Business Law News - College of Law

Lawless joins American Bankruptcy Institute Podcast

An audio recording studio with microphone and chair

The Supreme Court ruled in June on the case of Keathley v. Buddy Ayres Construction, unanimously held that courts should look to the totality of the circumstances when determining whether an omission of a claim in the bankruptcy context was inadvertent or mistaken for purposes of the judicial estoppel doctrine. Professor Robert Lawless, who joined an amicus brief on the case, joined host Bill Rochelle on the American Bankruptcy Institute Podcast to discuss the facts of the case, the decision, and how courts are likely to proceed moving forward.

Listen to the podcast.

Rochelle’s Daily Wire quotes Lawless on copyright termination

Copyright termination is a process by which copyright holders may terminate a grant—or transfer—of their rights. In a recent Eleventh Circuit case, judges ruled that termination rights are retained by an estate even after discharge, a decision that presents some problems. Rochelle’s Daily Wire, a publication of the American Bankruptcy Institute, quoted Professor Robert Lawless on this topic, including his suggestion of how courts may create a more useful mechanism for future cases.

Read Rochelle’s Daily Wire.

Kaplan publishes article on gender discrimination in retirement plans

The requirement that individuals withdraw required minimum distribution amounts, as specified in the SECURE 2.0 Act, requires women to withdraw more than their
gender-specific life expectancy would otherwise require. This is the conclusion of Professor Richard Kaplan in a new article published in the Pittsburgh Tax Review. The paper was originally presented at an ABA-sponsored conference on revealing and addressing hidden gender bias in tax law and policy.

Read the full article from the Pittsburgh Tax Review.

Lawsky publishes article on legal inconsistencies

Main Library at the University of Illinois in early fall.

When a law is inconsistent, further guidance should come from Congress, courts, and administrative agencies to create clarity. In her recent article, Professor Sarah Lawsky examines via a programming language framework an example of a tax statute that mandates inconsistent outcomes for the same set of facts and shows how that inconsistency has been addressed by the Treasury and the IRS. Her article was also the subject of a TaxProfBlog article, which you can read online.

Read Lawsky’s article on legal inconsistencies.

Capitol Forum quotes Anderson on employee stock ownership plans

The Department of Labor recently announced it would no longer prioritize investigations and enforcement actions against employee stock ownership plans (ESOP). The Capitol Forum account of this policy change notes the regulatory concerns this announcement raises and quotes Professor Sean Anderson extensively. “Some actors in the ESOP industry will be incentivized to be less careful and more aggressive about valuation and fiduciary decision making,” he said.

Read the full article here.

Lawsky publishes article on Direct File

Direct File, a program that allows some taxpayers to file federal income tax returns with the United States government online for free, is an extraordinary accomplishment, Professor Sarah Lawsky writes in a new article published in the Pittsburgh Tax Review. Examining the computer code underlying Direct File, Lawsky finds choices that make “the application of the law and various administrative choices more transparent even to those who are not comfortable reading computer code.”

Read her full article on SSRN.

New paper from Robbennolt and Winship – “From Tweets to Testimony: A Case Study of Apologies After the FTX Collapse”

The two figures that stand beside Alma Mater represent

A new co-authored essay from Professors Jennifer Robbennolt and Verity Winship will be published in the FSU Business Review, as part of the 2026 Symposium on Behavioral Perspectives on Corporate Law. The essay is titled “From Tweets to Testimony: A Case Study of Apologies After the FTX Collapse,” and the abstract follows:

In the wake of the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried delivered a constellation of apologies to a variety of constituents. Bankman-Fried included apologetic statements in a series of tweets, in a letter to company employees, in a host of interviews, and, ultimately, in his remarks at his criminal sentencing hearing. We use the FTX collapse and Bankman-Fried’s apologies to make some observations about the differences between competence-based and integrity violations and the psychology of corporate apologies in the context of highly salient founder-CEOs.

Read the full paper at ssrn.com.

Brubaker: The Erie Doctrine, Code Common Law, and Choice-of-Law Rules in Bankruptcy

Professor Ralph Brubaker published a new article on SSRN, titled “The Erie Doctrine, Code Common Law, and Choice-of-Law Rules in Bankruptcy.” The article was also featured in the Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable.

Read the full article at ssrn.com.

New paper from Lawsky: “Constructing Deductions”

Professor Sarah Lawsky, along with co-author Leandra Lederman, published the paper “Constructing Deductions” on SSRN.com. The abstract follows:

This Essay identifies drafting “building blocks” that are present in the Internal Revenue Code and that are used to construct many of the deductions available to individuals. The Essay represents these building blocks using mathematical formulas and graphically, and it then shows how the building blocks are combined to create complex deductions. These formalizations and visualizations yield insight into statutory drafting choices. They also reveal “negative space”–that is, ways that federal income tax deductions could be drafted but are not.

Download the full paper at ssrn.com.

Lawless speaks to New York Times about Spirit Airlines shutdown

After struggling financially for years and failing to secure a government bailout, Spirit Airlines announced that it would begin the process of shutting down in early May. Investors were strongly opposed to the government bailout, especially those that had made Spirit debtor-in-possession loans. Such loans have high interest rates, and the investors who own them are paid back before other creditors. The investors also have the right to object to changes, including new loans, that could hurt their interests.

Speaking to the New York Times, bankruptcy expert and professor Bob Lawless compared the rights of these lenders to an oft-cited metaphor of hikers standing on a hill. “The new lender says, ‘We’re on this mountain trail, and there’s plenty of room for you to go out and stand out there closer to the edge of the cliff,’” Lawless said. “And the existing lender has a good response, which is that if there’s so much room, why don’t you go stand out there?”

Read the full story at nytimes.com.