Faculty Bibliography

Sometimes legal systems are “noisy”; they show unjustified variability or “scatter,” which means that what emerges is likely to be unpredictable and unfair. Potential examples include assessment of whether a risk is “significant” or “unreasonable,” fines for environmental harms or safety violations, compensatory damage awards for libel, pain and suffering, hedonic losses, and sexual harassment, and punitive damage awards for corporate wrongdoing. To understand why and when law is noisy, it is useful to note that psychologists commonly distinguish between two kinds of scales: category scales and magnitude scales. Category scales are bounded and anchored in verbal descriptions at specified points. By contrast, magnitude scales are unbounded and defined by a meaningful zero point. In some settings, money might operate as a magnitude scale. For purposes of policy and law, here are the two key psychological findings. First, judgments on magnitude scales are often highly variable, or noisy, when there is no “modulus” to define the various points. The variability occurs even when there is no reason to believe that people actually disagree about anything meaningful. Second, distributions of judgments are “positively skewed,” with a long right tail. People involved in law and policy often use magnitude scales, above all money. High levels of noise, and susceptibility to bias (especially from anchors), are likely results. This is the problem of “noisy law,” an insufficiently explored area of behavioral public policy. Theories of optimal deterrence might help to reduce noise, but many policymakers, and many people involved in law and policy, do not accept those theories.

Since the 1980s, the Supreme Court’s decisions involving the permissible uses of non–Article III federal tribunals have repeatedly invoked two competing theories. A “historical-exceptions” or “formalist” model would insist that only Article III judges can exercise federal adjudicative power except in three categories of cases that history marks as exceptional. A rival approach, often labeled “functionalism,” would allow further deviations from the historical norm if they are supported by sound practical justifications and do not threaten the fundamental role of the Article III judiciary within the separation of powers. This Article explores the relationship between theory and practice in explaining why neither the historical-exceptions nor the functionalist paradigm has prevailed entirely over the other despite the vastly greater appeal of the former, when viewed in the abstract, to an increasingly originalist Court.

In criminal cases, decision-makers aim to selectively incarcerate defendants with a high risk of future violent crime. If decision-makers have more accurate beliefs about this risk, can they reduce violent crime without simply incarcerating more defendants? We survey 162 prosecutors about how violent re-arrest rates vary across defendants of different ages and with different criminal records. We link prosecutors’ beliefs to their 104,039 cases, which offices assign quasi-randomly. Prosecutors’ beliefs vary widely and predict their sentencing patterns for defendants of different ages and criminal records. Prosecutors with more accurate beliefs (by one standard deviation) reduce violent crime (by 6%) without incarcerating more defendants.

This Article examines the striking parallels between contemporary privacy challenges and past public health crises involving tobacco, processed foods, and opioids. Despite surging state and federal privacy legislation, many of these new privacy law and policy activities follow familiar patterns: an emphasis on individual choice, narrowly defined rights and remedies, and a lack of holistic accounting of how privacy incursions affect society as a whole. We argue instead for a salutary shift in privacy law and advocacy: understanding privacy through the lens of public health.  By tracing systemic factors that allowed industries to repeatedly subvert public welfare—from information asymmetries and regulatory capture to narratives of individual responsibility—we explore a fundamental rethinking of privacy protection. Our analysis of case studies reveals remarkable similarities between public health challenges of the past half-century or so and the ongoing consumer privacy crisis. We explore how public health frameworks emphasizing preventative policies and reshaping social norms around individual choices could inform privacy advocacy. To do so, we examine a spectrum of proposals to align privacy with public health, from adopting public health insights to provocatively reframing privacy violations as an epidemic threatening basic wellbeing. This Article offers a novel framework for addressing the current privacy crisis, drawing on the rich history and strategies of public health. In reframing privacy violations as a societal health issue rather than a matter of consumer choice, we see new avenues for effective regulation and protection. Our proposed approach not only aligns with successful public health interventions of the past but also provides a more holistic and proactive stance towards safeguarding privacy in the digital age.

