The Informant
August 18, 2008
Steve Elkins, a 1999 graduate of the UT College of Law who is legal counsel to Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, delivers the keynote address to the entering class Monday, Aug. 18. The Class of 2011 will spend the first week of the fall semester in Orientation and the Introductory Period.
WELCOME TO THE CLASS OF 2011
One-hundred and fifty-six first-year students attended UT College of Law Orientation on Monday, Aug.18. They will collectively be known as the Class of 2011.
First-years will spend most of their first week in Orientation and The Introductory Period. Monday's program featured a keynote address by UT law alumnus Steve Elkins, Legal Counsel to Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, a panel of recent graduates sharing suggestions for maximizing the law school experience, and lunch with student advisors followed by a tour of the law school.
The faculty will host a dinner for the entering class on Wednesday night. Introductory Period classes will be held on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Some first-year classes will be held Thursday ad Friday.
The Class of 2011 hails from 15 states: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington. China, Japan and the Philippines are also represented.
The Class of 2011 comes from undergraduate schools across the United States. Schools yielding multiple matriculants are, in order of frequency, The University of Tennessee, Middle Tennessee State University, Vanderbilt University, Lipscomb University, Wake Forest University, Carson Newman College, Clemson University, College of Charleston, Tennessee Technological University, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Ball State University, Belmont University, Columbia University, East Tennessee State University, Furman University, Lee University, New York University, Rhodes College, The University of Tennessee at Martin, The University of Alabama, Birmingham, The University of Georgia, The University of South Carolina, The University of the South and Washington University.
The majority of the Class of 2011 majored in four undergraduate fields of study: Political Science, English, History and Psychology. Other majors represented in the class are Accounting, Anthropology, Biology, various Business disciplines, Chemistry, Communications, Computer Engineering, Criminal Justice, Economics, Environmental Sciences, Family Relations, Finance, Forestry, French, Health Professions, Humanities, Interdisciplinary Studies, International Relations, Journalism, Liberal Arts, Marketing, Mechanical Engineering, Music, Philosophy, Policy Studies, Pre-Law, Public Affairs, Real Estate, Social Sciences, Sociology and Spanish. Several class members hold advanced degrees, including the MBA, MS, MPA, MPP, MACC, MA, MEd, and the Ph.D.
Welcome to the College of Law, Class of 2011!
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Prof. Carol Parker has agreed to serve a one-year term as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs."We are all very fortunate that Carol has agreed to take on this additional responsibility," said new Dean Doug Blaze. "The one-year interim appointment will give us an opportunity to let a number of issues settle out, including completion of strategic planning discussions, before we conduct an internal search for a more permanent associate dean -- probably next spring."
The University of Tennessee College of Law Center for Advocacy & Dispute Resolution will host Chief Justice Janice M. Holder of the Tennessee Supreme Court Wednesday, Sept. 3, beginning at 12:10 p.m. in Room 132. Please note the earlier starting time. Chief Justice Holder is Tennessee's first female Chief Justice and has been a member of the Tennessee Supreme Court since 1996. Before being appointed to the Court, she served as a Circuit Court Judge for the Thirtieth Judicial District, Shelby County, Tennessee.
The Center for Entrepreneurial Law welcomes its Fall 2008 Visiting Professor of Business Law, John C. Chobot. Prof. Chobot began his legal career with the Phillips Lytle law firm in Buffalo, New York, and then had an extensive in-house career holding senior positions with international corporations, including AT&T Capital Corporation, The CIT Group, and Lucent Technologies. Since 2000 he has been an adjunct professor at Seton Hall Law School, where he teaches the Uniform Commercial Code course, and he is the author of several articles in the areas of bankruptcy, commercial law, and equipment leasing and financing. This semester he will be teaching Business Associations and a seminar dealing with the origination and maintenance of credit facilities. Prof. Chobot's office for the semester is located in the Center's suite in room 202(B), his extension is 4-8339, and his email is jchobot@utk.edu.
Due to loss of budget funds, the Katz Law Library has new hours for the fall semester. Regular hours will be: Monday - Thursday, 7:30 AM to 11 PM Friday, 7:30 AM - 8 PM Saturday, noon - 5 PM Sunday, noon - 10 PM Also, the Katz Law Library will be closed on all Saturdays with UT home football games. For exact details on library hours throughout the semester, visit the Law Library hours web page at: http://www.law.utk.edu/library/hours.htm. Library staff members are very sorry for the loss of access and convenience for law students and other patrons. Hopefully, funding will be restored next year and the law library can go back to the hours we have been open in the past.
