Law Commons^™

Child Exploitation Through Online Sharing: “Sharenting” And The Role Of The Pediatric Provider, Stacey Steinberg, Cameron Rosenthal

UF Law Faculty Publications

The alarming trend of “sharenting” highlights the need for increased vigilance in protecting children from online exploitation. When parents share intimate details about children’s lives on social media, they may inadvertently expose them to danger. Pediatricians are equipped to safeguard children from parental abuse and neglect; however, they are less prepared to protect children from harm caused by parents online.

When parents exploit children on social media, pediatricians face challenges in protecting patients while also following laws that maintain parental autonomy. Using a child welfare framework, this article defines these online harms and proposes strategies for protecting children from exploitative …

Property Law As History, Michael Allan Wolf

UF Law Faculty Publications

Because property law and history are so inextricably intertwined, it has become even more important for law professors to share with students and colleagues the ways in which knowledge of history unlocks difficult concepts, suggests workable solutions to contemporary puzzles, and makes very dry concepts—destructible contingent remainders, running covenants, privity, and the Rule in Dumpor’s Case—much easier to digest.   Sampling from the doctrinal menu of a typical first-year property course--adverse possession, present estates and future interests, landlord-tenant, concurrent interests, servitudes, land transactions, eminent domain, regulatory takings, and zoning--this article identifies two aspects of the law of property as history, using …

Ai-Powered Lawyering: Ai Reasoning Models, Retrieval Augmented Generation, And The Future Of Legal Practice, Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz, Sam Manning, J.J. Prescott, Patrick Barry, David R. Cleveland, Beverly Rich

Articles

Generative AI is set to transform the legal profession, though its most promising uses and ultimate effects are still unclear. While AI models like GPT-4 improve efficiency, they can also “hallucinate” and may undermine legal judgment, particularly in complex tasks typically handled by skilled lawyers. This article examines two emerging AI innovations that may mitigate these concerns: Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), which grounds AI-powered analysis in legal sources, and AI reasoning models, which structure complex reasoning before generating output. We conduct the first randomized controlled trial assessing these technologies, assigning upper-level law students to complete legal tasks using a RAG-powered …

Grading Machines: Can Ai Exam-Grading Replace Law Professors?, Kevin L. Cope, Jens Frankenreiter, Scott Hirst, Eric A. Posner, Daniel Schwarcz, Dane Thorley

Articles

In the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have achieved significant technical advances, enabling legal-advocacy organizations to adopt them as complements to—or substitutes for—lawyers and other human experts. The role of LLMs in legal education, however, is underexplored. While several studies have examined LLMs’ performance in taking law school exams, finding mixed results, there have been no published studies systematically analyzing LLMs’ competence at one of law professors’ chief responsibilities: grading law school exams. This paper presents results of an analysis of how LLMs perform in evaluating student responses to legal analysis questions of the kind typically contained in …

How To Manage The Wolf In The Fold, Susan Bisom-Rapp, Urwana Coiquaud

Faculty Scholarship

Recent scholarly work on regulatory capture in the platform economy accounts for the political role and power wielded by app-based firms aiming to reform the existing legal environment to favor their low-cost labor business models. This article adds to scholarly perspectives on the platform economy by shifting the focus to government actors, the role of narrative in communicating with the public, and institutional constraints which may hamper the government’s ability to provide a cogent rationale for opposing or implementing legal change. The article’s central contribution is underscoring the role the government plays in facilitating or preventing regulatory capture. To that …

Discursive Footnotes, Daniel Yeager

Faculty Scholarship

This essay offers a comprehensive account of the past forty years of scholarship on footnotes within law. Not just any old footnotes, but footnotes that are discursive in form, that is, those with an expressive rather than bibliographic function. After contrasting the function of discursive footnotes in judicial opinions with those in academic legal literature, this essay identifies and decodes a comparatively hidden avant garde footnotes literature. Borrowing from techniques of literary criticism, that literature, properly understood, provides a foundation for our making more subtle judgments about both the relation of primary to secondary texts and the allocation of responsibilities …

University Of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School Of Law Commencement Program, May 9, 2026, University Of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School Of Law

Commencement and Hooding Programs

No abstract provided.

University Of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School Of Law 2026 Student Recognition And Awards Ceremony Program, May 8, 2026, University Of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School Of Law

Commencement and Hooding Programs

No abstract provided.

