Author: Melanie McDonald

Notre Dame Associate Professor of Law Paolo Carozza will spend the spring 2011 semester in Italy as a Fulbright scholar, working from the University of Florence on a book about the jurisprudence of the Italian Constitutional Court.

“My goal is to bring the work of the Italian Constitutional Court (ICC) to the attention of the English-speaking legal academy,” says Carozza, the son of Italian immigrants and an internationally known expert in the fields of comparative law, human rights, and international law. “Comparative constitutional studies, including the leading textbooks in the field, include little or no reference to the ICC…[even though] the ICC has arguably represented one of the strongest, best developed, and creative examples of constitutional judicial review anywhere.”

Carozza will collaborate with Andrea Simoncini, full professor of constitutional law at the University of Florence. The two met in 2004 during Carozza’s tenure as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Italy in 2004, and worked together again in spring 2009 when Simoncini held the Notre Dame Fulbright Chair. “The idea for this project was conceived and developed together during [Simoncini’s] stay here at Notre Dame,” says Carozza. “This project is literally a direct fruit of the Fulbright ideal of scholarly exchange.”

A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1996, Carozza is actively involved in the Law School’s Center for Civil and Human Rights (CCHR), and serves as director of the doctoral program in international human rights law. He earned both his bachelor’s and law degrees from Harvard, and pursued graduate studies at Cambridge University and at Harvard Law School as a Ford Foundation Fellow in Public International Law. After law school, he served as a judicial clerk for the Supreme Court of the Federated States of Micronesia and worked as an associate at the Washington, D.C., law firm Arnold & Porter. Carozza regularly teaches, publishes, and lectures in Italy.

For more information about Professor Carozza, visit his faculty profile page.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Participants contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

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For the second year in a row, a Notre Dame Law School alum will clerk for a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. An impressive number of NDLS alums have achieved the coveted and prestigious SCOTUS clerkship post—six over the past ten years.

Justice Samuel Alito selected Tara Stuckey ’07 to serve as one of his four clerks for the 2010 term, which begins the first Monday in October. Stuckey is an associate at Jones Day in Washington, D.C., where she focuses her practice on legal analysis, briefing, and strategy in complex trial and appellate litigation. She has practiced before district courts, federal appellate courts, and the United States Supreme Court. Stuckey also maintains an active pro bono practice and has represented clients in immigration, criminal, and constitutional law matters. She graduated summa cum laude from NDLS, and served as executive managing editor of the Notre Dame Law Review.

Brian Morrissey ’07 is rounding out his year as a clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, who selected him for the term beginning in October 2009. Morrissey clerked for 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain after graduation from NDLS, and worked as an associate at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, D.C., before accepting the SCOTUS clerkship.

Professor Mohammad H. Fadel, a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, will teach a class this spring at ND Law School titled Law and Islam.

This short course will provide students a basic introduction to the history of Islamic law, beginning with its religious origins, its institutionalization as a cosmopolitan legal order throughout the old world (including parts of Europe) in the middle ages, its evolution at the hands of early modern empires, and its transformation into an element of modern positive law in numerous jurisdictions (both having a Muslim majority and minority). The class will also offer an introduction to basic issues regarding the relationship of Islamic theology and ethics to the Islamic substantive law, and an overview of Islamic substantive doctrines in commercial law, family law, and the law of war.

Professor Fadel received his B.A. in Government and Foreign Affairs (1988) and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago (1995). He earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia (1999). While at the University of Virginia School of Law, Fadel was a John M. Olin Law and Economics Scholar and Articles Development Editor of the Virginia Law Review. Prior to law school, Fadel completed his Ph.D. in Chicago, where he wrote his dissertation on legal process in medieval Islamic law.

Fadel was admitted to the Bar of New York in 2000 and practiced law with the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York City, where he worked on a wide variety of corporate finance transactions and securities-related regulatory investigations. Fadel also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and the Honorable Anthony A. Alaimo of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

Professor Rick Garnett on the future of the Supreme Court

NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125641988

Boston Herald:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20100410supreme_court_justice_john_paul_stevens_exit_sparks_intrigue_ex-crimson_dean_rumored_for_supreme_spot/

The Baltimore Sun:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/bal-te.stevens04apr04,0,2964380.story

Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell on the legality of drones

CBS News:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/08/opinion/main6377556.shtml

Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303450704575159864237752180.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

As a judge on the Sendai Family Court in Japan, the cases before Takeshi Nobuhiro are much like the cases one would see in an American courtroom—child support, custody, and divorce among them. The difference is in procedure, and that is what Nobuhiro set out to understand when he arrived at Notre Dame Law School in August 2009.

