Ian Ross, Robert L. Humphrey, III, Jennifer Sandlin, and Gillian Purser competed in the final round of the John A. Campbell Moot Court Competition on Wednesday, March 11.
A distinguished panel served as judges for the final round. They were: The Honorable William H. Pryor, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, The Honorable Herman N. Johnson, Jr., United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, and The Honorable Bess M. Parrish Creswell, United States Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Alabama.
Ross and Humphrey were the winning team, and Purser won the Reuben H. Wright Award for best advocate. Zach Starr and Ben Seiss won the Walter P. Gewin Award for best brief.
Casey Barberio, Alex Price, and Andrew Toler, all 3Ls, performed well in the Florida Tax Bar’s National Tax Competition at the University of Florida Levin College of Law in Gainesville. The team won the award for Best Brief in the competition and advanced to the quarter-final rounds where they were eliminated by the eventual winner, the University of Wisconsin. The team appreciates the support and guidance of their coach, Clay Staggs (’96).
The Alabama Law Review hosted a one-day symposium, Timbs v. Indiana One Year Later: The Future of Civil Asset Forfeiture, on Friday at the Law School. The symposium explored the consequences of this decision of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Each year, law enforcement officials seize millions of dollars in cash, cars, homes, and other property, regardless of guilt in relation to a crime. In the past year, civil asset forfeiture has undergone significant scrutiny as it resides at the intersection of civil, criminal, and constitutional law.
In its landmark 2019 opinion, Timbs v. Indiana, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause is an incorporated protection applicable to the states and may, as a result, regulate state civil asset forfeiture.
This symposium featured three panel discussions with prominent law professors and practitioners and a keynote address from Louis Rulli, a Practice Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Professor Rulli shared the stories of several Philadelphia residents who lost property to civil asset forfeiture. Most of the residents were people of color and lived in low-income areas of the city.
“The disproportionate statistics, when we look at civil asset forfeiture, is shocking, and it is not simply explained by fighting crime,” he said.
Legal scholars and practitioners also analyzed the history of civil asset forfeiture and its current practices as well as the future of civil asset forfeiture in Alabama.
The University of Alabama School of Law has announced that Tara Leigh Grove will join the School of Law as the Charles E. Tweedy, Jr. Endowed Chairholder in Law in August.
Her teaching will include courses in federal courts, constitutional law, procedure, and legislation and regulation.
Dr. Mark E. Brandon, dean of UA’s School of Law, said he is pleased that Grove will be joining the faculty this fall.
Tara Leigh Grove
“Tara Grove is a nationally renowned constitutional scholar, who has made significant contributions to our understanding of the federal judiciary and the constitutional doctrines pertaining to separation of powers,” Brandon said. “She is also an award-winning teacher. As she helps us create and build a Program in Constitutional Studies – including an Initiative for Civic Engagement – she will be a leader within the Law School and beyond.”
Grove has written extensively about the historical norms and practices that protect judicial independence; the power of government entities (including states) to bring suit in federal court; judicial decision-making and judicial legitimacy; and the interpretive principles that should govern executive orders and other presidential documents. Grove has published with such prestigious law journals as the Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, New York University Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Cornell Law Review, and Vanderbilt Law Review.
“I am delighted to begin this new chapter of my career,” Grove said. “The faculty at the Law School has been exceptionally welcoming, and I look forward to joining this wonderful group in the fall.”
Grove graduated summa cum laude from Duke University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she served as the Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review. She clerked for Judge Emilio Garza on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and she worked for four years as an attorney in the Appellate Staff of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where she argued fifteen cases in the courts of appeals.
About Alabama Law
One of America’s leading public law schools and consistently ranked as one of the best values in legal education, The University of Alabama School of Law offers a challenging curriculum with over 150 electives, several dual enrollment opportunities, Master of Laws degrees, and a J.S.D. With a student-to-faculty ratio of 6.4:1, the law school offers students a rigorous, hands-on learning experience, with strong student engagement in clinical programs, legal journals, moot court teams and trial advocacy.
Professor Julie Hill is quoted by Bloomberg Law about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s enforcement action against banks that opened unauthorized accounts.
For more, read “Fifth Third Facing CFPB Fake Account Enforcement Action.”
The Law School has scheduled a one-day symposium to celebrate the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. The symposium, Centennial Celebration: An Exploration of the Impact of Women Through and Beyond the Law, is scheduled for Friday, April 3, in the Bedsole Moot Court Room. The event will bring together lawyers from across the state to discuss the impact women in the law have made, and will continue to make, in Alabama. With representation from private practice, government, public interest, and the judiciary, the symposium will address the importance of hearing women’s voices in the ballot box and beyond. Kindly RSVP at http://law.ua.edu/WomensCentennial.
