Law Commons^™

The Racial Implications For Black Claimants At The Federal Arbitration Act's Centennial, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

On February 12, 1925, when President Calvin Coolidge signed into law an Act to make arbitration agreements "valid, irrevocable, and enforceable," no person could have expected that this new statute would ever apply to claims by Black litigants. A century later, that law, now referred to as the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), has evolved to encompass disputes involving a broad array of claimants and processes where businesses enforce pre-dispute agreements to arbitrate. In examining whether Black claimants (businesses, consumers, and importantly, workers) may benefit from using arbitration, this Article investigates how the FAA, as enacted, never intended to address their …

Inexcuseable? Building An Artificial Intelligence Microexpert On Contract Excuse Doctrine, Mark Edwin Burge

Faculty Scholarship

This article details and advocates for a general methodology for creating a "microexpert" grounded in a user-defined set of legal sources and widelyaccessible tools for integrating generative artificial intelligence (AI) into legal analysis. The study focuses particularly on background contract excuse doctrines of impossibility, impracticability, and frustration of purpose, which are collectively a methodologically challenging area of law to rationalize due to factintensive variables that undermine their predictability. Particular challenges include assessing the foreseeability of the event that led to the contract's nonperformance, the extent of the hardship or burden on the party seeking excuse, and the purpose of the …

Trust, Transparency, And The Fragile Promise Of Data Governance In The Era Of Modernization, Fallon Julia Cochlin, Regen Weber-Fares, Jami Crespo, William M. Sage, Cason Daniel Schmit

Faculty Scholarship

Public health data modernization in the United States has accelerated since COVID-19 exposed systemic weaknesses in fragmented data infrastructure and governance. Technical solutions have advanced, but legal and relational barriers still complicate data sharing across jurisdictions. Traditionally, interjurisdictional data sharing has relied on individually negotiated Data Use Agreements (DUAs), a process that is both resource-heavy and often opaque. To address this, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have proposed a Core DUA to standardize terms and reduce administrative burden. However, its success depends on trust — a fragile foundation increasingly strained by politicization, perceived lack of transparency, and controversial …

Medical-Legal Partnership As Value-Based Primary Care: Interprofessional Teamwork For Health-Related Social Needs, Jin K. Park, Andrew F. Beck, Keegan D. Warren, William M. Sage

Faculty Scholarship

Today’s primary care physicians are being asked to address patients’ health-related social needs (HRSN) as part of their routine care practices. An aging population, with a growing complement of intersecting medical and social needs, increases this burden on primary care. Medical-legal partnerships (MLP) are interprofessional collaborations that combine clinical and legal expertise to address HRSN involving housing, public benefits, employment, and other domains remediable by civil legal assistance. A value-based approach to integrating MLP into the health system may help primary care practices more effectively address HRSN and, in turn, better balance revenue and expenses. At the practice and healthcare …

Interior Optimal Imprisonment Under Diminishing Marginal Disutility, Tim Friehe, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

This note revisits the important question of how fines and imprisonment should be optimally employed. In D’Antoni et al. (2022), a monotone hazard rate condition implies a corner solution for imprisonment in the observable-wealth benchmark when imprisonment disutility is linear. We show that this result is not robust to offenders facing diminishing marginal disutility of imprisonment. The optimal prison term is interior as long as the marginal disutility associated with large imprisonment terms are low and the harms from the offense are large enough to warrant imprisonment. The sentence length thus becomes a genuine policy margin rather than a boundary …

Cardozo Law Introduces New Course On Theatre Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Archive

Cardozo School of Law introduced Theatre Law, the first law school course devoted entirely to the legal framework of the live stage industry. Taught by Adjunct Professor Ben Feldman, the course explores contracts, intellectual property, labor relations, licensing, financing, and other legal issues unique to theatrical productions, providing students with specialized training in entertainment law.