Nobuhiro is one of 30 judges chosen by the Supreme Court of Japan to study law and judicial system in a foreign country for a year as part of the Overseas Training and Research Program. “I have attended classes here, and have observed hearings and trials at the courthouse in South Bend,” says Nobuhiro. “One major difference I’ve noticed is that judges in Japan spend much time during the preliminary stage of a trial to narrow the issues and attempt to reach a settlement. American judges do not seem to take such an approach in the early stages of a case.”

Nobuhiro earned his Bachelor of Law degree from Kyoto University (an undergraduate program), followed by the required one-and-a-half years of legal training. He says the environment at Notre Dame Law School is one he’s never experienced. “The students seem to be very diligent. When I was in University, I’m not confident I could have studied so hard. They prepare well, read many materials, and discuss thoughtfully with professors.”

Nobuhiro says that, while he won’t implement what he’s learned here into his courtroom practice when he returns to Japan in July, he is grateful for the opportunity to expand his knowledge of the law and have exposure to different ways of doing things.

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Notre Dame Professor of Law Joseph Bauer spent three weeks at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) this spring teaching antitrust law—referred to as competition law in China—and intellectual property law to a group of LL.M. students at the University. He was invited to teach the mini-course based on a relationship he developed with his professional counterpart, an HKU professor.

“The students in this class were almost all practicing attorneys, and they had very little background on American law,” says Bauer. “They were more familiar with the foundations and nuances of British and Chinese legal systems and practices. But, because Hong Kong is an international financial and commercial powerhouse, understanding better the American approach to competition law is extremely important to the practice of law there.”

During his time in Asia, Bauer was able to visit some former students currently living and working in both Shanghai and Tokyo—one of the several side trips Bauer made while overseas. “I had dinner with a graduate of Notre Dame’s London LL.M. Program in International Law, and had fun catching up with several former J.D. students working at a large firm in Shanghai (shown in photo). All are very successful in their fields, and are wonderful representatives of Notre Dame abroad.” Bauer also delivered an invited lecture at Chinese University in Hong Kong on the topic of limitations on access by plaintiffs to the American judicial system.

This was not Bauer’s first time lecturing in Asia. In 2008 he spoke at a conference in South Korea, and in 2005 he delivered a talk in Fuzhou, China.

For more information on Professor Bauer, visit his faculty profile page.

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As the world becomes more interdependent, attention turns to the scope and importance of international law and its relationship with national sovereignty. On Tuesday, April 6, Notre Dame Professors of Law Douglass Cassel and Mary Ellen O’Connell, along with Assistant Professor of Political Science Sebastian Rosato, will explore this controversial issue and propose answers to some of its most critical questions. The event takes place from 5-6:30 p.m. in room 1130 of Eck Hall of Law.

The discussion will address complex problems such as the relationship between international criminal law and domestic law; whether those accused of terrorist attacks should be tried under international laws or US domestic law; and the extent to which international law infringes upon national sovereignty?

Douglass Cassel is director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights and a renowned scholar in the areas of international human rights, international criminal law, and international humanitarian law. His research interests include international law options for combating terrorism and strengthening international human rights institutions.

Mary Ellen O’Connell chairs the International Law Association’s Committee on the Use of Force and is vice president of the American Society of International Law. She focuses on international legal regulation of the use of force and conflict and dispute resolution. O’Connell is particularly interested in modes of enforcing international law and the possibility of a classical revolution in international law theory.

Sebastian Rosato is an assistant professor of political science and co-director of the Notre Dame International Security Program. He specializes in international relations theory and international security. His current research focuses on the rise and fall of international institutions.

The presentation is sponsored by the Law School’s International Human Rights Society, the Center for Civil and Human Rights, and the Center for Social Concerns

The Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper, quoted Notre Dame Associate Professor of Law Carter Snead extensively in an article about the politics of abortion. Here is an excerpt:

“The great majority of Americans and Canadians prefer not to think about abortion, because the debate is so polarized.

“In an interview, Notre Dame University law professor Carter Snead, former general counsel to the President’s Council on Bioethics during George W. Bush’s administration, called it ‘perhaps the most vexed question in all of American politics.’”

Click on the link below for the entire article.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-abortion-issue-comes-back-to-life/article1513880/

The 37th annual Black Law Students Association (BLSA) Weekend is scheduled for Friday, April 9 – Sunday, April 11, 2010. Alumni, prospective students, and friends of BLSA are welcome to attend.

