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Salvaging the 2013 Federal Law Clerk Hiring Season

Ten years ago, the judiciary instituted the Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan, an employment system meant to regularize hiring in which most circuit and district court jurists voluntarily participated. Throughout the succeeding decade, this process operated effectively for innumerable trial judges, but functioned less well for appellate jurists. In early 2013, the U.S. Court ofContinue reading “Salvaging the 2013 Federal Law Clerk Hiring Season”

FICA Taxation of Post-Employment Benefits: A Statutory Puzzle and Sociopolitical Conundrum

In the wake of a brief but contentious span that has included a presidential election, fiscal cliff and government shutdown, the probability of a congressional answer to an important question that is sociopolitically confounding—but not operationally urgent—was remote. Instead, it is the Supreme Court that will take up the issue at hand, at its heartContinue reading “FICA Taxation of Post-Employment Benefits: A Statutory Puzzle and Sociopolitical Conundrum”

The Proper Meaning of “Proper”: Why the Regulation ofIntrastate, Non-CommercialSpecies Under the Endangered Species Act Is an Invalid Exercise of the Commerce Clause

This Note argues that the ESA‘s regulation of purely intrastate, non- commercial species is an invalid exercise of the Commerce Clause. Reviewing courts have reached the opposite conclusion via two doctrinal avenues: (1) by finding that the species in question bore “a substantial relation to interstate commerce” in satisfaction of the Court‘s framework set forthContinue reading “The Proper Meaning of “Proper”: Why the Regulation ofIntrastate, Non-CommercialSpecies Under the Endangered Species Act Is an Invalid Exercise of the Commerce Clause”

Taxing Polygamy

The tax law treats married and unmarried taxpayers differently in several respects. Married persons, for example, can file and pay their taxes as a unified taxpayer, with rates that are different than those that apply to unmarried taxpayers. This different treatment of married persons has elicited criticism over the years. Some of the more salientContinue reading “Taxing Polygamy”

Sovereignty Mismatch and the New Administrative Law

In the United States, making international policymaking work with domestic administrative law poses one of the thorniest of modern legal problems—the problem of sovereignty mismatch. Purely domestic regulation, which is a bureaucratic exercise of sovereignty, cannot solve the most challenging issues that regulators now face, and so agencies have started cooperating with their foreign counterparts,Continue reading “Sovereignty Mismatch and the New Administrative Law”

How NFIB v. Sebelius Affects the Constitutional Gestalt

This Essay examines the effects of the Supreme Court‘s decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, in which the Court addressed the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. More precisely, what effects will NFIB have on the law—especially constitutional law? We can divide these effects into two general categories, direct and indirect. “DirectContinue reading “How NFIB v. Sebelius Affects the Constitutional Gestalt”