Thanks to new capabilities offered by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), the College of Law's admission application process will be "paperless" for the first time this fall. Candidates for admission will apply using the college's E-Application available on the LSAC web site. Each of the components of the application will be maintained electronically on a secure server supported by LSAC. Application information will flow quickly and efficiently from LSAC, eliminating paper reports mailed from Philadelphia to Knoxville. All letters and email communication with applicants will be tracked electronically. More than 500,000 sheets of paper will be saved each admissions cycle. Admissions Committee members can review files 24/7 from their home, office, or laptop computers. The College of Law Applicant Guide is substantially smaller this year, the first of a multi-year effort to drive readers to the new web site for information and reduce our reliance on print media.
Prof. Ke Jian of Wuhan University, China, will be a Visiting Fulbright Research Scholar at the UT College of Law this academic year. Prof. Ke is a prominent environmental law professor. Current UT Law Prof. Dean Rivkin first met him when he took Dean's course in "Environmental Justice & Community Lawyering" at Harvard Law School in 2002. In 2004, Prof. Ke hosted Dean on a five-law-school lecture trip to China. His fellowship research project will focus on environmental public interest litigation and advocacy, a galvanizing arena in today's China. Prof. Ke will be housed in Room 373.
The Clayton Center and Corporate Governance Center will sponsor a lecture by Marco Ventoruzzo entitled "European/Italian Corporate Governance," Friday, Sept. 12, from 12:20 until 1 p.m. in Room 136.
FACULTY
Several members of the UT College of Law faculty contributed essays to the Stephens/Scheb/Stooksbury Encyclopedia of American Civil Rights and Liberties, which won a Choice Award in 2007 as "Outstanding Academic Title." This award recognizes their contributions. The volumes contain work by UT law professors Dwight Aarons, Joseph Cook, Joan Heminway, Deseriee Kennedy, Glenn Reynolds, John Sobieski, Penny White, and Dr. Otis Stephens. Former UT law Dean Tom Galligan, former faculty member Barbara Stark, and former UT law students Amy Lighter and Fermin De La Torre also contributed pieces an excerpt from the review follows: "[T]he editors of this new encyclopedia correctly assert that theirs is the only source that equally treats rights (relating to the "democratic commitment to equality") and liberties (debates between "individual freedom" and "governmental power"). Their expertise in history, politics, and law is evident. With more than 600 entries, the set is unusually comprehensive, including important people and organizations; laws and court cases; legal concepts; and hot topics. It goes beyond the typical issues associated with certain groups (such as women and abortion) to discuss concerns like living wills, the right of asylum, and surrogate motherhood. This new encyclopedia is also particularly handy. Along with the expected bibliography and index, it includes a list of entries, a reader's guide to related topics, an alphabetized list of relevant cases (including legal citations), and the full text of almost 40 primary documents. Many may wish this work had arrived before the others. It is a very worthy candidate for libraries wanting a fresh core resource. Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through graduate students; general readers."
At its June meeting the UT Board of Trustees approved tenure for Profs. Jeff Hirsch and Becky Jacobs.
Prof. Dean Rivkin presented a course in environmental law to a nationwide group of U.S. Corps of Engineers professionals in July. At the SEALS Conference, Prof. Rivkin gave a talk on a panel called "Merging the 'Old' with the 'New': Community-Based Collaborative Legal Research and Opportunities for Empirical Legal Studies."
At the 2008 annual conference of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS), Prof. Joan Heminway presented a paper entitled "Female Investors and Securities Fraud: Is the Reasonable Investor a Woman?" as part of a panel on "Expanding the Boundaries of Feminist Legal Theory." Prof. Heminway also served as a discussant on another panel (focusing on corporate disclosure) and presented information on the UT College of Law's concentration in business transactions as part of a USAID-sponsored Mexican Curricular Reform Project at the conference.
