Law School News

• December 20^th – Asset Protection Strategies for Real Estate
• December 21^st – Tax Efficient Methods of Getting Money out of a Business
• December 22^nd – Generation Skipping Transfer Tax

Visit www.clealabama.com to sign up.

Now available for download in mp3/podcast format: the November 16th Albritton Lecture by Justice John Paul Stevens.

John Paul Stevens, retired associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, visited Alabama Law Nov. 16^th to present the Fall
2011 Albritton Lecture.

Stevens’ visit coincides with a flurry of recent media coverage about the former justice, who recently released the book Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir. In the book, Stevens chronicles his history with the highest court in the land and focuses on his personal relationship with the five Chief Justices with whom he worked.Join us Nov. 16^th for this rare opportunity to gain insight into the Supreme Court from one of its longest serving members.

Opportunities to earn CLE credit are plentiful in the
month of November, which includes four live seminars and seven teleconferences.

Live Seminars:

• Nov. 4^th – Appellate Practice
• Nov. 11^th – Healthcare Law
• Nov. 18^th – Bankruptcy Law Update
• Nov. 30^th – Alabama Update Montgomery

Teleconferences:

• Nov. 1^st – Middle Market M & A, Part 1
• Nov. 2^nd – Middle Market M & A, Part 2
• Nov. 3^rd – 2011 Ethics Update, Part 1
• Nov. 4^th – 2011 Ethics Update, Part 2
• Nov. 8^th – Title Insurance in Real Estate
• Nov. 10^th – Ethics of Working with Experts
• Nov. 15^th – UCC Article 9/Foreclosure of Personal Property, Part 1

Sign up today!

Twenty seven recent Alabama Law graduates secured judicial clerkships commencing in 2011. This news is especially impressive given the intense competition for clerkships. According to the New York Times, last year’s clerkship applications exceeded 380,000 for fewer than 1,000 spots.

In addition, every student currently ranked in the top 5% of the Class of 2012 has already secured a federal clerkship following graduation.

“Matters of Faith: Religious Experience and Legal Response,” part of the Sarat Symposia on Law, Knowledge and Imagination, takes place this Friday, Oct. 14^th, from 8:30 a.m. – 4:45 p.m. in the Bedsole Moot Court Room (140).

Symposium speakers are:

• Austin Sarat, Justice Hugo L. Black Visiting Senior Faculty Scholar, The University of
  Alabama School of Law, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence
  and Political Science, Amherst College
• Corey Brettschneider, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brown University
• Caroline Mala Corbin, Associate Professor of Law, University of Miami School of Law
• Richard W. Garnett, Associate Dean and Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of
  Political Science, University of Notre Dame Law School
• Amanda Porterfield, Robert A. Spivey Professor of Religion, Florida State University
• Steven D. Smith, Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego School
  of Law.

“The relationship of American law and faith has long been a subject of controversy,” says Sarat. “Secularists insist on rigid separation. In their view, the state must remain neutral in all matters of faith. Others believe that some of the most important tenets of American law have religious roots and that law is enriched when it engages matters of faith. These arguments flourish in various academic disciplines: history, political theory, literary studies, sociology, and law, to say nothing of the political arena and conversations in various faith communities.”

Accordingly, “Matters of Faith: Religious Experience and Legal Response” will explore several key questions:

• Does modern law depend on faith or does faith threaten to undermine it?
• How does law invest expressions of faith and faith based practice with particular meanings?
• How does law respond to changes in those expressions and practices?
• What are the most important/persuasive critical perspectives on the relationship of law and
  faith?
• When should law accommodate religious expression? When should law recognize faith as the
  grounds for exempting someone from the reach of otherwise valid law?

This event is open to alumni, media and other guests. No registration required.

University of Alabama School of Law Professor Dan Joyner visited the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Sept. 30th, to participate in a panel discussion centered around his new book, Interpreting the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The panel also included Dr. James Acton of Carnegie and Dr. Christopher Ford, former United States Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation. Panelists examined legal interpretation issues raised in the book about the non-proliferation treaty.

Listen to the event.

Prof. Andrew Morriss and panel debate whether green jobs should be left to the green marketplace on MSNBC.

The University of Alabama School of Law has once again been named a “Best Value” Law School by National
Jurist magazine.

UA Law ranked among the top 20 Best Value Law Schools, based on criteria including bar passage rate and percentage of students employed within the first nine months after graduation.

© Bob Krasner

The Confession Named Inaugural Winner of New Legal Literary Award

For his work in The Confession, #1 best-selling author John Grisham is being awarded the 2011 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, a new literary award co-sponsored by The University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal, the flagship magazine of the American Bar Association.

United States Attorney General Eric Holder helped initiate this award at a ceremony last September in Tuscaloosa, marking the 50^th anniversary of the publication of To Kill A Mockingbird. Ms. Harper Lee, who attended The University of Alabama School of Law, approved of this award.

The Harper Lee Prize will be given annually to a published work of fiction that best exemplifies the positive role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.

The Confession was declared the 2011 winner by a distinguished Selection Committee, including David Baldacci, Linda Fairstein, Morris Dees and Robert J. Grey, Jr. In the Committee’s view, The Confession, which explores an attorney’s tireless efforts to save his client from being executed for a crime he did not commit, most-deservedly embodies the spirit of the Harper Lee Prize.

Grisham will be presented with the award during a special ceremony September 22, at 2 p.m., at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Following the award presentation, David Baldacci will lead a discussion of The Confession, in relationship to Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, including guest panelists Morris Dees, Linda Fairstein, Robert Grey, Laura Miller, and Thane Rosenbaum.