Research on psychedelic medicines is experiencing a revival. Some clinicians, scientists, and ethicists believe that psychedelics are so different from other treatments that they warrant special consideration in how they are researched, regulated, commercialized, and administered. Others argue that psychedelic medicines show clinical potential, but they should be treated like other medical interventions. In other words, identical standards should apply. This article analyzes whether psychedelic medicines warrant special consideration from a regulatory and ethical perspective.

American jurisdictions are considering switching to proportional representation (PR) in volumes unseen for a hundred years. But the forms of PR currently being debated have drawbacks. The most (domestically) prominent of these, proportional ranked-choice voting (P-RCV), is both vulnerable to vote leakage among parties and cognitively challenging for voters. Another salient system, open-list proportional representation (OLPR), risks underrepresenting minority voters. This Article therefore introduces a new form of PR—ranked-list proportional representation (RLPR)—that promises to alleviate these concerns. Under RLPR, voters first vote for a single party. They then rank only this party’s candidates. Voters’ party votes determine each party’s seat share. And voters’ candidate rankings establish which of each party’s candidates win its allotted seats. Like all forms of list PR, RLPR makes it impossible for votes to leak across party lines. RLPR is also cognitively simpler for voters because it asks them to rank only one party’s (not all parties’) candidates. And RLPR’s sequential reallocations of votes typically lead to proportional minority representation (both intraparty and overall). Accordingly, American jurisdictions should add RLPR to their menu of PR options. If they choose to adopt it, they should pair it with P-RCV in the primary election.

This volume introduces the legal philosopher Adolf Reinach and his contributions to speech act theory, as well as his analysis of basic legal concepts and their relationship to positive law. Reinach's thorough analysis has recently garnered growing interest in private law theory, yet his 'phenomenological realist' philosophical approach is not in line with contemporary mainstream approaches. The essays in this volume resuscitate and interrogate Reinach's unique account of the foundations of private law, situating him in contemporary private law theory and broader philosophical currents. The work also makes Reinach's methods more accessible to those unfamiliar with early phenomenology. Together these contributions prove that while Reinach's perspective on private law shares similarities and points of departure with trends in today's legal theory, many of his insights remain singular and illuminating in their own right. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Under both the Court's current Buckley test and under any plausible version of originalism, contributions to independent political action committees are regulable. SuperPACs are, therefore, not constitutionally required - 14 years of mistaken lower court rulings not with standing.

Over the past generation, conflicting trends have reshaped the ownership of corporate equity on the one hand and corporate debt on the other. In equity, the two great trends have been the shift from public markets to private ownership and the consolidation of American companies’ stock in the hands of powerful investment funds. In debt, by contrast, the great trends have been a shift from private loans to quasi-public markets and dispersed ownership. In this Article, we chronicle the recent and dramatic reversal of these trends in the debt markets. Private investment funds executing a “private credit” strategy have become increasingly important corporate lenders, bringing into corporate debt the same forces of privatization, concentration, and illiquidity that have been reshaping the equity markets. We offer new data that illustrate the meteoric rise of the now $1.5 trillion private credit industry, and we explore the allure and implications of private credit. For many corporate borrowers, private credit offers a faster, more efficient, and more accessible source of financing than either banks or the public (and quasi-public) debt markets. Yet the transition from bank-intermediated finance to private credit will transform not only corporate finance, but also firm behavior and economic activity more generally. First, as the corporate debt markets follow the equity markets in going dark, information about many large firms will be lost to the investing public. For better or worse, these firms will act with unprecedented discretion—having been shielded from the discipline and scrutiny of regulators, the trading markets, and the general public. Second, corporate debt—like corporate equity—will become the dominion of investment funds, some of which are already unimaginably large. These funds will influence everything from firm operations and strategy to corporate distress, with uncertain consequences.

