My guest today is Sadie Blanchard, a Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. She teaches and writes about contracts, corporations, and international business law. Her research examines how legal institutions interact with social forces to shape behavior, especially in markets. She’s here today to discuss her recent article, Contract or Prison, in the University of Chicago Law Review. The paper discusses the expansion and privatization of “Incarceration Alternative” arrangements, such as electronic monitoring, criminal diversion, and parole and probation. Blanchard argues that, while the norm of expanded choice that justifies enforcement of contracts has prima facie plausibility in this context, the agreements ultimately fail under classical contract theory because they are made against the background of entitlements created to extract value from people using the coercive power of the criminal legal system. This episode is co-hosted by UVA Law 3L, Kyndall Walker.

Show Notes

About Sadie Blanchard

About Kim Krawiec

About Kyndall Walker

Sandie Blanchard, Contract or Prison (forthcoming, University of Chicago Law Review 2025)

Additional Reading Discussed (or relevant to the discussion):

John H. Langbein, Understanding the Short History of Plea Bargaining, 13 Law & Society Review 261 (1979)

John H. Langbein, Torture and Plea Bargaining, 46 Univ. Chicago Law Review 4 (1978); republished in Spanish as “Tortura Y Plea Bargaining,” in El Procedimiento Abreviado (J.B. Maier & A. Bovino eds.) (Buenos Aires 2001); substantially republished in The Public Interest (Winter 1980) at 43; latter version republished in The Public Interest on Crime and Punishment (N. Glazer ed. 1984)

Robert E. Scott & William J. Stuntz, Plea-Bargaining as a Social Contract, 101 Yale L. J. 1909 (1992). Available at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/317

Emma Kaufman, "The Prisoner Trade," 133 Harv. L. Rev. 1815 (2020)

My guest today is Elaine Perlman, an altruistic kidney donor, President of the Coalition to Modify NOTA, and Executive Director of Waitlist Zero. She is leading campaigns to pass the End Kidney Deaths Act (which is the subject of our discussion today) and the Honor Our Living Donors Act.

As a bit of background, the End Kidney Deaths Act (H.R. 2687/ EKDA) is a ten year pilot program that would provide a refundable tax credit of $10,000 each year for five years ($50,000 total) to living kidney donors who donate a kidney to a stranger, which would go to those who have been waiting longest on the kidney waitlist. You can read the full text of the End Kidney Deaths Act from the link in the show notes, along with other relevant sources that we discuss during today’s podcast.

Show Notes

About Elaine Perlman

About Kim Krawiec

About Denise Azadeh

End Kidney Deaths Act legislation

JAMA opposition article

Our JAMA response

Their JAMA reply

Good Morning America segment, Elaine’s son meeting his recipient (9 minutes)

Video about ethics and the End Kidney Deaths Act (3 minutes)

Video "Why Donate our Kidney to a Stranger (20 minutes)

Hello listeners and welcome to a new season of the Taboo Trades podcast! I’m back again with a great group of UVA Law students who will guide us through the latest research and current events in a variety of taboo settings. We’ll discuss compensating living kidney donors, commercial surrogacy in India, plea bargaining, animal welfare, fish and wildlife conservation, and much, much more. Some of our guests argue that currently taboo trades shouldn’t be. And some will argue that currently accepted trades should be taboo. We have a great line-up of guests and topics that I know you’ll enjoy. Now, I’ll turn it over to the real stars of the show – the Taboo Trades student hosts for Season 6. They are: Gabriel (Gabe) Andrade, Denise Azadeh, Rachel Duffy, RachelGreenbaum, CatherineHu, Mason Marche, Sarita (Sari) Mithal, BradleyNoble, Buddy Palmer, ReidePetty, CindyTran, Kyndall Walker