In the News - August 24, 2020

Media Highlights

Uber, Lyft Take Worker Fight to Ballot Box After Court Win
Automotive News – August 21, 2020
Veena Dubal: “There’s nothing about employment status that says they are supposed to work certain hours. It’s a false narrative.”

US Companies Grant Executives Big Bonuses Before Declaring Bankruptcy
The Financial Times – August 20, 2020
Jared Ellias: “It’s saddening that there isn’t some restraint by those who control big piles of money from doing things that make themselves look stupid.”

Record Registrations for California’s Online October Bar Exam
The Recorder – August 19, 2020
David Faigman: “I think it’s a product of how many graduates out there are ready to practice law.”

COVID-19 Vaccines Could Become Mandatory. Here’s How it Might Work
National Geographic – August 19, 2020
Dorit Reiss: The mandates can be directed toward customers, as well. Just as business owners can bar shoeless and shirtless clients from entering, they can legally keep people out for any number of reasons.”

Among Ohio Lawmakers, Anti-Vaccine Views Run Deep
Ohio Capital Journal – August 19, 2020
Dorit Reiss: “The states could definitely step in to make it harder to get vaccinated.”

SF Supervisors OK Tenderloin Settlement Over Homeless Tents But Worry it Will Inspire More Lawsuits
San Francisco Chronicle – August 19, 2020
David Faigman: “I always thought that Hastings was on the same side as the city, but maybe we needed a federal court to help us get to where we needed to go.”

Why Hasn’t Voting Done More for Women?
Vox – August 18, 2020
Joan Williams: “Women are people. Women are Americans; not all women are feminists, and not all feminists agree on what’s best for women.”

Lawyers for Nearly 50 Men Incarcerated at San Quentin Sue over ‘Botched Transfer,’ Demand Release
KTVU – August 17, 2020
Hadar Aviram: She and 17 other criminal justice and corrections scholars and the ACLU of Northern California have weighed in as “amici curiae.”

California Ruling Against Uber, Lyft Threatens to Upend Gig Economy
The Hill – August 16, 2020
Veena Dubal: “Based on what I heard in the oral argument, I think they’re really going to go hard on this idea that this is going to cause irreparable harm both to the companies and to drivers.”

Even if Uber Rides Come to a Stop in California, Uber Eats Still has a Green Light
MarketWatch – August 14, 2020
Veena Dubal: “I suspect that the California attorney general will work to enforce the law against the food delivery business models in the coming months.”

California Could Cut its Prison Population in Half and Free 50,000 People. Amid Pandemic, Will the State Act?
San Francisco Chronicle – August 14, 2020
Hadar Aviram: “The distinction we’re always making between violent and nonviolent people? We have to let go of it, because it has no correlation with public safety.”

Take Your Mom to Work
The Health Care Blog – August 12, 2020
Joan Williams: Trying to get the economy open again without figuring out how we’re going to support working moms is a “recipe for a generational wipeout of mothers’ careers,” she told the Wall Street Journal.

Uber and Lyft Must Classify Drivers as Employees, Judge Rules, in Blow to Gig Economy
The Guardian – August 10, 2020
Veena Dubal: “This is the closest in eight years the judiciary has come to enforcing labor rights in the gig economy.”

College and Community Stories

Prof. Aviram Leads Amicus on Behalf of San Quentin Prisoners
Eighteen prominent criminal justice and corrections scholars and the ACLU are joining litigation as amici curiae brought on behalf of San Quentin prisoners facing danger from COVID-19 outbreaks.

Student Q&A: 2L Yasmine Hajjaji
Each month, the alumni newsletter features a Q&A with a student. Yasmine Hajjaji is a member of the top-ranked Hastings Moot Court team and hopes to pursue a career in litigation.

Scholarly Leadership

Hadar Aviram: “California’s COVID-19 Prison Disaster and the Trap of Palatable Reform,” Boom California, University of California Press

Scott Dodson: “A Critique of Jurisdictionality,” 39 Review of Litigation 355

Veena Dubal: “The Pitfalls of Uber and Lyft as Franchisors,” On Labor

Veena Dubal: “Gig Economy Researchers Want Corporations to Stop Influencing Research,” Vice

Robin Feldman: “Perverse Incentives: Why Everyone Prefers High Drug Prices—Except for Those Who Pay the Bills,” 57 Harvard Journal on Legislation 303

Sarah Hooper: “The Medical-Legal Partnership Model: A Focus on Older Adults and Social Determinants of Health,” Journal of the American Society on Aging, 43(4), 99-102

Chimene Keitner: International Law and the 2020 Presidential Election: Cyber Threats and Election Interference Panel

Lois Weithorn: “Psychological Distress, Mental Disorder, and Assessment of Decisionmaking Capacity Under U.S. Physician Aid in Dying Statutes,” 71 UC Law SF Journal 637

Upcoming Events

Richard Marcus: September 1, Marcus will give Horace O. Coil Chairholder Lecture. His talk, “Brave New World(s) for Litigators,” will provide an historical perspective on how technology has influenced and continues to influence litigation—from email, to e-discovery, to AI, to the virtual world we face in the pandemic. The lecture is open to the public.