The founding of the United States of America is often said to have been the product of Enlightenment ideals that emphasized reason, individual liberty, and notions of progress. During this same era, however, racially based slavery, which confounded reason, denied individual liberty to millions, and challenged ideas about progress, existed in all of the colonies of North America. The third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, embodied this seeming contradiction at the heart of the American founding. The principal author of the American Declaration of Independence enslaved hundreds of people over the course of his long life. This Article argues that a bedrock verity of the Enlightenment influenced Jefferson’s thinking on these matters, specifically the tendency to emphasize the importance of categories. In the world of Enlightened science, everything had a place—scientific phenomena, plants, ideas, even people. In this view, human beings of African descent were placed at the bottom of what was seen as inevitable hierarchy, justifying treating them as an exception to the rules about the natural liberty of mankind. Whether this circumstance would continue indefinitely was an open question, though Jefferson posited that time might ameliorate the situation. As scholars have noted, there was a dark side to Enlightenment thinking.

The U.S. has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, with over seven million admissions to jails each year. Incarcerated individuals are the only group in the U.S. that have a constitutional right to receiving "reasonably adequate" health care. Yet, there is little oversight and funding for health care accreditation to 44 jails across the U.S. Surveys of staff indicate that accreditation improves coordination between health and custody staff. We also find that accreditation improves quality standards and reduces mortality among the incarcerated, which is three times higher among control facilities than official estimates suggest. These health gains are realized alongside suggestive reductions in six-month-recidivism, such that accreditation is highly cost effective.

On April 26, 2024, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Final Rule titled “HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy.” As per the attendant Federal Register, the Final Rule was to become effective on June 25, 2024. In so doing, HHS was complying with President Biden’s Executive Order 14076 the sole focus of which was “Securing Access to Reproductive and Other Healthcare Services.” The newly (announced Final Rule bolsters the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 [HIPAA; Public Law No: 104–191) which “provides penalties” for “wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information.” Among its leading objectives, the Final Rule seeks to protect women who cross state lines in search of an abortion. Data reported by the Guttmacher Institute suggest that nearly one in five abortion patients sought out-of-state care during the first 6 months of 2023, a two-fold increase when compared with the same period in 2020. The Final Rule also protects those who provide or facilitate lawful reproductive health care who might otherwise be targeted by state prosecutors with criminal probes or lawsuits in mind. The administration and enforcement of the newly issued Final Rule will be the designated responsibility of the OCR. In a clear reference to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra made note of the reality that “with reproductive health under attack by some lawmakers, these protections are more important than ever.” It is the objective of this Commentary to review the multiple facets of the reproductive privacy imperative and the projected oversight thereof.

Legal scholarship and regulatory proposals for artificial intelligence (AI) have primarily focused on detecting or preventing AI misbehavior or mistakes. The proliferation of high-performance generative AI, such as ChatGPT and DALL-E, has quite saliently demonstrated that legal problems and policy challenges can also emerge when AI applications perform their assigned tasks too well rather than too poorly, as when humans improperly or unethically rely on AI to undertake tasks they are expected to do themselves or when ready access to high performance AI undermines demand for human services and thereby causes economic disruption. Beyond potential legal or policy challenges, this Article makes a stronger claim, arguing that the increasingly common phenomenon of too accurate AI could imminently create substantial particularized harms to individuals as well as widely dispersed costs to society. Recognizing high AI performance as a potential source of harm is an essential step towards better design and regulation of AI, particularly in horizontal regulatory initiatives such as the EU's AI Act and recent U.S. initiatives and proposals. The Article proceeds in four parts. Part I provides a motivating example of how accuracy is associated with both the problems and also the proposed solutions for a contested but common algorithmic practice: content recommendation. Part II shows how AI accuracy can undercut widely shared normative values, relating this observation to findings from digital ethics, economics, and computer science. Part III examines two recent federal legislative proposals and a recent executive action aimed at taming perceived threats from AI to demonstrate a persistent conceptual lacuna in proposed AI regulation: ignored accuracy harms. Part IV proposes a taxonomy of the mechanisms that bring about accuracy harms, empowering scholars and policymakers to systematically recognize and address accuracy harms from diverse sources. AI regulation will achieve better (and better-defined) outcomes when lawmakers recognize that high accuracy is one of many AI attributes that can shape society for better or for worse.

