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Program
Friday January 4 7:00 a.m.- 7:00 p.m. 7:00 a.m.- 7:00 p.m. 7:00 a.m.- 7:00 p.m. 7:30 - 8:30 a.m. 8:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m. AALS Committee Event 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. Moderator: Bryant G. Garth, Southwestern Law School Law schools produce lawyers. Beyond our own experiences, what do we know about the legal profession, including legal academics? The entry of LSAC and other foundations into the funding of empirical research on the profession has transformed the study of lawyers. This panel includes scholars who are conducting original and groundbreaking work on our profession. It offers some initial results from the second wave of the first national longitudinal study of the legal profession, following over 5,000 law graduates from the class of 2000 over a 10-year period, as well as findings from studies on legal education and the selection and success of law professors. This program will be of interest to those who study and teach about the legal profession and also to those who use or want to use empirical methods. It should be of interest to everyone who works in law schools. AALS Events 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. (Tickets were sold in advance of the Annual Meeting. If space is available, a ticket may be purchased at On-Site Registration until 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 3. Tickets will not be for sale at the breakfast.) 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. (Tickets were sold in advance of the Annual Meeting. If space is available, a ticket may be purchased at On-Site Registration until 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 3. Tickets will not be for sale at the breakfast.) 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. (Tickets were sold in advance of the Annual Meeting. If space is available, a ticket may be purchased at On-Site Registration until 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 3. Tickets will not be for sale at the breakfast.) 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. (Tickets were sold in advance of the Annual Meeting. If space is available, a ticket may be purchased at On-Site Registration until 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 3. Tickets will not be for sale at the breakfast.) 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. (Tickets were sold in advance of the Annual Meeting. If space is available, a ticket may be purchased at On-Site Registration until 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 3. Tickets will not be for sale at the breakfast.) 7:15 - 8:30 a.m. 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. Moderator: Kate Mewhinney, Wake Forest University School of Law Never before in the world’s history have we had such a high proportion of older people. Moreover, aging issues affect all income groups, races and ethnicities - and nations. From health care policy to end-of-life medical decisions, from pension and social security policy to caregiver leave policies, aging is a having an enormous impact on the shape of our legal rights. At the same time, the U.S. legal system has developed a growing awareness of international legal standards. We cannot imagine life without the internet, sharing information and ideas across borders. As we become more comfortable in considering international norms of human rights, we face the challenge of a graying population. These trends coincide to make this program timely and valuable. Our international panel has impressive experience both in the academic arena and in such activities as NGO’s, litigation in international courts, and legislative commissions. Attendees will gain a better understanding of how international human rights laws, European Union law, and mental disability law can be used to enhance the rights of our aging communities. As attorneys, policy makers and academics, come ready to learn how international law advances the rights of increasing numbers of senior citizens. Business Meeting of Section on Aging and the Law at Program Conclusion 8:30 a.m.- 10:15 p.m Moderator: Jessica Silbey, Suffolk University Law School Art law may fairly be understood as the regulation of aesthetic objects of value (whether tangible or intangible). Part of the object’s value is in its authenticity— its relation to a knowable origin and definitive (authoratative) historical and cultural context. Conversations in art law about authenticity revolve around “authorship,” “provenance,” the “real” versus a “fake,” “forgery,” or “counterfeit.” Assertions of authenticity (legal or otherwise) are ways of controlling the meaning or value of the object from within (or from outside) a source community. How are claims of authenticity made? On what terms are competing claims of authenticity adjudicated? What is at stake, in law and culture, in maintaining a division between the authentic and the fake? What result if law condoned rather than punished the proliferation of identical copies of authentic art objects? 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. Moderator: Hannah L. Buxbaum, Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington Designing fair systems of justice, and ensuring the availability of their procedures to all persons, have long been a focus of comparative research. Thirty years ago, the Access-to-Justice Project headed by Mauro Cappelletti identified a then-emerging “third wave” of reform: one that went beyond legal aid programs, and beyond mechanisms enabling the assertion of diffuse or collective rights, to encompass as broadly as possible the “institutions and devices, personnel and procedures” that could be deployed to promote the vindication of legal rights. This panel will investigate how this wave of reform has played out, examining some of the different understandings of access to justice – both as an objective and as an instrument to achieve other goals – that have emerged in the past decades. It will consider in particular the intersection of debates surrounding access to justice with debates relating to globalization’s effects on civil justice systems. Points of inquiry will include the following: How extensive is the reliance, both in the United States and elsewhere, on private actors and private dispute resolution mechanisms as instruments of access to justice? Does such reliance reflect, or contribute to, the Americanization of legal culture generally? To what extent has an inversion occurred in the orientation of the debate about access, from a focus on justice as a public good flowing down to individuals, to a focus on using the mechanisms of private dispute resolution to achieve public objectives such as economic regulatory goals or the spread of the rule of law? What effect has the proliferation of courts and other dispute resolution bodies – within nations, regionally, and internationally – had on the availability of access to justice? Most fundamentally, the aim of the panel is to inquire whether legal systems today share a commitment to particular modes of access and a vision of the results that such access is intended to achieve. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. Moderator: Katherine M. Porter, University of Iowa College of Law Many commentators noted that the BAPCPA amendments make bankruptcy a less desirable alternative for debtors and creditors, or at least a more regulated one. In light of these changes, this program will consider non-bankruptcy alternatives regarding nonpayment of debt. Topics of discussion will focus on state and federal nonbankruptcy laws surrounding lending and debt collection. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. Moderator: Samuel R. Bagenstos, Washington University School of Law This program will discuss the convergence of two significant movements in jurisprudence and social activism: the movement for disability rights, in the United States and abroad, and the movement for human rights around the world. Panelists will discuss the place of disability in the broader human rights movement, what the struggle for disability rights can say to that movement, and the increasing acceptance of (and barriers to acceptance of) disability rights as human rights. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 8:30 a.m. - 5:45 p.m. 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. (Program to be published in Penn State Law Review) Moderator: Robert M. Ackerman, The Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law The companion cases, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last term, pose questions of interest to communitarian scholars as well as scholars of constitutional law. The issue of whether the benefits of integration justify the use of racial classifications has been visited before. But communitarian concerns are especially prominent in the Seattle and Louisville school cases, at least in part because all students, including the alleged victims of racial classification, arguably benefit from the advantages of integration. This program will examine the Seattle and Louisville cases, and the larger issue of racial classification, through a communitarian lens. Communitarians have suggested an agenda to advance commonly held social values without unduly compromising individual rights. While others will view the circumstances in Seattle and Louisville as involving rights in conflict, some communitarians are more apt to view them as involving community efforts to adjust various interests, which efforts should be left undisturbed by the courts. They might say that the Louisville and Seattle school boards have adopted plans that serve the best interests of the community-at-large. Other communitarians, however, might see the use of racial classifications as demeaning not only to the individuals involved but to the community as a whole. The fact that a community is composed of a number of racial groups, including people of mixed race, further complicates matters. The panel will consider other contexts, like single-sex and bilingual schooling, which raise both communitarian and individual rights justifications for segregation. The discussion will also introduce a comparative perspective and distinguish among “conservative," "liberal," and "egalitarian-universalistic” communitarianism. 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. (Program to be published in Journal of Health Care Law) Speakers: Lori B. Andrews, Chicago-Kent College of Law Illinois Institute of Technology One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers. The development of contemporary biologics and how they interface with human subjects outpaces legislative and judicial response. Commentators suggest that there is a lack of guidance on contract, tort, and constitutional issues related to genetic materials. The jurisprudence in this domain is neither clear nor responsive to contemporary biotechnology or those who claim to be harmed by aggressive researchers and doctors. Informed consent may be an illusory concept in a field where violating such norms is a small penalty where tremendous profits are to be made. This panel debates whether there is room for private enterprise in the human body. It asks who owns the body and what recourses should be made available for trespass to human flesh. Panelists scrutinize whether and to what extent government regulation should be invited into the spheres of enhanced reproductive technology, genetic developments, organ transplantation and the expanding field of cosmeceuticals. