3722 research outputs found
Sort by
Rodrigo\u27s Extra Credit Assignment: Can Pleadings Be Both Plausible and Fair?
Full text linkCritical race theory has enabled followers to understand some of the twists and turns of racial history and the rise and fall of constitutional values such as equal protection. But does it have anything useful to say about blackletter subjects such as civil procedure?
In the following chronicle, Rodrigo and his straight man, “the Professor,” discuss whether legal storytelling and narrative analysis can counteract one source of unfairness in our procedural system.
Meeting by chance during a routine errand by the Professor, the two discuss Iqbal, Twombly, and the heightened plausibility requirement they impose for filing a complaint in federal court. After reviewing examples from a number of areas, they conclude that carefully framed stories and counterstories can indeed mitigate the impulse to render snap decisions based on incomplete knowledge, thus broadening judges’ and lawyers’ ideas of what is in fact plausible
Black History Month Book Display 03
No full textClose up of book display created by Black Law Students Association in the law library from February through March 2025.https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/black-history-month-2025-photos/1005/thumbnail.jp
Legal Market Decartelization
Full text linkAmerican lawyers’ grip on the legal market is receding. Scholars and policymakers increasingly agree that the public has little to lose and potentially much to gain from legal market decartelization - the weakening of the lawyers’ monopoly over the legal services market. Harkening to deregulatory initiatives abroad and in Arizona and Utah, reformers contend that removing restrictions on the corporate delivery of legal services and unauthorized practice of law will slash costs and expand access to justice.Drawing on economic theory and recent market developments, this Article offers a cautionary rejoinder. Understandable concerns about cartelization and lawyer rent-seeking have led critics to understate the risks of legal market deregulation in the American context. The American legal market is highly localized, with significant variations within and across states. Nevertheless, in all states, consumers are at a disadvantage vis à vis lawyers and other legal services providers because of asymmetric information. Legal market decartelization does not address asymmetric information and may exacerbate it, enabling well-capitalized entities such as private equity firms to gain dominance without offering better or lower-cost legal services. Increasing the number of providers and separating labor from capital is also likely to produce more moral hazard and negative externalities, especially in litigation where contingent fees arrangements are common, but fee shifting is not. Lastly, lawyers play an integral, yet underappreciated, role in the development of law both ex-ante and ex-post that would diminish in a deregulated market and worsen regulatory and legislative capture. Cartelization is not without its advantages, and policymakers must look beyond decartelization to address the maldistribution of legal services
April 2025 Poetry Month Display Photo 09
No full textPhoto of Vol. 61 of the Bankruptcy Reporter page 558 referencing the case In re Love along with the context card featured in the April 2025 display.https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/poetry-month-2025-photos/1012/thumbnail.jp
Invasives: The How of Biodiversity Loss
Full text linkInvasive species are non-native organisms, existing outside of their original habitat, which may cause damage to the biodiversity in their new environment. These species often outcompete native species for resources, which can dramatically disrupt ecological balance and biodiversity. This Article first surveys existing invasive species laws, documenting the current legal frameworks that various countries use to manage invasive species. It then proposes an array of new legal approaches that may improve how human civilizations manage the complex issues surrounding invasives. Finally, it evaluates the prospects for preventing—or even rolling back—the harm invasives cause to biodiversity. The broad goal of this Article is to understand the current and potential future ways that legal frameworks could help manage invasive specie
Debt Tokens
Full text linkThe worlds of crypto and bankruptcy have collided. Once-prominent, fast-growing, and even politically influential platforms for trading cryptocurrencies have imploded spectacularly. Gone are the glossy advertisements, celebrity endorsements, and proclamations that blockchain operates as a law unto itself. Instead, insolvent crypto businesses—including the crypto exchange giant FTX—find themselves in bankruptcy court, no different from any other failed enterprise. These bankruptcies reveal a startling reality: individual investors who placed their trust in these platforms have been stripped of their digital assets. In their stead, they hold hard-to-collect claims against these defunct platforms.
Amid the chill of the crypto winter, bankruptcy has unexpectedly emerged as a crucible for innovation, giving rise to a new digital asset: debt tokens. Entrepreneurs have responded to the tidal wave of trade debts arising from the insolvencies of crypto platforms by embarking on a mission to create blockchain-based digital assets that represent bankruptcy claims. They present debt tokens as cutting-edge devices for swiftly and advantageously liquidating these distressed assets. Yet, the pressing question is this: are these debt tokens actually useful innovations or yet another hollow promise?
This Article offers the first comprehensive analysis of debt tokens, making three seminal contributions. First, we scrutinize existing debt token offerings, laying bare their inherent flaws and casting doubt on their legitimacy. Second, we explore the potential for genuine debt tokens within the framework of the recently adopted 2022 amendments to the Uniform Commercial Code. Lastly, we delve into the broader socio-economic implications of widespread debt token adoption. Specifically, we anticipate debt tokens fostering more effective collective action and improved exit opportunities, particularly for those creditors who traditionally fare the worst in bankruptcy due to having fewer resources and pressing financial needs. However, we also caution against the looming risks of irrational speculation and the exploitation of inexperienced retail investors blinded by the bright lights of innovation
Capital Formation, The SEC, and Accredited Investors
Full text linkProtecting the investing public, while simultaneously facilitating the efficient flow of capital needed by all new and growing businesses continues as a primary responsibility of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Enhancing the capital formation process is a necessary step in the creation of jobs and growth of any economy. Central to the SEC’s regulatory schematic is the proposition that some particularly sophisticated and wealthy investors require less protection than those with less knowledge, experience, and resources. During December 2023, for just the third time, the SEC staff issued a report examining the status of the natural person accredited investor pool and whether the definition needs to be adjusted or modified. With arguments against making the definition either overinclusive or underinclusive, the SEC did not revise the wealth test for natural people to be accredited investors. This standard has not significantly changed since 1983, which has led to many more people qualifying as accredited investors, altering the SEC’s original intentions of the role of these accredited investors. Herein lies the central purpose of our inquiry. Exactly what criteria constitutes the optimal, appropriate definition for an “accredited investor”
April 2025 Poetry Month Display Photo 02
No full textImage of the book and context card for Poetry of the Law: From Chaucer to the Present Edited By David Kader & Michael Stanford This anthology of poetry about the law includes the work of many of the most distinguished English-language poets in the 6 centuries from Chaucer to the present. William Blackstone, one of the poets contained in this anthology, takes the view that the law is fundamentally incompatible with poetry. Blackstone, the 18th century legal scholar, at the tender age of 18 began his study of Law in 1741. But for the previous three years, he studied at Oxford, devoting himself to reading and writing poetry.https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/poetry-month-2025-photos/1004/thumbnail.jp