Professor Fareed Hayat — a law professor, then at Howard University Law School, and today at Seton Hall — was erroneously accused of having abducted three children, when in fact he had simply placed his own children in his car. When police approached him at his home, he denied any wrongdoing and retreated into his house. Police broke into his home, threw him to the floor, and handcuffed him in front of his own children and wife. When they realized their error, they left. Professor Hayat sued, but lost — both at the district court level and in front of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Georgetown Law Clinic, which represents Hayat, turned to the CSU Law Appellate Practice Clinic to author an Amicus Brief in support of a petition to the Fourth Circuit to rehear this case en banc. The Brief was on behalf of several nationally-ranked Fourth Amendment Scholars, including CSU Law Professor Jonathan Witmer Rich.

The Clinic students immediately responded to the call. Faith Croskey, Renata Kosc-Harmatiy, Matt Mayberry, and Rachel Revehl spent long days, nights, and weekends to properly understand the complex legal issues involved — including current Supreme Court jurisprudence, the limits of a Terry stop (which began right here, less than a few blocks from the Law School), and the role of Amici in persuading a Federal Court of Appeals to reverse the panel’s opinion.

Professor Doron Kalir supervised the work and served as counsel of record.

Debbie Hoffman, Director of the P. Kelly Tompkins Leadership and Law Center, was recognized as an inaugural nominee for the Mortgage Bankers Association’s mPower Visionary Awards at the mPowering You Summit on October 10 in Chicago. The new awards celebrate leadership, impact, and the power of women supporting women in the mortgage banking industry. 

The nominees were recognized during mPowering You, MBA’s Summit for Women in Real Estate Finance, held at the Hyatt Regency Chicago in conjunction with MBA Annual 2026. The Summit brought together women from across the industry for programming focused on leadership, professional development, connection, and advancement. 

Hoffman has maintained a longstanding connection to the mortgage banking industry throughout her legal and academic career. At Cleveland State, she helped bring the Mortgage Banking Bound program to the University in partnership with MBA and CSU’s Monte Ahuja College of Business. She continues to teach in the program, which connects students directly with industry professionals and introduces them to the business, legal, regulatory, and operational aspects of residential mortgage banking.

While in Chicago, Hoffman also participated in MBA Annual and met with industry leaders to continue developing opportunities for collaboration and engagement with Cleveland State students.

Professors Luisetto and Sagers both presented at the at the BYU Future of Antitrust Conference, held at BYU and Sundance in Provo on October 9-10.

Luisetto presented his paper “Regulatory Failures Behind the Global Rise of Noncompetes.” 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. 

Sagers presented “Federal Antitrust in Light of Contemporary Experience,” a historical examination of antitrust reform efforts. His paper raises questions about the law’s enforceability and suggests certain systematic institutional challenges that have gone unaddressed and may help explain enforcement difficulties.

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/