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. Moderator: Samuel J. Levine, Pepperdine University School of Law In recent years, a number of scholars have observed that the United States Supreme Court has shown an increasing unwillingness to engage in deciding matters that relate to the interpretation of religious practice and belief. Justices have provided various rationales for the Court’s approach. Some Justices have suggested practical justifications for their reluctance to examine closely religious beliefs, declaring that courts are “ill equipped” to deal with such questions, which these Justices consider beyond judicial competence. Other Justices have cited constitutional considerations to support their view that courts should refrain from deciding questions of religious interpretation. In response, some have argued that courts should be more willing to decide questions of religious interpretation, in particular when failure to do so would prevent a meaningful resolution of a case. In fact, according to some critics, as a result of the Court’s increasing refusal to consider carefully the religious questions central to many cases, the Court often tends to group together religious claims and practices, regardless of the relative validity or importance of a particular practice within a religious system. This approach can have important and potentially negative ramifications for both Free Exercise and Establishment Clause jurisprudence. Finally, the Court has not provided a definition of the term “religion,” thereby refusing to interpret the very concept at the center of Free Exercise and Establishment Clause cases. This session will address these issues from number of perspectives. Descriptively, the session will consider the extent to which the Court has, in fact, applied a “hands-off” approach to questions of religious practice and belief. Normatively, the session will explore the arguments in favor of and opposed to such an approach. Finally, the session will look at prospects for rethinking some of the assumptions underlying the Court’s attitudes, as well as the possibility of proposing alternative methods. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. Moderator: Rex R. Perschbacher, University of California at Davis School of Law In the second volume of a comparative study of professional education by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the authors propose a framework for legal education designed to better integrate the analytical thinking and formal theory that the authors suggest still dominate law school curricula with more practical knowledge and greater emphasis on the values underlying the formation of professional identify. The panel will discuss the recommendations of the Carnegie Report from the perspective of the law school dean. Professor Wegner, a co-author of the Carnegie Report and former law school dean, will join the conversation. Among the questions that will be discussed: Are the premises of the Carnegie Report correct? Does the study offer much new beyond the MacCrate Report (1992) or reflect changes in curricula made subsequent to MacCrate? Should the recommendations in the Carnegie Report be implemented? What are the internal and external forces that present challenges to implementation? Business Meeting at Program Conclusion 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. (Program to be published in Legal Writing) Moderator: Andrea L. Mc Ardle, City University of New York School of Law at Queens College Law students are expected to become fluent in the genres, or written forms, by which practitioners communicate information and professional analysis. Although these writings are governed by professional conventions of language and form, they are generated in the context of a human interaction, and will have consequences for the clients whose life situations are the occasion for their creation. In the lexicon of writing across the curriculum, lawyers-in-training benefit from opportunities to write in expressive (writer-focused and exploratory) and poetic (attentive to form) modes as a way to negotiate legal ideas and language. Using these forms, they can then circle back to the transactional (audience-directed) writing that law-trained writers must produce in professional contexts. Law students who write short stories, essays, or poetry to reflect on the work they do within their professional genres can achieve necessary psychological distance from professional tasks. Reflective writing about lawyer-client interactions can heighten a developing lawyer’s appreciation of a client, as well as deepen understanding of the lawyer’s own emotional responses to that flesh-and-blood person. This program will consist of a moderated panel of speakers who will engage with these ideas to demonstrate how using narrative and other literary genres supports the professional development of lawyers. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. (Program to be published in Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial and Commercial Law) One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers. After the collapse of Enron, Adelphia, Worldcom and other high flyers of the 1990s, there was a crisis of confidence in American business and securities regulators. Numerous federal and state enforcement and regulatory actions occurred in the wake of these scandals. The most important was the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, but prosecutions of research analysts and mutual funds also resulted in reform. A torrent of criminal prosecutions and civil litigation under Rule 10b-5 and other securities law statutes also occurred. Currently, several high-powered decision makers have asserted that the U.S. capital markets are becoming less competitive than overseas markets due, in part, to the U.S. regulatory and litigation environment. Further, there has been a push back in the courts as to expansive interpretations by the SEC of its authority with regard to hedge funds and mutual fund governance, and expansive district court opinions regarding the reach of the anti-fraud provisions. After a call for papers for the January 2008 meeting of the AALS Securities Regulation Section in New York discussing any aspect of these developments, the five papers summarized below were selected. A special issue of the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial and Commercial Law will be devoted to these papers.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. Moderator: Neil H. Buchanan, Rutgers, George Washington University School of Law This panel will explore tax law through a lens that extends beyond traditional law and economics. It is the belief of many tax law scholars that tax law, like many other fields of law, is about much more than attaining efficiency in the tax system. There are elements of justice, fairness and equality that economic concepts like efficiency just do not capture at times. Given this view of tax law, this panel tries to highlight some of the various approaches to tax law analysis that look beyond the traditional efficiency paradigm. The panelists will discuss various aspects of tax law including wealth taxation at death, tax policymaking, tax exemption, international tax and state property tax. The panelists will discuss these aspects of tax law using various methodologies, including law and literature, various political theories, law and market economy theory and critical race theory. