Law and Society Commons^™

Attorneys And The Summary Contempt Sanction, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

It is indisputable that an orderly, disciplined courtroom is a prerequisite for the administration of justice. Rules necessarily backed by sanctions insure needed decorum and sobriety within the courtroom. One method used to promote courtroom order is the summary criminal contempt procedure embodied in 18 U.S.C. § 401(1) and implemented under Rule 42(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. In practice, the nature of the procedure has triggered criticism that summary criminal punishment of indecorous courtroom conduct fails to provide constitutional safeguards of due process of law. Most recently, the decision of In re Dellinger has reemphasized the problems …

Defense Of Indigents In Maine: The Need For Public Defenders, Peter Avery Anderson

Maine Law Review

During the past ten years the United States Supreme Court has engineered a major reworking of criminal procedure through judicial review. In no area of criminal procedure has the overhaul been so drastic as in the right to court appointed counsel. From a time when court appointment of counsel was virtually nonexistent, the right has been expanded to the extent that counsel is now available in nearly all cases and stages of the proceedings. This rapid growth of the right to counsel has placed an understandable strain on state and federal judicial systems. Various means of coping with the demands …

Beyond The Ivy League: Stopping The Spread Of Antisemitism On American Campuses: Hearing Before The H. Comm. On Educ. & The Workforce, 119th Cong., May 7, 2025 (Statement Of David D. Cole), David Cole

Testimony Before Congress

In this testimony, submitted to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce for a hearing on antisemitism on campus, I sought to offer a legal framework for considering antisemitic speech on campus. The testimony cautions against equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism. But more importantly, it notes that even where speech is actually antisemitic, it is generally protected by the First Amendment (and therefore also protected by private university policies that protect free speech on campus). Title VI of the Civil Rights Act does not prohibit antisemitic speech, even virulently antisemitic speech. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of …

Law School News: Rising Leaders In Justice: Celebrating Rwu Law's Class Of 2025 Honorees 05-07-2025, Jane Govednik

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

No Lawyer, No Jail: A Critical Case Study Of Pragmatism And The Flaws Of “Purposeful” Decision Making In Argersinger V. Hamlin, Alisa Smith, Sarah K. Stice

Seattle University Law Review

By releasing conference notes and internal communications, Supreme Court Justices provide insight into the otherwise private decisionmaking process, shedding light on how case outcomes and legal reasoning are framed and negotiated. The watershed case of Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972) extended the constitutional right to counsel to some, but not all, misdemeanor defendants. The case was argued twice, and the Court relied on empirical and authoritative sources to answer complex and practical questions about requiring counsel. This case study employs critical discourse analysis to uncover what influenced the Justices’ decisions and how they framed, shaped, and constructed social realities to foreground …

When You’Re Arrested For A Felony In Seattle, You’Ll Meet Me., Austin Field

Seattle University Law Review

In this Essay, Austin Field, a practicing public defender, uses a first-person perspective to describe what it is like to meet a criminal defendant for the first time. He explains the process from start to finish, detailing everything from the way he introduces himself to how bail works.

"I’ll ask you for your name. Most of the time, you tell me. I check your name against my list. On any given day I’m supposed to interview between five and fifteen people. I have a lot of questions for you. We only have about ten minutes."

Modern Day Colonialism Through HawaiʻI’S Quiet Title And Partition Laws, Cheyann Fujii

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will attempt to highlight important aspects of Hawaiian history to provide readers with a clear picture on how Native Hawaiians are still impacted by colonialism, specifically when plaintiffs bring a quiet title or partition action against Native Hawaiian owners of kuleana lands. Before colonization, the concept of private land ownership did not exist in Hawai‘i, and Native Hawaiians adopted a feudal system by dividing land into geographical areas. Missionaries and businessmen brought Western ideas to Hawai‘i and influenced legislation such as the Great Māhele and the Kuleana Land Act of 1850, which solidified the concept of private property. …

Data Advantage And Merger Review: Can Entrenchment Theory Reform Antitrust Enforcement?, Shin-Ru Cheng