This chapter honors Cheryl Saunders’ insights into the importance of federalism and the allocation of fiscal powers in understanding how constitutional systems work and how they protect rights. Drawing on caselaw from three common law jurisdictions – Canada, Australia, and the United States – it argues that rights and structures, like federalism or the separation of powers or democratic voting systems, are interdependent. Structures may be understood necessarily to imply certain rights necessary to make the structure effective. Rights may require structures to secure their effective protection. At times, the chapter suggests, texts relating specifically to rights may be less effective in securing their protection than reasoning from more general structural provisions. Federalism, in particular, is a structure that may require certain rights; as a form of government, federalism can both protect rights and undermine their protection. And interdependencies may exist among different structural provisions. As a positive matter, rights and structures may find mutual grounding in basic constitutional norms of unity, liberty, and equality. Whether particular provisions are understood as rights or as structures, or even whether particular rights should be understood to exist, may vary over time and among judges. As a normative matter, the chapter suggests that errors may result from failing to consider the overall constitutional context in which a claim of right, or a very specific structural claim, is situated.

My topic is the perennial debate over universalism and nationalism, from the standpoint of classical law, political theory and political theology. I approach the topic through the lens of the concept of Empire, which I will equate to a “true world political authority” in the sense Benedict XVI and Francis have urged, and which I will argue is thesis or first-best, a regulative ideal. The classical understanding of Empire provides general principles that can be revived, translated and adapted to new circumstances, preserving the essence of those principles while their application changes. However, I also reject certain critiques of nationalism that I believe are simplistic. In particular, nationalism rightly ordered and understood is an understandable non-ideal or second-best response to badly ordered forms of universalism; nationalism is a temporarily valid hypothesis, relative to certain conditions. Proponents of universalism and nationalism often talk past one another, creating a mere illusion of disagreement — especially when and because one party defends universalism as ideal thesis, and the other defends nationalism as nonideal hypothesis.

The Supremacy Clause is clear. Local officials pledging to resist his policy will lose in court.

Suppose that historians establish that the original public meaning of the First Amendment leads to a much less protective system of free speech than the one to which we have become accustomed, or that the due process clause does not protect much at all. Or suppose, far more dramatically and consistent with the work of Stanford's Jonathan Gienapp, that historians establish that contemporary lawyers and judges have mangled the founding, in the sense that they have fundamentally misunderstood what the founding generation established. What then? Nonoriginalists need not much struggle with that question, but originalists might have to bite some hard bullets. They might have to call for a system of constitutional law that contemporary judges, lawyers, politicians, and citizens would not recognize or might even deplore. Alternatively, they might defend public meaning originalism on the ground that it protects the rule of law and related values, even if it does not really channel the founding, and even if it produces a constitutional order that the founding generation would not recognize and would in fact deplore. But most originalists are unlikely to want to defend their approach on that ground; for better or for worse, they seek to maintain continuity with the founding era. The affective pull of originalism lies in a claim of continuity, even though the strongest arguments on behalf of originalism have exactly nothing to do with that affective pull. In the end, any theory of constitutional interpretation must be justified, not on the ground that it will preserve some kind of continuity with the distant past, but on the ground that it will produce a constitutional order that deserves general support.

