Faculty Forum, October 2015

Faculty Forum is a monthly feature highlighting the achievements of faculty at UT Law including publications in academia and the media, speaking engagements, interviews, awards, and other accomplishments. 


ClassCrits VIII

UT College of Law hosted “ClassCrits VIII – Emerging Coalitions: Challenging the Structures of Inequality” on October 23 and 24. This major conference attracted speakers and attendees from across the US. The conference was organized by Professors Wendy Bach and Lucy Jewel, who also offered opening remarks at the conference.

UT faculty members participated in this conference in a variety of capacities:

  • Professor Emerita Fran Ansley was the keynote speaker and also chaired a Roundtable on “Movement Building – A Multi-Faceted Approach.”
  • Bach chaired a panel on “Gender, Race, and Criminal Justice.”
  • Professor Becky Jacobs moderated a panel on “Structural Inequality: Food, Dignity, and Culture.”
  • Jewel chaired a Roundtable on “Responses to the Corporatization of Higher Education, chaired a panel on “Inequality, Meritocracy, and Mythology,” and served as a Commentator for a paper on “Quality of Land Policing: The Emerging Order-Maintenance Architecture of Civil Enforcement.”
  • Professor Karla McKanders chaired a panel on “International Dimensions – Globalism, Neoliberalism, Auserity.”
  • Professor Joy Radice participated in a panel on “Criminal Justice Reform and the Clemency Movement.”
  • Professor Val Vojdik chaired a panel on “Community, Coalition and its Possibilities” and served as a Commentator for a paper on “The Inferiority of Superiority.”
  • Dean Melanie Wilson welcomed the participants to the conference.

Pre-Football CLE Program

Several faculty members gave presentations as part of this season’s Pre-Football Continuing Legal Education Program. Each presentation took place at the College of Law three hours before kickoff of a home game:

KBA Panels

The Knoxville Bar Association is presenting several panels in which UT Law faculty members will play a role:

  • On October 22, Professor Glenn Reynolds will give a presentation entitled, “Civil Rights Update: The Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms.”
  • On October 29, Professor Ben Barton will speak about his recent book, “Glass Half Full: The Future of the Legal Profession.”
  • On December 4, KBA will present, “Ethics Bowl IX—A House Divided: Husbands vs. Wives.” Ethics Panelists for this “Family Feud”–like event include Associate Dean Alex Long and Professors Judy Cornett and Paula Schaefer.
  • On December 10, Schaefer will be a panelist on “Lunch and Learn: 2015 Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”

Brad Areheart

Professor Brad Areheart’s recent article, “Accommodating Pregnancy,” forthcoming in the Alabama Law Review, has been widely noted in the legal blogosphere. It was reviewed or noted in Professor Lawrence Solum’s Legal Theory Blog, at the Feminist Law Professors Blog, at the Workplace Prof Blog, and at Instapundit. The reviewer at Workplace Prof Blog called Areheart’s article “fascinating,” noting that it “provides a great examination of this area of the law, and is definitely worth taking a look at if you are interested in these issues.”

Areheart is also giving a presentation entitled “What is AALS and Why Does it Matter for my Career?” at an introductory session of the upcoming Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. In addition, Areheart organized and will moderate a panel later in the session entitled “Becoming a Legal Scholar.” Panelists include Professors Reva Siegel (Yale), David Skeel (University of Pennsylvania), Nancy Leong (Denver), Lior Strahilevitz (Chicago), and Sam Buell (Duke). The panel is a presentation of the New Law Professors Section, which Areheart chairs. The conference takes place in New York in January.

Wendy Bach

Professor Wendy Bach facilitated a workshop at the Clinical Law Review Writer’s Workshop, which took place on September 26 at NYU Law School in New York. Bach serves as a member of the Review’s Board of Directors.

Bach will also moderate a panel of the Poverty Law Section at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. The meeting will take place in January in New York.

Teri Baxter

Professor Teri Baxter participated in a HuffPost Live Panel addressing cases that the United States Supreme Court is likely to take up this Term. Her copanelists were professors from the law schools at Duke and William and Mary.

Robert Blitt and Val Vojdik

Professors Robert Blitt and Val Vojdik will give a lecture entitled “Human Rights in Tennessee: The Access to Justice Challenge,” as part of the Knoxville Jewish Alliance Faculty Lecture Series. The lecture focuses on the human rights course they are co-teaching this semester at the Law College and will take place on December 3 at the Arnstein Jewish Community Center.

Valeria Gomez

Clinical Lecturer Valeria Gomez participated in a panel entitled “Coming to America: Immigration and Inclusion in the 21st Century.” The panel was a part of the UT College of Communications and Information’s Diversity and Inclusion Week held in October.

