February 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,
The cornfields lie brown and barren as the winter wears on in the heartland, but the College is buzzing with activity and there is much to tell. This month in the news:
- "The Country's Largest Landlord," Sam Zell, Comes to Visit John Cribbet
- The Faculties at Illinois and Michigan Team Up to Study Comparative Law
- Illinois Hosts Region 8 of the National Trial Competition
- New Developments in the Study of Elder Law
- The College Hosts Two Major Conferences in the Windy City
- Into the Blogosphere: Professors Beale, Ribstein, and Solum Make National News
- The College Launches "Illinois Law"-- A New Statewide TV Show!
- Alumni and Friends Commit "Senseless Acts of Kindness"
- The 2006 Spring Gala Featuring Newly-Appointed Provost Linda Katehi
"The Country's Largest Landlord," Sam Zell, Comes to Visit John Cribbet
Yesterday was a big day at the College of Law. Joined by the College of Business, we hosted a lecture by the visionary business leader and real estate investment magnate Samuel Zell. Mr. Zell is Chairman of Equity Group Investments, LLC, an entrepreneurial real estate investment firm. A Chicago native, Mr. Zell is a self-made billionaire and has been called "the country's largest landlord."
Addressing an overflow crowd of more than 500 students, faculty, and community members, Mr. Zell talked about "Life from an Entrepreneur's Perspective." And what a life it has been! A first-generation American whose father escaped Poland hours before the enemy invasion in 1939, Mr. Zell grew up in Chicago, obtained his law degree from the University of Michigan, and has since become known on Wall Street and in the national media as the "grave dancer" for his uncanny ability to buy assets that others thought dead. As chairman of Equity Office Properties Trust, Mr. Zell has led the real estate industry for more than 40 years, making deals, buying and selling properties and taking remarkably bold risks. He now ranks 112th on this year's Forbes 400, which estimates his net worth at $2.3 billion. Fortune magazine describes Mr. Zell as the person who "controls more commercial real estate than anyone else in the country." A fascinating speaker and personality, Mr. Zell is an avid skier and racquetball player and is the namesake of "Zell's Angels," a motorcycle group that has toured Argentina, New Zealand, and other exotic ports of call.
Mr. Zell was persuaded to visit the University of Illinois in large part because of his enormous affection for the legendary John E. Cribbet, who during a visit at the Michigan Law School, taught property law to Mr. Zell. During his time in Champaign, Mr. Zell and I had an opportunity to visit with past-Chancellor and Dean Cribbet, and in keeping with his life and the inspiration he took from Dean Cribbet, Mr. Zell encouraged students to "make no small plans!"
Illinois and Michigan Law Schools Team Up to Study Comparative Law
Illinois law professor Jacqueline Ross and Michigan law professor Mathias Reimann have teamed up to create an annual workshop that will alternate between Michigan and Illinois and will provide a forum in which the comparative law scholars from both institutions can share their work. The Michigan-Illinois Workshop: Comparative Law in Progress will involve as many as twenty faculty members in discussions of six leading papers over the course of two-day gatherings each year. As Professor Ross describes it, the objective of the Workshop is not only to provide an opportunity for the inter-institutional discussion of scholarly work, but also "to create an increased sense of coherence in a discipline that is still searching for its core principles."
Illinois Hosts Region 8 of the National Trial Competition
The College of Law will host the Region 8 (Illinois and Indiana) Trial Competition as part of the 31st annual National Trial Competition on February 9-11 at the Champaign County Courthouse in Urbana. The National Trial Competition was created to foster the development of trial advocacy skills in law students and is sponsored by the Texas Young Lawyers Association and the American College of Trial Lawyers. This marks the first time that Illinois has been selected to host the regional competition, and this surely has much to do with our renowned Director of Trial Advocacy, Steven Beckett, who has coached Illinois' trial teams since 1999 and who has built the College's trial advocacy program to remarkable stature.
