The Informant

April 8, 2008
(2007-08 Archives)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The University of Tennessee Evidence Moot Court Team, consisting of Will Caldwell, Ashonti Davis, and Josh Dougan, competed in the Jerome Prince Evidence Moot Court Competition at Brooklyn Law School April 3-5. The team won both of its preliminary rounds and lost to a team from Campbell Law School that eventually won the overall competition and the Best Brief Award. “The law school community should be extremely proud of Will, Ashonti, and Josh for their excellent presentations,” said Coach Prof. Penny White.

Prof. Patrick C. McGinley of West Virginia University will speak at the College of law Friday, April 11, beginning at 12:20 p.m. in Room 242. His topic is “Climate of Lawlessness.” Prof. McGinley is not only a scholar and teacher but also a public interest attorney. He has represented grassroots groups in Appalachia in significant legal challenges to illegal laws, regulations, and practices that have harmed the environment and communities. His recent article is a case study of the struggle against legal corruption in the coalfields of West Virginia.

On April 22 and 24, at 2:10 p.m. in Room 339, the students in Prof. George Kuney’s Workouts and Reorganizations course will be presenting their case studies of recent or pending chapter 11 cases that they have been critically analyzing this semester. The presentations themselves are expected to take approximately a half hour each and represent an opportunity for the team members to present their papers in working format and react to questions and comments regarding their work before reducing it to final form. The April 22 and 24 programs each feature two presentations. Members of the law school community with an interest in chapter 11 restructuring and similar matters are invited to attend if interested.

Lambda Law is co-sponsoring (along with Speaker Series and Law Women) a speaker presentation of Karen Kahn and Pat Gozemba, the authors of Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America's First Legal Same-Sex Marriages. The two authors will be speaking about the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision in Goodridge v. the Department of Public Health that led to legal same-sex marriage in the state, its historic context and the implications the court decision created for other states.  The event will be happening in Room 135 on April 16 beginning at 12:20 p.m. 

The Student Bar Association will be hosting its Annual Allen Novak Auction on Wednesday, April 16, during the free hour on the front plaza of the law school. Students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend and to bid on some wonderful items including several dinners and outings with faculty members. Pizza will be served during the auction ($2 per slice, $4 all you can eat). In addition to the live auction, a silent auction will be set up in the Commons from Monday, April 14, through Wednesday, April 16.

Maria Jose Fletcher of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Freedom Network, USA, will present a program entitled “Child Sex Slave: A Domestic Phenomenon” Wednesday, April 9, beginning at 12:15 p.m. in Room 136. Refreshments will follow the program.

Catherine Bromilow, the Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP Partner-in-Charge of the firm's corporate governance practice, will speak Wednesday, April 9, from 12:15 until 2 p.m. in Room 132. The presentation is co-sponsored by the College of Law's Clayton Center for Entrepreneurial Law and the UT Corporate Governance Center. Browmilow is setting aside some time to meet with law and Ph.D. students who may be interested in a one-on-one or group discussion. Contact Prof. Joan Heminway if you are interested in meeting her on this basis.

The entire law school community is invited to attend "Re-Entry and Restoration of Voting Rights: Dismantling Felon Disenfranchisement Laws in Tennessee," a program featuring ACLU attorney Nancy Abudu Tuesday, April 8, at 3:30 p.m. in the Legal Clinic (Room 12). In her presentation Ms. Abudu will discuss the history of felon disenfranchisement in this country, outline current policies in Tennessee, and describe ongoing litigation seeking to reform such policies in our state. This program is sponsored by the College of Law Advocacy Center, Legal Clinic, and Criminal Law Society, in conjunction with the Knox County Public Defender's Community Law Office, the Knoxville Defense Lawyers' Association, and ACLU-TN. Light refreshments will be served.

VITA is open to prepare taxes for students, professors, and low-income families. Please come by and get your taxes done for free. VITA will be open through April 9, Monday-Wednesday, from 4 p.m.-7 p.m. VITA is located in the video viewing room on the 1st floor of the law library.

