Until SSRN discontinued institutional research paper series as a product offering in June 2026, the The University of Michigan Law School, Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper Series journal contained abstracts and papers focused on the Public Law & Legal Theory area of study. Michigan Law faculty papers were sent in eDistributions to subscribers.
This series preserves the metadata for papers which were included in the series from 2003-2026, with links out to the SSRN paper landing pages. Papers remain available through individual author pages for current and former faculty.
Submissions from 2026
COVID and the Great Retrenchment, Samuel R. Bagenstos
Rethinking the Fund Termination Sanction, Samuel R. Bagenstos
The Crisis of Appropriations Law, Samuel R. Bagenstos
The Dismantling of Civil Rights Protections and Thoughts on Rebuilding, Samuel R. Bagenstos and Ellen D. Katz
The German Basic Law in U.S. Constitutional Argument and Imagination: Strategic Comparisons (1949-2026), Daniel Halberstam
Casting Aspersions, Jessica Litman
Article II and the Civil Service, Aaron L. Nielson and Christopher J. Walker
An Incidental Standard for Medical AI, W. Nicholson Price II
Clinicians in the Loop of Medical AI, W. Nicholson Price II
Reparations for Colonialism Beyond Legal Responsibility, Steven R. Ratner
Harms, Relationships, and the Contours of Liability for Emotional Distress, Steven Schaus
Law of Incarceration: Cases and Materials, Table of Contents and Chapter 1 (2026 edition), Margo Schlanger, David Shapiro, and Lynn S. Branham
Proportionality in Adminstrative Law, Christopher J. Walker
Homicide for the Sake of Honor: What Dueling and Stand-Your-Ground Laws Share in Common, Peter K. Westen
Submissions from 2025
Science and Politics in Public Health Regulation, Samuel R. Bagenstos
The Limits of Negative Rights Claims in Social Change Litigation: A Disability Law Perspective on Grants Pass, Samuel R. Bagenstos
The State Capacity Crisis, Nicholas Bagley and David Schleicher
Burdens of Proof in Criminal Procedure, Eve Brensike Primus
Institutional Considerations for the Regulation of Internet Service Providers, Daniel Deacon
Legalistic Noncompliance, Daniel Deacon and Leah Litman
Two Takes on Administrative Change from the Roberts Court, Daniel Deacon and Leah Litman
Lawfinding's Dilemma: Legal Formalism, or Judicial Neutrality, Alma Diamond
Law in Society: Defending Hart, Alma Diamond
The Expungement Process: Survey Evidence on Applicants’ Experiences, Mira Edmonds, J. J. Prescott, Sonja B. Starr, and German Marquez Alcala
AI and Tribal Court Practice, Matthew L. M. Fletcher
Cryptocurrencies, Nfts, And The Expanding Definition Of "Investment Contract": Has The S.E.C. Already Torpedoed The Howey Test?, David Guenther
Stare Decisis and the Missing Administrability Inquiry, Andrew Hammond and Christopher J. Walker
The End of Administrative Pragmatism?, Andrew Hammond and Christopher J. Walker
Voter Harassment and the Limits of State and Federal Power, Ellen D. Katz
Authorship Nonsense, Jessica Litman
"Passing a Complete Code": The Framers' Failed Effort to Nationalize Contract Law, Austin Nelson
Next Steps in Online Courts: Accelerating Access to Justice Through Court Technology, J. J. Prescott
Data as Policy, W. Nicholson Price II and Janet Freilich
The Weather and the Climate: On Teaching Constitutional Law, Richard Primus
SEC Rulemaking: An Empirical Analysis of Comments and Memoranda, Adam C. Pritchard, Yuliya Guseva, Irena Hutton, and Joseph Grundfest
Challenging Federal Government Impunity: The Case of Disability Law, Margo Schlanger
AI-Powered Lawyering: AI Reasoning Models, Retrieval Augmented Generation, and the Future of Legal Practice, Daniel Schwarcz, Sam Manning, J. J. Prescott, Patrick Barry, David R. Cleveland, and Beverly Rich
How Experts View the Legal System's Use of Scientific Evidence, Shari Seidman Diamond and Richard Lempert
Every Relevant Detail, Salome Viljoen
Social Data’s Role in Law and Political Economy, Salome Viljoen
Submissions from 2024
Building the Gateway: Why the Two Pillars Need Each Other, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah and Ajitesh Kir
Taxation and Corporate Governance, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah and Ariel Siman
Chevron and Stare Decisis, Kent H. Barnett and Christopher J. Walker
Digital Lawyering: Advocacy in the Age of AI, Patrick Barry
States’ Duty Under the Federal Elections Clause And A Federal Right to Education, Evan Caminker
Fee-Shifting Shortcuts, Maureen Carroll
Environmentalism and Antitrust, Albert H. Choi and Daniel A. Crane
Creditors, Shareholders, and Losers In Between: A Failed Regulatory Experiment, Albert H. Choi and Jeffery Y. Zhang
Chenery II Revisited, Daniel Deacon