Seattle University Law Review

A merger involving giant digital companies is likely to dampen competition, as it allows those companies to combine and control data access, enabling them to entrench their dominant positions in relevant markets and extend those positions into related markets. While competition law in many jurisdictions aims to prohibit mergers that may substantially lessen competition or create a monopoly, arguably the review of digital mergers is failing because antitrust agencies lack an effective approach to identify data-generated anticompetitive harms. This Article demonstrates that entrenchment theory, recently reintroduced in the 2023 U.S. Merger Guidelines, would help reform the process of antitrust enforcement. …

Defining Deference: Impacts Of Abandoning Chevron On Emerging Technology Governance And Administrative Law, R. Aubrey Davis Iii

Seattle University Law Review

Emerging technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI), often lead to unforeseen legal outcomes. Notable abuses in areas such as facial recognition, employment bias, and housing discrimination are well known. However, legislative responses to these issues either have been largely reactive or there has been no legislative response at all. In lieu of legislation, agencies have sought to fill the gap. For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently proposed a rule mandating voter notification for all AI-generated political phone calls citing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 as authority. However, the TCPA was originally passed to curtail telemarketing, not …

Intellectual Property Or Modern Folklore? The Problem With Open Gaming Licenses In Tabletop Gaming, Rosie Midget

Seattle University Law Review

This Note addresses how courts and legislatures should address “Open Gaming Licenses” commonly attached to tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs), which game publishers use to promote a false image of accessibility—misleading consumers and building goodwill from the misunderstanding. Part I discusses what TTRPGs are, including the defining features of the hobby and culture surrounding it, as well as the unique interplay between publishers and players. Part II explores the question of which elements in a TTRPG system may be subject to copyright protection. Part III examines these elements in practice using Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons and Dragons TTRPG as a …

The Public Square In A Private-Property Obsessed Country: What New York City’S Pops Regulations Get Right And Why Other Cities Should (Mostly) Copy Them, Carson Mcgregor

Seattle University Law Review

When New York City (NYC) was first becoming the metropolitan monolith it is today, it had a problem: the city streets were chock full of skyscrapers, and sunlight, air, and usable open space were at a premium. In response, the City promulgated its first Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) regulations, which allowed developers to build skyward in exchange for providing public space on the street level. Unfortunately, in July of 2023, the New York Times (NYT) discovered that New Yorkers received only a fraction of what they were promised. Building owners received billions of dollars’ worth of added floor space, …

The Race To Erase: Destruction Of Government Documents Undermines Freedom-Of-Information Laws, Frank D. Lomonte

Seattle University Law Review

In August 2019, reporters with Chattanooga’s daily newspaper, the Times Free Press, filed what seemed to be a routine request for access to emails and other public records held by their local county government. The seemingly unremarkable request set the newspaper’s staff on a months-long journey of unpleasant surprises. The first was a demand to pay the county $717 in advance before being allowed to inspect the documents. The second was that—during prolonged haggling over the fee assessment— the county attorney’s office simply destroyed almost all of the disputed records. Third, and most glaringly, the journalists discovered that Tennessee law …

Ensuring Housing Stability And Protections For The Nation’S Renters: Avenues For Federal Action, Margaret Hagan, Peter Hepburn, Justin Steil, Brandon Weiss

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

What would it take to ensure housing stability and protections for the nation’s renters? This essay reviews the current literature on landlord–tenant laws, eviction court policies, the provision of legal aid, and the residential security of renter households. It then lays out avenues through which the federal government—particularly the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—might work to improve renters’ stability. These include targeted efforts to improve engagement with both tenants and landlords, robust implementation of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing provision of the federal Fair Housing Act, especially around source of income discrimination, and facilitation of reforms to state …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Machinists Preemption In The New Administrative Law, Andrew J. Ziaja

Seattle University Law Review

This Article assesses Machinists preemption—a labor-specific form of implied field preemption—while freshly considering implications both for and of new developments in administrative law. The radical transformation of administrative law in the Supreme Court, particularly its newfound emphasis on clear-statement rules, provides opportunities to reconsider the Machinists rationale. Aligning with scholars who have called to question the doctrine’s “ossifying” influence on labor and employment policy, it argues that the modern-day version of Machinists preemption clashes with the Supreme Court’s newly constrained view of delegated power and its differing conceptions of the major questions doctrine.