Towards State Legislative Codification Of The Wpath Soc Guidelines, Suresh Hanubal

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Transgender rights have increasingly come under assault in the United States. As of early 2026, twenty-seven states have passed either bans or restrictions on access to gender-affirming care. The issue has also become a central focus at the federal level. The U.S. Supreme Court decided United States v. Skrmetti, a case concerning the legality of state restrictions on gender-affirming care, in the 2024 – 2025 term. Moreover, the second Trump administration has been clear that rolling back transgender rights, including access to gender-affirming care, is a priority. In this political environment, where access to gender-affirming care in the United States …

Delivering Fairer Tipping Practices, Nyc Department Of Consumer And Worker Protection, Alexandra Burke

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights and Social Justice (ERSJ) Blog

On January 30, 2026, Mayor Mamdani and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (“DCWP”) Commissioner Samuel Levine announced that food delivery app companies Uber Eats, Fantuan, and Hungry Panda owed more than $5 million in worker restitution, civil penalties, and damages to resolve violations of the Minimum Pay Rate for delivery workers. Like New York City, other municipalities across the United States should enact statutory protections for delivery workers, investigate compliance, and enforce penalties to ensure workers' rights and justice.

Mmu: 03/30/26-04/05/26, Student Bar Association

Monday Morning Update

This Week @ NDLS

Mass Times

Commons Daily Menu

Saint of the Week

General Announcements

Temporary By Design: Why International Students Need A Real Pathway To Permanent Residence, Benedetta Palese

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights and Social Justice (ERSJ) Blog

You grow up in a rural town abroad where English is barely taught. You teach yourself the language, travel hours to take standardized tests, and earn admission to a United States university. You stay for law school, believing that talent and persistence will bring stability. Near graduation, the question changes: what happens when the student visa expires, and life beyond campus begins?

The United States should create a meaningful, predictable pathway from F-1 student status to permanent residence. International students are welcomed as students and future workers, yet the law still structures them as temporary visitors. That instability is not …

The Together Lawsuit: What Will Matter After The Motion To Dismiss, Zeyu Liu

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal (AELJ) Blog

On February 20, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denied a motion to dismiss filed by Defendant William Morris Endeavor Entertainment (WME) in a copyright infringement claim brought forth by Plaintiff StudioFest, a production company. It is alleged that WME’s film Together infringed on the screenplay of the movie Better Half, whose copyright is owned by the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff only claimed a screenplay violation and alleged that in 2020, it sent the full script and synopsis to the agents of codefendants Dave Franco and Alison Brie as part of an offer to have them …

Ndls Communicator: Week Of 03.30.26, Notre Dame Law School

NDLS Communicator

The Latest News

• Religious Liberty Clinic files amicus brief urging court to reject government’s efforts to suppress religious expression in the workplace
• Shaping the Next Generation: Notre Dame Law School Faculty Reflect on Teaching, Mentorship, and the Law
• Kelsey Zorzi Discusses High-Stakes Religious Liberty Cases Around the World
• Notre Dame Law School’s All-Women Jessup Team Advances to International Rounds for the First Time in ND Law History
• Notre Dame Law Students Contribute to U.N. Report on Religious Freedom and Honoring the Dead

Student News

• Dennis Wieboldt, a joint J.D./Ph.D. student in history at Notre Dame

Faculty Briefs

• Diane Desierto
• Jimmy …

HawaiʻI’S Housing Crisis: Unpacking The Limits Of S.B. 2919, Carley Matsumoto

Seattle University Law Review Online

The State of Hawaiʻi is facing a housing crisis exacerbated by natural disasters and public health emergencies. Hawaiʻi’s legislature seeks to ameliorate Hawaiʻi’s housing crisis with Senate Bill 2919, which gives all counties in Hawaiʻi the broad power to regulate short-term rentals. While this law was adopted with laudable intentions, it has significant shortcomings and will likely not solve Hawaiʻi’s longstanding housing crisis. This Comment argues for an alternative, tax-based solution to address the housing crisis.

