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Headnote

AI Tools for Lawyers: A Practical Guide

By Daniel Schwarcz & Jonathan H. Choi | October 27, 2023

By Daniel Schwarcz & Jonathan H. Choi. Full Text. This Article provides practical and specific guidance on how to effectively use AI large language models (LLMs), like GPT-4, Bing Chat, and Bard, in legal research and writing. Focusing on GPT-4—the most advanced LLM that is widely available at the time of this writing—it emphasizes that…

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Headnote

Property as a Legitimating Right

By Duncan Hosie | November 21, 2023

By Duncan Hosie. Full Text. Recent decisions from the Roberts Court have strengthened property rights, and progressive commentators and jurists have reacted with alarm. In light of these constitutional developments, this Essay revisits the landmark 2003 case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, which made Massachusetts the first state to recognize a right to…

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Headnote

Still on the Hook: Forward-Looking Releases Reel-in Potential Risks in Mergers and Acquisitions

By Mark T. Wilhelm & Madison Fitzgerald | December 20, 2023

By Mark T. Wilhelm & Madison Fitzgerald. Full Text. A recent study that analyzed more than 2,100 private-target acquisitions found that 65% of those transactions were structured with a separate signing and closing. While the number of days between signing and closing inevitably varies on a deal-by-deal basis, a prolonged executory period only intensifies concerns…

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Headnote

The Right to Counsel for Habeas Proceedings

By Amy Cohen | December 21, 2023

By Amy Cohen. Full Text. Federal habeas is often the last avenue of relief for both federal and state prisoners. The Framers thought the right to the writ of habeas corpus was so established in law that its only reference in the Constitution is under what conditions the right may be suspended. Yet, most habeas…

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Article

Can the Excessive Fines Clause Mitigate the LFO Crisis? An Assessment of the Caselaw

By Michael O'Hear | February 21, 2024

By Michael O’Hear. Full Text. The nation’s increasing use of fees, fines, forfeiture, and restitution has resulted in chronic debt burdens for millions of poor and working-class Americans. These legal financial obligations (LFOs) likely entrench racial and socioeconomic divides and contribute to the breakdown of trust in the police and courts in disadvantaged communities. One…

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Article

Subjective Costs of Tax Compliance

By Jonathan H. Choi and Ariel Jurow Kleiman | February 21, 2024

By Jonathan H. Choi and Ariel Jurow Kleiman. Full Text. This Article introduces and estimates the “subjective costs” of tax compliance, which are costs of tax compliance that people experience directly and individually. To measure these costs, we conducted a survey experiment assessing how much taxpayers would pay to reduce the unpleasantness associated with filing…

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Article

Making Whole, Making Better, and Accommodating Resilience

By Erik Encarnacion | February 21, 2024

By Erik Encarnacion. Full Text. The conventional story about compensatory damages is that they aim to make plaintiffs whole, but not better off. This make-whole ideal implies that courts should subtract material gains from compensatory awards because otherwise plaintiffs would be unjustly enriched. This Article undermines this conventional wisdom in three ways. First, it highlights…

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Article

The Roberts Court and the Unraveling of Labor Law

By Courtlyn G. Roser-Jones | February 21, 2024

By Courtlyn G. Roser-Jones. Full Text. Labor law comprises several doctrines and procedures that oversee the relationships between employers, unions, and the workers they represent. These doctrines—the duty of fair representation, exclusivity, good-faith bargaining, captive-audience speech, and rights of equal access—are all component threads to a tapestry designed to facilitate widespread organizing and collective bargaining.…

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Article

Multi-Parent Custody

By Jessica Feinberg | February 21, 2024

By Jessica Feinberg. Full Text. In recent years, a number of jurisdictions have enacted laws recognizing that a child may have more than two legal parents (multi-parentage). Recognition of multi-parentage represents a significant change to the legal framework governing parentage— for most of U.S. history, it was well established that a child could have a…

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Note

Throuples and Family Law

By Philip de Sa e Silva | February 21, 2024

By Philip de Sa e Silva. Full Text. As throuples and other forms of polyamorous relationships gain visibility and acceptance, courts will have to confront the legal issues that will likely arise when a throuple forms and when it dissolves. How should courts determine child custody for three equally situated parents? How should courts divide…

