Legislation Commons^™

Revising The Debt Limit For “Small Business Debtors”: The Legislative Half-Measure Of The Small Business Reorganization Act, Michael C. Blackmon

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Bankruptcy law changed drastically in 2019 with the passage of several bills. This Note will examine two of them. First, the Family Farmer Relief Act of 2019 raised the debt limit of the family farmer from $4,411,400 to $10,000,000. This enables more financially distressed family farmers to be eligible for Chapter 12 relief, a reorganizational tool designed for farmers. Second, the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 created Subchapter V – Small Business Debtor Reorganization in Chapter 11. This new Subchapter streamlined the reorganization process for small business debtors by removing roadblocks which often derail a reorganization of a small …

South Dakota V. Wayfair: An Ill-Conceived Blow To The Free Flow Of Interstate Commerce, Revel Shinn Atkinson

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

For more than a century, brick-and-mortar retailers have been losing local customers—first with the rise of mail-order houses and then more acutely with the rapid growth of online retail. As a result, states have noticed a significant loss in sales tax revenue. While an equivalent amount of tax is typically still owed to the state in the form of a use tax, which is to be remitted to the state by the customer, because these taxes are not automatically collected at the time of the sale, customers have overwhelmingly elected not to pay them. In an effort to recover this …

Literature Review: How U.S. Government Documents Are Addressing The Increasing National Security Implications Of Artificial Intelligence, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This article emphasizes the increasing importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in military and national security policy making. It seeks to inform interested individuals about the proliferation of publicly accessible U.S. government and military literature on this multifaceted topic. An additional objective of this endeavor is encouraging greater public awareness of and participation in emerging public policy debate on AI's moral and national security implications..

Fee-Shifting Statutes And Compensation For Risk, Maureen S. Carroll

Articles

A law firm that enters into a contingency arrangement provides the client with more than just its attorneys' labor. It also provides a form of financing, because the firm will be paid (if at all) only after the litigation ends; and insurance, because if the litigation results in a low recovery (or no recovery at all), the firm will absorb the direct and indirect costs of the litigation. Courts and markets routinely pay for these types of risk-bearing services through a range of mechanisms, including state fee shifting statutes, contingent percentage fees, common-fund awards, alternative fee arrangements, and third-party litigation …

Session 6: Innovating The Built Environment Post-Covid-19, Marc Palatucci, Richard Lyall, Timothy Harris, Steven Bender, Peter Smirniotopoulos, Ryan Mathesin

SITIE Symposiums

ABSTRACT: Innovating the Built Environment for a Post-COVID-19 World

It would seem an act of academic malpractice to teach a course titled Innovating the Built Environment: How the Law Responds to Disruptive Change, and host an all-day symposium as an integral part of that course, and not endeavor to address the most-disruptive thing to happen to the built environment in more than 100 years: The coronavirus pandemic. This "disruption" to real estate is the proverbial elephant in the room. Hopefully, it will maintain a minimum six-foot distance from others as we address how it impacts the four Special Topics …

Session 5: Real Estate Tokenization, Joseph Vincent, Steven Bender, Peter Smirniotopoulos

SITIE Symposiums

ABSTRACT: Is “tokenization” the next great leap forward needed to make homeownership more appealing to Millennials and Gen Z’s?

If single-family homeownership and time-sharing had a love child, what would it look like? Is it possible to adapt successful models for office sharing to homeownership so renters who lament not owning an appreciating asset could have a stake in “something” while not being tied down to one specific residential structure or a single geographic location, to make homeownership more attractive to younger generations? And, if so, does blockchain technology hold the key (pun intended) to fractional ownerships in real …

Session 4: Atlanta Beltline, Art Lansing, Rob Turner, Jim Langford, Kristen Lohse, Claire Martini

SITIE Symposiums

ABSTRACT: What Would it Take to Connect All of Greater Seattle’s Neighborhoods with Walking and Biking Trails?

