The Informant
July 2009
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Center to provide conflict management training
The Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Institute of Conflict Management at Lipscomb University to provide graduate level instruction in conflict management and dispute resolution at the College of Law. Beginning in the fall 2009, UT law students, graduates, and other executives and professionals will be able to receive instruction in the growing discipline of conflict management and dispute resolution including advanced courses in negotiation, mediation, arbitration, system design, facilitation and public policy formation through the ICM curriculum at UT Law, as well as at Lipscomb University. Interested law students will be able to pursue a Juris Doctor degree and Masters degree in Conflict Management at the same time, as ICM course scheduling will not conflict with law courses.
The Institute of Conflict Management has built on the work of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University Law School , which is ranked first among dispute resolution programs in the US. The collaboration between ICM and the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution will allow students who take their classes in Knoxville to benefit from the same national faculty, innovative graduate courses, and professional mediation training provided in Nashville and at Straus. Those interested should contact Professor Penny White, Director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution for more information.
Prof. Cornett named Acting Legal Writing Director
Prof. Judy Cornett has agreed to serve as Acting Director of Legal Writing for the College. Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Carol Parker had been serving in both capacities but will now concentrate on her responsibilities as Associate Dean.
Prof. Heminway named Distinguished Professor
Prof. Joan Heminway has been named a College of Law Distinguished Professor of Law. The professorship recognizes her considerable accomplishments and contributions to the College, university, and the profession.
Three faculty named Research Scholars for ‘09-10
Becky Jacobs, Jennifer Hendricks and Robert Blitt have been named Research Scholars for the upcoming academic year in recognition of their sustained scholarly productivity. The College created the Research Scholar program last year to recognize and support our most productive junior faculty (and to help address some serious salary inequities under our compensation policies). Thanks to our very generous alum, Rick Rose, we were able to make these awards from an endowment Rick created to support excellence at the College.
Class of 2012 - Web Site
Information for students in the next entering class is centralized in the new "Class of 2012" section of the College of Law web site. If you have content for this segment of the student audience, please send your ideas and text to Karen Britton or Jake Sumner.
Class of 2012 - Class Status
The Admissions Committee and staff can report that a very fine entering class is taking shape. With an applicant pool approaching 1,500 candidates, difficult decisions must be made to craft a class, with the goal of enrolling 150 students on Aug. 17. Stay tuned for details to be announced in early August, when students give final confirmation of their plans to attend UT.
Hooding dates set
Dates for the Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 hooding ceremonies have been set. The Fall ceremony will be Friday, Dec. 11, beginning at 1 p.m. at The Foundry. The Spring ceremony will be Friday, May 14, beginning at 5 p.m. at Thompson Boling Arena.
Library carrel clean out
Please clear any of your personal items from the Library Lockers and Carrels.
In preparation for the Fall Semester, library staff will begin removing any items left in carrels on Monday, Aug. 3. If you feel the library has collected something of yours please check with a full time staff member of the Circulation Department.
Any unclaimed material will be discarded after Sept. 10.
FACULTY
From Greg Stein, Associate Dean for Faculty Development:
Early in the summer, Dean Doug Blaze asked me if I thought it would be worthwhile to issue the Informant during the summer. My initial thought was that most students are not in residence and faculty news could wait until the first Informant of the fall. I was not sure whether summer Informants would do much informing, but Dean Blaze convinced me that it was worth a try.
I am thrilled to discover that the faculty has been so active these past few months that we actually have an extremely lengthy late-summer Informant. As you can see, many faculty members have been busy writing, speaking, and engaging in other scholarly activities, and I have had a wonderful time this summer keeping up with what everyone else is doing. If you regularly send me emails about your activities, please continue to do so. If you do not, I encourage you to keep me informed so that I can spread the word about all the great work everyone here is doing.
In addition to newsworthy items about faculty members, I have also included some other news items below that many readers may find useful. And your other ideas are welcome — please keep them coming! My thanks to Dean Blaze for perceptively recognizing that a summer Informant was more than warranted and to R.G. Smithson for working with me on putting it together.