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Articles, Essays, & Tributes

Can the Excessive Fines Clause Mitigate the LFO Crisis? An Assessment of the Caselaw

February 21, 2024

By Michael O’Hear. Full Text. The nation’s increasing use of fees, fines, forfeiture, and restitution has resulted in chronic debt burdens for millions of poor and working-class Americans. These legal financial obligations (LFOs) likely entrench racial and socioeconomic divides and contribute to the breakdown of trust in the police and courts in disadvantaged communities. One…

Subjective Costs of Tax Compliance

February 21, 2024

By Jonathan H. Choi and Ariel Jurow Kleiman. Full Text. This Article introduces and estimates the “subjective costs” of tax compliance, which are costs of tax compliance that people experience directly and individually. To measure these costs, we conducted a survey experiment assessing how much taxpayers would pay to reduce the unpleasantness associated with filing…

Making Whole, Making Better, and Accommodating Resilience

February 21, 2024

By Erik Encarnacion. Full Text. The conventional story about compensatory damages is that they aim to make plaintiffs whole, but not better off. This make-whole ideal implies that courts should subtract material gains from compensatory awards because otherwise plaintiffs would be unjustly enriched. This Article undermines this conventional wisdom in three ways. First, it highlights…

The Roberts Court and the Unraveling of Labor Law

February 21, 2024

By Courtlyn G. Roser-Jones. Full Text. Labor law comprises several doctrines and procedures that oversee the relationships between employers, unions, and the workers they represent. These doctrines—the duty of fair representation, exclusivity, good-faith bargaining, captive-audience speech, and rights of equal access—are all component threads to a tapestry designed to facilitate widespread organizing and collective bargaining.…

Multi-Parent Custody

February 21, 2024

By Jessica Feinberg. Full Text. In recent years, a number of jurisdictions have enacted laws recognizing that a child may have more than two legal parents (multi-parentage). Recognition of multi-parentage represents a significant change to the legal framework governing parentage— for most of U.S. history, it was well established that a child could have a…

Notes

Throuples and Family Law

February 21, 2024

By Philip de Sa e Silva. Full Text. As throuples and other forms of polyamorous relationships gain visibility and acceptance, courts will have to confront the legal issues that will likely arise when a throuple forms and when it dissolves. How should courts determine child custody for three equally situated parents? How should courts divide…

In Defense of Pickering: When a Public Employee’s Social Media Speech, Particularly Political Speech, Conflicts with Their Employer’s Public Service

February 21, 2024

By Abby Ward. Full Text. With the rise of social media and the United States’ increasing political polarization, public employees take to social media to post about political issues such as race and policing. But when public employees make posts on political issues in an inflammatory or controversial way, public employers often discipline or fire…

Headnotes

AI Tools for Lawyers: A Practical Guide

October 27, 2023

By Daniel Schwarcz & Jonathan H. Choi. Full Text. This Article provides practical and specific guidance on how to effectively use AI large language models (LLMs), like GPT-4, Bing Chat, and Bard, in legal research and writing. Focusing on GPT-4—the most advanced LLM that is…

Property as a Legitimating Right

November 21, 2023

By Duncan Hosie. Full Text. Recent decisions from the Roberts Court have strengthened property rights, and progressive commentators and jurists have reacted with alarm. In light of these constitutional developments, this Essay revisits the landmark 2003 case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, which…

Still on the Hook: Forward-Looking Releases Reel-in Potential Risks in Mergers and Acquisitions

December 20, 2023

By Mark T. Wilhelm & Madison Fitzgerald. Full Text. A recent study that analyzed more than 2,100 private-target acquisitions found that 65% of those transactions were structured with a separate signing and closing. While the number of days between signing and closing inevitably varies on…

The Right to Counsel for Habeas Proceedings

December 21, 2023

By Amy Cohen. Full Text. Federal habeas is often the last avenue of relief for both federal and state prisoners. The Framers thought the right to the writ of habeas corpus was so established in law that its only reference in the Constitution is under…

De Novo Blog

BETTING ON THE FUTURE: DISCUSSING PATHS FORWARD FOR MINNESOTA TO LEGALIZE SPORTS BETTING

January 12, 2024

By Benjamin Albert Halevy, Volume 108 Staff Member From pull-tab vending machines at bars to tribe-owned casinos sporting slot machines and blackjack tables, Minnesota is no stranger to gambling within its borders. Yet, sports gambling, the fastest growing sector of gaming, remains wholly illegal within…

