Professor Ronald Krotoszynski is quoted in the Omaha World-Herald about free speech on college campuses.
Krotoszynski, who tracks free speech conflicts, said there isn’t just a “line in the sand” in the United States when it comes to free speech. There’s “a line in steel,” he said, that forbids punishing a person for expressing unpopular or offensive views.
For more, read “UNL Chancellor’s Comments Spark Free-Speech Debate.”
Research authored by Professor Pamela Bucy Pierson recently published in the Journal of Legal Education shows that almost three-fourths of law schools teach or plan to teach students about economic trends in the legal profession, almost half of the schools teach or plan to teach emotional intelligence and less than half of the nation’s law schools report they teach personal financial management relevant to a career in law.
Pierson gathered data in 2014 and 2015 in a survey of all U.S. accredited law schools to determine how law schools are covering subjects.
“These data are exciting,” Pierson writes in her article, “Economics, EQ, and Finance: The Next Frontier in Legal Education.” “They show a rich, diverse, and innovative range of approaches law schools are taking to bring these tools to law students. It also shows more needs to be done.”
Tim Lewis (’84) knew from the moment he arrived at law school that he wanted to be a law librarian.
“I’m attracted to legal research,” he said. “It’s very structured and logical. I never wanted to practice. I had no intention of it.”
After he graduated, he was hired as a reference librarian for the Alabama Supreme Court, and in 1992 he was appointed Director and State Law Librarian.
When he accepted the position, administrators at the law library were planning a move to a new building. As a result, Lewis helped design the law library and administered the process of moving 250,000 books from 10 locations in Montgomery.
He also ushered in technology. The law library was the second state agency after the Alabama Department of Archives and History to have its own website, and it was in the new building that judges, trial lawyers and the general public had direct access to computer-assisted research. Before the move to the new building, anyone who wanted to access Westlaw or LexisNexis had to ask for assistance.
As the library’s administrator, Lewis serves as the de facto historian for the oldest law library in Alabama and the second oldest library in the state. One of his most challenging responsibilities is pleading the case for budgeting to state legislators.
People don’t visit libraries so much for the legal resources housed there; they come to use the expertise of the librarians, who can wade through an ocean of knowledge and find the appropriate document. It’s a public service for the judges and trial lawyers as well as the general public.
“Appellate courts have to access the law, access the cases,” Lewis said. “They base decisions on previous cases. If you don’t have access to those, you can’t function as an appellate court.”
Today the law library serves three courts: The Alabama Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Civil Appeals. It provides access to all appellate cases in the United States and archives all laws passed by legislatures of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as Acts of Congress, the United States Code and federal agency regulations.
The law library is public-service driven, providing help to anyone who needs assistance finding the information they need. While doing that is no longer a part of Lewis’s everyday responsibilities, judges and lawyers routinely call on him for information because they trust he can find it.
“I cannot tell you the number of chief justices and associate justices on the Supreme Court of Alabama that I have witnessed praising him and expressing gratitude for his work,” said Larry King, senior partner with King Simmons, P.C. in Birmingham.
“He loves what he does,” said Penny Gibson, a reference librarian at the Bounds Library at The University of Alabama School of Law, who has known Lewis for more than 30 years. “He’s good with judges. He’s good with law students. He’s good with people who come in. He’s a people person and has a knack for knowing how to deal with people.”
Lewis said he is a reference librarian at heart and relishes the opportunity to help people find the information they need.
“When you can help them, it makes you feel good,” he said. “That’s still the most satisfying part of my job.”
Professor Stephen Rushin is quoted in Pacific Standard about the continuation of federal oversight of police departments in the next presidential administration.
“Historically, conservatives have been less supportive of expansive federal oversight of local police departments than liberals,” Rushin said.
For more, read “Who Do You Call When Your Rapist Is a Cop?”
Legal scholars and members of the banking community will visit The University of Alabama School of Law Aug. 26 to discuss bank director and officer responsibilities.
The conference on Bank Director & Officer Responsibilities will be held in the Bedsole Moot Courtroom, room 140. The event begins at 8:30 a.m. and is free and open to the public.
The 2008 financial crisis raised important questions about the role of bank directors and officers. If they had been more diligent or honest, could we have avoided the crisis? Should they now be held personally responsible for bank losses? What can they do to prevent the next crisis?
These questions are not merely academic. Since the crisis, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has authorized suits against more than 1,200 individuals who served as directors or officers of failed banks. In addition, bank regulators are reportedly scrutinizing the activities of directors and officers at institutions that survived the crisis.
The conference is co-sponsored by the Alabama Law Review, a nationally recognized journal built on a rich tradition of scholarship aimed at exploring issues of national, as well as local significance to scholars, legislators, jurists and practitioners.
At 8:45 a.m., banking professionals will discuss ethics. Benton E. Gup, professor emeritus at The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce, will moderate the panel.
The banking ethics panel will feature:
Kayce Bell, chief operating officer, Alabama Credit Union
Preston L. Kennedy, president and CEO, Bank of Zachary
Hope Mehlman, senior vice president and assistant general counsel, Regions Bank
Jerry Powell, executive vice president, general counsel and secretary, Cadence Bank NA
The conference will feature:
Mehrsa Baradaran, J. Alton Hosch Associate Professor of Law, University of Georgia School of Law
Claire Hill, James L. Krusemark Chair in Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Julie Andersen Hill, professor of law, University of Alabama School of Law
Robert C. Hockett, Edward Cornell Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Douglas K. Moll, Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, LLP Law Center Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center
Saule Omarova, professor of law, Cornell Law School
Chad J. Pomeroy, professor of law, St. Mary’s University School of Law
Heidi Mandanis Schooner, professor of law, Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America
More information is available by clicking here: http://www.law.ua.edu/bankdando
Professor Fredrick Vars published an op-ed in Jurist proposing a compromise federal approach to the problem of guns and terrorism.
