Current Print Issue

Volume 109, Issue 5

Articles

Altered Stakes: Reimagining the Amount-in-Controversy Requirement

Steven Gensler & Roger Michalski

Gene and Elaine Edwards Family Chair in Law, Professor of Law, University of Oklahoma College of Law, Professor of Law, University of Oklahoma College of Law.

Which state-law cases should Congress allow into federal court? Congress’s answer has always been “only the big ones.” This article revisits the choice to limit diversity jurisdiction to higher-value cases and critically examines how Congress has approached setting the amount threshold. It surveys alternate ways Congress could use case value to sort which cases make…

Sep 2024

Defense Lawyering in the Progressive Prosecution Era

Jenny Roberts

Dean and Professor of Law, Maurice A. Deane School of Law, Hofstra University.

The movement to elect so-called “progressive prosecutors” is relatively new, but there is a robust literature analyzing it from a number of angles. Scholars consider how to define “progressive prosecution,” look at the movement through a racial justice lens, and examine it in the context of rural spaces, deportation, and the pandemic. One essay even…

Sep 2024

Taxing Luxury Emissions

Clinton G. Wallace & Shelley Welton

Associate Professor of Law, University of South Carolina School of Law, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Law & Energy Policy, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.

Recent economic and sociological studies have documented the rising challenge of carbon inequality—that is, extreme class disparities in carbon emissions both within the United States and globally. These studies show an alarming divide, with the top 10% of emitters producing half of all emissions and the top 1% alone producing 17% of emissions. Meanwhile, the…

Sep 2024

Notes

Takings and Homeowners’ Expectations in Times of Rapid Climate Change

Gijs de Bra

J.D. Candidate, Cornell Law School 2025; M.S., University of Amsterdam 2019.

This Note argues that courts should give more weight to climate change when assessing the reasonable investment-backed expectations that define the owner’s property interest. First, the owner’s expectations should be viewed dynamically, evolving over time, because government regulations—climate and disaster controls in particular—must also respond to changing circumstances. Currently, expectations are fixed at the time…

Sep 2024

The Case For a Uniform Invention Assignment Agreement Act (UIAAA) 

Amanda Shoemaker

J.D., Cornell Law School, 2024; B.S., Marketing and Media Arts, Bentley University, 2021.

An invention is broadly defined as “anything that is created or devised.” As the Supreme Court once remarked, “the word cannot be defined in such manner as to afford any substantial aid in determining whether a particular device involves an exercise of the inventive faculty or not.” Today, most “inventors” are employees of a corporate enterprise…

Sep 2024