Judges Commons^™

2025, Richard Delgado

Seattle University Law Review

"In a cutting and provocative social critique in one of the more extended Rodrigo Chronicles, Richard Delgado in 2025 employs skillful narrative—one of CRT’s many contributions to legal scholarship —to tell a gripping story of just how far the nation has descended into darkness with President Trump’s re-election. In Delgado’s vision, law professors—along with other political opponents of the President: immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women, the underserved—have targets on their backs."

-excerpt from Kevin Johnson's review of 2025

The Preventative Care Gap: Completing The Aca’S Vision For Health, Abby Nagaich

Seattle University Law Review

This Note examines the preventive care mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the legal, political, and practical challenges that threaten its effectiveness. While the ACA significantly expanded access to no-cost preventive services, gaps remain—particularly in behavioral health, obesity management, and equitable service delivery. Ongoing litigation, potential administrative rollbacks, and shifting political leadership further destabilize this critical component of public health policy.

This Note argues that for the ACA to fulfill its original promise—and for any health framework to succeed—preventive care must be redefined as a comprehensive, early intervention approach grounded in both systemic access and patient education. It …

Against The Single-Subject Rule For The Citizen Initiative, Jonathan L. Marshfield

UF Law Faculty Publications

The citizen initiative allows voters to bypass state legislatures and propose laws for a statewide referendum. It exists in twenty-four states but has national significance because initiatives drive reform on contested issues. Recently, courts have begun to clamp down on the initiative. One significant trend is the strict enforcement of the single-subject rule to strike initiatives when they are considered too broad. Although courts are notoriously inconsistent with the rule, they assert two reasons for aggressive enforcement. First, they claim the rule’s historic purpose is to prevent any form of “logrolling”—including any imaginable aggregation of public-regarding voting blocs. Second, courts …

Court-Stripping, Court-Packing, And Court Defying: Revisiting The Supreme Court’S Essential Functions, Curtis A. Bradley, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

The "essential functions thesis" is one of the most famous structural arguments in the field of federal courts. The thesis, which has been endorsed by a number of prominent scholars and the executive branch, posits that there are implicit, structural limits on Congress's authority to "strip" the Supreme Court of its appellate jurisdiction. Court-stripping, the thesis contends, is not allowed if it would undermine the essential functions of the Court-in particular, maintaining the supremacy and uniformity of federal law. In this Article, we revisit that thesis with three goals in mind. First, we aim to show that the structural arguments …

Law School News: Rwu Names Richard "Dick" Sullivan '79 And Judge Lara E. Montecalvo As 2026 Honorary Degree Recipients 4-16-2026, Kelly Brinza

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Plight Of Workers: Alj Independence In Arkansas Workers’ Compensation, P. Brock Hatfield

Indiana Law Journal

“Unfortunately, many of the changes made by this act were necessary because administrative law judges, the Workers’ Compensation Commission, and the Arkansas courts have continually broadened the scope and eroded the purpose of the workers’ compensation statutes of this state. . . . In the future, if [changes must be made to Arkansas workers’ compensation law], those things shall be addressed by the General Assembly and should not be done by administrative law judges, the Workers’ Compensation Commission, or the courts.”¹It would be hard to imagine a blunter statement of purpose to undermine the independence of administrative law …

The Revival Of Section 5: A Return To The Ftc’S Roots In A Time Of Democratic Crisis, Shaoul Sussman

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law School News: From Textbooks To Truth: A Civil Rights Journey 3-23-2026, Naomi Zhang

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Multi-Hatted Court: Community Courts As Boundary Organizations, Peter Dixon, Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg

Northwestern University Law Review

As a variety of the problem-solving court model, community courts have received significant scrutiny and debate. Do they help individuals by addressing the underlying needs that contribute to criminal behavior? Do they extend an unjust criminal legal system by making help conditional upon judicial involvement? This Article moves beyond such debates to ask how community court professionals and the communities who engage with them manage these and other tensions that are inherent to the model itself. As the second in a series of articles drawing on semi-structured interviews and focus groups with diverse stakeholders at the Red Hook Community Justice …

The Vanishing Enforcer: Consumer Protection In An Era Of Dual Retrenchment, Alisher Juzgenbayev