“No one wants terrorists to have guns, but the two parties moved on before building on this common ground,” he wrote. “While nothing passed Congress, the seeds of a compromise are buried in the failed Senate bills.”
For more, read “What Next on Terror and Guns?”
Professor Stephen Rushin is quoted in City Lab about how the Voting Rights Act could be used for police reform.
“We think that model of waiting until something so terrible that it results in mass protests, and then responding after the fact, is basically the wrong way to go about this,” Rushin said.
Rushin and Jason Mazzone, Co-Director of the Program in Constitutional Theory, History & Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, published their research, “From Selma to Ferguson: The Voting Rights Act as a Blueprint for Police Reform,” which argues that the civil rights law passed in 1965 to mitigate voter discrimination also offers guidance on how to address policing.
For more, read “How the Voting Rights Act Could Be a Path to Police Reform.”
Heather Fann (’06) has served clients who might not otherwise find legal representation.
In 2013, Fann filed a lawsuit on behalf of V. L., a woman who sought visitation rights after separating from her lesbian partner, E. L., who had given birth to their three children through donor insemination. V. L. adopted the children in Georgia so that both of them would have parental rights. After the couple’s relationship ended, the birth mother argued Alabama did not have to recognize the adoption.
The Alabama Supreme Court issued an order in September 2015 refusing to recognize the Georgia adoption, and the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned the Alabama Supreme Court in March, saying it overstepped its authority.
“The case affirmed in some way the fact that it’s not just about the marriage,” Fann said. “It’s about the families, and these children are due the respect of the law regardless of whether their parents are of the same gender.”
V.L.’s parental rights have been restored, and the case has been remanded to the trial court. It is Fann’s hope the ruling saves other parents from the heartache of trying to remain a part of their children’s lives.
Because of her work on V. L.’s case, Fann was asked to join the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the ACLU of Alabama, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Americans United for Separation of Church and State to represent James Strawser and John Humphrey. They applied for a marriage license in Mobile County, but were denied. Strawser faces significant health issues. Despite having a medical power of attorney, a hospital would not recognize it because Humphrey was not a family member or spouse.
Fann’s interest in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights began in law school. She and Nic Carlisle, who is gay, founded the Law School’s Gay-Straight Alliance, or Outlaw, in 2005, and she served as vice president of the group.
The newly formed Gay-Straight Alliance staged a protest in front of Gorgas Library, after state Rep. Gerald Allen proposed legislation to ban public school libraries from buying new copies of plays or books by gay authors or those that featured gay characters. The event happened the same day Alice Walker was on campus giving a reading. Walker, whose book, The Color Purple, would have been banned under the proposed law, heard about the protest and went to the library to support the group.
Carlisle said he would not have had the courage to the start a gay-straight alliance at UA Law without Fann. He knew then she would be a success after law school.
“It was never about being a traditional lawyer; it was never about money or salary,” he said. “She had an intent drive to help people. I think that took vision.”
While in law school, Fann wrote “Desperately Clinging to the Cleavers: What Family Law Courts Are Doing about Homosexual Parents, and What Some Are Refusing to See” for the Law and Psychology Review. In the article, Fann examined family law governing homosexual parents in the United States and how the legal system denies them their parental rights.
She has heard the reasons why some attorneys won’t take LGBT rights cases. For starters, the cases are difficult to win, and some judges are prejudiced against them. None of that matters to Fann.
“I think that lawyers in the state of Alabama have a responsibility to equality and justice even where our law doesn’t expressly provide it,” Fann said. “I hope more lawyers will take up these cases when they see wrong.”
Retired Judge Hub Harrington said Fann appeared regularly before him in Shelby County Circuit Court and became an advocate of LGBT rights before the movement gained traction.
“In spite of the daunting legal hurdles the cases presented at the time, she was willing to do it when most people weren’t,” he said.
Some lawyers are afraid they will be spurned by other people if they take on LGBT cases. The opposite has happened with Fann, as more clients seek out her expertise. Fann has taken on hundreds of family law cases, but the V. L. and Strawser cases have a much broader effect on the state and society.
“V. L. was the kind of case that I really thought could make a difference,” Fann said. “It was a compelling case in terms of the facts, because we had people who had agreed to be parents together and who had sought the court’s formal recognition of that arrangement.”
Carly Calhoun won the Alabama State Bar’s Pro Bono Law Student Award.
She has been an active volunteer since her very first day of law school, working with the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, Veterans’ Legal Assistance Clinic, Prison Reentry Clinic, Habitat for Humanity Wills Clinic, Project Homeless Connect and Wills for Heroes.
“Calhoun has contributed more than 75 hours of community service and pro bono work during her first two years of law school,” said Glory McLaughlin, Assistant Dean For Public Interest Law. “Not only is she a consistent and reliable presence at the Public Interest Institute’s events and pro bono programs, she always shows up with a smile on her face and a willingness to do whatever is needed.”