US News Rankings
To begin with, let me share an interesting telephone conversation I had several weeks ago, plus two more that followed. On June 23, I received a call from someone at #%$*^# Law School [name redacted, but it is a public law school ranked in US News’s Top 25]. The caller, an employee of that school, asked me if I could provide him with the names of the chair of our faculty hiring committee and the most recently tenured professor (“MRTP”). I asked him why he wanted these names, and he told me that his school planned to send promotional literature to these two faculty members, and also to the dean and associate dean for academic affairs.
For those who haven’t already figured this out, these are the four faculty members who will soon be receiving ballots from US News in connection with next year’s law school rankings. Soon after I had this conversation, two other law schools called me to ask the same question. I have already given a heads-up to Prof. Alex Long, our MRTP, that he should be expecting a great deal of expensive glossy brochures during the next few weeks.
So, what do you think we might want to send to prospective US News voters? Simple but warm congratulatory notes to every MRTP in the nation? Flowers? Gift cards? ITunes cards? Don’t laugh about that one — at least one other law school has reportedly been sending ITunes cards to would-be law students as a way of improving its student selectivity numbers. Football season tickets? Probably a bit risky this year, don’t you think?
Suggestions that are not off-color will be listed in my next column. By the way, one of our faculty members received a piece of promotional literature a couple of years back that was actually addressed to “Most Recently Tenured Professor at UT College of Law.” Pretty subtle.
SSRN Rankings
The University of Tennessee College of Law has returned to its number one ranking on SSRN! When sorted by “New Downloads Per Paper during the Past 12 Months,” UT CoL is number one (90 downloaded per paper), narrowly beating out GW (88), Harvard (86), and Chicago (82). Great job, everyone! Keep posting those working papers and articles, and please let me know if you need any assistance navigating the SSRN webpage.
You can check out the rankings here (password required):
More on SSRN Rankings
Tax Prof Bridget Crawford of Pace Law School has prepared a faculty scholarship ranking by recent SSRN downloads of the law schools that are ranked 23-100 in U.S. News, along with the Top 3 faculty by this measure at each of these schools. The Top 10 schools by this measure are:
George Washington
Illinois
San Diego
George Mason
St. John's
American
Temple
Tennessee
Florida State
Ohio State
More detail appears here.
Law Faculty Featured on UT’s “Quest” Page
Congratulations to Prof. Emerita Fran Ansley, whose work was recently featured on the University of Tennessee’s “Quest” webpage. The Quest page, which highlights important scholarship by UT scholars, discussed a recently published book that Prof. Ansley co-edited with sociology professor Jon Shefner. The book, entitled “Global Connections and Local Receptions: New Latino Immigration to the Southeastern United States,” examines Latino migration to this region and how it has transformed communities and cultures. See here for more.
In a similar vein, congratulations to Profs. Jennifer Hendricks and Karla McKanders (and former Prof. Mae Quinn), whose work was also featured on the university’s webpage. Quest prominently ran a story about their recent presentation at the University of Baltimore’s Feminist Legal Conference. For the fully story, go here.
And another congratulations, this time to Prof. Amy Hess, who was recently named as UT’s Quest Scholar of the Week. The Scholar of the Week feature on the Quest webpage describes the scholarship of a faculty member at UT Knoxville who is doing outstanding work regardless of the field. Only one individual is honored each week. The full Scholar of the Week webpage, where you can read all about Prof. Hess’s accomplishments, is here.
Faculty Summer Activities
Our faculty has been extremely busy this summer. A partial listing of faculty summer accomplishments follows. Please send me notices about additional summer activities for the next Informant. And congratulations to all!
From June 20 through July 15, Prof. Joan Heminway attended the HERS Summer Institute at Bryn Mawr, a higher education leadership training program held at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Her attendance is funded principally through the Office of the Chancellor at UTK. Prof. Heminway was one of two campus leaders chosen by the Chancellor for participation in this year's Summer Institute.
A piece by Prof. Iris Goodwin on family trust companies appeared in the June 8 issue of "Too Much," a website published by the Council on International and Public Affairs, a nonprofit research and education group founded in 1954.
