Law Commons^™

Affording Obamacare, Isaac ("Zack") D. Buck

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As it approaches its tenth birthday, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is devolving. Intended to solve problems that had vexed American health care for generations, the ACA built a comprehensive structure by providing more Americans with accessible health insurance, reordering the private insurance market, expanding and reconfiguring Medicaid, and installing rational incentives into America’s health care enterprise. Without question, it was the most important piece of health care legislation since the mid-1960s, and it brought about positive change for millions of Americans.

However, over its short lifespan, the ACA has faced persistent practical, popular, and policy-based challenges. …

Raising The Impact Factor Of The Library: Using The U.S. News & World Report’S Upcoming Academic Impact Law School Rankings To Boost The Academic Standing Of Law Librarians, Paul Mclaughlin

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This article recommends that law libraries and their librarians use the upcoming U.S. News & World Report’s academic rankings for law schools as an opportunity to enhance academic law libraries’ standing in the legal profession and to elevate law librarians’ statures within law schools.

Of Wigs, Wickets, And Moonshine: Leadership Development Lessons From An International Collaboration, Douglas A. Blaze

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No abstract provided.

Uneasy Lies The Head That Owns Property, Gregory M. Stein

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No abstract provided.

Brief Of Amici Curiae Legal Scholars In Support Of Equality In Support Of Respondents, Fulton V. City Of Philadelphia, Michael J. Higdon

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No abstract provided.

Copyright And Dissent, Tomer S. Stein

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This Essay brings to the fore the hitherto unnoticed feature of copyright: Copyright incentivizes dissent and protects marginalized authors. Absent copyright protection that allows authors to recoup their risks and costs, producers of unpopular works that deviate from the mainstream would have no incentives to pursue their socially valuable endeavors, unlike authors who reap reputational gains from catering to popular opinion. This insight has the potential for changing the terms, as well as the conclusions, of the ongoing debate over the desirability of copyright protections. Specifically, I demonstrate that the dissent-protecting rationale both coherently explains and aligns with all justificatory …

Women Should Not Need To Watch Their Husbands Like [A] Hawk: Misappropriation Insider Trading In Spousal Relationships, Joan Macleod Heminway

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This article endeavors to sort through and begin to resolve key unanswered questions regarding spousal misappropriation as a basis for U.S. insider trading liability, some of which apply to insider trading more broadly. It identifies and describes misappropriation insider trading liability under U.S. law, recounts and analyzes probative doctrine and policy relevant to spousal misappropriation cases, and (before briefly concluding) offers related observations about the impact of that doctrine and policy on a specific motivating Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") enforcement action and other spousal misappropriation cases.

The analysis undertaken in the article supports enforcement actions based on a strong …

What Ails Rural Health Care?, Isaac ("Zack") D. Buck

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No abstract provided.

Professor Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer’S "Impact": Scholarly, Theoretical, And Practical, Becky Jacobs

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It is difficult to believe that a decade has passed since the original Festschrift in honor of the occasion of Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer’s 45th year of teaching. That first Festschrift was an impressive and moving scholarly tribute to Julian’s impact on his colleagues, on his students, and on broader legal doctrine. Yet, despite the many accolades received and accomplishments documented in Festschrift I, Julian lamented with typical humility and self-deprecation, in his Introduction and Thank You that he had “never succeeded in developing a course which adequately links the coverage of land use and environmental law[,]” but that he hoped …

Digitalisation And Its Impact On Innovation, Maurice E. Stucke, Ariel Ezrachi

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Innovation is generally seen as good. Promoting innovation especially in the digital economy is often deemed vital. Increasing the level of innovation, after all, can promote sustainable development, economic growth, prosperity, and citizens’ overall welfare. So how can policy makers spur innovation in the digital economy? While there is no simple recipe, this study explores the interplay between innovation and the digital economy from the following seven angles: 1. Theoretical economic literature; 2. Macro view of current innovation levels; 3. Emerging trends in the digital economy; 4. Implications of sub-optimal innovation levels; 5. Variables that affect the supply of innovation; …

