News
Feinberg Lectures on Mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution
Distinguished Visiting Lecturer Kenneth Feinberg addressed the Law School about mediation and alternative dispute resolution. In his talk, he discussed some of the many cases he has administered, describing them as logistically challenging and emotionally taxing. Feinberg has managed claims arising from some of the nation’s “darkest moments” and posing the “vexing question” of what a life is worth, said Dean Mark E. Brandon. “It is probably no exaggeration to say that Mr. Feinberg has become one of the most active and successful mediators, arbitrators, alternative dispute resolvers in the history of the world,” Brandon said during his introduction of Feinberg. Read more.
Alabama Law Ranks 10th Best in Study of Graduates’ Debt Load
The University of Alabama School of Law is ranked 10th among all law schools whose students graduate with the least amount of debt, according to a new U.S. News & World Report study. “By keeping our tuition low, and by helping to ensure that our graduates leave with less debt than they might at comparable law schools, we know that our students have enormous opportunities to pursue their desired career, no matter what – or where – it may be,” said Dean Mark E. Brandon. Read more.
Bradley Hargett: Serving the State
Bradley C. Hargett (’16) was surprised when he learned in June that he had won the Alabama State Bar’s Pro Bono Law Student Award. “I had no idea I had been nominated and it was very exciting to know that the state bar recognizes the efforts of law students and attorneys in pro bono service,” he said. Read more.
Events
The University of Alabama School of Law is pleased to announce a symposium on Legal Ethics Surrounding E-Discovery and Technology Law, co-sponsored by The Journal of the Legal Profession. The symposium is scheduled for 9:15 a.m.-3:45 p.m. Friday, November 13, in the Judge Seybourn H. Lynne Lecture Hall (A255).
Hiring?
On Campus Interviews Registration is now open for Fall 2015 On-Campus Interviews. The Career Services Office helps employers find 2Ls for summer positions and 3Ls and alumni for post-graduation employment. Please contact the Assistant Dean for Career Services, Lezlie A. Griffin (lgriffin@law.ua.edu), for more information on recruitment opportunities. The CSO arranges on-campus and video-conference interviews, collects resumes and posts positions on its electronic job board. All CSO services are free of charge.
S.T.A.R.
Employer registration for the University of Alabama School of Law’s STAR (Short-Term Assistance in Research) Program is now open. The STAR program provides legal research assistance for solo practitioners, small law firms, and other legal employers from a pool of third-year law students. Once we receive your research request, we will connect you with a third-year law student with a minimum 3.0 GPA who has signed up to accept research assignments through the STAR program. You and the student can then correspond directly for more specific details about your assignment. The assignments can be large or small, depending upon your need, and in accordance with the rules of the program detailed here: http://www.law.ua.edu/resources/CSOstar/employer/. No advance sign-up is required. When a research need arises, simply complete and submit the online form, and we’ll connect you with a student. If you have questions about the STAR Program please contact Todd Engelhardt, Assistant Director for Career Services.
CLE Alabama
Alumni are invited to participate in training opportunities throughout the state.
October 9 The Complete UCC Birmingham
October 13 Practical Tips From Top Mediators Online
October 16 22nd Annual Family Law Retreat to the Beach October 16-17 Orange Beach
October 23 Real Estate Law Birmingham
October 30 Business Law Birmingham
Class Notes
- William C. Avant (’06) has been named associate area counsel for the Chicago Title Insurance Company, Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company and Fidelity National Title Insurance for Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas.
- Keren E. McElvy (’11) has joined Rosen Harwood and will practice in the areas of Business Transactions, Real Estate, Cyber Liability and Data Breach, and Estate Planning.
- Evan Glover (’01) has been named senior counsel to a division of General Electric, GE Transportation.
- Stephen D. Kane (’69) is a member of the first board of directors for Payscape, a financial technology company.
- Hank Adam Locklin (’95) has joined Bone McAllester Norton in Nashville and will practice in the firm’s Entertainment Law area.
- Strudwick Marvin Rogers (’78) has published “Fieldwide Unitization and Enhanced Recovery of Oil and Gas,” 68 Ark.L. Rev. 425 (2015). The article is the result of Rogers’s address to a symposium sponsored by the University of Arkansas Law School in 2014.
Send Class Notes to Alumni News.
Gifts
- The estate of Susan G. Delony has contributed a total of $ 2.715 million to the Delony Family Endowed Scholarship in memory of her father John Delony (1908) and brother Clifford Delony (1948). The scholarship will be given to students who maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA. A preference will be given to students from Colbert County. The Law School is profoundly grateful for this generous gift.
- Bradley Arant Boult Cummings contributed $7,450 to the Farrah Law Alumni Society.
Faculty Notes
PROFESSOR BILL BREWBAKER presented a paper titled “Creaturely Law” at a conference on “Law and Theology: Interactive Normativities” in Berlin on September 17. On September 25, he delivered the Payne Lecture on Christianity and the Law at the Mississippi College School of Law.
PROFESSOR JAMES BRYCE hasbeen working with a group spearheaded by Sen. Bill Hightower to replace the current Alabama income tax with a revenue-neutral flat tax.