A book edited by Prof. Jeff Hirsch entitled “Compensation, Work Hours and Benefits: Proceedings of the New York University 57th Annual Conference on Labor” has just been published. The book includes chapters written by both academics and practitioners. The chapters address a wide range of labor law subjects, including wage, hour, and benefit issues.
“Mastering Legal Analysis and Drafting,” coauthored by Prof. George Kuney and Adjunct Prof. Donna Looper, has just been published by Carolina Academic Press. The book is a how-to book that is designed to help the beginning or intermediate legal drafter identify elemental rules and techniques and show how they are used to prepare effective legal writing in different formats. The goal of the book is to provide a plan of attack to produce quality work-product of the type most commonly encountered in private practice and public service in the United States today. Read all about it here.
Prof. George Kuney’s article, “When A Defendant Goes Under,” has been published in the July 2009 Issue of Trial Magazine. The article provides a roadmap to the bankruptcy code that is designed to ensure that a client’s rights are not compromised. Prof. Kuney’s article has received positive comments from lawyers who practice in the bankruptcy area. Read it here (password required).
At the end of May, Prof. Don Leatherman participated as a panelist on a teleconference for the American Bar Association Tax Section. The teleconference was entitled “Troubling Issues with Troubled Members of a Consolidated Group.” Part of Prof. Leatherman’s presentation was quoted in 123 Tax Notes 1079-80 (2009).
On June 10, Prof. Don Leatherman spoke at the Texas Federal Tax Institute. He gave a speech on the unified loss rules for consolidated groups. The speech followed a paper that will be published in the fall entitled “A Survey of Section 1.150-2-36.”
An op-ed piece by Prof. Otis Stephens appeared in the July 8 edition of the Tennesseean. In the article, entitled “Modern Court Must Form Policy,” Prof. Stephens discusses the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Third Judicial District v. Osborne. That case decided that a convicted state criminal defendant does not have a constitutional right to conduct DNA testing to establish his innocence. Prof. Stephens argues that the opinion reflects a fundamental division between those Justices who seek to avoid policy initiatives and those who recognize that the Court cannot avoid formulating policy. The full text is here.
On June 15–16, 2009, Professors Penny White and Becky Jacobs participated in a conference at Candido Mendes University in Rio de Janeiro. The conference featured two days of panel presentations by academics, lawyers, and judges on a number of topics related to comparative administrative law. Professor White’s panel focused on access to justice, particularly the judiciary, and Professor Jacobs and her co-panelist discussed the regulation and administration of international trade in Brazil and the U.S. The conference was sponsored by Centro de Pós-Graduação em Direito da Universidade Candido Mendes, Centro de Estudos Jurídicos da Procuradoria-Geral do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, the American Consulate in Rio, the Escola da Magistratura Federal Regional Federal da 2ª Região, Georgia State University College of Law, and the Tribunal de Contas do Município do Rio de Janeiro.
Recognition and Appreciation of our Work
Outsiders continue to recognize the importance of our work, by citing our articles, inviting us to speak, and asking us to provide important public service. The list below provides a sampling of the recognition our faculty has received this summer. Congratulations to everyone!
Villanova School of Law has invited Prof. Joan Heminway to present her paper, “Reframing and Reforming the Securities and Exchange Commission: Lessons from Literature on Organizational Management,” this October. Prof. Heminway’s presentation, which will also be published in the Villanova Law Review, will be a part of Villanova’s Symposium on Financial Regulatory Reform.
Two of Prof. George Kuney’s law review articles, "Bankruptcy and Recovery of Tort Damages," 71 Tenn. L. Rev. 81 (2003), and "Misinterpreting Bankruptcy Code Section 363(f) and Undermining the Chapter 11 Process," 76 Am. Bankr. L.J. 235 (2002), were recently cited by the Center for Auto Safety in its petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court in the Chrysler chapter 11 case. The petitioners took the position that Prof. Kuney had developed in both articles that the expansive use of 11 U.S.C. section 363(f) sales to strip assets of future, unaccrued claims through the sale process bypasses the procedural and substantive safeguards provided by the plan of reorganization confirmation process, violates the future claimants’ due process rights, and exceeds the statutory grant of power. The Court denied certiorari in the Chrysler case, but the issue remains alive in the lower courts, which are split on the issue.
