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1/5/04 DEAN WELCOMES STUDENTS BACK FOR SPRING TERM

Welcome back for spring semester! I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday break and is ready for an active and productive new term. As I do each semester, I write to bring you up to date on upcoming events, faculty news, speaker series, and curricular developments at Northwestern Law.

Also I hope you will take a moment to review “The Strategic Plan: A Progress Report from the Dean,” which is now online in pdf form. The report details the progress we’ve made over the past five years implementing the Strategic Plan and acknowledges that there is still work to be done in some areas.

David E. Van Zandt

UPCOMING LAW SCHOOL EVENTS

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 19
There is much to look forward to this spring beginning with the Chicago campus Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration. Angela Oh, distinguished lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, and Bryonn Bain, poet and activist, will deliver keynote speeches at the Chicago campus celebration. The event will take place in Thorne Auditorium at 11:00 a.m. A live broadcast will be shown in Rubloff 140 and 150. Presented by the DREAM committee.

7th Annual Diversity Week, January 20 – 26
The Diversity Coalition has planned the 7th Annual Diversity Week for January 20 – 26. With this year’s program, the Diversity Coalition hopes to expand how we define diversity by exploring topics that are oftentimes overlooked, such as the Age Discrimination and Employment Act, the intersection of race and sexuality, and religion's role in how the United States is viewed by the world. The Black Law Students Association is also busy planning events for Black History Month to be celebrated throughout February.

41st Annual Julius H. Miner Moot Court Competition, February - March
Preliminary rounds for the 41st Annual Julius H. Miner Moot Court Competition will take place February 3, 5, 10, and 12. Each year approximately 70 second-year students compete in this prestigious competition. The final round will take place March 5. This year’s judges include Karen Nelson Moore (6th Circuit), Arthur Alarcon (9th Circuit), and Diane Wood (7th Circuit).

Meet the Employers Night, March 3
The Center for Career Strategy and Advancement will host the annual Meet the Employers Night on March 3. This is a great opportunity for first-year JD students to learn about employers who recruit on campus prior to bidding for on-campus interviews. Click here for a list of last year's attendees.

Day at Northwestern Law, April 3
We will welcome more than 100 admitted students to a Day at Northwestern Law on April 3. This special event, planned by students working with the Admissions and Student Affairs offices, introduces admitted students to the Law School. This year’s Day at Northwestern coincides with Wigmore Follies, our annual student-run cabaret show, as well as the spring meetings of the Law Board, our strategic advisory board. Both of these events will take place April 2 and 3. We hope after spending some time as part of the Northwestern Law community, these admitted students choose to join us next fall.

2004 Graduation Week, May 10 – 16
The graduation committee, chaired by Kate Bennett, JD ’04, is busy working with Student Affairs to plan this year’s Graduation Convocation, which will take place May 16 at the Arie Crown Theater. The graduation committee will have additional activities planned throughout the week, including the annual student-faculty softball game, a barbecue, the Last Lecture, and a dinner and dance.

 

SPEAKER SERIES
This spring we will welcome three prominent guest lecturers to Northwestern Law.

Pope & John Lecture Series on Professionalism, February 5 David B. Wilkins, the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law and the Director of the Program on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, will deliver the 2004 Pope and John Lecture on Professionalism. Wilkins is the co-author (along with his Harvard Law School colleague Andrew Kaufman) of Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession, Carolina Academic Press (4th ed. 2002) as well as numerous articles on legal ethics, law firms, and the legal profession. His lecture topic will be "Black Chicago Lawyers: The Social Structure of the Black Corporate Bar.”

Brodsky JD/MBA Fund Lecture, February 25
William J. McDonough, chairman of the newly formed Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), will deliver the 2004 Brodsky JD/MBA Fund Lecture on February 25.

Julius Rosenthal Foundation Lecture Series, TBD
Stephen L. Carter, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, will deliver the 2004 Julius Rosenthal Foundation Lecture Series about the "The Ethics of Affection.” The exact date is still to be decided.

We are also pleased to announce that Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Appellate Judge for the 4th Circuit has agreed to be the 2004 Trienens Visiting Judicial Scholar October 5 and 6, and Michael Walzer, UPS Foundation Professor at the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, will deliver the 2005 Julius Rosenthal Lecture next spring.

 

FACULTY NEWS

Visiting Faculty Please join me in welcoming Professor Saikrishna B. Prakash, who is visiting this semester from the University of San Diego. He will be teaching Securities Regulation. Professor Prakash was senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and a recipient of the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1993 to 1994 and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 to 1995.

Professor Prakash practiced in New York for the firm Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett for two years before serving as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law from 1997 to 1998. He was an associate professor at Boston University School of Law before joining the USD law faculty. His teaching interests are constitutional law, administrative law, and securities regulation.

In addition, Edward Gamaya Hoseah, from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Tae Hyun Choi and Jeong Man Lee, both from Seoul, South Korea; and Richard W. Garnett and Nicole Stelle Garnett from the University of Notre Dame will join us as visiting scholars for the spring semester.

