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Essay

Can Personal Debt Mobilize Voters?

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While recent conventional wisdom has held that it is futile to organize voters around debt relief, a longer view reveals that there is nothing inevitable about the lack of debtor mobilization. Through the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, debtors repeatedly demanded protection in times of economic distress — a history that contains important lessons. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: June 21

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Tal Rothstein on collective organizing at the law reviews, and Scott Cummings on the role of lawyers in democratic backsliding. Plus, a new open-access book on radically legal politics, a piece on the history of racist plunder through local tax codes, and a forum on dethroning fossil capital.
Essay

When Lawyers Attack the Rule of Law

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While scholars have recently highlighted the role of law in democratic backsliding, they have largely ignored the actors who wield this tool: lawyers. Yet as the guardians of the legal legitimacy upon which autocratic legalism depends, the profession is a critical arena of democratic struggle that merits special attention.
Essay

Workers of the Law Reviews, Unite!

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The uncompensated work that law students perform to run the field’s journals is best understood as part of an economy of prestige: an opportunity to burnish one’s resume in hopes of landing a lucrative or high-status job after graduation. Among other problems with this arrangement, it leaves American legal scholarship vulnerable to repression. Recently,. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: June 14

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Ethan Ris on why you should ignore the Ivy League, Greta Krippner on the puzzling persistence of gender discrimination in insurance markets, and Grace Li on the role of associative life in prisons. Plus, the final session in our series on What To Do About the Courts, a cool job at the Roosevelt Institute, a new series on Twail and economic sanctions, a. . .
Essay

A Hidden Source of Labor Extraction in Prisons

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Formal and informal associations in prisons are vital providers of food, financial support, physical security, education, news, legal representation, and more. The volume and scope of associations in prisons lay bare the diversity and extremity of needs that the state fails to meet, while also suggesting shortcomings with a patchwork approach by civil society. . .
Symposium

The Colleges are Alright

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Despite the outsized attention they receive, “Ivy Plus” schools are ultimately a footnote in the larger story of higher education. The American system, while stratified, developed in such a way that stratification does not forestall opportunity. To understand this situation, we need to look back at a (failed) crusade to restrict access to college.
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: June 7

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Maryam Jamshidi on the securitization of the university, and Sarena Martinez on the quasi-sovereign power of insurers. Plus, a handful of must-attend LSA panels and events (including our happy hour!), a new report by Sabeel Rahman on State Capacity, Tim Wu and Lev Menand on the FTC’s non-compete ban, the first LPE NYC happy hour of the summer, an. . .
Symposium

Facing the Quasi-Sovereignty of Insurers

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Insurers are quasi-sovereign actors that can determine the price and terms of economic inclusion. State insurance commissioners have little leverage over insurers that threaten to withdraw coverage when faced with unfavorable regulations. The story of Prop 103 in California suggests that popular mobilization might serve as a counterweight to insurers’ power.. . .
Symposium

Securitizing the University

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At both the state and federal level, there are legislative efforts underway to depict students, faculty, and the university itself as potential enemies of the U.S. national security state that must be disciplined and controlled. If enacted, these laws will upend how universities function, who they welcome, and how they teach their students.
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: May 31

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William Boyd on our broken system of toxics regulation, and Zac Taylor on the limits of property insurance in Florida. Plus, a new paper by Sanjukta Paul on labor law and the firm, an interview with Mehrsa Baradaran about her new book, a policy report by Suzanne Kahn on investing in the care economy, and a review of Aziz Rana’s The Constitutional Bind. . .

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