October 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,
October is my favorite month of the year. Alumni return to campus for Homecoming; the College hosts the always-impressive Vacketta-DLA Piper Lecture on the Role of Government and the Law (this year featuring former Michigan Governor and U.S. Ambassador to Canada, James Blanchard); students thrill at being able to attend the oral arguments before the Fourth District Appellate Court that are held in our own auditorium; first year students shed their early jitters and begin to create new initiatives that leave a lasting impact on the College; and the faculty throws itself into an ambitious hiring season that will ultimately bring to Illinois highly productive, energetic new faculty who will fuel the College's continued aspiration to be one of the most exciting, innovative centers for the study of law in America.
In the Associate Dean's Addendum that accompanies this month's newsletter, Associate Dean Ralph Brubaker, himself a leading expert in bankruptcy and a marvelous partner in administering the College of Law, will tell you about the faculty's many extraordinary achievements and activities. His summary makes clear why the College's faculty is amongst the most productive and most influential in the nation.
Beyond the head-spinning number of faculty activities and achievements reported by Dean Brubaker, the news of the month includes the following:- Law School Initiatives Encourage Students to participate in the College's Administration and to Interact with Faculty
- Law Students Achieve Campus Recognition of their Responses to Hurricane Katrina
- Professor John Colombo is Cited in a Senate Joint Committee Report on the Tax-Exempt Status of Charitable Hospitals
- 2L Student, Vance Little, Learns Skills of Diplomacy While Working for Ambassador John McDonald ('46) at the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy
- Professor Jay Kesan is Awarded a $100,000 Grant for Research into Patent Litigation and Ag-Biotech Innovation
- The College Becomes a Courthouse
- Professor David Hyman Testifies Before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Group Healthcare
- President B. Joseph White and Business Dean Avijit Ghosh Join the College of Law to Invest Professor Andrew Morriss as the H. Ross and Helen Workman Professor of Law and Business
- The College's Office of Development and Alumni Relations Changes Hands
- Homecoming 2006 Unites Alumni, Students, Faculty, and Staff
Law School Initiatives Encourage Students to participate in the College's Administration and to Interact with Faculty
I want to begin by reminding all of the students at the College that you have a voice in how the College is run. As Henrik Ibsen wrote in 1828: "A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm." There are several means that have been created specifically to enable you to share the helm and to make your voice heard, so I urge you, in my mother's words, never to "coffee cup complain"! Share with me and the College's dedicated administrative staff your concerns, suggestions, thoughts, ideas, questions, complaints, compliments, and insights so that we can better appreciate your needs and better help you fulfill your aspirations.
First, every month I host a Dean's Open Forum (see the calendar at the end of each newsletter for the date and time of this monthly forum). During this hour, you are invited to join Assistant Dean Virginia Vermillion and me to raise questions, talk about problems, float ideas, articulate concerns, and raise issues that merit administrative attention. You will find this a casual, friendly, open environment in which to pursue matters of importance to you, and you will find that we take very seriously the issues that are raised with us and that we act promptly to investigate and address matters of concern that are brought to our attention in this setting.
Second, every month I also host a Dean's Lunch. Join me and eight or ten of your fellow students for box lunches in my office where you can pursue questions, concerns, and matters of interest in a roundtable setting over nice box lunches. To participate in one of these lunches, simply sign up with my assistant, Susan Maxwell, in Room 202.
Third, several years ago we formed a Student Advisory Council with whom Dean Vermillion and I meet on a monthly basis. The purpose of this Council is to advise us on matters that affect the student body and to brainstorm about ways in which the College can enhance the student experience. This year's Council members are Amara Enyia, Amber Evans, Greg Gambill, Daniel Hwang, and Viviana Martinez. If you have an issue or concern, one very effective means of bringing it to our attention is by talking with these student representatives whose task it is to give voice to your views.
Finally, the faculty of the College is proud of its long tradition of having an open-door policy. In addition to encouraging you to talk with faculty during open-door hours, we are also eager to have you take your professors to lunch! As a means of facilitating these lunches, the College has adopted a Take a Professor to Lunch Program! Under this program, if you take a faculty member to lunch, the College will reimburse you for the (reasonable) price of the professor's meal (alcohol excluded). That way you can generously pay his or her bill without being left footing that bill! Just submit the receipt for the faculty member's lunch to Shirley Shore in the Office of Student Services for reimbursement. So what are you waiting for? Ask your professors to join you and your friends for lunch!