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m. This roundtable will discuss Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision upholding the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. Panelists will focus on the ways that Carhart has emerged from and is reshaping debate over questions of reproductive justice in popular movements, the academy, state legislatures, and the courts. AALS Committee Event 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. Moderator: Donna M. Nagy, Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington This program brings together AALS section leaders (past and current) and others interested in the functions and roles of AALS sections. Most AALS sections present programs at the Annual Meeting. But many AALS sections are active throughout the entire year, providing newsletters to their members and conducting other activities such as mentoring programs and listservs. Panelists will reflect on their experiences as AALS Section leaders and will highlight innovations and accomplishments. The program will then become more interactive, as the Committee wants to promote a dialogue on the range of purposes for AALS sections and how sections relate both to each other and the legal academy at large. The results of the Committee’s survey on section initiatives will also be shared. 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. Moderator: Robin A. Boyle, St. John’s University School of Law One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers. We will highlight ways in which academic support professionals and other faculty members can work collaboratively to enhance law student education throughout the student body. Participants will be asked to think broadly and critically about what constitutes effective teaching in law school in ways that reach the student population as a whole. Included among the topics will be the following: results of an empirical study involving writing assignments integrated within a doctrinal course; suggestions about effective ways for legal writing faculty and academic support professionals to work together; and the synergy that results when academic success skills are taught using material covered in doctrinal classes. The program will be geared towards both casebook and skills professors. 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. Moderator: Daniel S. Kleinberger, William Mitchell College of Law Speakers and Papers: Are Partners Agents Duties Not to Disclose, Dissent, or Disgrace: Cleaning Up After Leakers, Muddiers, and Stainers Under the Restatement (Third) of Agency Having the Fiduciary Duty Talk: Model Advice for Corporate Officers (and other Senior Agents) What Me Worry? Restatement (Third) of Agency Section 7.01 and Tort Liability Risks for Participants in LLCs It can be said that agency law is the source of all modern unincorporated business organizations, and certainly questions of agency law permeate all business associations. This year’s program focuses on agency law and, more particularly, on the newly- approved Restatement (Third) of Agency. The program will consist of three or four papers pertaining to the Restatement (Third), selected via a Call for Papers and reflecting a wide range of methodologies and perspectives. Professor Deborah DeMott, who served as Reporter for Restatement (Third), will provide commentary. The ALI gave final approval to the Restatement (Third) of Agency in 2006. Coming almost one half century after the Restatement (Second), the new Restatement differs from its predecessor both in substance and style. It addresses the role of agency law within modern organizations (e.g., imputation of knowledge within an organization’s “chain of command”), as well as relationships between common-law agency doctrines and statutes. Restatement (Third) adopts new nomenclature, for example jettisoning the terminology “master-servant,” “inherent agency power,” and “partially disclosed principal” while articulating a broad definition of “manifestation.” It revisits many familiar problems, including the bases on which the legal consequences of an agent’s actions may be attributed to the principal, the standard for an employer’s liability under respondeat superior, and the duties that agents and principals owe to each other. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. Moderator: Steven S. Gensler, University of Oklahoma Law Center Making Effective Rules: The Need for Procedure Theory The Revolution of 1938 and Its Discontents Not Dead Yet One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. (Program will be published in Michigan Journal of Law Reform) Moderator: Omri Ben-Shahar, The University of Michigan Law School New Speakers selected from Call for Papers: One of the most hotly contested issues in contract law these days is the unconscionability of mandatory arbitration terms in employment and consumer contracts. Some aspects of this phenomenon are well understood: how widespread these terms are, and what are the doctrinal aspects of the unconscionability test. But a basic aspect of this debate is not yet well-informed: how bad is mandatory arbitration in reality? How much worse, if at all, are breached-against parties when they have to arbitrate? When does mandatory arbitration bar recovery and prevent vindication of legitimate claims? Are there unintended implications to the use, or the elimination of, mandatory arbitration terms? The presentations in the panel are intended to move beyond myth, conjecture, and assumption, and to shed a more concrete empirical light on these questions. Speakers will present and debate insights and findings regarding the reality of mandatory contract arbitration. Four presentations will be made: two by invited speakers and two by scholars selected through this call for papers. The Michigan Journal of Law Reform has agreed to publish their papers and is potentially interested in publishing several additional papers in the same 2008 issue on this topic. The two invited speakers are Professor St. Antoine, formerly the President of the National Academy of Arbitrators, whose lecture is titled “Mandatory Arbitration: Why It’s Better than It Looks,” and Professor Eisenberg, who will talk about “Realities of Mandatory Arbitration Clauses.” Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. Moderators: Jose Felipe Anderson, University of Baltimore School of Law Has our society lost its ability to protect its computer-stored data? Are there ways to protect ourselves through computer science and technology? Does privacy, tort or criminal law provide any answers that might help us better address our concerns about the protection of our financial, education, health care and other sensitive records? In light of these questions, data privacy issues seem entangled with data protection. Our efforts to protect privacy through both law and technology have received mixed reviews on both fronts, however, both efforts are forever linked. Computer science, as a discipline, is concerned with data protection and the implications of technological choices. Law as an instrument of policy may fail to consider fully the limits or opportunities articulated by technology experts to address privacy concerns. As our world relies on high-speed access to information to cure our ills, protect us, and improve the quality of life, a continuing dialogue on this important intersection should become a high priority discussion in the Academy. The panel, which brings perspectives from both science and law, considers this sprawling entanglement from an interdisciplinary approach. Business meetings at program conclusion in this order: First, Section on Law and Computers followed by Section on Defamation and Privacy 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. (Program to be published in Journal of Law and Education) Privileging and Protecting Schoolhouse Religion The Representational Dimension of the Public School’s Institutional Identity: A Neglected Facet of the Constitutional Analysis of Student Religious Speech Cases Lessons from Morse v. Frederick: Implications for Students’ Religious Speech Eric A. De Groff, Regent University School of Law Moderator: Daniel Weddle, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers. Because students and educators necessarily bring their beliefs and convictions with them through the schoolhouse gate, clashes inevitably occur between deeply held religious values and the values of others in the school community. Those clashes can arise when schools attempt to enforce hate speech policies against offensive or hurtful religious speech, restrict the distribution of religious literature, or respond to students’ religious expression in broadly framed assignments or activities. They arise in a host of contexts that pit students and their families against school officials, and school officials against one another. They pull into sharp conflict competing constitutional freedoms and competing national values. Panelists will examine the complex theoretical tensions these conflicts present and the implications of the courts’ continually evolving approaches to those tensions. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. Moderator: Mark E. Wojcik, The John Marshall Law School Defense Perspectives on Law and Politics in International Criminal Trials A Nazi-Looted Art Tribunal The Compatibility of State Responsibility for Genocide with the Goals of Transitional Justice The Case for Abolishing CEDAW One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers. 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. (Program to be published in Suffolk University Law Review) Moderator: David Yamada, Suffolk University Law School Speakers and Papers: Education about Labor Rights and Global Wrongs through Documentary Film Substance and Form: Business Planning for Worker Empowerment Making Our Work Work In the Cause of Union Democracy One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers. This program will demonstrate how professors of employment and labor law are engaged in activities that share their scholarly work with the general public in two primary ways: Public Education - Sharing our scholarly work through writings for a broader public audience (e.g., op-eds and guest columns), speaking appearances and adult education programs, and the news media. Intellectual Activism - Applying our scholarly work to direct interaction and advocacy with the public for the purpose of effectuating social change and law reform. The presentations and accompanying papers will be descriptive, reflective, and instructive. Our presenters, who were selected via an open Call for Papers, will tell us what they have been doing, reflect upon the impact of those efforts, and offer insights to colleagues who are engaging, or wish to engage, in similar activities. Their essays will be published in an upcoming issue of the Suffolk University Law Review. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. (Program to be published in Journal of National Security Law and Policy) Moderator: Robert M. Chesney, Wake Forest University School of Law As Assessment of the Evolution and Oversight of Defense Counterintelligence Activities Michael J. Woods, Washington, DC Few issues are as complex and controversial as those concerning the domestic role of the military. This has long been true, but recent developments ranging from the war on terrorism to Hurricane Katrina demonstrate that the topic has become unusually pressing in recent years. Our panelists will be surveying and debating a number of issues under this general heading, including the latest developments concerning NSA surveillance, the line between homeland security and homeland defense in the context of an armed conflict against a terrorist organization, and the President’s power to control the National Guard. We will begin with a presentation by the winner of our call for papers, followed by a moderated dialogue amongst all panelists and concluding with an opportunity for the audience to join the conversation. