicial approaches to enforceability and the underlying tension between waiver and submission as theories of consent. They argue that floating clauses expose conceptual inconsistencies in personal jurisdiction doctrine, especially regarding foreseeability and due process, and highlight how courts struggle to reconcile contract principles with constitutional limits.

Democratic Accountability And Tax Enforcement, Joshua D. Blank, Leigh Osofsky

Faculty Publications

One of the most powerful charges that can be leveled against the IRS is that it is targeting taxpayers. Charges of political targeting have dogged the IRS for over a century, including in major controversies such as the alleged Tea Party auditing scandal in 2013. Commentators and scholars have long critiqued the IRS for focusing audit resources on some of the lowest-income Americans. And, most recently, a group of researchers estimated that the IRS audits Black taxpayers at a 2.9 to 4.7 times greater rate, as compared to non-Black taxpayers. In response, legislators demanded action, there was widespread public consternation, …

Debt, Race, And Physical Mobility, Kate Sablosky Elengold

Faculty Publications

Residents in every state in the United States can lose their driver’s license or car registration because they owe debt to the state. At least eleven million people across the United States suffer these debt-based driving restrictions at any given time. Because Americans overwhelmingly rely on personal automobiles for transportation, states, by controlling access to driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations, use debt policy to control where and how people travel. And because these laws disproportionately affect people of color, primarily Black people, this kind of regulation props up racial segregation in both location and opportunity. This Article’s first contribution is …

Against Associational Standing, Michael T. Morley, F. Andrew Hessick

Faculty Publications

This Article calls for the abandonment, or at least serious modification, of associational standing. Even without associational standing, groups may still sue to enforce their own rights. And they could continue to help vindicate their members’ rights by providing legal representation for member plaintiffs in individual or class action suits (filed anonymously, if necessary), covering members’ litigation costs, and providing expert witnesses and other guidance. In short, associational standing is a largely unnecessary deviation from both Article III’s injury-in-fact requirement and the fundamental principles underlying our justice system. Eliminating associational standing would not limit public law and other important collective …

Rethinking Tax Information: The Case For Quarterly 1099s, Kathleen Delaney Thomas

Faculty Publications

When an electricity provider wants customers to pay their bills monthly, it sends them a bill each month. Yet, this is not how the tax system works— at least not for independent contractors. Their taxes are due quarterly, but they receive a tax statement (Form 1099) only one time a year. It is up to the individual, then, to know when their taxes are due and how to pay them, and it is on that individual to estimate how much they owe each quarter. As a result, compliance for independent contractors—particularly for online platform workers—tends to be lacking. Failure to …

Children At Work, Parental Rights–And Rhetoric, Naomi Cahn, Maxine Eichner, Mary Ziegler

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the resurgence of child labor law rollbacks across the United States and argues that legislators and business‑aligned advocates increasingly deploy the rhetoric of “parental rights” to mask deregulatory efforts that primarily advance industry interests rather than children’s wellbeing or family autonomy. Tracing the historical tension among parental authority, state parens patriae power, and children’s welfare, the Article shows how contemporary invocations of parental rights—echoing arguments used a century ago to resist child labor reforms—operate as political cover for expanding hazardous work, extending hours, and reducing oversight in ways that endanger children and undermine their educational and economic …

New Tech, Old Problem: The Rise Of Virtual Rent-To-Own Agreements, Carrie Floyd

Faculty Publications

This Article examines how fintech has transformed the traditional rent-to-own (RTO) industry by enabling the rise of virtual rent-to-own agreements (“VirTOs”), which now extend high-cost RTO-style financing into services and unconventional products such as vehicle repairs, pet ownership, and medical devices. It explains how VirTOs differ from classic RTO arrangements by involving hidden online transactions between retailers and third‑party VirTO providers, making termination through return of the item—central to the legal status of RTOs—practically impossible. As a result, the Article argues that VirTOs function as disguised credit rather than true rentals, forming a legal fiction designed to evade consumer protection …

Sound Marks, Deborah R. Gerhardt, Jon J. Lee

Faculty Publications

A lion roars just before a film rolls. A doughboy giggles. A giant green man laughs a hearty, "Ho, Ho, Ho." These iconic sounds are all federally registered as trademarks. They identify specific brands and distinguish their products and services from the competition. Human brains treat sounds like these as categorization tools and cognitive shortcuts—ideal trademark symbols. But what about the sounds your favorite toys or electronic devices make? Or those made by a fictional character in the latest blockbuster?

This Article tackles these issues and others. We push back against the widely-held belief that all unconventional trademarks—product designs, colors, …

Masking Identity At Public Protests, Deborah R. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

This Article will explore these issues to assist those seeking to enact constitutionally valid mask policies. To situate today’s mask regulation challenges in the context of American history, Part I reviews events that led to enactment of anti-mask laws many years ago. Part II explains when the First Amendment protects the right to wear a mask in public and when such permission may be lawfully abridged. The section explains the importance of analyzing whether wearing a mask in public is sufficiently expressive to merit First Amendment protection. When it is, the next challenge is to identify the constitutional standard for …

Why Study State Constitutional Law?, Marcus A. Gadson

Faculty Publications

In light of the Supreme Court retrenching on certain rights in recent years, more Americans are paying attention to state constitutions. This moment therefore offers an opportunity to explain why scholars, lawyers, and ordinary citizens should take state constitutions as seriously as they do the U.S. Constitution, and consider studying them an intellectually rewarding and important endeavor. In this essay, I attempt to do that. Earlier in our history, state constitutions helped define what it meant to be American. Through the process of drafting and interpreting constitutions, prior generations decided what popular sovereignty meant, who qualified as part of “the …

Labor Law’S Impact On The Post-Dobbs Workplace, Jeffrey M. Hirsch

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision has left many workers, especially in states with restrictive abortion-related laws, in a precarious position. Labor laws and unions, however, provide one avenue for providing these workers with more protections. Unions can demand bargaining to protect or expand health care, leave, and other terms of employment that give workers with means to obtain abortion-related care. Unions can also provide members legal defense and other support if they face prosecutions. Additionally, both union and non-union workers who make up the vast majority of workers in states with restrictive laws may have labor law protection for discussing …

Standing And Criminal Law, F. Andrew Hessick, Sarah Benecky

Faculty Publications

According to the Supreme Court, the “irreducible constitutional minimum of Article III standing” is a concrete, particularized injury in fact that is traceable to the defendant and redressable by a favorable judgment. But this set of requirements does not apply in criminal cases. The federal government has authority to bring prosecutions for any violation of federal criminal law, regardless of whether the crime caused concrete harm to the United States or anyone else, and even though the punishment for the crime does not redress an injury in any conventional sense. This Article argues that the difference in standing requirements between …

Legal Gender Recognition In Nepal And Comparative Context, Holning S. Lau, Mara Malagodi

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court of Nepal was a groundbreaker when it ruled in Pant v. Nepal (2007) that people have the right to change their gender on identity documents based on “self-feelings” and “self-determination” rather than medical or other criteria; at the time, no other national apex court or government had so clearly prioritized self-determination for gender identity. Pant, however, centered “third gender” persons (neither male nor female), and now the Court is considering the case of a transgender woman, Ms. Kapali, who seeks to be identified as female on her documents and is challenging authorities that rejected her requests. …