In this episode, Vol. 131’s Editor-in-Chief, Rachel Sommers, and Executive Editor for Features & Book Reviews, Bapu Kotapati, speak with the Yale Law Journal’s inaugural Emerging Scholar of the Year: Professor Payvand Ahdout. The Emerging Scholar of the Year Award celebrates the achievements of early-career academics who have made significant contributions to legal thought and … Continue reading Introducing Professor Payvand Ahdout, YLJ’s Emerging Scholar of the Year →

The past decade has witnessed an explosion of data collection about individuals. U.S. law has traditionally approached data governance by focusing on individual privacy and contract adequacy. This approach, however, fails to grapple with the “relational” way that data is stored, analyzed, and utilized. We speak with Salomé Viljoen, an Assistant Professor of Law at … Continue reading Democratic Data: Developing Digital Counterpower →

When prisoners are served food with bugs in it or given medical care by unlicensed physicians, where can they turn for help? Believe it or not, such prison conditions may not be deemed cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, but they could violate existing administrative regulations that set standards for food safety, medical … Continue reading Using Regulatory Law to Reform Prison Conditions →

How should courts’ approaches to lawyer misconduct change following the flood of baseless lawsuits filed to undermine the valid results of the 2020 election? In this episode, we speak with both Professor Renee Knake Jefferson about her proposals for reforming standards of ethical conduct to apply both inside and outside the courtroom, and litigator David … Continue reading When Lawyers Lie: The Future of Legal Ethics Rules After the 2020 Election →

The Insular Cases are a series of Supreme Court cases about the status of U.S. territories that were decided over a century ago. Professor Aziz Rana and attorney Celina Romany join us in this episode to speak about the lasting impact the Insular Cases have had on American constitutional law and on the status of … Continue reading The Lasting Impact of the Insular Cases →

The need for transformative change to policing is clear. But the United States continues to grapple with what that change should look like – and who should have the power to decide. In this episode, Professor Jocelyn Simonson speaks to why we should view the regulation of policing through what she terms “the power lens,” … Continue reading Power-Shifting in Policing →

While we often consider questions of who is eligible to vote and how votes are counted, the question of where votes are counted is just as important. In this episode, Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos joins us to discuss the impact a race-blind baseline would have in racial vote-dilution case. Next, Alaa Chaker and Justin Farmer speak … Continue reading New Fronts in the Battle for Voting Rights →

What happens if a federal court issues an order in an immigration case, but the government does not obey it? As we’ll learn in this episode, it could mean that a young person who is eligible for relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program cannot have their application processed, or that immigrants … Continue reading The Impact of Executive Defiance on Immigrants →

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced healthcare systems to make decisions about how to ration medical treatments – and many have chosen to explicitly de-prioritize people for these treatments based on pre-existing disabilities. Professor Samuel Bagenstos and attorney Alison Barkoff join us to talk about their work on COVID-19 medical rationing advocacy and what lessons we … Continue reading Who Gets the Ventilator? Disability Rights and COVID-19 Medical Rationing →

When wealthy individuals are spending record amounts on electoral politics and the Supreme Court has refused to limit campaign spending, how can the law help low-income communities assert their democratic rights? Professors Kate Andrias and Benjamin Sachs join us to talk about the power of mass-membership organizations to equalize the political voice of citizens who … Continue reading The Power of the Many: Harnessing Law and Organizing to Combat Inequality →

Gig economy workers at companies like Uber and Lyft often don’t have access to labor protections like minimum wage, overtime pay, workers’ compensation, and unemployment insurance. But gig workers risk liability under antitrust laws if they attempt to organize. Author Eugene Kim and former union leader Javier Morillo join us on this episode to talk … Continue reading Antitrust Law and the Future of the Gig Labor Market →

Professor Andrew Manuel Crespo discusses his recent article, Probable Clause Pluralism. The constitutionality of a search or seizure typically depends on the connection between the target of that search or seizure and some allegation of illegal behavior—a connection assessed by asking whether the search or seizure is supported by probable cause. But as central as … Continue reading Professor Crespo on Probable Clause Pluralism →