Cardozo Law News Brief: March 27, 2026, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Briefs

Highlights from the March 27, 2026, Cardozo Law News Brief include:

• Professor Rachel Landy was quoted in the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek on a Supreme Court ruling limiting internet providers’ liability for copyright infringement, noting the music industry may need to seek legislative solutions.
• Sarah Chu, Director of Policy & Reform at the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice, spoke to Undark about a new study challenging the reliability of firearms analysis in forensic science.
• Professor Peter Markowitz was quoted in NewsNation on the rise of no-bond ICE detention cases and the growing number of successful legal challenges.
• Professor …

Access To Justice After Medina V Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, Daniel G. Aaron, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

Access to justice is “the ability of all people to seek and obtain effective remedies through accessible, affordable, … and culturally competent institutions of justice.”¹ Historically, patients and physicians have worked together to protect the integrity of medical care as well as patients’ rights by challenging unlawful government actions in court. Yet the US Supreme Court recently issued decisions that may impede access to justice, potentially empowering federal, state, and local governments to interfere with evidence-based care. We explore constraints on access to justice that may arise after Medina v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSA) (606 US 357, 2025), …

Brief Of Former Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul R. Michel And Scholars Of Law And Economics As Amici Curae In Support Of Respondents, In Hikma Pharmaceuticals Usa, Inc. V. Amarin Pharma, Inc., Jess Miers, Emily Michiko Morris, Mark F. Schultz, Kristina M.L. Acri, Bowman Heiden, Joshua Kresh, Honorable Paul Michel, Kristen Jakobsen Osenga, Douglas Park, Ted M. Sichelman

Akron Law Faculty Publications

• Innovation in Identification and Clinical Trials Testing of New Indications Yields Great Public Benefits but Requires the Incentive of Patent Protection.
• Section viii [skinny label statemetnts] was Never Intended to be a Safe Harbor for Infringement of Method of Use Patents.
• Allowing this Case to Proceed Past the Rule 12 Stage will not Deter Section viii Carve-Outs. 

Kodak To Deepfakes: Publicity Rights And Abuse Of Our Likenesses, Michael Goodyear

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Amici Curiae Immigration Law Professors In Support Of Respondent, Peter L. Markowitz, Lindsay Nash

Amicus Briefs

Amicus curiae brief submitted by immigration law professors in support of the respondent in Bondi v. Lau before the Supreme Court of the United States. The brief argues that lawful permanent residents returning from travel abroad may not be treated as seeking admission unless they satisfy the statutory criteria set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act. It further contends that ambiguities in deportation statutes should be resolved in favor of noncitizens under the longstanding immigration rule of lenity.

Am. Civil Liberties Union Vs. Clark Cnty. School Dist., 142 Nev. Adv. Op. 24 (March 26, 2026), Jacob Stephenson

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Information contained in an investigative file is exempt from the NPRA’s general disclosure requirement to the extent that the information is confidential under NRS 289.080.

Government Goes Goop, Jennifer D. Oliva

Emory Law Journal Online

This Article argues that the appointment of prominent wellness and antivaccine figures to senior federal health positions marks the culmination of a long-running evolution in American health fraud—from nineteenth-century traveling medicine shows to the institutional capture of government health agencies. Drawing a direct lineage from patent medicine marketing to contemporary wellness conspiracism, this Article demonstrates how tactics perfected by early medicine show entrepreneurs—emotional manipulation, conspiratorial framing, anti-establishment positioning, and the exploitation of information asymmetries—have persisted across regulatory and technological shifts, ultimately achieving unprecedented political legitimacy.

