Housing Law Commons^™

Session 4: Fireside Virtual Chat With Bruce Jackson, Associate General Counsel, Microsoft, Bruce Jackson

SITIE Symposiums

Rhymes all have in common? Besides musical talent, they have all been represented by Bruce Jackson, one of the founding partners of the entertainment law firm, Jackson, Brown, Powell, and St. George. Jackson, a Brooklynite and longtime Microsoft attorney, is a force in the legal industry. Jackson started at Microsoft in the year 2000 as Corporate Counsel for the digital media division. Jackson now serves as Associate General Counsel and Managing Director for Strategic Partnerships out of the Office of the President for Microsoft. Jackson recently published his first book, Never Far From Home: My Journey from Brooklyn to Hip …

Session 3: Diversity Enhancing Intellectual Property, Jordi Goodman, Nina Srejovic

SITIE Symposiums

The field of intellectual property suffers from a lack of diversity. Women are underrepresented as credited inventors in the United States. Additionally, multi-gender inventor groups are underrepresented compared to all-male and, sometimes, even all-female groups. This representation has changed over time, with changes not always reflecting an increase in female representation. This is particularly true when studying gender-disparity as it exists in the field of computer programming and software patents. While women were well represented in computer programming at field’s inception, this changed after World War II because men lobbied to push women out of the field. Women have since …

Session 2: Diversity As Key To Innovation - Stem Education, Richard Tapia

SITIE Symposiums

Richard A. Tapia is a professor at Rice University, where he has taught since 1970. Tapi specializes in optimization theory and numerical analysis. It has been his lifelong work to help underrepresented minorities achieve academic success and success in life.

In this talk, Tapia emphasizes the importance of diversity in STEM fields and highlights the failures of the education system in supporting underrepresented minorities. Tapia opines that more efforts need to be made to bring domestic underrepresented minorities into STEM positions and to recognize the value they bring. Tapia believes that, to address the lack of minority representation in STEM …

Session 1b: Innovation In Legal Contracts And Deals - How Lexion Is Incorporating Ai Into Document Revision, Lexion

SITIE Symposiums

Here, Gaurav Oberoi (CEO and Founder, Lexion) & Jessica Nguyen (Chief Legal Officer, Lexion) discuss Lexion and how it will change the legal industry. Lexion seeks to revolutionize how companies manage the contracts that they use. It has begun to corner a particular market in the rapidly growing field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), helping in-house attorneys to improve their workflow by automatically analyzing documents. By using AI, the program can successfully remove what the CEO of Lexion refers to as “low value” work. This allows overworked in-house attorneys to not only do more work in a faster time frame, but …

Session 1a: Innovation In The Delivery Of Legal Services And Access To Justice, Vikktoria

SITIE Symposiums

In session one, Walid Romaya and Tabrez Ebrahim, co-founders of Vikktoria, discuss their company and its contributions to improving access to justice. With a dual focus on achieving a broader access to justice and in providing matchmaking services for legal professionals looking for a larger client base, Vikktoria aims to disrupt the legal services industry through its mobile app. Based in California, Vikktoria has begun to expand to various metro areas around the country and hopes to provide broader access to justice by giving those with little to no legal knowledge an easy way to find a local attorney, book …

Introduction, Steven Bender

SITIE Symposiums

No abstract provided.

Water Justice: The Ninth Circuit Examines The Fair Housing Act In The Context Of Water Services In Southwest Fair Housing Council Inc. V. Maricopa Domestic Water Improvement District, Zachary J. Thummborst

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Change We Can Believe In: The Seventh Circuit's Exposure Of Inadequate Environmental Review In Protect Our Parks V. Buttigieg, P. Nicholas Greco

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

On The Fence About Immigration And Overpopulation: "Environmentalists" Challenge Dhs Policies On Nepa Basis In Whitewater Draw Natural Resource Conservation District V. Mayorkas, Maya J. Williams

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Prison Housing Policies For Transgender, Non-Binary, Gender-Non-Conforming, And Intersex People: Restorative Ways To Address The Gender Binary In The United States Prison System, John G. Sims

University of Richmond Law Review

“[I]t was the end of the last quarter of 2019 where I was able to drop the lawsuit against the correctional officer who had sexually harmed me when I knew . . . that the carceral state is not the way for me to find healing . . . . I was not going to seek my transformation and restoration through this system.”

