News featuring a faculty member
In late December 2023, U.S. bankruptcy court in North Carolina denied motions to dismiss the Texas Two-Step mass-tort bankruptcy cases of entities created to resolve the asbestos liability of the Trane companies. This type of maneuver involves splitting a company into two, moving the liabilities to one company, and then seek bankruptcy protections to absolve […]
When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted life in unprecedented ways, one of the most consequential was the suspension of eviction hearings and moratorium on evictions imposed by the CARES Act. When evictions proceeded again, many predicted a housing crisis would follow, but this was not borne out in Census Bureau survey data from 2020 through 2023, […]
When it comes to speech, “There is legal freedom and there is practical freedom,” Professor Lena Shapiro explained. The director of the First Amendment Clinic explained how the freedoms related to speech in the United States are applied on college campuses, especially in the wake of the October 7 attacks in Israel and the ensuing […]
Professor Jacob Sherkow was invited to speak at the “Regulation of Innovative Health Technologies Workshop,” which took place at the leading Centre for Law and Genetics, University of Tasmania, from November 23-25, 2023. As part of the workshop, Sherkow was the organizer of a session examining patents as regulators of innovative health technologies. The international […]
“I would be surprised, bluntly, if [a lawsuit] does not get filed by the end of this year,” Professor Jacob Sherkow told Politico about the patent battle over CRISPR technology. When the FDA issued approval for the therapy in sickle cell cases, it granted approval to companies that do not hold licenses for CRISPR. As […]
In the pending U.S. Supreme Court case regarding Purdue Pharma’s litigation shield for the Sackler family, the decision of the Court could impact widely used non-debtor releases in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases. Professor Ralph Brubaker suggested to Bloomberg Law the ruling might affect cases involving mass torts, including cases involving the Catholic diocese, Boy Scouts, […]
Ruling in the case Nine West LBO Securities Litigation, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cited Professor Ralph Brubaker’s work on safe harbor rules in the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. The case revolved around the leveraged buyout of an apparel and footwear company, including brands such as Nine West and Anne Klein, and […]
People generally grasp the basic concept of settlement, recognizing it as an agreement between parties to resolve a dispute without the need for a trial, but some confusion exists regarding the settlement process. Professors Jennifer Robbennolt and Verity Winship, along with Jessica Bregant ’09, have made examining settlements one of the hallmarks of their scholarship, […]
Approval for Vertex Pharmaceutical’s sickle cell treatment using CRISPR technology has brought use of the gene-editing therapy to a “collision point,” according to Professor Jacob Sherkow. Speaking to the MIT Technology Review, Sherkow explained how the patent on editing human cells using CRISPR is owned by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, not Vertex, […]
From law student to the battlefields of Afghanistan and back to the classroom, this time as a professor, Anthony Ghiotto has blazed a unique path to the College of Law. On the American Bar Association’s Young Lawyer Rising podcast, he shared his story of joining the Judge Advocate General’s corps after graduating and the wealth […]