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Seattle University Law Review

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Seattle University Law Review

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Getting Money Out Of Politics By Putting Money Into Politics: A Few Modest Proposals To Reform Seattle’S Democracy Voucher Program, Decker O’Donnell

Seattle University Law Review

Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program offers an unconventional response to the growing influence of money in American elections: rather than restricting political spending, it seeks to amplify the participation of ordinary voters by providing publicly funded vouchers that residents may assign to participating candidates. This Article examines the program’s development, operation, and constitutional foundation within the modern campaign-finance framework established by Buckley v. Valeo and subsequent Supreme Court decisions. It argues that democracy vouchers provide a constitutionally viable means of broadening participation in campaign financing while mitigating the influence of wealthy donors. The Article identifies two weaknesses in the current system: …

Converting Buildings Is Hard: Why Seattle’S Municipal Government Should Streamline Commercial-To-Residential Conversions, Tyler M. King

Seattle University Law Review

The conversion of commercial buildings into housing is a promising solution to the growing housing crisis in many urban areas. However, despite its potential benefits, the process of repurposing commercial spaces is often stymied by complex zoning codes, high conversion costs, and bureaucratic hurdles. This Article argues that the local and state governments in Seattle should adopt more streamlined policies and offer greater incentives to developers to facilitate these conversions. By reforming zoning regulations and providing targeted financial support, municipalities can reduce the barriers to conversion and unlock the potential of underutilized commercial properties. This article examines the legal and …

Legal Malpractice In Washington: Use Of The Rules Of Professional Conduct, Angelo Tadrous

Seattle University Law Review

Legal malpractice claims are difficult to prove. They are difficult to prove because many jurisdictions require that a plaintiff prove that, but for the lawyer’s misconduct, the client would have fared better. Thus, in a malpractice suit, a plaintiff must try a case within a case. Despite this difficulty, many jurisdictions prohibit the use of the Rules of Professional Conduct when litigating a malpractice case. Washington State is one of these jurisdictions. The Washington Supreme Court held in Hizey v. Carpenter that the Rules of Professional Conduct may not be referred to during trial. This Note argues that this prohibition …

Who Decides The Dead? Interpreting Washington’S Disposition Of Remains Statute, Wyatt Young

Seattle University Law Review

Washington’s disposition-of-remains statute, RCW 68.50.160, is designed to honor a decedent’s expressed wishes regarding the control and disposition of their body after death. Yet recent litigation reveals a critical gap between the statute’s intent-centered design and its practical enforceability. In Larotonda v. Blackburn, a trial court acknowledged that irreparable harm would occur if a decedent’s burial wishes were ignored but nonetheless denied relief on the grounds that the individual designated to carry out those wishes lacked standing. The result was a legal paradox: a statute that recognizes decedent autonomy in theory but withholds any meaningful mechanism for its enforcement …

Ai And Legal Malpractice: Are We Due For A Reckoning?, John Browning

Texas A&M Law Review

As the rate of AI adoption by lawyers steadily climbs, unfortunately so has the number of incidents of AI misuse by attorneys. For some time, courts satisfied themselves with giving offending lawyers warnings, ordering them to take additional CLE, and/or administering relatively nominal monetary sanctions. Lately, however, frustrated judges throughout the country have upped the ante by not only assessing increasingly higher sanctions but also imposing case dismissals and suspensions or disciplinary referrals for the lawyers involved. As this article discusses, with their negligence exposed to the public eye and the harsh gaze of their clients, lawyers who misuse AI …

Disrupting The Bonded Economy Of Sex Buying, Sex Trafficking, And Organised Crime Through Policy Change, Dellene Clark

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Emerging criminological research underscores how the economic drivers of trafficking for sexual exploitation reinforce organised criminal markets while reproducing the structural vulnerabilities of those in prostitution. Using South Africa as a case study, this article argues that evidence-based legislative reform is necessary to confront the systemic conditions that enable exploitation. It contends that achieving substantive equality requires recognising the criminogenic role of sex‑buyer demand in sustaining trafficking pipelines and criminal profitability. The Swedish/Nordic demand‑reduction model illustrates how asymmetrical criminalisation can suppress demand, reduce reliance on trafficked persons, and diminish the financial incentives that underpin organised crime. Such an approach reorients …

Sex Buying, Sex Trafficking, And Organized Crime: Introduction To A Special Issue, Marcel Van Der Watt, John A. Winterdyk

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Disrupting Transnational Human Trafficking Networks: A Practitioner's Perspective On Intelligence-Driven, Offender-Focused Strategies, Rochelle Keyhan

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article examines human trafficking through the lens of organized crime and explores how this perspective can be applied to contemporary trafficking cases in the United States. While trafficking is often prosecuted as an isolated criminal act, many incidents are linked to larger transnational and domestic organized crime networks. The discussion highlights the activities of notorious syndicates, including international cartels, street gangs, and well-funded networks of sex buyers, demonstrating how these entities exploit vulnerable populations for profit. Reframing human trafficking as a sector within organized crime shifts investigative and prosecutorial strategies away from victim-dependent models, which often require survivors to …

