Our News & StoriesAugust 2009 ArchivesMichael Smerconish L'87 Describes His Interview with President ObamaMichael Smerconish, a 1987 graduate of Penn Law School and a talk-show radio host, describes his one-on-one interview with President Obama in his Philadelphia Inquirer column. "The president soon arrived for his first live radio interview from the White House, five or six minutes ahead of schedule," Smerconish writes. "Suddenly, I faced the task of shooting the breeze with the most powerful man in the world."
Skadden, Arps Gift To Support Penn Law Human Rights ProjectStudents at the University of Pennsylvania Law School will have even more opportunities to advocate for human rights and asylum protection, thanks to a gift from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and its partners. The gift honors Robert C. Sheehan, a 1969 graduate of the Law School who recently ended his 15-year tenure as executive partner of the law firm and assumed a new role as the firm’s pro bono partner. Penn Law is using the $1 million gift to create the Sheehan Asylum/Human Rights Project. The school will recruit a full-time professor to guide students as they work on asylum cases in partnership with local providers of legal services to immigrants. The Sheehan Project will be part of Penn Law’s three-year-old Transnational Legal Clinic, where students work with clients across cultures, languages, borders and legal systems on human rights litigation and advocacy. It is one of nine clinics in Penn Law’s Gittis Center for Clinical Legal Education, which offers sophisticated instruction and legal experience in civil practice, child advocacy, mediation and criminal defense through its clinics and professional externships. “Bob Sheehan is not only one of the world’s most respected law firm leaders, he is a longtime and influential advocate for human rights,” said Penn Law Dean Michael A. Fitts. “He has developed an exemplary pro bono program at Skadden that is respected worldwide for its work on criminal appeals, political asylum cases, post-conviction death penalty appeals and other matters. We are honored to receive this gift, which will benefit our students and the clients they represent tremendously.” Sheehan, who was executive partner from 1994 to April 2009 and previously founded Skadden's Financial Institutions Mergers & Acquisitions Group, oversaw the firm’s global expansion and spearheaded community service initiatives, including pro bono work. From 2001 to 2008, the average number of pro bono hours for Skadden attorneys nearly doubled, and the percentage of lawyers who contribute at least 20 hours a week increased from 38 percent to 65 percent. The firm also launched, and continues to support, the Skadden Fellowship Foundation, which provides two-year fellowships to at least 25 very talented young lawyers every year so they may pursue careers in public interest law. With the 2009 class announced earlier this year, the foundation has supported 564 fellows over the past 21 years, and more than 90 percent of them have pursued careers in public interest career after their fellowship tenures. In 2008, Skadden, Arps and The City College of New York created the Skadden, Arps Honors Program to increase diversity in law schools and the legal profession. “People from many parts of the world suffer in unimaginable ways simply because of their political and religious affiliations,” said Sheehan. “Guiding them through the U.S. legal system so they can escape persecution is one of the most valuable services we as lawyers can provide. I am grateful to Skadden and Penn Law for establishing the asylum/human rights project to help future generations of lawyers pursue opportunities in this area of public interest law.” Earlier this year, Sheehan received the Pro Bono Institute’s Laurie D. Zelon Award from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in recognition of his exemplary pro bono service. In 2008, he was the recipient of the St. Thomas More Award from the Lawyers Committee of the Inner-City Scholarship Fund in New York City for his leadership and service to the legal profession. In addition, Sheehan received the Legal Aid Society’s 2005 Servant of Justice Award for his many significant contributions to pro bono causes.