Illinois is one of 13 regional sites and will host teams from DePaul, Chicago-Kent, Indiana-Indianapolis, Indiana-Bloomington, John Marshall, Loyola, Northern Illinois, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Southern Illinois, and Valparaiso. Two teams advance from each regional competition to the National Trial Competition in Dallas, Texas, March 22-25, 2006. The University of Houston Law Center is the defending national champion.
The judging staff will be comprised of local and regional attorneys and circuit and appellate court judges who will score each team on their ability to handle the facts with which they have been provided. The Region 8 competition will be sponsored by the law firms of Burroughs, Hepler, Broom, MacDonald, Hebrank & True; Heyl Royster Voelker & Allen; and Jones Day.
New Developments in the Study of Elder Law
In remembrance of the life of Mrs. Ann F. Baum, a gift through her estate has endowed the Ann F. Baum Memorial Lecture on Elder Law at the University of Illinois College of Law. This lecture series seeks to promote debate and discussion about the law's ability to affect the conditions of the aging. Mrs. Baum was born November 11, 1922, into a large, very poor Irish Catholic family. She and her husband, the late Alvin H. Baum, worked to create an investment firm in Chicago and went on to be dedicated philanthropists whose charitable giving was often aimed at assisting the elderly. The Ann F. Baum Memorial Lecture on Elder Law constitutes a fitting memorial to a woman who was deeply concerned with ensuring that the elderly genuinely enjoy "golden years."
This year's Anne F. Baum Lecture on Elder Law (to be held on March 6 at the College of Law) will be given by Laura Watts, Program Director of the Canadian Centre for Elder Law Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and is entitled "Parallel Systems, Second-Class Citizens: The Failure of Elder Abuse Legislation." Professor Watts will argue that elder abuse legislation actually makes older people more vulnerable by being essentially unenforceable and by harboring underlying assumptions that are ageist, sexist, paternalistic, and "il-liberal." According to her, such legislation is also worryingly at odds with a liberal theory of legislation. Professor Watts will focus on criminal code provisions as well as fiduciary laws and their enforcement mechanisms in Canada and the United States, and she will advance a theory of the proper locus of responsibilities to the elderly within a federal legal system. (For more information about this lecture, see the Calendar of Events below.)
The membership and staff of The Elder Law Journal have been hard at work on their latest issue and expect it to be published any day now. In their contribution "Top Ten Myths of Social Security Reform," Professors Jeffery Brown, Kent Smetters, and Kevin Hasset highlight ten common "myths" that surround the current debate over social security reform. The inspiration for the article came from a widely-read article entitled "Top Ten Myths of Social Security" penned by our very own Richard Kaplan in a previous issue of The Elder Law Journal. And Professor Sandra Sperino's article, "Disparate Impact or Negative Impact?: The Future of Non-Intentional Discrimination Claims Brought by the Elderly," debunks a misconception over the recent Supreme Court decision in Smith v. City of Jackson, Mississippi. At the time the Supreme Court handed down this decision, the news media widely reported that it provided a new tool for elderly litigants in the fight against age discrimination in the workplace. Professor Sperino argues that the Supreme Court, while finally recognizing that "disparate impact" claims are viable under the ADEA, also placed many obstacles in the way of litigants who want to challenge such policies. Professor Sperino argues that these new obstacles, along with decreased incentives for elderly plaintiffs to pursue disparate impact claims, will actually result in many potential claims being abandoned or pursued unsuccessfully.
The College Hosts Two Major Conferences in the Windy City
"Chicago is an Illini Kind of Town"--so say the big billboards that have adorned spaces donated on Chicago high rises and warehouses by College of Law alumnus Tony Augustine ('73). And this Spring the College of Law is hosting two very major conferences in the windy city to which all are invited.
"Consumer Bankruptcy and Credit in the Wake of the 2005 Act": A year ago, President Bush signed into law S. 256, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA), which reflects the most sweeping changes to the United States bankruptcy laws in over a quarter century since the enactment of the 1978 Bankruptcy Code. As a means of better understanding the implications of this landmark legislation, Associate Dean Ralph Brubaker, Professor Charles Tabb, and Visiting Professor Natalie DeVooght, will host a dozen leading bankruptcy scholars in a Chicago forum entitled, "Consumer Bankruptcy and Credit in the Wake of the 2005 Act." (For more information contact Suzanne Rogers at srogers@law.uiuc.edu or (217) 333-9859.)