FACULTY

Prof. Jeff Hirsch’s recent article, "The Law of Termination: Doing More With Less" will be published in the Fall 2008 volume of the Maryland Law Review. Also, the Yale Law Journal Pocket Part has just published Prof. Hirsch’s essay “Taking States Out of the Workplace.” The George Washington Law Review just published Prof. Hirsch’s article “The Silicon Bullet: Will the Internet Kill the NLRA” and the Florida State University Law Review just published his article “The Rise and Fall of Private Sector Unionism: What Next for the NLRA?,” co-authored with Barry Hirsch.

Prof. Greg Stein’s article, “The Chinese Land Use Right: Is It Property?,” has been selected by the editors of Probate and Property for the 2007 Excellence in Writing Award. The award is given to the best overall article published in the journal in 2007.

Prof. Judy Cornett has been invited to speak in October at a conference sponsored by UCLA's Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies, "Letters Before the Law: 1640-1789." The conference, which will be held at UCLA's William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, will focus on a period marked by dramatic change in English law and literature. The conference will bring together leading scholars who have a particular interest in England and who currently work in eighteenth-century legal, literary, and cultural studies. The title of Prof. Cornett’s paper will be "Knowing Women: Epistemology in Eighteenth-Century Law and the Novel."

Prof. Joan Heminway and 3L Leslie Morrow spoke on a panel for a Continuing Legal Education program sponsored by the Knoxville Bar Association March 28. The topic of the panel was "Expectations - New Associates vs. The Firm; Investing in New Associates - Costs & Employee Retention." The panel was part of a larger program entitled "You Know You're My #1 - You, The Practice, & The Client (The Challenges of Balancing the Practices of Law & Life With an Eye in The Ethics Rule)." Prof. Heminway also was cited in a recent Reuters News Service article entitled “Sarbanes-Oxley Rules Get Reprieve in Subprime Mess.” The article.

Prof. Dean Rivkin recently made a CLE presentation on special education representation and the CAN-LEARN Project to the Blount County Bar Association.

Prof. Maurice E. Stucke will speak April 11 at a competition policy symposium in London. The British Institute of International and Comparative Law is hosting the symposium, which focuses on EU and American perspectives on issues involving antitrust remedies and merger policy. This event is a continuation of an antitrust symposium, in which Prof. Stucke participated this past fall in Chicago. A transcript of that earlier symposium will be published in the Loyola Consumer Law Review and is also available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1087443.

STUDENTS

The Center for Entrepreneurial Law is seeking one or more Research Associates for the summer to work on a series of case studies involving intellectual property, reorganization, and other business law topics. The case studies are intended to serve as teaching materials for modules of Representing Enterprises and similar courses at The University of Tennessee College of Law and other institutions. A minimum of 20 hours per week for a set number of weeks is required. If interested, please contact Prof. George Kuney with a cover letter (or e-mail) expressing interest in the position and any reasons for that interest and resume.

Prof. George Kuney is seeking applicants for a teaching assistant position for Contracts I in the Fall of 2008. Duties include assisting in the design and evaluation of short student written assignments based upon pre-set guidelines. A rising 3L (i.e., someone that will be a 3L in Fall 2008) preferred. A good showing in Contracts I in the applicant’s first year is helpful but not required. If interested, submit an expression of interest with all pertinent facts to Prof. Kuney in hard copy or e-mail format.

www.adaptibar.com is available to students preparing for the Multistate Bar Exam.

The UT College of Law has joined a wide consortium of other academic departments, colleges, and centers to present a three-day conference at the Hilton in downtown Knoxville April 10-12, entitled “Energy & Responsibility: A Conference on Ethics and the Environment.” This conference invites ethicists, legal theorists, energy policy makers, energy enterprises, and environmental activists to engage in a conversation about ethics and responsibility in the contested terrain of energy and the environment. In addition to well-known international speakers from The Natural Resources Defense Council, Merton College (Oxford), Princeton, Yale, and New York University, there will be panels addressing Environmental Ethics, Ethics of Planning Processes, and Irreversibility and Environmental Damage. The conference will also include a student caucus, addressing topics such as the responsibility of higher education in addressing energy issues and the role of students in addressing energy issues with respect to current generations, our future, and our prosperity. The planning committee is looking for UT Law students to help with the student caucus by providing housing (e.g., extra beds, couches, floor space) to students attending the caucus. If you are able to host any of these student attendants, please contact 2L Corinne Martin at cmarti34@utk.edu.

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