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January 2015

Law School Announces Alabama Law Review’s Voting Rights Act Symposium

The University of Alabama School of Law is pleased to announce the presenters for the Alabama Law Review’s Voting Rights Act Symposium. Join us as the nation’s foremost experts on the Voting Rights Act commemorate the 50th Anniversary of this historic enactment. The symposium is 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27 in the Bedsole Moot Court Room (140).

Presenters

Jack Bass, author of Taming the Storm
Guy-Uriel Charles, Duke University School of Law
Kareem Crayton, University of North Carolina School of Law
Richard L. Hasen, University of California Irvine School of Law
Samuel Issacharoff, New York University School of Law
Pamela Karlan, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Stanford Law School
Franita Tolson, Florida State University College of Law

Law School Hosts Visiting Professor, Students

The Law School welcomes Professor Anne Macduff and nine students from the Australian National University College of Law. Macduff is a faculty member and teaches Legal Theory, Family Law, Evidence, and Foundations of Australian Law.  While in Tuscaloosa, Macduff will team-teach a course on Comparative Race Law with Professor Bryan Fair, while the students will participate in a five-week period of intensive study.

Clinic Interns Win Jury Trial

Civil Law Clinic Certified Legal Interns Scott MacLatchie and Austin Whitten recently won a two-day jury trial in the Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court. The Civil Law Clinic’s client alleged that the contractor who made repairs to her roof and home after the April 2011 tornado did not complete the work properly. After hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the Clinic client, awarding monetary damages against the contractor for his breach of the repair contract. This award will allow the Clinic client to make the necessary repairs to her home.

Law Student Receives Trailblazer of the Year Award

Second year student Shalyn Smith was selected by the Southern Region of the Black Law Students Association as the recipient of the 2015 Trailblazer of the Year Award. The award recognizes students for their hard work and dedication to excellence through exemplification of the SRBLSA theme: Onward and Upward: Blazing the Trail.

Gifts

The Alabama Pattern Jury Instructions Committee Civil contributed $5,000 to the APJI — William Sullivan Scholarship.

An Anonymous gift of $10,000 was donated to the Joseph L. Fine Endowed Scholarship.

The firm of Christian & Small LLP granted $5,000 to The Christian & Small Annual Diversity Scholarship. This scholarship is given to a full-time student whose enrollment enhances the diversity of the Law School’s student population.

Debbie and The Honorable Truman M. Hobbs, Jr., ’83, contributed a total of  $5,000 to the Farrah Law Alumni Society through The Hobbs Foundation.

The Honorable Truman M. Hobbs, Sr. donated a total of $15,200 to the Law School Foundation Unrestricted Fund, the Farrah Law Alumni Society and the Dexter C. Hobbs Memorial Fund through The Hobbs Foundation.

Daniel L. Mosley, ’80, via The Pinkerton Foundation, contributed $5,000.00 to the Dean’s Discretionary Fund.

The members of the Alabama Chapter of the Order of the Coif have donated $10,00 0to the Order of the Coif Endowed Scholarship. This scholarship was established in May 2013.

Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Powell contributed $15,000 to The Jerry Powell Technology Fund through The Jerry W. and Carolyn Powell Family Fund.
A distribution of $7,850 from the Albert G. and Hester Rives Trust was made to the Albert G. and Hester Rives Fund.  This trust is named in honor of Albert G. Rives, a 1924 graduate of the Law School.

The Henry G. and Henry U. Sims Foundation donated $10,000 to the Law School to fund summer stipends for students who choose to work without pay for a public interest law entity.

CLE

Alumni are invited to participate in Alabama training opportunities throughout the state.
Feb. 6: Banking Law Update
Feb. 27: Issues in Elder Law

aus

Professor Anne Macduff and nine students from the Australian National University College of Law are visiting the Law School for five weeks.
Top, from left to right: Prof. Macduff , Prof. Bill Andreen, Claire Elizabeth Schwager, Hui Min Thiang, Georgia Diels, Joshua Smith. Bottom, from left to right: Katelyn Dianella Ewart, Tess Kelly, Lara Olivia Strelnikow, Charisse Smith, Ira Chaudhri.

Career Services

Short-Term Assistance in Research (S.T.A.R.) Program

Each school year, the Career Services Office receives phone calls from employers – usually small firms – who are looking for a student to perform research on a single issue. You’re not looking to hire someone on a long term basis, but you need some quick help. That’s where S.T.A.R. (Short-Term Assistance in Research) comes in.  The CSO will take your request, match you with a qualified Three-L law student who has signed up for the program, and the work can get done. If you’re interested in hiring a student to help with your research needs, you’ll find more information and the application on the CSO website.

Hiring?

