Law Commons^™

Courting Bias: Effects Of Gender Socialization And Judges' Genders On Litigants And The Judiciary, Ellie Barmes

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

The Failings Of Post-War Japanese Antitrust Reforms, Gregory Hayes

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

This paper discusses the antitrust reform measures taken during the occupation of Japan following the end of World War II. These antitrust reforms included the dissolution of the zaibatsu business groups and the adoption of the Antimonopoly Act. However, the trust-busting and antitrust measures taken by Japan failed to prevent the eventual rise of keiretsu business groups and lower the concentration of corporate ownership in Japan. The primary reasons behind this failure were the inability of the reformers to fully dismantle the zaibatsu business groups and the changing priorities of the reformers due to the growing threat of the spread …

Public International Air Lawfare: China’S Use And Abuse Of The Skies., Major Emily K. Johnson

American University National Security Law Brief

Following World War II, China entered a years-long period of civil war between the Kuomintang government, which was then in power as the government of the Republic of China, and the Chinese Communist Party. After years of conflict, the Kuomintang was forced to retreat to the island of Taiwan in 1949, effectively and reluctantly ceding the Chinese mainland to the Chinese Communist Party. Despite its best efforts, the Kuomintang never regained control of mainland China in the ensuing years; however, it never dissolved and instead remained in place on Taiwan.

As a result, Taiwan, which lies a mere 80-100 miles …

Legal Practice Practicums: Making A Case For Change: A Way Forward, John O. Sonsteng, Michael Sonsteng, Kenneth Rubenzer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Oh Mother, Where Art Thou Paycheck?: Answering The Mommy Blogger Dilemma With Increased Privacy And Financial Protections For Minors, Sarah M. Parker

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This paper provides an overview of the current child entertainment laws and highlights the need for increased protection of minors working on social media, ultimately arguing for the adoption of a nationwide Coogan Law modeled after Illinois' law and the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. The paper provides a sample Uniform Coogan Code that jurisdictions could adopt to implement such protections for minors online, including provisions covering required savings, financial access by parents, and the right to be forgotten.

The Literary Arsenal In Fahrenheit 451: The Second Amendment Case Against Censorship, Kristen M. Boguslawski

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This paper argues that First Amendment challenges alone are not enough to address the rise of book bans in the United States. As restrictions increasingly limit access to works by minority and LGBTQ plus authors, new constitutional approaches are needed. Using the Law and Literature framework and Fahrenheit 451, the paper proposes applying Second Amendment principles to literature.

It contends that books function as powerful tools that shape thought and protect individuals from harmful ideas and government control. Like firearms, they support self defense, guard against government overreach, and provide personal value. By drawing this comparison, the paper shows that …

Scrutinizing Sex, Jessica A. Clarke

University of Chicago Law Review

Critics of the Supreme Court’s equal protection jurisprudence despair that the Court conceives of discrimination as the mere classification of individuals on for- bidden grounds, such as race and sex, rather than systemic patterns of subordination. On the Court’s anticlassification theory, affirmative action, which relies on overt racial or gender classifications, is generally forbidden. Anticlassification rules are insensitive to context: a classification is a classification, no matter how well intentioned it might be, no matter what effects it might have, and no matter if it treats members of various groups in ways that are substantively equal. Whether a classification might …

Shedding Light On Secret Settlements: An Empirical Study Of California’S Stand Act, David Freeman Engstrom, Nora Freeman Engstrom, Jonah B. Gelbach, Austin Peters, Garrett M. Wen

University of Chicago Law Review

Catalyzed by the #MeToo movement, states have adopted a spate of laws restricting secret settlements—controversial contracts that shield misconduct from public scrutiny. In 2018, California led the charge with the Stand Together Against Non-Disclosure (STAND) Act, which targets secrecy in the resolution of sex discrimination, harassment, and abuse cases. In the intervening years, more than a dozen states followed suit with restrictions of their own.

Reigniting a decades-old debate, transparency advocates hail these reforms as a major win for victims. They celebrate STAND and its legislative progeny as a way to promote accountability, facilitate accuracy in case adjudication, and publicize …

Reestablishing Religion, Richard C. Schragger, Micah Schwartzman, Nelson Tebbe

University of Chicago Law Review

In the last few years, the Supreme Court has upended its doctrine of religious freedom under the First Amendment. The Court has explicitly rejected separationism, which limited government support of religion, and it has adopted interpretations of disestablishment and free exercise that provide special solicitude for religion. Now, the government must treat religion equally with respect to providing public benefits. But it must also grant special exemptions from regulations that burden religion. This pattern of equal treatment for benefits and special exemptions from burdens yields a doctrinal structure that gives preference to religion. We refer to this regime as structural …

Bankruptcy’S Turn To Market Value, Mark J. Roe, Michael Simkovic

University of Chicago Law Review

Chapter 11 was widely viewed as a failure in the first decade of the Bankruptcy Code’s operation, the 1980s. Large firms were mired in bankruptcy for years; the process was seen as expensive, inaccurate, and subject to abuse. While basic bankruptcy still has its critics and few would say it works perfectly, the contrast with bankruptcy today is stark: bankruptcies that took years in the 1980s take months in the 2020s.

