“It’s a smell test,” says Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a Notre Dame professor who specializes in election and tax law. Donor corporations’ lawyers “could take the position that unless an ad is express advocacy, it’s not across the line for tax purposes.”
Could Corporations Take Tax Breaks on Political ‘Dark Money’?, ProPublica, March 19, 2012
Are Corporations Claiming Tax Breaks for Super PAC Donations?, The Atlantic Wire, March 19, 2012 Read More

Holder gives legal defense for al-Awlaki killing
Associated Press (appeared in 100+ publications)
University of Notre Dame international law expert Mary Ellen O’Connell also said the memo should be released to reveal more about the administration’s position. Read More

IRS Battling Tea Party Groups Over Tax-Exempt Status (Quotes: Lloyd Mayer) – The Huffington Post, March 2, 2012 Read More

Prof. Jim Kelly has been appointed by South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg as co-chair of the the new task force on vacant housing. > View article Read More

Proposition 8 and the Metaphysics of Marriage
JURIST Guest Columnist Robert Rodes of the University of Notre Dame Law School says that while some legal recognition of same-sex relationships has gained widespread support, creating same-sex marriage rights must be left to the democratic processes Read More

USA Today has published Professor Rick Garnett’s column analyzing the HHS mandate. The column, which critiques the Administration’s new health insurance mandate on religious freedom grounds, can be read in its entirety on USA Today’s website. Read More

Guest columnist Jimmy Gurulé of Notre Dame Law School says that Congress may have chosen to protect national security interests over the rights of criminal defendants in allowing a lower standard of constitutional protections under FISA. > See Jurist.org for full column. Read More

Column: HHS mandate still undermine religious freedom?
USA Today
Richard W. Garnett is a professor of law and associate dean at the University of Notre Dame and a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law & Religion at Emory University. Read More

MSNBC
This morning on “Up” Father Bill Dailey, a Roman Catholic priest and Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, discussed the Obama administration’s birth control coverage requirements, calling them “gravely immoral and unjust”. > Watch Clip Read More

Professor Mark P. McKenna argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit Feb. 2 in a landmark trademark infringement case. Professor McKenna appeared as an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) in support of sports artist Daniel Moore, who has been locked in litigation with the University of Alabama regarding the sale of Moore’s paintings of Alabama football games and merchandise bearing reproductions of those paintings.

Prof. McKenna’s amicus brief is available here.

The New York Times article describing the case and quoting Professor McKenna is available here. Read More

NDLS Professor Carter Snead co-authored an Op-Ed about Planned Parenthood and the Susan G. Komen Foundation that was published in the Wall Street Journal Feb. 6. Professor Snead is the future director of the Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. His co-author, Robert P. George, is professor of jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program at Princeton University. The full Op-Ed is available here Read More

Free Speech vs. Infringement in Suit on Alabama Artwork
New York Times
The case is of great interest to “artists all over the country whose free speech rights should not be subject to licensing arrangements by colleges and universities,” said Mark P. McKenna, a law professor at Notre Dame who was part of a group of professors that wrote a friend-of-the-court brief to the Appeals Court on Moore’s behalf. Read More

Obama’s Military Tactics: Risky Missions, Elite Units
National Public Radio WBUR
Rescue is “the category I’d like to put it in, because it’s a limited use of force under international law,” says Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law at Notre Dame. Read More

Kohler Co. steamed over Arizona firm’s name
Salon school makes change to avoid trademark suit
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

People have no hard and fast right to use their name on their business if someone else already has trademarked it, said Durst and two academic experts – Mark McKenna of the University of Notre Dame Law School and J. Thomas McCarthy, senior professor at the University of San Francisco.

McKenna, however, called Kohler Co.’s assertions “a pretty aggressive use of their trademark rights.” > Read Article Read More

Romney Tax Returns Show $7 Million in Donations Over 2 Years
Bloomberg Businessweek
It isn’t unusual for high earners like the Romneys to funnel money into charitable foundations that they control, said Lloyd Mayer, an associate dean at the University of Notre Dame Law School. Read More

SOPA and PIPA are (almost) dead. Now can we talk about the law that already exists?

By Mark P. McKenna

Slate.com, January 20, 2012 Read More

Opinion by Mary Ellen O’Connell

The Guardian, January 20, 2012 > Read Article Read More

Professor Richard W. Garnett’s USA Today column analyzing the Supreme Court’s landmark church-state decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC was picked up by the Associated Press and subsequently reported by numerous news outlets, including the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Salt Lake Tribune, U.S. News & World Report, and the Washington Post. Professor Garnett’s amicus brief in support of the church in this case can be accessed here. Read More

A Mississippi judge has temporarily blocked 21 of more than 200 executive pardons given this week by outgoing Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) during his final days in office, and University of Notre Dame Professor of Law Jimmy Gurulé counts himself among many who are outraged that Barbour allowed murderers to be released.

“The fact that Gov. Barbour would pardon one convicted murderer absent extenuating circumstances is deeply disturbing,” says Gurulé, who, in his 23 years at Notre Dame, has taken two major leaves to serve as assistant U.S. Attorney General and Undersecretary of the U.S. Treasury Department for Enforcement. “Pardoning four convicted murderers is shocking, insulting to the surviving family members of the murder victims, and demonstrates a callous disregard for our criminal justice system and the rule of law. In my opinion, Gov. Barbour’s actions are indefensible.” Read More

The insanity defense: Defendants in two high-profile local cases to make an argument lawyers say rarely wins (Quoting Jimmy Gurulé) South Bend Tribune, December 10, 2011 Read More

Why contraception mandate should be scrapped — (Opinion: by Richard Garnett) USA Today, November 27, 2011 Read More

Thomas, Kagan asked to sit out health care case — (quotes: Richard Garnett) AP, November 26, 2011 Read More

The NBA Players Could Win – But it isn’t Likely
Forbes
Also, notes antitrust expert Joseph Bauer, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, part of the players’ suit was filed in California’s 9th Circuit, Read More

NBA lockout: Law professor predicts players’ union to file more …
Los Angeles Times
Below are excepts of an interview with Notre Dame law professor Joseph Bauer on the NBA players’ union filing antitrust lawsuits against the league. Read More

Supreme Court Takes On Obamacare Challenge – Forbes
Source: forbes.com

The Supreme Court takes on the case of whether Obamacare is constitutional, with all of its political ramifications. Read More

Professor Richard W. Garnett has been appointed as a consultant to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty. The Committee is updating the bishops on religious liberty issues at the Conference’s November 14-16 meeting in Baltimore. More information about the Committee on Religious Liberty is available here. Read More

What Will Be the Outcome of Catholic Answers vs. IRS?
National Catholic Register (also published at Catholic News Agnecy)
However, the lawsuit’s success is “highly unlikely,” said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a University of Notre Dame Law School professor. Read More

Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell is speaking on "Peace as a Global Public Good" at a global public goods symposium in San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy. The October 24 symposium, “Public Goods and the Plurality of Legal Orders,” is organized by the European Society of International Law, the American Society of International Law, the European Journal of International Law, and the HiiL Project on Private Transnational Regulatory Regimes. > Read More Read More

O. Carter Snead, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, has been appointed the W.P. and H.B. White Director of the University’s Center for Ethics and Culture (CEC) by John McGreevy, I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters.

A member of the Notre Dame Law School faculty since 2005, Snead will succeed W. David Solomon, associate professor of philosophy, effective July 1. Read More

Prof. Lloyd Mayer was quoted in the NY Times on October 12, 2011 in the article As Anti-Climate Group’s Activities Rise, So Do Questions About Its Secret Finances Read More