April 2004
Dean Heidi M. Hurd
David C. Baum Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy
Co-Director of the Program in Law and Philosophy
Telephone (217) 333-9857
hhurd@law.uiuc.edu
Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, Campus Administrators, and Friends,
With only a month to go before the school year draws to a close, the College of Law is hosting some of the largest, most significant conferences and events that it has ever hosted. The year's bold appointments agenda continues to payoff with new faculty hires of national distinction. Our students are chalking up impressive awards and boasting enviable employment successes. And some very innovative international programming is proving to be terrifically enriching.
In this April update, I want to tell you about:
• The happy comings and sad goings of faculty and staff, including two fabulous new faculty hires
• The College's second bi-annual Symposium on Law, Medicine, and Policy
• The new China Leadership Program in Law
• The Class of 2003 employment statistics
• The College's clerkship successes to date
• Three high-profile national conferences forthcoming in April
• The Class of 2004's novel new pledge campaign
• The second annual Spring Gala Dinner-Dance for all Students, Faculty, Staff and Alumni
• Summer opportunities: June European Alumni Reunion in Heidelberg, and the July Workshop on IP Law in Victoria
But first, by popular demand, another puzzle from the collection of mathematical head-scratchers with which the faculty has been engaged this month--this one circulated by Professor Tom Ulen in the wake of the recent oral arguments before the Fourth District Appellate Court, which convened at the College of Law in March for what was a very exciting day in the life of the school.
There are 7 justices on the Fourth District Appellate Court. They sit in panels of 3. How many different combinations of the 7 justices sitting in panels of three are possible? (See the P.S. below for the answer!)
Faculty and Staff Comings and Goings
I have some very good news and some very bad news on this front. The good news is that the College made two more really terrific new faculty hires, bringing the total number of faculty hires to date to five (with more to come, we hope!), and a new very promising, and very important staff hire. The bad news is that the College will suffer the departure of one of its most admired faculty members and the retirement of one of its most beloved staff members. The good news first.
Professor Ralph Brubaker, who is currently on the faculty of Emory University Law School, will join the College's tenured faculty this fall. A nationally acclaimed expert in bankruptcy, bankruptcy procedure, corporate finance, business associations, and contracts, Professor Brubaker received his B.S., M.B.A., and J.D. from the University of Illinois and began his teaching career here at the College of Law before joining the Emory faculty in 1995. He clerked for Judge James K. Logan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, practiced in the bankruptcy and corporate reorganization group with the law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cleveland, and currently serves as a faculty advisor to the Bankruptcy Developments Journal. Professor Brubaker brings to Illinois an enviable national reputation for thoughtful, in-depth scholarship on topics highly relevant to ongoing legal reform, and a track record of tremendously popular teaching and institution-changing citizenship. We are enormously fortunate to have been able to talk him into "coming home," and we look forward with great anticipation to the ways in which his entrepreneurial energies will enrich our community.
Assistant Professor Patrick Keenan, the creator and current Director of the College's innovative International Human Rights Clinic, will also join the College's tenure-track faculty this fall. Professor Keenan received his B.A. magna cum laude from Tufts University, and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Journal of International Law. He spent a semester at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and after law school, served as clerk to Judge Myron H. Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama. For five years, Keenan worked for the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, litigating death penalty cases in Georgia and Alabama. He came to the College of Law in Fall 2001 to create the International Human Rights Clinic, which is currently collaborating with several international groups to champion human rights and health issues in several African countries. Professor Keenan plans to continue to direct a modified version of the Clinic while teaching such courses as Evidence, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure and pursuing a scholarly agenda that reflects his long-standing dual passions for domestic civil rights and international human rights.
I am also delighted to inform you of the recent appointment of Marianne Downey as the College's new Associate Director of Development. A 1983 graduate of Indiana University School of Business, Ms. Downey completed a certificate as a fundraising executive (CFRE) in 1998 (re-certified in 2001) and a certificate in Fundraising Management at the Indiana University Center of Philanthropy in 1999. With more than 11 years of experience in development, she most recently served as Director of Institutional Advancement for Cathedral High School in Indianapolis, managing the successful closing of a $12.7 million capital campaign and $630,000 Annual Fund. Marianne has been an active member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, serving on the Indiana Philanthropy Awards committee for seven years.
And now for the bad news. It is with great regret that I must tell you that Associate Professor Rene Bowser has decided to accept Dean Thomas Mengler's enthusiastic offer to join the new faculty at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis. An expert on the impact of medical and bioethical policy on minority communities and a highly respected teacher of Torts, Professor Bowser's decision comes as a real loss to our community. We know, however, that UST and the larger city of Minneapolis will be a very happy professional home for Professor Bowser, and while we will feel his absence in our hallways and classrooms, we wish him the very best as he continues to build his very fine reputation within the national academy.