Major U.S. cities have endeavored, independently of each other, over the past several decades to create greenway systems connecting residents and visitors with neighborhoods and attractions, increasing opportunities for walking and biking and reducing their reliance on vehicular traffic. Atlanta’s BeltLine--a twenty-two-mile loop of historic railroad right-of-ways encircling the city’s downtown and midtown areas, seeks to reinvent the city if transformed into a green corridor—is perhaps one of the best examples of how a Seattle Greenway might be accomplished (although Atlanta’s concerted …

Session 3: Virtual Luncheon Session, Student Submissions

SITIE Symposiums

A Working Lunch brainstorming discussion, moderated by Professor Smirniotopoulos, to discuss “What Comes Next?” in the context of Innovating the Built Environment: How the Law Responds to Disruptive Change.

Registered students in Prof. Smirniotopoulos’s Innovating the Built Environment course will take one-to-two minutes each to present their initial project ideas for their Final Projects in the course, as well as outlining and moderating a discussion of the Challenges and Opportunities presented by their ideas. Symposium participants are encouraged to set up lunch in front of their computers and participate actively in discussing each student’s project idea, providing relevant …

Session 2: Wework, Ryan Mathisen, Peter Smirniotopoulos, Paul Swegle

SITIE Symposiums

ABSTRACT: When Worlds Collide: How an 86-Year Old Federal Law (The Securities Act of 1933) Exposed the Flaws in WeWork’s “Innovative Business Model.”

Co-working pioneer WeWork, a wholly owned subsidiary of The We Company, grew meteorically through an extremely aggressive building and master-lease acquisition strategy over the past several years. Substantial, early stage funding from SoftBank, a Japan-based high-tech venture capital investment bank, reinforced WeWork’s unicorn status. But was WeWork’s business model truly unique, bringing with it the promise of a very profitable real estate operating company in the future? Or was it the company’s early stage, venture …

Session 1: Crew Seattle Presentation, Emily Alvarado, Jeanne Marie Coronado, Tory Laughlin Taylor, Colin Morgan-Cross

SITIE Symposiums

ABSTRACT: Is there Still a Place in Seattle for the Single-Family Detached Housing Typology, Given the Acute Need for Affordable Housing?

This expert panel will explore the intersection between existing zoning laws and well-established neighborhood patterns of development, on the one hand, and the acute need for the increased production and availability of affordable housing, in the greater Seattle area, including in and near the City of Seattle’s Central Business District, as well as other close-in employment centers, on the other hand. The genesis of this Special Topic in the Innovating the Built Environment SITIE2020 course came out of …

Opening Session, Annette Clark, Steven Bender, Peter Smirniotopoulos

SITIE Symposiums

The SITIE2020 Symposium: Innovating the Built Environment was offered entirely online, through the Zoom platform. Each of six (6) symposium sessions, outlined below, were offered in a continuous Zoom session with breaks throughout the day, allowing our audience to select those sessions of greatest interest to them. Students enrolled in Professor Smirniotopoulos’s Summer Institute course—Innovating the Built Environment: How the Law Responds to Disruptive Change—participated all day.

Proceedings Of The Sitie2020 Symposium, Seattle Journal Of Technology, Environmental, And Innovation Law

SITIE Symposiums

Complete Summary of Proceedings.

Opportunity In Ohio: Rethinking Northeast Ohio's Opportunity Zones With Local Legislation, Patrick J. Lipaj

Cleveland State Law Review

Welcome to Census Tract 1186.02! Here, in a small sliver of Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood, tucked between Superior and Hough Avenues, you will uncover a lot. You will discover a rich history of the city’s ethnic and cultural roots. You will also find gang violence, underperforming schools, a median household income of $9,526, and a poverty rate of 66.5 percent. Something you will not find in 1186.02 is investment. Private or public, money is not flowing in to 1186.02 and it has not for a long time. The substantial toll of continuous underinvestment on the residents of this neighborhood, one of …

When Considering Federal Privacy Legislation, Neil Chilson

Pepperdine Law Review

Legislators, advocates, and business interests are proposing federal privacy legislation with new urgency. The United States has a long-established federal framework for addressing commercial privacy concerns, including general consumer protection law and sector-specific legislation. But the calls to expand or replace this approach have grown louder since Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation went into effect and since California adopted detailed and prescriptive privacy legislation. Should we create a U.S. federal privacy law, and if so, how? When considering any kind of privacy regulation, three concepts are fundamental. First, no one can control all information about them. Second, all privacy laws …

