The article examines crime-free housing ordinances (CHOs) as an outgrowth of the federal one-strike policy and argues that they are significantly more harmful to tenants than the one-strike policy has been. The article suggests that, before adopting or enforcing CHOs, municipalities should consider legal problems raised by CHOs in conjunction with the crime problem that they purport to address.
Behavioral Class Action Law
This Article supplements stagnating class action debates and the traditional law and economics account of class action law with behavioral psychology. It draws on a litany of behavioral tendencies, biases, and pathologies and considers their application to class action practice and Rule 23.
The Clean Air Act’s Blind Spot: Microclimates and Hotspot Pollution
The article argues that the ambient focus of the Clean Air Act, which requires the monitoring and regulation of large air districts, masks pollution hotspots with poor microclimate. States and the Environmental Protection Agency may be able to address microclimate pollution using existing statutory authority by electrifying the transportation fleet, which reduces not only hotspot pollution, but...
Leak-Driven Law
Over the past decade, a number of well-publicized data leaks have revealed the secret offshore holdings of high-net-worth individuals and multinational taxpayers, leading to a sea change in cross-border tax enforcement. This article examines the important benefits and risks of tax leaks and provides suggestions and cautions for leak-driven lawmaking.
Privatizing Cybersecurity
In an earlier work entitled Regulating Cybersecurity, Sales argued that cyber defense should be understood not just as a matter for law enforcement and the armed forces, but as a regulatory problem in need of regulatory solutions. This companion article proposes a series of market-based responses to complement those governmental responses.
The Rugged Individual’s Guide to the Fourth Amendment: How the Court’s Idealized Citizen Shapes, Influences, and Excludes the Exercise of Constitutional Rights
In defining Fourth Amendment rights, the Supreme Court has repeatedly turned to the archetype of an idealized citizen—the “rugged individual” who will unflinchingly stand up to government authority. This article examines the Court’s use of the archetype, demonstrating how instead of promoting dignity and autonomy, it created an unrealistic threshold for exercising one’s Fourth Amendment rights.
Antitrust and the NCAA: Sexual Equality in Collegiate Athletics as a Procompetitive Justification for NCAA Compensation Restrictions
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) prohibits schools from providing financial aid to student-athletes beyond the costs of attending school and forbids student-athletes to receive compensation related to their athletic ability from third parties. This comment argues courts have failed to properly scrutinize this rule and it should be rejected because such compensation restrictions...
Distributive Justice and Donative Intent
The inheritance system is beset by formalism. Probate courts reject wills on technicalities and refuse to correct obvious drafting mistakes by testators. These doctrines lead to donative errors, or outcomes that are not in line with the decedent’s donative intent. This article argues that formalistic wills doctrines should be reformed because they harm those who attempt to engage in estate...
Deal Momentum
In private mergers and acquisitions deals, parties enter into non-binding preliminary agreements, such as term sheets and letters of intent. These agreements are not contracts—rather, they are signposts for when enough momentum has accumulated that a deal is likely to go forward. Using interviews with deal lawyers, this article provides a rich and layered account of how sophisticated parties use...
Section 1 of the Thirteenth Amendment and the Badges and Incidents of Slavery
This article presents the first comprehensive treatment of the basic and officially “open” question whether Section 1 of the Thirteenth Amendment directly bans the badges and incidents of slavery. Members of the Thirty-Ninth Congress agreed that Section 1 banned at least some of the badges and incidents; they parted company over which ones. The article argues for embracing the Republican broad...
Partners Are Individuals: Applying Title VII to Female Partners in Large Law Firms
This comment identifies the ways in which female lawyers continue to face discrimination even after they make partner and highlights a serious gap in current antidiscrimination law that perpetuates discrimination against female partners: Courts have interpreted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect employees but not partners. The comment offers a solution that would bring female...
The Applicability of the Federal Rules of Evidence at Class Certification
In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that class certification requires evidentiary proof of prerequisites required by Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Yet the Court has not clarified whether the evidence offered must be admissible. This Comment addresses the split of lower courts on the issue and argues that the Federal Rules of Evidence need not...
Making Innovation More Competitive: The Case of Fintech
Unlike in other digital arenas in which American companies are global leaders, the United States lags in consumer financial technology. The article argues that this effect can largely be attributed to the institutional design of federal regulators. Competition authority—including antitrust and the extension of business licenses—is spread across at least five agencies, none of which has the...
Standing, Litigable Interests, and Article III’s Case-or-Controversy Requirement
The U.S. Supreme Court has based requirements of standing and party adverseness on the “case-or-controversy” language of Article III and the history of judicial practice in England, but neither text nor history can bear the weight of justification. New research reveals that the term “case” extends more broadly to encompass what Roman and civilian jurists referred to as noncontentious jurisdiction...