Iris Goodwin

Professor Iris Goodwin spoke before the Columbia University Seminar on Law & Politics.  The topic for her October 13 talk was “The Place of the Fiduciary in Liberal Political Thought.”

Joan Heminway

Professor Joan Heminway participated in a symposium on “Corporate Counsel as Gatekeepers.” She was part of a panel of academics; in-house counsel and private practitioners also presented. The symposium, sponsored by the Wayne Law Review, was held at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit on October 16.

Heminway will also give a presentation at the American Bar Association Business Law Section’s LLCs, Partnerships, and Unincorporated Entities Institute. The meeting will be held in November in Arlington, VA.

Amy Hess

Professor Amy Hess has just published the 2015 Supplements to “Bogert & Hess, The Law of Trusts and Trustees 3d ed.” She is the chief author of this work and is responsible for updating the multi-volume treatise annually.

Hess spoke at a CLE program entitled “Unleashed: Hot Topics in Animal Law.” The program was presented by the Tennessee Bar Association in Nashville this past May. Hess’s topic was estate planning for owners of companion and service animals, although the official title was “Estate Planning for Snowball and Garfield.”

In June 2015, Hess moderated a CLE Program for the TBA in Nashville entitled “Doing Business Online: Advising the Online Business Owner – Digital Life Before and After Death.” Hess is a member of the TBA CLE Committee.

Hess moderated a showcase program at the American Bar Association annual meeting in August in Chicago. The program was entitled, “Same-Sex Marriage on the Cusp: Remaining Issues and a Look into the Future.” Showcase programs are selected competitively and emphasize cutting-edge issues that will appeal to a broad range of meeting attendees. The showcase program was based on a March 2015 Professors’ Corner webinar presented by the ABA Section of Real Property, Trust & Estate Law, which Hess also moderated.

Hess was appointed Co-Chair of the Standing Committee on Diversity of the American Bar Association’s Section of Real Property, Trust & Estate Law. She previously served as Vice-Chair of the Committee. In those capacities, Hess organized a pair of CLE presentations at the Joint CLE meeting of the ABA’s RPTE and Taxation Sections in Chicago, in September. The overall title of the two-part program was “Elimination of Bias in the Profession: The Influence of Cultural Differences in Estate, Tax, and Employment Benefit Planning.” Hess moderated the portion of the program dealing with the effect of cultural differences in advising estate planning clients. In addition, she worked on the organization and presentation of two diversity social events at the joint meeting: a luncheon and a diversity reception targeted particularly at younger lawyers. Hess also moderated two other CLE programs during the joint meeting: An updated version of the showcase program on Same-Sex Marriage presented at the ABA annual meeting and a program on the preparation of federal estate tax returns and fiduciary income tax returns for new estate and trust lawyers.

Becky Jacobs

Professor Becky Jacobs will give a presentation at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. The meeting will be held in January in New York.

Lucy Jewel

Professor Lucy Jewel’s article, “Oil and Water: How Legal Education’s Doctrine and Skills Divide Reproduces Toxic Hierarchies,” was noted on the Legal Skills Prof Blog. The article was published recently in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.

Jewel’s article, “Old School Rhetoric and New School Cognitive Science: The Enduring Power of Logocentric Categories,” has been accepted for publication in Legal Communication and Rhetoric: JALWD. This journal is a peer-reviewed journal with a readership of more than 3,000 academics and practitioners. Jewel also presented a portion of her work on this project, entitled “The Dark Side of Cognitive Rhetoric.” Her presentation was a part of the University of Wyoming’s Psychology of Persuasion Conference, held in September.

Brian Krumm

Professor Brian Krumm will give a presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, to be held in January in New York. Krumm’s presentation will be part of a panel sponsored by the Section on Transactional Law and Skills.

George Kuney

Professor George Kuney’s new book, “Bankruptcy in Practice, 5th ed.,” has just been published. This co-authored book is published by the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Michelle Kwon

Professor Michelle Kwon gave a presentation at the University of Washington Tax Symposium. Her talk was entitled “Easing Regulatory Bottlenecks.” The Symposium took place in Seattle on October 9.

Kwon has also been invited to participate in a “Supreme Court Update” panel at the annual meeting of the Southeast Association of Law Schools. Kwon will speak about the tax cases the Court decides in the coming Term. The conference will take place in August 2016 in Amelia Island, FL.

Karla McKanders and Val Vojdik

The Law and Society Association has accepted a proposal from Professors Karla McKanders and Val Vojdik for an International Research Collaborative on Gender and Human Rights in the Middle East and North African Region. This project is related to LSA’s 2017 international meeting in Mexico City and its 2016 annual meeting in New Orleans. The goal of this International Research Collaborative is to explore the current reality of gender inequalities and the lack of enforcement and the possibilities of enforcement surrounding international human rights norms in post-conflict Middle East and North Africa.

