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The University of Pennsylvania Law Review will hold a symposium on Trafficking in Sex and Labor: Domestic and International Responses on Nov. 13 and 14. Human trafficking – already a major international concern – is expected to increase as the global economic crisis boosts demand for cheap labor and growing poverty makes people more vulnerable. At the same time, limited funding frustrates efforts at prevention, prosecution and remediation. Trafficking has been under active debate in Congress and is likely to receive renewed focus under the Obama administration. The Penn Law Review symposium will provide a forum for scholars and practitioners to share and debate a range of viewpoints on how best to combat human trafficking. “Everyone agrees that trafficking is a major human rights problem,” observed Meena Sharma, the Law Review’s managing editor. “The question of what we can do about it is more complicated and controversial.” The Law Review intends the symposium as an academic and practical event. “Due to the nature of the issue, our audience is especially broad,” said Sharma. “It includes law students, practitioners, and scholars, as well as grassroots organizations that work in trafficking and think tanks that debate the issue.” Feminist and anti-trafficking activist Gloria Steinem will kick off the symposium with opening remarks and participation in a panel discussion. Renowned legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon, who specializes in gender equality issues under international and constitutional law, will deliver the keynote address. Penn Law Professor Tobias Barrington Wolff proposed the topic of human trafficking to the Law Review articles editors, whose responsibilities include spearheading the symposium. The topic resonated with the Law Review. “The problem of human trafficking is so timely, and it touches on a broad array of legal issues and academic disciplines – everything from sociology and anthropology to economics,” said Sharma. “Plus, trafficking is an issue where academic theory and on-the-ground practice really intersect.” The Penn Law Review traditionally sponsors one symposium each academic year and publishes articles from that symposium in the corresponding volume’s final issue. Recent topics have included intellectual property reform (2008-2009), the Class Action Fairness Act (2007-2008), and global warming (2006-2007). This year, in addition to hosting the on-campus symposium Trafficking in Sex and Labor: Domestic and International Responses, the Law Review will sponsor and publish articles from an off-site spring symposium examining financial regulations in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Andrew Bingham L’10 dabbled in music for years until, midway through his first year at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, something clicked. “It wasn’t until law school that I was driven to make music as a creative outlet,” he says. Music soon became Bingham’s antidote to the pressures of law school. After intense days of class and legal writing, Bingham “would go home with a craving to play guitar and write music.” He often felt most creative when the pressures of law school were most severe. “Several of the songs I’m most pleased with came during finals week,” he observes. “That was kind of scary.” Now in his third year at Penn Law, Bingham has just released his debut album, A Hoarder Wants to Give – produced by a Grammy-Award winner and featuring 13 original songs that range from rock to blues to alternative country. He held his CD release party at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia in September – with several Penn Law classmates in the audience – and is scheduled to play three other Philadelphia venues on Nov. 14, 18 and 19. As a guitarist in high school and college, Bingham had played in a few jazz and rock bands, but says he didn’t take his music very seriously. He also wrote songs, but lacked an outlet for them because he didn’t think he had the right singing voice. Eventually – with a little inspiration from Bob Dylan – Bingham decided to take a chance at singing the songs he wrote. “Dylan doesn’t have a conventionally good voice, but you want to listen to him,” Bingham explains. “It’s pretty amazing, really. I realized that if you have a good story and can intrigue people with your songs, people will listen to you.” Sitting in a meeting during his 1L summer internship at New York Legal Assistance Group, listening to a colleague discuss resources available for indigent clients who need help beyond traditional legal assistance – such as those with hoarding disorder – a line entered Bingham’s head: “It’s so hard to keep this place clean with my stacks of magazines.” That lyric would inspire the song that would become the title track of Bingham’s debut album. During his 2L year, Bingham completed the “Hoarder” song and wrote the 12 others on the album. He began recording the songs himself, but quickly realized that building a high-quality home studio would be cost-prohibitive. So Bingham researched recording studios in California’s Bay Area, where he planned to spend the summer. Around this time, Bingham was shopping for an Afro-Peruvian drum, and mentioned his album aspirations to a drum dealer in Boston. As luck would have it, the dealer knew of a Grammy-Award winning producer in the Philadelphia area who he thought would match Bingham’s recording style. At the dealer’s suggestion, Bingham contacted the producer, Phil Nicolo. “It was serendipitous,” says Bingham, noting that Nicolo had recently recorded a song for Bingham’s unknowing mentor, Bob Dylan. At the end of Bingham’s 2L year, Nicolo recorded a demo of Bingham singing and playing acoustic guitar. Nicolo liked Bingham’s sound and, having a soft side for the local Philadelphia music scene, agreed to produce Bingham for a fraction of his usual rate. Nicolo connected Bingham with a team of professional musicians to back his tracks and Bingham soon recorded his first album. He describes the experience as “the most fun I’ve ever had.” Less than three weeks after recording the album, Bingham was in Palo Alto, Calif., working as a summer associate at Jones Day. While there, he received an assignment that would ease the transition from recording studio to law firm – helping a music producer develop a business plan related to her digital marketing efforts. “It was a great opportunity for me to see the crossroads of law and business and music,” he says. Currently a member of Penn Law’s Entrepreneurship Clinic, Bingham has another opportunity to work at this interdisciplinary crossroads – this time guiding a sole-proprietor in the music business through contract issues. Bingham hopes to build a career around his passion for music, perhaps in the “gray area” where music meets business and law. “Recording the album helped me realize that following my passion for music is more important than the security of going to a big firm and having my career path laid out,” he explains. Bingham says he is “100 percent realistic” about the challenges of pursuing a non-traditional legal career. Nevertheless, he finds it “liberating” to embrace a degree of uncertainty. “Coming from the law, we tend to be inherently risk-averse. It was eye-opening to realize that the people I worked with on the album were extremely successful, but only because they had been willing to take risks to pursue their passion.”
Michael O’Connor, a 2009 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, is the winner of the Alliance Defense Fund’s William Pew Religious Freedom Scholarship Competition for 2008-2009. O’Connor will receive a $2,500 award for his entry, Legitimate Defense of Civil Rights or Raw Congressional Power Grab? The Constitutionality of the Freedom of Choice Act. O’Connor argues in his paper that the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) – legislation that proponents say would codify Roe v. Wade but which O’Connor believes would reach further – is a questionable exercise of Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause and an improper exercise of Congress’ power under Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment. “Issues surrounding FOCA spoke to my interests in states’ rights and the Constitution,” O’Connor explains. “Plus, I could really sink my teeth into the issues because they are so undecided.” O’Connor became interested in FOCA as a result of taking Professor Kermit Roosevelt’s Constitutional Law course – which he describes as “one of the most enlightening classes I’ve ever had” – and serving as articles editor for the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law. O’Connor also credits Professor Stephen Burbank, for whom he served as a research assistant throughout his time at Penn Law, for inspiring his “curiosity about complicated issues and cases with lots of moving parts.” As a student, O’Connor served as vice president of Penn Law’s Federalist Society chapter and helped prepare Penn Law’s successful bid to host the Federalist Society’s National Student Symposium for 2010. O’Connor points out that Penn Law also hosted a national symposium for the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) in the previous year. “The Federalist Society and ACS are opposing groups on issues related to Constitutional law. The fact that Penn Law hosted their symposia in consecutive years really demonstrates the school’s openness to dialogue across the ideological spectrum,” he says. Since graduating in May, O’Connor has taken (and passed) the Pennsylvania bar exam and volunteered for Penn Law’s Supreme Court Clinic. He starts at White & Case in Washington D.C. this month, where he plans to practice international litigation.