It is also a bittersweet task to announce the retirement of Rita Grider, the College's Director of Personnel and Special Events, who has invested an astonishing 30 years in building and sustaining excellence at the College of Law. Ms. Grider has worked in virtually every support capacity imaginable--from providing faculty assistance, to assisting in Career Services and in Development, to coordinating special events, to managing personnel--and has served under eight full-time and acting deans. While we wish her well with her ambitious plans to invest her retirement in a brand new career in education, her retirement spells considerable institutional memory loss for the College and considerable personal loss for those who have worked closely with her.
The Law, Medicine, and Policy Symposium
The College recently co-hosted a second major health law conference entitled "Consumer Choice: Social Welfare and Health Care Policy," that focused on the critical questions of consumer choice, health care financing, and service delivery--all of which are central to the current health policy agenda. Organized by a campus-wide multidisciplinary planning group chaired by Professor Robert Rich, the Director of the College's newly-named Jon David and Elizabeth A. Epstein Health Law and Policy Program, the conference was structured around three major themes: a) controlling health care costs and protecting consumer choice; (b) challenges to informed choice in health care; and (c) barriers to effective health care service delivery. Discussions were lively and invigorating, and addressed some of the nation's most pressing health care issues: What are some practical strategies for delivering more effective services to the uninsured? To what extent will the new prescription drug benefit be beneficial to the elderly and increase choice? Do we, as a society, need to adopt a minimum basic health insurance system for all citizens? How can physician, employer, and consumer incentives/disincentives be changed to improve the delivery of health care services? What can be done to confront the racial and ethnic disparities which exist in the American health care system? The dialogue focused on legal, policy, and educational approaches to address these critical issues. The final papers from the symposium will be published as a book to be released in 2005.
China Leadership Program in Law
This month, the College of Law is pleased to inaugurate an exciting new training program for 20 senior legal professionals from the Beijing Municipal Government in the People’s Republic of China. Delegation leader Judge Zhai Jingmin of the Beijing High People's Court, is joined by five other judges, as well as legal professionals and administrators from various judicial districts in Beijing. They are at the College of Law through June in order to study the U.S. legal and criminal justice system. Professor Tom Ginsburg is the faculty chair for the program and more than twelve College of Law faculty members will be presenting workshops and seminars on topics as diverse as Judicial Review, Role of Defense Counsel, Specific Crimes, Plea Bargaining, Regulation of Policing and Trends in the Juvenile Justice System.
Although this program is the first of its kind for the College of Law, the University of Illinois has been providing educational programs for senior managers from Chinese businesses, government agencies, and academic institutions since 1993, when Carolyn Pribble, the College of Law's Director of International Studies, organized that first UI program in the College of Business. In 1999, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was designated as a "China Learning Center" by the China Association of International Exchange of Personnel, one of only five such centers to be located in the U.S. To date, the University has hosted 88 different delegations from the People's Republic of China, enabling over 2,500 senior scientists, government officials, business leaders, bank directors, legal professionals and academicians from every province of China to study at the University of Illinois. The College of Law is delighted to be joining other colleges on campus in advancing the University's commitment to training China's leaders, and we look forward with great anticipation to the benefits that a Leadership Program in Law will provide to our foreign guests and to the faculty and students who will reap the rewards of their presence in our classrooms and hallways.
Class of 2003 Employment Statistics
The annual collection of employment data on our most recent graduating class came to a close at the end of February, and I am pleased to announce that 98.5% of the Class of 2003 who were seeking employment were employed by that date. And as of several weeks ago, that number increased to 100%! Additionally, every member of the class was tracked, marking the fourth consecutive year of 100% tracking. Employment out of state increased this year with 28.1% working outside of Illinois, compared to 25.4% for the Class of 2002. The graduates are employed in every region of the country, working in 20 states and the District of Columbia, and four members of the Class of 2003 are working in foreign countries.
The Class of 2003 obtained 10 federal clerkships, 10 state clerkships, and 1 foreign clerkship, which represents a slight increase in the percentage of the class taking judicial clerkships (10.9%). Private practice continues to be the biggest draw for the students, with 67.2% of the class employed in that arena. Government (excluding judicial clerkships) and public interest employment was at 11.5% for this class, and business concerns and academia rounded out the fields of employment at 8.3% and 2.1%, respectively. In addition, three members of the class are pursuing additional advanced degrees. We are extraordinarily proud of the Class of 2003 and wish its members the best of luck as University of Illinois College of Law alumni!
