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Standalone Municipal Liability
No full textUnder Monell v. Department of Social Services, municipalities may not be held liable for constitutional violations attributable to an errant employee’s actions. Instead, Monell dictates that municipal liability is appropriate only when the municipality itself is “the moving force” behind the constitutional violation. The Fourth and Fifth Circuits, based on a flawed reading of the Supreme Court case City of Los Angeles v. Heller, adopt an inapposite approach to the relationship between municipal and individual liability. Although every other circuit allows municipal claims to proceed absent any individual claim arising from the same underlying facts, the Fourth and Fifth Circuits have never definitively adopted this approach. Consequently, when Fourth or Fifth Circuit plaintiffs bring claims against municipalities without accompanying claims against individual employees—or when their accompanying individual claims are dismissed—the municipal claims stand on uncertain ground. This ambiguity erodes otherwise valid pathways to liability for plaintiffs whose constitutional injuries are properly attributable to the municipality qua municipality, rather than an individual municipal employee. The Fourth and Fifth Circuits should recognize the viability of standalone municipal liability, consistent with the approach taken in all other circuits applying the Monell doctrine
Crossing the Rubicon: Assembling A Litigation Colossus in Mass Torts
No full textIn 2021, Arizona created the alternative business structure (ABS), which allows nonattorneys to own a firm that provides legal services and actively participate in firm management. Scholars have argued that this new paradigm will erode the attorney-client relationship. This represents a legitimate concern. Conflict- ing fiduciary duties can complicate key moments in case resolution. But the impact of Arizona’s shift is more seismic. The true threat does not involve nonattorneys owning a law firm but, rather, private equity firms vertically in- tegrating the entire mass-tort machinery. The endgame is a litigation colossus that rolls up law firms, marketers, claim aggregators, administrative vendors, and medical clinics—creating an apex predator that can weaponize litigation. This Essay offers a primarily descriptive treatment in extrapolating the future of aggregate litigation with the hope of initiating a dialogue on this convoluted issue. The engagement of academics and policymakers is paramount in under- standing the new dynamics and risks that the litigation colossus will create and what—if any—legislative intervention may be necessary
Introduction: The Future of Agency Independence Symposium Christopher J. Walker
No full textOn the Friday after the election last November, the student editors and I convened scholars from across the country at the University of Michigan Law School to discuss the future of agency independence. The goal was to center our discussion on the traditional unitary executive debate and then look beyond statutory restrictions on the President’s removal power to explore other contours of agency independence in modern regulatory governance. Those included the role of scientific expertise and politics in agency decisionmaking, the decisional independence of agency adjudicators, and the importance of a professionalized civil service. When we planned the symposium, we did not know who would win the presidential election. Nor could we have predicted the extent that these aspects of agency independence would be affected by a new administration.
In the first months of the second Trump Administration, the future of agency independence—in all its respects—has been challenged. We have seen heads of several so-called independent agencies fired without cause, contrary to statutory for-cause removal protections. Those fired agency officials are challenging their removal in court, which will no doubt lead the Supreme Court to consider whether to overrule Humphrey’s Executor—its landmark precedent that blessed Congress’s constitutional authority to require for-cause removal for the heads of certain multi-member independent agencies. Indeed, in May, the Supreme Court stayed lower-court orders that had preliminarily enjoined the firings of a member of the National Labor Relations Board and a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board. In dissent, Justice Kagan accused the majority of “overturning or narrowing” Humphrey’s Executor on the emergency docket. President Trump also fired some seventeen inspectors general across the administrative state without adhering to the statutory thirty-day notice requirement to Congress. Similarly, the Justice Department has decided that it will not defend the removal protections for administrative law judges (ALJs), opening the door for agency heads to fire ALJs at will. With the help of Elon Musk and his novel Department of Government Efficiency, federal agencies have fired thousands of career civil servants and cut back on, or outright eliminated, government programs and infrastructure that house and facilitate the use of scientific and other technical experience in regulatory governance.
In retrospect, this Future of Agency Independence Symposium could not have been more prescient. The important conversions that started at the in-person symposium and that continue in the pages of this symposium issue of the Journal of Law Reform make meaningful contributions to the literature and debates on the future of agency independence. And they will no doubt spark further conversations as well as doctrinal, empirical, normative, and theoretical scholarship that will shape the response to the second Trump Administration’s actions and the Supreme Court’s reply.
To introduce this symposium issue, I separate these conversations into the four panels that took place at the in-person symposium
Citizen Shareholders: The State as a Fiduciary in International Investment Law
No full textInternational investment law provides stability for investors, helps capital flow across the globe, and can be a critical tool for sustainable development. This regime, however, has become increasingly controversial, in part due to its inability to reconcile investor obligations with competing human rights obligations. International investment treaties provide substantive guarantees to investors, including submission to binding arbitration in the event of breach. When found in breach of one of these guarantees, international investment arbitral tribunal awards are often in the hundreds of millions of dollars, potentially creating “regulatory chill” for states that may otherwise take affirmative action to protect human rights out of concern that regulation may run afoul of their treaties’ international investment provisions.
