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

On Thursday, November 10, C|M|LAW hosted an innovative half-day conference on E-Discovery, Current E-Discovery Issues from a Practitioner and Judicial Perspective.   C|M|LAW presented and organized the conference in conjunction with the Cleveland-based e-discovery firm JurInnov and the Jones Day law firm.  The conference brought together judges, litigators, corporate counsel and industry experts to discuss the many pressing issues that have emerged in e-discovery practice.  Professor Brian Ray was the driving force behind the conference at C|M, working closely with Mr. Timothy Opsitnick of JurInnov, and Mr. Ted Hiser of Jones Day.

The conference began by convening a practitioner’s roundtable to discuss current and emerging e-discovery issues, then brought in several judges to present the judicial perspective.  Judicial participants included, The Honorable Dan Polster, Judge, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio, The Honorable James R. Knepp, II, Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio, and The Honorable Nancy Vecchiarelli, Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio.  In addition to co-sponsor JurInnov, industry participants included, representatives from the Cleveland Clinic, Lubrizol, Cooper Tire & Rubber, Squire Sanders & Dempsey, Jones Day, Thorman & Hardin-Levine.  Conference attendees received a tour of C|M|LAW’s new state-of-the-art electronic trial courtroom, complete with demonstrations of the court room’s advanced technology.  Participants were invited to join a new Northern Ohio E-Discovery Roundtable that will convene periodically to continue discussing current trends and best practices in e-discovery.

Professors Milena Sterio and James Wilson spoke at last week’s Central States Law Schools Association Conference at the University of Toledo College of Law.  Sterio spoke on her work on piracy in Somalia.  Wilson presented his work on three chapters of his upcoming book, The Structure of Class War.

The chapters Wilson discussed are titled, respectively, “The One,” “The Few,” and “The Many.”   The book’s primary technique consists of using the wisdom of the ancient Greeks and The Buddha to demonstrate that most modern conservatives are not very conservative, most liberals not very compassionate, most Republicans not very republican, and most Democrats not very democratic.

Wilson’s three chapters apply the ancient Greeks’ distinction between governments ruled by the one, the few, and the many, to the United States and the global economy.   The chapter on the “One” first compares the symbiotic relationship between the President and the CEOs of major corporations, who are, to use Max Weber’s term, “monocrats.”   The rest of the chapter uses Plato’s political morality to help criticize Professor Posner and Vermeule’s proposal that the President should not be constrained by either “the rule of law” or “separation of powers.”  For example, Plato believed that the best practicable form of government consisted of a wise king who was limited by “the rule of law” created by a public assembly.

The chapter on the “Few” contrasts Plato’s defense of an aristocratic conception of “justice” in The Republic with competing conceptions of “injustice.”   The Republic contains much of continuing value and much to fear.   The next part of the chapter considers Aristotle’s responses, which simultaneously clarifies lingering analytical problems surrounding the “one, the few, and the many” and provides justifications for a republican form of government instead of an aristocratic one.   The final part employs and extends the economic distinction between “predatory” and “productive” modes of wealth accumulation to argue that the political economy of the United States has become increasingly predatory, a precursor to imperial decline.

Professor Sterio spoke on her work on piracy in Somalia.  According to her abstract, the rise of piracy off the coast of Somalia over the last five years has been spectacular, amounting to a true crisis in international law.  During the first six months of 2011, Somali pirates attacked 163 ships and took 361 sailors hostage.  As of June 30, 2011, Somali pirates were holding 20 ships and 420 crew members, demanding millions of dollars in ransom for their release.  Moreover, pirates have been attacking larger ships, such as oil tankers, and using more potent weapons, such as rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.  Pirates have also been attacking during monsoon season, an otherwise risky endeavor.  According to the International Maritime Bureau Director, Pottengal Mukundan, “[i]n the last six months, Somali pirates attacked more vessels than ever before and they’re taking higher risks.”

Sterio concludes that piracy has increased shipping expenses, costing an estimated $10 billion per year in global trade.  She poses and responds to the following questions:  What has sparked this international law crisis off the coast of Somalia?  What can the international community do in order to alleviate the crisis and prevent piracy from spreading to other regions of the world? What should be the way forward?

For more information about the Central States Law Schools Association, click here: http://cslsa.us.

C|M|LAW Professor Emerita Jane M. Picker returned to CSU on Tuesday, October 18, to speak on Litigation and Social Change: Developing Women’s Rights in the Twentieth Century.  Professor Picker spoke, in particular, about a case she argued in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973, LaFleur v. Cleveland Board of Education.  Her client, Jo Carol LaFleur (now Jo Carol Nesset-Sale) was present to introduce her.  LaFleur, then a Cleveland school teacher, had been suspended from her job because she was four months pregnant.  Under the applicable maternity leave rules, teachers were barred from Cleveland classrooms starting in their forth month of pregnancy.  LaFleur wanted to remain in the classroom and her baby was not due until July, well after the end of the school year.  Picker took her case, pro bono, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and won.  Of course, by then LaFleur’s child was long-since born, and LaFleur herself had gone on to attend law school.  But as a result of this effort the women’s protective laws, like that which had barred LaFleur from the classroom, were overturned not only in the Cleveland schools, but all over the country.

For more information, see Chapter 13 in Peter Irons’ The Courage of Their Convictions- Sixteen Americans Who Fought Their Way to the Supreme Court, at: https://www.law.csuohio.edu/sites/default/files/newsevents/ironscouragechap13.pdf

Professor Milena Sterio will be speaking today at the International Law in Crisis Conference at Case Law School.  The conference is designed to examine both the application of international law in times of crisis and whether these events are pushing international law itself to the brink of crisis, with panels examining developments in Northern Africa and the Middle East, climate change, international economic law, universal jurisdiction, piracy, and the war on terrorism.  Professor Sterio will be appearing from 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  You can watch the proceedings live at:  http://law.case.edu/centers/cox/webcast.asp?dt=20110909