The Confluence Of Conflict-Induced Vulnerability, Organized Crime, And Sex Trafficking In Receiving States: A South African Civil Society Perspective, Monique Emser

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

The crime-conflict nexus has been well-documented in conflict-affected and post-conflict states. Criminal networks make use of manifold methods and strategies to exploit individual and structural vulnerabilities, particularly those affected by war, displacement, and precarious migration journeys, forming the backbone of most conflict-induced trafficking ecosystems, whether in countries of origin, transit, or receipt. This article examines the intersection of sex trafficking, diaspora communities, and organized crime within South Africa as a receiving state from a civil society perspective. It underscores the deficiencies in traditional, reductionist, enforcement-based approaches to counter-trafficking by the state, where nested subsystems, such as those produced by endemic …

One Year's Seeding: Looking Back On The Last Seven Years Of Maine's Progress Toward Rural Justice, Christopher Northrop, Seth Main

Maine Law Review

Nationally, the crisis in access to legal services in rural areas continues to grow despite significant attention and efforts to reverse this troubling trend. This Article explores Maine’s efforts to address our legal deserts. The Article’s starting point is a retrospective look at our 2019 national symposium on rural justice and accompanying Maine Law Review issue. We will try to measure successes and failures, while also addressing the significant impact caused by the intervening pandemic. The Article will then shift to an analysis of the current landscape, focusing on the role of the University of Maine School of Law. We …

Legal Deserts Over Time, Cory L. Dodds

Maine Law Review

Legal deserts—counties with exceptionally low attorney availability—shape housing stability, personal safety, health outcomes, and economic security in rural communities. Yet, national scholarship has not yet determined whether attorney scarcity is transient or durable and relies largely on cross-sectional snapshots and population-based headcounts benchmarked to the American Bar Association’s (ABA) threshold of one attorney per 1,000 residents. These measures can obscure temporal dynamics, overstate functional supply, and embed contested normative assumptions about adequacy. This Article offers a national, longitudinal, and definition-sensitive analysis of legal deserts using county-level data from the forty-eight contiguous states at three observation points. Attorney supply is measured …

Reframing Narratives: Remedies For Improved Human Trafficking Coverage, Stefanie Henriques

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

The global rise in human trafficking is not receiving adequate media attention. While newspaper coverage of the topic has increased, current research argues that the issue is framed with a lack of diversity, limiting audience understanding of its complexity. Some researchers also note that coverage disproportionately focuses on sex trafficking, with minimal attention directed to other forms of trafficking such as the labor or organ trade. This paper conducts a narrative literature analysis of media research on human trafficking, drawing on framing theory to identify dominant frames in media messaging and synthesize cross-cultural factors that impact how the issue is …

Navigating The Legal Waters Of Privatized Commodities And Human Rights: An Exploration Of The Tension Between Water As A Human Right And Water As Investment Property Under International Law, Ella Capen

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

This Note examines the clash between domestic law and international law within the context of Chile’s 2022 modification to the 1981 Water Code as the country transitions from treating water as a privatized commodity to water as a public good. Chile’s 1981 Water Code emerged against the backdrop of a neoliberal economic regime and privatization scheme enabled by the United States and enforced by dictator Augusto Pinochet. This Note reveals the potential difficulties in unraveling established economic and legal foundations, and the conflicts between bilateral investment treaties and local legislation that mutually govern property rights. By examining Chile’s domestic Law …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

Reimagining Legal Education: The Transformative Power Of Small-Group Instruction, Michael I. Meyerson

Seattle University Law Review

Legal education is failing its students. Those entering their first year of law school have greater anxiety and less developed reading and writing skills than ever before. The traditional large Socratic class, which was never the most effective teaching method, has become increasingly counterproductive.

This Article contends that small-group instruction provides the opportunity for superior teaching, especially for first-year law students. Recent scholarship in active learning, educational psychology, and students’ mental health demonstrates the limitations of the traditional large Socratic class experience. Building on that theoretical foundation and informed by sustained classroom experience, this Article argues that small-group pedagogy more …

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 …

Land Without Legacy: The Case For Market-Based Appraisals On Hawaiian Home Lands, Alexis C. Owens

Seattle University Law Review

The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 (HHCA) was enacted to restore Native Hawaiians to ancestral lands and promote long term economic self-sufficiency. More than a century later, that promise remains unfulfilled. This Note argues that a central but overlooked barrier lies in the HHCA’s mandated use of the replacement cost appraisal method, which systematically undervalues homestead properties by excluding market forces. In one of the most expensive housing markets in the United States, this approach suppresses home equity, the primary means of intergenerational wealth building, and restricts beneficiaries’ access to credit and financial stability. By severing the connection between …