C|M|Law Legal Writing Professor Brian Glassman presented From Art School to Law School: Visual Lessons for Legal Writing Students, at the University of Akron School of Law on December 7, 2012, as a part of the Legal Writing Institute’s One-Day Workshop series. Glassman walked the audience through innovative techniques he has developed for reinforcing writing topics using lessons learned in art school. For example, he used a well-known Degas ballet painting to discuss perspective and Ellsworth Kelly’s Red/Blue to teach contrast and distinguishing negative authority. At the beginning of the session, Glassman piqued audience interest by placing a collection of objects covered by a draped cloth in the front of the room.  Later in the presentation, he asked audience members to either sketch or identify the items under the cloth, thereby demonstrating how he employs another lesson learned in art school to teaching legal writing: to draw the body, the artist must understand the skeleton (the underlying structure); to write legal analysis, the writer must understand the structure of the argument. While Glassman designed these techniques to appeal especially to visual learners, he noted that his techniques may appeal to students with other predominant learning styles as well. The presentation was well received and generated lively discussion among the attendees.

Earlier this fall, Professor Glassman was an invited guest of the Cleveland State University Art Department, to which he presented International Law and Museum Practices Governing the Movement of Art in Peacetime: A Case Study.  To teach the subject matter, which included the International Council of Museums’ Code of Ethics, Professor Glassman developed a simulation in which students acted as members of a museum acquisitions committee. Glassman then guided the students through deciding whether to authorize bidding at auction on a rare Cambodian statue of uncertain provenance. Glassman based the simulation on an ongoing matter involving such a statue that Sotheby’s is being prevented from auctioning due to a claim made on the work by the Cambodian government, coupled with the intervention of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The Cleveland State University Art Department regularly invites Professor Glassman to present on art law topics.

On December 17th, 2012, C|M|LAW Professor John T. Plecnik was elected Vice President of the Board of Trustees for the Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library System, and on January 2nd, 2013, he was elected Chair of the Recreation Commission for the City of Willoughby Hills.

C|M|LAW Legal Writing Professor Karin Mika, presented Demarginalizing Diverse Members of the Legal Writing Classroom, on December 1, 2012, at Washburn School of Law, at the Legal Writing Institute’s One Day Workshop.  Mika presented as part of a panel, “Student Populations: Diversity and Academic Support Matters.” The focus of her presentation was on law faculty not assuming students are familiar with all references their professors might make in the classroom.  She also spoke about teaching for sightless students. With respect to references students might miss, Mika discussed being aware that students do not always have the knowledge base their teachers think they have.  Students thus spend a lot of time not understaning what their teachers are saying.  Mika pointed out the situation of an Asian student who was embarrassed in her first class of law school because she was unfamiliar with the story of The Three Bears.  She also related the situation from former C|M|LAW Dean Geoffrey S. Mearn’s first year at the law school when Mika asked her Legal Writing students if they had any questions following their initial orientation session.  Mearns had spoken at the orientation session about the Oklahoma City Bombing.  The first question a student asked was, “Who is Timothy McVeigh?”  Most of our current students were too young to remember the Oklahoma City Bombing, but they were embarrassed to say anything until Mika offered them the opportunity to ask.  She also discussed how we often formulate fact situations or exam questions around our favorite shows, books, or movies, but that sometimes our favorite shows, books, and movies are quite foreign to students and the scenarios become more confusing than helpful.  She pointed out that fun themes are fine, as long as all the students understand the context.

With respect to teaching sightless students, Mika first remarked that all visually challenged students were not alike.  Some have access to helpful technology, but recently sightless students may still be wading around in a sightless world.  She talked about being attentive to the disadvantages of the sightless student both inside and outside the classroom and how it is best to provide materials in advance as much as possible, in addition to providing all classroom materials in some form of typed format that could be sent to the visually impaired student after class.  Mika also talked about being very descriptive in class and acknowledging the limitations of the visually impaired student while limiting activities that exclude those who can’t see, such as impromptu fill-in-the-blank exercises.  Finally, Mika said that it was almost impossible to expect visually impaired students to do well on anything related to citation without help that amounted to more than would be allowed for other students.