Penn Law's First "Philadelphia Fellow" Will Help Save Homeowners from ForeclosureThe University of Pennsylvania Law School is awarding its first Philadelphia Fellowship to 2009 graduate Daniel Urevick-Ackelsberg, who will work with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. The Philadelphia Fellowship is awarded annually to a Penn Law alumnus who will divide his or her time working at a Philadelphia-based public interest organization and in the Law School’s Toll Public Interest Center, counseling students regarding pro bono opportunities and working to cultivate new opportunities for students. A second post-graduate public interest fellowship will be awarded annually beginning in fall 2010 to an alumnus who partners with a national or international public interest organization. The Fellowships are a new addition to Penn Law’s innovative Toll Public Interest Center, which teaches all students to integrate public service into whatever career paths they choose. Penn Law students must perform at least 70 hours of pro bono service in order to graduate. “Dan has been absolutely steadfast in his commitment to public interest law both before and during law school,” said Arlene Rivera Finkelstein, assistant dean and executive director of public interest at Penn Law. “It is a privilege to help launch what will undoubtedly be a long and impactful public interest career.” Among his accomplishments in law school, as a student in the Civil Practice Clinic, Dan successfully represented a tenant in a complex eviction case that involved depositions, countless motions and defenses based on fair-housing and racial-discrimination laws. The clinical faculty at Penn Law awarded Ackelsberg its 2009 Outstanding Student Award. “I grew up in a Germantown home, where working for your community was understood as a requirement of a privileged, comfortable, middle-class existence,” explains Ackelsberg, whose mother organized the community to improve a neighborhood park and whose father, Irv Ackelsberg, was a long-time CLS attorney and is a leading advocate for consumers’ rights. “Beginning as a child, I understood that whatever it was my dad was doing, he was one of the ‘good guys.’” As part of his Fellowship assignment with Community Legal Services, Ackelsberg will help lead a new effort to protect desperate homeowners from scam artists who buy homes while promising to negotiate more favorable terms with the mortgage company, but then evict the homeowner and steal any equity in the home. “We are extremely impressed with Dan, and we are excited about sponsoring him for a project that combines his passions and skills with our work to stem the growing tide of home foreclosures,” says Catherine C. Carr, executive director of CLS Philadelphia. “We are particularly thrilled at being the first ‘home’ for this new Penn Law program.” As part of his Fellowship year, Ackelsberg also will use his relationships with the public interest community to help identify new service opportunities for students. “When I started at the Law School, I didn’t need to be introduced to public interest lawyers or to the public interest life; I grew up in it.” Ackelsberg said. “For some students, though, I think public interest lawyering is something of a mystery. I can help change that.” Before beginning his studies at Penn Law, Ackelsberg was a policy analyst at The Reinvestment Fund, where he contributed to research on housing policies. As a law student, he worked on employment issues at CLS. He also is the creator of YoungPhillyPolitics.com, a website dedicated to involving young Philadelphia area residents in progressive politics, and is national champion rower and two-time member of U.S. National Rowing Team who is hoping to compete in the 2012 Olympics. Penn Law was among the first law schools to require all students to perform public service in order to graduate when it adopted that requirement 20 years ago. Penn Law’s commitment to public service also includes the Toll Loan Repayment Assistance Program, which helps repay student loans for graduates who pursue public interest careers. Among the program’s recent enhancements: graduates who make $45,000 or less working in public interest positions are not required to contribute toward their loan repayment and the maximum loan forgiveness amount has increased to $14,000 per year, or a total possible forgiveness of $140,000 if an alumnus participates in the program for a full 10 years.
Professors Anita Allen and Eric Feldman Named Deputy DeansUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School Dean Michael A. Fitts has named Professor Anita Allen as deputy dean for academic affairs and Professor Eric Feldman as deputy dean for international affairs. Allen, the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, is “a preeminent scholar and expert on privacy and contemporary ethics.” Fitts said. “The author of six books and countless articles, she epitomizes the interdisciplinary focus for which Penn Law is known. Among the areas on which I have asked her to concentrate is our curriculum, which is undergoing substantial review in the coming year.” An August 2007 external evaluation praised Penn Law for its distinctive emphasis on integrating knowledge with other disciplines through collaborations with other professional and graduate schools at Penn. Allen succeeds Professor Charles W. Mooney, and she will be joined as deputy dean by Professor Cary Coglianese, who is serving the second year of his two-year term. Feldman is assuming the newly created role of deputy dean for international affairs and will oversee refinement and expansion of Penn Law’s international programs. “Eric is a leading scholar of comparative law, with special expertise on Japan and the impact of its culture on legal rules,” Fitts said. “He has also been deeply involved in the successful development of our joint efforts with Japan’s Waseda Law School, and he will explore ways for further expanding our international presence.” Penn Law currently offers six formal study abroad programs (China, France, Germany, Israel, Japan and Spain), dozens of courses in international and comparative law and a three-year joint JD-master’s degree program with The Wharton School’s Lauder Institute.