On the other hand, Machinists preemption might …

Caution: Potholes In E-Scooter Data Collection, Dakota Rakestraw

Seattle University Law Review

Lime scooters keep ending up in major waterways in Washington state metro areas, a testament to the ubiquity of e-scooters in the metropolitan landscape. How they get there is unclear. Why they get there is even murkier. Perhaps the answer lies in the implications of modern geolocation data collection through e-scooters and gaps in current data collection regulation curbing individual liberties.

Since September 2020, electric scooters have run Seattle’s streets and have dramatically overtaken ridesharing bike trips. For example, from September 2020 to September 2021, there were about 1.4 million scooter and bike trips with September 2021 seeing 300,000 scooter …

The Law Of The Biggest Pump: Legal Consciousness And The Texas Groundwater Dilemma, Riley Hodin

Political Science Honors Projects

Texas’s localized system of groundwater regulation is complicated by its strong tradition of property rights. This paper examines the legal consciousness of the everyday people subjected to that system. It relies on interviews with local water authorities, as well as an analysis of public comments made by stakeholders. When conflicts emerge, stakeholders tend to attribute negative outcomes to a failure to properly follow legal procedure, or to the improper intrusion of some non-legal entity. Authorities, however, blame the law itself. Both groups feel the law’s presence but struggle to locate its specific source or meaning.

Examining The Relationship Between Legal Frameworks, And Cultural Norms In Domestic Violence Cases In The United States, Ifedolapo Awonuga

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Domestic violence is a pervasive and systemic issue that affects millions of people worldwide and has serious repercussions for families, individuals, and society at large. The research investigates how legal frameworks, societal conventions, and cultural values interact to impact the prevalence and resolution of domestic violence in contemporary society. The study looks at the extent institutional biases, social stigma, and deeply ingrained legal policies hinder efficient victim support, prevention, and intervention. The study combines quantitative analysis of case data, public opinion, and survey results with qualitative analysis of legal frameworks and peer-reviewed literature using a mixed-methods design. The two-pronged approach …

Do Bans On Conversion Therapy Impose A Governmental "Orthodoxy" About Sex And Gender?, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

In Part I, this Essay evaluates how orthodoxy arguments featured in Mr. Tingley’s challenge to Washington’s ban on conversion therapy. Part II offers a preliminary analysis of Chiles v. Salazar, ⁴² which the Court will hear during its 2025-2026 Term. I illustrate how the arguments made against Washington’s law by Chiles and her amici draw from the anti-orthodoxy and marketplace of ideas rhetoric found not only in Justice Thomas’s Tingley dissent and his NIFLA opinion but also in Justice Gorsuch’s majority opinion in the 303 Creative decision.⁴³ Woven together with these speech arguments are appeals to the Court’s …

“Shipping” Away The Captive Audience Meeting, Nathan Kakalec

Fordham Law Review

On November 14, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overturned seventy-six years of labor law precedent by banning captive audience meetings in Amazon.com Services LLC. Captive audience meetings, mandatory meetings where employers discuss unionization with their employees, were a powerful anti-union tool used by employers to coerce their employees into rejecting unionization. The NLRB argues that captive audience meetings are inconsistent with § 7 and § 8 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Employers reject the NLRB’s assertion and contend that banning captive audience meetings infringes on their First Amendment right to communicate their views on unionization. …

Legal Issues And Outcomes Of A Medical-Legal Partnership For Cancer Patients, Allison B. Dowling, Abigail Sweeney, Megan E. Gordon, Lisa Kessler, Deborah Perry, Vicki W. Girard, Shreya Kalra

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The medical-legal partnership (MLP) model is a multidisciplinary intervention with demonstrated success in addressing health-harming legal needs. We analyzed initial data from the Georgetown University Health Justice Alliance’s Cancer Legal Assistance and Well-being Project (Cancer LAW), an MLP between Georgetown University and MedStar Health serving cancer patients receiving care at an urban, safety-net hospital in Washington, D.C. The sample included 81 patients, who had an average of two legal issues, most commonly in the areas of Social Security, estate planning, housing, and health insurance. Data collected during legal representation captured both financial and non-financial benefits to patients. Patients who responded …

Abortion Travel Restrictions Under The Dormant Commerce Clause After National Pork Producers Council V. Ross, Katherine Bartley

Fordham Law Review

Since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, twelve states have banned abortion entirely, and seven states have banned abortion earlier in pregnancy than the standard set in Roe v. Wade. As abortion access dwindles, patients increasingly cross state lines to seek reproductive healthcare. In response, antiabortion state officials and lawmakers have made efforts to restrict interstate travel for abortion care.

