December 2005 - January 2006
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,
'Tis the season to be jolly--or at least it will be when the crush of end-of-semester exams releases students, staff, and faculty for much-needed time at home with their families and friends. The bustle in the Law Building matches that in the Mall, as students rush back and forth between classes, faculty office hours, and the library in which they have staked out spare space amongst the drape-cloths that still cordon off areas under renovation. Faculty are squeezing last minute lessons out of their syllabi while madly writing exams in time for the massive production involved in copying them. The entry-level hiring season is in full swing, so the College community is devoting days to hosting and interviewing aspiring new academics. And staff are working together to compile and analyze an enormous quantity of comparative data that will enable us to start the new year by engaging in a bold strategic planning effort inspired by our new President, B. Joseph White.
This month, let me give you some glimpses into the cumulative bustle that characterizes the College:
- The College of Law is in the News--Everywhere!
- Seven College of Law Faculty Head to China
- The Colleges of Law and Medicine Team Up to . . . Teach Each Other?
- Class of 2005 Achieves a 93.38% Bar Passage Rate
- The College's Trial and Negotiation Teams are Coached to Impressive Successes
- Holiday Giving: A Student Tradition at the College of Law
- What do Bird Watchers and Russian Judges Have in Common?
- The College Hosts the Release of The Illinois White Paper on Human Subject Testing
- Eight College of Law Alumni Receive Distinguished Alumni Awards
- We Can't Do it Without You!
The College of Law is in the News--Everywhere!
In recent months, Illinois College of Law faculty members have garnered remarkable national and international media attention. Their analyses of topics ranging from the nomination of Judge Alito to Medicare and NASCAR have been featured in publications and on television and radio around the globe, attesting to the significance of their work to law-makers, policy analysts, and informed citizens.
Over an eight-day period in late November, Illinois College of Law faculty were featured or quoted as legal experts by 10 national and international media sources, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fortune, ESPN, Business Week, and The Sunday Times (London).
In the month of November, 22 faculty were quoted in 69 stories by 38 different media sources, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Washington Post, Vancouver Sun, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Houston Chronicle and Knight-Ridder News Service.
In the last two and a half months, 31 faculty members and students have appeared in 153 stories in 53 different print and electronic media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, National Public Radio, Forbes, Fortune, The Sunday Times (London), ESPN.com, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Embassy (Canada), International Herald Tribune, Knight-Ridder News Service, Vancouver Sun, Associated Press and the Chicago Sun-Times; regional news and legal news outlets such as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Quad City Times, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, ISBA News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Houston Chronicle, Northwest Herald, the Illinois Channel (75-station statewide network), WCIA-TV, WAND-TV, WICD-TV, WDWS-AM 1400, WILL-AM 580 and our local newspapers, the Daily Illini and Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette.
Congratulations to our faculty for so effectively uniting theory with practice. And congratulations to our new Assistant Dean for Communications, Dave Johnson, for so effectively matching the appetites of the media with the smorgasbord of important topics on which our faculty work.
Seven College of Law Faculty Head to China
Seven College of Law faculty members will travel to Guangzhou, China from December 3-11 to attend a conference entitled "The Role of Law in Economic Development -- Implications for China in the World," co-sponsored by the University of Illinois College of Law and the Law Faculty of Sun Yat-sen University. Those attending the conference include Professors William Davey, Tom Ginsburg, Jay Kesan, Larry Ribstein, Larry Solum, Charles Tabb, and Cynthia Williams. The relationship between law and economic development has been one of the central concerns of modern social theory and legal scholarship, and is of increasing importance to policy-makers in national governments and multilateral development institutions. It is also a critical issue for China's future, as China seeks continued economic growth while assigning a greater role to law and the legal system in underpinning that growth. The conference is being held as part of Sun Yat Sen University's celebration of the centennial of legal studies in Guangdong.
The Colleges of Law and Medicine Team Up to . . . Teach Each Other?