This Article traces this evolution through the deregulated supplement marketplace created by the Dietary Supplement …

Law School News: Isiah Dipina L'27: From Personal Experience To Policy Change 3-26-2026, Jane Govednik

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Rethinking How The United States And Mexico Share The Colorado River, Eric Kuhn, Anne Castle, Carlos De La Parra, John Fleck, Jack Schmidt, Kathryn Sorensen, Katherine Tara

The Traveling Wilburys of the Colorado River

Since 1945, the United States and Mexico have managed common interests on their two largest shared rivers systems, the Colorado and the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande, under the terms of the 1944 international treaty that was designed from the beginning with tools to adapt to changing hydrologic and societal conditions. A recent emergency agreement on the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande illustrates what is possible, and with old river management rules on the Colorado both within the United States and between the United States and Mexico about to expire, we are at a moment of opportunity for meaningful change. The core problem on …

Cardozo Stands Alone With A+ In Trial Advocacy From Above The Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Archive

Cardozo School of Law received an A+ in Trial Advocacy from Above the Law in its 2026 law school rankings, becoming the only law school in the nation to earn the highest distinction. The recognition highlights Cardozo's Intensive Trial Advocacy Program (ITAP), experiential curriculum, simulation courses, clinics, and competitive advocacy programs that prepare students for courtroom practice.

Brief For Amici Curiae Immigration Law Scholars In Support Of Petitioners-Appellees' Petition For Rehearing En Banc, Lindsay Nash

Amicus Briefs

Amicus curiae brief submitted by immigration law scholars, including Cardozo School of Law Professor Lindsay Nash, in Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi and Covarrubias v. Vergara before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The brief supports rehearing en banc and argues that 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) does not authorize mandatory, no-bond detention of noncitizens apprehended within the interior of the United States. Drawing on statutory text, legislative history, and the historical development of immigration detention, the amici contend that such detention authority has historically been limited to individuals seeking admission at the border.

16th Annual Ballsa Celebration Informational Flyer, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

16th Annual BALLSA Celebration (2026)

Informational flyer for the 16th Annual BALLSA Celebration held on March 23, 2026, at The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The flyer includes event details, location information, QR code registration access, and a description of the annual celebration honoring Maurice Q. Robinson ’09 and recognizing the achievements and contributions of Cardozo’s diverse community.

16th Annual Ballsa Celebration Sponsorship Opportunities, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

16th Annual BALLSA Celebration (2026)

Sponsorship opportunities packet for the 16th Annual BALLSA Celebration held at The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law on March 23, 2026. The document outlines sponsorship levels, scholarship donations, and recognition opportunities supporting the annual celebration honoring the achievements and contributions of Cardozo’s diverse community. The 2026 celebration honored Maurice Q. Robinson ’09.

16th Annual Ballsa Celebration Sponsor Recognition Graphic, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

16th Annual BALLSA Celebration (2026)

Sponsor recognition graphic for the 16th Annual BALLSA Celebration held at The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law on March 23, 2026. The graphic acknowledges sponsors and supporters of the annual celebration honoring the achievements and contributions of Cardozo’s diverse community. Featured sponsors include alumni, law firms, organizations, and community partners supporting the event and its mission.

Mmu: 03/23/26-03/29/26, Student Bar Association

Monday Morning Update

This Week @ NDLS

Mass Times

Commons Daily Menu

Saint of the Week

General Announcements

Understanding “Truth Of The Matter Asserted”, Frank Rosenblatt

Journal Articles

Many people struggle to understand hearsay. It’s not their fault. The hearsay definition is confusing and unhelpful, especially its final phrase: that hearsay is an out-of-court statement1 offered to prove “the truth of the matter asserted” in the statement.2 What does “truth of the matter asserted” mean? The definition’s plain language isn’t much help. This paper shares the basic example that I have found to be most effective in my law school evidence classes to diagnose hearsay.

The Changing Legal Landscape Of Cookie Banner Claims: Is Arbitration The Answer?, Jared Berklee

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution (CJCR) Blog

Website cookie banners have become a ubiquitous part of internet browsing and are often overlooked by the average consumer. When cookies malfunction or a website operator fails to obtain proper user-consent, it creates risk for potential privacy-related litigation regarding misrepresentation of data-collection practices. In several recent class action lawsuits filed in California, plaintiff-users claim to have opted out of non-essential cookies, but malfunctioning cookie banners continued to log user information. Often alleging unauthorized interception of their electronic communications under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) or intrusion upon seclusion, consumers have brought claims against a variety of entities, including …