Ensuring An Underclass: Stigma In Insurance, Valarie K. Blake

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In our country, access to insurance can be a matter of life and death, as well as financial security. Despite these great stakes, the ability to get affordable insurance is often influenced by social factors like sexual orientation, age, gender, and race. Insurers defend these practices, and regulators frequently agree, on the basis of actuarial fairness. That is, some groups are costlier to insure and others shouldn’t have to offset their expenses. This article advances a stigma-based critique to challenge this conception of lawful discrimination and fairness in insurance. The sociological stigma literature tells us that it is a natural …

Treating Professionals Professionally: Requiring Security Of Position For All Skills-Focused Faculty Under Aba Accreditation Standard 405(C) And Eliminating 405(D), Lucille A. Jewel

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In 2014, the American Bar Association (ABA) decided to retain Accreditation Standard 405 in its current form to preserve tenure for law faculty as well as the status, security of position, governance rights, and academic freedom that tenure provides. In doing so, the ABA also preserved the long-standing hierarchy that elevates doctrine-focused faculty over skills-focused faculty. That hierarchy discriminates against skills-focused faculty, particularly those who specialize in legal writing--most of whom are women. This paper calls on the ABA to address this discrimination against skills-focused faculty and the negative effects it has on schools, faculty, and students. As explained in …

Private Debt And Public Violence [Reviews], Wendy A. Bach

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No abstract provided.

The United States International Religious Freedom Act, Nonstate Actors, And The Donbas Crisis, Robert C. Blitt

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This chapter explores whether recent changes to the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) furnish the U.S. government with effective tools for engaging with and taking potential action against nonstate actors, such as the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), operating in the context of the Donbas crisis. Among the major amendments to IRFA introduced at the end of 2016, the statute now provides the U.S. government with the formal obligation to report on violent nonstate actors (NSAs) found to be violating freedom of religion or belief. In addition, the executive branch may designate those NSAs …

Sustainable And Unchallenged Algorithmic Tacit Collusion, Maurice Stucke

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No abstract provided.

Dying For Equal Protection, Teri Dobbins Baxter

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When health policy experts noticed that health outcomes for African Americans were consistently worse than those of their White counterparts, many in the health care community assumed that the poor outcomes could be blamed on poverty and lifestyle choices. Subsequent research told a different story. Studies repeatedly showed that neither money, nor marriage, nor educational achievement protect African American men, women, or children from poor health. Instead, the disparities were more likely explained by racism. Specifically, multiple studies have shown that experiencing racism has been linked to increased infant and maternal mortality rates, elevated stress levels, and an increased risk …

Parens Patriae And The Disinherited Child, Michael J. Higdon

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Most countries have safeguards in place to protect children from disinheritance. The United States is not one of them. Since its founding, America has clung tightly to the ideal of testamentary freedom, refusing to erect any barriers to a testator’s ability to disinherit his or her children—regardless of the child’s age or financial needs. Over the years, however, disinheritance has become more common given the evolving American family, specifically the increased incidences of divorce, remarriage, and cohabitation. Critics of the American approach have offered up solutions largely based on the two models currently employed by other countries: 1) the forced …

The Top 100 Law Reviews: A Reference Guide Based On Historical Usnwr Data, Brad Areheart

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The best proxy for how other law professors react and respond to publishing in main, or flagship, law reviews is the US News and World Report (USNWR) rankings. This paper utilizes historical USNWR data to rank the top 100 law reviews. The USNWR rankings are important in shaping many – if not most – law professors’ perceptions about the relative strength of a law school (and derivatively, the home law review). This document contains a chart that is sorted by the 10-year rolling average for each school, but it also contains the 5-year and 15-year rolling averages. This paper also …

Rethinking Libel For The Twenty-First Century, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

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Today, many institutional arrangements reached in the mid-twentieth century are being rethought and renegotiated. One such arrangement involves libel, and the responsibility of publishers for harm they cause via defamation. In his recent concurrence to the denial of certiorari in the case of McKee v. Cosby, Justice Clarence Thomas called for the Supreme Court to revisit the constitutional protections for publishers of libelous material, arguing that the existing arrangement, dating to New York Times Co. v.Sullivan and its progeny, is out of date and unsupported by the Constitution. As even some left-leaning scholars note, he may have a point, and …

The Impact Of Ban-The-Box Measures, Alex B. Long

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No abstract provided.