Law Students Achieve Campus Recognition of their Responses to Hurricane Katrina
Last week, 2L Eamon Kelly participated in a panel entitled "Taking Action through Volunteerism" as part of a campus-wide Katrina Summit. Eamon talked about the remarkable work that College of Law students did to provide legal assistance to survivors and evacuees throughout the Gulf Coast region, in partnership with the Student Hurricane Relief Network. He talked of his own trip to New Orleans last winter and of how he later organized a Spring Break trip that involved five law students -- 2L Amara Enyia, 2L Joseph Bochenek, 2L Benjamin Jones, 2L Alisa Kao, and 2L Jason McGaughy - - who volunteered with The Justice Center, a non-profit criminal defense office based in New Orleans, rehabilitated houses with ACORN, a community-based organization, and worked with the Legal Aid branch of Common Ground. Eamon shared 2L Amara Enyia's award winning editorial about her volunteer experience in New Orleans. He spoke of 2L Katie Pieper, who recently concluded a summer internship in Mississippi and plans to return there upon graduation. And he retold the story of how members of the Black Law Students Association sent two large truckloads of personal supplies to the Gulf Coast and the Student Bar Association raised substantial funds from law students for Katrina victims. As Eamon's enthusiastically-received presentation well captured, tragic events often far surpass the classroom lessons of the academy in their ability to teach students that public service is integral to professional duty. And the lessons live on: our students plan to return to New Orleans to volunteer their time and services during Winter Break!
Professor John Colombo is Cited in a Senate Joint Committee Report on the Tax-Exempt Status of Charitable Hospitals
Professor John D. Colombo, the Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Professor and one of the nation's leading authorities on tax-exempt non-profit organizations, was cited in the U.S. Senate Joint Committee on Taxation document, Present Law and Background Relating to the Tax-Exempt Status of Charitable Hospitals, as part of a hearing titled, "Taking the Pulse of Charitable Care and Community Benefits at Nonprofit Hospitals."
Professor Colombo, who testified before the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means a year ago, was cited for his testimony on the community benefit standard for non-profit tax-exempt hospitals, in which he stated that the community benefit standard "simply does not require any measurable difference in behavior from a for-profit entity." His testimony offered three alternatives to the present-day standard, including a strict, measurable charity care standard, a standard that is more flexible than a strict charity care standard, but which includes specific behavior guidelines, and a repeal of the community benefit standard.
2L Student, Vance Little, Learns Skills of Diplomacy While Working for Ambassador John McDonald ('46) at the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy
Vance Little spent the summer months between his first and second year of law school learning about diplomacy from our own alumnus, the legendary Ambassador John W. McDonald (class of 1946), at the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. Vance worked for Ambassador McDonald as a project officer with the considerable responsibility of developing and managing the organization's international projects, including the development of practical, hands-on programs designed to build bridges between people involved in international conflicts.
Vance was responsible for the regions of Kashmir and the Republic of Georgia. In Kashmir, the Institute worked to provide conflict resolution training to government officials and civilians on both sides of the line of demarcation, and Vance worked directly with organizations in India and Pakistan as well as with senior leaders in these two countries to facilitate genuine dialogue by both sides. In the country of Georgia, Vance prepared for an official visit by a minister of the Georgian cabinet. During his time there, a former staff member of the Institute was arrested while protesting outside an appellate court in the capitol, Tbilisi. The arrest appeared to be in violation of the Georgian constitution because the activist was arrested by court officials, charged with contempt of court, sentenced by an administrative judge, and given no right to appeal. Vance worked daily with a number of legal aid groups and government officials in Georgia to challenge the government's infringement on civil rights and to secure an executive pardon.
The Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy is a Non-Governmental Organization founded in 1992 by Ambassador McDonald that is dedicated to conflict resolution and peace-building in such countries, at the present time, as Kashmir, the Republic of Georgia, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Libya, and Korea. "My time with the Institute gave me a unique look at how much is possible even for a small organization with a limited budget," said Vance. "It changed my opinion about the effectiveness of NGOs in the international arena. Further, the opportunity to work with the Ambassador and be exposed to his tremendous vision and wisdom was invaluable."
Ambassador McDonald holds both a B.A. and a J.D. degree from the University of Illinois, and graduated from the National War College in 1967. He was appointed Ambassador twice by President Carter and twice by President Reagan to represent the United States at various United Nations World Conferences. From 1947-1974, Ambassador McDonald held State Department assignments in Berlin, Frankfurt, Bonn, Paris, Washington D.C., Ankara, Tehran, Karachi, and Cairo.