DE-TRUMPING THE 2024 ELECTION? REVIEWING MINNESOTA’S ROLE IN THE MOVEMENT TO BAN DONALD TRUMP FROM THE BALLOT

January 12, 2024

By Callan Showers, Volume 108 Staff Member On November 2, 2023, the Minnesota Supreme Court heard oral arguments on whether Donald Trump can lawfully appear on Minnesota’s ballots in the 2024 Presidential election due to his participation in efforts to overthrow the 2020 election, culminating…

A HAZY FIVE HOURS: MINNESOTA SHOULD NOT REINVENT THE WHEEL IN ADDRESSING THC BEVERAGES IN RESTAURANTS

November 22, 2023

By Shannon Schooley, Volume 108 Staff Member In 2023, Minnesota legalized recreational cannabis.[1] Although Minnesota followed twenty-two states and the District of Columbia in doing so,[2] its legal landscape presents unique regulatory challenges.[3] Minnesota’s full-scale recreational legalization comes on the heels of a partial legalization…

NO PLACE LIKE HOME . . . UNLESS YOU CAN’T GET IN: THE LACK OF NON-DELIVERY PROTECTIONS FOR MINNESOTA TENANTS

November 22, 2023

By Cheyenna González Pilsner, Volume 108 Staff Member On August 2, 2023, Identity, a new housing complex near the University of Minnesota, notified its tenants they would be unable to move in on the lease-given day of August 27, 2023, citing construction delays.[1] This notice…

MICHIGAN’S NEW POINT OF NO RETURN: EVOLVING AGE RESTRICTIONS ON MANDATORY LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE

November 14, 2023

By Chad Berryman, Volume 108 Staff Member In July 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court decided People v. Parks, in which it held that mandatory life without parole sentences for eighteen-year-olds convicted of first-degree murder violate the Michigan Constitution’s prohibition of cruel or unusual punishment.[1] This ruling…

GRISHAM FLEXES HER GUNS: HOW TO FIRE BACK AT STATE EXECUTIVE ACTION

November 14, 2023

By: Sam Black, Volume 108 Staff Member On Friday, September 8th, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public across Albuquerque and the surrounding county for at least thirty days in response to a spate…

WHEN TOTAL DOESN’T MEAN COMPLETE: WHY COURTS SHOULD ADOPT THE STATE CREATED NEED THEORY

April 19, 2023

By: Dylan Schepers, Volume 107 Staff Member Introduction It was the black of midnight in mid-March 2020. Four police officers approached the front door of an apartment in Louisville Kentucky prepared to execute a drug-related search warrant.[1] Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker were…

STATE CONSTITUTIONAL A(MN)DMENTS: NOW IS THE TIME FOR THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATURE TO AMEND THE MINNESOTA CONSTITUTION WITH THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT

April 18, 2023

By: Evan Dale, Volume 107 Staff Member As the U.S. Supreme Court has retreated on its protection of individual rights,[1] state constitutions have taken on a renewed interest. This became as evident as ever in 2022. With the Supreme Court stripping the rights of women…

MIFPA WITHOUT ICWA: ASSESSING THE FATE OF THE MINNESOTA INDIAN FAMILY PRESERVATION ACT IF THE INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ACT IS OVERTURNED IN BRACKEEN v. HAALAND

April 14, 2023

 By: Ryan Liston, Volume 107 Staff Member The United States and the colonies that predated it have a sordid past when it comes to the treatment of Indigenous people.[1] Among the countless examples of mistreatment, one particularly shameful practice was separating Indigenous children from their…

A TEST OF PRECEDENT, POLICY & HUMANITY: AN ANALYSIS OF FLORIDA’S PROPOSED EXPANSIONS TO STATE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT LAW

April 10, 2023

By: Adam Kolb, Volume 107 Staff Member The death penalty is primitive.[1] The death penalty is ineffective and garners increasing disapproval.[2] The death penalty—though constitutionally challenged and curtailed[3]—is legal in the United States.[4] Now, the extent of its legality is set to be tested yet…