Northwestern University Law Review

Recent developments, including reductions in the federal workforce, effective suspension of certain enforcement activities, and attempted centralization of independent agency rulemaking in the White House, have significantly weakened administrative agencies. This administrative retrenchment is concerning as private enforcement of a number of consumer protection statutes has been simultaneously curtailed through the Supreme Court’s decisions in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins and TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, which dramatically narrowed plaintiffs’ standing. These decisions rely in part on a vision of strong executive authority, positing that broad private standing conflicts with an Article II framework where a politically accountable President faithfully implements laws …

A Giving Tree Approach: Balancing Transparency And The Deliberative Process In Judicial Review, Anteo W. Chevere

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

2026 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Contest Winners Announced At Rwu Law Women In Law Leadership Lecture 3-4-2026, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Winging It: Convergence, Convivencia, And Belonging Of Latina Lawyers, Verónica C. Gonzales

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

2026 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Essay/Art Contest, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Outbound Investment Restrictions And International Law’S Challenge, Harlan Grant Cohen

Seattle University Law Review

The Outbound Investment Rule, restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors, has largely been portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the …

Resilient Dispute Resolution Systems For International Energy Conflicts, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Seattle University Law Review

Energy-related conflicts are on the rise, spanning diverse issues such as the impacts of rare mineral mining on local communities, the impacts of sanctions on energy investments due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and the impacts of expanded subsidies on the electric vehicle and solar panel industries. Increasingly, companies, communities, and governments are clashing over the challenges of pursuing disparate and sometimes competing energy policies. This Article argues that dispute resolution mechanisms in the energy investment sector must be fundamentally rethought. Traditional semi-adjudicatory models, which focus on winners and losers, fail to accommodate the complex and multifaceted nature of contemporary energy …

Restricting Data Flows Is A Sign Of Weakness, Nikolas Guggenberger

Seattle University Law Review

There has been a seismic shift in American attitudes toward the free flow of data across borders.  In less than a decade, the United States has transitioned from condemning barriers to digital trade to constructing a digital fortress of its own. It passed legislation requiring TikTok’s parent company to divest its U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban affecting 170 million U.S. users, citing national security concerns about its ties to China and the potential for data surveillance and content manipulation. Upon legal challenge by TikTok on First Amendment grounds, the Supreme Court affirmed the ban’s constitutionality. Recent federal legislation …

Product Nationality And Corporate Identity, Trang (Mae) Nguyen

Seattle University Law Review

Global supply chains have long depended on a deceptively technical device: the attribution of a “nationality” to goods. A trade law principle, rules of origin assign products an “economic passport” that governs how they are treated at the border, including what markets they may enter and which tariff rates apply. In recent years, however, product nationality has taken on a new and far more ambitious role. As U.S. trade policy increasingly intersects with national security and human rights policy, policymakers rely on nationality-based measures to police supply chain linkages, curb geopolitical issues, and discipline firms for their links to forced …

Global Supply Chain Resilience In Emerging Technologies: A Case Study Of Bitcoin Mining, Kishanthi Parella, Carla L. Reyes

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has put into motion bold plans in critical and emerging technologies to bolster its national and economic security.  For example, the federal government created a national bitcoin strategic reserve and a stockpile of other cryptocurrency; while several states have committed to or are considering similar goals.  However, the security of these reserves is dependent on two types of supply chains within the Bitcoin mining industry: analogue supply chains, relating to the physical components needed for Bitcoin mining, and data supply chains, relating to the complex and layered logistical network of actors that create input into the software …

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Approaches To Shaping International Outer Space Law And Norms, Ariel G. Silverman

Seattle University Law Review

This article explores convergences and divergencies in the United States and PRC’s responses to the stalemate in the United Nations over the future of outer space resource governance. I do so by systematically analyzing these leading space-faring nations’ policy-positions and tactics deployed to shape norms around three substantive areas of outer space resource governance: rights of ownership and scope of utilization of space resources, mechanization of the “benefits sharing” principle, and the rights and responsibilities of the private sector. I theorize that these leading space-faring nations have adopted divergent approaches due to their differing historical relationships with international law and …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Third-Party Funding: Balancing Transparency, National Security, And Access To Justice, Victoria Shannon Sahani

Seattle University Law Review

Many lawmakers who have recently become aware of the multi-billion-dollar global third-party funding industry are raising new national security concerns that further complicate preexisting, longstanding debates about transparency, disclosure, access to justice, and the best way to regulate third-party funding. In response, this Article briefly asserts three main points relating to the question of how best to regulate third-party funding. First, this Article explains the third-party funding industry, including its global regulatory landscape and how it serves three distinct populations: consumers, businesses, and law firms. Second, this Article explains that third-party funding is one tool that can help expand access …

