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Introduction: The Rise and Consolidation of Fashion Law as a Field of Practice, Study, and Research
No full textOver the past few years, ‘fashion law’ has emerged as a vibrant field of inquiry. But what is fashion law? And what are the specific legal challenges facing the fashion sector, as well as related solutions? This book seeks to answer these questions by bringing together multiple voices, approaches, and jurisdictions. The book is organized into four thematic areas. Part I considers the legal infrastructure or the fashion and luxury industries, addressing issues related to intellectual property (IP) as well as the demands of the circular economy, protection of cultural heritage, and freedom of expression and information. Part II maps the IP dimensions of fashion by reviewing the application of design rights, copyright, trade marks, geographical indications, plant variety rights, and trade secrets. Part III analyses specifical contractual issues arising in the fashion sector. It examines the application of principles and rules found in regulatory frameworks, including those governing advertising, competition, consumer, and tax laws. Finally, Part IV dissects and evaluates the role of new and emerging technologies in the fashion sector from a legal perspective. It considers concepts such as e-commerce, 3D printing, counterfeiting, Artificial Intelligence (AI), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the metaverse, gaming, and wearable technology. The book offers readers a multidisciplinary and multijurisdictional understanding of legal challenges facing the fashion sector and an in-depth, critical, and strategic understanding of the fashion industry’s legal intricacies
Money, Solidarity, and Half a Century of Health Reform
No full textThis essay explores central aspects of the relationship between money and national health policy from the passage of Medicare in 1965 to the present, including the two most sweeping attempts at system reinvention during that period: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), and the failed Health Security Act of the early 1990s. Its point is not that ethical professionalism has prevailed, though it survives on the skill and dedication of nurses, physicians, and other health care workers. Rather, its point is that one should not criticize the morality of change without interrogating the morality of the status quo. In the 1990s, Jerome Kassirer wrote that “a system in which there is no equity is, in fact, already unethical.” The same can be said for a system that overfunds medical care and underfunds other essential social investments, including education. A system that, moreover, cannot be justified by the limited morality of competition in the marketplace because it does not — and could not absent radical change — perform as a functioning market would. In terms of robust market competition with its winners and losers, U.S. health care has been, at worst, a sheep in wolf’s clothing
Character merchandising licensing agreements
No full textThis chapter explores character merchandising licensing, a practice where intellectual property rights holders, such as creators and companies, authorize the use of popular characters on various consumer products. The chapter examines the legal foundations of character merchandising, including the role of copyrights, trademarks, and related intellectual property laws. It discusses how contracts are negotiated and enforced, highlighting key provisions like exclusivity, territorial limitations, quality control, and royalty payments. The chapter also provides case studies of famous characters like Mickey Mouse, Harry Potter, Hello Kitty, and Betty Boop to illustrate the practice\u27s commercial success and the legal challenges involved. Finally, it addresses significant litigation cases that have shaped the legal landscape of character merchandising, offering insights into the complexities and risks of this lucrative licensing strategy
United States v. Minor: Two Major Issues
No full textThis Note analyzes a 2024 Fifth Circuit opinion concerning two issues: “(1) whether the district court erred by applying the career-offender enhancement when calculating Minor’s . . . range” under the United States Sentencing Guidelines (“Guidelines”), and “(2) if so, whether that error was harmless.” In United States v. Minor, the Fifth Circuit first held that the district court erred by applying the career-offender enhancement when calculating Minor’s Guidelines range because the defendant’s prior marijuana convictions no longer qualified as predicate offenses under the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”). Second, the court held that the error was not harmless because the district court neither considered both Guidelines ranges nor met its heavy burden in establishing that the erroneous Guidelines calculation did not influence the sentence
Law and Political Economy: Missing Markets, Missing Law, and Missing Political Economy
No full textThis Article critiques the Law and Political Economy (LPE) framework. It aims to challenge the Law and Economics (L&E) approach. We argue that LPE lacks a coherent theoretical foundation and fails to engage with empirical evidence, rendering its critiques of markets, law, and political economy incomplete and unpersuasive. By contrast, L&E provides robust analytical tools and a well-developed understanding of legal and market dynamics, is grounded in empirical research, and has theoretical consistency. We illustrate these points through historical examples in the evolution of L&E and suggest ways LPE can evolve to offer a meaningful alternative. Rigorous intellectual competition will advance the understanding of law and its role on the economy
Major Rules in the Courts: An Empirical Study of Challenges to Federal Agencies’ Major Rules
No full textSince at least the 1990s, presidents have seen the administrative state as a key tool, if not the primary one, for achieving policy objectives. At the same time, the administrative state has faced growing scrutiny, particularly from members of the Supreme Court. Given these dynamics, do some administrations’ regulatory actions fare better in court than others? Are there any trends we can see over time? These are some of the questions we sought to answer in the first empirical study of how major rules, as defined under the Congressional Review Act (“CRA”), fare in federal court. We chose major rules for several reasons, namely, the ability to conduct an apples-to-apples comparison across administrations while focusing attention on the most important agency actions. The study of the primary dataset summarized in this Article covers each of the 1,872 major rules issued from the CRA’s enactment in 1996 through the end of the first Trump Administration. To our knowledge, the primary dataset’s roughly 24-year period covering four administrations (two from each party) is the longest continuous time span of any empirical study of agency win rates. The Article’s title is perhaps ironic given that most major rules (78.7%) do not end up in court, which is itself notable because most previous studies of agency win rates focus only on the relatively small percentage of agency actions that end up in court. Our study finds that the