Multiple changes explain bankruptcy’s success—creditor learning, statutory reform, better judging and lawyering, new techniques, fuller integration of the improved mechanisms that the 1978 Code added—and we do not challenge …

Contents, North Carolina Law Review

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Freedom To Extract In Copyright Law, Molly Shaffer Van Houweling

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Visitation As Family Regulation, Laura Matthews-Jolly

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Font Of Knowledge: Readability And Accessibility Challenges Caused By Typeface Requirements In North Carolina Appellate Courts, Andrew Parco

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dead In The Water: A Critique Of The Fourth Circuit’S Major Questions Analysis In North Carolina Coastal Fisheries Reform Group V. Capt. Gaston Llc, Dylan T. Silver

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial Note, Aastha Malipatil, Kedar M Ammanji

Indian Journal of International Economic Law

No abstract provided.

Too Late To Deny? An Empirical Analysis Of The Retrospective Invocation Of Denial Of Benefits Clauses, Prem Vinod Parwani

Indian Journal of International Economic Law

As States increasingly seek to prevent opportunistic investors from treaty shopping, Denial of Benefits (‘DoB’) clauses have taken centre-stage in international investment law. However, there has been a long divide on a seemingly straightforward procedural issue: should States be allowed to invoke these provisions after the dispute has arisen? That is, can States invoke them retrospectively? This debate has reached the forefront of reform, with the UNCITRAL Working Group III debating whether a uniform approach should govern the timing and procedure for the invocation of DoB clauses.

Broadly, treaty practice reflects two different paradigms of DoB clauses — one that …

Shooting For The Stars: The Place Of International Economic Law In The International Legal Order, Valentina Vadi

Indian Journal of International Economic Law

In the universe of international law, the galaxy of international economic law (IEL) consists of various legal instruments, institutions, and experts that – like stars, planets, and vast clouds of dust – are all bound together by gravity. Like cosmonauts, international economic courts ‘must look for reliable reference points in the known legal cosmology.’2 This article aims to contextualise the galaxy of international economic law within the universe of international law, discuss its role within the same, and identify some reference points that can help adjudicators navigate by the stars.

Self-Regulation In Emerging And Innovative Industries, Daniel E. Walters, Hannah J. Wiseman

Faculty Scholarship

Self-regulation—governance of firm behavior by private entities—has a long history both in the United States and globally, and there is an extensive literature on the topic. But there has been far less attention paid to the role self-regulation can play in spurring and enabling innovation and growth within emerging industries. These industries—both currently ascendant ones such as hydrogen and artificial intelligence, as well as formerly new (but now well established) activities in hydraulic fracturing and Internet communications—plausibly benefit from self-regulation’s ability to coordinate economic actors and reassure often skeptical publics. Examining the ways that self-regulation impacts this special type of …

Addressing Perceived Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Attorney Discipline, Susan Saab Fortney, Heather Zirke

Faculty Scholarship

Perceived racial and ethnic disparities in attorney discipline threaten public confidence in the legal profession’s fairness and equity. This Article explores whether lawyers of color are subject to a disproportionate number of disciplinary actions. It draws on studies that reveal patterns of disparate outcomes tied to factors such as practice setting, representation during proceedings, and decision-maker bias. The authors assess how systemic issues may contribute to these disparities and highlights gaps in research and transparency. To address these challenges, the Article recommends a multi-faceted approach. This includes better collection and analysis of demographic data, procedural reforms to ensure equitable treatment, …

Original Discontent, William Magnuson

Faculty Scholarship

There are many theories of constitutional interpretation. Most, but not all, of them assert that, in interpreting the Constitution’s provisions, we should start by taking seriously the intentions of the enactors, meaning, roughly speaking, its drafters, defenders and ratifiers. This Article argues that, in doing so, judges, scholars and policymakers have underestimated an important feature of the process of constitution-making: the discontent of the enactors themselves with the Constitution they were enacting. Time and again, during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, during the penning of the Federalist Papers, and during the state ratifying conventions, the enactors expressed deep reservations about …

Rulemaking Petitions In A World Without Deference To Agencies: A New Lease On Life?, Daniel E. Walters

Faculty Scholarship

Often overlooked in the study and practice of administrative law, rulemaking petitions are means by which interested persons can prompt federal agencies to implement the statutes they administer in particular ways. After the Supreme Court’s 2024 decisions in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 144 S. Ct. 2244 (2024), and Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency, 144 S. Ct. 2040 (2024), rulemaking petitions are about to experience a renaissance—one that could reshape environmental law, should environmental advocates choose to leverage the procedure.