This year’s weekend coincides with the Law School’s Office of Admissions Open House on Friday, April 9, and we invite and encourage admitted prospective students to join us. The activity-filled weekend serves as a wonderful opportunity to visit the law school, meet BLSA alumni as well as Notre Dame Law School faculty and staff. It is also a unique opportunity to experience student life and the greater law school community at Notre Dame.

This year’s BLSA Weekend theme is “Reflecting on How Far We’ve Come, Inspired by How Far We Must Go.” The theme speaks to issues such as the de-emphasis of racism in America in light of the election of a Black president, the continued struggles present in the Black community, and the need for mentors and other positive influences in the lives of Black youth.

Visit http://www.nd.edu/~ndlaw/blsa/blsa_weekend_schedule.html for a complete schedule of events.

Notre Dame Professor of Law Mary Ellen O’Connell disagrees with the Obama administration’s rationale for the use of drone strikes to target enemy combatants. She expressed her point of view at the American Society of International Law’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., where the State Department’s legal adviser Harold Koh articulated the administration’s position in a keynote address.

National Public Radio covered the event, and Prof. O’Connell’s comments are included in the report: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125206000&ft=1&f=3.

O’Connell was recently named vice president of the American Society of International Law, the leading organization of its kind in the world. She is also a member of the International Law Association, the Germany Society of International Law, and the International Institute for Humanitarian Law.

For more on Prof. O’Connell, visit: http://law.nd.edu/people/faculty-and-administration/teaching-and-research-faculty/mary-ellen-oconnell/

The American College of Bankruptcy selected 3L Ryan Dattilo as the 7th Circuit’s 2010 Distinguished Bankruptcy Law Student. Along with four distinguished students from other judicial circuits, Dattilo was an honoree of the College at its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., March 11-13, 2010. He was recognized at the outset of the College’s educational program and attended the College’s annual induction ceremony at the Supreme Court of the United States. “The most exciting part of the experience was to meet the major actors in some of the larger cases I had been studying over the past couple years, in particular the recent Lehman Brothers bankruptcy,” says Dattilo.

To be eligible for this honor, students must be recommended by either a College Fellow or a professor, after which they undergo a rigorous nomination process. Each nominated student must have outstanding academic credentials and an interest in bankruptcy law. All of the nominated students are considered by the circuit council of their circuit, which selects the winning student.

Notre Dame Adjunct Professor of Law Daniel Murray, who is a member of the College, recommended Dattilo and served as his mentor at the meeting. “Ryan attended the College’s annual meeting and participated fully, says Murray, who is a senior partner at Jenner & Block and serves as chair of the firm’s bankruptcy, workout and corporate reorganization practice and teaches an advanced course on corporate restructuring at NDLS. “It was an excellent learning experience for him, and he made some personal contacts which will stand him in good stead when he completes his clerkship with Chief Judge Mary Walrath in Delaware. Ryan is a really superb representative of Notre Dame Law School.”

Dattilo completed both the general bankruptcy and advanced corporate reorganization courses offered at Notre Dame Law School and served as a research assistant to Peter C. Alexander, a visiting professor of law at Notre Dame who is also a member of the College. “Having active practitioners like Professor Murray teaching at Notre Dame Law School really provides a timely, first-hand view of the constantly changing issues in the bankruptcy field,” says Dattilo. “I was actually in Professor Murray’s class the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. His class helped me follow what was going on in the news at that time attentively and with a more complete understanding.”

Dattilo also served as a law clerk to Bankruptcy Judge Jeffery P. Hopkins in the Southern District of Ohio in the summer of 2008 and as a legal extern in the Office of the United States Trustee for the Northern District of Illinois in the summer of 2009.

The American College of Bankruptcy is an honorary professional and educational association of bankruptcy and insolvency professionals. The College plays an important role in sustaining professional excellence. College Fellows include commercial and consumer bankruptcy attorneys, insolvency accountants, turnaround and workout specialists, law professors, judges, government officials and others involved in the bankruptcy and insolvency community.

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Reunion 2010!
June 3-6

We are excited to have the opportunity to host this year’s reunion classes in the beautiful Eck Hall of Law and the newly expanded and renovated Biolchini Hall during Reunion 2010 this spring! The weekend is sure to be one to remember. > More Information & Schedule

ND Law Professor John Nagle talks to WSBT radio about the constitutionality of the new health care law.

International Law Society sponsors symposium
Notre Dame Law School’s International Law Society presents its first annual symposium titled “Reflections on a Global Crisis: Current Issues in International Law and Economics” on Friday, April 9 at 1:00 p.m. in Eck Hall of Law. The symposium, which takes place in the McCartan Courtroom, brings scholars and students together to discuss legal perspectives on the global economic crisis.

