Debbie Hoffman, Director of the P. Kelly Tompkins Leadership and Law Center, served as a panelist for the American Bar Association International Law Section webinar, “Crypto Beyond the Grave: Passing Crypto Assets at Death,” on October 7, 2026. The program brought together legal professionals from the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany to examine the legal and practical challenges of transferring cryptocurrency at death.

Hoffman addressed U.S. estate planning considerations, including custody arrangements, access to wallets and private keys, and strategies to help fiduciaries and beneficiaries identify, secure, and transfer digital assets. The discussion also compared inheritance and tax treatment across jurisdictions and highlighted the importance of planning for both legal authority and practical access.

Professor Luisetto presented his paper, “Regulatory Failures Behind the Global Rise of Noncompetes,” at the 20th Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (CELS), held at Northwestern Law in Chicago on October 2-3, 2026. He also served as an area organizer for the conference.

Using survey data from employers and employees across fifteen OECD countries, his paper finds that between 15% and 40% of workers are subject to noncompetes, many of which are unenforceable or unrelated to legitimate business interests, yet still shape workers job search behavior. The findings suggest that formal enforceability requirements alone are insufficient and that effective regulation requires complementary interventions to address the informational frictions that help explain the widespread misuse of noncompetes.

The full program of the conference may be found here: https://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/events/conferences/cels-2026/

Professor Luisetto presented his paper, “Making Employers Pay for Unenforceable Noncompetes,” at the 21st Annual Colloquium on Scholarship in Employment and Labor Law (COSELL), held at UC Berkeley Law on September 18-19, 2026.

In his paper, Professor Luisetto investigates the extent to which contract, antitrust, and tort law provide viable pathways to monetary relief for employees harmed by unenforceable noncompetes, ultimately arguing that statutory civil penalties — measured as the accumulated value of the wage growth a worker was denied during the years she was subject to an unenforceable noncompete, and computed from empirically grounded wage suppression estimates — are best situated to address the in terrorem effects of unenforceable noncompetes.

The full program of the conference may be found here: https://cosellaw.org/index.html

Students in the CSU Law Appellate Clinic students, led by Professor Doron Kalir, recently achieved a victory on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals on behalf of a client in a domestic violence case.

B.K., a domestic violence victim, secured a Civil Protective Order against her abuser in Domestic Relations Court. The abuser sought to modify or cancel the CPO, but the D.R. Court denied his motion. He then appealed to the Eighth District Court of Appeals.

The victim, who appeared pro-se below, sought help from the Appellate Practice Clinic. Students Alyssa Weyand, Bryce Moyer, and Jenna Pappagna sprung into action. They first filed a Notice of Appearance with the Court, and then counted the days. When it became clear that Appellant (the abuser) missed his deadline to timely fille his Opening Brief, they authored a Motion to Dismiss the appeal. In their Motion, the students explained that the Court had the authority to dismiss the appeal; that other Ohio courts have dismissed similar appeals in the past under similar circumstances; and that this case was a perfect vehicle for such a dismissal because of its unique features.

On Friday, September 18, the Court of Appeals granted the Motion in full, and in a one-sentence opinion dismissed the appeal in its entirety. The client was truly moved. Senior Clinical Professor Doron Kalir served as the Counsel of Record.

CSU Law faculty were well represented at the 2026 Online & Hybrid Learning Pedagogy Conference: Innovating Quality, held September 17-19 at the University of Dayton School of Law. Associate Dean Jonathan Witmer-Rich, Legal Writing Professor of Law Brandon Stump, and P. Kelly Tompkins Leadership and Law Center Director Debbie Hoffman each contributed to the conference’s national conversation about effective online and hybrid legal education.

Hoffman presented “Building the Online Professional: Lessons from Teaching Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and the Law,” drawing on six semesters of developing and teaching an online course through Albany Law School. Her presentation focused on practitioner engagement, current-event analysis, applied discussion, scaffolded assignments, and helping students develop the judgment and adaptability needed to practice in rapidly evolving fields.

Witmer-Rich and Stump presented “The Care Bear Stare: Improving Student Engagement and Performance Through Attention and Empathy in the Online Environment,” exploring the role that attention, empathy, and intentional faculty engagement can play in strengthening the online student experience.

The three-day conference brought together legal educators, deans, administrators, instructional designers, librarians, and technologists from across the country to share approaches to student engagement, assessment, professional formation, artificial intelligence, instructional design, and the continued development of online and hybrid J.D. programs.

Together, the CSU Law presentations reflected two complementary dimensions of effective online education: thoughtful course design and meaningful human connection. Both sessions contributed to a broader conversation about how law schools can use online and hybrid learning not simply to deliver content, but to create engaging learning environments that prepare students for professional practice.