Each year, rhetoric and legislation attacking transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming and intersex individuals seemingly grows louder. Many political institutions in the United States perpetuate and enable the oppression of these individuals, one of which is the United …

Going The Extra Mile: Expanding The Promoting Affordable Housing Near Transit Act, Emily R. Casey

University of Richmond Law Review

The Promoting Affordable Housing Near Transit Act (“Act”), introduced in Congress in June 2021 and signed into law six months later, proposes a goal of balancing the disproportionately-high costs of housing and transportation felt by lower-income families by combining these resources in one project: transit-oriented housing developments. Middle-income and wealthy suburbanites have ready access to cities by car, but lower-income urbanites lack access to the suburbs without a private vehicle. While the goal of the Act recognizes this disparate outcome, the Act’s failure to include expansion of mass transit into the suburbs will continue to restrict low-income minorities to urban …

Housing Hipsters: Adapting The Spirit Of Hipster Antitrust To Address Wealth Asymmetries Between Corporate Residential Properties And Cost-Burdened Residents, Beth Brodsky

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Sean Gotcher, a real estate agent for 11 years, went viral on TikTok with a real estate hypothetical.1 Gotcher asked how weird society would be if a billion-dollar company collected data on what people would be willing to pay for housing by zip code and then use that information to buy under the market-rate in order to sell above the market rate.2 He wondered how weird it would be if this company bought 31 homes in a two-mile radius to sell for a profit of $1.2 million within a year.3 Zillow inspired this scenario. 4 After Gotcher’s TikTok video received …

The White Supremacist Structure Ofamerican Zoning Law, Sarah J. Adams-Schoen

Brooklyn Law Review

This article disrupts the false narrative of white supremacism that has, for more than a century, cast American land use law as race neutral. In doing so, this article builds on an important but underdeveloped body of legal scholarship elucidating zoning law’s role in creating and perpetuating a separate and unequal dual housing system. It provides primary historical evidence and a clear narrative demonstrating that the defining feature of American zoning law—a strict residential use taxonomy that privileges neighborhoods of restrictively regulated single-family homes and burdens less restrictively regulated residential areas—emerged directly from the facially race-based and facially neutral, but …

A Theoretical Justification For Treating The Contract For Deed As A Mortgage, Matthew J. Blaney

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Millions of Americans finance their home using the treacherous contract for deed. Denied access to the conventional mortgage, the contract for deed often is the only alternative for Americans seeking the stability of homeownership. Historically, however, this deceptive financing device disrupted the lives of thousands of individuals by forfeiting their property and all payments made on the contract—even where only one installment was overdue. Low-income Americans and immigrant families disproportionately experience the brunt of the contract for deed. Furthermore, as Americans experience rising prices and increasing financial instability, there is reason to fear sellers—equipped with insight into lenders’ former mistakes—could …

Covid-19 And The Rise In Commercial Real Estate Bankruptcies: The Path To Reach The Goals Of Bankruptcy Code §365(D)(3), Jefferey Kirwin

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This article will explore and explain the two approaches circuit courts use when § 365(d)(3) of the Bankruptcy Code is at issue and will analyze the best approach in the context of COVID-related increase in commercial tenants’ bankruptcy claims. Specifically, this article will analyze how each approach affects the parties by explaining which party is protected at the different stages, and will explain what and when a tenant must pay a landlord. This article will then describe options each party could pursue at different stages in the bankruptcy and outline how each option affects the payment to the landlord. Lastly, …

Fight For Housing, Gema Hernandez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) is a law firm chain that resides in 22 counties here in California. Focusing on the issues of housing, education, transportation, workers’ rights, and benefits. Monterey County is facing a housing crisis resulting in residents being displaced. The project implemented to address this issue is an outreach presentation program. To advise students of fundamental tenancy rights in California. Using this method, the hope is that they can advocate for themselves and avoid exploitation in the future. The students and mentors from CRLA created the outreach program. Some recommendations to aid the housing crisis are to …