Some legal scholars have posited a fiduciary theory of statehood, whereby a state owes a fiduciary duty to its people, much like that in domestic corporate law. This Note proposes looking to the fiduciary theory of statehood for a path forward. It then advocates for its implementation through three approaches: (1) the contractual approach (treaty drafting), (2) the judicial approach (interpretative methods for existing treaties), and (3) the atmospheric approach (norm diffusion among stakeholders). The fiduciary theory not only provides a principled method to prioritize human rights but also enhances the legitimacy of the international investment legal regime. This framework offers a timely, pragmatic solution as the international community actively reconsiders the balance between investor protection and state sovereignty
Fall 2025 - AI Regulatory Landscape
No full textExplore 2025 AI regulation, from proposed and enacted legislation to agency guidance and global policies. This session highlights recent developments and emerging trends in the AI regulatory landscape.
Resources covered: Westlaw, Bloomberg Law, Lexis, and State, U.S., & International government websites
Host: Rebecca Domm, JD, MLIS | Faculty Research Librarianhttps://repository.law.umich.edu/legaltechseries/1020/thumbnail.jp
Fall 2025 - Judicial Analytics
No full textApplying to a clerkship? Client asking the likelihood a judge will grant their motion? Writing a brief and need to find citations a judge prefers? Curious what other attorneys think of that judge? In this session, you will gain hands-on experience using analytics databases to understand why each is critical to ensuring your success in the courtroom.
Resources covered: Lex Machina, Context, Westlaw Litigation Analytics, Almanac of the Federal Judiciary
Host: Christine Schauder, MLIS | Head of Emerging Legal Technologyhttps://repository.law.umich.edu/legaltechseries/1019/thumbnail.jp
A CORE Proposal for Budget Caring - Will the E.U. Adopt a Progressive Corporate Tax?
No full textOn 16 July 2025, the European Commission unveiled its proposed EU budget for the 2028–2034 period, representing a nearly EUR two trillion fiscal commitment for the bloc’s taxpayers – both individual and corporate. As leaked by some media outlets in the days leading up to the official announcement, the EU budget would introduce a new mechanism known as the ‘Corporate Resource for Europe’ (CORE). In the Commission’s proposal, CORE is described as a ‘financial contribution’ from the corporate sector, intended to become part of the European Union’s system of own resources. In practical terms, however, it would function as a levy on large corporations that operate and sell within the EU
Reparations for Colonialism: Beyond Legal Responsibility
No full textReparations for colonialism and colonial-era atrocities have moved from an unrealized demand of citizens, politicians, and thinkers in the Global South to a project with some results in the real world. Key markers include the return of numerous art objects from museums in the Global North to their countries of origin; the release of the Caribbean Community and Common Market’s (CARICOM) proposal for reparations; and Namibia’s agreement with Germany on compensation for the German genocide against the Herero people in 1904–08 —along with the resultant controversy. These developments follow earlier claims for reparations directed to—and their eventual acceptance by—the governments of Canada and New Zealand, domestic courts in the Netherlands and the UK, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. At the same time, it remains the case that reparations for colonialism are overall few and far between
Development of the Navigation Guide Evidence-to-Decision Framework for Environmental Health: Version 1.0
No full textEnvironmental exposures, including widespread industrial pollution, impact human health and are amplified in more highly exposed communities. Policy and regulatory frameworks for making decisions and recommendations on interventions to mitigate or prevent exposures tend to narrowly focus on exposure and some health-related data related to risks. Typically, such frameworks do not consider other factors, including essentiality, health equity, and distribution of benefits and costs. Further, decisions and recommendations lack transparency regarding how they were developed. We developed the Navigation Guide Evidence-to-Decision Framework for Environmental Health (E2DFEH) to provide a structured and transparent framework incorporating a range of scientific information and factors for decision-making. We reviewed current evidence-to-decision frameworks and engaged in an iterative consensus-based process involving 30 experts from 25 organizations in the academic, government, and nonprofit sectors. The E2DFEH framework includes three Foundations that are structural factors considered as part of recommendation development: 1) Essentiality, 2) Human Rights, and 3) Quality of the Evidence. It also includes three core Criteria that guide the development of a specific recommendation, informed by an evaluation of relevant evidence: 1) Environmental Justice, 2) Maximizing Benefits and Reducing Harm, and 3) Sociocultural Acceptability and Feasibility. The framework’s goal is to make the decision process transparent and comprehensive through explicit consideration of core factors important for decisions, leading to more equitable and health-protective interventions