The University of Pennsylvania Law School has awarded its Cohen Public Interest Fellowship for 2009-2010 to Victoria Messina L’05. The fellowship will support Messina’s work at Penn’s Toll Public Interest Center, where she will develop and supervise student-run pro bono projects. “As our Cohen Fellow, Tory will help ensure that students don’t just do pro bono work, but also step back to reflect on their experiences,” explains Arlene Rivera Finkelstein, assistant dean and executive director of public interest at Penn Law. “We want to make sure that students embrace the educational value of their pro bono experience.” Penn Law requires students to complete at least 70 hours of pro bono work to graduate as one way of instilling an ethic of professional responsibility and providing students with hands-on opportunities for professional development. Finkelstein compares leading a pro bono project to running a “mini non-profit,” because students must learn to budget, plan strategically and train and supervise staff – all while focusing on what’s best for their clients. “Being a student leader imparts a valuable skill-set, no matter what the individual’s career trajectory,” she says. Most pro bono hours are spent working in placements arranged by the Law School. But a proliferation of student-led pro bono projects – there are now 16 – resulted in the need for a practicing attorney to mentor the student-leaders and guide the projects. The projects range from environmental law to international human rights, and from broad-based policy development to direct representation of indigent clients. “I’m excited to help students have meaningful pro bono experiences,” says Messina. “This is one of the best ways to foster a lifelong commitment to public service work." Messina’s background demonstrates that students can integrate public service into whatever career paths they choose. After graduating from Penn Law, Messina worked as an associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, where she augmented her private practice with significant pro bono asylum and anti-death penalty advocacy. She subsequently shifted to full-time public interest work as a program coordinator at Pro Bono Net, a non-profit organization that applies technology to increase access to justice for underserved populations. “Tory’s fluency in the languages and cultures of both private-practice pro bono and public interest law is vital to her role as a Cohen Fellow,” says Finkelstein, noting that Messina will mentor students who plan public interest careers as well as those interested in private practice or non-traditional legal careers. “Tory’s approach to working with students – to offer guidance through expertise, rather than a heavy hand – creates the delicate balance of support and autonomy that our students need to grow professionally.” Messina says she was hooked on public service during her first year at Penn, when she worked in the school’s Immigration Clinic (now the Immigrant Rights Project), representing an Iraqi refugee who had been placed in deportation proceedings based on an alleged criminal act. “My client had escaped Saddam Hussein’s regime, only to be imprisoned in the U.S.,” explains Messina. “When we took his case, he literally had nowhere else to turn. Our client was eventually freed and back on the road to citizenship. The experience was both humbling and inspiring.” Messina also knew from her work before law school – teaching English as a Second Language to adults in the U.S. and teaching in the French public schools – that she found it highly rewarding to develop personal connections and help empower other people. “There’s no greater feeling than helping people achieve their goals,” she says. As a Cohen Fellow, Messina will have the opportunity to empower a new set of clients – law students. She says she’s been impressed so far by the students, who she describes as “active, thoughtful, and deeply reflective on their pro bono experience.” The Cohen Public Interest Fellowship is made possible by a gift from David and Rhonda Cohen, who attended Penn Law together in the late 1970s. David is Executive Vice President of Comcast Corporation. Rhonda was formerly a partner at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll.
 Eight students and their professor were at the Supreme Court Oct. 13, seeing their work in action in a case before the nation’s highest court. As part of Penn Law School’s new Supreme Court Clinic, the students and Professor Stephanos Bibas helped shape the arguments for a case that tests the limits of the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of effective assistance of counsel for non-citizen criminal defendants. The Supreme Court Clinic integrates clinic work with an academic seminar on how the Court works. “It is extremely rare to have this opportunity so early in a career,” said student Matt Cushing. The case, Padilla v. Kentucky, involves Jose Padilla, a legal permanent U.S. resident who lived in the U.S. for 40 years. His attorney told him that although he wasn’t a citizen, he would not be deported if he pleaded guilty to a drug charge. The attorney was wrong. The students, working with the Supreme Court practice at a Washington law firm, Paul Hastings, researched state laws to see whether there are different laws concerning the ethical obligations of attorneys advising clients on the consequences of a guilty plea on their immigration status. “They have to take a mass of trial transcripts and exhibits and synthesize it into a compelling statement of facts,” Bibas said. “I'm learning from teaching them, and they're learning by strategizing, researching, writing and rewriting.” “It is quite exciting to know our work in Padilla, and other cases for the clinic, will play a role in shaping the law in this country,” student Rachel Fendell said. The students arrived at the Supreme Court at 7 a.m. and waited in line for three hours to get in, but say it was worth the wait to see the magnificence of the courtroom and to see and hear the justices interact with attorney Stephen Kinnaird, a Penn Law lecturer from Paul Hastings, the firm representing Padilla. “The hardest part was identifying whose voice it was when they were speaking, since I'd never heard the justices’ voices before,” said student Priya Narasimhan. “It's been a godsend to have Penn Law students assisting in the case. They're engaged and committed and bring intellectual horse power to bear," Kinnaird said. The opportunity to work on the case and to attend the oral arguments is an invaluable experience. “It gives a different view and weight to what we're doing academically,” said student Dane Reinstedt. Added Bibas: “They can see how lawyers do things and hear justices thinking out loud. They see some very good lawyers, some not so good lawyers, and that's how they learn.” Bibas, seated at the counsel’s table with Kinnaird, was back at the Supreme Court for the first time since he clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy. “I never thought I'd be sitting at the table and seeing my old boss in a different perspective and trying to persuade him,” Bibas said.
The seventh annual International Right to Know Day will be commemorated worldwide and celebrated with an awards ceremony in Bulgaria on Sept. 28. The annual promotion of open, transparent government and individuals’ right of access to information grew out of a meeting of freedom of information advocates who gathered in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Sept. 28, 2002. Three members of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Law School have focused much of their recent scholarship on this issue: In a just-published paper in the journal Governance and in a recent op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Cary Coglianeseargues that President Obama’s rhetoric on transparency has raised unrealistic expectations. “As the chairman of an independent presidential transition task force that issued more than 25 recommendations to improve governmental transparency last summer, I share Americans' ideals of open government,” he writes. “But too much fishbowl-style transparency can dampen internal deliberations and official self-criticism…. Good government actually requires certain limits on transparency.” Coglianese, a political scientist, is a deputy dean for academic affairs and the Edward B. Shils Professor at Penn Law, and he is director of Penn’s Program on Regulation In papers published by the law reviews at the University of Pennsylvania and Lewis and Clark, Seth Kreimerpoints out that “the body of the Constitution provides no right to public information. What the Constitutional text omits, the last generation has embedded as a part of modern constitutional practice in the Freedom of Information Act.” Kreimer analyzes and applauds FOIA’s effectiveness at checking the functions of other institutions, even when “the tripartite constitutional structure which is said to guard against executive usurpation remained largely quiescent.” Kreimer is the Kenneth W. Gemmill Professor at Penn Law and is chair of the Legal Committee in the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. In an Election Law Journal review of the book Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency, Michael A. Fitts points to the important role that transparency – or its absence – plays in the failure of regulatory systems to avoid crises such as the current economic recession. “Blunt instruments such as the Freedom of Information Act allow private actors to force certain types of disclosure, but do not pretend to prioritize the types of information or organize its dissemination,” Fitts writes. “Mere availability of information does not mean consumers will use it effectively.” Fitts is dean and the Bernard G. Segal Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Six University of Pennsylvania Law School graduates – including a justice on the Delaware Supreme Court, one of the country’s preeminent trial attorneys and a leading investor – are being honored for their career achievements, pro bono work, service to the legal profession and service to the Law School.
They are:
- Robert S. Blank L’65, a senior partner with the investment partnership Whitcom Partners.
- Randy J. Holland L’72, a justice on the Delaware Supreme Court.
- David Richman L’69, a partner with Pepper Hamilton.
- Richard Sprague L’53, a dominant presence in Philadelphia courts for decades.
- Leba Tolpin L’06, an attorney representing at-risk youth in Delaware.
- Stella Ming Tsai L’88, a partner with Archer & Greiner.
“These honorees have made – and continue to make – enduring contributions to the law, to the welfare of their clients and to the future of the law school that was a springboard to their success,” said Penn Law Dean Michael A. Fitts. “Each of them epitomizes the importance of being dedicated to something larger than one’s self, to helping create opportunities for others.”
The awards will be presented during an Oct. 7 ceremony and reception celebration at Penn Law.
The James Wilson Award, honoring service to the legal profession and named for the signer of the Declaration of Independence who was the first lecturer in law at Penn, will be awarded to Delaware Supreme Court Justice Randy J. Holland. Holland was the youngest person to serve on the Delaware Supreme Court when he was named to the bench in 1986. Prior to joining the court, where he is now serving a second 12-year term, Holland was a partner at Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell.
Holland, former national president of the American Inns of Court Foundation, has been an active leader in the areas of ethics and professional responsibility. He chaired a national advisory committee to the American Judicature Society’s Center for Judicial Ethics and the American Bar Association’s National Joint Committee on Lawyer Regulation. He has served on the ABA Presidential Commission on Fair and Impartial Courts, the Appellate Judges Conference’s Executive Committee, the Standing Committee on Client Protection and the Judicial Division’s Ethics and Professionalism Committee. U.S. Chief Justices Rehnquist and Roberts appointed Holland as the State Judge Member of the Federal Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules. Holland is author or editor of several books: Middle Temple Lawyers and the American Revolution; The Delaware Constitution: A Reference Guide; Delaware Supreme Court: Golden Anniversary; The Delaware Constitution of 1897 – The First One Hundred Years; and Appellate Practice and Procedure.