The Globalization Of Copyright Exceptions For Ai Training, Matthew Sag, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

Generative AI, machine learning and other computational uses of copyrighted works pose profound questions for copyright law. This article conducts of global survey of how different countries have attempted to answer these questions in relation to the unauthorized use of copyrighted works for training. Although the world has yet to achieve international consensus on this issue, an international equilibrium is emerging. Jurisdictions with common law and civil law traditions, and with varying economic conditions, technological capabilities, political systems, and cultural backgrounds, have found ways to reconcile copyright law and AI training. In this equilibrium, countries recognize that text data mining, …

The Great Unsettling: Administrative Governance After Loper Bright, Cary Coglianese, Daniel E. Walters

Faculty Scholarship

“Chevron is overruled.” These three words surely captured more attention than any others in the U.S. Supreme Court’s thirty-five-page opinion in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. For forty years, the Chevron doctrine had been virtually synonymous with administrative law. Now that the Court has taken a step that many scholars thought unfathomable even just a few years ago, speculation abounds about the possible downstream impacts of Loper Bright on both what agencies will be able to do in the future and how lower courts will respond when reviewing agency action. The vast majority of early expert commentaries suggest …

Moral Politics Theory Applied To Abortion: Utopias, Dystopias, And Dobbs, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines Moral Politics Theory (MPT) as a way to understand current tensions in the US concerning reproductive justice. MPT, as developed and researched for over thirty years by cognitive scientist, George Lakoff, provides a way to explain differences in political worldviews. According to Lakoff’s research in Moral Politics and Don’t Think of an Elephant!, conservatives tend to hold a strict-father model, and progressives hold a nurturant-parent model. People in the political middle tend to endorse both models; Lakoff labels those in the middle as “biconceptuals,” and discusses how this group is most susceptible to persuasion because metaphors frame …

Law, Conflict, And Hybrid Warfare: A Teaching Imperative For A Changing World, Cynthia Alkon, Andrea Kupfer Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

Lawyers increasingly find themselves at the frontlines of the battlefield, just not in the traditional sense. Hybrid warfare is a conflict form that combines traditional military offensive measures with nontraditional methods, including the harnessing of legal systems to achieve strategic goals. Lawyers have always been at the frontline of typical legal risk assessment, thinking about a client's risk of liability or regulation costs generally. Now, lawyers must stand at the ready for a lot more: lawyers must be prepared for cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns using artificial intelligence, the use of court systems to suppress reporting or shield bad actors, and so …

The United States Healthcare System: From Medicare To Post-Pandemic Health Policy, William M. Sage

Faculty Scholarship

My purpose in this essay is to comment on national health policy in the United States over the past sixty years.  My conclusions are less optimistic than what I had hoped when I began my teaching and research career in the 1990s to be able to say in 2025.  In particular, the successful expansion of publicly supported health coverage via the passage of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA” or “Obamacare”) in 2010 seems to have triggered -- though I hesitate to say that it caused – a backsliding from broader commitments to clinical performance, population health, and social solidarity that …

"Arbitration In Name Only": A Race Claims Mismatch, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

With arbitration's meteoric rise as a tool in resolving statutory employment discrimination matters beginning in the 1990s, concerns about lack of employee bargaining power received little consideration when raised in court challenges to the enforcement of employer-mandated agreements to arbitrate those claims. Only in rare circumstances, when an employer appeared to go to extremes in using its overwhelming bargaining power to implement an arbitration process so clearly unfair would a court find the agreement created an unfair "arbitration in name only" that should not be enforced. 

Employers have become savvier in how they require employees to agree to resolve discrimination …

Criminal Background Checks: Implications For Discrimination And Crime, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

Criminal background checks have recently attracted the attention of academics and policy makers alike. Recent laws and policies, like “ban the box” and expungements, focus on the availability of criminal background information as well as the permissibility of using this type of information. Quite surprisingly, policies about the content of the information –whose permissibility and availability are questioned by recent work– is not scrutinized as much.

In this article, I investigate the informational quality of existing background checks. For this purpose, I review the history and evolution of traditional criminal background checks. These checks rely on ‘rap sheets’ –documents containing …

Determinants Of Socially Responsible Ai Governance, Daryl Lim

Faculty Scholarship

The signing of the first international AI treaty by the United States, European Union, and other nations marks a pivotal step in establishing a global framework for AI governance, ensuring that AI systems respect human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. This article advances the concepts of justice, equity, and the rule of law as yardsticks of socially responsible AI—from development through deployment—to ensure that AI technologies do not exacerbate existing inequalities but actively promote fairness and inclusivity. Part I explores AI’s potential to improve access to justice for marginalized communities and small and medium-sized law firms while scrutinizing …