"Capital Markets and Corporate Governance: Short-Term Pressures in a Long-Term World": Professor Cynthia Williams will host a two-day conference on corporate accountability on April 24-25 in downtown Chicago featuring British law and business faculty from Oxford, Cambridge, the Royal Holloway School of Business, and Nottingham, American law and business faculty from Boston College, UCLA, Cornell, Penn, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Georgetown and Yale, and business and legal experts from the United Nations Global Compact, International Corporate Governance Network, Mercer Investment Consultants, KLD Research & Analytics, Inc., and State Street Global Advisers. The keynote speaker will be Robert A.G. Monks, the well-known investor and shareholder activist and author, a board member of ten publicly traded companies, an appointed member of the Reagan administration, and the former CEO of The Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Company, who has become a visible advocate for getting institutional investors more involved in their portfolio companies and for the need for disclosure of corporate environmental and social information. A special thanks to Board of Visitors member Tom Miner '53 for arranging funding for this event. (For more information contact Professor Cynthia Williams at cwilliam@law.uiuc.edu or (217) 333-3966.)
Into the Blogosphere: Professors Beale, Ribstein, and Solum Make National News
Professors Linda Beale, Larry Ribstein, and Larry Solum have reached out into the "Blogosphere" by launching and expanding their own blog sites. Professor Solum's "Legal Theory" blog ranks among the nation's most-visited law blog sites with more than 5,000 daily visitors. Professor Ribstein's "Ideoblog," which combines his unique expertise in business and entertainment law, has become a regular stop for national reporters from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post, and Professor Ribstein is frequently quoted in many national news stories, most recently for his comments on the Securities and Exchange Commission's new financial penalties policy. Professor Beale's site, "ataxingmatter" focuses on taxation and its entries were the impetus for the invitation that she received to participate in a National Public Radio "All Things Considered" program on December 24 as part of a lengthy news story by reporter Martin Kaste on year-end tax breaks for Hurricane Katrina relief.
The College Launches "Illinois Law"-- A New Statewide TV Show!
The College of Law Communications Department will launch a three-episode pilot this spring for a new 30-minute weekly television program entitled, "Illinois Law," hosted by Professor Amy Gajda, a former television anchor, reporter, and talk show host in several major markets. The program will focus on legal issues in the news, research developments, articles and publications and other newsworthy items from College of Law faculty.
The show will be taped on location in the newly refurbished reading room of the Jenner Law Library and produced locally at WCIA-TV Channel 3 (CBS affiliate) for statewide syndication and distribution. We are hopeful that the three-episode spring pilot will create a case for advertising and sponsorship so we can offer the program on a weekly basis beginning in the Fall of 2006.
Each week, the Communications Department distributes a complete listing of print and electronic media clips involving University of Illinois College of Law faculty and students. In the near future, we will begin offering these weekly clips on the College of Law website, www.law.uiuc.edu. Be sure to check the weekly clips to keep up-to-date on the local, regional, and national interviews conducted with our faculty about wide-ranging topics. If you are interested in receiving an e-mail link to the media clips, contact Dave Johnson, Assistant Dean for Communications, at djhnsn1@law.uiuc.edu.
Alumni and Friends Commit "Senseless Acts of Kindness"!
I love the bumper sticker that encourages people to "commit senseless acts of kindness." And fortunately, alumni, staff, students, and faculty have taken its advice to heart in ways that make great sense to the College of Law. During the month of December 2005, the College of Law received 665 gifts totaling $890,670. This represents an increase of 112% in total gifts compared to December 2004, and an almost 15% increase in the number of donors. During the previous fiscal year we received almost $1.2 million in cash contributions. After the first six months of this fiscal year, we have already matched the cash contributions for the entire previous year!