Could AI predict the outcome of a coin flip? Could AI have predicted in (say) 2006 that Barack Hussein Obama would be elected president of the United States in 2008? Could AI have predicted in (say) 2014 that Donald Trump would be elected president of the United States in both 2016 and 2024? Could AI have predicted in (say) 2005 that Taylor Swift would become a worldwide sensation? The answer to all of these questions is "No." AI could not have predicted those things (and no human being could have predicted those things, either). There are some prediction problems on which AI will not do well; the reason lies not in randomness, but in an absence of adequate data. There are disparate challenges here, but all of them are closely connected to the knowledge problem, and in particular to the unfathomably large number of factors that account for some kinds of outcomes and the critical importance of social interactions. In important respects, the Socialist Calculation Debate and the AI Calculation Debate are the same thing.

The current method used by the United States Government to calculate benefits and costs substantially underestimates the monetary value of some regulations. The problem is that the method does not recognize the possibility that individual valuations, reflecting judgments in an isolated, uncoordinated situation, might be significantly lower than individual valuations in a situation of coordination. For example, people might be willing to pay $X to protect members of an endangered species in their individual capacity, but far more than $X for the same purpose, assuming that many others are paying as well; one reason may be that an individual expenditure seems futile. So too, people might be willing to pay $X for a good, supposing that other people have that good, but might be willing to pay $Y to abolish that good, supposing that no one will have that good. We sketch, identify, and explain this unmeasured value, which we define as coordination value, meant as an umbrella concept to cover several categories of cases in which individual valuation might be inadequate. Changing the methodology of benefit-cost analysis to include coordination value, where it is relevant, would present serious empirical challenges, but would eliminate the undervaluation.

We quantitatively analyze the use of legal authorities (cases, statutes, legal literature) in eighty representative opinions of the English and German apex courts in contract cases in the years 1880-1889 and 2007-2016. We find differences only in degree not kind even in the 1880s, yet no subsequent convergence. Most opinions of the Reichsgericht already cited precedent in the 1880s, albeit less than the House of Lords, which in turn cited fewer statutes. By the 2000s, the German judges cited precedent as frequently as the English. However, the Germans did and do engage less closely with precedent than the English. Moreover, a new gap has developed with respect to the use of scholarly literature, which only the Bundesgerichtshof engages extensively.

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin by any recipient of federal funds. Discrimination occurs when members of a protected class have their access to the institution’s programs restricted when other members of the community have unrestricted access. One form of discrimination occurs when a hostile environment for a protected group has the effect of denying them equal access to the college’s programs. How is a hostile environment created? Sometimes in part or almost exclusively by words uttered by people present on the campus, including other students, faculty members, members of the staff, and casual invitees. Title VI is violated when race- or national-origin-disparaging words pervade the campus. Imposing liability on the basis of statements brings free expression considerations into the picture. This Essay, written by someone versed in free speech law but not in the details of Title VI law, examines the interaction between free speech principles and institutional liability under Title VI for hostile environment discrimination created mainly by words. Section II examines what kinds of utterances can be taken into account when we try to figure out whether a hostile environment exists, and how that class of utterances can be taken into account. After distinguishing between targeted utterances aimed at an identifiable individual and general statements that disparage a racial or nation-origin group, the Section deals with targeted utterances. Section III turns to general statements, typically of a rather clearly political sort. After describing the quite limited circumstances under which individuals can be held liable for general statements, the Section argues that such statements can be part of the “dossier” about hostile environment discrimination, exposing the institution, though not the individuals who make the statements, to liability. Section IV examines some available institutional responses to the possibility that words contribute to the creation of a hostile environment. It proposes that Title VI liability should be similar to that emerging for liability for disseminating objectionable content on social media platforms. Under such a system colleges and universities would have a duty to create a unit charged with receiving complaints about race- and national-origin-disparaging statement. That unit’s reports should be regularly reviewed for accuracy by higher-level institutional actors. If the reports disclose problems arising from words, the institution should have and enforce rules against targeted statements but not similar rules against general statements. Instead, the institution should develop counterprogramming and take other ameliorative actions with the aim of assuring members of protected groups that they are indeed as welcome on the campus as everyone else. The Section then applies its analysis to agreements between the University of Michigan, Muhlenberg College, and the U.S. Department of Education resolving an investigation into the University’s compliance with Title VI. A brief conclusion emphasizes that nothing in this Essay is novel in discussions of Title VI and free speech. Its contribution, if any, is to focus more closely on distinctions and legal categories than one finds in more casual treatments.