The Distinguished Service Award honoring service to Penn Law will be awarded to Robert S. Blank, senior partner of Whitcom Partners and co-chair and co-CEO of its affiliate, Whitney Communications Co. The firms make investments in public and non-public companies and have operated large-market FM radio stations and network-affiliated television stations, cable television systems, trade magazines, newspapers and other publications. Blank began his law career as an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, DC, and later worked in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman, Sachs. He joined Whitcom in 1971. Blank is a director of Toll Brothers Inc., a member of Penn’s Board of Trustees, a member of the Penn Medicine Board, an overseer of both The Wharton School and Penn Law, and he serves on the board of managers of The Wistar Institute.
The Alumni Award of Merit, recognizing professional achievement and service to the Law School, will be presented to Richard A. Spragueand Stella Ming Tsai.
Sprague is principal with the firm of Sprague & Sprague, where he has represented a variety of high-profile figures, including basketball star Allen Iverson and radio personality Howard Eskin. In 2000, Sprague was listed in Philadelphia magazine’s Power 100 as the 25th most powerful person in Philadelphia. He has served as special prosecutor for the Allegheny County District Attorney since 1999 and as special prosecutor for the Philadelphia County District Attorney since 2000. Sprague was chief counsel and director of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations, investigating the murders of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sprague’s 50-year career has also included leading roles in a test of the insanity defense and in prosecuting United Mine Workers president Tony Boyle for the murder of Joseph “Jock” Yablonski.
Tsai, a partner with Archer & Greiner, focuses her practice on corporate governance and governmental affairs, and she has extensive commercial litigation experience, including trial work. She has served as one of the city of Philadelphia’s top lawyers, managing the 45 attorneys of the Health and Human Services Unit. She also supervised attorneys who represented the city in civil rights and labor relations matters in state and federal courts and before local, state and federal labor boards and commissions. During her tenure at the Law Department, Ms. Tsai made substantial contributions to the system-wide implementation of court reforms designed to achieve the safety, permanency and well-being of at-risk children and youth in Philadelphia. She subsequently served as an inaugural member of Philadelphia’s Board of Ethics and helped rewrite the city’s complex and outdated zoning code to help facilitate sustainable growth. She is a former president of Penn’s Law Alumni Society.
The Young Alumni Award, honoring professional achievement of a student who graduated within the past 10 years, will be presented to Leba Tolpin. Since September 2006, Tolpin has served as a staff attorney and the Steven J. Rothschild Skadden Fellow at the Disabilities Law Program at Community Legal Aid Society Inc. in Wilmington, Delaware, where she represents at-risk youth. She also advocates within the juvenile justice facilities and the juvenile delinquency system and has represented children in Social Security and Medicaid appeals and in school disciplinary removal hearings. She recently accompanied her husband, a doctor, on a service trip to the Himalayan Mountains, establishing medical clinics in remote villages.
The inaugural Howard Lesnick Pro Bono Award, named for a longtime Penn Law professor and awarded to a graduate who has shown a sustained commitment to public service as part of a private-sector career, will be awarded to David Richman. A partner with Pepper Hamilton and a trial and appellate lawyer, Richman previously served 18 years as a court-appointed counsel to the inmates of the Philadelphia Prison System in a federal class action. He has worked as an Assistant DA for Philadelphia, following service as counsel to an ad hoc committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives investigating corruption in the state government. He co-founded the PA Innocence Project in 2008 and is the organization's president.
The University of Pennsylvania Law School is welcoming 255 students as part of its Class of 2012, one of the most academically accomplished, talented and diverse group of students in the Law School’s history. More than 6,230 students applied for admission. Of the 255 who are enrolled, 48 percent are women, 36 percent are students of color and they range in age from 20 to 35. They come to Penn Law from 37 states, the District of Columbia and 101 colleges and universities. Beyond the statistics, the Class of 2012 is filled with incredibly accomplished, talented and dedicated students. For example: - The new students are already committed to the integration of knowledge across disciplines: they hold advanced degrees in education, environmental science, literature and divinity (among others), and they plan to pursue joint degrees in law and bioethics, business administration, international studies, social work and many more fields.
- They have worked for change globally and within local communities as teachers, Peace Corps volunteers and health educators.
- The Class of 2012 includes artistic, clever and uncompromising voices: professional performers, college newspaper editors and a senior writer for President Obama’s transition team.
- They are professional, poised and devoted to shared sacrifice and responsibility: several are commissioned officers in the Army, Navy and Marine Corp.
- And they have followed unpredictable, amusing and inspiring journeys as a former NFL player, a champion baton twirler, and a member of the U.S. National Rowing Team.
  
Students 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.
The 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.
University 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.
More 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." 
That 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. “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.”
Penn Law has awarded Human Rights Fellowships to students working abroad this summer in public interest internships between their first and second years of law studies. The Law School provides funding and draws on institution-to-institution relationships to arrange summer positions in such fields as human rights, rule of law development, and international criminal tribunals. Recent placements include summer internships in Cambodia; Ecuador; Buenos Aires; Rwanda; Guatemala; Geneva, and Washington, DC. This summer, fellowships have been awarded to Kaylan Lasky, who will be working with the Legal Assistance Centre in Namibia; Robert Cooper, the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative, Dushanbe, Tajikistan; Miata Colman, with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; Lindsey Freeman, with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; and Grace Sur, with Legal Aid of Cambodia.
It was a tour de force. Richard A. Sprague, L’53, grand inquisitor, fierce competitor and Philadelphia’s preeminent trial lawyer, gave a lecture last March that seemed more like a clinic on how to prosecute a murder case. Making the classroom his courtroom, he recounted the hard investigative work, the skillful presentation of witnesses and the courtroom choreography that leads to conviction. In short, he killed. Speaking to a capacity crowd attending an installment in the Dean’s Speakers Series [ watch the video], Sprague ranged over his 50-year career, recalling his lead role in everything from a test of the insanity defense to a congressional investigation of the Kennedy assassination to the murder of Joseph “Jock” Yablonski by United Mine Workers president Tony Boyle. Talking to the audience as if it were a jury, Sprague unraveled the evidence in the Boyle case, a multiyear odyssey which remains his most famous. Yablonski was Boyle’s bitter rival. He had run against Boyle and contested his election – which led to his gangland-style execution in western Pennsylvania. Sprague, who was the prosecuting attorney, recalled in vivid detail the night of Dec. 31, 1969, when Yablonski, his wife and daughter were killed by hitmen. Three men watched the house until the lights went out. First they cut electric wires and phone lines and deflated car tires. Then they walked upstairs in stocking feet and slayed three members of the family. Several days later, according to Sprague, investigators found a yellow legal pad. Written on it was CX457 Chevrolet and Paul Gilly, painter, Cleveland, Ohio. Yablonski had written this down after following a suspicious vehicle carrying men who had knocked on his door but left when they saw he had company. Sprague said this note proved crucial in helping him peel back layer after layer in the case. It led to the convictions of three hired killers, to a confession from a UMW employee and to guilty verdicts of co-conspirators including Tony Boyle, who died in prison. Sprague went on to describe another of his well-known cases: the murder of Jack Lopinson’s business partner and wife in the basement of Dante’s Inferno, a Philadelphia restaurant frequented by the mob. As Sprague recounted, Lopinson, co-owner of the restaurant, hired a psychopath with mafia ties, Frank “Birdman” Phelan, for the job. Lopinson intended to kill the hitman after he committed the murders, thus becoming a hero and launching a bid for the Pennsylvania state legislature. But, sensing a plot, Phelan shot Lopinson in the leg before the restaurateur could carry out his plan, and then snitched on him. Before the trial, Phelan had second thoughts about testifying, because he feared he would look like a “weak sister.” Sprague said he solved that problem by promising Phelan the death sentence in return for his cooperation. Phelan endured three days of cross-examination and the case turned on his testimony. Phelan later unsuccessfully challenged his conviction for first degree murder and conspiracy to murder, declaring he was mentally incompetent to stand trial. Lopinson was convicted and died in prison. Sprague also discussed the ultimate murder case: the Kennedy assassination. After years as a celebrated prosecutor in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office, Sprague was appointed chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which reopened the investigations into the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Sprague said he followed leads on the Kennedy assassination that placed his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in the company of a CIA agent days before the murder. But, Sprague said, the Warren Commission dismissed this version of events, saying Oswald was visiting the Cuban embassy in Mexico City that day. Further, the Commission claimed it had photos and a tape of a conversation Oswald had with the Russian embassy. Sprague said he asked for photos, the tape and a transcription, but was stonewalled at every turn, at which point the chairman of the committee asked Sprague to stop the investigation. Sprague said he does not know if the CIA was involved, but the case raised a lot of interesting questions.