Clerkship Successes To Date
To update you further on the initial report on judicial clerkships from the December/January Newsletter, the College of Law continues to have a stellar year. To date, 19 judicial clerkships have been reported. Three of those clerkships were obtained by alumni and 16 by members of the Class of 2004. The Class of 2004 has currently secured 14 federal clerkships, which is 6 more than the number of federal clerkships reported at this time last year and is already more than the total number of federal clerkships (10) held by last year's class. Many of our students are still pursuing federal and state clerkships, and we are confident that they will be successful and that we will have more good news to report in the months to come.
We are reminded by these statistics just how fortunate the College is to have a Career Services Office that dedicates itself to achieving 100% employment. Few schools even aspire to such a goal, and those that sometimes obtain it do so with a far larger staffs. We are, as a community, enormously indebted to Assistant Dean Lois Casaleggi, Associate Director Stacey Tutt, and Assistant Director Elissa Libman.
Conferences of National Distinction and International Importance
Promises to Keep? Brown v. Board and Equal Educational Opportunity (April 1-3, Max L. Rowe Auditorium, College of Law): Fifty years after the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education was handed down, the College of Law and the College of Education are joining together to host a distinguished group of well-known judges, policy makers, public intellectuals, and academics for discussions about the challenges the nation faces in delivering on the promises of racial, social and educational equality. A CAS/Miller Comm Lecture that is part of the conference features Julian Bond, the well-known civil rights advocate and current president of the NAACP. Bond will provide the keynote address (with a meet-and-greet reception hosted by the College's Black Law Student Association in advance). Historian Darlene Clark Hine will join a panel with Joseph DeLaine, Jr., the son of a key figure in the South Carolina companion case to Brown. Harvard political scientist Gary Orfield, an expert in the current state of America's public schools, will kick off the meeting. Leading thinkers from around the globe include Neville Alexander, a leading opponent of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Jurists include Judge Sonia Sotomayor, from the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Judge Boyce Martin, from the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. They will join such leading civil rights lawyers as Julius Chambers, former head of the Legal Defense Fund, and Laughlin McDonald, from the ACLU in Atlanta, in exploring the complex intersection of education and equality. Prominent social scientists, including Walter Allen, Bill Trent, and Geneva Smitherman, will join in assessing the role of social science evidence in the litigation of equality issues. Speakers will consider the impact of Brown on conceptions of equality as they apply to other minorities, such as Asian Americans, Native Americans, gays, lesbians, and the disabled. Notable participants from the ranks of legal academia include Gerald Torres of Texas, president-elect of the Association of American Law Schools, and Richard Banks of Stanford. For more information, go to www.conferences.uiuc.edu/brown.
This year's Honorary Round of the Frederick Green Moot Court Competition will be held in tandem with the Conference on Brown v. Board of Education and will explore themes that inspired the conference (on Thursday, April 1, 2004 at 4:00 p.m. in the Max L. Rowe Auditorium). Our distinguished panel of judges this year are the Honorable Boyce F. Martin, Jr., United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; and Julius Chambers, Esq., Ferguson, Stein, Chambers, Adkins, Gresham & Sumter, P.A.
Seeds of Change: IP Protection for Ag Biotech (April 8-10, 2004, ACES Library): Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and their relationship to intellectual property (IP) rights raise a variety of issues for a variety of professionals in widely diverse fields. For the crop scientist, a GMO represents the product of harnessing and exploiting knowledge about molecular genetics; for the seed producer, it is the basis for competitive advantage in important international ag-biotech markets; for the Patent Office, it may represent a non-obvious improvement. While technological change, globalization, and increased corporate ownership have radically changed the face of agriculture, such changes are not unique to farming and food production. What is unique to agriculture is how these changes redefine social priorities, valuing: food safety and security over production; access to a so-called level playing field over ownership and control; sustainability over conventional or organic agriculture; and market governance over market share. Intellectual property is the common denominator in each of these issues, but the questions posed by the emergence of IP rights in ag-biotechnology are challenging, complex, and perhaps irreconcilable. This conference, organized by Professor Jay Kesan, the Director of the College's Intellectual Property Program, will bring together a group of high-profile professionals from different disciplines, from the public and private sectors, and from the U.S. and abroad, to address the key legal, economic and public policy issues regarding intellectual property rights in agricultural biotechnology. For more information, please contact Professor Jay Kesan at kesan@law.uiuc.edu or go to www.ipagcon.uiuc.edu.
