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.
Transactional Law Conference
Several UT Law faculty members participated in this year’s Transactional Law Conference, “Method in the Madness: The Art and Science of Teaching Transactional Law and Skills,” held at Emory Law School in Atlanta:
- Visiting Professor Kevin Conboy gave a talk on “Adding Marketing and Sales Skills to the Law School Curriculum” as part of a panel on “Identifying and Teaching Non-Traditional Transactional Skills.”
- Professor Joan Heminway spoke on “Drafting Corporate Bylaws: From Alpha to Omega” as part of a panel on “Fresh Approaches to Teaching Transactional Drafting.”
- Professor George Kuney served as a member of the Steering Committee for the conference.
Rob Blitt and Val Vojdik
Professors Rob Blitt and Val Vojdik gave a presentation at the annual CALI conference on June 18 at Georgia State Law School in Atlanta. The session was entitled, “Bringing Access to Justice to the Classroom through the A2J Author Course Project” and featured a case study from the Human Rights Practicum taught by Blitt and Vojdik at UT Law. In their course, students worked with the Tennessee Human Rights Commission to automate a discrimination complaint. Blitt and Vojdik discussed the role of A2J in improving access to justice, ways to incorporate A2J Author into a law school course, important learning objectives for students, and the CALI resources available for those interested in teaching an A2J Author course. They also submitted a case study of their Human Rights Practicum to CALI along with their course materials, some of which may be incorporated into an upcoming CALI publication, which is intended as a guide for faculty teaching A2J courses.
Joan Heminway
Professor Joan Heminway’s article, “Securities Crowdfunding and Investor Protection,” has been published in the CESifo DICE Report, a quarterly English-language publication of the Munich Center for Economic Studies.
Heminway also presented her paper, “Corporate Purpose and Litigation Risk in Publicly Held U.S. Benefit Corporations,” at two different conferences in June. Heminway spoke first at the National Business Law Scholars Conference in Chicago and then at the Eighth Annual Berle Symposium in Seattle.
Amy Morris Hess
Professor Amy Morris Hess will moderate a July 12 conference call entitled, “Professors’ Corner—Conservation Easements: Contemporary Issues and Challenges.” This call is part of a monthly series organized by the American Bar Association Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law.
Alex Long
Associate Dean Alex Long’s latest article, “Retaliation and the Unreasonable Judge,” has been published in the Florida Law Review Forum.
In addition, two articles by Long have been cited recently in judicial opinions. Long’s article, “Introducing the New and Improved Americans with Disabilities Act: Assessing the ADA Amendments Act of 2008,” which appeared originally in 103 Nw. U. L. Rev. Colloquy 217, 224 (2008), was cited in a federal decision: Jocelyn Mitchell v. United Health Services, Inc., 2016 WL 3407764 (E.D La. June 21, 2016). The article was cited in support of the idea that the ADA’s new definition of “disability” provides for more expansive coverage, particularly for plaintiffs who claim their employers regarded them as having disabilities.
Furthermore, Long’s article, “Attorney–Client Fee Agreements That Offend Public Policy,” which was published at 61 S.C. L. Rev. 287, 300 (2009), was cited by the Kentucky Court of Appeals in DeMoisey v. Ostermiller, 2016 WL 2609321 (Ky. Ct. App May 6, 2016). That article was cited for the proposition that the Kentucky Supreme Court’s ethical rules regulating the practice of law are expressions of public policy for purposes of a defense that an attorney-client fee agreement is unenforceable because it offends public policy.
Joy Radice
Professor Joy Radice is one of the law professors featured recently at the Best Practices for Legal Education blog. The blog favorably notes Radice’s video, “Thinking and Acting Like Lawyers: Reflection-in-Action in the Law School,” which was recorded at the 2015 Association of American Law Schools Conference on Clinical Legal Education and published by AALS earlier this year.
Glenn Reynolds
Professor Glenn Reynolds is ranked 54th among all 313,508 authors on the Social Science Research Network based on his total paper downloads. Reynolds’s papers have been downloaded a total of 90,556 times as of June 1, 2016.
Dean Rivkin
Professor Dean Rivkin and Meg O’Neil (‘17) made a presentation in July to a group of approximately 25 parents of school-age children in the Alcoa City Schools. At the request of the parents, Rivkin, O’Neil, and members of a racial justice group called Blount County United discussed issues involving education and civil rights, including special education, school suspensions, retaliation against parents, and bullying. Rivkin leads and O’Neil was a recent student in the College of Law’s Education Law Practicum.
Maurice Stucke
Professor Maurice Stucke has been invited by the European Data Protection Supervisor to give a presentation on Big Data. Stucke will give an introduction to a panel on “Towards a More Coherent Enforcement of Rights in the Digital Society and Economy.” The conference will take place in Brussels in September.
Stucke also gave a presentation to the Open Markets Program at New America on June 29. The Capitol Hill event—entitled “America’s New Monopoly Problem: And What Should the Next President Do About It?”—featured Senator Elizabeth Warren as the keynote speaker.
In addition, Stucke has been invited to give a presentation to the UK House of Lords. He will be one of about twenty witnesses, including business people, regulators, and academics, and will discuss issues relating to competition and online platforms.
Furthermore, the Law360 website recently featured an article about an amicus brief co-authored by Stucke. The brief was filed in connection with basketball player Ed O’Bannon Jr.’s lawsuit against the NCAA over compensation for student-athletes’ images and likenesses. It urges the Supreme Court to reverse a recent Ninth Circuit decision.
Val Vojdik
Professor Val Vojdik was interviewed by the ABC News affiliate in Charleston, SC, in connection with the 20th anniversary of the case requiring The Citadel to admit women as students. Vojdik was the lead lawyer for Shannon Faulkner, the plaintiff in the case.