But Who Are The Victims? Reassessing The 568 Higher Education Cartel, James V. Koch

Economics Faculty Publications

Thirty prestigious independent American institutions of higher education were at some time members of the 568 higher education group (often labeled a cartel). Seventeen of them were sued by the U.S. Government and representative students who alleged that their meetings and deliberations resulted in collusion that caused students to pay higher prices. Twelve of the seventeen institutions subsequently settled their cases and by 2024 collectively had paid $284 million to do so. However, an inspection of these institutions' pricing reveals that the median 568 Group institution lowered its average real net annual cost to its undergraduate students by 19.07% between …

A New Frontier For An International Right With No Frontiers: Freedom Of Expression & Generative Ai Outputs, Evelyn Aswad

Faculty Articles

As people debate whether the First Amendment protects generative AI outputs, we should also reflect on what the global freedom of expression standard has to say on the matter. This standard will affect discussions around national and regional regulatory approaches to generative AI throughout the world. In addition, global corporate responsibility standards call on companies to respect international human rights in their operations, which may also impact how businesses that provide generative AI services approach their activities.

I argue that the global free expression standard protects the rights of individuals to seek and receive information of any kind, including gen …

Value Maximization In Financial Contracts, Vincent S.J. Buccola

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

This essay, adapted from the 2026 Coase Lecture, at the University of Chicago, considers the extent to which financial contracts are calibrated to maximize parties' expected joint surplus. Because capital market transactions link typically well-counseled parties who put substantial value at risk, and produce only muted externalities, it is tempting to conclude that the associated contracts will ameliorate the inevitable problems of imperfect information more or less as well as possible. This essay describes conventional grounds for thinking so and offers several criticisms. Taken together, the criticisms imply that justificatory inference from a term's use--even widespread and longstanding use--to its …

Dammed If You Do: Should The Government Be Liable For Hurricane Flooding And Other Natural Disasters?, Lior Jacob Strahilevitz

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

When hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural disasters strike, government officials must make difficult decisions under time pressure and amidst uncertainty over how best to save lives and mitigate the resulting damage to private property. Sometimes landowners who do not second-guess the appropriateness of those decisions made in exigent circumstances nonetheless insist that the government should foot the bill for the resulting destruction. In a 2025 opinion (Ablan) and a 2022 decision (Milton), both involving flooding damage resulting from Hurricane Harvey, the Federal Circuit articulated an expansive vision of government liability under the Takings Clause that can be squared with neither …

The Effects Of Tax Evasion On Inequality, David A. Weisbach, Thomas Coleman

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

To estimate inequality from tax data, researchers must allocate misreported income (e.g., evasion) to individuals. Misreported income, however, is not directly observed. Recovering true income therefore requires identifying assumptions about the joint distribution of true income and reporting, and these assumptions can substantially change estimated top income shares. A central reason is that membership in the reported top group is selected on compliance, an unobservable, so the composition of the reported top depends on assumptions the data alone cannot settle. We develop a computational framework that makes these assumptions explicit and clarifies how they shape estimates of inequality.We show that …

The Effects Of Tax Evasion On Inequality, Thomas S. Coleman, David Weisbach

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

To estimate inequality from tax data, researchers must allocate misreported income (e.g., evasion) to individuals. Misreported income, however, is not di- rectly observed. Recovering true income therefore requires identifying assump- tions about the joint distribution of true income and reporting, and these assump- tions can substantially change estimated top income shares. A central reason is that membership in the reported top group is selected on compliance, an un- observable, so the composition of the reported top depends on assumptions the data alone cannot settle. We develop a computational framework that makes these assumptions explicit and clarifies how they shape estimates …

Standing's Fourth Prong, F. Andrew Hessick

Faculty Publications

This response argues that the Supreme Court’s familiar three-part test for Article III standing fails to capture an important principle underlying the Court’s actual decisions: that the cause of a plaintiff’s injury matters, not merely the existence, traceability, and redressability of that injury. Responding to Ernest A. Young’s proposal, in Uncertain Enforcement and Standing to Sue, 106 B.U. L. Rev. 915 (2026), to broaden standing for pre-enforcement challenges by treating behavioral changes caused by an allegedly unconstitutional law as cognizable injuries, this response agrees that Young’s approach satisfies standing doctrine as formally articulated but doubts that the Supreme Court …