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. Moderator: Michael H. Schwartz, Washburn University School of Law The Comparative and Absolute Advantages of Junior Law Faculty in the Classroom: Implications for Teaching and the Future of American Law Schools Taking Law Students to Court: Disorienting Moments as Catalysts for Change Changing the Legal Academy from Within: New Law Professors' Unique Ability to Lead Law Schools Toward Achieving Best Practices in Legal Education Can You Show Me How To . . . ? Reflections of a New Law Professor and Part-Time Technology Consultant on the Role of New Law Teachers as Catalysts for Change One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers. The presenters for this year’s program were selected in response to a call for papers. In the spirit of our section, the selection process ensured open access and resulted in an exciting panel of speakers sharing new scholarship and adding fresh perspectives to the overall theme of this year’s conference, “Reassessing Our Roles in Light of Change.” Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. (Program to be published in Transactions: Tennessee Journal of Business Law) Moderator: Gregory M. Stein, University of Tennessee College of Law One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers. The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site is one of the largest, most difficult, and most emotionally fraught transactions in American history. In addition to the usual stakeholders found in any complex public-private transaction (two states and one city, the developer, the investors, the architect, the contractors, the prospective tenants), the World Trade Center redevelopment introduces additional parties unique to this particular tragedy, including the victims of the attack and their families, first responders, neighborhood residents, and insurers. This transaction would be fascinating to any observer. But to the law professor, this is a teaching opportunity and not just an interesting deal. Speakers representing various interests in the Ground Zero rebuilding project will address two principal questions. First, they will discuss specific issues that have arisen during the negotiation and documentation process, with emphasis on those that are unique to this particular project. Second, they will provide illustrations of the “teaching moments” they have observed throughout the process. Law professors will hear experts demonstrate the opportunities this transaction presents for professors to help law students understand legal complexity. In addition, a speaker selected through a Call for Papers will offer their perspective on this project and how it fits in with other rebuilding projects that have followed natural and man-made disasters. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. (Tickets were sold in advance of the Annual Meeting. If space is available, a ticket may be purchased at On-Site Registration until 12:00 noon on Thursday, January 4. Tickets will not be for sale at the luncheon.) 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. Speaker: Dennis Wayne Archer, Chairman, Dickinson Wright PLLC, Detroit, Michigan Dennis Archer served two terms as mayor of Detroit (1994-2001) and during his last year as mayor was also president of the National League of Cities. In 1985 Mr. Archer was appointed as an associate justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. He was elected to an eight-year term the following year. In his final year on the bench, he was named the most respected judge in Michigan by Michigan Lawyers Weekly. Following public office, he became the first African-American named as president of the American Bar Association and now serves as chairman of Dickinson Wright PLLC, a Detroit-based law firm. (Advance ticket purchase is necessary to attend the luncheon. See the Annual Meeting Registration form, or register online at www.aals.org/am2008/. Tickets may also be purchased on-site by those already registered for the Annual Meeting until 12:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 4.) 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. Moderator: Robert C. Berring, University of California, Berkeley School of Law For more than a century scholars could reasonably judge the quality and authority of legal information by the cover of the book in which it was printed. This is no longer possible. Legal information has been cut loose from the confines of the book by widespread electronic publication, but it has also been cut off from the convenient emblems of authority that traditional print sources once provided. Law reviews, which served as powerful gatekeepers of scholarly writing and as signposts for a scholar’s career path are now under siege from electronic publications like blogs, SSRN, BePress and Wikipedia. Governments, the traditional gatekeepers of primary law, now publish crucial legal information in electronic format, often without mechanisms for preserving or verifying the information. These changes raise a variety of questions that our panelists will address: What kinds of electronic publishing should count as scholarship in tenure decisions? What is the role of the academy in validating the authority of electronic information? How do we judge the quality and authority of electronically published information? Will authority be based outside the traditional sources in the future? And is this potential change in the locus of authority a matter of principle or a matter of time? 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. Winning Paper: Political Cycles of Rulemaking: An Empirical Portrait of the Modern Administrative State Now in its twenty-third year, the AALS Scholarly Papers competition is open to individuals who have been in law teaching five years or less. The winners, who will present and discuss their papers, were chosen by a panel of seven distinguished law scholars. Professor Areen, chair of the selection committee, will invite questions from the audience and lead a discussion of the issues presented by the winning papers. 