Prof. Carl Pierce was mentioned favorably at 77 USLW 2743, regarding his work on revisions to the Tennessee ethics rules. The column noted, “Tennessee has special familiarity with the Ethics 2000 Commissions’s work. Three lawyers from the state served in the Ethics 2000 effort[, including] University of Tennessee law professor Carl A. Pierce[, who] was one of the commission’s three reporters.”
Prof. Glenn Reynolds was recently interviewed in The Atlantic. The interview discusses blogging and some of Prof. Reynolds’s scholarly work, among other things. Part I of the interview appears here and Part II appears here.
Prof. Maurice Stucke has been named to the Advisory Board of the Loyola Antitrust Institute. The announcement of Prof. Stucke’s appointment notes that he is “a leader in applying behavioral economics to questions of antitrust law and policy.”
ASCOLA, the Academic Society for Competition Law, has invited Prof. Maurice Stucke to become a member. Membership in this exclusive organization is limited to lawyers and economists who specialize in competition law and policy. ASCOLA currently brings together more than 150 members from about 25 different countries. New members are accepted upon recommendation by a regular member and subsequent decision by the Executive Board. Independent scholarly writing in the field is considered essential.
Prof. Maurice Stucke was quoted in the Congressional Quarterly, arguing that San Francisco’s newspapers should be examined under existing antitrust standards before being permitted to merge. Prof. Stucke argues that, despite the difficulties facing newspapers in recent years, the relaxation of the antitrust laws might end up doing more harm than good.
The United States antitrust agencies have asked Prof. Maurice Stucke to serve as one of the United States’s Non-Governmental Advisors in the International Competition Network. The ICN consists of 107 national and multinational competition authorities in 96 jurisdictions from around the world. Prof. Stucke will help the ICN Mergers Committee on the development of recommended practices on merger analysis as well as contribute to the Unilateral Conduct Committee. More information about the ICN is available here.
Prof. Penny White has been nominated by the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation to serve as a member of the 13-person Commission on the American Jury Project. The American Jury Project is an ABA initiative aimed at implementing jury innovations throughout the United States by working with courts, rulemaking bodies, state legislatures and the organized bar. In addition, the Project is dedicated to educating the public, interest groups, government officials, national media, and the legal profession as a whole about the importance of jury service and jury reform.
Continued Success for InstaPundit
In the twelve-month period ending on June 30, 2009, Prof. Glenn Reynolds’s InstaPundit blog had more visitors (over 120 million) and more page views (over 125 million) than any other blog edited by a law professor with a publicly available site meter. Congratulations to Prof. Reynolds on the continuing success of InstaPundit!
Weekly Writing Opportunity
Writing Group Thursday continues to take place every Thursday, 2:00–5:00 p.m., at the Golden Roast. Meet in the College of Law Rotunda at 2:00 to walk over as a group, or just join us there. Bring some work with you, purchase your favorite form of caffeine, find a comfortable chair (good luck with that part), put on your headphones, get some work done in a pleasant environment, leave a nice tip! Let’s see if we can to continue these meetings during the school year, though probably on a modified schedule.
Submitting Articles to Law Journals
The SSRN abstract that follows may be of interest to faculty who plan to submit articles to law reviews in the near future. The article, updated on June 9, 2009, summarized in this abstract contains information about submitting articles to law reviews and journals, including the methods for submitting an article, any special formatting requirements, how to contact them to request an expedited review, and how to contact them to withdraw an article from consideration. It covers about 188 law reviews. Here it is.
Interesting Publishing Opportunity
Here is an interesting development from one of the law reviews. As of August 1, 2009, Pace Environmental Law Review (PELR) will use a new Peer Review process to select articles for publication. Submissions will be reviewed internally and then forwarded to a select group of Peer Reviewers academics, practitioners, and experts in the field, including members of Pace Law School’s environmental law faculty. Articles selected for publication will benefit from:
- Expedited editorial processing of 8 to 10 weeks from acceptance.
