Cincinnati Law highlights faculty scholarship

The University of Cincinnati College of Law features some of the most impressive law school faculty in the country. Our professors and instructors have extensive research expertise in many facets of law. We are highlighting selected scholarship from several of our faculty. We encourage you to review their work.

Jacob Cogan, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs | Judge Joseph P. Kinneary Professor of Law |Faculty Director, Cincinnati Center for the Global Practice of Law

•  Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law, 116 American Journal of International Law 858 (2022)

The AJIL is one of the premier journals in the field. Professor Cogan is the editor of this series. Professor Cogan’s scholarly research focuses on the hidden assumptions, informal rules, and constitutive decisions and structures that form the operational international legal system. He also writes about the history of international law.

Stephanie Hunter McMahon, Professor of Law

• Using the Tax System to Ease Some of the Dobbs Hardship, 176 Tax Notes Fed. 1105 (Aug. 18, 2022)
• Prison Work is Taxing and Should be Taxed, Tax Notes Talk, (Nov. 22, 2022)

Professor McMahon’s scholarship explores the relationship between taxation and the public’s perception of taxation with respect to families and the application of administrative law to tax. Recently, she has focused her work on the tax treatment of disadvantaged groups, both women seeking abortions in states that do not provide access to care and the discriminatory tax treatment of inmate labor.

Meghan Morris, Assistant Professor of Law

• Making Peace with Property: Specters of Post-Conflict Colombia (Book manuscript under contract with Duke University Press).    
• Property and the Social Life of Things. 97 Tulane Law Review __ (forthcoming 2023).
• Property’s Relations: Tracing Anthropology in Property Theory. 73 Alabama Law Review 767 (2022).
• Property in Transition: Legal Fantasies, Land ‘Reforms,’ and Contracting Peace in Colombia. 124 Am. Anthropologist 53 (2022).     

Professor Morris’s scholarship examines the relationship between property and conflict at different scales—from the ways people use property rules in war, peacemaking, and paramilitary activity to how legal doctrines such as possession, restitution, and good faith figure centrally in private land disputes. She draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, property law, and property theory to rethink property and its role in social life.

Michael Solimine, Donald P. Klekamp Professor of Law

• Three-Judge District Courts, Direct Appeals, and Reforming the Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket, 98 Indiana Law Journal Supplement (forthcoming 2023)
• The Boundaries of Confusion: Gerrymandering and Racial Disparities in State House and Congressional District Line Congruity, 103 Social Science Quarterly 1507 (2022., with David Niven (UC School of Public and International Affairs, Department of Political Science), Barbara Combs (Clark Atlanta), Carolette Norwood (Howard), and Katy Rossiter (Ohio Northern)
• The Strange Career of the Three-Judge District Court: Federalism and Civil Rights, 1954-1976, 72 Case Western Reserve Law Review 909 (2022)(with James L. Walker). This article was cited in three decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit involving the Voting Rights Act: Richardson v. Flores, 28 F.4th 649 (5th Cir. 2022); Lewis v. Scott, 28 F.4th 659 (5th Cir. 2022); and Texas Alliance for Retired Americans v. Scott, 28 F.4th 669 (5th Cir. 2022).  

• A new exhibit on the Federal Judicial Center website also cites an article by Professor Solimine. The exhibit "The Role of the U.S. Courts of Appeals in the Federal Judiciary" cites Professor Solimine’s article "Judicial Stratification and the Reputations of the United States Courts of Appeals,” 32 Florida State University Law Review 1331 (2005). It is referenced several times in the section on "Differences Between the Circuits."

Michael Whiteman, Interim Dean 

• Developing Essential Research Skills for Law Practice: The Legal Research Competency Program, Legal Reference Services Quarterly, with Catherine Dunn (Denver Law), Jul 2022
• 1L Legal Research & Writing Lessons: 1L Legal Research - Introductory Basics (Lesson 1: Sources of the Law). .West Academic Publishing

Dean Whiteman is an expert on legal research and technology’s impact on the practice of law and law libraries. He has played a leading role in guiding the law school in adapting to the demands of online learning necessitated by the pandemic. In addition, he worked alongside the former administrative leadership to boost staffing in vital areas, such as academic success and employment, to support student achievement.

Susan Boland, Interim Director, Robert S. Marx Law Library

• 1L Legal Research & Writing Lessons: 1L Legal Research - Introductory Basics  (Lesson 2: Why We Research - Representing Clients, Rules of Professional Responsibility, Rules of Practice, and Career Success) West Academic Publishing
• 1L Legal Research & Writing Lessons: 1L Legal Research - Introductory Basics (Lesson 3: Research Smart) .West Academic Publishing

Ms. Boland leads and provides reference and research support services to the Cincinnati Law and tristate legal communities. Active throughout the law library world, she has presented at regional and national conferences, as well as at continuing legal education programs. Her publications include annotated bibliographies on the death penalty and election law, as well as numerous articles on legal research, technology, and teaching. Ms. Boland authored two interactive online modules for West Academic Publishing that are available for law students nationwide.

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