When I was ten years old, Hurricane Sandy hit my hometown on Long Island in October 2012. My concerns at the time were centered on whether the neighborhood would cancel trick or treating and if the medium-sized pear tree on our front lawn would survive after the storm knocked it over. For me, Hurricane Sandy represented a vacation from school and a chance to finish Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Fortunately, circumstance shielded me from the extent of the damage — our utilities survived most of the storm and were replaced quickly. This was not the case for everyone. Friends who lived five minutes away lost water for days and power for longer. My aunt had to move after her home was flooded. A friend from high school still had nightmares when it rained — six years after the storm.
Continue reading1Ls, We’ve Got This (Don’t We?)
I’ve known I wanted to go to law school since I was in the 4th grade. My teacher decided to throw a mock trial competition, and I was assigned to be one of the attorneys for my client who had his tap shoes stolen from his neighbor. I had an absolute blast winning the case for him, and from then on I knew I wanted to do with my life what I did for that one week in 4th grade.
That was almost 12 years ago. The other day as I sat in my Civil Procedure class I thought to myself: “I cannot believe I’m here right now.” It had always seemed like law school was just an idea, until it became a goal––and now it’s just what I do every Monday-Friday from 9am-3pm.
Continue reading3L is Finally Here: Why This One is so Special
Thank goodness the library doesn’t issue noise complaints on the first day of school.
My friends and I — running on the high of eating a grocery store salad in the Yellow Room — skipped to the fourth floor of the library. There, we each took turns accidentally playing Instagram Reels on full volume. Like clockwork, anxious 1L’s flooded the library atrium at 3:00 p.m., muttering reflections about their inaugural lectures and cold calls to new friends.
There’s nothing like the first day of 3L — or as my friends and I have dubbed it, “senior year.” Novelty accompanies familiarity: freshly-painted Stuart Hall walls and large-scale portraits dot the paths we’ve spent pacing between classes. Somehow, Legal Grounds manages to brew better coffee every year. And even the light streaming through the library’s fourth floor windows cuts different shadows on the books and reports lining the shelves.
Continue reading“Proficient in Law, Grounded in Love:” Why BC Law is a Different Kind of Law School
1L orientation sometimes feels like trying to drink from a firehose. There’s so much crucial information being delivered, but it’s overwhelming to process it all while trying to navigate the maze of campus buildings—Stuart Hall to the East Wing, East Wing to the Yellow Room— and meeting professors and students who will surround and support your legal journey.
Amidst the flood of presentations on clinics, externships, career services, and the basics of legal education, one question lingers: When do we actually start “thinking like a lawyer”? Right now, I’m more concerned with absorbing all this information and keeping track of acronyms (CSO handles OCI… right?).
Then, on day two, a man in clerics appears in East Wing 115A/B. Enter Fr. Jack Butler.
Continue readingA Tale of Two Responses: 9/11, Ukraine, and the Evolution of International Justice
On September 11, 2001, the world watched in horror as planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field, killing nearly 3,000 people. It was an attack not just on American soil, but on the very fabric of international peace and security. The magnitude of 9/11 called for a swift and forceful response, and the U.S. delivered—launching the War on Terror, invading Afghanistan, and eventually Iraq. However, questions about the legality of these actions arose. The legacy of Guantánamo Bay, extraordinary renditions, and indefinite detentions has left an indelible mark on the global fight against terrorism.
Two decades later, another horrific event has sparked the world’s attention: Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But this time, the international community is charting a different course. Rather than bypassing international law, Ukraine is actively working to establish a high war crimes court to prosecute the atrocities committed in its territory. This pursuit of accountability, while the conflict is still raging, marks a significant evolution in the global approach to justice. It proves that we are progressing in our search for international accountability, contrasting sharply with the path taken in the aftermath of 9/11.
Continue readingTelegram CEO Arrest and Brazil’s X Ban Raise Free Speech and Privacy Concerns
This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.
Last week, global headlines spotlighted two separate flashpoints in the battle by governments to police social media networks. In Paris, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested for complicity in distribution of child sexual abuse imagery. And in Brazil, a judge banned X (formerly Twitter) nationwide after the company refused to block certain users on the eve of election season. While both incidents can be couched as failures to comply with national law, the unusually harsh remedies raise important concerns about free speech and privacy online.
Continue readingWhat Does “Are You IPTF” Mean? Let Me Explain.
I first heard someone ask that question as I passed through Stuart House my first week of 1L year. I thought to myself, what on Earth is “IPTF?” Is it an acronym signifying some state of mind, or perhaps some other law school-specific parlance related to the trials and tribulations of being a law student? I was never really good at keeping up with the lingo in high school or college, so to find a possible definition of “IPTF,” I first consulted a secondary source that some young people consider to be persuasive authority: Urban Dictionary. To spare you the trouble of visiting that source, it defined “IPTF” as follows verbatim (with typos): “‘iptf’ stands for I PITY THE FOO!!! famous saying of Mr. T”.
Not relying on a sole source, I continued my research and found that at Boston College Law School, “IPTF” actually stands for the “Intellectual Property and Technology Forum.” The IPTF is both a club and a student journal. As a club, the IPTF helps prepare students to be zealous advocates in intellectual property (IP) and technology law by hosting various guest speakers, firms, seminars, and “technology bootcamps,” and by connecting students with alumni of the IPTF who actively practice IP and technology law. As a student-run journal, the IPTF publishes legal scholarship with the goal of furthering the development of legal thought in IP law (including trade secrets, patents, trademarks, and copyright) and technology policy (including inter alia web-based civil liberties challenges, data privacy, and telecommunications law). 1
Continue readingNet Neutrality, and other FCC Initiatives Jeopardized Post-Chevron
This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.
It has been a big week for tech policy at the Supreme Court. As my AEI colleague Clay Calvert discussed, the NetChoice cases endorsed social media platforms’ First Amendment right of editorial control. But for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other agencies, Loper Bright, which overturned Chevron, looms largest. The FCC in particular has long benefited from Chevron’s command that agencies, not courts, are the primary arbiters of an ambiguous statute’s meaning. Overturning this regime, and restoring that authority to courts, is likely to pose additional challenges for net neutrality, digital discrimination, and other FCC initiatives that capitalized on ambiguous language to accomplish the agency’s policy objectives.
Continue readingDocumenting the Triumphs of Our Black BC Law Community
In 2023, only 5% of all attorneys across the United States identified as Black or African American, according to the ABA National Lawyer Population Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau (not including the 3% of attorneys who identified as multi-racial). In that same year, only 2% of Black or African American identifying attorneys were women.
These statistics lay bare the stark reality that Black attorneys are underrepresented in the legal community. The same census report cites 15% of Americans who identify as Black, or Black in addition to another race(s). However, the number of Black attorneys does not align with the magnitude of contributions they have made to, and accolades they have earned within, the legal field.
Within the BC Law community lies a special history of Black excellence. Boston College Law School’s new website “Black History at BC Law” and a companion BC Law Magazine feature story documents and praises the triumphs of our Black BC Law community.
Continue readingFacing Cable Cord-Cutting, Cities Fight to Tax Broadband
This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.
Broadband has been a bright spot in America’s grim inflationary landscape. While consumer prices rose 4.9 percent last year, two recent reports show that consumer broadband prices fell, both in absolute terms and cost per gigabyte. But where many see a victory, some cities sense an opportunity. Stung by declining cable franchise fees, local governments are pushing to tax broadband. This effort faces severe regulatory headwinds, but if successful could erode consumer gains and drive broadband prices higher.
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BC Law: Impact 