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FROM DEAN RONALD WEICH

In an op-ed published in The Daily Record on Feb. 21, Dean Weich addressed concerns about upheaval in legal education and in the legal marketplace and described UB Law as well-positioned to flourish despite the changes. Wrote Weich: “Increasingly, lawyers work in tandem with other professionals on multi-faceted assignments. They must be fluent in the sophisticated information technology that dominates both litigation and commercial matters today. They are often judged — and compensated — according to the outcomes they achieve rather than the hours they tally. And in this fast-paced, competitive atmosphere, law school graduates don’t always have the luxury of on-the-job training. Not all law schools will successfully adapt to this brave new world, but I’m confident the University of Baltimore will do so.”

In an op-ed in the March 10 issue of the Baltimore Sun, Weich discussed the filibuster and emphasized that, when used responsibly, it is “consistent with other features of the federal government, such as bicameralism and the presidential veto power, mechanisms to cool momentary passions and ensure careful review before the national government acts.”

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FACULTY ACHIEVEMENTS

JOSÉ ANDERSON

At the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools, held in January in New Orleans, Professor Anderson was elected national chair of the nearly 800-member section on litigation for 2013-2014.

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BARBARA BABB

Professor Babb reports: “In connection with its [$300,000] grant from AT&T, the Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC) held a Truancy Court Program (TCP) stakeholders’ meeting on Feb. 12. Nearly 50 participants attended, representing the business community, government agencies, Baltimore City public schools and private foundations, among others. CFCC has begun the spring TCP session in eight Baltimore City public schools and three Montgomery County middle schools. In addition, according to CFCC’s data analysis of the fall 2012 TCP session, the TCP and its mentoring program served a total of 134 students and their families. More than half of these students (57 percent) graduated from the program, based on a minimum 65 percent decrease in unexcused absences and/or tardies, as well as improved classroom behavior and grades.”

She continues: “After receiving a UB21 Catalyst grant, CFCC, in partnership with the UB Integrated Arts Program, is operating a ‘Kids and the Arts’ program in two TCP schools.”

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JOHN BESSLER

Professor Bessler spoke Dec. 8 to the 2nd Oslo International Symposium on Capital Punishment. He discussed his book Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2012). The book — awarded a “silver” designation in the Independent Publisher Book Awards in the category of U.S. history — will be released in paperback in 2013.

On Feb. 14, Bessler provided written testimony to Maryland’s Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee about the repeal of the state’s death penalty.

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GILDA DANIELS

Professor Daniels was the author of an op-ed that appeared in The Baltimore Sun on Feb. 27. She argued that the Supreme Court must not roll back voting rights, specifically Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires “covered jurisdictions” to get federal approval, or “pre-clearance,” of voting changes before they can implement them. The Supreme Court heard arguments in in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder on Feb. 27.

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ERIC EASTON

Professor Easton has released a new book, Mobilizing the Press: Defending the First Amendment in the Supreme Court (Vandeplas Publishing).

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GARRETT EPPS

On Jan. 15, Professor Epps wrote in The Atlantic that the Seventh Circuit should vacate an opinion written by Judge Richard Posner, who, writing for a 2-1 majority, struck down, on Second Amendment grounds, Illinois’ statute about carrying a loaded, accessible firearm anywhere outside the home. The ABA Journal noted the article, in which Epps took Posner to task for the “flippant” tone of his opinion striking down the gun law.

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WENDY GERZOG

Professor Gerzog published two articles recently: “Valuation Discounting and the Lottery Cases” (137 Tax Notes 917, Nov. 19, 2012) and “Wimmer Wins FLP Annual Exclusions” (138 Tax Notes 489, Jan. 28, 2013). In November, Gerzog was listed among the top 25 U.S. tax professors in two SSRN categories: all-time downloads and recent downloads (within the past 12 months: http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2012/11/ssr.html).

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MICHELE GILMAN

Professor Gilman recently published two papers: “The Poverty Defense” (47 Univ. of Richmond L. Rev. 495, 2013) and “The Class Differential in Privacy Law” (77 Brooklyn L. Rev. 1389, 2012).

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LEIGH GOODMARK

Professor Goodmark presented a talk titled “Rethinking State Intervention in Intimate Partner Violence” at the American Association of Law Schools’ annual meeting in New Orleans on Jan. 7.

Goodmark’s book A Troubled Marriage was one of five titles selected for inclusion in Choice‘s Outstanding Academic Title list for 2013. The titles appeared in January’s Choice magazine.

Goodmark’s paper “Transgender People, Intimate Partner Abuse, and the Legal System,” was cited in a Jan. 25 Huffington Post article.