Ambassador McDonald retired from the Foreign Service in 1987, after 40 years as a diplomat. In 1987-88, he became a Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. He was Senior Advisor to George Mason University's Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and taught and lectured at the Foreign Service Institute and the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs. From 1988 to 1992, Ambassador McDonald was President of the Iowa Peace Institute in Grinnell, Iowa, and was a Professor of Political Science at Grinnell College. In May 2006, the College of Law nominated him for, and he received, the Alumni Achievement Award, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an alumnus by the University of Illinois Alumni Association.
Professor Jay Kesan is Awarded a $100,000 Grant for Research into Patent Litigation and Ag-Biotech Innovation
Professor Jay Kesan recently received a three-year $100,000 research grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Soybean Disease Biotechnology Center for a project entitled "Empirical Studies of Patent Litigation and Ag-Biotech Innovation." As his grant proposal explains, intellectual property is not new to the world of agriculture. Indeed, the very first U.S. patent ever granted in 1790 to Samuel Hopkins was for potash. What is remarkable is the transformation that is taking place in the modern food sector with universities, start-up ag-biotech companies, information technology companies, and mega life-science companies all contributing and adding value to the "plain, old" seed that farmers plant, thereby contesting the position that "we-are-only-using-God-given-germplasm." In fact, the extensive contributions by these various institutional players compels the re-examination of how we can define, circumscribe, and enforce property rights in agricultural biotechnology so that both the risks and rewards of plant innovation are shared by all the players in the value chain. Professor Kesan's project attempts to analyze and answer some of these questions by empirically examining patent litigation data in order to understand how patent rights are being defined, validated, and enforced by the courts, and in order to determine whether such an approach constitutes sound legal innovation and patent policy.
The College Becomes a Courthouse
Students and faculty have the opportunity to witness two significant court proceedings at the College of Law during the month of October. The Fourth District Appellate Court will return to the College on October 12th to hear oral arguments on both a civil appeal and a criminal appeal. Justices Thomas R. Appleton, John W. Turner, and Robert J. Steigmann will preside. Attendance at these arguments is open to all, but arrive early, because the Max Rowe Auditorium will surely be filled to capacity! Summaries of the two cases and briefs are available at https://www.law.uiuc.edu/intranet/courses/default.asp.
The College will also host the United State District Court-Central District of Illinois and Judge Joe Billy McDade for Sa'Da Johnson, et al. v. Board of Education, Champaign Community Unit School District # 4, commonly referred to by local and national media as the "Consent Decree" case. This highly publicized event will take place on October 19 at 12:30 p.m. and seating in the Max Rowe Auditorium will be restricted. However, there will be 98 general public seats available on a first-come, first-served basis in Room D of the Law Building with the hearing available through closed circuit television viewing.
Professor David Hyman Testifies Before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Group Healthcare
Last month, Professor David Hyman, the Galowich-Huizenga Faculty Scholar, presented testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Examining Competition in Group Healthcare. The Committee was chaired by Senator Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania) and included Illinois Senator Richard Durbin and Senator Tom Coburn (Oklahoma).
Professor Hyman's testimony centered on the issue of whether there is evidence of market power in health insurance markets. He discussed the complaints of health care providers regarding disparities in bargaining power when negotiating with the insurance companies, pointing out that complaints are coming from health care providers, not consumers, and that the interests of consumers are at odds with those of providers. Professor Hyman provided several concrete recommendations to improve the current situation, including improving transparency of price and quality information and using incentives to improve quality; fixing the tax subsidy for employment-based health insurance; lowering barriers to entry in health insurance; and malpractice tort reform.
President B. Joseph White and Business Dean Avijit Ghosh Join the College of Law to Invest Professor Andrew Morriss as the H. Ross and Helen Workman Professor of Law and Business
This month President B. Joseph White will come to the College of Law to invest newly-appointed Professor Andrew Morriss as the inaugural H. Ross and Helen Workman Professor of Law and Professor of Business. Dean Avijit Ghosh of the College of Business and I will join the President in thanking Ross and Helen Workman for their extraordinary generosity in creating this distinguished professorship and in celebrating the College's ability to use this position to attract acclaimed Professor Andrew Morriss to its faculty.