challenge rate has steadily increased over time, rising from 16.8% for the Clinton Administration to 28.0% for the first Trump Administration. Courts are thus resolving more challenges to major rules than they once did. Our study also finds lower agency win rates than other studies, which typically report win rates of 60–70%. In contrast, our study finds win rates of 49.4% or 56.9%, depending on the unit of analysis (major rules or controlling opinions resolving challenges to major rules). Our study further finds that win rates declined over time: The Clinton Administration saw 63.0% of its major rules upheld and 63.3% of controlling opinions rule in favor of its major rules; the first Trump Administration saw 32.1% of its major rules upheld and 45.4% of controlling opinions rule in favor of its major rules. The two intervening administrations were in between but closer to the range’s upper end. Our results suggest that, while agency win rates declined over time, the first Trump Administration’s win rates were unusually low. In addition to documenting these agency challenge and win rates, we also collected data on other topics including forum shopping, differences between independent and executive agencies, partisan trends, Chevron deference, and more. We conclude with observations to date on the Biden Administration’s major rules. Because the Biden Administration only recently concluded, and many challenges to its finalized rules remain ongoing, we analyze its major rules separately from our primary dataset. Based on data collected in January and February 2025, agency win rates have not returned to their earlier highs: The Biden Administration has seen 40.5% of its major rules upheld and 45.5% of controlling opinions rule in favor of its major rules. All told, our study suggests that the conventional wisdom that agencies win two-thirds of the time no longer holds true, at least not for major rules. But the vast majority of major rules go unchallenged, revealing that most major rules survive, despite declining trends in agency win rates during the first Trump Administration and Biden Administration
The Case for “Constructive Gridlock” in Independent Agencies
No full textCritics of President Trump have alleged that he has reduced independent agencies to mere extensions of the executive branch during his second term. The reality is that Democratic and Republican presidents routinely leverage the opportunity to reshape independent agencies in openly partisan ways because presidents have majority control of the appointments for the leadership of virtu ally all agencies. I examine a large data set of independent agency votes from the Obama and first Trump terms to show that independent agency commissioners vote in predictably partisan ways when addressing substantive policy changes. The partisan design of independent agencies undercuts agency claims to “independence.” As a result, substantive policy changes at independent agencies generally become transient victories that are likely to be reversed by the next administration from the opposing party. I make the case for restoring a degree of independence to independent agencies by institutionalizing “constructive gridlock” in their leadership. I call for creating an even split in independent agency commissioners from the two major political parties. Gridlock between the two major political parties is almost uniformly panned as a problem plaguing our legislative process. Our current Congress epitomizes the potential dysfunctionality of legislative gridlock with divided government and high levels of partisanship leading to a dearth of statutes and frustration at inaction. But I argue that creating partisan balance in the leadership of independent agencies would have positive policy effects and legitimize decisions made by unelected leaders. Institutionalizing an even partisan division in the leadership of independent agencies would necessitate bipartisanship for agency action and pressure elected leaders in Congress to act when independent agency leaders cannot overcome their ideological differences. This approach would further an underlying purpose of independent agencies for appointees from both major political parties to work jointly to legitimize rulemaking and adjudications. Well-known safeguards exist to foster the autonomy of independent agency appointees from the executive and legislative branches. But I argue that the majoritarian structure of (almost all) independent agency commissions and the partisan nature of the appointments process ensure that politics, rather than bipartisanship and independence, prevail when the stakes matter. To prove this point, I have gathered a data set of over 5,000 commissioner votes by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”), and Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) from the Obama and Trump administrations. I compare the impact of three-two partisan splits in commissioners (SEC and NRC) with three-three commissioner political splits (the notable institution with partisan balance—the FEC). A large majority of votes in the SEC and NRC on uncontroversial issues are unanimous. However, I show that the partisanship inherent in the majoritarian structure of independent agencies is clear in the subset of ideologically driven votes concerning substantive policy changes. In contrast, the FEC is more frequently affected by strategic, partisan gridlock of commissioners, which often stops votes from happening about controversial election issues. Critics may deride stalemates as a sign of independent agency failure. But I argue that independent agency gridlock concerning politically charged questions shows the virtues of political balance by taking divisive political issues out of the hands of unelected appointees and sending them back to the democratically elected leaders in Congress. I use game theory to illustrate the potential impact of the shift to political balance in independent agencies. Using a range of prisoner’s dilemma simulations, I show how parity in political leadership may increase the potential for agency deadlocks concerning politically divisive questions, while also increasing the payoffs from bipartisanship. At first glance, greater deadlocks may appear to create a potential bias towards the status quo of regulation, which may incentivize the side that benefits to dig in their heels. But the nature of evolving regulatory challenges frequently requires changes even to settled frameworks, which would pressure commissioners to work on building bipartisan consensus. At the same time, divisive questions may lead to lasting impasses among independent agency commissioners. The logic of partisan balance in the leadership of independent agencies would be to place the onus on Congress and the President to address enduring regulatory stalemates through the legislative process. That does not necessarily mean that Congress will address regulatory gridlock. Rather, the more important the issues that independent agencies fail to resolve, the higher the degree of pressure that elected leaders in Congress would face to act
WOCC Women\u27s History Month Book Display 10
No full textClose up of book display created by Women of Color Collective in the law library March 2025 highlighting the book Angela Davis: An Autobiography by Angela Davis.