A commonplace about revolutions, and counter-revolutions, is that however dramatic they may be in the short run, in the long run they often produce less change than their proponents hope and their opponents fear. Sometimes revolutions or counter-revolutions even serve to cement into place, or indeed augment, the very structures and norms that the revolutionaries found most objectionable. Such a thesis was suggested as to the most dramatic upheaval of them all, the French Revolution of 1789. In The Ancien Régime and The Revolution, written in 1856 after a long series of revolutions and counter-revolutions of varying description, Alexis de Tocqueville argued not only that the Revolution was as much an outgrowth of earlier laws, institutions, and norms as a departure from them, but also that those laws, institutions and norms largely survived the Revolution; indeed, they were in a sense confirmed and strengthened by it, albeit clothed in new outward forms. In what follows, I will suggest a similar thesis, of course on a much smaller scale, as to the Loper Bright “revolution” and indeed the administrative law “revolution” more generally. It is already possible to see how Loper Bright both grew out of pre-existing legal doctrines, principles and trends, and also to see how the chastening of the Loper Bright revolution could occur, leaving in place much of the old Chevron regime under different labels. Indeed, I will argue, the beginning of that process is already visible within the four corners of the majority opinion itself, and in subsequent lower-court decisions. In the long run, the Loper Bright revolution, and the larger movement of which it is the centerpiece, will have at most a marginal effect on administrative law. The laws and customs of the ancien regime will be (and already are being) reintroduced, in new forms and under new labels.

In an era defined by partisan rifts and government gridlock, many celebrate the rare issues that prompt bipartisan consensus. But extreme consensus should sometimes trigger concern, not celebration. We call these worrisome situations “frictionless government.” Frictionless government occurs when there is overwhelming bipartisan and bicameral consensus about a particular set of policies, as well as

Should platforms be liable for harms suffered by users? A platform enables interactions between firms and users. Harmful firms impose larger costs on users than safe firms. If firms have deep pockets and are fully liable for harms, platform liability is unnecessary. If firms have limited liability, holding platforms liable for residual harm increases platforms' incentives to raise interaction prices and invest in auditing to deter, detect, and block harmful firms. The social desirability and optimal level of platform liability depend on whether interactions require user consent, the degree to which users internalize harms, and the observability of platform effort.

This article examines how emerging quantum technologies, when combined with artificial intelligence (AI), could reshape precision medicine, offering hyper-personalized healthcare solutions. By leveraging quantum phenomena like superposition and entanglement, second-generation quantum technologies (2G QT) can tackle complex medical challenges beyond the reach of classical computers. These advancements, ranging from quantum computing and sensing to quantum networking, can enhance drug discovery workflows, improve diagnostic imaging, accelerate genome sequencing, and even enable real-time health monitoring. For instance, quantum simulations may aid in modeling molecular interactions to produce more effective drugs, while quantum dots could deliver targeted cancer treatments or bypass the blood-brain barrier to help fight neurodegenerative diseases. Quantum sensors can also refine surgical precision and boost diagnostic accuracy. Yet, the introduction of quantum medical devices raises significant regulatory questions, as existing frameworks are not fully equipped to handle quantum’s unique capabilities and risks. In the European Union, no dedicated quantum healthcare regulations exist, so devices likely must comply with existing EU medical device and AI rules. In the United States, quantum medical devices will operate under the current FDA framework, supplemented by other relevant laws and standards. Both regions face quantum-specific concerns, including data security threats once classical encryption is broken (Q-Day), and the need for tailored clinical trial guidelines to account for quantum’s novel biological interactions. Ultimately, the article advocates for proactive, adaptive, and harmonized policy approaches. Policymakers should learn from previous technological experiences, promote quantum literacy, and adopt principles-based, forward-looking regulations. By doing so, they can support innovation while ensuring the safe, ethical, and equitable integration of quantum technologies into global healthcare.