Professor Stephen Morse Named Associate Director of Neuroscience CenterThe University of Pennsylvania has launched the Penn Center for Neuroscience and Society, a cross-disciplinary endeavor to increase understanding of the impact of neuroscience on society through research and teaching and to encourage the responsible use of neuroscience for the benefit of humanity. Penn Law Professor Stephen Morse has been named associate director of the Center. Morse, the Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law and professor of psychology and law in psychiatry, is a renowned expert in criminal and mental health law. His work emphasizes individual responsibility in criminal and civil law. Morse is currently working on a book, Desert and Disease: Responsibility and Social Control, and he has served as a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Mental Health and Law. Penn Law Names Five Faculty to Endowed ProfessorshipsUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School Dean Michael A. Fitts has announced the appointment of five faculty to endowed professorships. “Appointment to a chaired professorship is a significant academic honor and a recognition of the recipient’s long-term commitment to the profession,” Fitts said. “I want to congratulate each of these professors and our alumni, as well, ” he added. “We now have 31 endowed professorships at Penn Law, a remarkable accomplishment that attests to the quality of our faculty and to the extraordinary financial support of our alumni and friends.” The new professorships are: Tom Baker, the William Maul Measey Professor of Law and Health Sciences. Baker is a preeminent scholar in insurance law who explores insurance, risk, and responsibility using methods and perspectives drawn from economics, sociology and history. His book, The Medical Malpractice Myth, is receiving significant attention as the health care reform debate gathers steam. Claire Oakes Finkelstein, the Algernon Biddle Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy. Finkelstein is a leading scholar at the intersection of philosophy and law. One of her distinctive contributions is bringing philosophical rational choice theory to bear on legal theory. Jill E. Fisch, the Perry Golkin Professor of Law. Fisch’s extensive and insightful work focuses on the intersection of business and law, including the role of regulation and litigation in addressing limitations in the disciplinary power of the capital markets. Douglas N. Frenkel, the Morris Shuster Practice Professor of Law. Frenkel is the architect of Penn Law’s nationally renowned clinical program. His multi-media book on mediation skills and ethics, The Practice of Mediation: A Video-Integrated Text (with James Stark), is the first work of its kind to integrate text and video. The Shuster Practice Professorship is the first Chair at Penn Law which is specifically identified for a clinical faculty member. Chris W. Sanchirico, the Samuel A. Blank Professor of Law and Professor of Business and Public Policy. Sanchirico’s extensive corpus spans several fields of legal scholarship, including evidence, civil procedure, and tax. In each case, his work is known for its unique creativity and technical rigor.
Penn Law Welcomes 92 International Students from 44 CountriesMore than 90 international students from 44 different countries have arrived at the University of Pennsylvania Law School this month to begin year-long studies toward a graduate degree as they study American and international law. The students all have legal degrees and work in their home countries as politicians, prosecutors, professors, corporate counsel, law clerks, corporate lawyers, judges and in other roles. More than 1,200 applicants sought admission to the class of only 92 students. Roughly one-third of the enrolled students come from East Asia, Europe, and the rest of the world, respectively. Countries represented for the first time in this year’s graduate class at Penn Law include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Liberia, Peru and Uzbekistan. The most represented nation is China (13 students), followed by Japan (nine); France, India, Italy and South Korea (four each); Argentina , Germany , Greece and Israel (three); Brazil, Chile, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Taiwan and Turkey (two); and one student each from Australia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Liberia, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Venezuela. “Our international students take classes with our American J.D. students and are active in all parts of life at Penn Law,” said Matthew Parker, assistant dean for Graduate Programs. “While many of our faculty and students travel around the world as part of their research and study, all of us benefit by having such a wide representation from the rest of the world come to study with us at 34th and Chestnut streets.” Since the late 19th century, Penn Law has welcomed foreign lawyers, prosecutors, judges and others seeking to further their understanding of United States and international law. Alumni of the graduate program for international students include a senior judge of the European Court of Human Rights; a sitting justice of South Africa's Constitutional Court; and a recent presidential candidate in the Philippines. JAPANESE DINNER PARTY FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS On Aug. 25, members of the LLM class teamed up with visiting scholars to host a Japanese dinner party for the entire class. The homemade meal included sushi, sashimi, tempura and other Japanese food, along with sake and various types of Japanese beer. Said one participant: “What was truly great about it -- besides the food -- was the level of interaction between students and scholars from all over the world."