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. This program will focus upon federal agencies’ authority to preempt state tort law. The common law tort system provides injured individuals a forum to seek monetary compensation for losses occasioned by hazardous conduct. Regulatory approaches, which generally feature expert administrative agencies, seek to prescribe and enforce an optimal level of conduct that prevents unnecessary injuries from occurring in the first place. Traditionally, the courts have interpreted federal regulatory statutes to determine whether and to what extent those statutes preempt state tort law causes of action. In doing so, they have made their own independent assessment of the consistency between state tort law and the federal regulatory statutes. In recent years, federal agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration and the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency have begun to specify the preemptive effect of their own regulations. These efforts have sparked controversy, particularly with respect to the preemptive effect of these regulations on state tort law. This program will explore federal agencies’ power to preempt tort law and the deference courts owe to agencies assertion of the power to preempt state law. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. This panel will examine the current and uncertain state of commercial law, outside of the academy as well as inside. The panelists will examine why a domain once demarcated so neatly by the Uniform Commercial Code has become less ordered, and they will also ask whether commercial law as a discipline lacks the coherence and centrality it once enjoyed. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. (Program to be published in Roger Williams University Law Review) Moderator: Louise Ellen Teitz, Roger Williams University School of Law This program will examine the problems of choice of law in aggregate, complex, and mass tort litigation. Much of the recent attention on the Class Action Fairness Act and aggregate litigation has focused on the procedural and structural problems first, and choice of law, if at all, second. The speakers will consider the issues raised for choice of law and attempts to resolve them in litigation, in ALI projects, and court cases. The panel will also examine in Departmenth choice of law in product liability, an area of substantive law that underlies a significant portion of aggregate and complex litigation. Both the judicial and practitioner perspectives will be represented on the panel. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. (Program to be published in Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal) Moderators: Michael B. Kelly, University of San Diego School of Law In employment discrimination law, as in other areas, the relationship between substantive claims and remedies runs in two directions. While the substantive claims being asserted in litigation helps to define the available remedies, remedial options clearly shape the kinds of substantive claims that are pressed and the interpretation of those claims in the process. This panel, will explore the ways that remedial options affect the structure of discrimination lawsuits and vice versa. Panelists will particularly consider class action litigation and other structural reform efforts, comparative analysis of the relationship between enforcement procedures and the difficulties with remedying discrimination, and the effects of the remedial changes in the 1991 Civil Rights Act on the direction of the substantive legal standard. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. Moderator: Hiroshi Motomura, University of North Carolina School of Law Just over a quarter-century after the Supreme Court decided Plyler v. Doe, the decision occupies an intriguing place in the legal and public imagination. As constitutional law, it stands for the proposition that the U.S. Constitution guarantees access to elementary and secondary public schools regardless of a child’s immigration status. More fundamentally, however, Plyler reflects a way of viewing immigration and immigrants by addressing the meaning of unlawful presence, the immigration power of states and cities, and the significance of public education in the integration of immigrants. If Justice Brennan’s opinion for the Court has been criticized as reflecting more policy than law, that policy focus may be precisely why Plyler can elucidate current debates. Today, is Plyler limited to its facts, and is it at risk before a Supreme Court that is much less sympathetic to immigrants’ rights and much less agnostic about the meaning of unlawful status? Or has Plyler proven prescient in its analysis of immigration law and policy, with its understandings of unlawful status, immigration federalism, and immigrant integration providing a cogent blueprint for current debates? Can both be true? This panel explores the many meanings of Plyler v. Doe on its 25th anniversary. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. (Program to be published in American University Law Review “Special Edition”) The Law of War: Criteria for a “Report Card” The Changing Challenges of War (1907-2007): How Has Humanitarian Law Responded? Scoring Success and Failures: (a) Outlawry of War; (b) Regulating Non-International Armed Conflicts; (c) Protecting Civilians; and, (d) Controlling Weapons of Mass Destruction Implementing/Enforcing Humanitarian Law: Contrasting Military v. Criminal Models; Executive v. Judicial; Retribution v. Reconciliation The following speakers were selected from a Call for Papers/Commentaries: Dedoublement Analytique or Avoiding Making a Virtue of Ignorance" ("A Citizen's Observer's View of the U.S. Approach to the 'War on Terrorism The main task of the panel will be to survey the changing challenges posed by war during the 20th Century, as a result of the dramatic changes in the characteristics of armed conflicts, and to assess the law’s responses. The focus of the panel will be on how the law’s objectives and diverse protected communities (i.e., belligerents, sick and wounded, prisoners of war and civilians) have fared in view of the changes in the conduct of warfare and the law. The century’s dramatic developments, affecting both jus ad bellum and jus in bello, have included several noted conceptual and operational transitions: From “Just War” to the “Outlawing” of War; From International Armed Conflicts” to “Intra-national and Transnational Conflicts”; From the Containment of Armed Conflicts (through the Principle of Distinction, Neutrality, etc.) to a resort to “Total War” (through strategic bombing, terrorism, etc.); From conventional weapons to weapons of mass destruction; From quasi-public (ICRC, etc.) and national policing of Humanitarian Law to international policing. The panel, relying on both chronological and thematic approaches, will seek to assess the impact of these developments on Humanitarian Law’s functions in several conflict arenas, including Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq, Kashmir, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and former Yugoslavia. