1st Circuit. Western New England College School of Law launched its new Color of Law Roundtable Discussion Series on January 17 with a talk by Alesia Days, associate city solicitor for the City of Springfield, Massachusetts. A 1999 graduate of the law school, Days spoke about the career path that led her to the city’s Law Department. She discussed her private practice and her difficult decision to leave it and join the City Solicitor’s Office.
2nd Circuit. Members of the Second Circuit participated in New York Cares Day in Fall 2007. Students from Pace University School of Law, City University of New York Law School at Queens College, and Touro College—Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center volunteered at P721X Stephen D. McSweeney Occupational Training Center in the Bronx. Lieutenant Governors Paula Golonka and Linda D’Agostino of Pace coordinated the event. NY Cares Day’s goal is to clean up and revitalize NYC public schools.
3rd Circuit. University of Baltimore School of Law recently hosted its fifth annual Litigation Week. Events included seminars on hearsay and confrontation clause analysis, jury selection, electronic discovery, forensic evidence, and the future of electronic criminal prosecution. Maryland’s Court of Special Appeals was in session in the school’s moot court room to hear oral arguments.
4th Circuit. University of Virginia School of Law student Cary Brege was recently awarded an Equal Justice Works fellowship. Brege, who will graduate in May, will use her fellowship to work for Advocates for Children’s Services, a statewide program of Legal Aid of North Carolina.
5th Circuit. Students taking the Responsibility and Global Justice course at Vanderbilt University Law School spent five Tuesday afternoons from February to April listening to lectures by visiting scholars: The lectures were open to the public to help educate others on this important topic.
6th Circuit. The Ohio State Law Journal hosted a symposium, “The School Desegregation Cases and the Uncertain Future of Racial Equality,” which featured legal, social science, and education experts and scholars to discuss the impact of desegration on the pursuit of racial equality in public schools and beyond.
7th Circuit. Students at DePaul University College of Law and Father Thomas Croak, a priest who is also a lawyer, have created a Student Legal Services office to help DePaul’s more than 23,000 students with legal problems they may encounter. In less than a year of operation, the office has helped more than 100 students with issues ranging from traffic tickets to enormous liabilities of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
8th Circuit. Washington University School of Law students Andrew Nash and Samir Kaushik won the D.H. Harish Memorial International Moot Court Competition, held in Mumbai, India. The team defeated teams from India, Australia, Ireland, and the United States to win the competition. Nash also won the award for second-best oralist in the competition.
9th Circuit. University of California at Los Angeles School of Law student Matthew McClane Reynolds is the winner of the GRAMMY Foundation’s 10th Annual Entertainment Law Initiative Writing Competition, which was cosponsored by the ABA Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries. He received a $5,000 cash scholarship and an invitation to GRAMMY-related events, including a trip to this year’s GRAMMY Awards. The winning paper, “Why Music Should be Socialized,” will be published by the GRAMMY Foundation and by the Forum in its quarterly publication Entertainment and Sports Lawyer.
10th Circuit. University of Tulsa College of Law students Brittany Woodard and Sarah Goss recently enlisted Tulsa County Bar Association members in an educational program. Law students and practicing lawyers who participate in the program teach fifth-grade students about the three branches of government and the separation of powers.
11th Circuit. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) named George Mason University School of Law student Nelson Pavlosky as one of five SPARC Innovators for his efforts and leadership in promoting open access. SPARC is an international community of over 800 academic and research libraries working to provide a more accessible system of scholarly communication to aid in the dissemination of research.
12th Circuit. Willamette University College of Law ’s Willamette Law Review and Center for Dispute Resolution sponsored “Law of the Body,” a one-day symposium that examined the implications of medical science on legal decision making and disputes related to the science of the body and brain. Topics included the Oregon Death with Dignity Act and physician-assisted death, taxation of body parts donations and involuntary tax payments, stem cell research, and the impact of neural design on the human experience.
13th Circuit. Southern University Law Center has introduced a new law journal, The Public Defender, published twice each semester. The journal, which was started by 10 SULC students in fall 2007, is a student-run publication that features articles about the law center, developments in the study of law, and various legal practice issues.
14th Circuit. The Northern California Innocence Proj-ect at Santa Clara University School of Law played a part in exonerating a man wrongly convicted of murder. A team of law students interviewed alibi witnesses who hadn’t previously been interviewed regarding the case. This is the seventh exoneration secured by the Northern California Innocence Project since its inception in 2001.
15th Circuit. Four first-year students at University of New Mexico School of Law took part in a high-school program during which three members of the New Mexico Court of Appeals set up court at Valley High School in Albuquerque. The panel heard oral argument in the case of State v. Hernandez, in which James Hernandez was appealing his conviction of shoplifting more than $250 worth of merchandise. The law students visited with the Valley students the week prior to the argument, discussing the facts and issues of the case, and the trial and appellate process.