Patents Should Require Commercialization To Remain In Force, Professors ProposeMany proposals to reform the U.S. patent system are on the table, but for Penn Law professors Polk Wagner and Gideon Parchomovsky most of them do not achieve a balance between improving patent quality and promoting innovation. Their proposal “piggybacks on the existing system of renewals,” in that owners would have to file an affidavit of commercialization at renewal time, said Wagner. (While patents have a 20-year term, owners have to pay fees to renew them at 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 years.) Wagner and Parchomovosky hope that this can cut the survival rate of patents in half, greatly reducing enforceable patents without significantly impacting the incentives to innovate.
Crises Facing Black America Can Be Solved Only By Black America, Not By Government Programs, Professor SaysThat black Americans lag behind whites on important measures of social and economic well-being is indisputable. Black men are disproportionately uneducated, unmarried, unemployed and incarcerated. Black women and their children endure high rates of poverty living in fatherless families. The question is: What can and should be done about it? Five years ago, Bill Cosby elicited deep hostility (along with a modicum of support) from the African-American and social science communities when he used the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education to declare that racial disparity “is no longer the white man’s problem.” Cosby’s critics attacked. “Who is he to charge the black community – the very victim of racial oppression – with undoing the harm caused by that oppression?” they asked. So imagine the reaction when a white, conservative law professor enters the debate – and takes Cosby’s side. That is exactly what University of Pennsylvania Law School Professor Amy Wax does with her just-published book, Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century. “The taboo against blaming the victim has profoundly distorted thinking about race,” writes Wax, the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at Penn. Wax is sure to elicit controversy with her claims that the history of racial oppression is of little use in resolving today’s achievement gap and that African-Americans’ own collective behavior and mentality have overtaken racial hostility as the leading barrier to ending racial inequality. “I didn’t start out thinking or writing about race.” Wax explains. “I teach about poverty and inequality, and the laws and social programs designed to address them. In this area, race looms large. And I just got tired of the stale, ritualistic, mindless debates about race, which usually reflected what people felt they had to say instead of what they really thought – and what the evidence showed.” Drawing on social science evidence and policy experience, Wax challenges the dominant view that only far-ranging efforts by government, private organizations and society as a whole can eliminate black disadvantage. Discrimination against blacks has dramatically abated; the most important factors impeding black progress now are behavioral: low educational attainment, poor socialization and work habits, drug use, criminality, paternal abandonment, and non-marital childbearing. “I’m not denying racism – just saying that it’s a small and ever-diminishing part of the problem and dwelling on it doesn’t get us anywhere,” Wax says. In legal terms, Wax finds the answer in the law of remedies and its distinction between liabilities and cures. To illustrate her argument, she uses the parable of the injured pedestrian. Imagine someone struck by a car, through absolutely no fault of his own, and rendered unable to walk. The driver pays for the pedestrian’s hospital bills and rehabilitation expenses but cannot, with all the money in the world, restore the pedestrian’s ability to walk. Rather, the pedestrian must expend enormous effort in physical therapy if he is ever to walk again. In this unfair twist of fate, only the victim can cure himself – no matter that he is depressed and demoralized as a result of the driver’s actions. Similarly, the notion that white society can right its wrongs and save black America from itself is a dangerous rescue fantasy, she writes. What the black community needs is a “conversion experience,” an internal cultural reform whereby members discard old illusions, find a new path, and redirect their lives. “The strategies of the past have exhausted themselves and can no longer work,” she writes. “The future of black America is now in its own hands.” Put another way: “Government programs alone won’t get our children to the Promised Land. We need a new mindset, a new set of attitudes – because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way that we have internalized a sense of limitation.” Another quote from Professor Wax’s book? No. The speaker was President Barack Obama. The president’s remarks “are refreshing,” Wax says, “but they go down easier because Obama sweetens them with the mandatory liberal disclaimer – ‘There is still plenty of racism and we still need special government programs to battle it.’ In my book, I call this ‘operating on two tracks.’ It is ultimately self-defeating, because it is always easier to seize on racial bias than one’s own bad choices to explain failure.” For Wax: “Equal opportunity – including consistent enforcement of civil rights laws, a wise and honest government, a well regulated free market economy, a sound education system and a humane but not overly generous social safety net – is all the support anyone needs, whatever their race, color or creed, to live a decent life. The rest is up to them.”
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August 2009 ArticlesThis page contains all Our News & Stories articles in August 2009. They are listed from newest to oldest. July 2009 is the previous archive. September 2009 is the next archive. Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives. Recent Articles
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