Zoning By A Thousand Cuts, Sara C. Bronin

Pepperdine Law Review

Zoning is increasingly viewed as a constraint on the nation’s housing supply, and as zoning enters its second century, there is a strong drumbeat for reform. Across the country, reformers have targeted the elimination of single-family zoning, pointing to research showing that single-family zoning drives up development costs, degrades the environment, and homogenizes communities. While allowing more multi-family options could help address these issues, reformers should not exclusively focus on the elimination of single-family zoning. Process requirements including mandatory public hearings, and substantive requirements involving lot configuration, building size, and occupancy, among other things, play a significant role in determining …

Rescaling City Property, Amnon Lehavi

Arkansas Law Review

This Article seeks to identify the growing tension between the contemporary physical and digital reality of cities across the world and the formal, often archaic, body of norms that governs city powers and duties vis-à-vis different types of persons and corporations: locals, non-local residents of the same nation-state, and foreigners. The nation-state’s continuing dominance, both in the domestic division of power across various legal systems and in the international arena, often results in a systemic mismatch.

Playing Monopoly With The Neighborhood: Impact Of Series Limited Liability Companies On Nuisance Abatement Actions And Housing Code Enforcement, Lauren Williams

Cleveland State Law Review

The City of Cleveland has been one of the most active cities in combating the negative effects of the 2008 financial crisis, utilizing nuisance abatement actions in combination with municipal programs aimed at assisting homeowners and renters. However, the Ohio Revised Limited Liability Company Act ("ORLLCA"), passed in 2021, may reverse the progress made in cities like Cleveland by enabling real estate investors to conceal assets in several series under the same limited liability company, resulting in rising vacancy rates and unstable communities. This will negatively impact the effectiveness of nuisance abatement actions and traditional housing code enforcement in curbing …

The Power Of State Legislatures To Invalidate Private Deed Restrictions: Is It An Unconstitutional Taking?, Ken Stahl

Pepperdine Law Review

Over the past several years, state legislatures confronting a severe housing shortage have increasingly preempted local land use regulations that restrict housing supply in an effort to facilitate more housing production. But even where state legislatures have been successful, they now confront another problem: many of the preempted land use regulations are duplicated at the neighborhood or block level through private “covenants, conditions and restrictions” (CCRs) enforced by homeowners associations (HOAs). In response, California’s legislature has begun aggressively invalidating or “overriding” these CCRs. While many states have barred HOAs from prohibiting pets, clotheslines, signs, and flags, California has moved much …

Measuring Local Policy To Advance Fair Housing And Climate Goals Through A Comprehensive Assessment Of Land Use Entitlements, Moira O'Neill, Eric Biber, Nicholas J. Marantz

Pepperdine Law Review

California’s legislature has passed several laws that intervene in local land-use regulation in order to increase desperately needed housing production—particularly affordable housing production. Some of these new laws expand local reporting requirements concerning zoning and planning laws, and the application of those laws apply to proposed housing development. This emphasis on measurement requires the state to develop a housing data strategy to support both enforcement of existing law and effective policymaking in the future. Our Comprehensive Assessment of Land Use Entitlements Study (CALES) predates, but aligns with and supports, this state-led effort to improve local reporting. For the cities that …

Growth ≠ Density: Zoning Deregulation And The Enduring Problem Of Sprawl, Christopher Serkin, Kelsea Best

Pepperdine Law Review

According to its many critics, zoning bears significant responsibility for the housing crisis in America and for promoting unsustainable development patterns. Reformers argue that zoning reduces the supply of new housing and therefore drives up prices in thriving communities. Zoning also increases carbon emissions by restricting density in the urban core and promoting carbon-intensive, land-consuming, automobile-dependent sprawl in single-family suburbs. A growing chorus calls for relaxing zoning limits in order to promote growth in the urban core as a response to the twin crises of housing costs and climate change. Relaxing zoning limits will almost certainly promote growth but may …

Palestinian Women And Housing Laws In Israel: A Case Study Of Legal And Epistemic Injustice, Yael Cohen-Rimer

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

This Article is built on a legal metaphor. In criminal law, we discuss whether an actor has the mens rea for a crime. I argue in this paper that judicial review of cases related to rights infringements involve a similar inquiry. In applying discrimination laws, courts actually, though sometimes not explicitly, search for anything between intent and awareness. In administrative law, courts search for indications of the negligence of the administrator. I use the test case of Palestinian women and Israeli housing aid rules to show where these legal practices fall short in treating the core problem. I analyze this …

Gender Registration And International Law: Are Gender Markers Necessary?, Mika D'Angelo

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note critically examines the necessity and implications of gender markers on identification documents under international law, arguing that current practices disproportionately burden transgender and gender-diverse individuals. It contends that the registration of gender often fails to align with international human rights standards, perpetuating discrimination and administrative violence. The analysis advocates for a reevaluation of gender registration to ensure it respects self-determination and privacy rights while addressing practical concerns.

