The law of slavery is still good law. In the twenty-first century, American
judges and lawyers continue to cite case law developed in disputes involving enslaved people. These cases provide law for a wide variety of subject areas. Judges cite slavery to explicate the law of contracts, property, evidence, civil procedure, criminal procedure,…[Read more]

Eugenius Aristides Nisbet played a critical role in Georgia’s secession from
the United States. Elected as a delegate to Georgia’s 1861 secession convention,
Nisbet introduced a resolution in favor of severing ties with the
Union, and he led the committee that drafted his state’s secession ordinance.
Nisbet was a trained lawyer who had served…[Read more]

Despite well-documented struggles encountered during
the recent economic downturn, American lawyers maintain
a dominant presence in American life.’ There are more
lawyers in the United States than in any other country in the
world.2 This continuing economic dominance has roots more
than two centuries old. This Article shows that…[Read more]

Karl Llewellyn, the famous legal realist, commercial legal
scholar, and chief drafter of the Uniform Commercial Code, published
The Current Crisis in Legal Education seventy-three years ago.1 In that
article he argued that the casebook method’s dominance of the law
school curriculum hindered legal education.2 Llewellyn acknowledged
the…[Read more]

There are situations in which there is a legitimate need for
confidentiality, and in those situations non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)
serve a useful, and also reasonable, purpose. For example, an article in
Entrepreneur says that an NDA “makes sense anytime you want to share
something.valuable about your business and make sure that the other…[Read more]

Scholars debating the relative merits of public and private
enforcement have long trained their attention on the federal courts. For
some, laws giving private litigants rights to vindicate important
policies generate unaccountable “private attorneys general” who
interfere with public enforcement goals. For others, private lawsuits
save…[Read more]

Agencies make many of their most important decisions in rulemaking
well before the publication of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR),
when they set their regulatory agendas and develop proposals for public
comment. Agencies’ needfor information from outside parties and openness
to alternative courses of action are also generally at their…[Read more]

Following her service in the Clinton administration, then-Professor Elena
Kagan wrote, “[w]e live today in an era of presidential administration.”‘
Kagan argued that while Congress, the bureaucracy, and interest groups all
continued to influence federal regulatory policy, the president had assumed a
position of comparative primacy vis-A-vis…[Read more]

Public parks play consequential roles in local communities. Parks can
raise property values, encourage or inhibit sprawl, and promote health, safety,
and social cohesion. The decision to create a park affects development in the
surrounding area and dictates which residents can easily access the property’s
new amenities-and which residents…[Read more]

In December 2018, following a contentious debate, Kent County’s Board of
Commissioners-the legislative arm of the western Michigan county that
includes Grand Rapids-narrowly voted to dissolve the Kent County Land
Bank (KCLB), a local governmental agency that had operated in the region
since 2009.’ The Board’s decision came down to one core…[Read more]

Following a century of rapid growth, the global human
population is predicted to crest and then decline in the coming
generations. Some industrialized countries are already
grappling with the economic and societal consequences of
population loss. Others, including the United States, have
only started to realize that decline might arrive on…[Read more]

Fractured public land is hidden in plain sight. In communities
across the country, a patchwork assortment of local governments
share splintered ownership over surplus public properties, which
can be found scattered in residential neighborhoods and alongside
highways, in the shadows of development projects and in the scars
of urban renewal.…[Read more]

A BAKER REFUSES TO CREATE A WEDDING CAKE
for a same-sex couple because of his religious views on samesex
marriage. The couple claims the baker’s refusal violates
state anti-discrimination laws. Their case, Masterpiece Cakeshop,
Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, now awaits a decision
from the U.S. Supreme Court, which must wrestle…[Read more]

Recent events in several states, along with the United States Supreme Court’s
recent decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, have resulted in a national debate often pitting religious freedom against the civil rights and civil liberties of the LGBT community. This controversy follows closely on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision in Burwell v.…[Read more]

The tension between discrimination and religious concerns over
complicity has grown more complex in recent years As LGBTQ rights
continue to gain social and legal support, some religious people and
entities are expressing concerns about being complicit in activities such
as same-sex marriage and bathroom access for transgendered
individuals.2…[Read more]

This symposium asks an important question. Is secularism a
non-negotiable aspect of liberal constitutionalism? The likelihood is
that secularism is a nearly insurmountable requirement of liberal
constitutionalism, but it is at least theoretically possible to have a
system that promotes both liberal constitutionalism and religion.
There are,…[Read more]

For those familiar with Japan, the simple mention of the
Yasukuni Shrine raises the specter of controversy. The Shrine is
an edifice of the Meiji Era that sprung from humble and innocent
beginnings into the site of international controversy. The shrine
was originally created in 1869, to commemorate government
soldiers killed in the Boshin…[Read more]

Is federal diversity jurisdiction case specific or claim specific? The
complete-diversity rule makes clear that, when a diversity defect is
noted in a putative diversity action, the court lacks subject-matter
jurisdiction over that action as a whole. But does the court’s
jurisdiction nevertheless extend to claims between diverse parties,…[Read more]

Many, perhaps the majority, of Chapter 13 cases end up being
converted to Chapter 7. The converted Chapter 7 case is not a new
case, it is a continuation of the case that was commenced with the
filing of the original Chapter 13 petition. However, there are important
structural differences between the two chapters, including over
what…[Read more]

The serial filing of chapter 13 cases solely for the purpose of frustrating and
delaying foreclosure or other legitimate collection efforts, and with no serious
intent to reorganize, has long been perceived as an abuse of the bankruptcy
system requiring a fulsome response. In 2005 Congress seized on a solution
involving withdrawal or…[Read more]