The Field Of International Business Transactions Law, Kathleen Claussen

Seattle University Law Review

This Article studies the evolution of the scholarly subfield referred to as the law of “international business transactions” (IBT). It reviews data on academic articles, courses, textbooks and other signifiers of the growth of this research area. Beginning around 1960, scholars began to use the term “international business transactions” and by the 1980s, several law schools were offering a course by that title. A handful of dedicated textbooks soon followed. These data reflect a gradual increase in research on the topic of IBT, particularly in the United States, but also considerable diversity of subject matters covered by those works. The …

Kim Gyeong-Seok And The Origins Of Northeast Asia’S Corporate Accountability Movement For War And Colonialism, Timothy Webster

Seattle University Law Review

For the past three decades, a transnational reparations movement has unfolded across Northeast Asia. Hundreds of victims—assisted by attorneys, academics, and activists—seek remedies from Japan for various atrocities committed during World War II, colonialism, and other historical injustices.  They press their claims in street protests, legislative hearings, dramatic performances, and other fora.  The “comfort women” are the best known of these claimants; their global redress campaign ex-tends from noisy protests outside of Japan’s embassy in Seoul, to mute statues in raucous boroughs of Berlin.  More obscure, though larger in number, were the roughly one million Koreans who performed forced labor …

Navigating Compliance In A Geopolitical Era: The Case Of Chinese Multinationals In The United States, Ji Li

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines how Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) approach compliance in the United States amid deepening geo-political rivalry and intensified regulatory scrutiny. Drawing on original survey data, this Article maps variations in compliance structures, staffing, and governance mechanisms across Chinese firms and identifies key determinants such as industry-specific regulatory intensity, listing status, and organizational imprinting from headquarters. The analysis employs a dual institutional framework to explain how compliance systems emerge from the interplay between host-state regulatory demands and home-state institutional legacies, producing hybrid structures that blend local adaptation with headquarters-driven replication. Findings reveal that while certain compliance features—such as committee …

Law And The (Re)Production Of Class Hierarchies In Egypt, Ahmad Abdelnaby

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how Egypt’s legal system, structurally tilted toward the elite and constitutive of inequality, has interacted with the country’s entrenched culture of class-based discrimination to produce a legal culture uniquely comfortable with hierarchy. It contends that class-based discrimination in Egypt has evolved from a social prejudice into a juridical condition, one in which the law does not merely mirror inequality but actively constructs and rationalizes it. By examining the intersection between legal structure and Egypt’s entrenched moral order of class-based discrimination, the study reveals a legal culture that no longer hides its hierarchies behind the veil of neutrality …

Finding Luis: A Creative Nonfiction Account Of Law & Society, Jason M. Leggett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This essay explores the contradictions in legal theory and human experience through creative nonfiction. Its main purpose is to argue that a truly just society requires acknowledging the profound influence of individual narratives on the law. This is supported by blending personal narratives, critical analysis, and philosophical inquiry to reveal the gap between codified law and lived realities for marginalized individuals. This unique Legal Poetics methodology employs a series of six vignettes, such as the author's and Luis's shared experiences with traumatic brain injury and the denial of justice, as data. By integrating autoethnography, law as narrative, and performativity theories, …

The Federalism Canons As Ordinary Interpretation, Anthony J. Bellia Jr., Bradford R. Clark

Northwestern University Law Review

Scholars remain generally skeptical of substantive canons of statutory interpretation even as courts continue to employ such canons in important cases. Unlike semantic canons, which help judges discern the best meaning of statutory text in context, substantive canons provide tiebreakers when the text is unclear or require special clarity in order for the text to perform certain functions. Among the substantive canons, the so-called “federalism canons” have been singled out for special scrutiny. The federalism canons are a family of canons that require courts to avoid interpreting an act of Congress to divest states of certain sovereign rights or powers—including …

Electoral Due Process, Michael S. Kang

Northwestern University Law Review

Hyperpartisanship has hit century-long highs in American politics and is emboldening state government attempts to undermine election outcomes by using control over state lawmaking structure to strip away authority, and sometimes outright unseat, partisan opponents after they win elected office. Even as traditional norms against such moves have eroded, the Supreme Court has taken a pro-partisanship turn in removing judicial checks against such moves under equal protection and constitutional structure. This Article proposes shifting from challenges under those doctrines to a new approach under electoral due process for confronting this new generation of antidemocracy. Federal due process law restricts the …