The Faculty Lounge

Polsky Stepping into the Faculty Lounge

It's my great pleasure to welcome my collegue Gregg Polsky into the faculty lounge.  Gregg is the Willie Person Mangum Professor of Law here at UNC, where he teaches in tax and writes in a variety of tax and corporate areas.  He is the co-author of Federal Income Taxation: Cases and Materials and author of numerous articles, including Taxing Punitive Damages (with Dan Markel) in the Virginia Law Review, Taxing Structured Settlements (with Brant Hellwig) in the Boston College Law Review, and Taxing the Promise to Pay (also with Brant Hellwig), in the Minnesota Law Review.  You may also have seen his op-ed with Dan Markel in the New York Times last June.  More of Gregg's recent work is available on ssrn.

I'm very much looking forward to Gregg's posts on many topics; I suspect they'll run from uber-serious and sophisticated tax and corporate topics -- you may have seen his recent Michigan Law Review First Impressions piece on health care bonds, Reconstructing the Individual Mandate as an Escrow Account  -- to behavioral economics, to hiring (he's chairing hiring here this year).  Welcome, Gregg.  Dan and I have a pushed a chair into the lounge for you -- sit for a spell!

Orentlicher Stepping Into the Lounge

It's my pleasure to welcome my friend David Orentlicher into the faculty lounge.  David is the Samuel R. Rosen Professor of Law and Co-director of the William S. and Christine S. Hall Center for Law and Health at Indiana University's Robert H. McKinney School of Law, where he teaches in health law, constitutional law, professional responsibilty, and trusts and estates, among other areas.  He has also held visiting professor positions at Princeton, the University of Iowa, and the University of Richmond.  From 2002 to 2008,  David served in the Indiana House of Representatives from 2002 to 2008.  His emphasis in the legislature included making health care insurance more affordable, increasing the pool of venture capital for new businesses, and ensuring better protection of children from abuse and neglect.

David, who holds both medical and law degrees from Harvard, is also one of our nation's foremost scholars of health law.  He is the author of  Matters of Life and Death: Making Moral Theory Work in Medical Ethics and the Law (Princeton University Press, 2001) and co-author of Health Care Law and Ethics (Aspen,  2007), as well as numerous articles.  You can read some of his recent scholarship on ssrn here.

Very much looking forward to hearing David's thoughts about health care and all manner of other things, too.

Happy Hour At The AALS

In order to promote the echo chamber effect, and insure lots of folks join us, I want to reiterate Dan Markel's post and remind everyone of the law prof happy hour - hosted by Prawfs, Co-op, and the Faculty Lounge - tomorrow night, January 5, 2012, from 9pm on.  It'll be at Lillie's - 2915 Connecticut Ave. - a short walk north of the Marriott Wardman Park.   Drexel Law is sponsoring the event  (for the first while, at least) in celebration of receiving full ABA accreditation and possibly (if the vote goes well earlier tomorrow evening) membership in the AALS. 

Drexel Law Accreditation + AALS + Blawgs = Happy Hour

As Dan Markel noted over at Prawfs, the annual AALS conference blawg-hosted cocktail hour will be held the evening of Thursday, January 5, 2012, at a location to be announced.  We're joining Prawfsblawg and Co-op in hosting this year.  And my own academic home, the Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University, will be footing the bill (for a while, at least) in recognition of both our full ABA accreditation and the fact that the AALS House of Representatives will be voting on our admission to the AALS earlier that same evening.  (We are very hopeful that the vote will make this a particularly happy Happy Hour, from the Drexel Law  point of view!)    

Welcome Guest Blogger Beth Thornburg

We're very pleased to welcome guest blogger Elizabeth Thornburg, a professor of law at Southern Methodist University, to the Lounge.  Beth's teaching and scholarly foci are civil procedure and ADR.  Now she and her co-authors Marc Galanter, James Clapp, and Fred Shapiro have a new book coming out from Yale University Press entitled  Lawtalk: The Unknown Stories Behind Familiar Legal Expressions.  We're looking forward to hearing more about that and other things while she visits with us here.  Welcome Beth!

