Legal Writing Professor Karin Mika

C|M|LAW Legal Writing Professor Karin Mika recently made two presentations on the teaching of legal writing.  The first presentation, Using Color Coding to Teach Legal Analysis and Cogent Writing, took place at the Southeastern Regional Legal Writing Conference, April 26-27, 2013 (John Marshall of Atlanta Law School, Savannah Branch).  The second presentation, Memo Writing in Technicolor, took place at the Rocky Mountain Regional Legal Writing Conference, March 22-24, 2013 (University of Colorado at Boulder Law School).  Memo Writing concerned her theory that color coding segments of a memo could help students understand the order of how a memo should be written.  She demonstrated by using good color-coded memos as compared to not-so-good color -coded memos to demonstrate how students could self-assess their work using visuals.

In Legal Analysis and Cogent Writing, Professor Mika demonstrated how color-coding particular analytical paragraphs could give students visual cues on the structure of legal analysis.  She also demonstrated how highlighting various portions of sentences within a paragraph (e.g., active voice, linking transitions, parallel structure) gave insight into how a well-structured, easy-to-read paragraph would look in color when it had all the proper parts.

Finally, Professor Mika has been appointed Treasurer of the AALS Teaching Section.

Opinio Juris has published the following post by C|M|LAW Professor Milena Sterio in which she discusses a recent French Court of Appeals case on the potential liability of French companies for their participation in a West Bank building project:

http://opiniojuris.org/2013/05/08/guest-post-french-companies-may-build-in-the-west-bank-an-assessment-of-the-versailles-court-of-appeals-case/

Professor Deborah Geier

C|M|LAW Professor Deborah Geier participated in a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate on Corporate Tax Reform at the ABA Section of Taxation meeting held in Washington, D.C., on May 9-10. Professor Joshua Blank from NYU organized the panel and served in the role of Speaker of the House. In addition to Professor Geier, the three debaters were Professor Adam Rosenzweig (Washington University at St. Louis), Professor Omri Marian (University of Florida), and David Miller (partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft of New York and adjunct Professor at Columbia). Three resolutions were debated: (1) “Be it resolved that the United States should impose a corporate income tax,” (2) Be it resolved that, assuming integration is desirable, the best way to achieve it is by exempting dividends from taxation in the shareholders’ hands,” and (3) “Be it resolved that, assuming the United States imposes a corporate income tax, it should lower the statutory rate below 35% in a revenue-neutral way.” The debate was lively, and the audience participated during cross-examination periods.

Professor Browne Lewis

C|M|LAW’s Leon and Gloria Plevin Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Health Law and Policy, Browne Lewis, was quoted in the Plain Dealer in an article, MetroHealth joins Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals with policy to not hire tobacco users, by Ellen Jan Kleinerman, on April 29, 2013.  The article described the MetroHealth system’s decision not to hire smokers after June 1, 2013.  According to a MetroHealth representative, refusing to hire smokers is a move that follows a national trend to “to encourage healthier life styles, increase worker productivity and lower health-care costs.”  In this decision, MetroHealth follows the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, which have both adopted this policy, along with a growing number of employers across the country.  Professor Lewis acknowledges that smokers are not a protected class in terms of employment discrimination, but argues that “[e]ven if it’s legal, it’s bad public policy. Where do you draw the line? Is the next step not hiring obese people or people who drink alcohol?  It makes more sense to use other incentives to get people to stop smoking instead of just closing the gates.” 

To read the article, see:

http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2013/04/metrohealth_joins_cleveland_cl.html

C|M|LAW Professor and Associate Dean Heidi Gorovitz Robertson published a blog post in Crain’s Cleveland Business on May 3, 2013, titled Ohio laws allow drillers access to land, at times over landowner objections.  The post concerns conflicting values in property rights that arise through the application of Ohio’s oil and gas laws in Ohio’s quickly developing shale oil and gas industry.  The basic point is that while some property owners think they get to decide whether drilling will occur beneath their land, under Ohio’s mandatory pooling and unitization laws, that is not the case.  Ohio oil and gas laws place the correlative rights of neighbors — the neighbors’ right to development the natural resource– above the individual property owner’s right to prevent drilling.

To read Robertson’s post, click here:

http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20130503/SHALEBLOGS/305039995

C|M|LAW Associate Professor and Associate Dean Mark Sundahl participated on a panel regarding the arbitration of space-related disputes at the Spring Meeting of the ABA International Law Section on April 25th in Washington, D.C.  As commercial and governmental activity in space increases, the need to resolve disputes arising from space activity has also grown.  The adoption of a new treaty regarding the finance of space assets and the advent of private human spaceflight will likely add to the number of arbitrations.  In 2011, the ICC Permanent Court of Arbitration adopted new Optional Rules for the Arbitration of Disputes Relating to Outer Space Activities in order to provide a new rule set tailored to the idiosyncratic features of space law and transactions involving satellites and launch services. The panel explained the nature of these new rules and the benefits of choosing this rule set when arbitrating space-related disputes.

Congratulations to C|M|LAW Professor Michael Borden.  He was selected, by a vote of the C|M|LAW student body, as “Faculty Member of the Year!”

Congratulations, also, to Ms. Holli Goodman, Administrative Assistant to the Dean.  The students chose her as “Staff Member of the Year.”

Professor Alan Weinstein

C|M|LAW Professor Alan Weinstein’s article, co-authored with Brian Blaesser, The Court’s 2012 Takings Cases, was published in 41 Real Estate L.J. 512 (2013). In this article, they discuss the three takings cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this term and predict that in St. Johns River Water Management Dist. v. Koontz, 77 So. 3d 1220 (Fla. 2011), cert. granted, 133 S. Ct. 420 (2012), arguably the most important of the cases, the Court will reject the claim that the Nollan/Dolan exactions test should be extended to apply to proposed conditions on development in addition to conditions that have actually been imposed.

In addition, Professor Weinstein’s article, The Ohio Supreme Court’s Perverse Stance on Development Impact Fees and What To Do About It, was published in 60 CLEV. ST. L. REV. 655 (2012).  In that article, he argues that the Ohio Court’s rulings that development impact fees are lawful when enacted by municipalities but unlawful when enacted by townships is indefensible both legally and from a policy perspective and that the Ohio legislature should act to remedy the situation by enacting enabling legislation authorizing both municipalities and townships to impose development impact fees and specifying the parameters and standards for such fees.