Uncorporation: A New Age? (April 23, 2004, Illini Center, 200 S. Wacker Drive, Chicago): For the past 200 years business law and scholarship has been dominated by a single business form--the corporation. The age of corporate dominance may, however, be coming to an end. The last decade has seen the rapid development of new types of business associations, including limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships, based on the contractual partnership model rather than the corporate model. We have also seen increased flexibility in existing business forms such as the limited partnership and business trust. These business forms may be ushering in a new age of the "uncorporation." Despite the significance of these developments, until now there has been no conference that has sought to focus the attention of major corporate theorists on their implications. Thanks to the organizational energies of Professor Larry Ribstein, a nationally celebrated expert in "unincorporated business," the College of Law will hold the first in-depth conference on the ramifications of the rise of the uncorporation for corporate law. Corporate law scholars from around the nation will gather to discuss how uncorporations have already replaced traditional partnerships and close corporations in closely held and professional firms; to raise questions about the survival of the traditional public corporation form for publicly held firms; and to explore the how uncorporations will affect contracting in business associations, jurisdictional competition and regulatory arbitrage, and the future of limited liability. The main papers and comments will be published in the Illinois Law Review. For more information, please contact Professor Larry Ribstein at ribstein@law.uiuc.edu or go to www.law.uiuc.edu/conferences/uncorporation.
The Class of 2004 is Making its Mark with a Novel Pledge Campaign
I am thrilled to tell you about the Class of 2004 Gift Pledge Campaign--an innovative new way by which our graduating students are making an immediate and very significant impact on their alma mater! A group of energetic leaders from the Class of 2004 have decided to initiate a pledge campaign during which graduating students from the class are pledging their financial support to the law school for each of the three years following their graduation. They launched this initiative a few weeks ago and, so far, 15% of the class has pledged to contribute over $17,500 to the law school over the next three years. This level of class support already ranks the Class of 2004 as one of the top donor classes among all of our alumni classes! And the enthusiastic support of our students couldn't come at a more crucial time, as the State's support has dropped to 21% of the University's budget. Inasmuch as the Illinois has largely been forced to become a private school, it is a very great blessing to have students who appreciate that the future value of their degrees will in large part turn on the success with which they and fellow alumni help to take ownership of the College's future.
Spring Gala Dinner-Dance for the Law School Community, Champaign Country Club (April 23)
The Spring Gala Dinner-Dance (black tie optional) is the one event of the year that unites all of us in celebration of the College's commitment to academic excellence, shared community, and public service/engagement. Last year's inaugural event was a smashing success, as students, faculty, staff, alumni, and campus friends gathered to commemorate the year's many achievements and kick up their heels to the music of "The Shysters"--an all attorney-band lead by alumnus Greg Bell (Cribbet Society Member). This year promises to be equally successful--and even more over-subscribed! Made possible by our generous benefactors Joe Brown '74 and Bill Lucco '72 of Lucco & Brown in Edwardsville, IL, this year's Gala will feature Professor and Huizenga-Galowich Faculty Scholar Andy Leipold as the after-dinner speaker; the Shysters will again get the place rocking, and we'll offer a large-screen "movie" of the past year in the life of the law school. So come see yourself on the big screen, share in the celebration of the contributions made to the College's success by students, faculty, staff, and alumni, and dance the night away! Tickets can be purchased by contacting sudermn@law.uiuc.edu or (217) 333-2628.
Exciting International
Summer Opportunities: Plan Ahead!
Please plan to join me, College of Law faculty, and International Studies staff
for this year's European Alumni Reunion in Heidelberg, Germany (June
18-20). Dr. Wolfgang Weitnauer (M.C.L. '79), our regional host
for the reunion, has organized an engaging and enjoyable weekend that combines
occasions for engaging discussions with opportunities to explore the marvelous
ambiance of this beautiful city. Professors Michael Moore, Richard Painter,
Robert Rich, and Tom Ulen will be in Europe at that time, and are planning to
take breaks from their research projects to lead a set of mini-series in Heidelberg
on topics as diverse as "Ethics in Corporate Governance (Sarbanes-Oxley
Act)" and "The Morality of Torturing Terrorists." We will also
have an open forum to solicit ideas about how to increase opportunities for
collaboration between the College and institutions throughout Europe and how
to build on our continuing commitment to training excellent lawyers from the
region. Please contact Sherry Cibelli (scibelli@law.uiuc.edu)
to reserve your place for this event or to answer any questions you may have.
