A forthcoming law review article by Professor Rama Kim was featured in a review in Jotwell. Jotwell is an online journal edited by a group of legal scholars that provides a forum to “identify, celebrate, and discuss the best new scholarship relevant to the law.”

The review, written by Georgetown Law Professor and family law expert Philomila Tsoukala, examines Professor Kim’s forthcoming article, Parents, Kin, and the State: Family and Households Between Functional Parenthood and Child Protection. The article engages with the ongoing debate in family law surrounding the legal recognition of “functional parenthood,” or informal caregiving relationships that resemble legal parenthood.

While the recognition of functional parenthood is often viewed as an unqualified normative good in family law literature, Professor Kim’s article challenges this assumption. Drawing on an in-depth case study of Kentucky law, it examines how such legal recognition can operate for families susceptible to intervention by child protection agencies. As Professor Tsoukala notes, the article “suggests that the costs of this model are real and uneven,” and that “functional parenthood can burden parent–child relationships in poor and racialized communities.”

Professor Tsoukala calls the work an “important contribution” that “resists easy resolutions.” She writes that Kim’s “core claim is not that functional recognition is always wrong, but rather that its use in child-protection contexts brings distributional consequences that much of the reform literature has not fully considered.”

The review concludes: “In this important contribution, Kim reminds us that the future of family justice depends not only on recognizing care, but on deciding whose care counts and on what terms.”

Professor Kim’s forthcoming article is: Rama Hyeweon Kim, Parents, Kin, and the State: Family and Households Between Functional Parenthood and Child Protection, 33 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol’y ___ (forthcoming, 2025).

Professor Laura Hoffman has published an article titled “Putting the ‘Social’ into Social Determinants of Health: Why Policymaking for Improving Health Must Tackle Social Isolation and Loneliness,” in the Oklahoma Law Review.

The article “explores what is known about loneliness and social isolation in the United States and examines how law and policy can play a role in being part of reducing their impact on health.” In the piece, Professor Hoffman conducts “an examination of a sample of current legislative efforts to put loneliness and social isolation at the forefront now given the significant influence on health.”

She articulates a set of policy recommendations, arguing that “it is no longer possible for policymakers to neglect the ‘social’ aspect” of social determinants of health.

The article citation is Laura C. Hoffman, Putting the “Social” into Social Determinants of Health: Why Policymaking for Improving Health Must Tackle Social Isolation and Loneliness, 78 Okla. L. Rev. 97 (2025), https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/olr/vol78/iss1/4.

On Friday, November 21, CSU Law School hosted a day-long seminar on Advanced Appellate Advocacy in partnership with the Eighth District Court of Appeals. The seminar featured Justices, Judges, court staff, and practitioners who shared their experiences and expertise on appellate practice.

Two CSU Law faculty members also presented at the event. Professor Methab Khan presented on a panel titled “Generative AI 101 for courts: Hallucinations, Deepfakes, and the Record.”  Professor Doron Kalir presented on “The Art of Persuasion – How to Write an Appellate Brief.” 

The seminar was extremely well-received, and the MCR was full to near capacity. 

We are pleased to share that Cory Scott, of the Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection at CSU|LAW provided testimony for a legislative proposal in Ohio addressing artificial intelligence personhood, and his insights are included in an article published by the Ohio Capital Journal.

In the piece titled “What’s in Ohio’s proposal banning AI personhood,” the article explores House Bill 469, which would prohibit AI systems from obtaining legal personhood (such as marrying an AI or holding decision-making authority within a company) and ensure that human actors are held accountable for harm caused by AI tools.

Mr. Scott’s testimony emphasized the need for legal clarity around liability and the definition of sentience or consciousness in AI systems, reinforcing that accountability must remain with the human or entity behind the technology.

Please join us in commending Mr. Scott for his engagement in this important policy discussion at the intersection of law and emerging AI regulation.

Debbie Hoffman, Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at CSU College of Law, spoke on November 11, 2025, at the Executive Women’s Summit 2025 (EWS) in Santa Fe, hosted by the Women of ALICE. She joined Brooke Anderson-Tompkins, Erica Acie, and Kim Hoffman for a featured panel titled “Beyond the Hype: Leading with clArIty.”

The discussion examined how financial and technology leaders can navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies with purpose and accountability. Panelists addressed building trust and transparency around AI adoption, aligning innovation with organizational mission and risk tolerance, strengthening vendor governance, and exploring how blockchain and tokenization are shaping the future of mortgage and financial services.

Hoffman’s remarks emphasized clarity and responsible innovation as essential leadership tools for guiding technology adoption in regulated industries.

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson was honored to participate in Loyola University-Chicago’s Fifth Annual Environmental, Natural Resources, and Land Use Law Scholars Workshop, October 15 to 18, 2025, at Starved Rock State Park Lodge in Illinois.  This intensive scholarship workshop invites 10 scholars to workshop projects over three days at a state park lodge.  This year, in addition to Professor Robertson, invited participants included environmental/natural resources/land use law faculty from the law schools at the University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Northwestern, McGeorge, Ohio State, Case Western Reserve, SMU, University of Richmond, and Loyola-Chicago.  Robertson workshopped her research on public involvement in energy development decision-making in Ohio.

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

Professor Reginald Oh has published an article, “The Deferential Asian American: Low Racial Status and the Invisibility of Asian Americans in Leadership and the American Narrative,” in the St. John’s Law Review.

Professor Oh’s article puts forth a novel theory to explain why Asian Americans are systematically shut out of leadership positions in virtually all professional fields, including in the STEM and medical fields. He argues that Asian Americans are excluded from leadership because of perceived lack of “leadership qualities” due to their perceived low status, deferential or subservient racial character.

Professor Oh will be presenting the article at the St. John’s Law School in the spring, at an event sponsored by the St. John’s Law Review and the school’s Asian Pacific American Law Students Association.

The article citation is 99 St. John’s L. Rev. 107 (2025).