Faculty News

Justice Brandeis Story Debuting on Louisville Life

vmsmit06 — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:59:07 -0400

Professor Laura Rothstein was recently interviewed by KET for a story about Justice Louis D. Brandeis. Special thanks to Scott Campbell, who was very helpful in providing background information for the story.

In episode 720 of "Louisville Life", the author of Brandeis at 150: The Louisville Perspective talks about former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and his life in Louisville.

It will air on the following dates:

KET: Saturday, May 25 at 7:00 pm EDT
KETKY: Sunday, May 26 at 8:00 am EDT
KET2: Sunday, May 26 at noon EDT
KET2: Monday, May 27 at 7:30 am EDT
KETKY: Monday, May 27 at 6:00 pm EDT
KETKY: Tuesday, May 28 at 6:30 am EDT
KET2: Thursday, May 30 at 7:30 pm EDT
KET: Friday, May 31 at 12:30 am EDT
KETKY: Friday, May 31 at 8:00 am EDT
KET2: Friday, May 31 at 5:30 pm EDT
KETKY: Saturday, June 1 at 7:00 am EDT

Jim Jones Receives the 2013 David S. Stoner Uncommon Counselor Award

vmsmit06 — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:44:03 -0400

The Dave Nee Foundation has named Professor James T.R. Jones the recipient of the 2013 David S. Stoner Uncommon Counselor Award.

This Award is given annually to a member or members of the legal profession who exhibit extraordinary compassion and concern for their co-workers, family, friends, and community and who also actively fight the stigma of depression and other mental illnesses within the legal field. Professor Jones was commended for his courageous leadership demonstrated by openly sharing his experiences as a person living with bipolar disorder and receiving effective treatment.

The Dave Nee Foundation was created in 2005. It's mission is to eliminate the stigma associated with depression and suicide by promoting and encouraging not only the diagnosis and treatment of depression among young adults, but also the education of young people, their families, and friends about the disease of depression.

Professor Jones will be presented with the award atthe Foundation’s annual Gala scheduled on November 8, 2013 in New York City.

Mark Rothstein to Receive Louis D. Brandeis Privacy Award

vmsmit06 — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:03:25 -0400

Patient Privacy Rights, the nation’s leading health privacy advocacy organization, will award its annual Louis D. Brandeis Privacy Award to Mark A. Rothstein on June 5, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Patient Privacy Rights established the award in 2012 to recognize significant intellectual, cultural, legal, scholarly, and technical contributions to the field of health information privacy. The award is given with the approval of the Brandeis family, and it will be awarded in conjunction with the Third International Summit on the Future of Health Privacy to be held at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Professor Rothstein holds the Herbert F. Boehl Chair of Law and Medicine at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, and he also teaches at the Brandeis School of Law of the University of Louisville. He indicated why the award is especially meaningful to him.

“Brandeis was born in Louisville, and his influence still permeates the city where I live and the university where I work. I am deeply honored to receive an award named after the person whose name is synonymous with privacy.”

The other 2013 recipient of the Brandeis Privacy Award is Peter Hustinx of the Netherlands, Data Protections Supervisor of the European Union. The 2012 recipients were Congressman Joe Barton of Texas, Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and the late Professor Alan Westin of Columbia University.

Lawlapalooza 2013: Save the date, mate!

jabeck01 — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:48:40 -0400

Lawlapalooza, the Louisville legal community's battle of the bands, returns to the Phoenix Hill Tavern, Thursday, October 17, 2013.

Stay tuned for more information, including band registration details.

Tony Arnold Wins University Trustees Award

vmsmit06 — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:03:06 -0400

Professor Tony Arnold’s innovative educational methods and “unparalleled devotion to students” have won him the University of Louisville’s 2013 Trustees Award. The annual award, selected by the Board of Trustees, recognizes a faculty member for extraordinary impact on students and is considered by many to be the highest honor the University bestows on a faculty member. Arnold will receive a plaque and a $5,000 cash award and will give a speech at the University Commencement ceremonies in May 2013.

Arnold is the Boehl Chair in Property and Land Use at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. He holds an affiliated appointment in the Department of Urban and Public Affairs and directs the Center for Land Use and Environmental Responsibility.

