Author Archives: CSU|LAW

Keating Edits Encyclopedia of Housing, Moderates Panel on Lending and Loss Mitigation

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Sage has published the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Housing.  Professor of Urban Studies and Law Dennis Keating served on the editorial board for this publication and authored two of its entries, those on Displacement and Community Development Corporations.

In addition, on June 28 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s 2012 Policy Summit on Housing, Human Capital, and Inequality, Professor Keating moderated the panel on “Lending and Loss Mitigation: Towards a Stronger Housing Market”.  Panelist Andrea Ghent (CUNY- Baruch College) convincingly refuted the (conservative) argument that federal affordable housing legislation was a major cause of the subprime mortgage boom that led to the housing bubble bursting.   Mary Weselcouch (NYU – Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy) analyzed determinents of the incidence of mortgage loan modification, arguing that, so far, problems continue with the federal programs and the participating lenders.   Lei Ding (Wayne State – Department of Urban Studies) analyzed loss mitigation practices by mortgage loan servicers in “soft” housing markets like Detroit. Difficulties remain with those facing foreclosure trying to get the loan servicers to respond positively, especially in a weak market like Detroit.

Lind and Keating Publish on Cleveland Responses to the Mortgage Crisis

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Professor Dennis Keating, jointly appointed by CSU’s Levin College of Urban Affairs and C|M|LAW, and C|M|LAW Clinical Professor Emeritus Kermit Lind, have co-authored “Responding to the Mortgage Crisis:  Three Cleveland Examples” in the Winter 2012 issue of The Urban Lawyer, Vol. 44, No. 1:1-135.

Keating and Lind write that years before the mortgage crisis fueled by subprime and predatory lending became a national crisis in 2008, this emerging disaster was ravaging neighborhoods in Cleveland, Ohio. Investigations that followed revealed that homeowners were being persuaded to refinance their mortgages and often to finance home repairs and amenities through predatory lending, including adjustable rate mortgages with initial low interest rates (“teaser loans”). The Cleveland neighborhood of Slavic Village was especially hard hit, with massive amounts of mortgage fraud followed by hundreds of foreclosures of borrowers resulting in housing abandonment and widespread blight. Despite these discouraging data, the three examples of responses described in this article give hope that the challenges caused by this crisis can be met and the city’s neighborhoods can be rebuilt even with a reduced population and reconfigured land uses.

The article is available at:http://www.americanbar.org/publications/urban_lawyer/2012/winter_2012.html

Lewis Publishes “Papa’s Baby” with NYU Press

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When a child is conceived from sexual intercourse between a married, heterosexual couple, the child has a legal father and mother. Whatever may happen thereafter, the child’s parents are legally bound to provide for their child, and if they don’t, they’re held accountable by law. But what about children created by artificial insemination? When it comes to paternity, the law is full of gray areas, resulting in many cases where children have no legal fathers.

In Papa’s Baby, C|M|LAW’s Professor Browne C. Lewis argues that the courts should take steps to insure that all children have at least two legal parents. Additionally, state legislatures should recognize that more than one class of fathers may exist and allocate paternal responsibility based, again, upon the best interest of the child. Lewis supplements her argument with concrete methods for dealing with different types of cases, including anonymous and non-anonymous sperm donors, married and unmarried women, and lesbian couples. In so doing, she first establishes different types of paternity, and then draws on these to create an expanded definition of paternity.

To order Papa’s Baby from NYU Press click here: http://nyupress.org/books/book-details.aspx?bookid=5825  or through Amazon, click here: http://www.amazon.com/Papas-Baby-Paternity-Artificial-Insemination/dp/0814738486/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343232500&sr=1-1&keywords=papa%27s+baby

Inniss Comments on the 40th Anniversary of Title IX, Notes Potential Uses for Combating Sexual Harassment

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In marking the 40th anniversary of Title IX, Lolita Buckner Inniss, C|M|LAW’s Joseph C. Hostetler-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law, recently posted the following at the American Constitution Society Blog:

http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/title-ix-single-episode-sexual-harassment-and-telling-stories-out-of-school

The principal provision of Title IX reads:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Although Title IX is best known for having transformed the arena of women’s sports, Inniss notes that Title IX has a much broader reach.  She writes that it also applies to sexual violence and sexual harassment. Inniss writes that one of the more controversial aspects of Title IX jurisprudence is that sexual harassment is not only defined by persistent behavior but may also be found in a single episode.  She argues that Title IX should give women an opportunity for articulating the legal and ethical wrongness of such behavior by telling their own stories in their own voices.

Kowalski Speaks on Recent U.S. Supreme Court Labor and Employment Decisions, and Argues in the Ohio Supreme Court

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Clinical Professor Ken Kowalski

C|M|LAW Clinical Professor Ken Kowalski presented Recent Supreme Court Decisions, Appellate Decisions and Related Topics in Labor and Employment Law at the NLRB Region 8 Labor Law seminar held in Cleveland on May 17th.

In addition, Professor Kowalski argued before the Ohio Supreme Court on June 5th in the case of James A. Lang [et al.] v. Director, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.  The case involves the denial of certain benefits to three Ohio workers who lost their jobs when their employer transferred its manufacturing operations to Mexico.  A wage subsidy program, Alternative Trade Adjustment Assistance, created by Congress for older workers whose jobs are terminated due to national trade policies, is administered by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services through contract with the federal Department of Labor.  At issue is whether the DOL interpretation of the requirements for participation in the program contravened the statute itself.  When ODJFS sought review in the Ohio Supreme Court, the National Employment Law Project, a national advocacy organization for employment rights of lower-wage workers which had successfully represented the claimants in the lower courts, contacted the Employment Law Clinic for assistance.  C|M|LAW Clinic students researched and helped brief a number of issues of statutory interpretation presented in this litigation, and helped prepare Professor Kowalski for the oral argument.