At this year's Equal Justice Foundation auction, which raises money to support students who are exploring public interest careers, second-year Penn Law student Sarah McConaughy's bid was enough to secure the car washing talents of Professors Edward B. Rock and Jill E. Fisch. While wearing roller skates. "The winning bid was $290 -- and well worth it!" says McConaughy, who drove away in one clean set of wheels. [During their day jobs, Professors Rock and Fisch produced scholarship listed among the Top 10 corporate and securities articles for 2008.]     
Regulatory agencies must make use of science, but they should not portray policy decisions as being the inevitable result of research findings, a University of Pennsylvania Law School professor told a congressional subcommittee today (April 30, 2009). “Science describes; it does not prescribe,” said Cary Coglianese, Penn Law’s associate dean for academic affairs and director of the Penn Program on Regulation. “Regulatory agencies have not always acknowledged that their decisions are ultimately policy choices, albeit ones informed by science.” Coglianese delivered his comments to a subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology, which is holding hearings on “The Role of Science in Regulatory Reform.” Science is needed to discover causes and effects, and researchers can help identify emerging problems and possible solutions, Coglianese said. A government response to the swine flu epidemic that emphasized avoiding pork products instead of frequent washing of hands would be misguided and possibly dangerous, he pointed out. But science cannot and should not dictate policy, he added. Sometimes regulators must act before scientists fully understand a problem and possible solutions; at other times, regulators may be justified in failing to take any action even in the face of scientific consensus, Coglianese said. “In the context of regulatory policy, science’s role – what President Obama called its ‘rightful place’ – is to provide a necessary but not sufficient input into policy decisions,” he said. Citing research he conducted with Gary Marchant, a law professor at Arizona State University, Coglianese described a “science charade” undertaken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency when it has revised air quality standards. EPA claimed that science must prevail, Coglianese said. But the agency never adequately explained why it chose standards that could lead to job losses and higher utility bills while tolerating known health effects. Those were not decisions driven by science, Coglianese concluded. “Science is about understanding or predicting what is, not about concluding or justifying what a standard should be,” he said. Congress could correct agencies’ misrepresentation of the role of science by amending statutes that keep agencies from fully considering all relevant policy considerations, or by considering a new law requiring agencies to clearly demarcate the role science has played in their decisions and the role played by policy reasons, Coglianese suggested. “Many observers of the regulatory process have properly sought to enhance ‘sound science’ in agency decision making – or to avoid what is variously considered ‘junk science’ or ‘bent science,’” he said. “But just as there is always room for improving the quality of the science that regulatory agencies must rely upon, there are also opportunities to enhance the quality of agencies’ policy reasoning, especially where they misleadingly suggest that science has determined their decisions.”
Gather forty of the nation’s leading general counsel, law firm partners and legal academics in a San Diego conference room. Add one economist. Welcome a U.S. congressman and a British solicitor via videoconference. Then, lob in this piece of raw meat: legal regulations are antiquated, law school accreditation requirements are misguided, and Big Law’s billable hours are corrosive. Discuss. Or, as conference organizer and University of Southern California Law School Professor Gillian Hadfield (who herself has a Ph.D. in economics) said in her remarks that launched one-and-one-half days of spirited conversation: Law as practiced in the United States today is expensive, complex, slow, risk-averse, fragmented and static. It needs to serve a modern economy that is fast, adaptive, boundary-crossing and integrated. Her charge to the group was this: What does our changing economy need from its legal environment? How do we spur innovation? Is it through the bar? Judiciary? State legislatures? Congress? “For some,” added University of Pennsylvania Law School professor and conference co-organizer Stephen B. Burbank, “rules of professional responsibility define the very essence of the profession; for others they are a necessary foundation that, if it did not exist through state-sponsored regulation, would have to be created by contract. For still others, they are a smokescreen used by lawyers to justify anti-competitive behavior that enriches lawyers while depriving clients of cheaper and more innovative solutions to their problems. “There is, I expect, some truth in all of these positions.” The conference, “Leading Legal Innovation,” was organized under the auspices of the Southern California Innovation Project at USC’s Gould School of Law, with funding from The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Participants were invited to attend by Hadfield and Burbank before the onset of the current economic turmoil. Their meeting occurred in mid-December, as a government-in-transition grappled with a market meltdown and credit crisis. Some saw the deepening recession as the latest influence toward inevitable de-regulation of the legal profession. Others pointed to de facto extra-regulation accommodations that were already being practiced. And at least one, Lawrence J. Fox (L’68), partner at Drinker Biddle & Reath, suggested there really was nothing new under this latest economic cloud. “All I can say is, ‘Here We Go Again,’” Fox wrote in his pre-conference brief. “The demise of Arthur Andersen was not enough. The repeal of Glass-Steagall and its folly of an aftermath were not enough. Alan Greenspan’s admission that he was wrong when he relied on reputational and economic self-interest to let the markets operate unfettered was not enough. No. Now we are told that lawyers and law firms – particularly those especially worthy impecunious elite law firms – should be unshackled from 20th century state-by-state professional responsibility rules, excused from fiduciary obligations of confidentiality and loyalty, unburdened by antiquated rules of professional independence, and, in the name of progress, they should be allowed to bring in outside non-lawyer owners to provide the capital lawyers apparently cannot provide themselves, as these law firms are encouraged to become part of huge service provider conglomerates like Citibank, Lehman Brothers, or perhaps AIG. Maybe GM could have law subsidiary too,” Fox suggested. In this gathering, though, Fox was admittedly odd man out – or, as he titled his brief, “A Fish out of Water” – simultaneously celebrated for his consistency and criticized for his inflexibility. Robert F. Cusumano (L’80), general counsel for ACE Insurance, tried to stake out a middle ground, calling for regulatory changes that would bring more efficiency to litigation and to the discovery process, in particular. But Cusumano wrote in his conference brief that “innovation in the delivery of legal services should build upon, rather than eradicate, the centuries-old traditions of regulated expertise, independence and ethics that the professional Bar has built. While there is no doubt that these traditional structures can be abused and that they can be costly and somewhat anti-competitive, the current regulatory environment provides a firm and universal basis from which lawyers and clients managing problems can instill their own cultural dynamism and their own market innovations.” And then there were those who called for eradicating the current regulatory system and starting over. The group’s lone economist, Caltech professor and Yahoo Research vice president Preston McAfee, put it this way: “When we deregulated the airlines, no one predicted the incredibly effective and efficient hub-and-spoke system. Too many lawyers want to know, ‘What precisely will happen if we de-regulate?’ But you don’t need a special reason to de-regulate. Instead, you should regulate only if you have a compelling reason to do so.” Consensus was elusive and the group – like diplomats huddled around a conference table (this one was square, not round) – failed to issue a joint communiqué. In fact, there were real differences of opinion on all points. But if there were some ideas that seemed to gain at least a plurality of support, they included these: - Multi-jurisdictional practice. Members of the Bar in one state should be able to practice in any state, as long as they agree to abide by local rules. Federal preemption may be required to accomplish this.
- Litigation. Too much litigation is too expensive, primarily because of exhaustive discovery.
- Court reform. Rebecca Love Kourlis, a former justice of the Colorado Supreme Court who is executive director of the Institute for Advancement of the American Legal System, pointed out that judges have little incentive to control cases and that the Bar sometimes comes down hard on judges who efficiently manage cases through the system. The notion that court performance metrics must focus on measuring time to disposition alone is not only misleading, it can actually result in bad outcomes. According to Kourlis, this narrow view only encourages settlements, which in turn reduce trials and appellate decisions that contribute to the common law, making it harder for in-house counsel to assess risk and driving up legal costs. Kourlis contends that other measurements must be built into the performance assessment process and the Bar must demonstrate support for these criteria. Those other measurements should emphasize procedural fairness, such as: was the judge prepared for the hearing or process and respectful of participants; was he or she timely in moving the case along and in rendering decisions; and, were those decisions clear?
- Billing. The billable hour emphasizes effort over results and is leading many businesses to ramp-up in-house counsel or to out-source (to India) to control costs. “At large law firms, lawyers don’t know what their jobs are: make money or serve clients,” said Scott Gilbert, co-founder and chairman of Gilbert Oshinsky. Clients could force a new compensation structure on Big Law simply by refusing to hire firms that have billable hour quotas.