This Note examines abortion travel restrictions under the “Dormant” Commerce Clause doctrine, which limits state laws that burden interstate commerce. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed but narrowed the judge-made doctrine in National Pork Producers Council v. …

The Chilling Effects Of Dobbs, Jonathon W. Penney, Danielle Keats Citron, Alexis Shore Ingber

Articles & Book Chapters

The Supreme Court’s evisceration of the federal constitutional right to abortion has raised the specter of criminal and civil liability for abortion providers and patients. Police and prosecutors have easy access to commercial reservoirs of intimate data. As individual accounts made clear in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, corporate surveillance of intimate life chilled expressive activities, such as searching for information about reproductive health and using period tracking apps. Health professionals did not feel safe to speak out about the impact of new abortion laws. Harassment and threats directed at abortion clinics and at …

Public Opinion And Judicial Decision-Making: A Relationship Explored Through Interviews With Local, State And Federal Judges Within Mobile County, Alabama, Bella Gin

Honors Theses

Civilians and legal scholars alike often speculate how judges rule and what contributes to their decision-making. Acknowledging this conundrum and combining it with my own interests in the legal field, I attempt to explore how some judges located within Mobile County perceive public opinion and what factors direct their rulings over their respective case dockets. Through seven, semi-structured interviews, I ask each judge a series of questions regarding their backgrounds, decision-making methodologies, thoughts on public opinion relevancy, and application of their approaches to their judgeships. Analysis of the interviewees’ responses reveals data that suggests the judges have a somewhat ambivalent …

The Rise And Fall Of The Contagious Diseases Acts: An Examination Of The Legislative Influences, Medical Discourse And Repeal Arguments, Elizabeth Henderson

All Theses

The Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA) were the most important legislative intervention concerning sexuality in the nineteenth century. The CDA was a public health measure passed to address the spread of venereal disease amongst the British Army and Navy, and targeted Britain's most vulnerable women – sex workers – because they were blamed for being the presumed cause and primary mode of spreading venereal disease. This resulted in the legalization of what critics of the CDA would call surgical assault, or instrumental rape, of working-class women suspected of being sex workers. Historians who study sexuality and sex work in Britain have …

Every Law School Should Have A Poet, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

This is an imaginative work that explores gaslighting in the workplace.

Pragmatics And Textualism, Lawrence B. Solum

Faculty Scholarship

In theoretical linguistics the word “pragmatics” refers to the roles of context and communicative intentions in the production of meaning. Those roles include contextual disambiguation and the communication of implicit content via “pragmatic enrichment.” Textualism is sometimes characterized as the view that the meaning of statutory texts should not take context into account, but that characterization is misleading. Not only do self-identified textualists explicitly maintain that context should be considered when interpreting statutes—all good textualists must do so. Absent consideration of context, the meaning of statutory texts would be pervasively ambiguous, sparse, and incomplete. Good textualism requires pragmatics.

“Pragmatics and …

The Antitrust–Copyright Interface In The Age Of Generative Artificial Intelligence, Daryl Lim, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. government's antitrust actions against Big Tech have recently surged in response to the growing dominance of Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. In fall 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a controversial submission in response to the U.S. Copyright Office's request for comments on artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright. This submission hinted at the agency's eagerness to fully deploy its enforcement powers in the AI sector, including targeting AI developers that have used copyrighted works without authorization to train AI models.

This article examines the changing interface of antitrust and copyright law in the age of generative AI. …

A New Parlor Is Open: Microfeminisms Are Needed In Law School To Combat Gender Bias, Stephanie J. Thompson

Faculty Scholarship

A recent viral trend on TikTok has spotlighted women attorneys who are leveraging microfeminisms to uplift other women and challenge entrenched gender norms within the workplace. The hashtag #microfeminism has garnered over a billion views, underscoring a growing interest in this nuanced form of advocacy. Microfeminism encompasses the subtle, everyday actions individuals—regardless of gender—take to promote gender equity and disrupt traditional expectations, both personally and professionally. In contrast to broader feminist movements that often seek systemic reform, microfeminism focuses on the interpersonal and individual level, recognizing the transformative potential of seemingly small gestures. This Article aims to initiate a critical …