2L Moot Court Fellows Win Regional Moot Court Competition
Eunji Jo (’17), Briana Knox (’17) and Mary Lauren Kulovitz (’17) will proceed to the National Moot Court Competition in New York City after Alabama Law defeated Belmont University and was named Regional Champion in Oxford, Mississippi.
Within a field of 11 teams, the 2L Moot Court Fellows compiled a perfect record, defeating law school teams from the University of Memphis, Vanderbilt University, Mississippi College of Law and the University of Tennessee to advance to the final round of competition. Knox was named Best Oralist of the final round.
“Throughout the competition, the team demonstrated incredible knowledge, skill and professionalism in a field of primarily third-year students,” said Mary Ksobiech, Assistant Dean for Students and Legal Writing Lecturer.
Law School Launches Business of Being a Lawyer Video Library
The University of Alabama School of Law announces the launch of The Business of Being a Lawyer video library, http://www.law.ua.edu/BBLvideos, which integrates the “real world” practice of law with legal education. Two years in the making, the BBL video library is the first of its kind in legal education.
“The legal profession is undergoing dramatic changes which present opportunities for law students and lawyers who are aware of them and know how to adapt to them,” said Pamela Bucy Pierson, the Bainbridge-Mims Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law. “The lawyers in this library have shared their time and experience, providing advice that is practical, helpful, candid, and often humorous, on how to thrive in the legal profession of the future.”
Serving the State
Professor Steve Emens (’76) has been shaping prosecutors and public defenders for more than 25 years as the Faculty Advisor and a Coach for the Law School’s Intercollegiate Trial Advocacy Team.
Each semester, he and Robert Prince (’74), a Trial Attorney for Prince Glover & Hayes in Tuscaloosa, coach trial advocacy teams and accompany them as they compete against other teams across the nation.
In the classroom and in practice sessions, Emens focuses on the art of trying a case. He teaches students how to present a case and how to persuade a jury.
“The great lawyers understand the art of it: the psychology of dealing with a jury and the psychology of dealing with witnesses,” he said. “This is what makes it so challenging and so rewarding.
On Campus Interviews
Registration is now open for Spring 2016 On-Campus Interviews. The Career Services Office helps employers find 1Ls and 2Ls for summer positions as well as 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.
Alumni are invited to participate in training opportunities throughout the state.
December 4
Estate Planning Birmingham
December 10
Taking and Defending Depositions Birmingham
December 11
Tort Law Update Birmingham
December 16
Business and Complex Litigation Birmingham
December 17
Employment Law Update Birmingham
December 18
Alabama Update – Birmingham Birmingham
December 21
Trial Skills Birmingham
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As you consider your charitable gifts between now and the end of the year, remember that gifts made now could generate income tax deductions that may help reduce your tax bill for 2015. Click here to ensure your gift is received by December 31, 2015.
PROFESSOR RICHARD DELGADO was quoted recently in DailyNews Gems, a blog of analysis and commentary on the national news. In "Fact-Checking the GOP Debate: Welders, Philosophers, and Illegal Immigrants," http://www.dailynewsgems.com/2015/11/fact-checking-the-gop-debate-welders-philosophers-and-illegal-immigrants-1.html, Delgado critiques Donald Trump’s assertion that Operation Wetback, a 1950’s-era program of mass deportation of Latino people, serves as a useful benchmark for current options.
California Law Review accepted Delgado’s and PROFESSOR JEAN STEFANCIC’S article, Strict Scrutiny and Majoritarian Oppression in an Era of Multi-Group Politics–Examining a New Southern Strategy in Light of Standard White: Dismantling White Normativity, By Michael Morris. Their article will appear in the Review’s electronic supplement in a 2016 symposium on the social construction of white identity. Morris’s article will appear simultaneously in the print version of the Review. He is a recent graduate of UA Law School.
PROFESSOR SHAHAR DILLBARY is on sabbatical during the fall semester to work on a number of scholarly projects. In October 2015 he presented his recent scholarship on causation at an Emory School of Law Faculty Workshop and a Tel Aviv University Law and Economics Workshop. The project offers a novel approach for analyzing cases with multiple actors. Professor Dillbary was recently invited to present his new article at the University of Chicago and the Southeastern Economic Association conference.