Bernie Burk Stepping Into the Faculty Lounge

My new colleague and friend Bernie Burk is stepping into the faculty lounge to sit with us for a spell.  Bernie joined the UNC faculty this summer from Stanford, where he had been an academic fellow at the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance; before that he was for many years a shareholder at Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin in San Francisco.  After law school at Stanford, he had clerked for Judge William Schwarzer of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Bernie writes and teaches in professional responsibility and on the legal profession.  And he is the author recently with David McGowan of "Big But Brittle: Economic Perspectives on the Future of the Law Firm in the New Economy" in the Columbia Business Law Review.

Introducing Guest Blogger Carissa Hessick

We're very pleased to welcome Carissa Hessick to the Lounge.  Carissa is a Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State.  She is a Yale Law graduate, a former Wachtell associate, and an alum of the Climenko program.  She could teach law prof hopefuls a ton about how to get a teaching job...and she has!  She's also written some very interesting crim law scholarship.  Welcome to the Lounge!

Introducing Guest Blogger Brendan Maher

I'm a bit late from the gate on this one - Brendan put up his first post yesterday - but I'm pleased to welcome Brendan Maher to the Lounge.  He is an assistant professor at Oklahoma City University School of Law.  Brendan is a graduate of Harvard Law School and joined the OCU faculty in 2009.  His publications are here.  Welcome to the Lounge!

Introducing Guest Blogger Sheila Scheuerman

We're pleased to introduce Sheila Scheuerman as a new guest blogger at the Lounge.  Sheila is Associate Professor of Law, and Director of Faculty Development and Scholarship, at Charleston School of Law.  She received her JD from Washington University in St. Louis (and completed the Freedman Fellowship at Temple) and joined Charleston in 2006.  Her publications, which focus largely on punitive damages, are here.  She is also a blogger at TortsProf.

Welcome to the Lounge!

Introducing Guest Blogger John Kang

 
We're very pleased to welcome John Kang as a guest blogger here at the Lounge.  John is a Professor of Law at St. Thomas University School of Law, in Miami.  He holds a JD from UCLA and a Ph.D in political science from the University of Michigan.  John writes primarily in the areas of free speech and masculinity studies. You can find a list of his many varied publications here.  He is also a very popular teacher.  Who else out there can claim the student award for Professor of the Year in upper level classes for the years 2007 through 2011, inclusive? 

Welcome, John!

Introducing Guest Bloggers Tuan Samahon and Jessie Owley

We're very pleased to welcome two new visitors to the Lounge. 

Tuan Samahon is a Professor at Villanova University School of Law.  He previously was a member of the UNLV faculty.   Tuan teaches and writes in the areas of federal courts and constitutional law.  He holds a BA from  BYU and a JD from Georgetown.

Jessie Owley is an Associate Professor at the University at Buffalo Law School.  She was previously on the faculty at Pace Law.  Jessie teaches and writes in the areas of environmental and property law.  She holds a JD and a Ph.D from UC Berkeley. 

I'm looking forward to hearing from our new guests.  Welcome!

Welcome Sarah Lawsky To The Lounge

We're very pleased that Sarah Lawsky will be joining us as a guest blogger.  Sarah joined the UC Irvine law faculty last fall, moving west from George Washington University.  She is a graduate of Yale Law, with a tax LLM from NYU and - shocker - teaches and writes in the area of tax law (publishing in the Penn and Minnesota Law Reviews, among other places. )  She's done some great blogging over at Co-op and Prawfs - including running this year's entry level hiring report - and we're particularly excited to welcome her to the Lounge.

Welcome Guest Blogger Franita Tolson

We're very pleased to welcome Franita Tolson who will be guest blogging here at the Lounge for a bit.  Franita is an assistant professor at Florida State University College of Law.  She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, joined the FSU faculty in 2009 and teaches in the areas of constitutional law, election law and employment discrimination.  Her article Partisan Gerrymandering as a Safeguard of Federalism appeared in the Utah Law Review last year.  Perhaps of greatest interest to our readers, she maintains her own blog, Democracy and Distrust.  Welcome to the Lounge!