Twenty-nine of Arnold’s former students in law and urban planning wrote letters of support for Interim Dean Susan Duncan’s nomination of Arnold. When news of his selection was posted on Facebook, hundreds of his former students “liked” or commented on it.

The fact that Arnold remains connected with his former students, many of whom he counts as friends, says a lot about the importance of mentoring to him. He is grateful for the positive, lasting influence of his own mentors, which has motivated him to make mentoring a core part of his role as a teacher. He often goes out of his way to be available to help students. One student described Arnold as “a compassionate professor and mentor that always goes above and beyond his call of duty to see students succeed.” A former student talked about how Arnold’s belief in her helped her to overcome her under-confidence as an African American woman from a western Kentucky farm family. With his encouragement and support, she received a national fellowship from the American Association of University Women and went on to realize her dream of working on agriculture policy and justice with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC. Others wrote about how he connected them with a job or internship opportunity. Many students credited their professional and personal success to Arnold’s mentoring.

His students praised his innovative experiential-learning methods that integrate intellectual rigor with development of practical skills. They stated that his methods should be a national model for legal education and that his courses were among the best they had ever had. He teaches a Land Use and Planning Law class in which interdisciplinary teams of law and urban planning students work on service-learning projects for government agencies or nonprofit organizations. Many of these projects have actually influenced public policy, and one – an urban tree canopy plan for Louisville – won a statewide planning award. His Real Estate Transactions class is structured around simulated negotiation and drafting of complex transactional documents based on real-world examples. Student after student wrote about how they were able to use practical skills learned in Arnold’s classes in the professional world, but also were able to see issues deeply, critically, and from multiple disciplines.

Students also expressed great enthusiasm for Arnold’s field-study land and water conservation seminars, in which he organizes many extensive field trips that take students to the sites of real-world environmental issues, where they discuss them with the participants. One student wrote, “It is one thing to learn about the conservation efforts taking place at the Green River dam in the classroom; it is quite another thing to learn about them at the riverside from the people on the ground. The courses were extraordinary and Professor Arnold really highlighted the intersection of the law and extra-legal disciplines as a vehicle for collaborative problem solving.”

Arnold is not only a distinguished teacher and mentor but also an internationally renowned multidisciplinary scholar. He received the University’s top award for outstanding research and scholarship in the social sciences in 2011, and his publications have been cited by scholars, policy-makers, and professionals over 1700 times. Arnold’s students articulated the tremendous value of being taught by a prominent expert. His obvious enthusiasm for his subject matter has created a positive and effective learning environment, as well as research innovations that are influencing our ideas and institutions.

University Trustee Bruce Henderson stated that Arnold’s “approach to scholarship, teaching and practice is cutting-edge, dynamic, multi-dimensional, and practical.” Arnold states that he hopes to make a positive difference in the world, not only through his own research and public service but also through the impact that he has on the education and lives of his students.

Arnold received his Bachelor of Arts with Highest Distinction from the University of Kansas in 1987, and his Doctor of Jurisprudence with Distinction from Stanford University in 1990. After five years in law practice, he returned to Stanford Law School as a Teaching Fellow in 1995-96. He has taught at several universities and joined the University of Louisville in 2005.

Supreme Court Justice Stevens Receives Brandeis Medal

vmsmit06 — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:29:31 -0400

On April 18, the Brandeis Medal was presented to retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens during a ceremony and lecture at the Seelbach Hilton Hotel.

Stevens was nominated as an associate justice of the Supreme Court by President Gerald Ford in 1975. At the time of his retirement in 2010, Stevens was the oldest member of the court and the third longest-serving justice in the court’s history.

Justice Stevens and Justice Brandeis had similar ideals, said interim law school dean Susan Duncan.

“Their legacies are similar. Both are considered champions for the protection of civil liberties and promoters of policies that uplift the disadvantaged,” she said.

The Brandeis Medal honors people who practice the ideals of personal freedom, concern for the disadvantaged and public service. Past honorees include Harry Blackmun, Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Janet Reno, Morris Dees, Robert Morganthau, John Lewis and Archibald Cox. The law school gives the award in tribute to Brandeis, a former U.S. Supreme Court justice from Louisville and the school’s namesake.