Robert X House Collection, Dan Bonenberger, Brooke Boyst, Franklin Haywood, Carrie Malas, Jaclyn Panter, Ian Tomashik, Laura Waskiwicz, Taylor Williams, Austin Martin

Digital Heritage Preservation Collection

This collection examines the Robert X House at 18827 Keystone Street in Detroit, Michigan, a significant site in the history of the Nation of Islam and the broader narrative of Black empowerment and civil rights in mid-20th century America. Originally built in 1951 as a modest Federal Housing Administration (FHA) minimum ranch-style home, the property was purchased by Robert Davenport (later known as Robert X), an influential leader in the Nation of Islam. The house became a hub for religious instruction, community-building, and activism.

Robert X, a former boxer and musician, became a prominent figure in Detroit’s Nation of Islam …

Expanding The Right To Counsel In Eviction Cases: Arguments For And Limitations Of "Civil Gideon" Laws In A Post-Covid 19 World, Jennifer S. Prusak

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

With the cost of housing rising nationwide and incomes largely failing to keep pace with this increase, the United States is in the midst of interrelated affordable housing and eviction crises. The housing affordability metric that has long been the bedrock of American housing policy is that households should spend no more than thirty percent of their income on housing. This is no longer an attainable goal for many Americans. By 2017, forty-eight percent of renter households were “rent burdened”—they paid more than thirty percent of their income in rent. Over a quarter of American renters, or 11 million …

Patching The Patchwork: Moving The Civil Right To Counsel Forward With Key Data, Maria Roumiantseva

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

While the pandemic has exposed many long-standing realities about the United States, the destructive everyday crisis of eviction is top of mind as moratoria have now expired and rental assistance funds dissipate with no anticipated replenishment. Therefore, though this piece addresses legal representation in civil legal proceedings more broadly, we will start with an eviction story.

It can be taken as fact that not too far from where you are reading this piece, a tenant is facing an eviction unrepresented. She cannot afford a private attorney. She is income eligible for legal aid, but the office near her home …

Homeless Residency Restrictions, Ben A. Mcjunkin

West Virginia Law Review

Last year, the West Virginia House of Delegates introduced a radical proposal for responding to homelessness within the state: privately enforceable residency restrictions. As introduced, the restrictions prohibited homeless individuals from sheltering themselves, from being sheltered by others, or from receiving food or care within 1,500 feet of a school or childcare center. This prohibition was to operate statewide, transforming an issue that historically has been considered hyper-local into a subject of state concern. Moreover, the proposed bill established a private right of action for enforcement, legislating around the possibility of recalcitrant municipal governments declining to abide by the residency …

Blockchain Real Estate And Nfts, Juliet M. Moringiello, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

Non-fungible tokens (popularly known as NFTs) and blockchains are frequently promoted as the solution to a multitude of property ownership problems. The promise of an immutable blockchain is often touted as a mechanism to resolve disputes over intangible rights, notably intellectual property rights, and even to facilitate quicker and easier real estate transactions.

In this Symposium Article, we question the use of distributed ledger technologies as a method of facilitating and verifying the transfer of physical assets. As our example of an existing transfer method, we use real property law, which is characterized by centuries-old common law rules regarding fractionalized …

Navigating The Covid-19 Eviction Crisis: The Cdc's Emergency Eviction Moratorium And Judicial Deference, Deepika Chandrashekar

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated America’s pre-pandemic affordable housing crisis and millions of renters have paid the price. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a nationwide eviction moratorium in September of 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While the moratorium was originally intended to be temporary, the CDC under the Biden administration was forced to extend the moratorium in August of 2021 due to a lack of congressional action. The CDC is empowered by the Public Health Service Act to take actions necessary to prevent the spread of communicable diseases, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic constitutes …