February 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,
After a much-needed holiday break, the College of Law is abuzz again with energy and activity. Students are feeling those familiar adrenaline rushes that are inspired by new professors in unfamiliar classes, faculty are back on the road presenting their latest scholarship at conferences across the nation and around the globe, staff members are launching new administrative initiatives, and alumni are returning to the College to participate in a smorgasbord of high-profile public events and mentorship activities.
In this 2004 New Year's greeting, I want to encourage you to calendar the important events of the semester listed in the Appendix and to share with you news about the College's:
- Newest faculty hire
- Inaugural visit to Taiwan and South Korea
- Seven year re-accreditation by the American Bar Association
- Annual Alumni-Student Career Conference
- Fiftieth Anniversary Commemoration of Brown v. Board of Education
Another Superstar Joins the Faculty!
I am absolutely delighted to tell you that the College of Law
can now boast of a second terrific faculty appointment this year--the appointment
of Professor David Hyman, one of the nation's leading authorities on health
law and policy, who will hold a principal appointment in the College of Law,
with quarter-time appointments in the College of Medicine and the Institute
for Government and Public Affairs (IGPA). Professor Hyman received his B.A.
(1983), J.D. (1989), and M.D. (1991) from the University of Chicago and practiced
with the firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt before joining the Faculty of Law
at the University of Maryland in 1994. He is currently serving as Special Counsel
at the Federal Trade Commission where he is working on the role of competition
law and policy in dealing with the health care marketplace.
Professor Hyman has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Texas (1999)
and George Washington University Schools of Law (2000-2001). He is a member
of the bars of Illinois and the District of Columbia and a member of the American
Law Institute, and he is admitted to practice before the 6th, 7th and 10th Circuit
Courts of Appeal, and the United States Tax Court. He is currently the chair
of the section on law and social sciences of the American Association of Law
Schools and he is on the editorial board of the American Journal of Law &
Medicine and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.
Professor Hyman has published articles on a wide range of subjects, including
managed care, professional liability, consumer protection, professional responsibility,
tax exemption, and civil procedure. His principal research interests are the
regulation of health care financing and delivery and empirical law and economics.
To get a taste of his highly acclaimed work, you might read his famous article
on health care fraud and abuse that appears in the June 2001 Journal of Legal
Studies or his path-breaking pair of articles on result-based compensation in
the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics and in Washington & Lee Law Review.
And for a very informative description of his work as Special Counsel to the
Federal Trade Commission, just go to http://www.law.umaryland.edu/fac_hyman.asp.
Our students can look forward to some marvelous opportunities to study with
Professor Hyman in the years to come, as he regularly teaches civil procedure,
health care regulation, insurance, law and economics, professional responsibility,
tax policy, and health care law. Indeed, Professor Hyman's tax clinic won a
Community Service Award from the University of Maryland in 1998. We are extraordinarily
fortunate to have been able to persuade Professor Hyman to join our community,
and we hope that you will give him a warm welcome when he arrives in Illinois.
Creating Ties with Taiwan and South Korea
In December, I had the great pleasure of taking a remarkable trip to Taiwan and South Korea with Professor Tom Ginsburg, the Director of the College's new Program in Asian Law, Politics and Society; Professor Jay Kesan, the Director of the College's Program in Intellectual Property and Technology; Ms. Carolyn Pribble, the College's Director of International Studies; and Mr. Kyle (Tzu-kai) Lo, a member of the College's JD Class of '05, and a graduate of the LLM Class of '03. The trip was designed to enhance our relations with our JD and LLM alumni in these countries and to continue our efforts to expand the research and teaching ties that the College enjoys with leading East Asian universities and institutes. Our time in Taipei was organized and orchestrated by our 2L student, Kyle Lo, who arranged for official sponsorship of our visit by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China and who invested a staggering amount of time in ensuring that every second of every day was spent in productive conversations about how best to enhance the College's presence in Taiwan and the role of Taiwanese students and faculty in the intellectual life of the law school. As we found during our trip to Japan in June, there is enormous enthusiasm on the part of potential East Asian partners for the kinds of collaborative projects that are made possible by the College's new Programs in Asian Law, Politics and Society and Intellectual Property and Technology, and we came away from the trip with an exciting agenda for crafting joint teaching opportunities, student exchange programs, and co-sponsored international conferences and seminars with leading academics and policy makers in Taipei and Seoul.