The University of Illinois Colleges of Law and Medicine teamed up this semester to teach an innovative law course entitled "Client Counseling, Fact Investigation and Interviewing," better known as 'CFI,' which has been designed to train future attorneys and physicians to work with each other in an effective way. Coordinated by Professor C.K. Gunsalus (Law and Medicine), Professor J. Steven Beckett (Law), Dr. Robert Kirby (Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, UI College Of Medicine) and Dr. Joseph Goldberg (Course Director of Medicine and Society, UI College of Medicine), the course enlisted 32 second- and third-year law students and 32 medical participants, including residents in family practice, internal medicine residents and practicing physicians. The students were presented with a mock case that involved a doctor's high rate of length of bed stay and mortality rates and required the students to conduct client interviews, fact investigation, and counseling to resolve the issues that it raised. The students warmed up for the interviews by engaging in role-playing with UI theatre students who portrayed clients. The client interviewing, fact finding and counseling portions of the course also involved local volunteers, graduate students from the School of Social Work studying child welfare and an impressive list of local attorneys.
The instructors for the course, delivering a curriculum written by Professors Beckett and Gunsalus, were local attorneys Lorna Geiler from Meyer Capel Law Offices and Roger Marsh from Pavia and Marsh. Those assisting in the course as mock "hospital attorneys" included Andrew Bequette (Beckett & Webber), Rick Chapin (Hinshaw & Culbertson), Laura Clower (University Counsel), Keith Emmons (Meyer Capel Law Offices), Renee Monfort (Dobbins, Fraker, Tennant, Joy & Perlstein, P.C.), Bryan Perrero (University Counsel), Helen Pope (Phebus & Koester), and Roger Webber (Beckett & Webber), Professor David Hyman (J.D./M.D.), Professor Beckett, and Professor Gunsalus.
The Class of 2005 Achieves a 93.38% Bar Passage Rate
According to statistics released last month by the Illinois Board of Admissions to the Bar, 92% of University of Illinois College of Law graduates taking the Illinois State Bar Examination in July, 2005 passed the examination on their first attempt, a figure that represents a slight increase from the 2004 results. The statistics include all Illinois law graduates taking the Illinois Bar Examination for the first time, including those graduating in past years. The recent graduating class of 2005 achieved a 93.38% bar examination passage rate. In the 2005 U.S. News and World Report "Guide to Law Schools," Illinois ranked eighth nationally in the bar passage rate among all law schools and third among public law schools.
The College's Trial and Negotiation Teams are Coached to Impressive Successes
The fall Trial Team (3L students Shomari Dailey, Bill Wallenstein, Dalila Bentley and Radhika Patel) advanced to the "final four" at the National Association of Criminal Trial Lawyers (NACDL) law school trial competition held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in early November. Competing against eleven other law schools from across the United States, Illinois finished in second place after the preliminary rounds after competing successfully against Michigan State, Southwestern, and Pace, and before losing on a split vote in the semi-final round to Florida. Shomari Dailey received a Best Advocate Award for his work in the semi-final round. The Trial Team is coached by our Director of Trial Advocacy, Professor Steve Beckett, assisted by Adjunct Trial Advocacy Professor Scott Kording and Graduate Assistant Eric Schacht.
The Negotiation Teams of Justin Delfino/Lisandra Martinez and Amara
Enyia/Eamon Kelly reached the final round of competition at the ABA Regional
Negotiation Competition in Chicago in early November. The Enyia/Kelly team
placed second overall while Delfino/Martinez placed fourth overall. The
Enyia/Kelly team has advanced to the Spring 2006 National Competition. The
Negotiation Team is coached by Professor Shannon Moritz, our Director of Legal
Writing and Research.
Our hearty thanks to Coaches Moritz, Beckett,
Kording, and Schacht, and our warm congratulations to our talented students!
Holiday Giving: A College of Law Student Tradition
Our students possess a passion for community service that outstrips that of students at all other law schools with which I've been associated. They provide countless hours of community service individually, and over half of the College's 44 student organizations embrace, as part of their mission, a public outreach component.
During this holiday season, our students have rekindled annual traditions that are devoted to making the holidays happier for families in need and troops overseas. Here is a sampling of just some of their energetic activities:
The Angel Tree Project: Visit the Student Services lobby during the first two weeks of December and you will see literally hundreds of holiday presents that have been purchased by students for children of incarcerated parents as part of the Angel Tree Project, a longtime law school tradition hosted by the Christian Law Student Association.