Mika also presented on December 8, 2012, at another Legal Writing Institute One Day Workshop at Willamette School of Law.  Mika’s presentation was titled Opportunities in and preparation for work in nonprofit law.  In that presentation, Mika noted that students can find a niche by focusing on non-profit regulatory compliance and by having a skill to sell in the expanding field.  She said that the non-litigation courses would be helpful.  She discussed Enron and the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley Act which changed the nature of corporate law and forced corporations (non-profit and otherwise) to be attentive to many more regulations and ethical considerations than previously existed.  She stated that this change resulted in the need for many more attorneys specializing in compliance matters, which would be added to the generalists and other specialists that non-profit corporations already needed (ranging from those specializing in personal injury, to business contracts, to insurance law, to employment law, to intellectual property law, and most any other field).  Mika noted that most non-profit corporations might have a “gatekeeper” as in-house counsel, but generally farmed out a lot of their work to law firms.  She noted that various law firms were setting up non-profit practice groups because non-profit work was an expanding field.  Toward this end, Mika suggested taking courses that required various types of legal drafting.

C|M|LAW Professor Emeritus Alan Miles Ruben (Advisory Professor of Law, Fu Dan University, Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China) moderated a panel on new decisions and regulations affecting labor arbitration practice at the National Academy of Arbitrators’ Fall Education Conference at Charleston, SC on October 13, 2012.   He lectured on advocacy in labor arbitration at the Labor Law Seminar sponsored by Teamsters Joint Council Number 41 and the Fraternal Order of Police/Ohio Labor Council, Cleveland, Ohio on October 19, 2012, and he spoke on “Resolving Ambiguities in Collective Bargaining Agreements” at the Labor Arbitration Institute, Cleveland, Ohio on November 20, 2012.

On Wednesday, December 12, C|M|LAW Professor Alan Weinstein was the featured speaker on “Professor’s Corner,” a 60-minute national teleconference presented each month by the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estates Section’s Legal Education Committee.  He discussed Koontz v. St. John’s River Waste Management District, a case involving development exactions that the Supreme Court has agreed to review this term, and several recent state supreme court cases dealing with various forms of development exactions, including the Ohio Supreme Court’s Drees v. Hamilton Township decision from May 2012 invalidating development impact fees imposed by an Ohio township.

In addition, Professor Weinstein's paper, titled "The Association of Adult Businesses With Secondary Effects: Legal Doctrine, Social Theory, and Empirical Evidence," that he co-authored with Prof. Richard McCleary (UC-Irvine Criminology) and presented at the American Association of Geographers Conference in New York in February 2012, will be published by Routledge in late 2013 as a chapter in a book titled  "(Sub)Urban Sexscapes: Geographies and Regulation of the ‘Sex Industry’.“

C|M|LAW Professor Milena Sterio traveled to Mauritius, a small island nation in the Indian Ocean, last week to participate in an international forum on Somali piracy.  Mauritius is one of a group of nations that are prosecuting Somali pirates under transfer agreements with the United Kingdom and the European Union.  Professor Sterio is involved in the Piracy Working Group, which is advising and assisting the governments of these nations.  Professor Sterio, along with her students, researches legal issues at the request of the prosecuting nations.

To read about Professor Sterio’s work in Mauritius, please read her blog post on IntLawGrrls.com at:  http://www.intlawgrrls.com/2012/12/mauritius-new-forum-for-somali-piracy.html

On Wednesday, December 12, 2012, Dr. Dennis Keating (joint C|M|LAW/Levin College of Urban Affairs appointee) will speak to the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.  In his lecture, The Irish in the Civil War,”  Keating will be discussing predominantly Irish military units (north and south) like the Irish Brigade of the Union Army of the Potomac and the Louisiana Tigers of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. He will focus on three Irish-American commanders – Thomas Francis Meagher of the Irish Brigade, Union general Phil Sheridan, and Confederate General Patrick Cleburne. He will also cover the 1863 New York City Draft Riots and the 1866 invasion of Upper Canada by the Fenian Brotherhood.

Dr. Keating is a past president of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.  The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable meets at Judson Manor (Chester and 107th).  The lecture will begin at about 8 PM.