PROFESSOR RICHARD DELGADO was selected for a faculty fellowship at Texas A & M’s Institute for Advanced Study, a three-year old program under the aegis of the main campus in College Station. He will be the program’s 24th fellow. The previous 23 have featured two Nobel laureates, a winner of the Wolf Prize, a recipient of the Hubbell award, and the designer of the world’s largest telescope, in Chile. PROFESSOR JEAN STEFANCIC will accompany him as visiting professor in the new A & M law school, which is in Fort Worth, Texas.
Professor Delgado was interviewed by a reporter from the Associated Press about the trial of an Alabama police officer for violating the civil rights of an elderly Indian visitor who was walking in his son’s neighborhood. The story appeared in local newspapers, ABC News, and The Washington Times, among other outlets.
The Corporate Law Blog featured Delgado’s exchange with a second scholar in the Wake Forest Law Review over the possibility of reform of the U.S. system of corporate capitalism.
PROFESSOR HEATHER ELLIOTT presented a research project with Samantha Pline, J.D. candidate 2017, at the Alabama Water Resources Conference in Orange Beach, Alabama, on Thursday, September 10. The project investigates the history of water resources management in Georgia and South Carolina, focusing on the political history of the move in those states from a common-law to a statutory regime for water and the lessons Alabama can learn from those states’ transitions to statutory regulation. The project is part of a larger treatise on Alabama water law and policy edited by Professor Elliott and funded by a grant from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Professor Elliott has been appointed by Gov. Robert Bentley to the Focus Area Panel (FAP) on Riparian Rights and Other Legal Issues, one of five FAPs created by the Governor in response to the Alabama Water Agencies Working Group report, “Mapping the Future of Alabama Water Resources Management.” Professor Elliott attended the Governor’s initial meeting with the FAPs in Montgomery on September 3.
PROFESSOR MIRIT EYAL-COHEN presented “Economies of Scale, Scope, and Age,” at the “Midwestern Law & Economics Association,” October 1-3 in Lawrence, Kansas. This leading conference includes scholars from different parts of the nation (despite its local name) and from different areas of law. It is considered one of the leading law and economics conferences and provides opportunities for professors from various areas of law who employ law and economics methodology to meet with peers. Professor Eyal-Cohen was selected to participate in “The Law & Economics Center Workshop for Law Professors on Austrian Law and Economics” at George Mason University School of Law October 8-10 in Arlington, Virginia. The Workshop will present the basic and distinctive ideas of Austrian economics, including market process v. equilibrium, spontaneous order, division of knowledge, entrepreneurship, and subjectivism, using historical issues as case studies for applying these ideas to particular concepts. The Workshop will also cover Hayek’s contributions to law and economics, a comparison of Austrian and neoclassical approaches to law and economics, market magic and price formation experiments, and applications of Austrian perspectives to law and regulation.
PROFESSOR RON KROTOSZYNSKI, JR., has published “Transcending Formalism and Functionalism in Separation of Powers Analysis: Reframing the Appointments Power After Noel Canning,” 64 Duke L.J. 1513 (2015). He has also published “Free Speech Paternalism and Free Speech Exceptionalism: Pervasive Distrust of Government and the Contemporary First Amendment,” 76 Ohio St. L.J. 659 (2015). On August 5, 2015, Professor Krotoszynski presented “The Disappearing First Amendment” at a faculty workshop at the Seattle University School of Law, in Seattle, Washington. He also spoke on two panels at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools, in Boca Raton, Florida: “Becoming a Productive and Fulfilled Scholar,” on July 28, 2015, and “Congressional Force Authorization: Constitutional Necessity or Nicety?,” on July 30, 2015. On June 30, 2015, he presented “Reconciling Privacy and Speech in the Era of Big Data,” at the University of Paris-I (Sorbonne), in Paris, France. A published version of this talk appears as “Reconciling Privacy and Speech in the Era of Big Data: A Comparative Legal Analysis,” 56 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1279 (2015), and will comprise a chapter in his forthcoming book-length project on privacy, “Privacy Revisited: A Global Perspective on the Right to Be Let Alone,” forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2016.
PROFESSOR PAM PIERSON was appointed to serve on the Senior Lawyer New Lawyer Task Force of the Alabama State Bar. Her article, “How to Be a Star Performer in the Legal World” is scheduled for publication in a fall issue of the ABA Student Lawyer. This article builds on Professor Pierson’s book, “The Business of Being a Lawyer.”
PROFESSOR GARY SULLIVAN served as a Panelist for a presentation at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools conference in Boca Raton, Florida. Titled “A New Fulcrum Point for City Survival,” the panel examined alternative debt adjustment mechanisms for use by municipalities experiencing financial distress. His segment focused on Chapter 9 bankruptcy and potential solutions to some existing efficiency criticisms. Professor Sullivan was quoted in an article published on AL.com, “Walter Energy’s Bankruptcy Largest in Coal Industry Since 2012,” commenting on facets of the debtor-in-possession’s reorganization plan that proposed a debt-to-equity conversion and impairment of union contracts.