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SECTION NEWS
Fordham Society Recognizes
Outstanding Lawyers and Law Office During Chicago Meeting
J efferson Fordham Awards honoring professional excellence in the practice of state and local government law were presented during the Eighth Annual Jefferson Fordham Society Luncheon, Friday, August 5, 2005, at the ABA’s 2005 Annual Meeting in Chicago. The awards were presented by the Section’s Jefferson Fordham Society in three categories: Lifetime Achievement, Law Office Accomplishment, and Up and Comers.
Lifetime Achievement Award
The Fordham Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to R. Theodore Clark, Jr., a partner with the Chicago firm of Seyfarth Shaw LLP.
Clark represents both private and public sector clients in a wide variety of labor disputes. He is an adjunct professor of public sector labor relations law at Northwestern University Law School, has served as a consultant to the Illinois Governor’s Advisory Commission on Labor-Management Policy for Public Employees, and as a part-time faculty member for courses on public employee labor relations at the Graduate School of Public Administration of the University of Southern California.
Clark is a frequent participant in seminars and symposia sponsored by such organizations as the National Public Employer Labor Relations Association, the National Association of School Boards, the National Institute of Municipal Law Officers, and the American Arbitration Association, among others.
He has published widely in the labor law field and edits a regular column on public sector labor law for the NPELRA Newsletter. He is co-author with Judge Harry Edwards and Professor Charles Craver of Labor Relations Law in the Public Sector: Cases and Materials (1974).
Clark has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago and is on the Advisory Committee of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. For the past fifteen years he has been listed in the book, The Best Lawyers in America.
Law Office Accomplishment Award
The Office of General Counsel of the International Municipal Lawyers Association has been recognized with a Fordham Law Office Accomplishment Award.
The IMLA Legal Staff consists of five lawyers headed by General Counsel Henry Underhill, Jr., and directly supervised by Senior Associate Counsel Sophia Stadnyk. The Legal Staff provides a variety of legal services to IMLA’s 1,400 members, the majority of which are municipal county governments in the United States and Canada.
The Legal Staff provides IMLA members a number of publications focusing on local government law, including Municipal Lawyer magazine, and sponsors CLE seminars, a spring seminar in Washington, D.C., and an annual conference. Legal Staff also serve as presenters at conferences and at bar association meetings across the United States and in Canada.
As a legal advocate, IMLA has filed or signed onto amicus briefs in support of local governments in twenty-eight cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal circuit courts of appeal. In seven of those twenty-eight cases, the IMLA Legal Staff actually prepared the briefs.
As part of its international outreach, IMLA’s General Counsel’s office has been actively supporting the World Jurist Association’s worldwide efforts to achieve the goal of World Peace through Law. It actively recruited speakers and topics for WJA’s 22nd Biennial Congress held in China in September.
Up & Comers Award
Fordham Up & Comers Award recipient, Scott Houston, is well known to Texas local government attorneys.
As director of legal services and general counsel for the Texas Municipal League and general counsel for the Texas City Attorneys Association, Houston is readily available to respond to concerns and questions of local government officials that range from mundane questions about what a law says or means to detailed questions on complex legal issues.
Houston is an acknowledged expert in most areas of municipal and local government law in Texas. An advocate for cities in the Texas legislature, he testifies on their behalf before committees in both the Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate. He also assists local governments by providing supporting briefs and comments to the Texas Attorney General’s office when that office prepares opinions on local government matters.
Houston presents programs to local government officials on various topics of interest, such as the Open Meetings Act, the Public Information Act, ethics and conflicts of interest, nepotism, annexation, public procurement, school finance, and biennial legislative updates, and has published frequently on topics of concern to municipal attorneys in Texas.
Fordham Society Awards
The Section established the Jefferson Fordham Awards in 1998 to recognize the accomplishments of those lawyers who practice state and local government law. For more information on the awards, contact Jackie Baker at 312/988-5652 or jbaker@staff.abanet.org, or visit www.abanet.org/statelocal.
Environmental Law Committee
Environmental Law and Land Use
At the June 2005 Spring Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, the focus of the Environmental Law and Land Use Committees’ joint program was on Alaska v. United States. The U.S. Supreme Court added to the timeliness of the discussion by issuing its written opinion during the conference.
The case was brought in the Supreme Court under its original (trial) jurisdiction. The State of Alaska sued the United States to quiet title to submerged lands in the area of Southeast Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago. The disputed area is larger than many states, which made it one of the largest quiet title actions ever litigated.
The United States prevailed on its various claims. The Court found that the waters of the Alexander Archipelago were not “inland waters” subject to Alaska’s exclusive control on either the theory of historical treatment or because they were within juridical bays defined by the archipelago’s geographic features. It also held that the United States had reserved title to the lands underlying marine waters within the boundaries of the Glacier Bay National Monument, thus preventing their passage to Alaska either under the Equal Footing Doctrine or the Submerged Lands Act.
The decision assures federal regulation and control over a wide array of environmental interests in the disputed area, including the regulation of cruise ships, the protection of whales, commercial fishing, and native hunting interests.
Environmental Law
During the Spring Meeting in San Diego (March 31–April 2, 2006), the Environmental Law Committee will focus on industrial and municipal storm water regulation.
Storm water regulation and enforcement is a stated priority for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As a result of this increased focus, the EPA has initiated numerous enforcement actions seeking millions of dollars in civil penalties from developers and builders for failing either to secure a storm water permit or to comply with its terms. In 2004, for example, the U.S. Department of Justice and the EPA, along with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware and the States of Tennessee and Utah, reached a settlement for storm water violations at Wal-Mart store construction sites across the country. As a result, Wal-Mart agreed to pay a $3.1 million civil penalty and reduce storm water runoff at its sites by instituting better control measures. States are also actively involved in the storm water arena. The program should be lively and informative.
More 2004–05 Student Excellence Awards
Each year, the Section of State and Local Government Law recognizes outstanding students working in the areas of land use law and local government law at the nation’s law schools. Each honoree is nominated by the dean of his or her law school for this recognition. The student honored receives a special award that includes a current Section publication and a certificate of recognition.
Congratulations to all the honorees for their outstanding work! Additional 2004–05 award recipients, not included in the summer issue, with their law schools are:
Charles Douglas Brown, Wake Forest University School of Law,
Benjamin Hunting Ellis , Wake Forest University School of Law,
Deirdre E. McInerney , The State University of New Jersey-Rutgers,
Stephen C. Miller , The State University of New Jersey–Rutgers,
Michael J. Montalbano III , Southern University Law Center,
Jonathan Rosenblatt , Cornell Law School.