The Class of 2008 Canned Food Drive: Each year first-year law students compete by section to deliver the most canned food items to a local food pantry. With friendly competition comes an enormous amount of canned food and donations, filling the boxes placed throughout the building. This year, a truck-load of food items and $ 494.51 in donations were collected and distributed to the Eastern Illinois Food Bank. Congratulations to Section B for triumphing in this competition for charity!
Make a Sandwich Day: The Asian-American Law Students Association, with the assistance of nine other student organizations, conducted a "Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich Day," making nearly 350 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on large tables in the center of the Pedersen Pavilion that were donated to the Times Center in Champaign.
A Holiday Clothing Drive: The Latino/Latina Law Students Association held a winter clothing drive, collecting warm clothing for needy children in the Shadowwood Mobile Homes community in Champaign.
A Holiday Soap Drive: The Women's Law Society hosted a unique "Soap Drive," filling two overflowing bins with soap products for a very grateful local women's shelter, A Woman's Place.
The Veteran's Day Drive: The Military Law Society collected more than $1,000 in cash and a generous collection of donations for its "Servicemember Care Package Drive for Veteran's Day" that provided gifts to more than 100 soldiers, sailors, and pilots currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What do Bird Watchers and Russian Judges Have in Common?
Every year the College hosts over 250 public lectures, conferences, debates, roundtables, symposia, and occasions for public engagement with prestigious visitors. These events range over a remarkable array of topics and cumulatively attract thousands of participants. Here are two wildly different examples of events that occurred within one week at the College during the month of November.
Professor Eric Freyfogle, a celebrated environmental law scholar, teamed up with the College of Law's Environmental Law Society to host a public lecture by noted birder, author, and wildlife photographer Tim Gallagher. Mr. Gallagher was one of the first three people to see the fabled Ivory-billed woodpecker, previously thought extinct because of widespread habitat loss. Mr. Gallagher is Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell Ornithology Lab's award-winning quarterly Living Bird, as well as author of the new book, The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. He came to the College directly from the field in Arkansas, with first-hand reports on on-going search efforts to learn more about the bird and its habitat needs. The lecture was co-sponsored by the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences.
On the same day, four distinguished judges from Russia arrived in central Illinois as part of the "Open World Program" of Rotary International and the U. S. State Department. Their visit to our community was coordinated by College alumni, Chief U.S. District Judge Michael McCuskey and U.S. Magistrate Judge David Bernthal, with assistance from Professors Peter Maggs and Steve Beckett and the campus's Russian, East European and Eurasian Center.
Since the fall of communism, the Russian judiciary has evolved into an independent branch of government comprised of a unified system of courts (called "federal" courts) which accord what is for Russian citizens a novel right to jury trials. Inasmuch as Russian judges and lawyers are new to the jury system, they are seeking opportunities to witness our system and learn of the techniques employed by law schools to teach trial practice. During their visit to Illinois, our recent guests observed court proceedings in the Champaign County Circuit Court and in U.S. District Court in Urbana and visited court and historical sites in Springfield. They observed numerous classes at the College of Law (especially appreciating Professor Peter Maggs' contract class because he spoke to them in fluent Russian!), and they engaged faculty about advocacy instruction and spoke with staff members about College administrative matters. The judges capped their stay with a guest appearance at "Peer's Pub," mingling with faculty, staff, and students at the College's weekly community hour.
The College Hosts the Release of The Illinois White Paper on Human Subject Testing
In 2003, a multidisciplinary group was convened by the Center for Advanced Study on the University of Illinois campus following an international Human Subject Policy Conference. Professor C.K. Gunsalus served as committee chair and Professor Matthew Finkin also served on the committee. During the past month, the committee released its research in a document entitled The Illinois White Paper: Improving the System for Protecting Human Subjects (http://www.law.uiuc.edu/conferences/whitepaper). The public panel discussion hosted at the College of Law as part of the release of the White Paper was led by Professor Gunsalus, Dr. Steven Breckler, Executive Director for Science, American Psychological Association, and members of the steering committee.