Panelists include Notre Dame Professor of Law Mary Ellen O’Connell, who will speak on “Resolving International Economic Disputes and the International Economic Crisis,” and Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Sungjoon Cho, who will discuss “The Recent WTO Doha Round Negotiation and its Domestic/International Implications.” Cornell Professor of Law Robert Hockett and Valparaiso University Professor of Law Faisal Kutty will also participate. The event will be moderated by Sean O’Brien, assistant director for the Center for Civil and Human Rights at Notre Dame Law School.

The International Law Society is a student organization that strives to create and maintain awareness of issues in international law by inviting distinguished speakers to the Law School and providing information to students interested in the field.

The event is free and open to the public.

Jeremy Waldron, University Professor at New York University School of Law, will deliver the keynote lecture for the 2010 Natural Law Institute at Notre Dame Law School (NDLS). Waldron’s talk is titled "Torture, Suicide, and Determinatio: The Problem with Making Law More Precise.” The lecture is sponsored by the American Journal of Jurisprudence at NDLS, and takes place Thursday, March 18 at 4 p.m. in room 1140 of the Eck Hall of Law.

Professor Waldron has written and published extensively in jurisprudence and political theory. His books and articles on theories of rights, on constitutionalism, on the rule of law, and on democracy, property, torture, security, and homelessness are well known, as is his work in historical political theory (on Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Hannah Arendt).

Waldron was born and educated in New Zealand, where he studied for degrees in philosophy and in law at the University of Otago. He was admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand in 1978. He studied at Oxford for his doctorate in legal philosophy, and taught at Oxford University as a Fellow of Lincoln College from 1980-82. From 1982-1987, he taught political theory at the University of Edinburgh, and from 1987-1995, he was a Professor of Law in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program in the School of Law (Boalt Hall) at the University of California, Berkeley. He was briefly at Princeton, as Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics, before moving to New York in 1997.

The Natural Law Institute of Notre Dame Law School was established in 1947. In 1956, the Institute founded the Natural Law Forum, the only journal of its kind in the English language. The name of the journal was changed in 1970 to the American Journal of Jurisprudence.

The journal publishes articles and review essays critically examining the moral foundations of law and legal systems and exploring current and historical issues in ethics, jurisprudence, and legal (including constitutional) theory.

Notre Dame Professor of Law Douglass Cassel’s amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case Samantar v. Yousuf argues that a former Somali leader living in Virginia is not immune to civil lawsuits alleging torture under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).

ABC News quoted Cassel’s brief extensively. Here is an excerpt:

“Cassel points out that there is currently a law — the Torture Victim Protection Act — that authorizes victims of torture to sue perpetrators in U.S. courts for money damages. If FSIA immunized such individuals, Cassel argues, ‘then the 1991 Torture Victim Protection Act would be meaningless.’

“In his brief, Cassel wrote, ‘Because of our national interest in holding human rights violators accountable, immunizing all foreign officials sued for torture and extrajudicial execution is particularly unwise.’”

For the full story, visit http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-decide-somalian-official-living-us-sued/story?id=10000671&page=1.

VP of American Society of International Law

On March 25, Mary Ellen O’Connell will begin a two-year term as Vice President of the American Society of International Law (ASIL). The ASIL’s mission “is to foster the study of international law and to promote the establishment and maintenance of international relations on the basis of law and justice.” It is the leading organization of its kind in the world.

Founded in 1906 by United States Secretary of State Elihu Root, the Society was chartered by Congress in 1950. It is grown today to an organization of 4000 members from nearly 100 nations, including scholars, lawyers, judges, government officials, non-governmental organization members, students, and others interested in international law. The Society is a non-profit, non-partisan, educational membership organization. The ASIL is a constituent member of the American Council of Learned Societies. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. For more about the Society go to www.asil.org.

O’Connell is an expert on international law. Her areas of specialization are international law on the use of force, international dispute resolution, and international legal theory. She chairs the International Law Association’s Committee on the Use of Force. She is the author, most recently, of a fully revised and updated edition of a leading casebook on international law, The International Legal System, Cases and Materials (with R.F. Scott and N. Roht-Arriaza, Foundation Press 6th ed. 2010). In the last two years, she has also published International Law and the Use of Force, Cases and Materials (Foundation 2d ed. 2009), and The Power and Purpose of International Law (Oxford 2008), in addition to eight other books and more than 70 articles.

