News 22 - College of Law

Gerke publishes co-authored article in New England Journal of Medicine

If 23andMe goes bankrupt, what happens to their millions of customers’ personal and genetic data?

Sara Gerke, Melissa B. Jacoby, and I. Glenn Cohen explore this issue in a new article published on March 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine, titled “Bankruptcy, Genetic Information, and Privacy — Selling Personal Information.”

The data are not protected by HIPAA, the authors note. The U.S. has no comprehensive federal privacy laws (and handful of overlapping, conflicting state laws.) Sure, Congress could pass consumer protection laws, but “it has been difficult to get large-scale privacy reform through Congress.”

Indeed, as the authors note, 23andMe’s privacy statement “reserves the company’s right to transfer customers’ personal information in the event of a company sale or bankruptcy.”

Basically, Gerke, Jacoby, and Cohen argue, little is stopping this data (potentially 14 million consumers’ worth) from being sold to the highest bidder.

Conclusion: “We believe it’s time to reconsider how [genetic information] data are regulated.”

Read the full article at nejm.org.

Sara Gerke is an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Law. Melissa B. Jacoby is a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I. Glenn Cohen is a Harvard Law professor and faculty director of the Petrie-Flom Center for health law policy, biotechnology, and bioethics at Harvard Law School.

J. Sharpe and Rowell quoted in article on threats to DEI programs

The “Dear Colleague Letter” issued by the U.S. Department of Education in February expressed a threat that schools that support diversity initiatives could face funding cuts. With several cultural houses on campus, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign could be among the targets to lose funding. In an extensive examination, Illinois Public Media quotes both Dean Jamelle Sharpe and Professor Arden Rowell on how the letter may affect the Illinois campus and the levels of uncertainty that exist currently. “The Department is taking a very aggressive and expansive view of the Supreme Court’s decision,” Sharpe said. “They believe it should be applied to situations that the Supreme Court’s decision itself did not address.”

Read the full article from Illinois Public Media.

Forthcoming paper by Sherkow focuses on drug labels

A drug label is a vital piece of information in patent cases, but a series of recent decisions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit have changed how the court assesses claims. In a forthcoming article in the Stanford Law Review, Professor Jacob Sherkow calls this new confusion over labels “infringement by label.” In the paper, Sherkow and his co-author examine unresolved questions in patent law and return pharmaceutical patent litigation to factual and doctrinal basis.

Read the full article on SSRN.

Wilson speaks on sterilization with Deseret News

Surgical sterilization is on the rise among young American women and one of the questions surrounding this practice is one of informed consent. Professor Robin Fretwell Wilson, who has researched extensively on this topic, told the Deseret News that consent may be hard to assure because an individual may experience regret later in life.

Read the full article online.

Illinois LawCast: Teaching Black History with Juan Thomas

Juan Thomas has found great success in the legal world and in politics since graduating from Illinois Law in 1996, and now he is taking the time to give back by teaching The History of the African-American Lawyer in the United States. We talked about his path to the law and why he is passionate about sharing Black history with a new generation of students.

Listen online.
Listen on Apple Podcasts.
Listen on Spotify Podcasts.
Listen on Amazon Music.
Listen on Pandora.

If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, please contact podcast@illinois.edu.

American College of Bankruptcy names Joshua Livingston ’25 a Distinguished Bankruptcy Student

The American College of Bankruptcy has selected Joshua Livingston ’25 as the Seventh Circuit Distinguished Bankruptcy Law Student for 2025. Distinguished Bankruptcy Law Students are selected annually for each Circuit based on their academic excellence, professional accomplishments in bankruptcy or restructuring-related courses, passion for restructuring and insolvency, and commitment to public service and pro bono efforts.

Livingston was nominated for the award by Professors Ralph Brubaker and Robert Lawless, internationally renowned scholars in the field of bankruptcy. In their letter recommending Livingston, the professors were effusive in their praise for him, highlighting the way his enthusiasm for bankruptcy matches their own. Specifically, Brubaker and Lawless noted he is “someone who obviously appreciates all of the nuance and complexity of bankruptcy law and practice, asking very thoughtful and sophisticated questions.”

Bankruptcy is a topic that Livingston learned about early in life, having personally witnessed the process through the failure of his father’s business when he was just 10 years old. The fresh start his father was afforded via bankruptcy allowed him to find a new career, which he has successfully practiced for 35 years; bankruptcy as a “catalyst for positive life changes,” as Livingston explained, helped fuel his eagerness to work in the field. He also cited his experience in the College of Law’s bankruptcy courses as a spark for the “intellectual passion for the subject that has shaped my academic career.”

Last summer, Livingston completed an internship with the U.S. Trustee’s office in Chicago and is planning on a career in bankruptcy law. He is seeking a clerkship position with a bankruptcy judge after graduation and ultimately wants to work in a business bankruptcy practice. “He is immensely practical and has a broad and sophisticated skill set that equips him to be a fantastically successful bankruptcy attorney (which we fully expect him to be),” Brubaker and Lawless wrote in their letter recommending him.

As recipient of the Distinguished Bankruptcy Law Student award, Livingston will be honored at a special reception on Thursday, March 20, in Washington D.C. In addition, the American College of Bankruptcy will provide him an all-expense paid trip to attend the College Induction Ceremony and Annual Meeting.

Murphy publishes co-edited volume on Technology and Equality

What role does technology have in global inequalities and can new technologies be instrumental in making the world less unfair? In the new volume Technology and Equality, co-edited by Professor Colleen Murphy, these issues and others are addressed from a wide range of perspectives by scholars from multiple disciplines. The book is published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers and available now.

Learn more about Technology and Equality.

Robbennolt to present at Annual Dispute Resolution Symposium

Professor Jennifer Robbennolt will speak at the Texas A&M Annual Dispute Resolution Symposium in March. The symposium will explore the roles pudges play in court-connected “alternative” dispute resolution, including referring or ordering cases to these processes and enforcing negotiated/mediated settlement agreements and arbitration awards and overseeing the incorporation and quality of dispute resolution in the courts. The symposium will feature several prominent judges and other law professors.

Symposium papers from “The Future of History and Tradition” available

In early 2024, the Program in Constitutional Theory, History and Law co-sponsored with the Harvard Law School and the University of Richmond School of Law a symposium on “The Future of History and Tradition.” The symposium, held at Harvard, brought together leading scholars to discuss the Supreme Court’s recent renewed interest in history and tradition as a tool for interpreting and applying the Constitution and the attendant puzzles and challenges that lie ahead. Essays from the symposium have now been published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy .

View the full issue of symposium papers online.

Watson reviews Law Is a Moral Practice

The argument that law is a moral practice is, appropriately, the topic of the book Law Is a Moral Practice, and Professor Bill Watson examines that premise in his new review article. Published in the Washington University Jurisprudence Review, the article, titled “In What Sense Is Law a Moral Practice?,” concludes the argument is unsuccessful but a topic worthy of consideration.

Read the full article from SSRN.