The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law
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Success in the Law: Latino Voices & Experiences
No full textOn Monday, October 20, 2025, Catholic Law\u27s Office of Career and Professional Development and the Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA) hosted Success in the Law: Latino Voices & Experiences, a panel discussion featuring five Latino legal professionals who graduated from law school within the past five years. These accomplished panelists shared their career journeys and practical advice with aspiring lawyers, offering diverse perspectives from their respective legal fields.
The speakers included Svetlanna Espinosa-Valdes, Associate at Eversheds Sutherland; Aimee Solano, Associate with Blankingship & Keith, P.C.; Nicolas Valderrama, Associate at Simpson Thacher LLP; Julie Orlando, Attorney at Offit Kurman; and Bev Diaz-Kenyon, Staff Attorney with the D.C. Pro Bono Center. During the discussion, panelists shared insights into their diverse career paths, reflected on lessons they wish they had known as first-year law students, and addressed a wide range of topics relevant to aspiring legal professionals. Highlighting a key ingredient to professional achievement, all five panelists emphasized the critical importance of networking and building strong relationships within the legal community, as well as noting the importance of helping the next group of law graduates succeed. Following the panel discussion, attendees had the opportunity to continue conversations and connect with panelists during a networking reception held in the Law School\u27s atrium
Bringing the Antiquities Act Into the Modern Age
Full text linkThe Antiquities Act empowers the President both to declare national monuments and to reserve the “smallest area” of land compatible with the preservation of such monuments. Modern Presidents have adopted expansive interpretations of those authorities—purporting, for example, to reserve entire “ecosystems” as national monuments, and to claim that the Act’s reference to “land” includes state-sized swaths of the ocean floor. Until recently, Presidents’ expansive readings of the Act have gone largely unchecked by courts. But in Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Ass’n v. Raimondo, Chief Justice Roberts expressed interest in reconsidering “[t]he scope of the objects that can be designated under the [Antiquities] Act, and how to measure the area necessary for their proper care and management.” This Essay will respond to the Chief Justice’s expression of interest by proposing how courts should review presidential declarations made pursuant to the Antiquities Act.
In short, interpretations of the Antiquities Act should be brought into the modern age of statutory interpretation—an age dominated by the rise of textualism and widespread applications of the major questions doctrine. Interpreting the Act’s provisions from the perspective of the ordinary reader (as textualists do), and asking whether the Act “clearly” gives the President “major” authority (as the major questions doctrine requires), would remedy the Chief Justice’s concern that the Act “has been transformed into a power without any discernible limit.
The Challenges Facing Academic Freedom and Free Speech
Full text linkThere are growing challenges to free speech and academic freedom on American college campuses. There is pressure from both the political left and the political right to suppress controversial speech on campus, and there are calls to restrict speech that come both from members of the campus community and from those beyond the campus gates. In this difficult environment, it is essential that academics both understand the principles of academic freedom and campus free speech and work to advocate for them
An Evening With An AUSA
No full textCatholic Law students recently gained valuable perspective from the front lines of the justice system during a special event co-hosted by the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) and the Criminal Law Society. The discussion featured special guest Kwambina Coker, a 2018 Catholic Law alumnus and Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Guided by thoughtful moderation from BLSA President Jasmine Rountree, Coker detailed his career path, offered a behind-the-scenes look at some of his most memorable cases, and provided rich insights into the responsibilities of his role. The engaging session provided a unique learning opportunity for attendees, concluding with an engaging question-and-answer period where students directly interacted with the federal prosecutor
Answered By Text
Full text linkThis Essay takes stock of a pivotal moment at the Court: statutory interpretation at center stage in administrative law. The U.S. Supreme Court’s most recent Term saw numerous landscape-shifting administrative law decisions. The most widely discussed was the Court’s elimination of 40-year-old Chevron deference in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The Court’s decisions also effected significant change in the scope of Seventh Amendment jury trial rights and the length of time that individuals, businesses, and associations have to challenge agency actions. But taken together, the Court’s decisions did not radically restructure the administrative state on constitutional grounds. Despite the substantial mindset shift in conceptions of how courts should review agency legal determinations and conduct enforcement actions, the Court rejected or failed to reach several constitutional law challenges. Instead, the Court’s leading cases tended to resolve on carefully measured statutory grounds, at times with Justice alignments that transcended typical ideological or jurisprudential lines. Also, last Term’s most significant administrative law decisions may give important predictive clues about how the Court will apply statutory constraints to free-ranging administrative claims to vast regulatory power in future years
Smart Contracts Are Neither Smart Nor A Contract: The Case Against Smart Contract Utilization in Everyday Consumer or Commercial Transactions
Full text linkNo doubt, most of us have gone into a local electronics store or ordered a new gadget from an online provider. After purchasing the gadget, we are eager to start operating the new purchase. Before fully utilizing the gadget, however, there are a series of screens requiring the user to read, acknowledge, and consent to, various clauses. If this process is not completed, the user is denied full access to the gadget. Thereafter, entry is granted, and the user is free to utilize the electronic device. This is a prime example of utilizing technology to automate a process that would have previously required human intervention.
Technology is driving innovation all over the world. Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, 3D printing, and augmented reality are examples of massive technological innovations that have not only captured our imaginations, but also stand to change business and popular culture in our society. One class of innovation gaining momentum revolves around blockchain. Blockchain is a method of recording information, in a secure manner, on a peer-to-peer network.[1] Essentially, it is the equivalent to a publicly shared spreadsheet or database in which entries can be added, but not altered.[2] Each discreet entry contains encoded information about previous entries as the blockchain starts to grow.[3]
Blockchain technology is a foundational element for digital assets. Digital assets are also known as cryptocurrencies, tokens, crypto assets, tokenized assets, security tokens, non-fungible tokens, and central bank digital currencies.[4] Notably, “digital asset[s] [are] created . . . when new information is added to a particular blockchain.”[5] Blockchain entries, known as blocks, allow for the exchange of existing digital assets and the creation of new assets.[6] With all these technological advances, there is a lot to consider. What happens, though, when these types of technological innovations meet old school business methods?
[1] A.J. Bosco, Blockchain and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, 74 Bus. Law. 243, 243-44 (2018).
[2] See id. (“Most basically, it is a digital database consisting of a continuously growing list of records, called blocks. These blocks of data are chained together using cryptography, making it difficult to rewrite the older records. Further, a blockchain and the data on it can be simultaneously used and shared within a large, decentralized, publicly available network. Importantly, it allows information to be stored and exchanged without any central authority or need for third-party verification.”).
[3] Id. at 243.
[4] Demystifying Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets, PwC, https://www.pwc.com/us/en/tech-effect/emerging-tech/understanding-cryptocurrency-digital-assets.html [https://perma.cc/V6AC-YGSQ].
[5] Id.
[6] John Gordon, Emerging Technologies and Lagging Laws: Article 12 and the UCC’s Attempt to Commercially Incorporate the Rapidly Changing World of Digital Assets, 56 Ind. L. Rev. 417, 421 (2023)