Rethinking The Fund Termination Sanction, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Articles

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is often referred to as the “sleeping giant” of civil rights law. It is a “giant” because it prohibits any form of race discrimination engaged in by any recipient of federal financial assistance, and because the remedy set forth in the statute for a violation is the termination of federal funds. And it is “sleeping” because, except for a brief moment during the desegregation era, the federal government had never seriously attempted to terminate a recipient’s federal grants for a violation of the statute. Nor had the federal government seriously attempted …

Reverse Discrimination And Other Racial Projects, Osamudia James

Faculty Publications

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services abandoned historical context when assessing discrimination allegations, thus clearing remaining obstacles to reverse discrimination lawsuits. Reverse discrimination claims challenge equal protection jurisprudence, presenting whites as victims of racial subordination in claims that can be difficult to adjudicate if historical context is no longer a litmus test. Reverse discrimination claims also function as a white racial project—an attempt to represent and explain white racial identity in ways that redistribute societal resources to reflect a racial hierarchy that still benefits whites. A white racial project, however, is not unique. …

"For Their Benefit": The Lost History Of Parental Consent And Minors' Rights, Naomi Cahn, Maxine Eichner, Mary Ziegler

Faculty Publications

The principle of parental involvement is nonpartisan: Red and blue states agree that parents should generally be involved in the lives of their children. Meanwhile, the goal of children’s well-being—which may sometimes be at odds with parental involvement—has become a touchstone for legal reform efforts across a variety of domains. The embrace of both the goals of children’s well-being and parents’ rights to be involved in decision-making regarding their children conceals deeply contested questions about when, why, and how the law should require parental consent of minors’ decisions.

Drawing on archival material housed at six different universities, we make sense …

People's Upr Written Record, Sarah Dávila A., Lauren E. Bartlett

Faculty White Papers

No abstract provided.

The People, The Branches, And The Pearl Of Independence, Brian C. Murchison

Scholarly Articles

What will be the fate of the independent agencies?  Since 1887, Congress has seen fit to address an array of contemporary issues by creating expert federal agencies, such as the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and others.  The principal officers of these agencies are appointed by the President on advice and consent of the Senate, serve limited staggered terms, are bipartisan in the sense that only a bare majority of the agency’s officers can be members of the same political party, and are “independent” in the sense that the officers are removable only …

Transforming Police Officers To Community Peace Officers: A Scholarly Personal Narrative Addressing The Mental And Moral Conflicts In Community Engagement & Law Enforcement, London S. R. Mcbride

Doctor of Education

This dissertation explores the transformation of police officers into community peace officers by examining the mental and moral conflicts inherent in community engagement and law enforcement. Using scholarly personal narrative (SPN) as my methodology, the study integrates my lived experience as a Black law enforcement officer with broader discussions on race, power, leadership, and institutional culture. Grounded in critical race theory, social justice leadership, and trauma theory, the research investigates how systemic inequities, organizational resistance, and historical trauma influence policing practices and officer identity. The literature review highlights the legacy of racialized policing, the psychological toll of law enforcement work, …

Incarceration As Sexualized Violence, Leigh S. Goodmark

Faculty Scholarship

Sexual violence—rape, sexual assault, strip and body cavity searches, surveillance, and reproductive abuse—is a regular occurrence in women’s prisons. Some of that violence is clearly illegal; some occupies a legally gray middle ground; and some is considered essential to the operation of the prison system. All of it, however, could violate the law if the victims were not incarcerated. Sexual violence is so pervasive within women’s prisons that incarceration can only be understood as a form of sexualized violence. Given the certainty that people incarcerated in women’s prisons will experience some form of sexual abuse, continued incarceration can only be …

50 State Survey On “Harmful To Minors” Laws And Library Exemptions/Defenses, Rebecca A. Mattson, Shay Elbaum, Amanda Mccormick, Dan Sawall, Victoria Tokar, Eric Yap

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Weaponizing Religion Against The Human Emotion Of Empathy: A Call To Fight Coercive Settlement Attempts On The Merits, Jeffrey Dodge

Faculty Scholarship

In March 2023, America First Legal filed a lawsuit against West Shore School District in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. In the complaint, the plaintiffs argued that empathy related instruction from the district’s social emotional learning curriculum violated their parental and religious rights. Nearly every headline about the lawsuit included a quote from a plaintiff parent asserting that “Not every human is deserving of my child’s empathy.” At the time of filing, America First Legal and counsel, Wally Zimolong, argued that students in this school district were illegally being subjected to a radical and invasive curriculum.