O’Connell was a Marshall Scholar and holds degrees from Northwestern, the London School of Economics, Cambridge, and Columbia. She practiced international law with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling. At Notre Dame she holds the Robert and Marion Short Chair in Law and is Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution at the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies. She teaches a number of courses in the international law area including international law, international law and the use of force, international art law, international dispute resolution, and international environmental law, as well as the law of contracts.

In addition to the ASIL, she is a member of the International Law Association, the Germany Society of International Law, and the International Institute for Humanitarian Law.

Professor O’Connell says on becoming a Vice President of ASIL, “This is indeed an honor for me and for Notre Dame. I look forward to helping lead the Society in these challenging times as it continues to promote peace, human rights, an end to poverty, protection of the environment, and the rule of law in the world. Its efforts have never been more needed.”

For more on Professor O’Connell, visit her faculty profile web page.

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The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently published an op-ed by Notre Dame Associate Professor of Law Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer (along with attorney Brendan M. Wilson) about the need for more effective governmental oversight of charitable organizations.

Here is an excerpt:

“Charities at their best provide for important human and societal needs and so deserve the significant tax and other benefits they enjoy. Charities are not always at their best, however, and board members and officers on occasion fail—sometimes in serious ways—to fulfill their duties to ensure that charities pursue their missions and use their resources for the public good. Those failures can harm all charities by undermining public confidence…

“Instead of creating a new national regulatory body or asking the IRS to police charity governance, we propose that Congress build on the existing and broad authority of state attorneys general to oversee and, if needed, sanction charities by offering states a dedicated
source of financial support to expand or create charity-supervision offices. For states that already have such offices, federal money would permit the hiring of additional lawyers, accountants, and other staff members who could investigate possible governance failures at charities and educate charity leaders about their governance duties. For states that do not have such offices, the offer of federal money will be a powerful incentive to create them.”

Read the entire article here:

For more on Professor Mayer, including his biography and selected scholarship, visit http://law.nd.edu/people/faculty-and-administration/teaching-and-research-faculty/lloyd-hitoshi-mayer/.

Summer Stipend Recipient

Deepali Doddi began her 2L year unsure about what her future would hold. She had considered public interest law, but wanted more exposure to that type of work before committing to it.

Enter the Law School’s Summer Stipend Program, which provides students with financial support to take otherwise unfunded public interest law positions during the summer months. Unique in size and scope, the program allows more than 100 students each year to pursue legal work with a public service component, providing them with valuable skills, contacts, and experience.

“I had taken Professor Hull’s disability law class and really enjoyed it, so I pursued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for my Summer Stipend experience,” says Doddi. “I felt a real connection to the work I did on a disability discrimination case in the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, and that helped cement my decision to work in the public interest sector,” says Doddi. “Without the Summer Stipend Program, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to explore this area of the law.” As a result of her great work last summer, the Office for Civil Rights offered Doddi a permanent legal position in the Chicago field office, which she’ll begin upon graduation this spring.

Last summer, NDLS awarded more than $500,000 to participating students, with more than a quarter of that money coming from alumni, student organizations, and the Dean’s discretionary fund (the remainder is federal work study money). This year, Dean Nell Newton will commit even more resources to the program.

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Attorney and International Activist

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India made an official state visit to the White House in November 2009, Notre Dame Law School alumnus Manish Antani was there. He is a member of the executive committee of the U.S.-India Political Action Committee and a senior advisor to Imagindia, an international think tank in New Delhi, and holds a deep commitment to helping improve business and political relations between the United States and India.

Russia Today—one of Russia’s preeminent news stations, broadcasting to more than 100 countries on five continents—spoke to Antani about Singh’s U.S. visit, and the increasing role India is poised to play on the international stage, from its growing economic impact to its efforts to combat terrorism.

View the video clip here:
http://rt.com/Politics/2009-11-25/singhs-2005-visit-didnt.html

Prior to attending Notre Dame Law School, Antani served as the legislative director of the U.S.-India Political Action Committee—one of the leading ethnic lobbying groups in the United States, based in Washington, D.C. In that role, he regularly advised members of Congress and dignitaries from India on the intricacies of US-India relations. “During that time, I had the pleasure of leading delegations of American business and political leaders to India to meet with senior Indian business and political leaders.”

While at Notre Dame Law School, Antani participated in the Concannon Program of International Law in London—Notre Dame’s unique second-year study abroad program—and took coursework in all of the emerging disciplines of international law including international business, international trade, and international arbitration. “This law school allowed me to continue my focus on international affairs better than any other law school in the country could.”

Antani is an associate with Barnes & Thornburg LLP, one of the 100 largest law firms in the country with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Minneapolis, Ohio, and Washington DC.

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