View the complete program by selecting the "European Alumni Reunion"
link at www.law.uiuc.edu/alumni/calendar.asp.
Are you interested in discussing how the principal categories of intellectual property law apply to emerging technologies? Would you like to learn how the civil law concept of an author's right system compares with copyright? Ever wonder how trademark law differs between North America and the European Union? If so, you should attend the Workshop on Intellectual Property Law for Practicing Attorneys, Victoria, British Columbia (July 16-17)--a unique workshop for practicing attorneys co-sponsored by the College of Law that will focus on these questions and other current issues in international intellectual property law. Speakers and discussants will include leading practitioners and academics specializing in IP law from Canada and the United States, as well as representatives from cultural and industry sources. To register or to get more information, please see: www.uvcs.uvic.ca/ip/sess2.cfm.
The Workshop is part of the College's annual International and Comparative Intellectual Property Law Summer Program (June 21-August 11), which offers law students as well as practitioners the opportunity to explore the unique challenges of working in a global marketplace. During the program, participants study critical issues of international intellectual property law with top legal scholars in the field, representing the United States, Canada and Europe. They also have the opportunity to interact with law students and practicing lawyers from around the globe. This year we again will join with our partners--the University of Victoria and St Peter's College, Oxford University--to offer the program at the University of Victoria. You can find an overview of the entire program at www.law.uiuc.edu/summerip.
I hope that all of you will be able to attend at least some of the exciting and unusual events that will be hosted by the College in the weeks to come, and that those who find themselves traveling the world this summer will plan to participate in some of the College's more far-flung ventures.
Sincerely,
Heidi M. Hurd
Dean, College of Law
David C. Baum Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy
Co-Director of the Program in Law and Philosophy
P.S. The general problem is to choose p things from n things.
That is a problem in combinatories. The general formula for choosing p
things from n things is written:
and read (or spoken) as "n chooses p." The formula
is =
,
where n! is read as "n factorial" and means 
So,
for the 4th District Appellate Court, there are 
=
=
= 35 possible panels.
April 2004
April 1-3: "Promises to Keep? Brown v. Board and Equal Educational Opportunity" Conference (www.conferences.uiuc.edu/brown)
April 1, 4:00 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: Frederick Green Moot Court Honorary Round
April 1, 5:30 pm, Pedersen Pavilion: Brown v. Board and Frederick Green Moot Court Reception and Dinner; and 8:00 pm, Keynote Speech by Julius Chambers, a prominent Civil Rights Lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina
April 2, 6:00 pm, Smith Music Hall: Brown v. Board Reception; and 7:45 pm, Keynote Speech by Julian Bond, President of the NAACP and acclaimed Civil Rights Activist
April 2, 6:00 - 8:00 pm, Home of Professor Beale: Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity: Annual Wine & Cheese
April 3, 6:00 pm, Champaign Country Club: 11th Annual Black Law Students Association Alumni Banquet
April 3, 9:00 pm - 1:00 am, Lincoln Historic Hotel: SBA Carbolic Smoke Ball
April 6, 3:00 - 4:00 pm, Room H: Student Open Forum with Dean Hurd
April 8-10, ACES Library: "Seeds of Change: Intellectual Property Protection for Agricultural Biotechnology" Conference (www.ipagcon.uiuc.edu)
April 9, 4:00 pm, 100 Gregory Hall: Annual Public Philosophy Lecture: Professor Thomas Nagel, New York University School of Law, "Justice, Global and Domestic"
April 14, 12:00 - 1:00 pm, Student Luncheon with Dean Hurd
April 16-17, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: Symposium on Law and Geonomic Development in Asia: Hamid Sharif of the Asian Development Bank, sponsored by the Program in Asian Law, Politics and Society and the International Law Society
April 23, 3:30 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: Annual Rickert Awards for Student Excellence
April 23, 6:30 pm, Champaign Country Club: SPRING GALA DINNER-DANCE! (black tie optional): All are encouraged to attend!
April 23, Illini Center, Chicago: "Uncorporation: A New Age?" Conference (www.law.uiuc.edu/conferences/uncorporation)
April 30: Symposium on Law in Japan, sponsored by the Program in Asian Law, Politics and Society
May
May 14, 6:00 - 8:00 pm: Graduation Open House
May 15, 12:30 pm, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts: Convocation, Speaker: Professor and Past Dean Robert E. Scott, University of Virginia School of Law
May 16, 10:30 am, Assembly Hall: University of Illinois Commencement, Speaker: Lani Guinier, Civil Rights Attorney, Author, and Harvard Law School Professor