- Client-firm interactions. These associations need to become less transactional and more relational. “Clients should be willing to invest in firms beyond giving them business,” said David Wilkins, a professor at Harvard Law School. “Treat firms as true partners.” Carla Powers-Herron, group counsel at Shell Oil Co., added: “The law firm structure has killed creativity. It’s all about the book of business, not about how to best serve clients. There’s no focus on value.” Harvey Anderson, vice president and general counsel at Mozilla Corp., suggested that firm lawyers “participate in client business meetings, go to marketing planning sessions, learn about the business and act like an owner of the problem not just a provider of discrete legal advice.”
- Legal education. Legal education is too analytic, insufficiently collaborative, and emphasizes legal analysis at the expense of problem-solving and skill-building. Law schools should not become trade schools, but they would benefit from better engagement between faculty and practicing attorneys and by having more practicing attorneys in their teaching ranks. “We have people teaching who don’t practice. You would never find that in medical school,” said Michael Roster, former chairman of the Association of Corporate Counsel. The association’s Value Challenge is actively engaging inside and outside counsel in conversations regarding needed changes in the profession.
- Practicing law. The practice of law should be more narrowly and clearly defined so that it does not prohibit the provision of some basic services by non-lawyers. “We simply do not need lawyers to do some of the things that we need to have done,” said former Penn Law Dean Robert Mundheim, now of counsel at Shearman & Sterling. Added Emory Law School Professor George Shepherd: “My mom works as a tax preparer for H&R Block, and she’s not a CPA.”
- Ownership. Allowing outside investment in law firms would do more than provide additional capital; it would bring greater discipline of business reporting and analysis to the legal profession.
All of these analyses and suggestions were percolating much earlier in the year, as professors Hadfield and Burbank began assembling their program and invitation list. The arrival of an economic recession did not change the topics so much as it changed the odds in favor of some drastic changes, most attendees agreed. Absent economic turmoil it may have been unlikely that the courts, the Bar, corporate clients, law firms or elite law schools would have instigated major changes. The recession may now mean that none of those institutions will be able to resist change. Paul Lippe, CEO of Legal OnRamp, an online collaboration system for in-house counsel and invited outside lawyers and third-party service providers, predicted 20 percent budget cuts for in-house legal departments and double-digit percentage reductions in the number of Big Law associates before the summer. “There are going to be 10,000 highly credentialed lawyers out there who won’t just sit home and clip coupons,” he said. “They are going to be working in new ways. All the conditions for innovation are there.” McAfee, the Caltech economist, pointed to changes in the American boat-manufacturing industry as an example of unstoppable and often misunderstood market forces. When fiberglass became available for boat manufacturing in the 1950s, most boat owners said they would continue to prefer wooden boats. Of the major boat-makers at that time, only Chris Craft enthusiastically adopted the new material. And of the major boat-makers at that time, only Chris Craft remains a major firm. Why? Because wealthy clients who said they preferred wooden boats were a small fraction of new buyers brought into the market by the lower purchase prices and maintenance costs that came with innovation. “The legal community will always be a bit more conservative than the business world,” said Penn Law’s Dean Michael A. Fitts. “Part of a lawyer’s role always will be protecting businesses and their owners against the down side. But even though the law and law schools are institutionally conservative, they can be intellectually innovative.” At Penn Law, for example, economics and risk assessment courses are offered to first-year students, about one-half of the faculty has an advanced degree in a field other than the law, and students are encouraged to take up to four classes outside the law in business, communications, engineering, medicine, bioethics and other disciplines. Other law schools, most notably Stanford and Northwestern (whose dean, David Van Zandt, participated in the conference), also are undertaking significant curricular reform that challenges more conventional notions of how a legal education should be structured, Fitts said. Still, there is much work to be done. Fitts told the story of a negotiation class at Penn that is taught by a Wharton professor and that enrolls students from both the business and law schools. “For most of the year,” he explained, “the students work through various projects in groups. But at the end there is a grand negotiation competition between the students from the two schools. Almost every time, the Wharton students make the proverbial million dollars – or go bankrupt. The law students almost never win the million dollars – but they never go bankrupt, either. And that reveals much about the traditional approaches of the two professions toward problem solving and the personalities of the type of people who are attracted to them. “Identifying the downside is not the same as evaluating and protecting against risk or formulating alternative forms of positive action,” Fitts added. “Yet in the end, that is precisely what a good lawyer should do.” Now, it would seem, more than ever.
Third-year Penn Law student Amy Retsinas was among five Philadelphia-area students honored by the Philadelphia Bar Association's
Public Interest Section for their strong commitment to public
interest work.
Having worked as a social
service provider in domestic violence agencies before coming to Penn Law, as a student Retsinas volunteered with Action
AIDS and worked on various projects as a co-coordinator of the Reproductive
Rights Project. She interned in Family Court as an advocate with Women Against
Abuse, and co-chaired Penn Law's Equal Justice Foundation Auction, which
raised over $60,000 to support law students taking uncompensated employment in public interest during the summer.
Retsinas also helped the organize the 2008 Sparer Symposium, sponsored by the Toll Public Interest Center at Penn Law, which focused on the
revitalization of Philadelphia. She spent summers exploring different facets of
public interest law, interning at Alaska Legal Services and at Kairys, Rudovsky,
Messing & Feinberg. She currently works as an extern in the Employment Unit
at Community Legal Services and is a senior editor on the Journal of Law and
Social Change.
Christopher S. Yoo, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and founding director of the Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition, is making a presentation on net neutrality today at the winter meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Yoo is part of a panel on Antitrust Issues on the Internet, being chaired by Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna. His co-panelists are Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge; Alan Davidson, director of U.S. public policy and Government Affairs for Google Inc.; and Bruce Byrd, vice president and general counsel for AT&T. Yoo is one of the nation's leading authorities
on law and technology. His research focuses primarily on how
technological innovation and economic theories of imperfect competition
are transforming the regulation of the Internet and other forms of
electronic communications.
See earlier story. PHILADELPHIA (Dec. 1, 2008) - The University of
Pennsylvania Law School has learned that Mehdi Zakerian, an Iranian legal
scholar who was scheduled to teach at Penn Law this year, has been released by
the government in Iran. "Our understanding is that Professor
Zakerian was released from detention several weeks ago but that he still does
not have his passport," said Michael A. Fitts, dean of Penn Law. "Our
invitation to him remains open and we are hopeful that we will be able to
welcome Professor Zakerian to Philadelphia in the near future. Our students and
faculty would appreciate immensely the opportunity to interact with someone who
is on the front lines of protecting human rights." Even though released on bail, Zakerian apparently still faces
criminal charges of espionage. Penn Law renewed its call urging the Iranian government to dismiss these
unfounded charges and allow Zakerian to continue his important work in
the fields of international law and international human rights. Zakerian,
an assistant professor of human rights at an independent university in Tehran,
was detained by the Iranian government in mid-August while he awaited U.S. visa
clearance to travel to Philadelphia as a visiting scholar at the University of
Pennsylvania. At that time, Penn Law was joined by the non-governmental
organizations International League for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch in
calling for Zakerian's release. Zakerian is "one of the
leading thinkers on human rights in the Middle East whose writings have helped
us all better understand the relationships between human rights and Islam," said
William Burke-White, a professor at Penn Law and an expert in international law.
At a Nov. 21 open house, Penn Law students, faculty and staff celebrated the completion of a multi-year, $18 million project to renovate classrooms, student meeting space, faculty offices and facilities for Biddle Library and the Gittis Center for Clinical Legal Studies.
The final project was a renovation to the basement of Silverman Hall. The effort completely renovated Silverman, Gittis and Tanenbaum halls -- three of the four interconnected buildings that enclose Penn Law's courtyard.
See related story.Cary Coglianese, associate dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and director of Penn's Program on Regulation, will join a Dec. 10 panel on "Regulation and Oversight: Advice for the New Administration," being held by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
Many analysts suggest that the United States is about to
enter a new regulatory era. They point to the need for more regulation on a
host of issues, ranging from financial services to food supply. What kind of
new federal regulations should be expected? How will political considerations
affect the creation of new rules? Those are among the questions the panel will
address at the conference in Washington, D.C.
In addition to Coglianese, participating in the
discussion will be Susan Dudley, the current administrator of the Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the Office of Management and
Budget; two former OIRA administrators, John Graham (2001-2006), now at Indiana
University, and Sally Katzen (1993-98), now at George Mason University School
of Law; and Resources for the Future senior fellow Richard Morgenstern. Robert
W. Hahn, executive director of the AEI Reg-Markets Center, will moderate.
LOS ANGELES
(Nov. 14, 2008) - A University of Pennsylvania Law School professor has filed a petition with
the California Supreme Court to stop the enactment of Proposition
8 because it would mandate discrimination against a minority group
and did not follow the process required for fundamental revisions
to the California Constitution.
