Read Full Article (PDF) Criminal Law and Procedure This Article surveys recent developments in criminal procedure and law in Virginia. Because of space limitations, the authors have limited their discussion to the most significant published appellate...
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Taxation
Read Full Article (PDF) Taxation This Article reviews significant recent developments in the laws affecting Virginia state and local taxation. Its Parts cover legislative activity, judicial decisions, and selected opinions and other pronouncements from the...
Wills, Trusts, and Estates
Read Full Article (PDF) Wills, Trusts, and Estates Between legislative and judicial activity, there have been a number of noteworthy developments and changes to the rules governing trusts and estates. Several of these developments turn on questions related to...
COVID-19 and Energy Justice: Utility Bill Relief in Virginia
Read Full Article (PDF) COVID-19 and Energy Justice: Utility Bill Relief in Virginia Energy justice has captured national attention as scholars have spotlighted inequities in energy production and distribution activities, energy and utility regulation, and...
What is the Standard for Obtaining a Preliminary Injunction in Virginia?
Read Full Article (PDF) What is the Standard for Obtaining a Preliminary Injunction in Virginia? A perception exists that the Supreme Court of Virginia has not articulated the legal standard for adjudicating preliminary-injunction motions in Virginia circuit...
Banning Noncompetes in Virginia
Read Full Article (PDF) Banning Noncompetes in Virginia The past decade has seen a nationwide wave of reform in noncompete law, specifically the limitation of noncompete agreements. Since 2016, ten states—including Virginia in 2020— banned the use of...
Graphic Justice, Humor, and the Democratization of Legal Discourse
Read Full Article (PDF) Graphic Justice, Humor, and the Democratization of Legal Discourse The global popularity of comics has propelled scholarship about "graphic justice," a term Thomas Giddens coined to refer to the intersection of comics and law. While...
Filling Lower Court Vacancies in Congress’ Lame Duck Session
Read Full Article (PDF) Filling Lower Court Vacancies in Congress' Lame Duck Session In this midterm election year of 2022, the nation’s divided political parties are in a battle royale to win the exceedingly close Senate majority. One important explanation...
Acknowledgements
Read Full Article (PDF) Acknowledgements Over the past year serving as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Richmond Law Review, I have read over 1,400 pages of legal scholarship. I have reviewed over 8,500 footnotes and even more sources. I have opened the...
A Music Industry Circuit Split: The De Minimis Exception in Digital Sampling
In Bridgeport Music Inc. v. Dimension Films, the Sixth Circuit cracked down on digital sampling when it ruled that any use of a copyrighted sound recording amounted to copyright infringement, no matter the size of the sample taken. In 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the de minimis defense—the rule that a small amount of copying is permitted—does, in fact, apply to sound recordings. This opinion stands in direct opposition to the Bridgeport holding, thereby creating a circuit split on the issue of de minimis use of digital sampling.
Humanize, Don’t Paternalize: Victim-Offender Mediation After Intimate Partner Violence
The retributive legal system displays a critical gap in addressing the needs of survivors. Restorative justice methods showcasing victim-offender mediation (“VOM”) can fill that gap for a substantial number of survivors.
Movement Lawyers: Henry L. Marsh’s Long Struggle for Educational Justice
Born in 1933 in Richmond, Virginia, Henry Marsh was a protégé of legendary Virginia civil rights attorney Oliver Hill, who was a member of a civil rights legal team with Spotswood Robinson and
commissioned by Charles Hamilton Houston to investigate school inequalities and prepare a legal strategy for dismantling segregationist laws.
Redefining the Badges of Slavery
Section 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment grants Congress the authority to eliminate the “badges and incidents” of slavery. There has emerged a renewed interest in Section 2, such that the literature now abounds with proposals for eliminating contemporary badges of slavery. Section 2 has been cited as grounds for addressing hate speech, the removal of Confederate monuments, racial profiling, sexual orientation discrimination, violence against women, limitations on the right to an abortion, sexual harassment, sweatshop labor, and more.
Rethinking Retroactive Rulemaking: Solving the Problem of Adjudicative Deference
This Article argues that not only should adjudications not receive Chevron deference, but a limited exception should also be created to the current ban on retroactive rulemaking to encourage agencies to engage in the rulemaking process to address ambiguities arising in adjudication.
Completing Expungement
Expungement—the process by which the official, public data of a criminal record is erased, sealed, or made private—remains an important tool in the battle against stigma and over-punishment after one formally leaves the criminal justice system.
Replacing Tinker
In allowing schools to punish student speech that school officials reasonably believe could be substantially disruptive, Tinker founds students’ free expression rights on unstable ground.
Overhauling Rules of Evidence in Pro Se Courts
Nonlawyer pro se litigants often struggle to adhere to the norms of the adversarial American legal system. As a result, complex legal rules present an access-to-justice barrier to unrepresented litigants unable to comply with them.
