Gatekeeping The Gatekeepers: The Need For A Licensing Requirement For Crowdfunding Portals In The Wake Of The Dreamfunded Decision, Nick Worden

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Most people are familiar with crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and GoFundMe—sites that allow users to part with their money in exchange for products or donate their capital to organizations they believe in. However, these sites have one trait in common: they do not offer contributors equity or a promise for future profits. For a long time, selling equity meant complying with the costly requirements of federal securities laws, which was cost-prohibitive for many small businesses; it was illegal for businesses to offer equity over a site in the way businesses on Kickstarter offered products. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups …

Uncovering The "Hidden Crime" Of Human Trafficking By Empowering Individuals To Respond, Laura Shoop

Georgia State University Law Review

This Note will examine current state law promoting awareness of human trafficking and identification of trafficking survivors in the United States and make recommendations as to what further measures, if any, state legislators should take to increase awareness, identification, and reporting of human trafficking. Part I explains the history and development of human trafficking legislation at the federal and state levels. Part II analyzes the methods that states currently use to promote public awareness and identification. Part III discusses a proposal for amending current state law to better encourage and facilitate awareness of human trafficking and the identification and reporting …

Legal Requirements For Equitable Design And Implementation Of Flood Buyout Programs In Rhode Island, Sarah Friedman, Read Porter

Sea Grant Law Fellow Publications

No abstract provided.

International Megan's Law As Compelled Speech, Alexandra R. Genord

Michigan Law Review

“The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor, and is a covered sex offender pursuant to 22 United States Code Section 212b(c)(l).” International Megan’s Law (IML), passed in 2016, prohibits the State Department from issuing passports to individuals convicted of a sex offense against a minor unless those passports are branded with this phrase. The federal government's decision to brand its citizens’ passports with this stigmatizing message is novel and jarring, but the sole federal district court to consider a constitutional challenge to the passport identifier dismissed the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claim, deeming the provision government speech. …

Why R&D Should Be Allocated To Subpart F And Gilti, Stephen E. Shay, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Patrick Driessen, J. Clifton Fleming Jr., Robert J. Peroni

Articles

This article responds to the notice of proposed rulemaking under sections 861 and 904 (REG105495-19) published in the Federal Register December 17, 2019 (the proposed regulations). The proposed regulations would not allocate U.S. shareholder deductions for research and development or experimentation (R&D or R&E) expenditures under section 174 (R&D deductions) to a gross income inclusion under section 951 (subpart F inclusion) or section 951A (global intangible low-taxed income)1 from a controlled foreign corporation for foreign tax credit limitation purposes.

China's Belt And Road Initiative: An Examination Of Project Financing Issues And Alternatives, August Nelson Dinwiddie

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

In 2013, China launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to realize the vision of revitalizing the ancient Silk Road. The BRI can be characterized as a vast infrastructure development initiative spanning over sixty-five countries that total almost half of the world's GDP. Since its launch, BRI projects have primarily been financed through commercial loans provided by Chinese banks, creating concerns over debt sustainability. At the top of these concerns are fears over whether participation in the BRI will lead to a "debt-trap scenaro." Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) provide an alternative financing option. In project development under a PPP, particularly the …

Are Centralized Cryptocurrency Regulations The Answer? Three Countries; Three Different Directions, Rani Shulman

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Virtual currencies have undoubtably been a topic of conversation and uncertainty for some time. Many countries have jumped ahead of the industry and regulated cryptocurrencies, while others have taken a back seat to see exactly how the market responds. This Note explores the history behind cryptocurrency and Blockchain and how governments worldwide have dealt with the growing concern regarding regulation of the often volatile and decentralized industry. By way of comparative analysis, this Note examines how China, Switzerland, and the United States have taken measures to either embrace or repudiate the industry, as well as how they have succeeded and …

Accommodating Absence: Medical Leave As An Ada Reasonable Accommodation, Sean P. Mulloy

Michigan Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is widely regarded as one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation in American history. Among its requirements, Title I of the ADA prohibits employers from discriminating against people with disabilities and requires that employers make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals. Many questions about the scope of the reasonable-accommodation mandate remain, however, as federal circuit courts disagree over whether extended medical leave may be considered a reasonable accommodation and whether an employee on leave is a qualified individual. This Note argues that courts should presume finite unpaid medical leaves of absence are …

A New Old Solution: Why The United States Should Vote By Mail-In Ballot, Annie Barouh

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Regulation Of Lobster Bait Alternatives In New England, Victoria Rosa, Read Porter

Sea Grant Law Fellow Publications

No abstract provided.

