SMU Law Review

JALC

SMU Law Review is the flagship journal of SMU Dedman School of law, publishing articles by prominent legal scholars and practitioners with international reach.

SMU Law Review is part of the SMU Law Review Association which also publishes the SMU Law Review Forum, the Journal of Air Law and Commerce, and the SMU Annual Texas Survey. Together, the Association’s student members publish four issues annually for the SMU Law Review. One issue each year is a Symposium issue focusing on timely legal topics. Recent Symposium issues have highlighted the role of artificial intelligence in a fair and just society, criminal justice reform, the right to die, and free speech under the First Amendment. Additionally, SMU Law Review publishes four to five Comments written by SMU Law Review Association’s student members. Serving as more than just a publication, the SMU Law Review also sponsors the annual SMU Corporate Counsel Symposium.

Before publishing as the SMU Law Review in 1992, the journal began in 1947 as Texas Law and Legislation and then as the Southwestern Law Journal in 1948.

 

Recent Articles in Volume 76, Issue 2 (2023)

Using a “Bystander Bounty” to Encourage the Reporting of Workplace Sexual Harassment

By Jessica Fink – Sexual harassment has become a fact of the modern workplace—something that society laments and regrets, but that rarely shocks the conscience when it comes to light. In fact, both the least and most surprising aspect of workplace sexual harassment is the number of individuals who are aware of it occurring. For every Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, and Louis C.K., there have been countless observers who knew about their depravity and who did nothing to stop their behavior. In this way, one obvious approach for reducing harassment at work seems clearly to involve mobilizing these bystanders—encouraging those who witness this misconduct to come forward and report the wrongdoing. Yet for a variety of reasons, bystanders often (quite rationally) choose to remain silent. This Article suggests a novel approach to overcome the forces that inhibit bystanders from speaking out. [...]


Appraisal Discrimination: Five Lessons for Litigators

By Heather R. Abraham – Appraisal discrimination not only persists, but its influence has actually increased in some housing markets. New studies document how contemporary appraisal methods operate as systemic racism, such as how appraisers select from a narrower set of comparable properties when appraising homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Recent events have renewed public attention to appraisal discrimination, from shocking news stories to a new multiagency federal task force. In tandem, a new wave of litigation has emerged. [...]


Innovation Funding and the Valley of Death

By Lital Helman – Innovation is a public good. As with other public goods, it is expected to be underproduced if only private incentives are present. Therefore, the law strives to encourage innovation via an array of stimulus mechanisms. The law offers three main mechanisms: intellectual property (IP), cash transfers—mainly prizes and grants—and tax incentives. Vast literature analyzes and compares these innovation stimuli in search of the optimal mix to boost innovation. Yet a key problem is largely overlooked: together, the existing stimuli do not cover the lion’s share of the innovation lifecycle. [...]


Warranted Exclusion: A Case for a Fourth Amendment Built on the Right to Exclude

By Mailyn Fidler – Searches intrude; fundamentally, they infringe on a right to exclude. So that right should form the basis of Fourth Amendment protections. Current Fourth Amendment doctrine—the reasonable expectation of privacy test—struggles with conceptual clarity and predictability. The Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade casts further doubt on the reception of other privacy-based approaches with this Court. But the replacement approach that several Justices on the Court favor, what I call the “maximalist” property approach, risks troublingly narrow results.


A Review and Look Ahead at Criminalizing Pregnancy in the Name of State Interest in Fetal Life

By Sarah E. Burns & Sarah S. Wheeler – Across the United States, and especially in communities that are highly policed and in places hostile to abortion, pregnant people are dying, suffering, being separated from their children and families, and going to jail and prison in purported service of the state interest in fetal life recognized in Roe v. Wade and expanded in Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania v. Casey. This Article focuses on two common practices that cause these harms: criminalizing pregnant people and denying them medical decision-making authority. [...]

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Contact

Administrative Assistant
TaLibra Ferguson
talibra@smu.edu

President
Ellie Johnson
eleanor@smu.edu

Editor-in-Chief
Elan Wilson
erwilson@smu.edu
smueic@smu.edu

Managing Editor
Colin Hickl
chickl@smu.edu

Corporate Counsel Symposium Editors
Serene Zidan
Olivia Mae Vrielink

 

Submissions

Submission Instructions

 

Related links

Corporate Counsel Symposium

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

SMU Annual Texas Survey

SMU Law Review Forum

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