Prof. Jeff Hirsch participated in two ways at the SEALS Conference. He helped organize all of the New Scholars Workshops in my role as the Chair of the New Scholars Committee and gave a presentation on a panel called "Pedagogical Methods for Teaching Labor and Employment Law in the 21st Century."
Prof. Maurice Stucke went in June to Washington, D.C., where he received the 2007 Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Fund Writing Award for the best antitrust article. It was for his piece, "Behavioral Economists at the Gate: Antitrust in the Twenty-First Century," published in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal in 2007. While in Washington, Prof. Stucke participated in the Behavioral Economics Keynote and Panel Discussion at the American Antitrust Institute's 10th Anniversary Conference (audio is available here). At the AAI Conference, he also presented the transition report for the next Administration on antitrust and the media. This transition report will be published shortly. In July, Prof. Stucke's article, "Better Competition Advocacy," was published in the St. John's Law Review (2008), available here. One reviewer noted that "if you read one article on antitrust this year make it this one." (http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/07/if_you_read_one.html ). The article has been cited in congressional testimony on Internet Nondiscrimination Principles for Competition Policy Online (http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Pasquale080715.pdf). In August, Prof. Stucke presented his most recent working paper, "Does the Rule of Reason Violate the Rule of Law?," at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools' 2008 Annual Conference. Finally, Prof. Stucke was asked to assist the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association in a decade-long case that went twice before the Supreme Court. He provided antitrust advice and drafted a successful summary judgment motion on the antitrust issues. See Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, No. 3-97-1249, 2008 WL 2811307 (M.D. Tenn. July 18, 2008).
At the SEALS meeting, Prof. Otis Stephens chaired a workshop on entitled "Teaching Constitutional Law in the Twenty-first Century."
Prof. Robert Blitt organized a program at SEALS acknowledging the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He presented from a work in progress discussing the UDHR and its role in U.S. foreign policy, with particular emphasis on the promotion of freedom of religion abroad through the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
Prof. George Kuney spoke on two panels this summer regarding the teaching of transactional drafting and practice, the first at Emory University Law School's Transactional Practice Conference in May and the second at the SEALS Conference in July. He also conducted a two-day workshop for the DLA Piper firm on Venture Capital Transactional Practice in August. His book Mastering Intellectual Property Law, co-authored with UT Adjunct Professor Donna C. Looper, is being published by Carolina Academic Press and his articles "How Fast is 'Promptly'" and "Material Adverse Change Clauses" were published in CEB's Business Law Practitioner. In July, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in Kuney's favor in Kuney v. Bean (Baystate Technologies, Inc. v. Harold L. Bowers), a case involving a long-running, detailed research project to produce a history of certain patent and copyright litigation over shrink-wrap licensed technology and a resulting chapter 11 case. On remand, in August, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts capitulated and entered an order modifying a protective order in the case that will allow Kuney access to publish the proceedings at trial and on appeal. Separately, Kuney is engaged in a matter involving a petition for the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to hold an en banc rehearing of a constitutional challenge to the Bankruptcy Code's "means test," which forces certain individuals into chapter 13 repayment plans rather than chapter 7 liquidations. That matter, whatever the result of the request for rehearing, is expected to be the subject of a petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court in 2009.
Prof. Alex Long moderated the New Scholars Workshop on Constitutional Law at the annual SEALS Conference.
Prof. Ben Barton presented on a panel called "An Overview of American Clinical Legal Education" with Prof. Mae Quinn as part of the Mexican curricular reform project, co-sponsored by SEALS and USAID. Prof. Barton also presented on a panel entitled "Promoting Faculty Scholarship: What Kind of Scholarship Should be Promoted?"
Prof. Gary Pulsinelli moderated a panel organized by Prof. Becky Jacobs at the SEALS Conference entitled "Not a Moot Point: The Nuts and Bolts of Moot Court Programs."