Alabama Law’s two teams competed last week at the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition in Philadelphia. The teams did not advance to the national finals, despite outstanding advocacy by the teams: Aaron Blake, 3L, Ames Filippini, 3L, John Gillespie, 2L, Mollie Gillis, 2L, Stone Hendrickson, 3L, and Tyler Smoot, 2L. Cameron Tipton, 3L, was the manager of the teams.
Hendrickson won the award for second best advocate in the tournament, and Gillis won as fifth best advocate.
After 24 years of coaching Alabama’s national moot court teams, it was Professor Carol Andrews’s last time. Beginning next year, Professor Anita Kay Head will take over as coach of the ABA teams. She co-coached the teams this year and competed as a student advocate on Andrews’s 2005-06 moot court team.
“My moot court work has been one of my most personally and professionally rewarding experiences at Alabama Law,” Andrews said. “I look forward to guest-judging practice rounds in the years to come.”
The National Environmental Law Moot Court Team worked hard and performed in outstanding fashion at the National Competition, which was held last week at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. Kayla Frederick, 3L, AnnaCarrol Arnold, 3L, and Akira Watson, 3L competed for Alabama Law. Tyler Thull, 2L, served as the student coach.
Fifty-four law schools traveled to New York to compete in the most prestigious environmental law moot and the largest interschool moot court competition of any kind to take place under one roof.
Oralists faced teams from Florida, Connecticut, Denver, Drake, and Widener as they progressed through three preliminary rounds to the quarterfinal round. Both Watson and Arnold received Best Oralist Awards during the preliminary rounds – no such awards are given once the preliminary rounds conclude. During the competition, oralists had to argue at least once for each of the three parties to the appeal.
In the quarterfinal round, Alabama Law faced the team from Denver once again as well as the team from Boston College. Although Denver prevailed in the quarterfinals, the team did a splendid job.
“My co-coach, Heather Elliott, and I couldn’t be prouder of our team,” said Professor Bill Andreen. “Our thanks to everyone who helped the team along this year, including Wendy Cox, and to everyone who took time from their busy schedules to judge a practice round.”
The Law School honored Justice R. Bernard Harwood, Jr. (’63) with the 2020 Sam W. Pipes Distinguished Alumnus Award at the Alabama Law Alumni Society Banquet in Mountain Brook on Friday.
The Law School Foundation gives the award to an outstanding alumnus who has distinguished himself or herself through service to the bar, The University of Alabama, and the School of Law. The award is named for the late Samuel Wesley Pipes (’38), who was a partner in the Mobile law firm of Lyons, Pipes & Cook until his death in 1982.
After Justice Harwood graduated in 1963, he had many occasions to encounter Mr. Pipes in Mobile.
“I really enjoyed those opportunities,” Justice Harwood said, “so it is doubly meaningful to me to think that I have some connection with his legacy by virtue of this honor you’re giving me tonight.”
Justice Harwood said he was grateful for attending the School of Law and that it shaped his life. He was a member of the last class of graduates that did not have to take the Alabama State Bar exam.
In 1967, Justice Harwood joined with Gordon Rosen to form the law firm of Rosen and Harwood in Tuscaloosa. During his years in private practice, he served in many roles, including Deputy City Judge of Tuscaloosa, Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Alabama, and as a Lecturer in Law at the Law School. For more than 40 years, Justice Harwood has taught courses as an adjunct professor at Alabama Law, teaching trial advocacy, evidence, and advanced evidence.
“I really am so happy to have an opportunity to be of service to the Law School in the various ways that I have,” Justice Harwood said. “I certainly learned the truism that for every hour you teach in the classroom, you’ve got six, seven, eight hours that you have to prepare outside of the classroom.”
Researchers, scholars, and practicing attorneys examined the recent trend of state-enacted “red flag” laws during a symposium at the Law School on Friday.
The symposium, Seeing Red: Risk-based Gun Regulation, addressed many of the most prominent issues and concerns with extreme risk protection order legislation. These laws help prevent a person in crisis from harming themselves or others by temporarily removing guns and prohibiting the purchase of firearms.
Participants discussed constitutional and due process concerns, the importance of language when discussing mental health and red flags, the success and efficacy of red-flag laws, the differences among reporting standards in different states, and current proposed red-flag legislation in Alabama.
Carolyn Reinach Wolf explored the stigma of mental illness and emphasized prevention and intervention during her session titled, “Beyond Gun Law: Mental Health and Legal Strategies for Treatment and Support.”
“It reinforces the long-standing, unfounded negative stereotypes linking mental illness with violence,” said Wolf, the Director of Mental Health at Abrams, Fensterman, Fensterman, Eisman, Formato, Ferrara, Wolf & Carone in New York. “Most people with serious mental illness are never violent toward others and are more often victims of violence than perpetrators.”
So far, seventeen states and the District of Columbia have adopted some form of law allowing the courts to issue protection orders which permit law enforcement officers to temporarily confiscate firearms or otherwise limit firearm ownership and access by persons deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. Many other state legislatures are currently considering similar bills.
The symposium was sponsored by the Law & Psychology Review.