PROFESSOR HEATHER ELLIOTT served as the Law School’s organizer and host for the Southeast Junior-Senior Scholars Workshop, held in Tuscaloosa, November 13 and 14. This annual workshop permits junior scholars from as many as ten top-tier law schools in the Southeast to contribute drafts of their current work, receive formal comments from two senior scholars, and receive further comments from all participants. Schools participating, in addition to the University of Alabama School of Law, were the law schools at Emory, the University of Florida, Florida State University, the University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina, Tulane University, Wake Forest University, and Washington University in Saint Louis.
Professor Elliott also published her essay, “Balancing and Separating Power: Congress’s Authority to Recognize New Legal Rights,” at 68 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 181 (2015) and attended the second working meeting of the Focus Area Panel on Riparian Rights and Other Legal Issues, held on the University of Alabama campus on November 12.
PROFESSOR MIRIT EYAL-COHEN served as a commentator and presented her paper “Taxing Economies of Scale, Scope, and Age” at the National Tax Association Annual Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. The paper is the first to conceptualize the combined effect of regulation and structural market effects as a form of regressive taxation on entrepreneurial firms. The National Tax Association is the leading association of tax professionals dedicated to advancing the understanding of the theory and practice of public finance. Its members include government officials, IRS agents, economists, policymakers, practitioners, legal scholars, and public finance professors.
PROFESSOR JULIE A. HILL presented her paper Banks, Marijuana, and Federalism by video conference to a Marijuana and the Law Seminar at Texas A&M School of Law on November 11, 2015. In addition, Professor Hill’s article When Bank Examiners Get it Wrong: Financial Institution Appeals of Material Supervisory Determinations was cited by NCUA Board Member J. Mark McWatters in a November 4, 2015, Credit Union Journal op-ed calling for an improved examination appeals process at the credit union regulator.
PROFESSOR PAUL HORWITZ was a panelist in early November at the Notre Dame Law Review’s annual symposium. The subject this year was "Religious Liberty and the Free Society: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Dignitatis Humanae." His talk, on liberal and pluralist justifications for the accommodation of illiberal groups, will be published in the Notre Dame Law Review.
PROFESSOR DAN JOYNER gave presentations at the University of Westminster in London, the University of Oxford, and the University of Manchester. His presentations were on the latest legal and diplomatic developments concerning Iran’s nuclear program, and were in support of his forthcoming book on the subject, which will be published in 2016 by Oxford University Press.
PROFESSOR RON KROTOSZYNSKI, JR. presented the ABA Administrative Law Section’s 2015 award for legal scholarship in administrative law to Professor Anne Joseph O’Connell, of the University of California-Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law faculty, at the section’s annual awards dinner on October 30, 2015, in Washington, D.C. He serves as vice-chair of the Administrative Law Section’s Annual Scholarship Award Selection Committee and is also a member of the section’s governing council. On November 13-14, 2015, Krotoszynski served as a senior reader/commentator at the Eleventh Circuit Junior/Senior Faculty Workshop, hosted by the Stetson University College of Law, in St. Petersburg, Florida.
PROFESSOR PAM PIERSON spoke to law school alumni in Atlanta in October, to an Honors Class at the University of Alabama in November, and to the Alabama State Bar Leadership Forum Section meeting in December.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN RUSHIN presented a paper on the regulation of local police departments at Berkeley Law on October 22 as part of an event sponsored by the Center for the Study of Law and Society. He was also invited to speak to the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern Law School in April of 2016 on the use of civil rights litigation in American police departments, and he was invited to take part in a symposium through the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law discussing the “civil side of criminal procedure,” which should appear in print in early 2016. Additionally, he was recently quoted in The Los Angeles Times in an article about the Obama Administration’s attempts to crack down on police abuse.
Professor Rushin’s article titled, “Using the Deaths in Custody Reporting Act to Reduce Police Violence” was accepted for publication in the January 2016 edition of the Boston College Law Review.
PROFESSOR GARY SULLIVAN served as a panelist at the 34th Annual Bankruptcy Law Update conference held in Birmingham, Alabama, in November. As part of the ethics panel, he led a discussion of ethical challenges presented by attorneys offering Limited Scope Representation arrangements in consumer bankruptcy cases.