Goodmark was quoted in a Time magazine article on Feb. 27 about the Violence Against Women Act and the limitations of law enforcement approaches to protecting abused women.

Goodmark received this year’s Judge Robert M. Bell Award for Leadership in Public Interest. The award is given annually at the UBSPI auction to an individual in the legal community who has exemplified a commitment to the public good.

Goodmark contributed an op-ed to the March 27 issue of The Baltimore Sun. Written in response to a Sun article about a recent spike in domestic violence, Goodmark said: “Coverage of domestic violence tends to assume that there is some miracle combination of police, prosecutorial and court response that could prevent these deaths from happening. But the truth is that no such magical formula exists. Social science research has told us for decades that the criminal justice response to domestic violence is largely ineffectual in terms of decreasing overall rates of domestic violence.”

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NIENKE GROSSMAN

Last year, Professor Grossman served as a legal adviser to the government of Chile in a maritime dispute (Peru v. Chile) in the International Court of Justice and in December attended oral hearings in The Hague, Netherlands.

Grossman spoke at the annual Women and the Law Conference in San Diego in early February.

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MICHAEL HIGGINBOTHAM

Professor Higginbotham published an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun on Jan. 24 entitled “Ghosts of Jim Crow Haunt Us Still.” His new book, Ghosts of Jim Crow: Ending Racism in Post-Racial America, was published March 18.

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GILBERT HOLMES

Professor Holmes has been selected as dean of the University of La Verne College of Law in Ontario, Calif. He will begin his tenure at La Verne this summer.

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DIONNE KOLLER

Professor Koller published an op-ed in The Baltimore Sun on Jan. 20. The article, pegged to cyclist Lance Armstrong’s admission that he used performance-enhancing drugs, urged that the regulations governing Olympic movement athletics in the United States be extended to college and professional sports.

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ROBERT LANDE

On Dec. 3, Professor Lande addressed the annual meeting of the American Antitrust Institute. His talk, “Cartels as Rational Business Strategy: Crime Pays,” was based on an article published in December in the Cardozo Law Review.

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KENNETH LASSON

Professor Lasson spoke at a conference at Goodenough College, University of London, on Dec. 2. The title of his presentation was “Antisemitism on Campus.” The conference was sponsored by the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism.

Lasson contributed an op-ed to The Baltimore Sun on Feb. 28 urging President Obama to grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard, who was convicted in 1985 of providing classified information to Israel and sentenced to life in prison.

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MATTHEW LINDSAY

Professor Lindsay’s article “Immigration, Sovereignty, and the Constitution of Foreignness” was published in February in the Connecticut Law Review.

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MAX OPPENHEIMER

Professor Oppenheimer served as a judge for the Emmy Awards and for the University of Maryland, College Park’s Inventor of the Year award. He also produced several articles recently:

“Patentable Subject Matter and Separation of Powers” was the lead article in Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law (Vol. 15, No. 1).

“Four Things Every Inventor Should Do by March 15” is scheduled for publication in the online version of the Oklahoma Journal of Law and Technology. The paper was recently listed on SSRN’s Top Ten download list for IRPN: Innovation & Intellectual Property Law & Policy (Topic), Innovation Law & Policy eJournal, Intellectual Property: Patent Law eJournal, Law & Society: Legislation eJournal, Legal History eJournal, and Legislation & Statutory Interpretation eJournal. Oppenheimer is working on a follow-up article titled “Four Things Every Inventor Should Do Now That It’s After March 15.”

Another article, “Zero and the Rise of Technological Lawmaking,” has been accepted for publication by the Pace Law Review.

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ROBERT ROTH

In December, Adjunct Professor Roth presented arguments to the Supreme Court in Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center, No. 11-1231. The case was covered by several media outlets, including Politico.com. The Supreme Court ruled against Roth’s client on Jan. 22.

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MORTIMER SELLERS

Professor Sellers has been elected a member of the Association Internationale de Droit Constitutionnel (International Association of Constitutional Law).

Sellers has been selected, with Professor Stephan Kirste of the University of Salzburg, as the general editor of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. The multi-volume encyclopedia will be a joint production of Springer Verlag and the International Society for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy.

Sellers also published an article, “The Justice of International Law,” in 3 International Legal Theory 297 (2012).

Sellers is planning two trips in 2013: In July he will be a plenary speaker at the biennial conference of the International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, to be held in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where he will deliver a lecture on “Law, Reason and Emotion.” He has also been invited to speak in October at the European University Institute and the Alberaccio Macchiavelli to honor the 500^th anniversary of the publication of Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince.