Registration is now open for Spring 2015 On-Campus Interviews. The Career Services Office is happy to help you locate 1Ls and 2Ls for summer positions or 3Ls and alumni for post-graduation employment. If you are interested in hiring an Alabama law student for summer or permanent employment, please contact the Assistant Dean for Career Services, Tom Ksobiech (tksobiech@law.ua.edu). The CSO can arrange an on campus interview, collect resumes, or post a position on its electronic job board. All CSO services are free of charge.

Class Notes

  • Sarah Ames, ’97, was featured in Crain’s Chicago Business for running 38 marathons.
  • Spencer Bachus, ’72, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Auburn University’s College of Human Sciences at the 21st International Quality of Life Awards at the United Nations in New York City.
  • Ricky J. McKinney, ’86, has been appointed municipal court judge by the Tuscaloosa City Council.
  • Britt L. Ohlig, ’10, has joined Robert Taub and Associates in Tacoma, Washington, as an associate practicing family law.
  • Ed Rogers, ’82, has joined the Board of Advisors of the Center for a New American Security.
  • Vishal Shah, ’13, has joined Drinker Biddle & Reath in Philadelphia in the life insurance and annuities practice group.

Faculty Notes

DEAN MARK BRANDON attended the Birmingham Area UA School of Law Alumni Holiday Party, hosted by Burr & Forman in Birmingham. He also attended the inaugural meeting of the SEC Law Deans Meeting in Oxford, Mississippi, to discuss shared concerns and possible joint ventures. Dean Brandon spoke at the Tuscaloosa County Bar Association’s Fall CLE Seminar about recent developments in the School of Law.

JUDGE JOSEPH COLQUITT was a member of a master’s thesis committee in the Department of Psychology and participated in a master’s thesis oral examination during December. The candidate successfully defended her thesis on psychopathy and sexually violent predators.
As Chair of the Alabama Sentencing Commission, Colquitt presided at the final 2014 meeting of the Commission. The Commission is preparing its annual report for submission to the Alabama Legislature during the 2015 session. During the December meeting of the DCH Health System Board of Directors, the Directors reelected Colquitt as Chair of the Board. DCH operates three hospitals and a number of healthcare facilities in West Alabama. Colquitt also was recently reappointed by the DCH Board to serve another six-year term as a director.

PROFESSOR WILLIAM H. HENNING, who is chair of the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) committee drafting a uniform act on wage garnishment, attended a meeting of the drafting committee in Tucson, Arizona. The committee expects to have a first reading of the act at the ULC’s 2015 annual meeting and to conclude its work at the 2016 annual meeting.
Henning is also a member of the United States Department of State delegation to Working Group VI of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and attended a meeting at UNCITRAL headquarters in Vienna. The Working Group is preparing a model law on secured transactions for developing nations.

PROFESSOR RICHARD DELGADO’S article with PROFESSOR JEAN STEFANCIC, “Hate Speech in Cyberspace,” was recently listed on an SSRN Top Ten download list for: ISN: Emerging Legal Issues. Another article by Delgado, “Two Narratives of Youth,” was listed on two new Top Ten download lists–LSN: Causes & Consequences of Crime and PRN: Social Norms & Institutions, Collective Action, Rational Choice.
Profs. Delgado and Stefancic delivered a faculty workshop at Seattle University School of Law on First Amendment  formalism.
Delgado was interviewed by Bill Conroy  for a story on police and national security that appeared in Daily Beast, at http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/06/it-s-not-just-the-cops-racism-is-a-problem-for-the-secret-service-too.html.

PROFESSOR RON KROTOSZYNSKI, JR. presented two draft chapters of “Privacy Revisited: A Global Perspective on the ‘Right to Be Let Alone” (forthcoming Oxford University Press, 2015), at the University of Washington Trans-Pacific Comparative Public Law Roundtable, hosted by the University of Washington-Seattle School of Law, in Seattle, Washington, on December 4-6, 2014.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL PARDO’S book, Minds, Brains, and Law: The Conceptual Foundations of Law and Neuroscience (Oxford University Press, 2013), co-authored with Dennis Patterson, was the focus of a conference in December at Swansea University School of Law, Wales.  A paperback edition of the book will be published by Oxford University Press in the Spring of 2015.

PROFESSOR PAMELA PIERSON, along with Tom Albritton, Alan Baty, Nick Danella, Kimberly Geisler, Jessica Powers, Allison Skinner, Buddy Smith and Melinda Sellers, presented a CLE in Birmingham, through Alabama CLE, on “The Business of Being a Lawyer.” The program focused on economic trends in the legal profession, what lawyers can do to be effective “free agents” in the legal marketplace, and issues of Emotional Intelligence relevant to lives of lawyers, such as managing stress, maintaining balance in one’s personal and professional life, and building resilience.  Professor Pierson, along with co-authors Jacklyn Nagel and Mary E. Wood, published “A Qualitative Examination of Self-Care in Lawyers,” in the November 2014 issue of The Jury Expert. This is the first article from their IRB study on stress in lawyers and law students.