As I have said repeatedly to alumni and friends in recent years, scholarship support for students is one of our principle priorities. As tuition costs escalate to compensate for the marked reduction of state funding--to $17,448 for in-state students this year and to $28,352 for out-of-state students--the College must find means of easing student debt loads that are now approaching those of the nation's private schools. Fortunately, some very loyal alumni have responded generously to my pleas for help, and the Provost's Office has established a Scholarship Matching Program that matches any scholarship gift of $150,000 that is given outright or over the course of three years.
I am thus delighted to tell you that alumni Terry ('68) and Judi ('68 BS in Elementary Education) Paul have supplemented their existing endowed scholarship fund with an extraordinarily generous gift that will be matched by the Provost to double the assistance provided to our students. Michael Tipsord and Bill Fechtig have created named current-use scholarship funds that will provide funds annually for deserving students who could not afford an Illinois legal education without financial support. John Seitman and Joan Irion have created a scholarship fund through a provision in their will that will benefit future students at the College of Law. And the College's Board of Visitors has collectively done what no Board of Visitors has done before: its members have rallied to the College's aid by joining together to create a new endowed scholarship that will also be doubled by the Provost's matching program.
Alumnus George M. Chandler '55 gave a big financial boost to the College's Loan Repayment Assistance Program--a loan forgiveness initiative launched last year to enable students who would otherwise be strapped with prohibitive debt loads to pursue careers in public service. And, as I told you above, a $200,000 gift from the estate of Mrs. Ann F. Baum recently capped what is already a cornerstone in the College's multi-faceted elder law program, creating the Ann F. Baum Memorial Lecture on Elder Law.
And in the first six months of this fiscal year 16 alumni and friends joined the distinguished John E. Cribbet Society by pledging to contribute to the College's Annual Fund at least $1,500 a year for 10 years. This ranks as the highest number of new members in any year for the last 8 years! New alumni members include: Daniel Churchill '68, Kirsten Carlson Ganschow '92, James Sprayregen '85, Douglas Albritton '95, Sven Nylen '02, Eric Reicin '94, Robert Goldstine '56, Richard Stockton '00, Frank Vydra '81, Louis DiSanto '05, Diane Davies '81, Champ Davis '66, William F. Jung '83 and David Kroeger '90. Also joining the Cribbet Society this year are three present and past College staff members whose example is particularly inspirational, because each could readily claim to have given in time what others have given in dollars: Patricia Coyne-Johnson (the College's Assistant Director of Development), Paul Pless '03 (the College's Assistant Dean of Admissions), and Stacey Tutt '03 (the College's past Director of Career Services).
I thank all of you for your support of the College. We simply could not pursue the ambitious agenda of excellence that we have set for ourselves without your help, and I encourage you to contact the Office of Development and Alumni Relations if you have any questions about how you can join others in meeting the needs and seeding the aspirations of your alma mater.
The 2006 Spring Gala Featuring Newly-Appointed Provost Linda Katehi!
I want to close by encouraging all of you to add to your calendars the fourth annual College of Law Spring Gala Dinner-Dance. The Gala is my favorite event of the year because it brings together everyone who cares about the College of Law--students and faculty, secretaries and deans, alumni and friends--in celebration of the successes of the year. This year's Gala will take place on Friday, April 21st at the Champaign Country Club. The newly-appointed Provost of the Urbana-Champaign campus, Linda Katehi (currently the Dean of the School of Engineering at Purdue University) will be our keynote speaker, and I can tell you that she is an incredibly impressive, very dynamic, and very articulate leader who is decidedly not to be missed! With a maximum capacity of 300 attendees, the event will book-up quickly, so plan to purchase your tickets as soon as they become available!
With thanks to all of you for being the reasons that the University of Illinois College of Law enjoys such continued success, I wish you the best in the month to come.
Sincerely,
Heidi M. Hurd
Calendar of College of Law Events
February 2006
February 1, 12:00-1:00 pm, Room A: Informational Judicial Externship Program. The Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of Judicial Externships: Interested in a judicial externship? Then you won't want to miss this program! Learn about the steps and timing of your judicial externship job search from how to address your cover letters to the potential for obtaining credit once you've secured a position. For more information contact Amanda Lindemann in Career Services at 217-333-8951 or lindemnn@law.uiuc.edu.
