Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson presented “What’s Real and Remaining: Can Clarity in Agency Decisionmaking Overcome Ohio’s Legislative Bias Against Renewable Energy Projects?” at the 10th Annual SRP Sustainability Conference for American Legal Educators (SCALE) at Arizona State University, May 14-15, 2026.

This project examines whether disciplined administrative reasoning—focusing on what is factually real and legally remaining after stipulations and project approval conditions—can mitigate structural legislative bias against renewable energy development in Ohio. The paper presents Robertson’s analysis of public comments at the Ohio Power Siting Board hearings regarding permit approval for Frasier Solar. Professor Robertson posits that similar results—where agencies rely on ‘what’s real and remaining’ of public opposition to renewable energy development projects—could reduce the outsized advantage the state has handed to oil and gas development projects over their renewable energy‑based counterparts.

Robertson is the Steven W. Percy Professor of Law at CSU College of Law and Professor of Environmental Studies at the Levin College of Public Affairs and Education, Cleveland State University.

On May 15, Professor Luisetto presented his paper, “Collective Bargaining and Monopsony: The Regulation of Noncompete Agreements in France,” at the American Law & Economics Annual Meeting (ALEA) hosted by the University of Chicago Law School. 

In his paper, Professor Luisetto examines how the regulation of noncompete agreements for employees through collective bargaining agreements affects firm-level markdowns in the French manufacturing sector. A key takeaway is that, by enhancing compliance or imposing additional requirements for noncompete enforceability, collective bargaining serves as an effective tool to regulate the use of noncompete agreements in France.

Cory Scott, Executive Director of the CSU Law Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection, has been appointed to Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) as part of the inaugural 2026 cohort of Non‑Resident Technology Fellows. This new initiative is designed to connect experienced technologists with state and local governments grappling with complex technology regulation.

At a conference hosted by the Case Western Reserve Journal of Law, Technology, and the Internet, Cory Scott—Executive Director of the Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection at CSU Law and a former CISO at companies including LinkedIn, Google, and Confluent—delivered a focused presentation on data privacy risks emerging in the AI “infrastructure” layer.

Scott distinguished between frontier model developers and the “pipes” that route, host, or broker AI traffic, arguing that infrastructure providers are increasingly attempting to access and analyze user content in ways that erode trust and depart from established enterprise expectations. Using OpenRouter as a case study, Scott walked the audience through how changing terms and “anonymized” categorization claims can mask meaningful data use—highlighting the practical risk of re-identification through metadata and the lack of technical disclosure about how anonymization is performed—and he pointed to similar trends among other providers such as RunPod.

In the discussion, Scott emphasized that organizations need clearer policies and stronger oversight of third‑party AI services (including prosumer tools purchased on corporate cards), and he outlined risk-management approaches ranging from negotiating commercial agreements to building internal AI routing infrastructure to preserve control over sensitive data.

Visiting Assistant Professor Deborah Hoffman co-led a CEO roundtable hosted by Essent Mortgage Insurance alongside industry executive Eric Lapin on March 27. The session convened senior leaders across the mortgage industry to discuss the role of blockchain and digital assets in housing finance.

The discussion examined how existing digital infrastructure, including e-docs, eNotes, remote online notarization, and licensing frameworks, has evolved in recent years while underlying systems remain fragmented. Professor Hoffman highlighted legal and compliance considerations related to verification, auditability, and the integration of digital assets into lending practices.

The roundtable also explored blockchain’s potential as an infrastructure layer to support more consistent, transparent, and defensible data across the mortgage lifecycle.

On March 27, Professor Lorenzo Luisetto presented a new working paper, “Beyond the Global Rise of Noncompetes,” at the Law & Economics Conference hosted by Vanderbilt Law School. The conference featured eight speakers presenting research on a wide range of topics, including labor‑market regulation and the economics of crime.

In his talk, Professor Luisetto presented a new work in progress based on the first multi‑country survey on the use of noncompete agreements across 15 OECD countries, complementing evidence from employee surveys with information from firms.