At the Blog
On Monday, James Goodwin explained how the Trump Administration’s use of individualized, firm-level waivers and exemptions marks a new frontier in presidential control of the administrative state — turning deregulation into a tool for distributing political favors.
On Tuesday, Noah Zatz and Jerry Kang argued that even as the Trump administration seeks to dismantle DEI in the name of “merit,” the civil rights law it distorts still harbors possibilities for resistance. Title VII prohibits retaliation against employees who oppose discrimination, and workers purged for their past DEI efforts should consider pursuing retaliation claims against their employers.
And on Thursday, Veryl Pow and Mohini Mookim made the case for prefigurative lawyering—for creating the world we want to live in now—and described what this looks like in practice, drawing on their work at the Sustainable Economies Law Center.
In LPE Land
Registration for the inaugural Association of Law and Political Economy (ALPE) conference, along with the opportunity to become a member in the association, is now open and closes on Nov. 15. The association will adopt their bylaws at the national conference, and elect their first board and officers soon after.
On her new substack, Lina Khan posted the text and video from her recent Stone Lecture in Economic Inequality at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Over at Balkinization, there is an ongoing symposium on John Witt’s new book, The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America, featuring William Forbath, Dave Pozen, Aziz Rana, Ben Sachs, Laura Weinrib, and several other contributors.
In the New Yorker, Fabio Bertoni looks back on the shortsighted and craven decision by U.S. law firms to surrender to Trump. Meanwhile, from the what goes around comes around department, the ethics committee of the DC Bar has warned that these arrangements may require firms to drop or obtain waivers from all clients who have interests at odds with the government.
Over at the Roosevelt Institute, Hannah Garden-Monheit and Tresa Joseph have a new report, drawing on interviews with 45 former senior Biden officials: Building a More Effective, Responsive Government. You will, unsurprisingly, find resonances between their recommendations and our spring “rapid roundtable,” Six Biden Administration Officials on Reimagining a Progressive Future.
Cool paper alert: Alvin Velazquez has a new paper examining bankruptcy law’s role in shaping collective power for labor unions and workers.
At Sidecar, Dylan Riley has a short reflection on the question: what does ‘material interest’ mean?
