Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Beyond The White Coat: The Fight For Equal Healthcare By Minorities, Morgan Robinson

Florida Atlantic University Undergraduate Law Journal

Systematic oppression through medical discrimination has left a high rate of death in the minority community, with Black women having 2.6 times the rate of maternal mortality than White women. Medical professionals ignore minorities at a higher rate than White people. People of Color have been used as testers for medical professionals and reap the generational trauma of it, such as subjects of the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment passing it to their children. Even more, doctors today are taught that Black people have a “higher pain tolerance than other races,” so their symptoms are often dismissed. Legal solutions must be implemented …

Tripping Over "Trips"; International Inequities In Critical Phamaceutical Access, Michael Gomez

Florida Atlantic University Undergraduate Law Journal

Directed by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Right (TRIPS) of 1995 is the most comprehensive international policy on the creation, protection, definition, and transfer of International Property Rights (IPR). This policy was particularly damaging for underdeveloped countries when it came to the trade and importation of name-brand drugs, as TRIPS inherently expedited the unethical process of evergreening drug patents. As a result, the agreement forced many vulnerable regions— such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC)— to become dangerously dependent on foreign generic drug imports, predominantly from India. This paper analyzes the …

Serial Killer Terminology And Its Effect On Criminal Trials, Alice Gnesin

Florida Atlantic University Undergraduate Law Journal

The terminology used during court proceedings plays a pivotal role in shaping the legal outcomes and sentencing for serial killers. This study examines how specific language, mainly terms such as "serial killer," impacts sentencing severity. By analyzing cases involving serial killers and the terminology used, there is a proven correlation between terminology and sentencing. For example, Ted Bundy (30 confirmed murders) and Jeffrey Dahmer (17 confirmed murders) were both investigated by Robert Ressler—who pioneered FBI profiling and coined the term "serial killer." The term was extensively used within their trials, impacting their sentencing. This can be compared to John Wayne …

Reexamining The Second Amendment: The Impact Of Police Militarization On Civilian Gun Ownership, Merin Ajith

Florida Atlantic University Undergraduate Law Journal

The increasing militarization of police forces in the United States contains profound implications on citizens’ Second Amendment rights, specifically concerning the ownership of weapons capable of mass violence. The original intent of the Second Amendment was not only to guarantee self-defense but also to safeguard citizens’ ability to resist a potentially tyrannical government. As police forces acquire military grade weaponry, some argue that civilians should have access to similar arms to maintain the balance of power between the state and its citizens, as outlined by the purpose of the Second Amendment. The historic use of violent police force to suppress …

Sails Symposium Launch On International Law Scholarship: What We Write, Where We Publish, And Why It Matters, Kathleen Claussen, Melissa J. Durkee, Rebecca Ingber, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the centrality of international law scholarship in international law, little work has been done to understand the contours and forces at work in what international law scholars write, where they publish that work, who reads international law scholarship, and scholarship's relationship to the policy world. For international lawyers, identifying answers to these questions and appreciating the impact of our collective work is essential, particularly at a moment of profound political struggle in communities around the world. We have remarkably few data as to what topics, methodologies, and perspectives of international law scholarship journals and publishers print, by whom, in …

Reigning In Rushed Recruiting, Jamie Abrams

Presentations

This presentation will survey the timeline shifts that have occurred in the large firm hiring market in the Capital Area region, the collateral consequences of these compressed timelines in LRW classrooms, and the role of the LRW community going forward.

Replacement Opening Brief For Plaintiff-Appellant Mona Salcida Murillo, Elise Chigier, Bilal Mubarack, Daniel Siemers, Erin Hunter, Madeline H. Meth

Faculty Scholarship

When Mona Murillo tried to assert her rights to be free from sex discrimination and physical threats from prison officials at Salinas Valley State Prison (SVSP), those officials conspired to punish her and obstruct her efforts to remedy these harms. Murillo is a transgender woman who, while incarcerated at SVSP, repeatedly complained about unsafe working conditions (created and maintained because of her sex) and sex-based harassment perpetrated by Defendants Lopez, Garcia, Lepe, and Castillo. In return, Murillo was subjected to threats, fabricated disciplinary charges, and deliberate efforts to deny her access to necessary work gear by these same Defendants and …

Table Of Contents & Masthead, Jacqueline Kessel

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Nancy Mouradian

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Law Schools As Anti-Dialogic Spaces, Jennifer M. Cooper

Pace Law Review

Talk is learning’s secret weapon. Yet, talk is chronically undervalued as a learning tool. Dialogic talk, a rigorous, student-centered discursive approach, extends classroom dialogue beyond information exchange to stimulate critical thinking. Talk bolsters thought, generates ideas, expands knowledge, and crystalizes concepts to solidify understanding. Talk powers classroom dialogue through questions, discussion, argument, and interthinking, facilitating the exchange of ideas and information leading to deep learning.

Law school classrooms are paradoxically immersed in talk yet simultaneously anti-dialogic spaces. Despite the Socratic method’s reliance on dialogue, talk in law school is teacher-controlled and interrogative, muting student voices through hierarchical power dynamics.

This …

Cardozo Law News Brief: May 16, 2025, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Brief 2025

Highlights from the May 16, 2025 Cardozo Law News Brief include:

• Professor Michael Herz spoke to National Law Journal about the limited impact of Trump’s executive order on regulatory prosecutions.

• Professor Peter Markowitz was quoted in Gothamist on a judge’s decision to release a Bronx man detained by ICE.

• Professor Haiyun Damon-Feng discussed racial bias in immigration policy in Bloomberg.

• Professor Alexander Reinert appeared on NY1 to comment on the appointment of a remediation manager at Rikers Island.

• Professor Zalman Rothschild’s 2022 study, Free Exercise Partnership, was cited in a New York Times opinion essay.

Pragmatics And Textualism, Lawrence B. Solum

Journal of Law and Policy

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 what is called “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 incorrect. 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 …

Law School News: Protecting The Waters 4-10-2025, Andrew Clark, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Rwu Law Teams Earn Top Honors At National Admiralty Moot Court Competition 4-2-2025, Helga Melgar

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Better Than He Found It 4-24-2025, Danna Lorch, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Cardozo Law News Brief: May 9, 2025, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Brief 2025

Highlights from the May 9, 2025 Cardozo Law News Brief include:

• Professor Britta Redwood was selected for the 2025 Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum.

• Alumnus Jaime Leggett ’10 appeared on the SPARKS podcast to discuss his legal career.

• Professor Peter Markowitz was quoted in The New York Times on immigration enforcement.

• Professor Jessica Roth appeared on CNN to discuss jury selection in the Diddy trial.

• Other faculty news includes speaking events and editorial work by Professors Codrington, Zelinsky, and Drucker-Albert.

Law Library Blog (April 2025): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Kathleen Macandrew, Erin Orsini

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Buxbaum Elected To Ajil Editorial Board, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Indiana University Maurer School of Law Professor Hannah L. Buxbaum has been elected to the American Journal of International Law’s Board of Editors.

She will serve a four-year term running through April 2029.

The AJIL is a leading peer-reviewed journal, published quarterly since 1907, that serves as the flagship publication of the American Society of International Law.

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 …

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 …

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."

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, …

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. …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

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 …

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 …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

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 …