- Single-article hard copy publication.
- Inclusion in a bound volume distributed to PELR’s wide- ranging list of subscribers.
I’m not sure what impact this might have on tenure and promotion considerations of authors who have published in this journal. But if this approach catches on, we will need to begin thinking about this issue. I doubt it will, because I do not see how journals will be able to find enough reliable outside reviewers willing to spend the time that is required to review outside articles. Stay tuned, and let me know what you think!
Funding Opportunity
The Borchard Foundation Center on Law & Aging underwrites an Academic Research Grant Program to further scholarship about new or improved public policies, laws and/or programs that will enhance the quality of life for the elderly. Each grant recipient is required to publish an article on the subject of their research in a top flight journal. The Borchard Foundation Center on Law & Aging awards up to 4 grants of $20,000 each year. Past winners have included several full-time and adjunct professors of law. Selections are made on or about December 15 of each year. Applications are due September 30. For more information, see: http://www.borchardcenter.org/argp.html
AALS Opportunities
The following AALS Sections have issued Calls for Papers for the 2010 Annual Meeting that will take place January 6-10, 2010 in New Orleans:
Section on Agency, Partnership, LLCs, and Unincorporated Associations
Section on Art Law
Section on Business Associations
Section on Civil Procedure Co-Sponsored by Section on Litigation
Section on Commercial and Related Consumer Law
Section on Constitutional Law
Section on Contracts
Section on Creditors’ and Debtors’ Rights
Section on Criminal Justice
Section on Disability Law
Section on Education Law
Section on Family and Juvenile Law
Section on Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services
Section on International Human Rights
Section on Law and Computers
Section on Law, Medicine and Health Care, Co-Sponsored by Section on Constitutional Law
Joint Program of Sections on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research and Teaching Methods
Section on Litigation, Co-Sponsored by Section on Civil Procedure
Section on National Security Law
Section on Nonprofit and Philanthropy Law
Section on Non-Profit and Philanthropy Law
Section on Poverty Law
Section on Professional Responsibility
Section on Property
Section on Property Law, Co-Sponsored by Section on Real Estate Transactions
Section on Securities Regulations
Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues
Section on Trusts and Estates
Section on Women in Legal Education
Click here for more information:
STUDENTS
Prof. George Kuney is considering offering an independent study opportunity to students interested in advanced contract drafting in the context of Commercial Real Estate Leasing. This notice is intended to check for student interest in such an opportunity. The independent study, as presently conceived, would be three credit hours in the Fall 2009 semester and would involve weekly drafting assignments dealing with portions of a typical commercial real property lease culminating in a large scale drafting and negotiation exercise. Student group meetings would be limited to two hours per week and office hours to discuss the material and drafting feedback. If interested, please let Kuney know by e-mail (gkuney@utk.edu). Enrollment would be limited and the independent study opportunity will not be offered if there is insufficient interest. This independent study would be a first step in developing a course covering this material.
"Law Stories" competition announced
The University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review devotes part of one issue each year to a collection of “Law Stories” – short tales about various aspects of the legal world. For the next edition, the theme will be 1L Revisited. An introduction by Scott Turow, author of the classic account of the 1L experience, will lead off this collection of true stories about being a new law student. Current law students and recent graduates (2006 or later) are invited to submit stories. Winning submission(s) will be published in the Spring 2010 issue of the UMKC Law Review, and the first place winner will receive a $500 prize.
Details:
· Non-fiction stories about the first year experience
· 1,000 - 5,000 words, including footnotes
· Footnotes are discouraged—we are looking for stories, not conventional law review articles or notes
· Open to current law student s and recently graduated law students (2006 or after)
· Send to lawstories@umkc.edu with “Law Stories Submission” in subject line
· MS Word or PDF formats only
· Submission deadline October 23, 2009
UMKC School of Law
5100 Rockhill Road, Law 1-200
Kansas City, MO 64110
lawstories@umkc.edu
Lynn Herdon, Editor-In-Chief
lynn.herndon@umkc.edu