It is my annual tradition to give thanks to a person to whom I owe debts of gratitude on Thanksgiving Day. This year, I want to thank Richard Fallon, who was a teacher, interlocutor, mentor, and friend for fifty years. Dick was my Federal Courts teacher at Harvard Law School. He was an extraordinary teacher--even though it was his first time teaching an extraordinarily difficult course.

Nestor Lim (News Media Nest; University of Makati) has posted A Legal Framework for the Allowance of Artificial Intelligence Systems to Practice Law in the Philippines on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Legal services in the Philippines are currently provided by lawyers who must be natural persons that have undergone training in law school and have successfully met the other qualifications, such as satisfactorily passing the Bar examinations, as set forth by the Supreme Court.

Joshua A. Douglas (University of Kentucky - J. David Rosenberg College of Law) has posted One Decade, One Map: State Constitutional Limits on Mid-Decade Redistricting (110 Minnesota Law Review (forthcoming 2026)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court closed the federal courthouse doors to claims of partisan gerrymandering, effectively permitting states to engage in what it called “constitutional political gerrymandering.” By 2025, several states embraced this invitation, redrawing maps mid-decade for openly partisan ends.

Andrew S. Gold (University of California, Irvine School of Law) has posterd The Many Kinds of Justice in Private Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Private law theorists often employ a single type of justice to explain the field.  Typically, the chosen type is corrective justice.  While it is true that courts look to do “justice between the parties”, I will argue that “justice between the parties” is an open-ended category that encapsulates multiple types of justice. 

Brian G. Slocum & Kevin Tobia have posted the final version of Pragmatic Textualism on the Duke Law Journal website.  Here is the abstract: Traditional textualism instructs judges to adhere to a statute's linguistic meaning and reject as irrelevant its interpretive consequences. Justice Scalia famously contrasted his restrained textualist judge with "Mr. Fix-It," a judge who inappropriately weighs consequences. Today, however, textualists increasingly embrace consequentialist reasoning.

Erik Encarnacion, Making Whole, Making Better, and Accommodating Resilience, 108 Minn. L. Rev. 1335 (2024).Marco JimenezWhenever I teach remedies, one of the first principles we cover is that…

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Eric S. Fish (University of California, Davis - School of Law) & Doug Keller have posted Fabricating the Crime of Undocumented Presence on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In 2025, the Trump Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel declared that it is a federal crime simply to be an undocumented immigrant. But Congress has enacted no such crime. Congress has made it a crime, codified at 8 U.S.C.

Ignacio Adrian Lerer has posted Epistemological Clergies: When Orthodoxy Blocks Rational Debate on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Why is rational debate about criminal or labor law reform impossible in certain jurisdictions This article proposes that dominant legal doctrines function as secular religions with memetic architectures immune to rational debate. Applying Daniel Dennett's framework on religion as natural phenomenon, I argue that extreme criminal guarantism, orthodox abolitionism, and unconditional defense of labor ultraactivity exhibit religious structures: (1) sacralization of concepts, (2) conversion of empirical disagreements into moral transgressions, (3) exclusion through costly signaling, and (4) ideological purity blocking gradualism.

Jee Won Park (Hallym University) & Sungmi ‍Park (Hallym University) have posted When Correct Isn't Enough: Deconstructing Legal Causal Reasoning Capability in Large Language Models on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Knowledge-based systems powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) require process validity as much as output correctness. In legal AI-- a highly regulated domain--this translates to a mandatory requirement for transparent and causally justified decision-making.

David Lee (Columbia University - Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; The New School) has posted The Nonprofit War on Workers. Weapons of Labor Violence: An Analysis of the Chinese-American Planning Council's Legal Tactics to Exploit Workers on SSRN. Here is the abstract: With the increasing tendency of federal jurisprudence to undermine statutory labor protections, employees in precarious, low-skilled jobs face mounting challenges in safeguarding their rights in the workplace.

