UofL LAW - THE CARDINAL LAWYER

Wail.

The "famous opening clarinet glissando" of Rhapsody in Blue "has become as familiar as the start of Beethoven’s Fifth." Frederick D. Schwarz, Gershwin’s Rhapsody, 50:1 American Heritage (Feb./March 1999). I regard George Gershwin's 1924 breakthrough classic as the most distinctively American musical composition in our country's vast repertoire. In its vigor and its versatility, Rhapsody in Blue is also a fitting metaphor for legal education. Here at the University of Louisville, we conduct our Law School as a Rhapsody in Red and Black.

Musicians define a rhapsody as "a one-movement work that is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, color and tonality." The composition of Gerswhin's Rhapsody certainly captures this musical form's "air of spontaneous inspiration" and "sense of improvisation." Inspired by the "steely rhythms" and the "rattle-ty bang" of a railroad train, Gershwin imagined at once "the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end," as "a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness." Ron Cowen, George Gershwin: He Got Rhythm, Wash. Post (Nov. 1998).

A more appropriate anthem for Kentucky's leading metropolitan research university could scarcely be imagined.

The Cardinal Lawyer extends warmest thanks to everyone who attended the University of Louisville Law Clinic's open house on November 19, 2009. The event celebrated the clinic's first year of operation. I am pleased to reproduce two images from the photo gallery for the open house. In tandem, these images convey the diversity of the audience that came together to celebrate our clinic and its work on behalf of our students and our broader community.

The Law School celebrated Constitution Day on September 17. We take great pride in presenting an annual commemoration of Constitution Day on behalf of the entire University of Louisville. For the benefit of its readers, The Cardinal Lawyer reprises the two video presentations that comprised this year's program.

In the first video, Law School faculty discuss the appointment of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Professors Laura Rothstein, Judith Fischer, Luke Milligan, Samuel Marcosson, and Cedric Merlin Powell and Dean Jim Chen, joined by Professor John McGinnis of the Northwestern University School of Law, ponder the significance of Justice Sotomayor's arrival on the nation's highest court. In the second video, Professor Joseph Tomain presents Fleeting Expletives and the Shadow of the First Amendment.

The Law School's Constitution Day page represents a year-round guide to American constitutional law. Whenever the anniversary of the Constitution is celebrated, we invite other institutions, throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky and elsewhere, to link to our Constitution Day page and to use the resources we have collected. Those resources include a 21-question constitutional scavenger hunt and a picture gallery depicting constitutional controversies throughout American history. Our page also includes archives of the Law School's Constitution Day programs from 2008 and 2007.

Note: The following announcement has been issued by the University of Louisville. The University and the Law School will provide more information as it becomes available. I hasten to add my thanks to those expressed below by Provost Willihnganz. Quick, clear thinking and action by Law School personnel and UofL Police kept our community safe today.