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COLIN STARGER

Professor Starger is currently working on the SCOTUS Mapping Project, which will map Supreme Court doctrine in a variety of cases. His map detailing the commerce clause debate in the recent Affordable Care Act decision can be found here.

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CHARLES TIEFER

In February, Tiefer was widely quoted after the American Federation of Government Employees released a paper he wrote about savings that could be found by reducing government service contracts. Among the outlets that quoted Tiefer were The Washington Post, the Federal Daily, Federal News Radio, Government Executive and the Federal Times.

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STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS

3L student Jess Emerson is a recipient of an Equal Justice Works fellowship. Every year, 45 to 55 two-year fellowships are awarded to lawyers committed to developing and leading innovative social justice projects. Emerson’s project focuses on implementing Maryland’s “vacating convictions” law, which allows survivors of sex trafficking who have been convicted of prostitution offenses to have those convictions vacated.

In January, UB Law’s National Moot Court team of Ellery Johannessen, Vincent Jackson and Jeffrey Bernstein placed fifth overall out of 150-plus teams. The team was coached by Brad Peabody of the Appellate Division of the Office of the Public Defender.

In February, UB Law’s National Telecommunications Moot Court Team — Meredith Pendergrass, Alison Graham and Anjali Rajasekhar — advanced to the semi-final round before being eliminated in a very close argument.

Ebony Thompson, 3L, received a 2012 Marjorie Cook Endowed Scholars Program award, which is given to women graduate students studying law or public policy who are committed to empowering women and advancing their social status through careers in law or as policymakers.

Katie Gallagher, 2L, testified March 7 before the Judiciary Committee of the Maryland House of Delegates on HB 396 on a bill to prevent cyberbullying. Gallagher was asked to testify based on the research she conducted for a comment she is writing for the UB Law Forum. Professor Michael Meyerson, who helped draft HB 396, also testified before the committee.

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OTHER NEWS

Assistant Dean Jill Green and Professor Michael Higginbotham will be sworn in to the Supreme Court in April on the motion of Professor José Anderson.

Also, Green was elected to the MSBA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar of the Maryland State Bar Association and the Steering Committee for the Pro Bono Coordinating Council.

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The University of Baltimore School of Law is among the 23.6 percent (one of 47) ABA-approved law schools deemed fully transparent as of March 4 by Law School Transparency, a nonprofit legal education policy organization. The Transparency Index measures how law school websites address both voluntary transparency standards and the mandated ABA Standard 509 consumer information. To view UB’s criteria on the Transparency Index, click the link and filter the spreadsheet by “Baltimore.”

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EVENTS

Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, spoke at UB Law on Jan. 23. His lecture was titled “Protecting Democracy’s Fundamental Civil Right: The Right to Vote.” President Obama last month nominated Perez to be the U.S. secretary of labor.

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On Jan. 30, Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts were among several officials who spoke at a town hall meeting at UB Law. Public safety and gun control were the primary topics of the event, which drew a standing-room-only crowd in the moot court room.

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The sixth annual Applied Feminism Conference was held March 7 and 8. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) – the wife of Professor John Bessler – gave the keynote address. The focus of the conference was applied feminism and families.
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On March 12, the 2013 Langenberg Lecture was presented by Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School and former legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State. Koh’s lecture was titled “Teaching Globalization.” The University System of Maryland Langenberg Lecture Series, established in honor of Chancellor Emeritus Donald N. Langenberg, presents fresh perspectives on education in America and is awarded to a USM institution every year.

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The University of Baltimore Law Review and the University of Baltimore School of Law Criminal Law Association on March 28 held a half-day symposium, “Privacy Rights and Proactive Investigations: Emerging Constitutional Issues in Law Enforcement.” Among the panelists were Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, former Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld, state’s attorneys Gregg Bernstein and Scott Shellenberger, and Nancy Forster, former public defender for the state of Maryland.

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NEWS

July 2012 Maryland Bar Results

The 252 UB grads who took the Maryland bar exam for the first time passed at a rate of ­85 percent, while the pass rate for all 276 UB grads who took the exam was 82 percent. UB’s pass rates exceeded the rate for all law school graduates in the nation who took the Maryland exam for the first time (81 percent), as well as that for all Maryland bar takers (76 percent). Moreover, UB’s pass rate was third-best among the nine law schools in the Maryland, Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia region, behind Georgetown and George Washington.

A Conversation with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 

The School of Law was host to U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Nov. 8, providing audience members the chance to listen to a conversation between Holder and Ronald Weich, dean of the School of Law. Click here to access the video.

