The Structure and Dynamics of Modern United States Federal Case Law

The structure and dynamics of modern United States Federal Case Law are examined here. The analyses utilize large-scale network analysis tools, natural language processing techniques, and information theory to examine all the federal opinions in the Court Listener database, containing approximately 1.3 million judicial opinions and 11.4 million citations. The analyses are focused on modern United States Federal Case Law, as cases in the Court Listener database range from approximately 1926–2020 and include most Federal jurisdictions. We examine the data set from a structural perspective using the citation network, overall and by time and space (jurisdiction). In addition to citation structure, we examine the dataset from a topical and information theoretic perspective, again, overall and by time and space.

Retelling Copyright: The Contributions of the Restatement of Copyright Law

The provisions at issue in the draft Restatement of Copyright Law on which ALI membership will vote at ALI’s upcoming annual meeting are central to copyright doctrine and have been the subject of numerous court decisions over the past several decades of technological and industry change: originality, fixation, categories of copyrightable subject matter, the idea-expression distinction, and authorship and ownership. This abundance of legal activity on copyright law demonstrates the value to the profession of this project retelling copyright. In contrast to the dramatic criticism of this Restatement project alleging political capture or illegitimate law reform, the draft’s provisions are routine and straightforward. They will surprise no one and are almost boring in their adherence to and synthesis of the copyright statute and judicial interpretations of it. Far from being radical or ill-advised, the Restatement of Copyright Law is a reasonable and welcome addition to the work of the ALI. Part I of this Article situates the current Restatement of Copyright Law in the historical context of other ALI projects, drawing parallels in their purposes, processes, and political tensions. Part II describes the controversy over a “retelling” of copyright law as misguided insofar as it fails to account for the practice of interpretation as part of the practice of law that is constrained by professional standards. Part III describes the analysis and exposition of the provisions of the draft portions of the Restatement of Copyright Law presented to the ALI membership for discussion and vote this year as unremarkable but also beneficial, achieving the ALI’s goals of clarification and simplification of the sprawling federal case law interpreting and applying the 1976 Copyright Act.

Making a Federal Case: Youth Groups, Students and the 1975 European Economic Community Referendum Campaign to Keep Britain in Europe

To persuade the electorate to vote ‘Yes’ in the June 1975 referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Economic Community, Britain in Europe, the pro-European campaign organization, adopted a pragmatic approach, focusing on the economic benefits of membership and warning about the potentially grave consequences of withdrawal. Importantly, they avoided discussing proposed future advances in European integration. However, this theme was of importance to pro-European youth and student campaign groups—the subject of this article. Through a detailed analysis of their campaign literature, this article further transforms understanding of the 1975 referendum and, especially, the nature of the ‘Yes’ campaign by demonstrating how radical youth groups’ arguments for continued membership were. It argues that young activists yearned to discuss sovereignty and deeper integration in great detail as they offered idealistic visions for how the EEC could develop and benefit Britain. The article also advances knowledge of youth politics in the turbulent 1970s. Greater light is shone on the frustration pro-European youth groups felt towards the main Britain in Europe campaign. Meanwhile, it serves as a case study on the extent to which the perspectives of party-political youth groups and their superiors differed on a specific, highly salient policy issue.

Representing Veterans

Federal law has long deprived American veterans of certain fundamental legal rights enjoyed by non-veterans and attributable to veteran sacrifice. Federal case law, for example, denies veterans the right to bring an action in tort against the federal government to vindicate in-service injuries. And the United States Code deprives veterans of their right to robust judicial oversight of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) service-connected benefit decisions. This pair of due process deprivations is compounded by the federal statute that prohibits veterans from exercising the fundamental right to counsel during the initial stage of the VA claims process. This Article examines the federal statutory scheme and pertinent case law that has long denied veterans the right to counsel throughout the VA veteran claims adjudication process, debunks the rationales underlying that law, and concludes by recommending that the federal government extend to veterans the right to counsel throughout the VA’s benefits adjudication proceedings.

The Federal Case for Women’s Suffrage

In 1911, following the loss of her mother, Crystal Eastman married Wallace “Bennie” Benedict and moved to his home state of Wisconsin. Unable to find work as a lawyer, she accepted a job as campaign manager for the state’s suffrage drive. After a vicious battle, including opposition from the powerful brewing industry and elected officials, the measure lost two to one. Eastman returned to the Village in 1913, with Bennie in tow. He would soon initiate an affair, inciting a divorce that was finalized in 1916. Meanwhile, Eastman had united with Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, organizing the younger, more confrontational suffrage women to found the militant wing of the suffrage movement that became the National Woman’s Party. The group’s actions inside and outside the US Congress, including spectacular demonstrations and White House picketing to target the “party in power”—Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats—would finally leverage votes for women.

Under the Law: Weighing responsibility for providing equitable and adequate education

Questions of responsibility for school funding often hinge on our definitions of community. Historically, in the United States, the community that is responsible for education is the local one, but over time, states have taken more responsibility, particularly in the area of funding. In this column, Julie Underwood considers how questions of responsibility and control have played out in the courts at the federal and state levels. There is no federal right to education, and so much of the litigation related to questions of funding equity has occurred at the state level, with different results in different states. A recent federal case, Cook v. Raimondo, however, seeks to establish that students have a right to an education that provides them with certain civic skills needed to participate in the democratic process.

Education Federalism and Minority Disproportionate Representation Monitoring: Examining IDEA Provisions, Regulations, and Judicial Trends

States have been granted increasingly greater agency both to determine standards for minority disproportionate representation (MDR) monitoring in special education placements and to set the relevant cutoffs and sanctions when significant disproportionality is found. State authority has been bolstered by an education federalism framework, case law, and updated legislative and regulatory guidance under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Using legislative and judicial analysis to both examine education federalism and its impact on state and federal authority and analyze the legislative history associated with MDR monitoring and recent judicial trends within federal case law regarding equal protection constitutional challenges brought by plaintiff parents and students with disabilities in MDR litigation, this article finds that states are increasingly granted greater authority from judicial opinions and policy to monitor states’ practices. Legal and policy implications for stakeholders (e.g., parents, students, school districts) are also discussed.