Roseanna Sommers

YouTube video by Michigan Law The Game at Michigan Law

It's my fourth year teaching here at Michigan Law, and my fourth big game since moving to The School Up North. We love it here in Michigan, but our football loyalties remain unchanged. 🤓

Time to re-up my favorite welcome video: youtu.be/jWCFaJ0tMfE?...

So glad Gov. Whitmer is highlighting the effect Medicaid cuts will have not only on the millions of people who lose their health care, but also on *entire regional economies* michiganadvance.com/2025/07/02/w...

🚨🚨 Medicaid contributes more to Houston's local economy than the CHEMICAL INDUSTRY. It contributes almost 2x as much to LA as the MOVIE INDUSTRY. We are talking about DECIMATING local economies when we talk about cutting Medicaid 🚨🚨
bsky.app/profile/robe...

🚨 Medicaid contributes as much to metro Detroit's economy as THE AUTO INDUSTRY 🚨

Hey that's @robertmanduca.bsky.social's research!

Whitmer warns that Medicaid, SNAP cuts in GOP bill could slash 41k Michigan Jobs, $4.5B in GDP • Michigan Advance Updated 2:01 p.m. As the U.S. House of Representatives debates whether to give final passage to Congressional Republicans’ signature tax break and spending cuts package, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer...

Whitmer warns that Medicaid, SNAP cuts in GOP bill could slash 41k Michigan Jobs, $4.5B in GDP michiganadvance.com/2025/07/02/w...

This is SO important and I wonder why more people aren't talking about it! Thankfully, @robertmanduca.bsky.social has made us a bunch of maps.

Opinion | My Journey Deep in the Heart of Trump Country

In Kentucky's 5th congressional district, recently profiled by Arlie Hochschild for @nytimes.com, Medicaid makes up a quarter of the entire economic base. The SNAP and Medicaid cuts would be like losing one-third of all traded private sector industries

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/o...

It is *extremely important* to understand the consequences of the "Big Beautiful Bill" for local economies. @robertmanduca.bsky.social breaks it down in this thread

Financial and Transfer Income as Components of the Regional Economic Base Government transfers and financial income form a major component of the basic sector in the United States.

New working paper alert! Posted at @equitablegrowth.bsky.social, it investigates the economic geography of social transfer programs and financial income--with implications for the Medicaid and SNAP cuts proposed in the reconciliation bill 👀

equitablegrowth.org/working-pape...

Get yourself a copy of @leahlitman.bsky.social's smart and funny new book LAWLESS. Actually, maybe get 2 so you don't have to share... bookshop.org/p/books/lawl...

Thinking hard about augmented wealth also illuminates a major puzzle in wealth inequality research. As @mjantti.bsky.social @esiermin.bsky.social @fabianpfeffer.bsky.social @norawaitkus.bsky.social (+ more) have shown, there's minimal correlation across countries between wealth and income inequality

I have a new paper out! "Should Social Insurance Programs Count as Wealth? Augmented Wealth in Research and Policy." Published yesterday in Socio-Economic Review @sasemeeting.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/ser/...

Thrilled my article with Kate Weisburd on "Legally Magic Words" led to this Data For Defenders motion, which shows public defenders how they can use social science research to help their clients

Wrongs and Rights Come Apart — Harvard University Press A bold challenge to a central assumption in modern moral and legal thinking, showing that wrongs and rights are not flip sides of the same coin but instead represent fundamentally distinct moral pheno...

Come for the analysis of tort classics like Palsgraf, stay for the fresh takes on contemporary issues like microaggressions and incels www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

Happy belated pub day to my @umichlaw.bsky.social colleague Nico Cornell, whose book "Wrongs and Rights Come Apart" is now out!

Congratulations!!!!

New study with Joanna Demaree-Cotton and Josh Knobe!

Our incredibly short (5 page) paper on intuitions about consent — with Joanna Demaree-Cotton and @rosesomm.bsky.social

We find cases where people agree that both:

(a) There’s a sense in a which a person clearly consented

(b) In deeper sense, she did not consent at all

osf.io/63d8s

Congratulations and happy pub day to Michelle Adams, my amazing colleague @umichlaw.bsky.social whose new book The Containment is out today! us.macmillan.com/books/978037...

A while back my spouse and I each independently set up monthly donations to Bolts and when we realized our mistake we decided to just leave it bc Bolts is great and deserves double support. Follow @taniel.bsky.social and check them out if you haven't yet! boltsmag.org/donate-page/...

It's our view that the field of contracts has been captured by an ironic revanchism -- looking toward an imagined past where consent was real and people read.

Better to take the world as it is and is becoming, with some lay participants actively navigating (adhesive) contractual relationships.

Following lots of recent research, we show that generally, being in lots of formal contracts online has made younger people more formal about contracting -- more up for thin notions of assent, and gamified understandings of obligation.

Beyond "local" vs "traded" industries: new research by @robertmanduca.bsky.social identifies a third category of
"regional' industries" -- think wholesalers and business services -- that employ 36M Americans, pay well, and could be key to economic development! Here's how they work 🧵

Do laws give people hints about which social groups they should like or dislike? @rosesomm.bsky.social and I tackled this question in a 2022 paper:
lawreview.uchicago.edu/publication/...

I’m super excited to announce I'm part of an amazing team (<3 @williambrady.bsky.social @killianmcloughlin.bsky.social @mjcrockett.bsky.social) that just published a paper in @science.org on the role of outrage in spread of misinformation

Link here:
science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Summary in🧵🔽
1/

"Legally Magic" Words: An empirical study of the accessibility of Fifth Amendment rights

This is a huge problem, and courts are often out of step with mainstream language usage here. I have new research on "clear" invocations of Miranda -- clear to whom?! t.co/fjpjlJ4vUY

This looks like an incredibly important paper for anyone in the Criminal Procedure realm🔽

New and wonderful from one of my all time favorite go to law profs on consent.