SEPTEMBER 18, 2026 "Laws of Motion or Law in Motion? On Capitalism and the Law"
Abstract: In recent years, after a long absence, the term ‘capitalism’ has returned to public debate. Triggered in part by the 2008 financial crisis, the long austerity which followed and political movements contesting both, capitalism has become a central element in describing the world and how it needs to change.  Alongside this, the uneven results of capitalisms’ crises have helped undergird new attention to its relationship to race and racialisation.

SEPTEMBER 25, 2026
Legal Realism and CLS from an LPE Perspective What is the role of law in political economy?
Abstract: And what is the role of political economy in law? And in both cases when we speak of “law” and “political economy,” are we speaking of academic disciplines or social realities? This tangle of questions constitutes the orienting research agenda of the emerging “law and political economy” movement in legal academia. Questions concerning not so much the interaction as the interrelation of law and political economy, with each of these understood simultaneously as fields of study and arenas of social life. And within that agenda the legacy of two prior efforts at grappling with these questions—Legal Realism and Critical Legal Studies (CLS)—looms large. This article seeks to take stock of that legacy, and to advance a critique of central aspects of the received traditions of Realism and CLS, for the sake of developing new foundations for the analysis of both law and political economy.

OCTOBER 16, 2026
Predetermined Purchasing Power: The Convergence of Algorithmic Wages and Prices
Abstract: Firms increasingly use machine learning systems to mediate both consumer prices and worker wages, but to date, legal scholarship has largely treated algorithmic price discrimination and algorithmic wage discrimination as separate phenomena. Nevertheless, even in the absence of explicit coordination between firms, shared computational logic and overlapping data infrastructures may produce convergence. This Article conceptualizes this emerging political-economic condition as predetermined purchasing power.  By drawing on overlapping records of economic life, automated wage and price systems use data on past behavior and present circumstances to infer the terms a person or banded group is likely to accept. A worker’s financial exigency may then be algorithmically leveraged to justify lower wages by one firm, and higher prices by another. As these inferences are used to form future economic calculations, automated systems learn from—and can intensify—the very pressures they create, thus eroding individuals’ capacity to refuse unfair or exploitative terms. Because existing law was built for an analog economy, legal doctrine fragments the process into discrete transactions, failing to recognize purchasing power as a governable phenomenon. This Article develops predetermined purchasing power as a conceptual framework for thinking about how parallel and overlapping predictive price- and wage-setting systems can organize around a person or group’s constraints. Mapping the boundaries of existing law, the Article proposes targeted legislative interventions-- including substantive restrictions on algorithmic wage and price discrimination, mandatory wage and price transparency, and intrafirm firewalls between prices, wages, and loan products. The aim is to prevent data infrastructures and automated pricing systems from growing and entrenching inequality.

OCTOBER 23, 2026
Contracting Around Captivity: Private Jets, Carceral Mobility, and the Anthropology of Law
Abstract: As a mode of transport, private jets provide enormous flexibility and discretion. For this reason, they are increasingly being used for two very different kinds of passengers: billionaires and captives (especially in deportations). As objects of conspicuous consumption, private jets are frequently leased out by their owners when not in use to recoup costs. As a result, it is not uncommon for the same jets to be used for luxury travel on one trip and captivity on the next. This paper engages in an ethnography of legal form to explore the relationship between contract, captivity, and capital in the use of private jets. It draws from the author's experiences in unsuccessful litigation against a private aviation contractor supporting the CIA torture program, juxtaposed with a set of billing disputes in over a plane used in the CIA torture program.

NOVEMBER 12, 2026
“Trauma-Informed’ Prisons? The Disability, Debility, and Death Behind Carceral Feminism”
Jess Whatcott (they/them) is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies. Whatcott’s book Menace to the Future: A Queer and Disability History of Carceral Eugenics describes how California institutions segregated disabled, mad, and neurodivergent people in the early twentieth century. Whatcott theorizes that this was a practice of “carceral eugenics,” that is on-going in psychiatric hospitals, prisons, and immigrant detention centers. They have in the past written about representations of institutions, prisons, and eugenics in speculative fiction, focusing on work by Ursula K. LeGuin and Octavia Butler. Whatcott’s current research examines the history of disability in immigration and border policy in the US.

In Post 59, Judith Olin highlights the work of the University at Buffalo School of Law's Family Violence and Women's Rights Clinic, where student attorneys represent low-income survivors of domestic violence in civil legal disputes while engaging in legislative advocacy, policy research, and community education.

In Post 58, Lauren Wilson explores how debates over AI-generated art echo earlier controversies surrounding new creative technologies. She argues that while copyright law can address issues such as authorship and originality, it cannot resolve broader anxieties about artistic value, creativity, or what it means to be human.

Tariff. A word that has become ubiquitous over the past few years yet remains mysterious to many. In President Trump’s second term, however, the word “tariff” seems to be in the news constantly – even as a verb. President Trump has imposed tariffs in 2025 by using an authority – the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – that has never before been invoked by a President to impose tariffs – and arguably does not authorize the President to do so. In Blog Post 56, Meredith Kolsky Lewis offers insight on the legality of President Trump’s Liberation Day Tariffs.

In Blog Post 57, Patrick J. Long examines competing conceptions of justice and the rule of law in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. He observes, “Shakespeare’s troubling play ends with Isabella’s anguished plea for ‘justice, justice, justice, justice!’ This novice nun, so wronged throughout the play, has witnessed the collapse of the legal system in Vienna. Disease and disorder have torn the fabric of society.