The petition
was filed by Professor Tobias Barrington Wolff and Raymond C. Marshall of Bingham McCutchen on behalf
of leading African American, Latino, and Asian American groups.
A press release announcing the petition stated: "We
would be making a grave mistake to view Proposition 8 as just affecting
the LGBT community. If the Supreme Court allows Proposition 8
to take effect, it would represent a threat to the rights of people
of color and all minorities."
PHILADELPHIA
(Nov. 11, 2008) - Wendell Pritchett set out to write a book about cities in the
mid-20th century. During his research, he kept running into Robert Clifton
Weaver, the first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the first
African-American to serve in a U.S.president's cabinet.
"I was shocked that there was no biography of Weaver,"
Pritchett says, explaining why he decided to chronicle the history of modern
American cities through Weaver's story. "Weaver was deeply involved in the
initiation, creation and implementation of policies that would define the
modern city, including rent control, civil rights, urban renewal, and
affirmative action, among others."
 The result is Pritchett's second book, "Robert Clifton
Weaver and the American City: The Life and Times of an Urban Reformer,"
published by the University
of Chicago Press.
In this compelling historical biography, Pritchett, a
professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, illuminates Weaver's
role with the Johnson administration in creating almost every urban initiative
of the period, from public housing and urban renewal to affirmative action and
rent control.
Beyond these policy achievements, Weaver was also a
founder of racial liberalism, a new approach to race relations that sought to
eliminate racism through education.
"Weaver thought that if you engaged with people on an
intellectual level, showing them how racism was not in their self-interest, the
environment would change," Pritchett says.
Weaver's views and successes propelled him through a
series of high-level positions in public and private agencies, working to
promote racial cooperation in American cities. In this biography, Weaver
emerges as a complex, talented man caught in the contradiction between seeking
a race-blind world and serving his race.
"We still have a straightjacket when it comes to thinking
about race today," Pritchett says. "Once
we know if a person is black or white, we categorize them, thinking we know how
they will act and think."
While there has been positive change in race relations
since Weaver's time, Pritchett holds that racial categories still frame debates
about race, with a notable exception.
"Barak Obama has figured out a different framework, a
different way to talk about race," Pritchett says. "Obama is focused on issues
that transcend race ---like healthcare and the economy --- that, if they can be
solved, will go a long way to changing American attitudes about race. Of
course, he is able to talk about race differently because he is standing on the
shoulders of the civil rights movement."
Despite his efforts to make race irrelevant, Weaver was
continually called on to mediate between the races--a position that grew
increasingly untenable as he remained caught between the white power structure
to which he pledged his allegiance and the African-Americans whose lives he
devoted his career to improving.
Pritchett, an African-American legal scholar who just
returned to Penn Law after a stint as the deputy chief of staff and director of
policy for the new mayor of Philadelphia,
Michael Nutter, readily acknowledges that he shares many similarities with his
subject.
"Weaver was interested in two worlds sometimes at odds:
government and academia," Pritchett says. "He moved between them throughout his
career despite the tensions between academic objectivity and politics."
His year with Mayor Nutter's administration confirmed for
Pritchett that policy making is difficult work. He trumpets the importance of putting policy work in historical context.
"We often think that policies failed because they were
bad policies without taking into consideration the limitations that policy
makers were facing at the time," he says.
 Pritchett hopes this biography will show the love/hate
relationship Americans have with cities as well.
"Cities are exciting; we're drawn to them, but we think
of them as problems," he explains. "It's understandable, but it's not
productive. A lot of policies were created to solve problems rather than
exploit the advantages of cities." He cites the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) as an example. "HUD was created to develop regional regulatory
policies, but the focus shifted early on to how to 'stop blacks from rioting.'"
"Cities are a solution if you care about diversity and
sustainability, among other issues," Pritchett says.
In the end, Pritchett believes that almost all of the
urban problems Weaver sought to address are still unresolved.
"Tensions between civil rights and the marketplace
continue. It's the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, but you don't hear
much about that," he says. The
foreclosure crisis is the latest development in a longstanding housing debate
about how actively government should promote and facilitate home ownership.
"We operate under the ideal that everybody should own
their own home, and government programs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
effectively achieved just that until the recent economic meltdown," he
says. "But other policies, like public
housing, Section 8, and laws requiring the market to refrain from
discriminating, have helped improve life for urbanites, even if they cannot
afford to buy a house."
"Despite challenges, it is possible to make change if we
act in public spirited ways. The good news is that Weaver did make progress did
during his career." Pritchett agrees with Weaver that his biggest success is
the Fair Housing Act. "It was a difficult fight, and was contested because
people's feelings about their neighborhoods and homes run high. FHA is his
longest lasting legacy--you see it listed in real estate ads every day." See related story: Pritchett Serves a New Mayor and a New President
PHILADELPHIA (Oct. 27, 2008) -- Two students at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
will be among the presenters at a Tuesday, Oct. 28, hearing in Washington,
D.C., on immigration and immigrant rights.
The students - Matthew Erie and Maisha Elonai - are
students in Penn Law's Transnational Legal Clinic. The hearing is being conducted at the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and will focus on due process
violations in U.S. immigrant detention and deportation.
The hearings will be webcast live on the Commission's website.
PHILADELPHIA
(Oct. 7, 2008) - Michael Wong is a 26-year-old law school student turned
filmmaker, whose newest film debuts in less than two weeks. Shmul Kaplan is an 80-year-old disabled
survivor of Nazi oppression whose complicated journey through the U.S.
immigration system is told in the film.
"The hours and hours that I spent concentrating on Mr.
Kaplan's face, both in shooting and editing the film, helped remind me to
appreciate the beauty of the human face," Wong says. "Somewhere along the line,
I had stopped observing peoples' faces when they talked. But you can learn so
much about people just by watching them; where they are coming from, their
mood, what they want."
What is a law school student doing making a film about an
octogenarian trying to obtain citizenship?
"This will make me a better lawyer," he says.
Wong's documentary contributes to the growing body of
law-genre documentaries made by lawyers and law students. Students at the
University of Pennsylvania Law School first analyze feature-length films that
focus on lawyers, the law or social policy, and then produce short advocacy
videos that explain complex legal matters to a general lay audience or that
allow clients the opportunity to situate their legal problems within the
context of their lives.
"The Documentaries and the Law course teaches students
the connection between narrative in film and legal persuasion, while the Visual
Legal Advocacy seminar gives them the opportunity to make short films on behalf
of real clients or organizations," explains Regina Austin, professor of law and
director of the Penn Program on Documentaries and the Law. "Telling stories
with pictures and sound in legal proceedings is the wave of the future.
Learning the rudiments of video production is a tool that will stand law
students in good stead."
Most of the work the students do is for general public
education (like a short video on the life of civil rights lawyer Sadie T.M.
Alexander) and for administrative proceedings (like asylum issues or pardon and clemency
hearings).
Wong's short documentary tells Kaplan's story of
surviving the Nazi invasion of the Ukraine
and then, at age 70, seeking asylum in the United States from the
anti-Semitism he had faced his entire life. He dutifully applied for a Green
Card, the first step to becoming a citizen. Delays in the naturalization
process, however, caused Kaplan to lose his disability benefits -- he was forced to live on $215
per month plus food stamps for three years. Tens of
thousands of other disabled asylum applicants suffered the same fate; Kaplan became the named
plaintiff in a class action lawsuit.
That lawsuit has been settled in favor of Kaplan and his
fellow elderly and disabled refugees. The CIS will expedite their applications
so they may continue to receive their benefits.
Since filming ended, Wong has maintained contact with
Kaplan, attending a ceremony where Kaplan received a special citizenship award
from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Council Migration Service of
Philadelphia.
"Lawyers have a unique set of skills that allow them to
understand and explain complex issues," the law student and filmmaker says.
"The medium of film helps me present these complex issues in a way that grabs
the attention of the normal viewing audience more effectively than other media
and breaks down the issues in a way they can understand."
Wong intends to accept an offer to work in corporate law.
He feels his training in legal filmmaking has already improved his lawyering
skills.
The program is also creating a series of videos about the
pardon process and has created a library of clemency films. Currently, students
are editing a video that tells the story of an incarcerated woman who is under
house arrest while awaiting a kidney transplant. Because the woman cannot leave
the house, telling her story in the video is one of the few ways in which she
can perform community service.