To view the oral argument before the Ohio Supreme Court, please click here: http://www.ohiochannel.org/medialibrary/Media.aspx?fileId=135921

Sterio Publishes in the Amsterdam Law Forum Regarding Pirate Prosecutions in the National Courts of Kenya, The Seychelles, and Mauritius

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C|M|LAW Professor Milena Sterio has published Piracy Off the Coast of Somalia: The Argument for Pirate Prosecutions in the National Courts of Kenya, The Seychelles, and Mauritius, in Volume 4, Number 2, of the Amsterdam Law Forum.  In this article, she argues that, in order to combat the rise of Somali piracy, major maritime nations should rely on national prosecutions of Somali pirates in the courts of stable regional partners, such as Kenya, the Seychelles, and Mauritius.  A systematic transfer program and prosecutions in the national courts of several regional partners would preclude the possibility of pirate catch-and-release, and could ultimately provide enough deterrence to seriously dissuade young Somali men from engaging in piracy.  The Somali pirates, enemies of all mankind, may find potent foes in the form of Kenyan, Seychellois, and Mauritian prosecutors, who will subject pirates to prosecutions on behalf of all mankind.

To read the full article, click here: http://ojs.ubvu.vu.nl/alf/article/view/264/456

Sterio Wins Fulbright Award to Teach and Conduct Research in Azerbaijan

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C|M|LAW Professor Milena Sterio has accepted a grant from the William J. Fulbright Commission to teach and conduct research at Baku State University in Baku, Azerbaijan in the Spring semester of the 2012-2013 academic year.  She will teach two classes and perform research on statehood and secession.  In particular, she will be studying a disputed area/province  called the Nagorno-Karabakhin which has been the subject of border disputes between Azerbaijan and Armenia for almost 20 years.  Her research will focus on this area which de jure belongs to Azerbaijan but has been de facto occupied by Armenia.

Sagers Discusses a Gridlocked Congress as it Attempts to Move the Federal Trade Commission Out of its Long Time Home

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C|M|LAW’s James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law Chris Sagers has published a Guest Opinion piece in FTC Watch.  In his article, The Ongoing FTC Building Fiasco, Sagers cites a Congressional Committee’s efforts to remove the FTC headquarters from its long-time home as evidence of a broken Congress.  The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has made moves to relocate the FTC from its 75 year old art deco building built for the agency by Roosevelt and turn that building over to the National Gallery of Art.  As further evidence, Sagers cites a study indicating that the American public finds “Congress to be less popular among Americans than  pornography, polygamy, British Petroleum during the Gulf oil spill, Richard Nixon at the peak of Watergate, and Communism.”

To read the article, click here:  https://www.law.csuohio.edu/sites/default/files/facultystaff/sagers_ftc_article.pdf

Forte speaks in Italy

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C|M|LAW Professor David Forte spoke to a class in Comparative Constitutional Law at the State University of Milan, Italy on May 3, 2012.  For the class of first year Italian law students, about 80 in number, Forte described the differences between accommodation of religion in France and in the United States, with a reference to President Obama’s HHS mandate on Catholic institutions.

On May 7, 2012, Professor Forte spoke on Catholic and Islamic Traditions and the Prospect for Democracy,  at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty.  He analyzed the historical similarities and differences in the way Catholicism and Islam confronted and dealt with or is dealing with the phenomenon of representative democracy.

During his trip to Italy, on May 11, 2012, Professor Forte was interviewed by Xenit, the Catholic News Agency.  His interview with Xenit centered on the significance of the Islamist consolidation of political power in the Middle East.

You may access the interview here:  http://www.zenit.org/article-34761?l=english

Crocker and Friedman Appointed to the Cuyahoga County Public Defender Commission

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Professor Phyllis L. Crocker

C|M|LAW Professor Phyllis L. Crocker and C|M|LAW Adjunct Professor Gordon Friedman have been appointed to the Cuyahoga County Public Defender Commission by Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald.  Their appointments were confirmed by the Cuyahoga County Council on May 22, 2012.   The Public Defender Commission is composed of 5 members.  The Commission recommends an annual operating budget for the Public Defender’s Office, establishes its operational standards, and determines the qualifications and size of the supporting staff in the office in an effort to provide essential legal representation to indigent persons in Cuyahoga County.   Crocker and Friedman were confirmed to serve 4-year terms on the Commission.

Professor Crocker is a recognized authority on the death penalty.  She chaired the American Bar Association’s Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Team that published the report Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems:  The Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Report (2007).  She has written extensively on the constitutional, historical and cultural underpinnings of capital punishment.  She is a co-author Katz & Giannelli, Baldwin’s Ohio Practice: Criminal Law (3rd ed., 2009) and is a frequent guest lecturer on capital punishment.   Professor Crocker teaches Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure I and II, Capital Punishment and the Law and the Externship Seminar.

Gordon Friedman is a partner in the law firm of Friedman and Gilbert, where he practices criminal defense in the areas of drug crimes, homicide/murder, white collar crimes, sex crimes, DUI, federal criminal practice and sentencing, tax crimes, fraud, and more.  Early in his career, he served as an assistant public defender in Cuyahoga County, and as the director of the Free Medical Clinic of Greater Cleveland. He teaches Criminal Procedure I at C|M|LAW.  He and his law partner, Terry Gilbert, sponsor the Friedman and Gilbert Criminal Justice Forum Lecture, held annually at C|M|LAW.