Berkeley Law professors are prolific, insightful scholars with broad and significant influence felt well beyond the school’s walls through their research, legal advocacy, policymaking and commentary.
New Research
A Close Call on Birthright Citizenship
In California Law Review Online, Professor Amanda L. Tyler analyzes the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Trump v. Barbara decision, which affirmed birthright citizenship by a single vote, warning that the dissenting opinions left the door open for future attacks on the principle enshrined in the 14th Amendment.Understanding the ‘OnlyFans Economy’
Copyright and patent law rest on a bargain: Because creation is difficult and expensive, the law grants creators a temporary monopoly to spur them to produce. In a new essay in the Virginia Law Review, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology Life Sciences Law & Policy Center Director Vincent Joralemon ’24 uses OnlyFans to explore how generative AI is turning that bargain on its head. When source content is essentially free to create, he argues, the value of authenticated material featuring a real human being is rising.Davis Elected to American Law Institute
Professor Seth Davis was recently elected to the American Law Institute, joining 27 of his current or retired Berkeley Law colleagues who are members of the prestigious group. Three alumni — Stanford Law School Professor Easha Anand ’14, University of Denver Sturm College of Law Professor Sam Kamin J.D. ’96, Ph.D. ’00, and Girard Sharp partner Sarah London ’09 — were also among the 49 new members.Intellectual Property Influence
An article by Professor Pamela Samuelson has been selected as one of the best intellectual property papers of 2025 and will be included in the next edition of the Intellectual Property Law Review, published annually by Thomson Reuters. “Justification for Fair Uses,” published in 2025 in the Wisconsin Law Review, is the seventh of her articles to be recognized this way.Decoding the ‘New Emergency Law’
In a new post for the Yale Journal on Regulation’s “Notice & Comment” blog, Professor Elena Chachko argues that Learning Resources v. Trump is about far more than just whether the president has the authority to impose tariffs. Previewing a forthcoming paper, Chachko writes the case is part of what she calls the “new emergency law” — an emerging body of cases in which courts are more willing to scrutinize executive reliance on broad emergency statutes.