Faculty Research Conference and Other Conferences
Professor John McGinnis has organized the 2004 Faculty Research Conference. This two-day conference will take place April 23 – 24 and will focus on the Rehnquist Court, which turns 16 this year. The court has staked out new ground in areas including federalism, free speech and the religion clauses, the Fourteenth Amendment, and substantive due process.

The Law School will host the annual scholarly meetings of the American Law and Economics Association May 7 – May 9. Professor Rob Sitkoff is working with the association to plan the event. We will also host the American Bar Association's New Deans' Seminar June 10 – June 12, which is a conference for new deans of law schools around the country. Dean Van Zandt is the chair of the planning committee for this event. Finally, the Law and Society Association will hold its annual meeting in Chicago May 28 – May 30. A reception and some events will be held at the Law School.

 

CURRICULAR DEVELOPMENTS

Executive LLM in Korea
During spring break in March, our first class of 25 Executive LLM (Korea) students will join us for their last course and graduation. These students began the first executive-style LLM program offered by any American law school last February in Seoul, South Korea. Our faculty traveled to Seoul for two-week periods through the ensuing 12 months to teach seven courses as part of the fixed curriculum. Professor Carole Silver will teach the eighth course, Securities Regulation, at the Law School in March.

Spring Colloquium Series: Constitutional Theory
The Colloquium Series consists of advanced seminars that bring together outside scholars, resident faculty, other Chicago-area faculty, and Northwestern students for an exchange of views on select legal areas or topics.

This year’s spring colloquium will focus on cutting-edge research on constitutional theory. Every second week, a workshop will be held during which a leading scholar will present a paper from their research on issues of constitutional law. Speakers will include Amy Adler, Mary Anne Case, Richard Epstein, John Harrison, Michael Paulsen, and Jed Rubenfeld.

Any interested Northwestern Law student may attend the presentations. Up to 15 students can enroll each semester in a seminar that is taught in conjunction with the colloquium. Participation in workshops is mandatory for students enrolled in the seminar.

Lawyer as Problem Solver
First-year students will finish the last two sessions of Lawyer as Problem Solver in the spring. The final session will conclude with a reception for sponsors and students.

International Team Projects (ITP)
Students involved in ITP gain firsthand experience in international legal and business environments through a combination of semester-long research, an intense two-week field study abroad, and a final group project. This year’s ITP groups will be researching abroad March 13 – 28 in the following countries:

New Journals
We would like to welcome two new scholarly journals to our student publications. First-year students may apply for a position on one of the journals at the end of this semester.

Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property (JTIP)
The goal of JTIP is to augment debate among academics, practitioners, businesspeople, and students regarding law at the intersection of technology and intellectual property, including but not limited to law and biotechnology, copyrights, the Internet, media, patents, telecommunications, and trademarks. JTIP will publish traditional journal articles, case notes, comments, and working papers, as well as shorter pieces (such as news analyses) called “Perspectives.” The journal plans to publish one online issue at the end of each semester.

Professor Clint Francis serves as JTIP’s faculty adviser. Jane Margaret Blake, JD ’04, and Tiffini Peaches, JD ’04, are the current Co-Editors-in-Chief.

Journal of International Human Rights (JIHR)
JIHR seeks to provide a forum for international human rights dialogue among the practicing and academic communities in the United States and abroad. The journal seeks contributions from professionals in all areas, including but not limited to law, business, ethics, political science, economics, religion, and sociology.

JIHR will publish its inaugural symposium issue, “Human Rights and The Law of War: New Roles for The World Court?” online in January. There will be a second issue published in the spring.

Professor Doug Cassel serves as the JIHR’s faculty adviser. Joshua Romero, JD ’04, is the current Editor-in-Chief, and Kevin Mueller, JD ’04, is the current Managing Editor.

New Spring Courses
We continue to add new and interesting courses to the curriculum, including several Kellogg School of Management classes open to Law students. To find out more about any of these courses, click here.

COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Greg Caldeira)
Drawing on cases and materials from more than fifty jurisdictions–including nation-states, regional organizations, the European Union, among others–this course focuses on several critical issues in constitutional doctrine and policy: What is a constitution, judicial enforcement of constitutions and models of constitutional adjudication, horizontal separation of powers, federalism, dignity and privacy, and constitutional guaranties of democracy?

COMPARATIVE STORY TELLING, a new perspective elective for first-year students (Steve Lubet)
This course will compare the narrative techniques of lawyers, novelists, journalists, and film directors. In particular, the course will explore the devices used by lawyers to tell stories as the means of persuasion in the trial of cases, in comparison to the approaches of "non-adversarial" narrators.

