Social determinants play into who gets to die prematurely while others get to have healthy productive lives—these are loosely called health disparities. Health disparities are typically understood socially, economically, and politically, but rarely analyzed within the legal system. The Social Security Administration (SSA)—the federal program for providing Americans with disabilities benefits and…

In Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt (Hyatt III), the Supreme Court overruled forty-year-old precedent that allowed a citizen to sue a state in another state’s courts. The Court’s 5–4 decision creates another barrier for plaintiffs who seek to hold states accountable. Hyatt III expands the doctrine of sovereign immunity to provide states additional protection against…

You live in Mississippi, work an hourly, minimum wage job, have no savings, and have young children. You are also seven weeks pregnant and want to have an abortion. Technically, you can go to an abortion clinic. But even though you have Medicaid, it won’t cover any of the procedure’s costs because Mississippi generally follows…

Unlike the debate on the ethics of sandbagging, the economic consequence of a default rule is an empirical question with a right and wrong answer. This Note argues that the only other scholarly article on the issue got it wrong…

Although corals can hybridize and adapt to the threat of climate change, the existing legal framework in the United States is insufficient to ensure their protection. This regulatory gap leaves hybrid corals exposed to local and regional stressors. But legal protections, like the corals themselves, can adapt and evolve. If we value coral reefs, we should modify the…

The FDA’s oversight of food retail has not kept pace with modern legislation’s move toward standardized guidelines across the food industry. Instead, the FDA’s feeble attempt at a command-and-control model has crumbled into a system that is de facto deregulated and lacks uniformity…

This Note argues that it is a mistake to classify domestic violence as a primarily “private” crime given its widespread and gendered nature. Further, in some cases, the infliction of domestic violence is ignored—if not condoned—by state actors, casting doubt upon Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s claim in Matter of A-B-that such violence does not involve…

This Note will discuss how the erasure of LGBT victims from the domestic violence narrative has perpetuated the overuse of dual arrest and mutual restraining orders in domestic violence cases with same-sex couples despite the minimal use of these legal tools in the general population. Both the social narrative of domestic violence as well as…

California Senate Bill 1186 (SB 1186), proposed in 2018, would have implemented surveillance transparency, accountability, and oversight measures over the California Highway Patrol, the California Department of Justice, and every California police department, sheriff’s office, district attorney’s office, and school district and state university public safety department. Had it been enacted, SB 1186…

This Note challenges the increasingly normalized characterization of ankle monitors as a positive alternative to detention. Although ankle monitors have been subject to some public criticism, advocates on both sides of the aisle have increasingly pointed to ankle monitors as a more humane, cost-effective alternative to detention. In comparison to immigration detention or refoulement, ankle…

On January 27, 2017, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order that banned individuals from certain Muslim-majority countries from entry into the United States. The district and circuit courts’ subsequent refusals to sanction the Muslim Bans offered hope to those who recognized the bans as part of a legacy of racist and Islamophobic…

Recent developments in biotechnology have opened new avenues not only for research but also for patenting. However, recent United States Supreme Court decisions such as Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics demonstrate the interpretive difficulties these new technologies raise in patent law. Many scholars, for example, have argued that rather than using the “product…

In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court attempted to eliminate racial discrimination in jury selection by prohibiting the use of peremptory challenges to intentionally strike prospective jurors based on their race. Today, more than thirty years later, Batson’s now-familiar three-part framework is widely considered to be a toothless and inadequate…

In its two most recent decisions regarding the Alien Tort Statute (ATS)—Jesner v. Arab Bank and Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum—the US Supreme Court failed to answer the specific question upon which it granted certiorari: whether the ATS permits suit against corporate defendants. These two cases reveal only that the ATS does not permit suits…

Consumers are drowning in a sea of one-sided fine print. To combat contractual overreach, consumers need an arsenal of effective remedies. To that end, the doctrine of unconscionability provides a crucial defense against the inequities of rigid contract enforcement. However, the prevailing view that unconscionability operates merely as a “shield” and not a “sword” leaves…

The resource limitations of legal nonprofit organizations force staff attorneys to make difficult choices about whom to serve. Nowhere are the consequences of lawyers’ case selection decisions starker than in the immigration context, where individuals face deportation if unable to successfully advocate for themselves before legal authorities. Based on three years of qualitative research within…

The Housing Choice Voucher (“HCV”) program is a government program that subsidizes the rent of low-income individuals or families, allowing them to afford housing in the private market. Families pay 30 percent of their income towards rent, and the voucher covers the remainder. Congress created the program with the goal of enabling low-income families to…

The federal courts have long struggled to articulate a set of coherent standards for who may assert rights under a federal statute. Apart from the constitutional limitations of the judicial power under Article III, courts have until recently addressed this question under a series of freestanding “prudential” rules governing standing to sue. The Supreme Court’s…

The possibility of a subprime auto finance bubble gives financial regulators an opportunity to navigate a burgeoning crisis in real time. Lessons learned from the 2008 financial crisis and the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act prompt the question whether financial regulators should adopt an ability-to-repay rule for auto lending similar to the Consumer Financial Protection…

In the wake of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adjusted its rules to prevent future fraud. Despite blindsiding the SEC and many in the financial industry, the culprit was all too familiar: a bad adviser fleecing his trusting clients. The problem goes back millennia. In 1754 B.C…