The White Paper describes "the pernicious effects of mission creep on the work of Institutional Review Boards, which is diverting the attention of some IRBs from critical ethical oversight of human subject testing in favor of often-meaningless paperwork." The committee also released findings which stated that "IRBs experiencing mission creep misdirect their energies and other resources to low-risk research and often unnecessarily reject proposals, which threatens academic freedom and diverts resources away from truly risky research that needs oversight. The White Paper states that it is time to bring to light the problems created by overzealous and misguided attempts to force different types of research into the biomedical framework and to recognize that, while it is critical to protect human subjects from harm, it is also time to step back and make sure IRBs are doing what they were intended to do."
Eight College of Law Graduates Receive Distinguished Alumni Awards
The luster of a University of Illinois pedigree is largely a product of the successes of those who have graduated from the College of Law and done remarkable things with their lives. Every year we celebrate the accomplishments of alumni who have brought great credit to the legal profession, the College, and those of us who benefit by our association with them.
During this past month at an alumni dinner hosted by Peter and Heidi Huizenga in Oak Brook, the College awarded Distinguished Alumni Awards to three noted Chicago attorneys and alumni: Marilyn K. Gerdes ('77), Corporate Vice President of Taxes and Senior Tax Counsel, Sara Lee Corporation, James H.M. Sprayregen ('85), Bankruptcy Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP (Chicago), and Edward J. Zulkey ('73), General Counsel, Baker & McKenzie (Chicago). At our annual Homecoming celebration in late October, the College awarded five Distinguished Alumni Awards to Associate Circuit Court Judge Glenn H. Collier ('75) of the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Illinois, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier ('64), Gregory C. Read ('67), Senior Partner, Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold (San Francisco), Lott H. Thomas ('62), Partner with Thomas, Mamer & Haughey (Champaign) and, Timothy R. Thomas ('70), retired Vice President and General Counsel, Unocal Corporation. Our congratulations and thanks to these extraordinary members of the College of Law community.
We Can't Do it Without You!
Those of us who spend our waking lives at the College of Law are reminded every day of the generosity of alumni, faculty, staff, students, and friends. We know that the many bright and talented students who fill our classes would not be here were it not for generous private scholarship support. We know that we could not pursue curricular experiments or incubate cutting-edge ideas without program and research funds and without named faculty positions established by selfless givers. And as we walk through our hallways and sit in our classrooms we are reminded by plaques on the walls of those who have invested in the environment that nurtures our discussions and sustains our study.
The College needs and relies upon the annual support of all those who owe a piece of themselves to its to legacy. If you have not already made a contribution to the College this year, please help us to advance the agenda of excellence that we have set for ourselves by giving a gift online at http://www.law.uiuc.edu/alumni/giving/Donation.asp or by contacting our development office at 217-333-2628. Thank you in advance for supporting the College.
Happy Holidays!
As the year draws to a close I wish our students the best of luck on final examinations. I wish faculty a productive holiday break--the kind that blends warm times with family with rewarding breakthroughs at the computer. I wish staff members relief from the straining pace that defines their lives during the school year. I wish alumni and friends restful retreats from hefty professional demands. And I wish our colleagues around campus the rejuvenation that end-of-semester reprieves permit.
Happy holidays to all, and the very best for 2006!
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 College of Law
Events
December 2005
December 8, 3:00-4:30 pm, Huizenga Commons: Faculty/Staff Annual Holiday Party. Food and beverages will be provided.
December 9, 4:30-6:00 pm, Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers, Mississippi Room on Level II -- 301 East North Water Street (http://www.sheratonchicago.com): Law Alumni Reception at the ISBA Midyear Meeting: Social reception for alumni, friends, faculty and students. If you have questions or to send an RSVP, please contact Beth Erwin at eerwin@law.uiuc.edu or call 217-333-2628.
January
2006
January 26, 12:00-1:00 p.m., Room 202D: Student Lunch with Dean
Hurd. Students are welcome to stop by Room 202E to sign-up to have
lunch with Dean Hurd.
January 28, 9:00 am-5:00 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: 2006 Alumni-Student Career Conference. Sponsored by the Office of Career Services with participation by dozens of alumni. For more information, please contact Amanda Lindemann in Career Services at (217) 377-6322 or lindemnn@law.uiuc.edu.
January 30, 10:00-11:00 a.m., Room 200: Deans' Open Forum. Students are invited to join Dean Hurd and Assistant Dean Virginia Vermillion for an open discussion of College matters.
