Category: Past Issues

Miguel F. P. de Figueiredo. We jail too many people and it costs too much. Incarceration is not only expensive, it also is prone to “hardening” and negative peer learning effects that may increase recidivism. With local, state, and federal…

Nathan Andrews. Corporations represent a strategic compromise by which ownership is separated from management. This structure has numerous legal and economic benefits; however, the corporate structure is especially adept in diversifying ownership. Shares, a type of security which are also…

Timothy Zick. Some regulations of professional-client communications raise important, but so far largely overlooked, constitutional concerns. Three recent examples of professional speech regulation: restrictions on physician inquiries regarding firearms, “reparative” therapy bans, and compelled abortion disclosures, highlight an important intersection…

Sasha Andersen. This article uses The Office as a platform to explore the history of Title VII and illustrate the puzzling rationale for why homosexuals fall through the cracks of Title VII and are not protected from workplace harassment. This…

Michael J. Burstein. Patents have become financial assets. They are valued like securities, traded like stocks, and modeled as options. Our discourse about patents increasingly draws from finance. Firms whose business models depend on patent assertion explain that they are…

Jorge L. Contreras. An increasing number of firms are making public pledges to limit the enforcement of their patents. In doing so, they are entering a little-understood middle ground between the public domain and exclusive property rights. The best-known of…

Caryn Devins, Roger Koppl, Stuart Kauffman & Teppo Felin. Institutions and the incentives they create can be designed or redesigned to produce desired outcomes. But design does not work if social and economic dynamics are “creative.” If it is impossible to…

Danny Englese. As our world becomes ever more connected, with a boundless supply of information and products from all over the world readily accessible through the click of a button, consumers are becoming more motivated than ever to spend their…

Katherine Florey. Choice-of-law doctrine today increasingly presents two distinct faces. When it comes to garden-variety tort and contract cases, conflicts doctrine often produces uncontroversial results with surprisingly little drama. In more complicated litigation, however, the picture is starkly different. It…

Adam M. Gershowitz. Is it legal to use Google Glass while driving? Most states ban texting while driving and a large number also forbid drivers from being able to see television and video screens. But do these statutes apply to…