From a childhood on Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama, to one of the most significant political trials of the century, Angela Davis describes the full story of her life: from Carrie A. Tuggle Elementary School to the U.S. Communist Party; from her political activity in a New York high school to the Soledad Brothers; from the faculty of the Philosophy Department at UCLA to the FBI\u27s list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. In spite of voluminous print devoted to Angela Davis, a curious privacy has always surrounded her--a privacy still intact. Until this publication, no one had managed to provide us with the whole story: what was her childhood really like? How deep were the influences of a Southern and a European education? What precipitated her into political activism? What was her relationship with the Soledad Brothers? How did she elude the FBI? Where did she go? Who helped her? This book tells not only what happened, but more important, how she felt about the events, the people, and herself. A powerful and commanding story told with warmth, brilliance, humor and conviction. Of the turbulent sixties, Angela Davis is the last and, perhaps, the only triumphant figure.” ISBN: 978-0717806676.https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/womens-history-month-2025-photos/1010/thumbnail.jp
WOCC Women\u27s History Month Book Display 08
No full textClose up of book display created by Women of Color Collective in the law library March 2025 highlighting the book Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon, Shana Knizhnik.
This runaway bestseller, brought to you by the attorney founder of the Notorious RBG Tumblr and an award-winning feminist journalist, is more than just a love letter. It draws on intimate access to Ginsburg\u27s family members, close friends, colleagues, and clerks, as well as an interview with the Justice herself. An original hybrid of reported narrative, annotated dissents, rare archival photos and documents, and illustrations, the book tells a never-before-told story of an unusual and transformative woman who transcended divides and changed the world forever. ISBN: 978-0062415837.https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/womens-history-month-2025-photos/1008/thumbnail.jp
Defending Form Contract Consent
No full textThe issue of standard form contracts has bedeviled Contracts scholars for a century. The basic problem has long been known. Contract is supposed to be a quintessentially consensual activity, whereby both parties are operating with full knowledge and comprehension of the array of terms and conditions being negotiated and agreed to. But by employing standard forms replete with boilerplate fine print, companies have created a regime whereby it is most likely irrational for consumers to bother reading the terms before consenting to the transaction. The existing “duty to read” doctrine is that consumers fully consent to all terms when they sign or click. The scholarly objection is that such consent is fully or at least partially invalid because of the lack of an idyllic notion of full knowledge seen as prerequisite for valid consent. This article resists this conclusion, and posits that consumer consent to form contracts is pragmatically and realistically sufficient for contractual enforcement purposes. The consumer makes a reasonable choice given the circumstances (including by choosing not to read while also choosing to sign), and thus autonomy concerns are satisfied. A similar conclusion has been reached in the medical informed context where the stakes are arguably higher than consumer contracts. Contract law, in the form of contracts under seal, was long familiar with the concept of ironclad enforcement of terms which were not read or understood by illiterate persons, and this notion may have persisted in the minds of the early judges first adopting the duty to read in the form contract context. Finally, emerging empirical evidence of consumer attitudes reveals that they have embraced the legal concept of their full consent to all terms in boilerplate upon their signature (or click). Therefore, although there may still be need for potential policing of problematic or unfair terms in boilerplate contracts, attacking consent is likely not a profitable or coherent tool for this purpose. Resort to other tools, such as statutory regulation, are more sensible. Consent to form contracts is sufficient