The University Of Bucharest Contributes To The Promotion Of Arbitration In Romania, Raluca Papadima, Maria Avram, Mihaela Gherghe

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No abstract provided.

High Crimes: Liability For Directors Of Retail Marijuana Corporations, Lauren Newell

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No abstract provided.

Protecting Women's Voices: Preventing Retaliatory Defamation Claims In The #Metoo Context, Nicole Ligon

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No abstract provided.

The Broken Branch: Capitalism, The Constitution, And The Press, Luke Smith Morgan

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The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees "freedom ...of the press," an explicit textual recognition of what the founding generation, informed by their immediate historical experience, frequently hailed as the most important political liberty-the "bulwark" upon which all other freedoms relied. From this fertile intellectual and legal soil, cultivated by generous subsidies, a thriving and vibrant institutional press emerged as an undeniable asset to American civil society.

Today, that press is dying. Industry revenues have declined by more than 70% in the last two decades, leaving tens of thousands of journalists without jobs and millions of Americans without meaningful access …

Nine Questions For The Article 9 Professor, Timothy R. Zinnecker

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No abstract provided.

Differential Treatment Among Creditors Under India's Insolvency And Bankruptcy Code, 2016: Issues And Solutions, C. Scott Pryor, Risham Garg

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This paper represents the results of an examination of the implementation of India's Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC). This project included purposive sampling as well as interviews with resolution professionals, representatives of India's Insolvency Professional Agencies, and officials of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India. Analysis of this data identified three problems: 1. Vesting near-plenary control of the Corporate Resolution Insolvency Process (CIRP) with a Committee of Creditors made up of financial creditors has led to a perception of inequitable distributions between the classes of creditors. 2. The CIRP provisions of the IBC are inconsistent with public policy …

"Assault Weapon" Lethality, E. Gregory Wallace

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No abstract provided.

Private Schools' Role And Rights In Setting Vaccination Policy: A Constitutional And Statutory Puzzle, Hillel Y. Levin

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Measles and other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases are making a comeback, as a growing number of parents are electing not to vaccinate their children. May private schools refuse admission to these students? This deceptively simple question raises complex issues of First Amendment law and statutory interpretation, and it also has implications for other current hot-button issues in constitutional law, including whether private schools may discriminate against LGBTQ students. This Article is the first to address the issue of private schools’ rights to exclude unvaccinated children. It finds that the answer is “it depends.” It also offers a model law that states …

The Bar Exam And The Covid-19 Pandemic: The Need For Immediate Action, Claudia Angelos, Sara Berman, Mary Lu Bilek, Carol M. Chomsky, Andrea Anne Curcio, Marsha Griggs, Joan W. Howarth, Eileen R. Kaufman, Deborah Jones Merritt, Patricia Salkin, Judith W. Wegner

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The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has profoundly disrupted life in the United States. Among other challenges, jurisdictions are unlikely to be able to administer the July 2020 bar exam in the usual manner. It is essential, however, to continue licensing new lawyers. Those lawyers are necessary to meet current needs in the legal system. Equally important, the demand for legal services will skyrocket during and after this pandemic. We cannot close doors to the profession at a time when client demand will reach an all-time high.

In this brief policy paper, we outline six licensing options for jurisdictions to consider for …

Intersectional Cohorts, Dis/Ability, And Class Actions, Ann C. Mcginley, Frank Rudy Cooper

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This Article occupies the junction of dis/abilities studies and critical race theory. It joins the growing commentary analyzing the groundbreaking lawsuit by Compton, California students and teachers against the Compton school district under federal disability law and seeking class certification and injunctive relief in the form of teacher training, provision of counselors, and changed disciplinary practices. The federal district court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss but also denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and class certification, resulting in prolonged settlement talks. The suit is controversial because it seeks to address the trauma suffered by Black and Latinx …