Austin
sees proselytizing among lawyers about the power of film and video in legal
advocacy as part of her mission.
The program continues to seek clients who would benefit
from the student work. Their work and DVD distribution is free of charge.
"We have to overcome skepticism about the economics and
efficacy of video," she says.
To that end, the Penn Program on Documentaries and the
Law is holding a roundtable, "Building
Video Bridges,"
on Friday, Oct.17, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the University of Pennsylvania
Law School. Public interest lawyers, entertainment
lawyers, law students, law professors, information technology specialists with
public-interest organizations and documentary filmmakers will gather at Penn
Law's second Visual Legal Advocacy Roundtable. Law professors, producers and
directors will discuss their work and best practices.
The conference will include a premiere of the
student-produced short documentary "Shmul Kaplan."
Anyone wishing to attend the Roundtable should register
in advance by e-mailing Anna Gavin, events coordinator at Penn Law School, at agavin@law.upenn.edu. The organizers will seek approval for four and one-half
hours of Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education credit to be provided for a
nominal fee of $25. Please indicate your intention to seek CLE credit when you
communicate with Gavin about your attendance.
Note: The Class of 2011 enters with the most accomplished
academic record in Penn Law history. They come from 32 states, the District of
Columbia and 12 foreign countries.
Fifty-one percent are women; 33 percent are students of color; and 10
percent already hold an advance degree.
Meet one of our new students: Dianna Myles.
By Aisha Mohammed
Eighth grade English teacher, Dianna Myles, has traded in
her chalk for a 1L seat at Penn Law School. Coming to Penn fresh from an
inner-city classroom, she is ready to influence students from another level:
policy-making.  Drawn to Penn for its interdisciplinary approach, Myles
hopes to pursue joint degrees in education and law -- a combination that could
prove powerful in her efforts to secure a promising future for America's
disadvantaged children. Myles, a first-hand witness to how public education
fails low-income students, wants to reform the education system. In particular,
she wants to make the system more accountable and promote greater community
involvement.
"Everyone has to be involved," says Myles, a subscriber
to the holistic approach pioneered by Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem
Children's Zone. Canada's credo is that low-income inner-city kids can learn
just as well as affluent suburban kids if they have access to the same
resources. To give them an even footing, he provides free social, medical and
educational services and encourages parents to participate in their child's
education.
As a sophomore at Emory University, Myles had an
opportunity to test that holistic approach. Noticing a disturbing trend in
Atlanta public schools -- the city was eliminating arts programs for low-income
students -- she set out to solve the problem by channeling funds and support
from Emory's theater department to inner-city middle school students.
Myles recruited volunteers from the college and founded
Bringing up Leaders and Achievers through Student Theater (BLAST) -- a
children's musical theatre. Working with 15 students, she organized a
performance of "The Wiz," the Broadway hit based on the Wizard of Oz that
featured an African-American cast.
Her own high school education was solid, says Myles,
which accounts for her desire to address educational disparities. Not only did
she study visual arts and music, but she was also active on the debate team.
Debating on topics as diverse as Russia, education, and privacy, she discovered
a talent for marshaling critical evidence to debunk opposing arguments or
create a new line of attack. The thrill of presenting winning arguments before
a judge led to an interest in law.
"I particularly care about how children are protected by
the law," says Myles, who has also worked to raise awareness of the sexual
exploitation of children. It is a major issue in Atlanta, she explained, with
underage girls being prosecuted for prostitution. Racial stereotypes impact the
way cases are handled, with Caucasian girls getting more sympathy from the
community than African-American girls, according to Myles.
Disparities also exist in public education, she says,
which is why she became invested in Teach for America, a movement that works to
ensure every child has an equal chance in life.
"Public education for low-income and African-American
students is not up to standard" because of the overemphasis on test scores at
the expense of liberal arts and humanities, says Myles. The singular focus on
testing, she says, limits what teachers can do in the classroom.
Despite the constraints, Myles created a lively and
engaging learning environment for her eighth graders in St. Louis. She used the
Harry Potter books- her favorite series "hands down"-- as the model for an
incentive program that encouraged teamwork. Myles passed around a hat filled
with questions, much like the "sorting hat" in Harry Potter. Students picked
questions and were assigned to one of four houses depending on their answers.
They earned points for their house by demonstrating good citizenship,
participation, and exceptional work. At the end of the year, the house with the
most points -- Hufflepuff in this case-- won dinner and a field trip.
Bad education, Myles says, begins with low standards.
School administrators blame student's home environments for poor performance
and teachers assume they can never learn. Ultimately, low expectations prevent
teachers from creating innovative approaches.
By contrast, Myles set the bar high for her students and
to her surprise she found they were jumping to reach it. Emulating her "tough"
high school English teacher who pushed her to produce her best, Myles walked
her students through the college admissions process.
She showed them how to research schools, put together an
application, and write inquiry letters to admissions officers, because she
believes it's never too early to start thinking about college. "They were
actually invested and cared about what happened," says Myles. One student even
brought a template for a resume to class and offered to make copies. Her only
regret, after noting their enthusiasm, is that she wishes she'd done it
throughout the year.
Although Myles will miss creating magic in her classroom,
she looks forward to building the kind of advocacy skills she will need in her
ongoing battle to conquer her personal Lord Voldemort: inequality in the
schools.
Note: The Class of 2011 enters with the most accomplished
academic record in Penn Law history. They come from 32 states, the District of
Columbia and 12 foreign countries.
Fifty-one percent are women; 33 percent are students of color; and 10
percent already hold an advance degree.
Meet one of our new students: Dorje Glassman.
By Aisha Mohammed
Dorje Glassman, visiting Tibet for the first time, was
searching for the Tibet he thought he understood. Growing up in a
Tibetan-Buddhist family, Glassman had come to assume that China was exploiting
Tibet and that all Tibetans were naturally anti-Chinese. Tibetans, as far as he
could see, had nothing to gain from Chinese rule. What Glassman found instead
was a challenge.
 Waiting for a bus to Mount Everest, Glassman saw an
opportunity to commiserate with a Tibetan student about China's uninvited
presence. The student's pro-China comments took him aback. If China had not
annexed Tibet, the student claimed, he would never have been able to attend a
University in Beijing. To Glassman, the Tibetan's words made about as much
sense as Gandhi touting the use of guns. After a heated discussion he
understood that Tibet's relationship with China had perhaps led to gains not
readily apparent to a foreign eye.
This ability to embrace complexity will come in handy as
he prepares to chisel out a future in Chinese law. Towards this end, Glassman,
a Levy Scholar, has enrolled in Penn Law's JD/MA program offered through the
Lauder Institute. As part of the Chinese track, Glassman will study Mandarin,
spend his first summer in China, and earn an MA in international studies.
Glassman's study of Kung Fu ignited his interest in China
at the age of 17. Several years later as a sophomore at Oberlin College, he
became enchanted by Chinese calligraphy. In order to learn the art, however, he
had to commit to a year of Chinese language classes. He quickly discovered that
he had a "real affinity" for Mandarin, and spent the next year in Beijing,
immersed in the language and culture.
After earning a dual degree in Environmental and East
Asian Studies, Glassman returned to China to work as a project manager with a
local nonprofit. He spent a year at Yunnan Mountain Heritage Foundation, a
small organization that promotes eco-tourism and cultural preservation in the
ethnically Tibetan areas of Northern Yunnan. In Yunnan, he initiated a Buy
Local campaign, which was inspired by a similar campaign he had witnessed in
Carrboro, N.C., while working as a carpenter during summer vacations in
college. Glassman helped start a series
of local markets for Tibetans to sell traditional crafts that still exist
today.
In China, where slogans are as common as bicycles
Glassman was particularly struck by one of ex-President Jiang Zemin's: Use law
to govern the country. "Chinese today take it for granted that law should be
the foundation of government, but it wasn't always this way. It has gradually
become popular opinion," says Glassman.
Glassman's interest in law, like his interest in China,
began in his teens. His high school English teacher impressed him with the
"exceptional clarity of thought and expression" he demonstrated when discussing
Dostoyevsky and Melville. Glassman was lit with a desire to develop and use
those skills. A legal education, he felt, would be the best way to do that.
Conversations with friends in China led him to
contemplate the legal foundations of the country's pressing social and
political issues. "The proper treatment of minorities, the displacement of
communities because of development projects, all these issues boil down to the
law," says Glassman.