Amanda Frost (University of Virginia School of Law) & Emily Eason (University of Virginia (UVA) School of Law - Alumni/Adjunct/Student) have posted The Dog That Didn't Bark: Eligibility To Serve In Congress And The Original Understanding Of The Citizenship Clause (Georgetown Law Journal Online, vol. 114) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: President Donald J. Trump's 2025 Executive Order restricting birthright citizenship has prompted new interest in the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause.

Jacob Eisler (Florida State University College of Law) has posted Populist Primacy (Brooklyn Law Review, Forthcoming 2025) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Critics of the Roberts Court assert that the conservative justices are remaking American democracy to implement a corrupt Republican agenda. Conversely, the justices claim to be following originalism, with democratic transformation as an incidental side effect. These views share no common ground, and there is little space left for fruitful dialogue.

The Duke Law Journal has published a Note of interest, on " The Second Amendment's Catholic Problem ." It is by J.D. candidate Jared Danaher...

Vinicius Fernandes Ormelesi (Minas Gerais State University) has posted The Inclusive-Exclusive Legal Positivism Debate: A Very Short Introduction on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The debate between inclusive and exclusive legal positivism represents one of the most significant theoretical divides in contemporary legal philosophy. At its core, this scholarly discourse examines the fundamental relationship between law and morality, particularly whether moral criteria can function as conditions for legal validity.

Konstantinos Zoupas has posted From The Court Clerk of Criminal Trials to the Algorithm: Technology and the Future of Court Clerks in Criminal Proceedings on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The introduction of artificial intelligence technologies into judicial functions raises new questions that transcend technical efficiency. This article examines philosophically the gradual transition from the human court clerk to automated recording systems in the context of criminal trials.

Jeffrey A. Brauch (Regent University - Regent University School of Law) has posted Beauty, Justice, and the Lawyer's Calling: A Review of Mark Fowler's Beauty and the Law (Journal of Christian Legal Thought, Volume 15, No. 2 (2025), pp. 72-75) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In 1917, Marcel Duchamp entered a surprising object into an exhibition held by the Society of Independent Artists in New York.

Samuel J. Levine (Touro University - Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center) has posted A Brief Look at Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism Through a Perspective of Jewish Law and Tradition (Perspectives on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism from Literature, Philosophy, Law, and History (Marko Trajkovic, ed., 2025)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: A view of authoritarianism and totalitarianism through a perspective of Jewish law and tradition might take various forms and draw upon different approaches, depending on a number of components, including definitions of terms, modes of analysis, and the scope of disciplines and materials to be incorporated.

Jason Mazzone (University of Illinois College of Law) & Vikram D. Amar (University of California, Davis - School of Law; University of Illinois College of Law) have posted Open Letter To The Supreme Court Urging Adherence To Settled Mootness Principles In  Little V. Hecox (2025 U. Ill. L. Rev. Online 160 (2025)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In Little v.

William Baude (University of Chicago - Law School) has posted Liquidation, Then and Now (3 Journal of American Constitutional History 869 (2025)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The deliberate acts of different parts of our government have created various non-judicial precedents. Those precedents had force under historical theories of liquidation. Today’s jurists and scholars have reasons for looking to what has historically been understood as liquidated.

The Blog of the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism at the University of San Diego School of Law

Micah Schwartzman (University of Virginia School of Law), Richard Schragger (University of Virginia School of Law), & Nelson Tebbe (Cornell Law School) have posted The Structure of Religious Preference (139 Harv. L. Rev. 211 (2025)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Over the last decade, the Supreme Court has revolutionized the law of religious freedom. At this point, the picture is reasonably clear.

Youngjae Lee (Fordham University School of Law) has posted Reconceptualizing Incomplete Attempt (Criminal Law Forum) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Incomplete attempt laws are typically explained as laws that exist to justify timely law enforcement intervention. Such explanations may well provide good reasons for the laws based on harm prevention rationales, but they do not address the question whether a person who has, say, “cocked and aimed the pistol” has actually attempted to kill and is blameworthy for having done so.