Professor Jonathan Gould talks about his recent article, Law Within Congress. Recognizing that procedure has long shaped how Congress operates—from bills about civil rights to tax policy to presidential impeachments—this article explores parliamentary precedent in Congress. These precedents constitute a hidden system of law that has received little scholarly attention, despite being critical to shaping … Continue reading Professor Gould on Law Within Congress →

Professors Grunwald and Rappaport talk about their recent article, The Wandering Officer. “Wandering officers” are law-enforcement officers fired by one department, sometimes for serious misconduct, who then find work at another agency. This Article shares the findings of the authors’ systematic investigation of wandering officers over thirty years in Florida, possibly the largest quantitative police-misconduct … Continue reading Professors Grunwald & Rappaport on The Wandering Officer →

Professor Joy Milligan talks about her recent article, Plessy Preserved: Agencies and the Effective Constitution. Federal officials enforced a “separate but equal” framework for public housing long after Brown invalidated that principle. This administrative regime wrote segregation into U.S. cities, operating as the effective Constitution for decades. This Article asks why a liberal, reformist agency chose that … Continue reading Professor Joy Milligan on Plessy Preserved: Agencies and the...

Professor Sharon Jacobs talks about her recent article, The Statutory Separation of Powers. Separation of powers forms the backbone of our constitutional democracy. But it also operates as an underappreciated structural principle in subconstitutional domains. This Article argues that Congress constructs statutory schemes of separation, checks, and balances through its delegations to administrative agencies. Like … Continue reading Professor Sharon Jacobs on The Statutory Separation of Powers →

Professor Nora Freeman Engstrom talks about her recent article, The Lessons of Lone Pine. Over the past three decades, Lone Pine orders have become a fixture of the mass-tort landscape. Issued in large toxic-tort cases, these case-management orders require claimants to come forward with certain evidence—or else face dismissal. So far, the orders have been … Continue reading Professor Nora Freeman Engstrom on The Lessons of Lone Pine →

Professor Joseph Blocher talks about his recent article, Bans. He argues that, in certain areas of constitutional law, judges are particularly skeptical of laws that can be described as bans. For instance, some courts have held that laws that ban an entire “class of arms” are not subject to the usual means-ends balancing tests, but … Continue reading Bans with Blocher →

Professors Dan Epps and Ganesh Sitaraman talk about their recently published Feature, How to Save the Supreme Court. They argue that Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation represents a stunning Republican victory after decades of increasingly partisan battles over control of the Court. The result is a Supreme Court whose Justices are likely to vote along party lines more consistently than ever before in American history. That development gravely threatens the Court’s legitimacy....

Professors Dan Epps and Ganesh Sitaraman talk about their recently published Feature, How to Save the Supreme Court. They argue that Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation represents a stunning Republican victory after decades of increasingly partisan battles over control of the Court. The result is a Supreme Court whose Justices are likely to vote along party lines more consistently than ever before in American history. That development gravely threatens the Court’s legitimacy....

Will advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning put vast swaths of the labor force out of work or into fierce competition for the jobs that remain? Or, as in the past, will new jobs absorb workers displaced by automation? On this episode of the Yale Law Journal Podcast, co-hosts Cody Poplin and Emily Shire interview Professor Cynthia Estlund about her recently published Article, What Should We Do After Work? Automation and Employment Law, which tackles this topic head...

Will advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning put vast swaths of the labor force out of work or into fierce competition for the jobs that remain? Or, as in the past, will new jobs absorb workers displaced by automation? On this episode of the Yale Law Journal Podcast, co-hosts Cody Poplin and Emily Shire interview Professor Cynthia Estlund about her recently published Article, What Should We Do After Work? Automation and Employment Law, which tackles this topic head...

On this episode of the Yale Law Journal Podcast, co-hosts Cody Poplin and Sasha Dudding interview Professor David Pozen about his recently published Article, Transparency’s Ideological Drift. The Article traces transparency’s drift in the United States from a progressive to a more libertarian, or neoliberal, orientation and offers some reflections on the causes and consequences—and on the possibility of a reversal.

YLJ Podcast: Immutable Traits in Antidiscrimination Law