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. Moderator: Marc R. Poirier, Seton Hall University School of Law This panel assembles established and emerging scholars whose work has examined law and the interpretation of sex and gender from feminist, Foucauldian and left critical perspectives. They will present their current work. Topics likely to be addressed include the legal control of sexuality after Lawrence v. Texas, the incipient reinscription of sex roles in law, masculinity norms and police treatment of suspects, and the disintegration of legal gender. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. Moderator: Joseph Gordon Hylton, Marquette University Law School The 1970’s and 1980’s saw a dramatic increase in both the number of legal history courses offered in American law schools and in the amount of historical scholarship done by law professors. Law professors with PhD’s in history or related fields, once a rarity, proliferated. Although the place of American legal history in the law school curriculum was secured, what to teach and how to teach it remain unresolved questions. Similarly, practitioners of “legal history” frequently have disagreed as to the content and methodology of their field. This year’s panel is composed of four law professors, all of whom hold PhD’s in history and each of whom began law teaching after the year 2000. Each will comment on his or her reasons for pursuing research in law and history, the subject matter and nature of his or her own scholarly work, the role of legal history in the 21st century law school, and the future of legal historical scholarship. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. Moderator: Bernadette Bollas Genetin, University of Akron C. Blake McDowell Law Center July 2008 will mark the 140th anniversary of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The panel uses this anniversary as a platform for discussion of the future of rights litigation. The panel will explore a range of issues, including (1) the future development of the 14th Amendment, in light of the interdependence of constitutional law and political mobilization; (2) the likely effects of globalization, empiricism, technological advance, and demographic change on constitutional analysis and rights in the 21st Century; (3) the unlikely prospects for an expanded role for the Fourteenth Amendment in the 21st Century in addressing the economic insecurity and inequality that the U.S. is experiencing in numbers greater than at any time since the Great Depression; and (4) the tensions that will emerge in civil rights litigation as a result of the Rehnquist Court’s strategy of imposing significant restrictions on civil rights litigation through limitation of civil rights remedies, while leaving largely intact the substantive rights that had been expanded by the Warren and Burger Courts. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. Moderators: Judith W. Wegner, University of North Carolina School of Law Do we impede student development as professionals when we teach them to “think like lawyers”? What are examples of law teaching that simultaneously prepare students for practice and maintain the intellectual rigor for which law schools are known? Clinics and externships provide one approach, but how can professional preparation be included in other settings? In this program, framed by Mr. Sullivan, Senior Scholar and co-author of Educating Lawyers, Preparation for the Profession of Law, we will explore how field work and public service within a doctrinal setting can bridge gaps in traditional law classes. Professor Blom, will present on her inclusion of service opportunities in teaching economic, housing and community development, discussing creative ways both non-clinical and clinical faculty can integrate public service learning into their curriculum. Professor Frampton, will present on her incorporation of field work and community-based projects in teaching Restorative Justice, describing student research projects that provide an opportunity to apply theories learned in class to the real world, while assisting social justice practitioners and institutions with research and critical analysis, to develop best practices. Business Meeting at Program Conclusion. 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. Association of American Law Schools Gala Reception In 1934, in the Departmenth of the greatest depression in history, John D. Rockefeller Sr. completed his testimony to faith in New York City and the economy of America: the Rockefeller Center. From that time the Rockefeller Center would be the benchmark that all urban development is measured against. The crowning jewel of this magnificent project was the Rainbow Room on the sixty-fifth floor of Thirty Rockefeller Plaza, the tallest and most prominent building in the complex. The room was designed to symbolize all the glamour and elegance of New York nightlife. From its opening day, the Rainbow Room has epitomized Manhattan luxury to both native New Yorkers and visitors from around the world. Member Schools Events 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. 7:00 – 8:30 a.m. 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. 7:30 - 8:30 a.m.
8:00 - 9:30 p.m. 9:00 - 11:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m. Other Organization Events 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. 7:30 - 8:30 a.m. 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. 7:30 - 8:30 a.m. |
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