Section 440.10(1)(i) of the New York Criminal Procedure Law allows victims of sex trafficking to vacate convictions for certain offenses they were forced to commit by their traffickers. This vacatur provision and similar laws in other states have been praised for their ability to give victims of sex trafficking a fresh start, free from the stigma of a criminal record....
In 2011, Congress passed the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, a broad-sweeping reform of the American patent system. Within this landmark piece of legislation, Congress created trial-like administrative proceedings as a cost-effective alternative to litigation. Inter partes review allows third parties to go before the Patent and Trademark Office and attempt to invalidate an already issued patent on the limited grounds that it fails to meet either...
Several recent high-profile criminal cases have highlighted the dynamic nature of identity crimes in a modern digital era and the boundaries prosecutors sometimes push to squeeze arguably wrongful conduct into an outdated legal framework. In many cases, two federal statutes—18 U.S.C § 1028 and § 1028A—provide prosecutors with potent tools to aggressively pursue online identity thieves. But the broadly defined terms of these provisions may...
When a trademark registered with the Patent and Trademark Office is infringed, section 32 of the Lanham Act provides the trade¬mark registrant the opportunity to seek remedies in federal court. Thanks to a broad definition of “registrant,” the Act in fact extends standing beyond the registrant herself to her “legal representatives,” among others. This language has prompted courts to puzzle over the proper definition of a “legal representative.”...
Data on school discipline reveals significant numbers of students are being suspended and expelled from public schools for a variety of low-level offenses, the so-called school-to-prison pipeline. Additionally, troubling disparities have emerged: Students with disabilities, poor students, and nonwhite students are removed from school at greater rates, and for less significant actions, than are white students. Due process requires a short, informal...
The poison put is a contractual innovation that grants debtholders an option to redeem their debt upon the occurrence of a predefined trigger. While certain poison puts can be justified in light of Delaware corporate law’s deference to directors, one particular class of poison puts is more troubling from a corporate governance perspective: those triggered by a turnover...
As a condition of access to classified information, most employees of the U.S. intelligence community are required to sign nondisclosure agreements that mandate lifetime prepublication review. In essence, these agreements require employees to submit any works that discuss their experiences working in the intelligence community—whether written or oral, fiction...
Since its formation, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has taken a hands-off approach with respect to its oversight of the futures industry. It has relied on self-regulatory organizations (SROs)—namely, exchanges such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and associations such as the National Futures Association (NFA). The Dodd–Frank Act (Dodd–Frank),...
For decades, American fashion designers have been fighting, to no avail, for a federal law that protects their designs. In light of this inaction at the federal level, this Note explores the possibility of making use of the states’ traditional role as “laboratories of democracy” and passing a state law protecting works of fashion, specifically garment designs....
In a recent case, the Eighth Circuit, following the lead of other courts interpreting Minnesota law, hinted that a plaintiff may not be able to pursue an unjust-enrichment claim if a statutory cause of action is available. It did so by calling unjust enrichment an equitable remedy and invoking the “irreparable injury rule,” which states that a plaintiff may not...