Media Galleries:

Federal Practice Digest, 5th Edition

vmsmit06 — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:48:23 -0400

West has recently unveiled the new 5th edition of its Federal Practice Digest. The Digest is a key number ordered list of cases reported in the Supreme Court Reporter, the Federal Reporter, the Federal Supplement, Federal Rules Decisions, the Bankruptcy Reporter, the Federal Claims Reporter, the Military Justice Reporter and the Veterans Appeals Reporter.

The 4th edition of the Digest covered cases up to 2003, with later cases being listed in pocket parts. The 5th edition will list all cases that have been published since 2003, thereby completely replacing the 4th edition's pocket parts.

This new edition is such a large undertaking that it will take West five years to release it all. So far, the library has only received the first 24 volumes (the 4th edition consists of well over 100 volumes). This means that until all volumes are published, researchers will have to consult volumes from either the 4th or 5th editions, depending on the key number they are looking up.

For more tips like these, visit the Law Library News for Faculty Archives.

Professor Abrams and Student Greg Justis Present at 2013 Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference

shdunc01 — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 09:43:38 -0400

Professor Jamie Abrams and Student Gregory Justis both presented papers last weekend at the 2013 Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference. Professor Abrams' paper, "Enforcing Masculinities at the Border," explored how our immigration laws reinforce dominant masculinities at the border by excluding marginalized masculinities and admitting those who comport with dominant masculinity norms, enforcing masculinity norms at its borders. Greg's paper, "Defining “Union”: The Defense of Marriage Act, Tribal Sovereignty and Same-Sex Marriage," explored the potential impact of DOMA and related legislation on a recent trend towards tribal recognition of same-sex unions throughout the United States, as well as the likely impact of legal recognition on state, federal and tribal law. Congratulations to both of you!!

Welcome Justice John Paul Stevens!

vmsmit06 — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:32:40 -0400

Louis D. Brandeis School of Law proudly announces our 2013 Brandeis Medal recipient, Justice John Paul Stevens. The medal will be presented at a dinner on April 18, 2013.

The life work of Justice Stevens is very much in keeping with the values of Justice Brandeis. His service on the Court and his commitment to civility and a balanced approach to issues are values and qualities that Justice Brandeis would have applauded. He shares with Justice Brandeis an interest in antitrust law, free speech, search and seizure, and the role of state governments. His commitment to public service has been honored at many law schools through Justice John Paul Stevens Public Interest Fellowships.

Justice Stevens traces his seat on the Court directly to Justice Brandeis. When Justice Brandeis left the Court, he was replaced by Justice William O. Douglas, and when Justice Douglas retired, Justice Stevens was appointed to that position. Justice Elena Kagan was appointed to replace Justice Stevens. In his 2011 book, Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir, Justice Stevens describes the history of the Court by reflecting on the five Chief Justices of the Supreme Court with whom he served during his service from 1975 to 2010.

The Brandeis Medal is awarded to individuals whose lives reflect Justice Brandeis’ commitment to the ideals of public service. Previous recipients include Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Harry A. Blackmun, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer; Judges A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. and Abner J. Mikva; New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau; Professors Archibald Cox, Jr.; Professors Samuel Dash and Charles J. Ogletree; civil rights attorney Morris Dees, Jr.; Senator Howard H. Baker; Congressman John Lewis; Brandeis biographer Melvin Urofsky, and legal journalist Linda Greenhouse.

The 2013 Brandeis Medal Presentation and Dinner is made possible through funds provided by the Wilson W. and Anne D. Wyatt Distinguished Speakers Endowment.

Justice John Paul Stevens at the Law School on Thursday

rbwimb01 — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:00:36 -0400

Louis D. Brandeis School of Law proudly announces that Justice John Paul Stevens will receive the prestigious Brandeis Medal at a dinner on April 18, 2013. Justice Stevens served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1975 until his retirement in 2010.

The law school will host a question and answer session with Justice Stevens in the Allen Courtroom at 1:30 p.m. on April 18. Attendance is free and open to all UofL students. Attendees are asked to please arrive before 1 p.m. and dress appropriately (business-casual attire.)

For more details about the Brandeis Medal Presentation and Dinner, or to make reservations, please visit the Brandeis School of Law Web site.