UB Team Takes Second Place in Moot Court Competition

Professor Byron Warnken reports that the University of Baltimore took second place in the Region III Moot Court Competition, held in November at UB’s School of Law.  The University of Pennsylvania School of Law took first place in the event, which drew teams from seven law schools: University of Baltimore, Villanova, Pittsburgh, Maryland, Temple, Georgetown and Pennsylvania. The members of UB’s winning team are Ellery Johannessen, Vincent Jackson and Jeffrey Bernstein. Next up for the team: the “nationals,” to be held in New York in January.

CENTERS & CLINICS

Center for Families, Children and the Courts

UB’s Center for Families, Children and the Courts’ Truancy Court Program received a $300,000 contribution from AT&T’s Aspire program. The contribution will be used to help develop, implement and analyze the Truancy Court Program in four Baltimore City schools that serve eighth and/or ninth graders.  … The Sept. 5 issue of the Urbanite included an article on truancy that featured the Truancy Court Program and Professor Barbara Babb, director of the center. … The program also was named a “Bright Idea” by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The Bright Ideas initiative recognizes and shares innovative government programs and partnerships that aim to provide reliable solutions to widespread problems. A team of policy experts from academia and the public sector selected the Truancy Court Program, one of 111 programs highlighted nationwide. … The center also received a $60,000 grant for the Truancy Court Program from the Baltimore-based Charles Crane Family Foundation. The Crane Foundation—whose first grant, in 2004, allowed the center to launch the initiative—has funded the program every year since its inception.

Center for International and Comparative Law

UB’s Center for International and Comparative Law held its 2012 John Sumner Stead Lecture on Nov. 13 at the John and Frances Angelos Law Center. The lecture, “Drones, Kill Lists, and American Values,” was presented by Scott Shane, a national security reporter in the New York Times’ Washington bureau. Shane has written extensively about targeted killing under the Obama administration and about the debate over torture during the Bush administrations. For his 2007 articles on interrogation, written with several colleagues, Shane was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. More recently, he has written about CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and the prosecution of people alleged to have leaked classified information.

Innocence Project Clinic

The Innocence Project Clinic‘s application for funding under the FY 2012 Post Conviction DNA Testing Assistance Program was approved for award. The program is a collaborative effort among the Baltimore Police Department, the State’s Attorney’s Office and the University of Baltimore and will run from Jan. 1, 2013, to Dec. 31, 2014. The project aims to ensure that individuals convicted of violent crimes in Maryland state courts who claim factual innocence that can be addressed through post-conviction DNA testing or the analysis of Combined DNA Index System data are identified and properly represented by counsel.

Immigrant Rights Clinic

Director Elizabeth Keyes reports that student-attorneys Ben Messer and Chris Simmons won asylum for a woman from Cameroon; Jacob Finkelstein, Yanna Panagopoulos, James Robinson and Farnoush Samadnejad filed applications for two people seeking asylum from Cameroon and Rwanda; Hayley Tamburello and Julia Fedorova worked in both family and immigration courts to launch the process for two immigrant teens from Central America to find permanent status in the United States; Sophie Le submitted a law-enforcement-endorsed petition for a domestic violence survivor from India; and Mark Desierto found potential relief for a Latino man who feared deportation, which would separate him from his U.S.-citizen children. The IRC student-attorneys also collaborated on developing a policy brief for the Public Justice Center examining the scope of wage theft in Maryland.

Civil Advocacy Clinic

The Civil Advocacy Clinic–taught by Professors Michele Gilman, Daniel Hatcher and Kathryn Loncarich–continues to expose students to a wide array of substantive practice areas and to build their lawyering and critical thinking skills. Jami Lookabill successfully convinced a family court master to reduce an onerous child support order entered against a low-income father who is raising his children; Adam Sindler successfully defended a tenant from a $12,000 lawsuit brought against her by a former landlord seeking to pin repair costs on her; Heather Messick helped a client get her security deposit returned from her landlord; Katie Kerner argued before the Board of Appeals that her client did not commit gross misconduct to disqualify her from unemployment insurance; Ryan Stoker drafted a brief for an unemployment insurance appeal before the Court of Special Appeals; Drew Goodwin settled a case with GEICO relieving his client from all liability related to a car accident; Caitlin Evans obtained special education services on behalf of a high school student with special needs; Lauren Bell drafted a complex set of pleadings in opposition to a motion to compel arbitration by a for-profit school that the clinic’s client is suing.

FACULTY ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Professor John Bessler spoke Dec. 8 at the 2nd Oslo International Symposium on Capital Punishment. He discussed his book Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2012). The book, which was awarded a silver designation in the Independent Publisher Book Awards in the category of U.S. history, will be released in paperback in 2013.