By Glassman's account, it is an exhilarating time to be a
lawyer in China. Recent years have seen the emergence of a more accessible
civil legal system. As the Chinese government attempts to deal with increasing
levels of social unrest -- incidents of social unrest rose from 8,700 in 1993 to
74,000 in 2004 -- judges are reviewing cases in traveling courts, with plaintiffs
represented both by non-barred legal workers as well as licensed attorneys.
Low-income citizens are seeing avenues open up for legal recourse.
However, those connected to the most
politically-sensitive issues, such as Tibetan independence, still face a
dead-end. The government declined to renew the licenses of attorneys who
represented the Tibetan activists arrested in the spring 2008 Lhasa uprising.
But the non-renewal of licenses is rare, says Glassman.
Also excluded from the system are foreign attorneys,
since Chinese civil courts are off-limits to them. Although Glassman hopes
civil courtrooms will eventually open their doors to foreigners, passing the
Chinese bar exams remains a distant dream.
Approximately eight percent of attorneys pass the Chinese bar exams, and
foreign attorneys are not permitted to sit for the exam. So Glassman, who hopes
to work in China, plans to start his career by training with a commercial
litigation firm.
Training in Beijing, however, comes with a bonus: grappling
with the contradictions and complexities presented by China. Beijing, explains
Glassman, is "one of the few places in the world where one can routinely find
farmers selling apples from the back of decrepit carts drawn by gaunt horses
parked next to the latest model Mercedes Benz."
Note: The Class of 2011 enters with the most accomplished
academic record in Penn Law history. They come from 32 states, the District of
Columbia and 12 foreign countries.
Fifty-one percent are women; 33 percent are students of color; and 10
percent already hold an advance degree.
Meet one of our new students: Paul Fattaruso.
By Larry Teitelbaum
Paul Fattaruso writes poetry and fiction that is at once
serious and playful, strange and familiar, aimed at providing his readers a
fresh view of an old world. The point is, his work eludes easy description.
Take his first novel. In 2004, at age 26, Fattaruso published Travel in the
Mouth of the Wolf. The book features, among other things, a talking dinosaur, a
supernaturally talented shortstop, psychic twins, and a lonely ex-president. Given his penchant for creating fantastical worlds, the
transition to law school must seem surreal. After all, the Bill of Rights is
not written in iambic pentameter, nor do most contract law texts have
Hemingway's ear for crisp dialogue. But Fattaruso recognizes a connection
between literature and law. From Homer to Shakespeare to Kafka, writers have
consistently explored the ways in which law both shapes and is shaped by our
beliefs and actions, he says. He adds that law and literature also share a
devotion to precision and close attention to language. Further, he says, the search
for truth threads both disciplines.
To further emphasize the two fields' connection,
Fattaruso cites a quote from Percy Bysshe Shelly: "Poets are the unacknowledged
legislators of the world." Fattaruso suggests that poetry and law are both
interested in "the moral questions surrounding humans' relationship to the
world and to one another."
 It was his moral compass that ultimately pointed
Fattaruso, who is contemplating the study of intellectual property and
environmental law, to law school. After graduating summa cum laude from the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1999, Fattaruso earned an MFA from
the school, then a Ph.D. in English from the University of Denver. While
preparing for his comprehensive exams, Fattaruso celebrated the birth of his
son, Max, now two years old. His son's arrival inspired Fattaruso's decision to
enter law school and start a new chapter in his life. He started to think about
how he could make change in the world and found the study of law the best
route. He jokes, "The audience for poetry isn't what it was 100 or 200 years
ago, and there are probably more immediate routes to social change."
Nonetheless, Fattaruso's work succeeds on pure literary
merit. His first novel was praised by
critics and has been translated into German. His second book, Bicycle,
published in 2007, has been hailed as a "tiny masterpiece." His most recent
collection of poems is called Village Carved from an Elephant's Tusk.
For the past eight years, during and after his graduate
studies, Fattaruso has shared tools of the trade as a college instructor of
composition, creative writing, and literature -- an experience he hopes will
serve him well in law. "Trying to persuade a group of skeptical college
students of the modern-day relevance of Chekhov's plays might be a bit like
trying to convince an unsympathetic jury," he quips.
But the jury is not out on one thing: Fattaruso plans to
continue writing, although he concedes that the first year of law school could
cause writer's block. Will he incorporate law into this work? After all, models
exist for such convergence.
Several years ago, poet-novelist Brad Leithauser spoke at
Penn Law on how he used his Harvard Law background and early law practice as
grist for his writing mill. Noting that law is a rich subject for literature,
and one that has not been mined enough, he encouraged more lawyers to write
from experience.
Fattaruso likes that idea. He hopes the study and
practice of law informs his writing and makes it more complex, layered and
experiential. "I expect to maintain writing as a part of my life," says
Fattaruso.
PHILADELPHIA (Sept. 10, 2008) - Two of the nation's top law and business schools - the Wharton School and the Law School at the University of Pennsylvania - are launching an accelerated three-year program leading to both the JD and MBA degrees. "As the world becomes more complex, leaders must be able to integrate financial, legal, political and cultural issues like never before," said Michael A. Fitts, dean of Penn Law School. "From corporate scandals and globalization to crises in the housing and credit markets, there is an obvious need for people with advanced training in the law to be highly skilled in business, and there is no better place anywhere to study business and finance than the Wharton School. "This will become the leading way to educate tomorrow's leaders on Wall Street," he added. Thomas S. Robertson, dean of the Wharton School, agreed. "Business today operates in a complex legal and regulatory environment. Success requires the ability to navigate through this landscape," he said. "Penn Law, with nine Ph.D.s in economics and two MBAs on its faculty, is able to teach law informed by the considerations important to business. This three-year program and its demanding curriculum will be irresistible to top students, who also will have access to the exceptional networking and career opportunities that both Penn Law and Wharton provide." Students in the new program will spend the first year in Law School and the following summer in four Law and Wharton courses designed specifically for the three-year JD/MBA. The second and third years will include a combination of Law and Wharton courses, including capstone courses in the third year and work experience in law, business, finance, or the public sector in the summer between the second and third years. Penn's three-year JD/MBA is the country's first fully integrated three-year program offered by elite law and business schools on the same campus. The new program will target potential applicants who will typically have around two years of work experience, whether in law, finance, as entrepreneurs or in investment banking, private equity and related fields. "We expect that all sorts of people with business experience will apply," said Edward Rock, co-director of Penn's Institute for Law and Economics, the Saul A. Fox Distinguished Professor of Business Law, and an architect of the three-year program. "Some will want to pursue corporate law or corporate finance while others are likely to go in different directions. All of them will be able to navigate and lead in the worlds of business and of law, because this is the best way to prepare tomorrow's business lawyers." [View an interview with Professor Rock.] Applicants must be admitted by both schools in order to enroll in the three-year program. Students in the joint program will be required to meet the Law School's mandate to perform 70 hours of supervised legal work in a pro-bono setting in order to graduate. The new program solidifies Penn Law's position as the leading cross-disciplinary law school in the country. Penn Law already offers 10 other three-year joint degree programs that combine a law degree with master's degrees in bioethics, international studies, education and other disciplines. In total, Penn Law offers more than 30 joint- and dual-degree and certificate programs; one-half of its students take classes outside the Law School; and 70 percent of its faculty hold advanced degrees in fields other than law, including nearly one-half of the standing faculty holding a Ph.D. Wharton is the largest business school in the world, with more than 200 standing faculty in 11 departments, including finance, accounting, real estate, health care and more. The three-year JD/MBA program is expected to enroll about 20 students each year, beginning in September 2009. "For a student interested in business law today, it is essential to learn corporate finance," said Professor Rock. "In this combined program, students will be able to complete a full MBA including, if they wish, a major in finance, at the same time as taking numerous advanced courses in corporate law. The graduates of the joint program will be qualified to do just about anything at the boundary between law and business: corporate law; investment banking; private equity; hedge funds; real estate; and more." Paul S. Levy, a 1972 Penn Law graduate and a former managing director at Drexel Burnham Lambert, recalled that on his first day at Drexel, he was asked to calculate a bond's yield to maturity. He quietly called a friend with an MBA to help him figure it out. "A JD/MBA from Penn Law and Wharton will help graduates do much more than calculate yields," said Levy, now the senior managing director and founding partner of the New York-based investment firm JLL Partners, one of the leading private equity investment firms in the country. "Increasingly, lawyers are CEOs of major corporations, leading figures in private equity, investment bankers and so on. To prepare tomorrow's lawyers in ways that will enable them to move effortlessly into business and finance, it is clear that a variety of Wharton courses will serve as an invaluable supplement to the more traditional law courses."
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