Enforcement Of The Americans With Disabilities Act: Remedying “Abusive” Litigation While Strengthening Disability Rights, Evelyn Clark

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Note explores the Americans with Disabilities Act and the private litigation used to enforce compliance. While the ADA was designed to be enforced by private citizens, many have called for reform to limit what they see as “abusive” litigants. This Note focuses on (1) the perceived problem of vexatious litigants abusing the ADA and its state counterparts to benefit monetarily, (2) the attempted solutions on both a state and federal level, and (3) recommended solutions that focus on protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities while limiting abusive litigation meant to extort businesses.

Artificial Entities With Natural Rights: Pursuing Profits At The Expense Of Human Capital, Loren M. Findlay

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Note explores the legal and constitutional rights granted to corporations and highlights how these corporate benefits are often at the expense of individuals. Over the past century, the corporation has evolved, taking on human-like characteristics. While many statutes and the Constitution use the word “person,” courts have inconsistently interpreted the definition of “person” in determining when it expands to corporations. In courts’ ad hoc analysis and interpretation, individuals get the metaphorical short-end of the stick.

The First Amendment of the Constitution was interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court to afford the right of free speech to corporations in the …

Breaking The Cycle: How Nevada Can Effectuate Meaningful Criminal Justice Reform, Scott Cooper, Scott Whitworth

Nevada Law Journal Forum

Why does society punish criminals? This paper examines what Nevada is attempting to accomplish through enacting and enforcing its criminal laws. We examine the current state of, as well as the challenges facing, Nevada’s criminal justice system. Additionally, we identify and propose certain solutions to reduce both recidivism and the financial burden that incarceration imposes on the state by looking to best practices in other states, as well as certain mechanisms and provisions that were, for one reason or another, removed from Nevada Assembly Bill 236.

Qap Out: Why The Federal Government Should Require More From How States Allocate Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, Connor Blancato

Journal of Law and Policy

Prohibitively high land acquisition and construction costs block affordable housing developers from using the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program in high opportunity areas. Policymakers must study the history of housing policy in the United States and realize that the LIHTC program works because it suitably balances previously problematic private-market competition, federalism concerns, and compliance issues. Federal lawmakers can look to Qualified Allocation Plans drafted by individual states as a way to encourage the construction of affordable housing without upsetting this equilibrium. To encourage such development, the federal government can require states, in determining tax credit allocations through QAPs, to give …

The Legal History Of State Legislative Vacancies And Temporary Appointments, Tyler Yeargain

Journal of Law and Policy

We love paying attention to special elections. They operate as catharsis for opposition parties and activists, easily serve as proxies for how well the governing party is doing, and are ripe for over-extrapolation by prognosticators. But in thirty states and territories throughout the United States, state legislative vacancies are filled by a combination of special elections and temporary appointments. These appointment systems are rarely studied or discussed in academic literature but have a fascinating legal history that dates back to pre-Revolutionary America. They have substantially changed in the last four centuries, transitioning from a system that, like the Electoral College, …

Laboratory Of Democracy: How The District Of Columbia Is Using The Home Rule Act To Achieve Elements Of Statehood, Walter A. Smith Jr., Kevin M. Hilgers

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

On January 3, 2019, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's (the "District') nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives, reintroduced the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which would make much of the District the 51st state. While Norton had made a tradition of opening each new Congress by introducing D.C. democracy bills, the context this time gave District advocates more reason to be optimistic. With the Democrats gaining control of the House, the bill gained a record 155 original cosponsors, and Representative Elijah Cummings, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, committed to holding a hearing on …