February 3, 12:00-3:00 pm, Room D: Asian Americans and the Law Conference: "East Asia Undisciplined: Law, Economics, and Institutions in East Asia." Keynote speakers to include Ethan Michelson, Indiana University, "Guanxi in the Chinese Legal System, " Jacques deLisle, University of Pennsylvania, "Chinese Law in Transition," Jonathan Marshall, Carthage College, "Institutional Barriers, Cause Lawyers, and Citizen Litigation in Japan," Kentaro Koga, Illinois, "Bank Relations and Security Analyst Forecasts among Japanese Firms," and Glenn Hoetker, Illinois, "Supplier Relationships in the Japanese Economy." Sponsored by the College of Law and the Asian American Studies Program. For more information contact Professor Tom Ginsburg at tginsbur@law.uiuc.edu.
February 9-11: The College of Law hosts the Region 8 (Illinois and Indiana) Trial Competition as part of the 31st annual National Trial Competition at the Champaign County Courthouse in Urbana. Illinois is one of 13 regional sites and hosts teams from DePaul, IIT/Chicago-Kent, Indiana-Indianapolis, Indiana-Bloomington, John Marshall, Loyola, Northern Illinois, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Southern Illinois, and Valparaiso. Two teams will advance from each regional to the National Trial Competition in Dallas, Texas March 22-25, 2006. For more information contact Professor Steve Beckett, Director of Trial Advocacy (217-333-3608) or e-mail sbeckett@law.uiuc.edu.
February 10: Class of 2009 Open House. For more information contact Rebecca Warsinsky at 217-333-8010 or rnw@law.uiuc.edu.
February 13, 12:00-1:00 pm, Room A: Public Service: How to Find a Job...and Get Paid. Come join us to find out what public service is, how to find public service work, and how to finance it. Also, find out about upcoming public service events. For more information contact Amanda Lindemann in Career Services at 217-333-8951 or lindemnn@law.uiuc.edu.
February 15, 12:00-1:00 pm, Room A: Make a Career of It: Civil Law and Advocacy. Hear from attorneys involved in direct legal services, policy organizations, and general advocacy, as they describe their own dream jobs, and how they got there. For more information contact Amanda Lindemann in Career Services at 217-333-8951 or lindemnn@law.uiuc.edu.
February 24, 2006, 4:30-6:30 pm: Alumni Reception, 4200 IDS Center, 80 South Eighth Street, Minneapolis, MN, hosted by Daryle Uphoff '71, James Matthews '76, Bruce Little '84, and Christopher Grgurich '03, of Lindquist and Vennum. For more information contact Beth Erwin at (217) 333-2628 or eerwin@law.uiuc.edu.
February 27, 2:00-3:00 pm, Room 200: Deans' Open Forum. Students are invited to join Dean Hurd and Assistant Dean Vermillion for an open discussion of College matters.
February 28, 12:00-1:00 pm, Room 202D: Student Lunch with Dean Hurd. Students are welcome to stop by Room 202E to sign-up to have lunch with Dean Hurd.
March 2006
March 2, 6:15-8:15 pm, Room D: "Global Perspectives on Counter-Terrorism," presented by Amos N. Guiora, Professor of Law and Director Institute for Global Security Law and Policy Case Western Reserve University School of Law. For more information contact jlsa@law.uiuc.edu.
March 3: Class of 2009 Open House. For more information contact Rebecca Warsinsky at 217-333-8010 or rnw@law.uiuc.edu.
March 6, 12:30-2:30 pm, Max L. Rowe Auditorium: The Ann F. Baum Memorial Lecture in Elder Law. This year's Elder Law Lecture is titled "Parallel Systems, Second-Class Citizens: The Failure of Elder Abuse Legislation," featuring Laura Watts of the Canadian Centre for Elder Law Studies. For more information contact Professor Richard Kaplan at rkaplan@law.uiuc.edu.
Looking ahead to May
May 26-27: European Alumni Association Reunion - Berlin, Germany. For more information contact Carolyn Pribble at cpribble@law.uiuc.edu.