School officials denied wrongdoing in receiving …

A Conceptual Map Of The Right To Repair: Where Upcycling Fits In, Anthony D. Rosborough

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The chapter maps contemporary approaches to the Right to Repair along a spectrum from decentralised freedoms to centralised standard setting and product design. Decentralised approaches propose a Right to Repair that resembles a 'negative right' in that it protects user autonomy through dismantling legal and market barriers. Centralised repairability models, on the other hand, align more with a positive right that is built through stringent product design standards, obligations on manufacturers to repair products directly, and situate repair within larger circular economy governance models.

Using the US and EU approaches to Right to Repair policy as illustrative poles, the chapter …

Desperately Seeking Non-Judgmental Supports: Young People’S Perceptions Of Adult Responses To Technology-Facilitated Harms, Alexa Dodge, Kaitlynn Mendes, Christopher Dietzel, Suzie Dunn

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Young people around the world are increasingly impacted by technologyfacilitated harms, yet research shows that teens often do not seek help from adults in their lives to deal with these harms. This article draws data from 25 focus groups with 146 young Canadians (aged 13–18) as they explain why they are reluctant to seek adult help when experiencing technologyfacilitated harms. Young Canadians consistently said that adults speak to them in ways that are judgmental, emotionally reactive, and disempowering. To make them more likely to seek help from adults, young people want adults to avoid scare tactic approaches, listen to their …

The Reception Of International Human Rights Law In Charter Litigation: "Not A Box Of Chocolates" But You Still "Never Know What You're Gonna Get", Karinne Lantz

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article explores the reception of international human rights law(IHRL)in Canada. Focusing on the Charter context, it demonstrates that how IHRL applies in Canada continues to lack clarity despite repeated (and recent) efforts by the Supreme Court of Canada to provide it. This article argues that this lack of clarity is an important matter for the Court to address, particularly as IHRL is increasingly being invoked before courts and other tribunals around the world. It argues that the Court should adopt a methodology that: (i) endorses the “Dickson Doctrine,”according to which the “minimum protection approach”is robustly applied for international human …

Help-Seeking For Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence: Insights From Canadian Young Adults Across Three Forms Of Harm, Jennifer L. Mcarthur, Anita M. Aucoin, Kayla J. Goruk, Julie Blais, Alexa Dodge, Suzie Dunn

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) encompasses a range of harmful digital sexual behaviors, each with unique characteristics and potential impacts on victim-survivors, as well as varying responses from support systems. To address this growing issue, it is necessary to understand the help-seeking behaviors of those affected by the different types of TFSV and the unique barriers they encounter. This study draws on interview (n = 17) and survey (n = 468) data from adults in Canada to compare the help-seeking behaviors and barriers across image-based sexual abuse, image-based sexual harassment, and sexual-, gender-, and sexuality-based harassment. Qualitative findings suggested …

Revisiting Law Society Disciplinary Powers Over The Attorney General: Professional Discipline For Policy Decisions?, Andrew Flavelle Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In this article, I assess whether the law society can, and should, discipline the attorney general for their policy decisions and those of the cabinet. In addition to a parallel to policy immunity in tort law, I also consider other potential restrictions applicable to policy decisions, including the scope of parliamentary privilege—and related concepts—as apparently broadened in more recent decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada.

This article consists of five parts after this introduction. I begin in Part II by revisiting the statutory jurisdiction of the law society and the impact of the rule of law considerations embodied in …

Statutory Immunity Of The Attorney General From Law Society Discipline In Alberta: A Comment In Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, Andrew Flavelle Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In December 2025, Alberta became the second Canadian province to grant its Attorney General statutory immunity from law society discipline. This comment analyzes this amendment to the Legal Profession Act and the rationales and critiques that emerged during the legislative process. It argues that, while some of the critiques were misplaced, the rationales given by the government are problematic in themselves and insufficient to justify the tension between the immunity of the Attorney General to law society discipline and the constitutional principle of the rule of law. In the absence of a more clearly articulated and justified rationale for adopting …