THE CONSTITUTION FROM A LAW AND ECONOMICS PERSPECTIVE (John McGinnis)
This course will provide an introduction to federal constitutional law and constitutional theory. Topics to be covered include the theory and practice of judicial review, including approaches to constitutional interpretation; separation of powers, with emphases on congressional powers and the reserved powers of the states; and, as time permits, an introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection and due process guarantees.

IDEAS OF JUSTICE, 10-week seminar (Regina Schwartz)
This course will examine ideas of justice in western cultural and literary traditions. We will review the trial of Socrates, the trial of Jesus, biblical prophecy, Shakespearean tragedy, and more modern works. We will explore how literature offers elaborations of theories of justice, following their consequences both within legal frameworks and beyond, as they shape the public and private life. We will ask how religious ideas of justice inform and depart from secular ideas of justice, how retributive and distributive ideas of justice are imagined and critiqued, and how the relation between justice and law has been conceived.

ELECTRONIC COMMERCE, REGULATION AND LEGAL STRATEGY, co-listed with Kellogg (Andrea Matwyshyn)
This course provides an introduction to current U.S. e-commerce regulation in business context through the lens of strategic planning. It covers (1) current case law in the areas of internet intellectual property, internet contract, internet data privacy and security, internet advertising and unsolicited email, internet jurisdiction, and internet taxation; (2) legal best practices in graphical user interface restructuring; and (3) various legal strategies adopted by entities, such as use of open source, to simultaneously maximize competitive advantage while minimizing liability associated with electronic commerce.

INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, co-listed with Kellogg (Clint Frances – Law; James Conley – Kellogg) Taught on the Kellogg quarter and open to JD and MBA candidates.
The course covers the broad agenda of using intellectual capital for competitive advantage. In the knowledge-intensive economy, intellectual assets like human capital, intellectual property, brands, and trademarks are becoming an increasingly important proportion of a firm’s total wealth. And yet, most firms do a poor job of managing intellectual capital strategically. In this course, we adopt a lifecycle approach to the management of an intellectual asset. This lifecycle covers the creation of the intellectual asset, the codification of the asset in the form of intellectual property, the valuation of intellectual assets, the protection of intellectual assets, and leveraging of intellectual assets.

LEADERSHIP SKILLS FOR MANAGING CORPORATIONS AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS, co-listed with Kellogg (Brian Uzzi)
This course’s goal is to develop the leadership talent of those individuals who aspire to positions of executive leadership, especially in corporations or professional service firms such as law firms, banks, consultancies, and marketing and advertising agencies. The distinctive link between leadership in corporations and professional service firms is aimed at preparing future MBAs and JDs for success in knowledge-based industries such as product managements, publicity, law, consulting, and banking. In this course, you will acquire core competencies in leadership and become familiar with and skilled at using different methods of leadership.

Summer Courses
As students begin to formulate their summer plans, they should consider taking a course or two over the summer. The summer session begins June 21. For more information on these courses, click here.

BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONS (James Speta)
This course provides an introduction to the law that governs business associations. The class is designed to provide students with a foundation in the common law and state statutory systems that regulate business organizations as well as the important issues of policy that surround this regulation. Although the course touches briefly on the federal regulation of securities exchanges, there will be no discussion of the federal regulation of securities. The course is particularly appropriate for students who intend to take related classes, such as securities regulation, corporate finance, corporate tax, and more specialized offerings. Students who have taken Corporations may not take Business Associations.

MANAGING CORPORATE ASSETS (Clint Francis)
The course utilizes case studies based on real world business issues to analyze how skillful legal management facilitates optimal resolution of these business events. By analyzing real world case studies similar to those used in Kellogg, it is hoped to show the interrelationship of law and business in a way that is not achieved by the segmented specialized courses. The course is aimed at both Northwestern Law and Kellogg students, and requires no prior knowledge of the topics examined. It serves as a complement to the current Business Association summer offering, providing coverage of a range of topics not dealt with in that course.

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS, co-listed with Kellogg (Peter Barrack – Law; Thomas Lys – Kellogg)
This course is designed to prepare business and law practitioners for future collaborations in the merger and acquisitions fields. Its aim is not only to provide technical knowledge, but also to familiarize business and legal students with the other's paradigms and perspectives. Because the primary objective of this course is to integrate the accounting, economic, financial, and legal aspects of mergers and acquisitions, the course work will be conducted in integrated groups consisting of both Law and Kellogg students. This course is primarily targeted for those interested in planning, analyzing, executing, or facilitating corporate acquisitions.

PRACTICUM: CORPORATE COUNSEL, open to third-year JD/MBA students only (Pete Wentz)
Students are placed as externs in general counsel offices of business (most of which are members of the Law School's Corporate Counsel Center). In the summer, students will be placed with General Counsel's Office of Inland Steel and other Chicago area corporations. Students will be expected to devote one day a week to the corporate law department in which they are placed. While externs can be called upon to do legal research, the purpose of the externship is that they become involved in the life of the law department: attending meetings, observing negotiations, and otherwise gaining an understanding of how law is practiced within a business setting.