Prominent media recently covered a Supreme Court amicus brief written by Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law (along with Michael Carrier of the Rutgers Law School), and signed by 65 other law and business professors. The case is Alston v. NCAA, and will consider whether the NCAA’s rules constraining compensation to college athletes violate federal antitrust law. The brief was covered in the Washington Post and the legal report Law 360, and Sagers discussed the case on a podcast produced by the prominent sports law attorney Mike Meltser.

The Ohio House Technology and Innovation Committee asked Professor Brian Ray to submit testimony on House Bill 220, which permits governmental entities in Ohio to use distributed ledger technology, including blockchain. Ray testified that the legislation would pave the way for modernizing public services and create the infrastructure for public-private collaborations using these new technologies.

Professor Milena Sterio participated as an expert, on behalf of the Public International Law and Policy Group, in the review of Ukrainian draft laws on Reintegration (of Crimes and other occupied territories) and on Transitional Justice.

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson and NY-based attorney Corinne Snow spoke to the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law’s Federalist Society regarding the current and emerging state of environmental law in the new administration. 

Ms. Snow, counsel in the environment and natural resources group at Vinson & Elkins LLP, previously served as Counsel and Chief of Staff in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  Robertson and Snow presented their thoughts and predictions regarding potential changes in the regulatory state including discussion of specific areas of law and regulation that are likely to be revisited or revised.

Robertson is the Steven W. Percy Distinguished Professor of Law at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and Professor of Environmental Studies at the Levin College of Urban Affairs.

Professor Milena Sterio delivered a guest lecture at the Washington University School of Law on March 16, in Professor Leila Sadat’s class on International Human Rights.  Professor Sterio’s guest lecture was on the topic of Syria and the possible accountability models for prosecuting Syrian perpetrators of atrocities.

Professor Jonathan Witmer-Rich was quoted in a Cleveland.com story on plans by the Cleveland Division of Police to begin using drones sometime later this year. He noted some of the Fourth Amendment risks created by digital surveillance tools such as drones: “There are additional privacy risks by the fact you’re using a digital surveillance to do that and that may violate the Fourth Amendment even though a police officer doing the same thing might not.”

In addition, Professor Witmer-Rich urged the police to seek public input on developing new policies governing the use of drones before beginning to use them.

Professor Milena Sterio co-moderated the Women in International Law Interest Group meeting at the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting on March 25th.  Professor Sterio just completed her three-year term as Co-Chair of the Women in International Law Interest Group.  At the meeting, Professor Sterio and her co-chair, Professor Nienke Grossman, delivered the Prominent Woman in International Law Award to Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, formerly a federal judge in the U.S. and a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia.

In addition, Professor Sterio was elected as a member of the American Society of International Law Executive Council.  The Executive Council consists of a group of most prominent international law scholars in the United States. 

Finally, Professor Sterio was elected co-chair of the Transitional Justice and Rule of Law Interest Group at the American Society of International Law.

Professor Deborah Geier appeared on the “Sound of Ideas” program on WCPN (local NPR affiliate) on Wednesday, March 24. She discussed several of the tax changes that affect the current tax filing season for 2020, as well as a few of the significant tax changes affecting low- and middle-income families in the American Rescue Plan Act for 2021. The program is available here: https://www.ideastream.org/programs/sound-of-ideas/federal-deadline-extension-and-unemployment-tax-break-among-issues-for-tax-filers-for-2020-returns.

Pew Charitable Trust’s Stateline interviewed Professor Brian Ray for a story on digital contact tracing apps in the U.S. Ray, who has worked extensively on the privacy concerns these apps raise since the start of the pandemic, explained how the convergence of broad, widespread concern over surveillance combined with resistance to government measures like mask mandates and business closures to create widespread resistance to even the highly privacy-protective system co-created by Google and Apple.

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law, appeared this week on NPR’s Morning Edition. He discussed the antitrust significance of the recent decision by both Apple and Google to cut the fees they charge for App Store purchases, fees that are the focus of ongoing antitrust scrutiny.