Mr. Ross Workman is a 1947 graduate of the College of Commerce and a 1949 graduate of the College of Law. After his World War II military service in the Air Corps in the South Pacific, Ross met Helen, an elementary school teacher and University of Minnesota graduate, in the small town of Harmony, Minnesota. After law school, Mr. Workman began as a National Real Estate Manager at Allstate Insurance handling legal work and zoning cases across the country. He retired from Allstate in 1982 as Vice President of Real Estate and Construction and was honored as a 1982 College of Law Distinguished Alumnus Award recipient. For more than 40 years, Mr. and Mrs. Workman have been generous philanthropists to the University of Illinois. Through commitments in their estate plans as well as through outright support, the Workmans have established a Research Fund, an Endowed Chair in Law, and a Professorship, all of which will sustain faculty excellence in research and teaching in perpetuity.
Professor Andrew Morriss joins the Illinois faculty after serving as the Galen J. Roush Professor of Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, where he was also Associate Dean from 2000 to 2003. Professor Morriss is also a Research Fellow of the NYU Center for Labor and Employment Law, a Senior Fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center, Bozeman, Montana; a Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; and a regular visiting professor at Universidad Francisco Marroquín, in Guatemala. He is the author or coauthor of more than forty book chapters and scholarly articles and is a regular contributor to The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty and Books & Culture: A Christian Review. Professor Morriss received his A.B. degree from Princeton University, his J.D. and a master's degree in public affairs from The University of Texas at Austin, and his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. After law school, he clerked for U.S. District Judge Barefoot Sanders in the Northern District of Texas and worked for two years at Texas Rural Legal Aid in Hereford and Plainview, Texas.
The College's Office of Development and Alumni Relations Changes Hands
Shon Herrick, our much-respected and very successful Assistant Dean for Development and Alumni Relations, will be leaving the College in mid-October to take up the position of Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Pfeiffer College in North Carolina. Dean Herrick has led our fund-raising and alumni relations efforts for the last two years and we owe him great thanks for the tremendous successes that he and his staff have achieved in increasing the annual and endowment funding necessary to fuel the agenda of excellence that we have set for ourselves.
While the College community is sad to see Dean Herrick take this next step on the ladder of his impressive career, I am very pleased to announce that Jeff Coates will succeed him in this important role. As head of the College's advancement efforts, Dean Coates will be responsible for administering all aspects of our fund-raising program, including annual giving, endowment and scholarship gifts, and a possible building campaign. He will also continue to work with the nearly 10,000 law alumni around the globe to foster their friendships and inspire their continued involvement in the College of Law community.
For the past three years, Dean Coates has served as the highly-successful Director of Development focusing on major gift development in the Eastern half of the United States. He joined the College in 2002 as its Associate Director of Development with an emphasis on soliciting support for the Law School Annual Fund. Prior to working in the Development and Alumni Affairs Office, Dean Coates worked as a Development Research Specialist for four years at the University of Illinois Foundation. Before that he was a Paralegal for the Citizens Utility Board in Chicago and a Court Clerk for the Seventh Judicial Circuit Clerk's Office in Springfield, Illinois. He earned his M.A. in Legal Studies at the University of Illinois and his A.A.S. and B.A. degrees at Southern Illinois University.
Our sincere thanks and best wishes to Shon, and our congratulations to Jeff!
Homecoming 2006 Unites Alumni, Students, Faculty, and Staff
Finally, a hearty "welcome back" to the many alumni who are returning for the 96th annual Homecoming festivities next weekend, October 5th-8th. On Thursday, October 5th at 3 p.m., the College welcomes former Michigan Governor and Ambassador to Canada James Blanchard, who will deliver the fifth annual Vacketta-DLA Piper Lecture on the Role of Government and the Law. This lecture is open to all on a first-come, first-served basis, and is sure to be a signature moment in this year's intellectual feast. On Friday night, October 6th, please join us for the popular College of Law Homecoming Reception at Lincolnshire Fields Country Club as we honor five Distinguished Alumnus Award recipients: Terrance D. Paul '74, Edward C. Ohlin '76, Phyllis J. Holmen '74, Thomas R. Lamont '72, and Jaime L. Torres '81. And, on Saturday, October 7th, join us for our annual Homecoming Tailgate Brunch prior to the Illinois-Indiana football game. To register for the Homecoming Reception and/or Tailgate Brunch, call the Development and Alumni Relations Office at (217) 333-2628 or go online to http://www.law.uiuc.edu/homecoming/registration.asp.
I look forward to seeing many of you this month at the College's numerous public gatherings and activities. A calendar of October events follows the Associate Dean's Addendum below and I urge you to join in the life of the law school. My thanks to everyone whose energetic efforts are being devoted to making October the best month of the year!