Artificial intelligence (“AI”), including generative AI, is not human, but restrictions on the activity or use of AI, or on the dissemination of material by or from AI, might raise serious First Amendment issues if those restrictions (1) apply to or affect human speakers and writers, or (2) apply to or affect human viewers, listeners, and readers. Here, as elsewhere, it is essential to distinguish among viewpoint-based restrictions, content-based but viewpoint-neutral restrictions, and content-neutral restrictions. Much of free speech law, as applied to AI, is in the nature of “the law of the horse”: established principles applied to a novel context. But imaginable cases raise unanswered questions, including (1) whether AI as such has constitutional rights, (2) whether and which person or persons might be a named defendant if AI is acting in some sense autonomously, and (3) whether and in what sense AI has a right to be free from—for example—viewpoint-based restrictions, or whether it would be better, and correct, to say that human viewers, listeners, and readers have the relevant rights, even if no human being is speaking. Most broadly, it remains an unanswered question whether the First Amendment protects the rights of human viewers, listeners, and readers seeking to see, hear, or read something from AI.

Rapidly improving artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have created opportunities for human–machine cooperation in legal practice. We provide evidence from an experiment with law students (N = 206) on the causal impact of machine assistance on the efficiency of legal task completion in a private law setting with natural language inputs and multidimensional AI outputs. We tested two forms of machine assistance: AI-generated summaries of legal complaints and AI-generated text highlighting within those complaints. AI-generated highlighting reduced task completion time by 30% without any reduction in measured quality indicators compared to no AI assistance. AI-generated summaries produced no change in performance metrics. AI summaries and AI highlighting together improved efficiency but not as much as AI highlighting alone. Our results show that AI support can dramatically increase the efficiency of legal task completion, but finding the optimal form of AI assistance is a fine-tuning exercise. Currently, AI-generated highlighting is not readily available from state-of-the-art, consumer-facing large language models, but our work suggests that this capability should be prioritized in the development of legal AI products.

Policy Points The reinstitution of pre–COVID-19 pandemic licensure regulations has impeded interstate telehealth. This has disproportionately impacted patients who live near a state border; geographically mobile patients, such as college students; and patients with rare diseases who may need care from a specialist outside their state. Several promising and feasible reforms are available, at both state and federal levels, to facilitate interstate telehealth. For example, states can offer exemptions to licensure requirements for certain types of telehealth such as follow-up care or create licensure registries that impose little reduced paperwork and fees on physicians. On the federal level, congressional interventions that mimic the Department of Veterans Affairs Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks (VA MISSION) Act of 2018 can waive provider licensing and geographic restrictions to telehealth within certain federal programs such as Medicare. Any discussion of medical licensure reform, however, must also consider the current political climate, one in which states are taking divergent stances on sensitive topics such as reproductive care, gender-affirming care, and substance use treatments.

Drawing upon Roman public law and the classical Western ius commune generally, I sketch a law-governed constitution of hierarchy, including its institutional form and its basic justification. Grounded in a popular delegation of sovereign authority and power (imperium and potestas) to the Roman emperors and subordinate officials, the constitution of hierarchy is pervasively shaped and constrained by law and legal norms, written and unwritten, that orient the lawful exercise of power to the public good; it includes subsidiary democratic mechanisms of petitioning, consultation, and local and provincial democracy. The alternative to the constitution of hierarchy is not political egalitarianism, but an alternative hierarchy of arbitrary and exploitative rule, dominated by an economic and social class of optimates.