05.13.2026
Faculty Scholarship
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law is home to an incredible group of faculty members working at the intersections of law and many other disciplines. Their research and scholarship has helped advance the understanding of law and legal institutions in a diverse array of fields. Learn more in our “Recent Faculty Works” series about the latest publications and innovations of our faculty.
120 Northwestern University Law Review 1573 (2026)
By Dhruv Aggarwal, Assistant Professor of Law, Assistant Professor of Finance (Courtesy) (Co-authored with Ofer Eldar)
Corporate law has undergone a gradual transformation. Founding chief executive officers (“founder-CEOs”) and activist hedge funds increasingly dominate leading American corporations despite owning well short of a majority of shares. Founder-CEOs, through personal brands or dual-class voting structures, control firms despite having minority stakes; activist hedge funds, with single-digit holdings, press for major governance changes. We argue that these two types of shareholders, often treated as opposites, both dominate corporations through disproportionate influence rather than majority ownership. We describe these investors who dictate corporate policy through disproportionate influence as high-influence shareholders. Read More
Keywords:
Corporate law, shareholders, founder-CEOs, disproportionate influence test, Delaware
111 Cornell Law Review Online 1 (2026)
By Ajay K. Mehrotra, Stanford Clinton Sr. and Zylpha Kilbride Clinton Research Professor of Law
On July 4, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). This new law was built on the foundations of its immediate predecessor, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). This Essay examines the historical roots and contemporary implications of these two laws. It argues that both acts reflect continuities and ruptures in the recent history of U.S. tax law and fiscal policymaking. On the one hand, the two laws are a continuation of decades-long trends in American tax policy— trends marked by persistent tax cutting, increasing partisan polarization, and a growing disregard for fiscal responsibility. Yet these two laws also depart from earlier episodes marked by bipartisan efforts to address fiscal challenges through compromise and revenue-conscious reform. The goal of this Essay is not to explicate the detailed provisions of the two new laws. Rather, our objective is to provide a broad retrospective look at how we have arrived at this historic and extraordinary moment. Read More
Keywords:
One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, U.S. tax law, polarization, tax policy
112 Virginia Law Review __ , Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 26-03 (forthcoming 2026).
By Monica Haymond, Assistant Professor of Law
Federal courts are confronting growing skepticism towards their power to universally vacate rules under the Administrative Procedure Act. Amid those debates, a critique has emerged about how the executive responds to judgments vacating federal rules. Courts and practitioners have denounced how newly elected presidents can decline to appeal district court decisions vacating the rules adopted by past administrations, effectively repealing those rules and circumventing the APA’s notice-and-comment requirements. This “repeal by surrender” strategy has prompted courts to consider sweeping reforms to government litigation—to strip courts of their power to vacate unlawful rules and to allow intervenors to step into the government’s shoes to defend rules on appeal. This Article presents the first scholarly analysis of repeal by surrender and the solutions courts have proposed. Repeal by surrender raises normative concerns about transparency and the executive’s influence over judicial review. But despite critics leveling this charge across administrations, there is no evidence that repeal by surrender is a meaningful legal problem. Agencies are not exploiting judgments to circumvent the APA and no law requires the executive to pursue appellate relief. Read More
Keywords:
Administrative Procedure Act, repeal by surrender, transparency, judicial review
At Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, Len Rubinowitz has spent more than five decades building a career defined by intellectual curiosity, public engagement, and an enduring ...
At a time of renewed debate over inequality, political influence, and the role of wealth in public life, John O. McGinnis, the George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law at Northwestern ...
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law is home to an incredible group of faculty members working at the intersections of law and many other disciplines. Their research and scholarship has helped ...
