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Misdemeanor Decriminalization

May. 15, 2015—Misdemeanor Decriminalization ABSTRACT As the United States reconsiders its stance on mass incarceration, misdemeanor decriminalization has emerged as an increasingly popular reform. Seen as a potential cure for crowded jails and an overburdened defense bar, many states are eliminating jailtime for minor offenses such as marijuana possession and driving violations, replacing those crimes with so-called...

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Pricing Lives for Corporate Risk Decisions

May. 15, 2015—Pricing Lives for Corporate Risk Decisions ABSTRACT The 2014 GM ignition-switch recall highlighted the inadequacies of the company’s safety culture and the shortcomings of regulatory sanctions. The company’s inattention to systematic thinking about product safety can be traced to the hostile treatment of corporate risk analyses by the courts. This Article proposes that companies should...

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Putting an End to False Claims Act Hush Money: An Agency-Approval Approach to Qui Tam Prefiling Releases

May. 15, 2015—Putting an End to False Claims Act Hush Money: An Agency-Approval Approach to Qui Tam Prefiling Releases AUTHOR J.D. Candidate, May 2015, Vanderbilt University Law School; B.A., 2011, The University of Georgia.

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Federalizing Education by Waiver?

May. 2, 2015—Federalizing Education by Waiver? ABSTRACT In the fall of 2011, the U.S. Secretary of Education told states he would use his statutory power to waive violations of the No Child Left Behind Act (“NCLB”), but only on the condition that they adopt his new education policies— policies that had already failed to move forward in...

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Human Equity? Regulating the New Income Share Agreements

May. 2, 2015—Human Equity? Regulating the New Income Share Agreements ABSTRACT A controversial new financing phenomenon has recently emerged. New “income share agreements” (“ISAs”) enable an individual to raise funds by pledging a percentage of her future earnings to investors for a certain number of years. These contracts, which have been offered by entities such as Fantex,...

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The Realities of Electoral Reform

May. 2, 2015—The Realities of Electoral Reform ABSTRACT What good are theories if they cannot be tested? Election law has wrestled with this question over the last generation. Two new theories have emerged during this period that reject conventional rights-and-interests balancing. In its place, the responsiveness theory asserts that legislators’ positions should be sensitive to changes in...

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The Litigation Budget

May. 2, 2015—The Litigation Budget ABSTRACT Because of fears that litigation is too costly, reduction of litigation expenses has been the touchstone of procedural reform for the past thirty years. In certain circumstances, however, the parties have incentives—both rational and irrational—to spend more on a lawsuit than the social benefits that the case provides. Present and proposed...

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The Emergency Aid Doctrine and 911 Hang-ups: The Modern General Warrant

May. 2, 2015—The Emergency Aid Doctrine and 911 Hang-ups: The Modern General Warrant AUTHOR J.D. Candidate, 2015, Vanderbilt University Law School; B.S., 2010, University of South Dakota; former law enforcement officer.

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Filling the Gap: Refining Sex Trafficking Legislation to Address the Problem of Pimping

May. 2, 2015—Filling the Gap: Refining Sex Trafficking Legislation to Address the Problem of Pimping AUTHOR J.D. Candidate, May 2015, Vanderbilt University Law School; B.S., 2011, Lipscomb University

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Family Support and Supporting Families

Apr. 16, 2015—Family Support and Supporting Families Response to Laura A. Rosenbury, Federal Visions of Private Family Support, 67 Vand. L. Rev. 1835 (2014). AUTHOR Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law.

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The Sins of Innocence in Standing Doctrine

Mar. 19, 2015—The Sins of Innocence in Standing Doctrine ABSTRACT Should reverse discrimination plaintiffs always be able to challenge race-conscious selection policies in court? Conventional standing doctrine requires plaintiffs to show that the contested policy or practice has caused a concrete, personal harm. Yet in affirmative action cases, courts seem to have quietly dispensed with this required...

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The Geography of Bankruptcy

Mar. 19, 2015—The Geography of Bankruptcy ABSTRACT Companies routinely file bankruptcy cases in venues that have no meaningful connection to the company, its operations, or its stakeholders. This practice (1) divorces bankruptcy and venue from their ties to location; (2) disrupts the fundamental balance underlying the Bankruptcy Code by shifting the focus exclusively to the needs of...

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Voting Squared: Quadratic Voting in Democratic Politics

Mar. 19, 2015—Voting Squared: Quadratic Voting in Democratic Politics ABSTRACT Conventional democratic institutions aggregate preferences poorly. The norm of one-person–one-vote with majority rule treats people fairly by giving everyone an equal chance to influence outcomes but fails to give proportional weight to people whose interests in a social outcome are stronger than those of other people. This...

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A Tale of Two Jurisdictions

Mar. 19, 2015—A Tale of Two Jurisdictions ABSTRACT The Supreme Court has recently clarified one corner of personal jurisdiction—a court’s power to hale a defendant into court—and pointed the way toward a coherent theory of the rest of the doctrine. For nearly seventy years, the Court has embraced two theories of when jurisdiction over a defendant is...

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Criminal Asset Forfeiture and the Sixth Amendment After Southern Union and Alleyne: State-Level Ramifications

Mar. 19, 2015—Criminal Asset Forfeiture and the Sixth Amendment After Southern Union and Alleyne: State-Level Ramifications AUTHOR J.D. Candidate, 2015, Vanderbilt University Law School; B.A., 2010, University of Pennsylvania.

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Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: States Lead Misguided Offensive to Enforce Sales Tax Against Online Retailers

Mar. 19, 2015—Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: States Lead Misguided Offensive to Enforce Sales Tax Against Online Retailers AUTHOR J.D. Candidate, 2015, Vanderbilt University Law School; M.A., 2010, University of Memphis; B.S., 2006 Full Sail University.

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