I must say, however, that the greatest moments in the trip came during meetings with our Taiwanese and Korean alumni and their families. The College has a number of very prominent alumni in Taiwan, including current Vice-President Annette Lu (M.C.L. '71) and Dr. Chao Shou-po, Chairman of the Broadcasting Corporation of China (M.C.L. '68, S.J.D. '72), both of whom hosted us in high style. Our Taipei stay culminated in a very lavish dinner hosted for us by Vice-President Lu at the Presidential palace at which Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian made an unexpected guest appearance and speech. I had the honor of presenting the Vice-President with a Distinguished International Alumni Award, and she complimented the University of Illinois with an elegantly delivered speech that traced the roots of her political activism as a feminist and advocate of democratic independence to her "political awakening" during the grass-roots demonstrations held on the University's Quad between 1969-70. As she put it, the University of Illinois was the "birthplace of [her] enlightenment." (To read her marvelous speech, just click on http://www.law.uiuc.edu/news/speeches/vicepresidentlu.htm.) While in Taipei, we also visited with Justices and high-ranking officials at the Supreme Court, the Judicial Yuan, and the Legislative Yuan (including Kyle Lo's father, Cheng Tien Lo, the highest ranking unelected official in the Taiwan legislature who went to extraordinary lengths to host us during our stay), and we conducted meetings with members of the city's two largest law firms to recruit LLM students. In Seoul, we had a marvelous dinner with a number of our Korean alumni and struck up some very exciting institutional friendships with Seoul National University, Korea University, Ehwa University, Yonsei University, and the Korea Intellectual Property Research Center. The trip has already generated stellar new graduate student applications and exchanges for our faculty, and we hope that as we continue to forge personal and institutional relationships with those in East Asian law schools, law firms, and governmental agencies, we will help to fuel the College's and the larger University's agenda to preserve and enhance its relevance to the international community whose interests in government, business, and science know no national boundaries.
The College's Seven-Year ABA Reaccreditation
From February 1st through the 4th, representatives from the American Bar Association and the Association of American Law Schools will be in residence to conduct the seven-year site inspection as part of the College's ABA reaccreditation. They will be interviewing faculty, dropping in on classes, reviewing records with administrators, meeting with alumni, and visiting with students. While much of the team's visit will be unstructured and the College community should expect to see team members coming and going in offices, hallways, and classrooms, the team has requested that the following events be organized for each of the College's core constituencies:
- Faculty Luncheon (Pedersen Pavilion): Monday, February 2nd, 12:00-1:30 pm (Faculty should RSVP to ccurtiss@law.uiuc.edu ASAP)
- Student Open Forum (Huizenga Commons): Tuesday, February 3rd, 3:00-4:00 pm (Students interested in chatting about the state of the school should plan to drop in for munchies and an open discussion. Those who plan in advance to do so should email Jeff Stotler, who is coordinating this event and who would be grateful for the ability to predict the turnout: jstotler@law.uiuc.edu.
- Alumni Reception (Jenner Law Library Rare Book Room): Tuesday, February 3rd, 5:00-6:30 pm (Local alumni who can spare the time are invited to drop by to talk with site inspection team members about their experiences as students and alumni.)
The point of the site team's visit is to determine whether the College complies with the formal standards required by the ABA of any accredited law school. At the close of its visit, the team will meet with the Chancellor and Associate Provost in order to communicate its preliminary findings, and the team will then follow up the site inspection with a detailed report and assessment of the College's status, as judged by ABA accreditation criteria. I want to issue an advance thank you to everyone who participates in this important process: the College will greatly benefit from your contributions.
The Annual Alumni-Student Career Conference
On February 7th, the annual Alumni-Student Career Conference will be held at the College of Law. The Alumni-Student Career Conference was developed more than a decade ago by representatives of several College of Law classes to assist law students in marketing themselves to employers and to help students make informed career decisions. Based on past experience, approximately 200 students will participate and more than 50 alumni will be in attendance to serve as panelists, roundtable discussion participants, mock interviewers, and sources of information regarding legal careers. Historically, students have found the Conference extremely beneficial and alumni have found the Conference very rewarding. The Conference is sponsored by the Recent Alumni Advisory Board and the Office of Career Services. The commitment of the College's dedicated alums is the basis for the conference's continued success and their efforts are greatly appreciated by the College of Law community. If you would like more information about the Conference, please contact Stacey Tutt at 217/333-2961 or sbray@law.uiuc.edu.
