Explore JLSP's archived issues below. Navigate Volumes 57–42 by using the horizontal menu above. Sort by topic tag or search term by using the vertical menu on the right. For access to Volumes 1–42, please email jlsp@law.columbia.edu. (Journal articles are also available on the WestLaw, Lexis, and Hein databases.)
By Daniel S. Anduze On July 2, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton—a case involving a First Amendment challenge to Texas H.B. 1181. That statute, aimed at limiting youth exposure to sexual material online, requires pornography companies to verify that […]
By Jay S. Burgin When mobile app developers like Epic Games—creator of the massively popular online video game Fortnite—make their product available on Apple’s App Store, they enter the “walled garden,” a closed digital ecosystem wherein iPhone and iPad users cannot download games through other digital marketplaces. They also agree […]
By Celine Simone Family content creation is a multibillion-dollar industry. Though most parents at some point share content of their children online, for many “influencer” parents and their children, putting in the hours to curate the perfect online image means legions of fans and an enviable income from advertising and […]
By Aliza M. Tresser The plain text of the Eighth Amendment prohibits the government from punishing people with excessive fines. But until the Excessive Fines Clause was incorporated in 2019, it did not apply to municipal or state governments. In applying federal doctrine to the local context, many courts have […]
By Dylan R. McDonough In 2021, over 98% of criminal cases at the federal level terminated in guilty pleas, many of which were the result of plea agreements between the prosecution and the defense. The numbers were similar at the state level. Despite this prevalence of plea agreements, many U.S. […]
By Rachel M. Wagner Following a rash of headlines about infant abandonments in the 1990s, every state passed a Safe Haven Law (SHL) which permits the anonymous surrender of infants to a safe place, like a hospital. Over 4,000 infants have been surrendered in the last quarter century. SHLs received […]
By Ray Lu In September 2022, outdoor apparel company Patagonia captured national attention when it announced that a specially designed trust and nonprofit would own and oversee the private for-profit corporation. Patagonia’s novel structure, rooted in the concept of steward-ownership, uses a trust to create a mechanism for direct stakeholder […]
By Samuel B. Hainbach In 1983, Robert Cover challenged the U.S. Supreme Court’s approach to conflicts between the law of the state and the religious commitments of “insular communities.” Over 40 years later, Cover’s call remains urgent, and is of special relevance in New York. In Brooklyn and the Lower […]
By Alex H. Serrurier Native American students in public schools face barriers to educational achievement due to racism, prejudice, and ignorance from fellow students, teachers, and administrators. Native students have endured various forms of discrimination that range from forcible cutting of braids by peers to administrative bans on traditional regalia […]
By Christopher Morillo The “ministerial exception” is a First Amendment shield for religious institutions facing employment-related lawsuits. The Catholic Church, for example, might invoke the exception if sued by a woman barred from joining the priesthood on account of her sex. In recent years, however, the Supreme Court has “vertically” […]
By John Kimble In 2010, the Supreme Court held in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (HLP) that “material support,” as defined in § 2339B of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), includes a humanitarian organization’s efforts to teach a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization how to engage in […]
By Yasmine Ardehali “Meaningful” access to the courts is a fundamental right under the Constitution’s Due Process Clause. But for incarcerated persons, this access is severely limited. The Supreme Court has thus required states to provide prisoners with legal assistance for presenting complaints of civil rights violations and challenges to […]
By Hunter Baehren Employers commonly blacklist whistleblowers. Despite its frequency, blacklisting remains unaddressed in many federal whistleblower statutes. These statutes typically contain antiretaliation provisions protecting “employees,” but since victims of blacklisting are former employees, protection under federal law is uncertain. In Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., the Supreme Court interpreted […]
By Abbe Petuchowski Congress enacted the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), in conjunction with other federal and state laws, to recognize a substantive right to “a free appropriate public education” for youth with disabilities and to establish a process to make this right accessible. Although the IDEA guarantees youth […]
By Luke Urbanczyk The federal wire and mail fraud statutes criminalize “any scheme or artifice to defraud” that uses interstate wires or mailings to obtain “money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises.” But what exactly counts as property, triggering the statutes’ criminal penalties? In […]
By Ourania S. Yancopoulos Historically, states have relied on the federal government to prosecute corruption involving their public officials and employees. In McDonnell v. United States, however, the Supreme Court purported to limit the definition of “official act” as used in the federal bribery, honest services fraud, and Hobbs Act […]
By Andrea Ashburn Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a mental disorder in which the impacted individual develops multiple independent personality states. The existence of DID calls into question countless existing legal concepts, but the vast majority of existing legal scholarship addressing DID primarily discusses criminal issues. Just as it is […]
By Alastair Pearson Autonomous vehicle (AV) deployment will radically reshape the relationship between Americans and their cars. A society which has long prized private car ownership will see riders transition to dramatically cheaper robotaxi services. Cities will regulate AVs in real time, using a sophisticated new regulatory technology called Mobility […]
By Jack Sherrick Industrial agricultural practices have greatly increased food yields but cause significant harm to the environment and rural communities. Over half of the topsoil of the United States has been washed away in the past seventy years and an even higher percentage of the country’s farmers have voluntarily […]
By Logan Wilke The veterinary services industry, once characterized by locally-owned general care providers, has been rapidly consolidating into one dominated by multinational conglomerates. These corporate consolidators leverage their size and capital both to fund acquisitions and to attract debt-laden veterinary school graduates with above-market starting salaries. Whether they join […]
By Jennifer A. Shults Beginning in the 1980s, innovations in television turned college sports from a modest, regional industry into a sprawling, billion-dollar enterprise. The various stakeholders in college sports did not benefit equally from these advancements, however. While those in charge of college sports rode the train of technological […]
By Tyler Ritchie Members of the U.S. House of Representatives provide the most immediate and localized connection between their constituents and the federal government. When those positions are left vacant for extended periods of time, Americans are deprived of an agent to advocate for their interests at the national level. […]
By Geeta Minocha Pension funds are significant institutional investors with massive capital. Attractive, prosocial investment opportunities abound. Nevertheless, several roadblocks limit American pension managers from engaging in ESG investing, including ERISA, fiduciary rules, anti-ESG state laws, and institutional inertia. This impasse creates an opportunity for public intervention because the private […]
By Nathaniel Kazlow Unlike most European countries, the United States does not generally provide “just-cause” protections for its employees, meaning most workers are employed “at will” and may be terminated for any reason whatsoever. Although federal and state laws shield many workers from discriminatory and retaliatory firings, these protections are […]
By Caroline L. Ferguson The modern state enjoys a near monopoly over the prosecutorial system. Public officials, including local district attorneys, state attorneys general, and career prosecutors, enjoy enormous discretionary powers to decide who to charge, to determine what charges to bring, to make particular bail recommendations, to set the […]