As Chair of the Juvenile Justice Committee of the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, Prof. Mae Quinn helped organize "Dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline in Tennessee: Arming Youth Advocates with Strategies for Change," a two-day conference that drew nearly 100 attendees from across the state. Along with Prof. Christina Kleiser, Prof. Quinn gave a presentation at the event on the law of arrest, processing and detention of juveniles in Tennessee. Prof. Jerry Black organized a panel addressing pre-trial preparation in juvenile court and gave a presentation on effective strategies. Prof. Quinn also presented the Juvenile Justice Update at TACDL's Annual Legislative and Case Law Review in June, and she will be speaking about the future of Tennessee juvenile defense representation at TACDL's Annual Meeting and CLE Program, "Defense Champion's at Battle," in late August. At the SEALS conference, Prof. Quinn joined Prof. Ben Barton's panel as part of the Mexican Curricular Reform Project, providing an overview of the history of clinical legal education in the United States. Prof. Quinn has also been awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant to assist the Catholic University of Honduras with its clinical legal education program and juvenile justice efforts. Traveling to Honduras this past summer, Prof. Quinn visited the University to begin working with faculty there.
Prof. Dwight Aarons presented a paper as part of the civil procedure workshop at the SEALS Conference. It was on the interaction of judgments as a matter of law and new trial motions and was entitled "The Devil is in the Details -- The Rules in Operation, Losing the 'Use It or Lose It' Approach to New Trial Motions."
The second edition of A Practical Guide to Commercial Real Estate Transactions: From Contract to Closing, by Prof. Greg Stein, Morton Fisher, and Marjorie Fisher, has been published by ABA Publishing. The book is designed to help lawyers who are new to the real estate field learn how to conduct their first transactions. Prof. Stein also participated in a "Meet the Authors" event at the ABA Annual Meeting in New York that coincided with the book's release in early August. Details about the book are available here.
Prof. Tom Davies has been invited to submit three articles relating to historical criminal procedure during the upcoming year. He has been invited to write an essay on "The Uses (Nonuse and Avoidance) of History by the Supreme Court's New 'Originalists'" for the 2009 Annual Review of Law and Social Science, a peer edited publication. He has also been invited to participate in a January symposium at Lewis and Clark Law School on the recent Supreme Court Confrontation Clause ruling in Giles v. California, which construed the "forfeiture exception" to a defendant's right to confront witnesses. The symposium will bring together professors and attorneys who have played leading roles in or written prominent commentaries about recent Confrontation Clause decisions beginning with the Court's reinterpretation of the Clause in Crawford v. Washington (2004). Specifically, Davies will submit an article on the historical misunderstandings evident in the various Giles opinions. Additionally, Davies has been invited to write an article on the authentic history of when and how "probable cause" became a search and seizure standard for a symposium on probable cause to be published in the Duke University journal Law and Contemporary Problems.
STUDENTS
The Center for Advocacy & Dispute Resolution invites all new students in the College of Law's Advocacy Concentration to lunch. Don't miss this great opportunity to meet the Advocacy Center's faculty, adjunct faculty, and your fellow students. Lunch is Wednesday, Aug. 20, outside of Room 135 during the free hour, 12:20 - 1:10 p.m.
Prof. Penny White is looking for students with an interest in criminal law and the death penalty to work with her on a project funded by the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The project involves researching, writing, and editing a Manual for Capital Defense Lawyers. Students may work as little as 10 or as many as 20 hours per week. If you are interested and willing to help with this important project (and still get paid for your work!), please email pwhite4@utk.edu. The project will be completed by the end of the semester.
Prof. George Kuney seeks a student interested in the tort/corporate doctrine of successor liability for research project involving the date down of an existing compilation of research on the subject. Interested students should send him an expression of interest and a resume by e-mail to gkuney@utk.edu.
The AARP Foundation invites UT 2Ls to apply for the AARP Foundation Litigation Fellowship. The Fellowship offers a 12-week paid summer experience in Washington, D.C., and a $10,000 scholarship. A research and writing requirement will be fulfilled in the recipient's 3L year. Applicants should have a research interest in elder law issues. Applications are due Nov. 7, 2008. Application materials are available from Janet Hatcher in the Admissions office.
Prof. Jennifer Hendricks needs one or more research assistants to work on projects involving constitutional law, equal protection, employment discrimination, regulation of pornography, the Freedom of Information Act, and other topics. Please send your resume and transcript to jsh@utk.edu.
CAREER SERVICES
Career Services programs this week:
“Career Orientation for 1Ls” – Tuesday, Aug. 19, part of Introductory Period, Room 132.
“Interview Pointers & Protocol for Fall Interview Season” for 2 and 3Ls – Friday, Aug. 22, 12:20-1:10 p.m., Room 135.
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Available here.