Against Criminalizing Wage Theft: Lessons from the Antitrafficking Movement

Criminalizing wage theft is a popular idea. This Article argues that––based on practitioners’ experience with human trafficking––workers’ rights groups, legislators, and prosecutors should reconsider embracing the criminalization of wage theft as an effective response to preventing this form of abuse. Twenty years of experience with trafficking cases and data show that criminalizing wage theft is likely not only to be ineffective but also to cause further harm to the victims and vulnerable communities who suffer the most from wage theft.… Read More

Disabled and Disenfranchised: The Fight for Reproductive Freedom and Democracy Post-Dobbs

The Supreme Court has thrust abortion onto ballots nationwide, transforming fundamental rights into political battlegrounds. In the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, people with disabilities face a perfect storm of eroded reproductive freedoms and persistent barriers to democratic participation. This Article exposes the hollow promise of the Court’s purported deference to “the people’s elected representatives,” revealing instead a landscape where those most affected by abortion restrictions struggle to have their voices heard. The Court’s invocation of democracy… Read More

The Truth Should Set You Free: The Case for Removing State Knowledge Requirements from False Testimony Standards

False testimony claims are an increasingly popular vehicle in a handful of states through which petitioners can challenge unconstitutional criminal convictions. Successful false testimony claims grant petitioners access to remedies guaranteed by the Due Process Clause and overturn offending convictions, giving individuals access to new trials or similar relief. But like many post-conviction standards, false testimony is evaluated differently from state to state, producing disparate results. While every state’s standard requires that the testimony used at trial be proven both… Read More

Equity and Clarity: The Impact of Tyler v. Hennepin County on Property Taxation and Homeowners’ Rights

This Note explores the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Tyler v. Hennepin County, which significantly impacts property taxation and foreclosure laws. The Court ruled that property owners are entitled to surplus proceeds following a tax foreclosure, setting a new precedent by deeming it unconstitutional for governments to retain surplus proceeds without just compensation. Tyler clarified property rights under the Fifth Amendment, affirming that owners have a constitutional right to the surplus value of their foreclosed properties, even… Read More

The Problem of Biased Precedents

This Article addresses the problem of biased precedents, wherein sophisticated repeat players, often corporate and state entities armed with superior resources and a vested interest in shaping the law, manipulate legal proceedings to systematically establish self-advantageous precedents. Specifically, by strategically choosing to litigate cases they anticipate will lead to favorable precedents and settling those expected to produce unfavorable outcomes, these players systematically bias the law over time to their advantage, at the expense of one-shot parties and society at large.… Read More

Reforming the Rules: A Proposal for Modifying the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to Permit Partnerships Between Lawyers and Nonlawyers in the Practice of Law

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit partnerships between lawyers and nonlawyers in the practice of law, a ban that purportedly exists to protect lawyers’ professional independence of judgment. Despite this noble sentiment, the prohibition ultimately hurts the legal market, to the expense of potential clients, by limiting the professional options available at the lawyer’s disposal. The existence of lawyer-nonlawyer partnerships, recently espoused by two states, both decreases the costs and barriers involved in obtaining justice and encourages much-needed legal… Read More

The NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings: Forty-Five Years of Delivering Impartial Adjudications and Providing Access to Justice

It was an honor to deliver the 2024 Uri and Caroline Bauer Memorial Lecture at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, and to follow in the footsteps of the many legal luminaries who have delivered this lecture before. Given their chosen professions, it may be fair to assume that Uri Bauer was a believer in the rule of law and Caroline Bauer was a believer in government. Accordingly, I would like to talk about those two topics as they… Read More

Revisiting Reasonable Cybersecurity

Prospective theories of cybersecurity liability have traveled over some well-worn paths over the past three decades, resulting in some successes, but also in at least as many cul-de-sacs and dead ends. Part of this problem can be found in the difficulty and complexity of the subject itself. Courts, legislators, and regulators all face comprehension difficulties when they attempt to fit our existing legal system around cybersecurity, often resulting in half-measures and generalized solutions that are challenging to apply to the… Read More

Leveling the Playing Field: Aligning Title IX and Title VII Sexual Harassment Standards to Ensure Equity for Female Hazing Victims

As hazing has become more common among student-athletes at colleges and universities throughout the country, litigants have used Title IX as a legal remedy to hold these educational institutions accountable for hazing practices on their campuses. However, while various male plaintiffs have brought successful Title IX cases alleging that their hazing experiences constitute actionable discrimination under Title IX, fewer women have had success in bringing such cases. This disparity looms especially large as the number of hazing incidents among women… Read More

Buyer, Beware of Addiction

Addictive products kill more than 700,000 people in the United States every year. Despite the large-scale risks that addiction poses, the law requires manufacturers of addictive products to disclose little-to-no information about the risk of addiction—the single most consequential characteristic of a class of products contributing to mass death every year. While consumers understand that addictive products are, in fact, addictive, they generally do not understand the magnitude of the addiction risks that they face. Metaphorically, consumers understand that they… Read More