Why We Should Stop Talking About Violent Offenders: Storytelling and Decarceration, Mira Edmonds
Federal Indian Law as Method, Matthew L. M. Fletcher
The Sovereignty Problem in Federal Indian Law, Matthew L. M. Fletcher
New Tech, Old Problem: The Rise of Virtual Rent-to-Own Agreements, Carrie Floyd
Thoughts of a Jewish-American Plaintiffs’ Lawyer on the Past and Present of Stockholder Litigation, Joel Edan Friedlander
Roman Precursors of Modern Human Rights Doctrine, Bruce W. Frier
Flexibility and Conversions in New York City's Housing Stock: Building for an Era of Rapid Change, Ingrid Gould Ellen and Noah Kazis
Dworkin in His Best Light, Scott Hershovitz and Steven Schaus
The International Tax Revolution: Introduction, Young Ran (Christine) Kim and Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
The Runaway Train of Mandated Reporting, Katie Louras
Regulating Algorithmic Harms, Sylvia Lu
Researcher Access to Social Media Data: Lessons from Clinical Trial Data Sharing, Christopher Morten, Gabriel Nicholas, and Salome Viljoen
Saving Agency Adjudication, Aaron L. Nielson, Christopher J. Walker, and Melissa F. Wasserman
Labor Law, Ownership, and the Firm, Sanjukta Paul
The Jurisprudence of Justice Gorsuch and Future Efforts to Address Climate Change, Rachel Rothschild
The Origins of the Major Questions Doctrine, Rachel Rothschild
Assessing Visions of Democracy in Regulatory Policymaking, Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia and Christopher J. Walker
Consent Searches and Underestimation of Compliance: Robustness to Type of Search, Consequences of Search, and Demographic Sample, Roseanna Sommers and Vanessa K. Bohns
"Legally Magic" Words: An Empirical Study of the Accessibility of Fifth Amendment Rights, Roseanna Sommers and Kate Weisburd
The Great Regulatory Dodge, Katherine J. Strandburg, Salome Viljoen, and Helen Nissenbaum
Congress and the Shifting Sands in Administrative Law, Christopher J. Walker
Chevron's 51 Imperfect Solutions, Christopher J. Walker and Neena Menon
The Right to Remove in Agency Adjudication, Christopher J. Walker and David T. Zaring
Deputization and Privileged White Violence, Ekow N. Yankah
Submissions from 2023
The Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform Process: Design, Dilemmas and Discontents, Julian Arato, Kathleen Claussen, and Malcolm Langford
A Response to Professor Choi’s Beyond Purposivism in Tax Law, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Is the US Already Compliant with Pillar 2?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
What Would Surrey Say? The Long Reach of Stanley S. Surrey, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah and Nir Fishbien
The Historical Origins of the Multilateral Tax Convention, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah and Eran Lempert
Fee Shifting, Nominal Damages, and the Public Interest, Maureen Carroll
Back to Basics: The Benefits of Paradigmatic International Organizations, Kristina Daugirdas and Katerina Linos
The Not-So-Standard Model: Reconsidering Agency-Head Review of Administrative Adjudication Decisions, Rebecca S. Eisenberg and Nina A. Mendelson
Due Process and Equal Protection in Michigan Anishinaabe Tribal Courts, Matthew L. M. Fletcher
A Fresh Look at Judicial Remedies in EU Equality Law and Beyond: The Untapped Possibility of Structural Injunctions, Daniel Halberstam and Sina Van den Bogaert
Erasing Section 2, Ellen D. Katz
Learning From Land Use Reforms: Housing Outcomes and Regulatory Change, Noah Kazis
The Structure of Land Use Administration: A Research Agenda, Noah Kazis
Collusive Prosecution, Ben A. McJunkin and J. J. Prescott
Legitimacy and Online Proceedings: Procedural Justice, Access to Justice, and the Role of Income, Avital Mentovich, J. J. Prescott, and Orna Rabinovich-Einy
Medical-Legal Partnerships Reinvigorate Systems Lawyering Using an Upstream Approach, L. Kate Mitchell and Debra Chopp
The Early Years of Congress's Anti-Removal Power, Aaron L. Nielson and Christopher J. Walker
Valuing Social Data, Amanda Parsons and Salome Viljoen
Mandating Repair Scores, Aaron Perzanowski
Tattoos, Norms, and Implied Licenses, Aaron Perzanowski
Modular Bankruptcy: Toward a Consumer Scheme of Arrangement, John A. E. Pottow
Locating Liability for Medical AI, W. Nicholson Price II and I. Glenn Cohen
Cryptic Patent Reform Through the Inflation Reduction Act, Arti K. Rai, Rachel Sachs, and W. Nicholson Price II
Fair and Equitable Treatment and Human Rights: A Moral and Legal Reconciliation, Steven R. Ratner
Rethinking Innovation at FDA, Rachel Sachs, W. Nicholson Price II, and Patricia J. Zettler
Wrongs to Us, Steven Schaus
Commonsense Consent and Action Representation: What is 'Essential' to Consent?, Roseanna Sommers