Karla McKanders

McKanders will speak at the Public Interest Law Net’s Pro Bono Forum. The conference takes place in November in Rome, Italy.

McKanders’s guest column, “Responding to the Refugee Crisis, Can Lawyers Help?”, was published at the Jurist Academic Commentary blog. Her article “explores actions lawyers can take to hold signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention accountable for protecting refugee and asylum seekers within or at their borders.”

Joy Radice

Professor Joy Radice presented a paper at the NYU Law School Clinical Law Review Writers’ Workshop. The presentation took place in September in New York.

Radice will give a presentation at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. The meeting will be held in January in New York.

Glenn Reynolds

Professor Glenn Reynolds appeared on John Stossel’s show on Fox Business News on Friday, September 25. Reynolds was interviewed on the subject of student loan debt and the presidential candidates’ plans to provide debt relief.

Dean Rivkin

Susan Ferriss of the Center For Public Integrity has been awarded the 2015 Regional American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting for her May 2014 story, “Juvenile Injustice.” Ferriss’s story discusses the efforts of the College of Law’s Education Law Practicum to reform truancy prosecutions of students. Professor Dean Rivkin supervises the Practicum and is quoted extensively in the article, as is cooperating attorney Brenda McGee ‘84.

Paula Schaefer

Professor Paula Schaefer’s column, “Why the Amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Should Inspire Us to Change How We Conduct Discovery,” was published in the October 2015 issue of DICTA, the monthly publication of the Knoxville Bar Association.

Greg Stein and Professor Joan Heminway

Associate Dean Greg Stein and Professor Joan Heminway were both interviewed on the subject “China Goes Boom, but it’s Raining Money,” for the radio show Your Weekly Constitutional. The interview was conducted by Summer Visiting Professor of Law Stewart Harris, who originated the show and hosts it. The show is produced at WETS-FM, the NPR affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee, and syndicated nationally.

Maurice Stucke

Professor Maurice Stucke spoke at a conference on “Competition Rebooted: Enforcement and Personal Data in Digital Markets.” The conference was organized by the Academy of European Law and the European Data Protection Supervisor and took place in Brussels on September 24. Stucke discussed the implications of Big Data on competition policy.

Stucke will serve on a panel at a conference on “The Sharing Economy.” The conference will take place in December in Toronto, Canada. He has also been invited to moderate a panel on the sharing economy sponsored by the Canadian Competition Bureau. The panel is part of a workshop entitled “Emerging Competition Issues – Keeping Pace in a Changing World” and will take place on January 19 in Ottawa, Canada. The event will focus on two issues: the advent of disruptive business models and how competition authorities could analyze both the disruptive businesses and the industries they impact, and incorporating non-price effects into competition analysis.

He has also been invited to participate in a panel on socio-economics at the upcoming Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. The meeting will take place in New York in January.

Stucke was quoted in Bloomberg Business. The article, entitled “U.S. Looks at Airline Investors for Evidence of Fare Collusion,” questions whether significant common ownership of the four largest U.S. airlines may lead to antitrust violations.

Val Vojdik

Professor Val Vojdik spent part of the summer teaching lawyers and law professors who come to the US for LL.M degrees. Vojdik taught a class, “Introduction to the US Legal System,” to lawyers from South Sudan, the West Bank, Azerbaijan, and a law professor and former judge from Ethiopia. This program is an Open Society Foundation summer program in which Vojdik has taught seven times since 2007. Its goal is to promote the development of open societies, both in the US and globally.

Vojdik also helped to organize and participated in a workshop called “Free to be LGBT? Legal Rights and Strategies.” Adjunct Professor Regina Lambert participated through Zoom and discussed the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision. Vojdik gave an overview of the legal movement for LGBT rights in the US. Other participants were from Turkey and Egypt.

Penny White

Professsor Penny White was quoted in an article in the Washington Post entitled, “Virginia’s GOP Male Lawmakers are Gifted at Antagonizing Women. And They’re At It Again.” The article describes the recent battle over an appointment to the Virginia Supreme Court, in which the state legislature refused to confirm a respected woman judge for a seat.

Paula Williams

Professor Paula Williams will speak at the Southern Clinical Conference, on a panel entitled, “With/out Prejudice, With/out Privilege.” The conference will be held in October in Memphis.

David Wolitz

Professor David Wolitz will give a presentation, entitled “Herbert Wechsler, the Model Penal Code, and Legal Process Theory,” at the annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History. The meeting takes place at the end of October in Washington, DC.