Rosin Guest Blogging With Us

My friend -- and Tim's colleague -- Gary Rosin of South Texas College of Law is stepping into the faculty lounge to talk with us for a bit.  Gary teaches corps, securities regulation, corporate finance, and the like, but I asked Gary to come in now to talk about his work on ABA accreditation standards and bar pass rates.  You may recall that we spoke about one of Gary's recent papers, "Endangered: Historically Black Schools?"  last month here.  Gary's been following the implications of the ABA's increasingly strict approach to graduates' bar pass rates for at least five years now.  Gary's work also has important implications for LaVerne.

Gary's other scholarship includes Agency, Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies with Michael L. Closen, which will be coming out in a revised edition later this year.  His home blog is Law By the Numbers.

Jane Moriarty Appointed to Carol Los Mansmann Chair

Professor Jane Campbell Moriarty from the University of Akron School of Law has been appointed to the inaugural Carol Los Mansmann Chair in Faculty Scholarship at Duquesne University.  Press release here.  She will be taking up her new position on August 16.  Congratulations to Jane and to Duquesne on a great hire.

Remaining Dean Searches

Now that my own school has finished up its dean search, I'm wondering about the remaining dean searches for this year and what's going on with them.  The schools that spring to mind as potentially not having yet completed dean searches are Brooklyn (which is down to one candidate now), Fordham, and Colorado.  Are there others and does anyone have updated info on these searches?

The End of LexOpus

I noticed today that LexOpus (the online submission system that was a little more international and gave a little more flexibility to authors and journals than Expresso) is ceasing operations at the end of May.  Announcement here.  I don't know the background to the decision to stop the service, but would be interested in any info others may have.

Brooklyn Dean Search Finalists

The Brooklyn Law School has recently announced the two finalists for its deanship.  They are Daniel Capra (Fordham) and Lawrence Mitchell (George Washington).  Official announcement here.

UPDATE:  On April 20, Lawrence Mitchell's appointment as the new dean of CWRU school of law was announced.  So he is out of the running at Brooklyn.

CWRU Law Review Symposium: Call for Papers

Our law review has asked me to post the following call for papers for their fall symposium on the future of private and public sector collective bargaining.

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Case Western Reserve Law Review

CALL FOR PAPERS

and

SYMPOSIUM ANNOUNCEMENT

THE FUTURE OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

The Symposium will take place at Case Western Reserve School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio

October or November 2011 date to be announced

 The Case Western Reserve Law Review is announcing a Call for Papers that address present problems and propose new solutions concerning the future of private and public sector collective bargaining rights. Contention over recent developments in public sector collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin and Ohio promise major change and debate. Case Western’s symposium will discuss this opportunity for change and may include potential topics such as:  

 Desirability and Viability of Collective Bargaining

• Unionization in the Private and Public Sector
• Trends in Labor Law
• Legal Issues that Arise from Public Sector Pension Reforms
• Unions and Politics
• New Approaches to Private and Public Sector Unionization
• Private Sector Unionization and Outsourcing

 Anyone interested in being a speaker at the symposium or interested in being considered for publication in the Case Western Reserve Law Review Volume 62 should submit an abstract to lawreview@case.edu by June 1, 2011. Each abstract should discuss one or more of the foregoing potential symposium topics. A committee will review the abstracts and will invite applicants to speak at the symposium and/or publish in the Law Review. The committee will base invitations on the relevancy, quality, and originality of the abstract. Potential symposium speakers may include legal scholars, economists, political scientists, social scientists, politicians, and collective bargaining experts including those from jurisdictions outside the United States.

 

Mary Wong Named Director of new Franklin Pierce Center for IP at UNH

Press release here.

Congratulations, Mary!