Commemorating Brown v. Board of Education
In May 2004, the country will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, perhaps the most significant decision in American constitutional law and one that speaks eloquently to our vision of equality and justice for all. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has devoted this 2003-04 academic year to a commemoration of the Brown anniversary and to an engagement with the themes of social justice that animate the decision. As a featured event of this year-long commemoration, the Colleges of Law and Education will jointly sponsor a major academic conference, exploring the impact of Brown on our conception of educational opportunity and assessing the nation's progress in achieving the promise of Brown.
Scheduled to take place on the Urbana-Champaign campus on April 1-3, 2004, fifty years after the decision came down, the conference will bring together a distinguished group of well-known judges, policy makers, public intellectuals, and academics to discuss the challenges the nation faces in delivering on the promises of Brown. Julian Bond, the well-known civil rights advocate and current president of the NAACP, will provide the keynote address (with a meet-and-greet reception hosted by the College's Black Law Student Association in advance). The 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 Katarina Tomasevski, the UN special rapporteur on education, and 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.
While this event is still two months away, I wanted you to hear of its unparalleled content at this early date so that you can plan to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunity that it represents. There are few occasions in the legal academy that invite us to re-examine ourselves as a nation and as a people in the way that this one will, and I urge you to join in the effort to assess just how much social progress we can claim for our era.
In closing, let me welcome you back to the College's classrooms and hallways and issue to you a warm invitation to attend the many public events listed in the Calendar of Major Public Events below. May your New Year's resolutions be kept and your luck run strong--unless, of course, you are facing off against me in a Pedersen Pavilion chess tournament or against my colleagues on the faculty-staff softball team in the Spring league!
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
Calendar of Major Public Events in the Spring Semester
February
February 1-4: ABA Site Evaluation Team will be on campus
February 2, 3:00-4:00 pm, Huizenga Commons: ABA Site Evaluation
Team will meet with students in an open forum
February 3, 12:00-1:00 pm, Pedersen Pavilion: ABA Site Evaluation
Team will meet with student leaders
February 7, 8:00 am - 5:00 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: Annual
Alumni-Student Career Conference. For more information, please contact Lois
Casaleggi at 217-333-8905 or ltc@law.uiuc.edu.
February 13, 12:00-1:00 pm, Room 200: Student Luncheon with
Dean Hurd
February 16, 4:30-7:00 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: Guerrilla
Tactics for 1Ls, 2Ls, 3Ls, with Kimm Alayne Walton
February 17, 3:00-4:00 pm, Room H: Student Open Forum with
Dean Hurd
February 19, 12:00-1:00 pm, Room A: Panel Discussion on the
Field of Criminal Law.
February 24, 4:00-5:00 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: Paul M.
Van Arsdell, Jr. Lecture: Professor David J. Luban, Georgetown University Law
Center. "Lawyers as Upholders of Human Dignity (When They Aren't Busy Assaulting
It)."
March
March 3, 4:00-5:00 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: Investiture
of Dean Heidi M. Hurd as the David C. Baum Professor of Law, with opening remarks
by Provost Richard Herman
March 9, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: Fourth
District Appellate Court Oral Arguments
March 11, 12:00-1:00 pm, Room 200: Student Luncheon with Dean
Hurd
March 11, 4:00-5:00 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: David C. Baum
Lecture: Professor David Rudovsky, University of Pennsylvania Law School.
March 12, 1:00-2:00 pm, Room H: Student Open Forum with Dean
Hurd
April
April 1-3: Brown vs. Board of Education Conference
April 3: 11th Annual Black Law Student Association Alumni Banquet
April 6, 3:00-4:00 pm, Room H: Student Open Forum with Dean
Hurd
April 9: Annual Public Philosophy Lecture: Professor Thomas Nagel,
New York University School of Law
April 14, 12:00-1:00 pm, Room 200: Student Luncheon with Dean
Hurd
April 16-17, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: Symposium on Law and Economic
Development in Asia, sponsored by the International Law Society
April 23, 3:30 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: Annual Rickert Awards
Presentation
April 23, 6:30 pm, Champaign Country Club: Spring
Gala/Community-wide Dinner Dance
April 30: Symposium on Japanese Law, sponsored by the International
Law Society
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
