Category Archives: Faculty in the Media

Weinstein Speaks to Law Directors on Regulation of Signage

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Professor Alan Weinstein

Professor Alan Weinstein

On May 8, C|M|LAW and Levin College of Urban Affairs Professor Alan Weinstein provided a 1-hour CLE session titled, “Legal and Practical Issues in Regulating Signs & Billboards,” to the Northeast Ohio Law Directors Association. The Association members serve as law directors for cities, villages and townships. Professor Weinstein’s presentation focused on how a city’s sign regulations can balance first amendment concerns, principally content-neutrality, with achieving land-use regulatory goals of traffic safety, effective way-finding and aesthetics.  He noted that one effective technique is to key regulation to events rather than to sign-content.  Thus, for example, instead of the code defining the content of a “construction” sign and regulating when/where such a sign may be displayed, the code defines the event of “construction” and then regulates when/where a sign may be displayed on that site regardless of content.

Majette Serves on ACA Panel at Washington Bar Association Symposium

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On Tuesday, March 18, 2014, C|M|LAW Professor Gwen Majette served as a panelist for a program entitled, “The ACA, the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth” at the 14th Annual Symposium of the Washington Bar Association’s Judicial Council.  The symposium is organized by members of the judiciary and targets the judiciary, attorneys, and the public.  The other panelist included the Executive Director of the DC Exchange, the Director of Federal and Family Advocacy for AARP, the Director of State Issues for the American Hospital Association, and the Director or Clinical Transformation and Delivery at the Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings who previously worked in the White House on health care reform matters.

Majette Moderates Panel on Health Disparities

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On Thursday, March 27, C|M|LAW Professor Gwen Majette served as the moderator for a panel entitled “Health Care Disparities: The role of Title VI Past, Present and Future” at a conference on role of the law in reducing health care disparities.  The conference, “Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: Putting an End to Separate and Unequal Health Care in the United States 50 Years After the Civil Rights Act of 1964”, was held at Case Western Reserve University Law School and drew an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars and governmental officials.  The goal of the conference was to put together an action plan to eliminate health disparities in the Midwest and in Ohio, in particular.

From the Audience at The Madison Show, Majette Joins in a Discussion of ACA

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Professor Gwen Majette

Professor Gwen Majette

On Thursday, March 13, 2014, C|M|LAW Professor Gwen Majette attended a broadcast of “The Madison Show.”  The live broadcast on Sirius XM radio included a discussion entitled the “ACA: A Prescription for Health.”  The roundtable included Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Congresswoman Donna Christensen, the Founder and Executive Director of the Young Invincibles, a representative from the White House Office of Public Engagement, and a former HHS staffer.   During the broadcast the host told the listeners that they had a law professor in the audience from Cleveland State and asked Professor Majette to describe some of the benefits of the ACA.  Professor Majette shared with the listeners how the ACA benefits Americans and helps America adhere to its international obligations under the International Convention to Eliminate Racial Discrimination.  She also shared with the audience how the US spends the most on its health care system, but our performance on several key health indicators is worse than many developed countries that spend less.

Mika Speaks on Re-writing as Compared to Writing from Scratch as Tools for Teaching Editing

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C|M|LAW Legal Writing Professor Karin Mika presented “Flipping the Assignment and the Theory of Desirable Difficulty” at the University of Las Vegas, on March 29, 2014, at the Rocky Mountain Regional Legal Writing Conference.  She presented the same paper on April 25, 2014, at the Southeast Regional Legal Writing Conference.  Mika’s presentations covered her endeavors to use rewriting poorly written memos and motions as the basis of assignments rather than having the students write memos and motions from scratch.  The theory is that students are less able to critique their own writing than others’ writing, and thus, rewriting a poorly written memo or motion is more difficult than writing something from scratch and may provide more of a pedagogical benefit to first year students.

Sagers’ Work on Statute Names to Appear in the Georgetown Law Journal

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Professor Chris Sagers

Professor Chris Sagers

C|M|LAW’s James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law Chris Sagers’s essay on naming traditions in federal legislation will appear in the Georgetown Law Journal in 2014.  The essay, entitled A Statute by any Other (Non-acronomial) Name Might Smell Less Like S.P.A.M., or, The Congress of the United States Grows Increasingly D.U.M.B., was featured earlier this year in a column by New York Times legal affairs analyst Adam Liptak.  It documents a rapidly rising trend of sloganeering and manipulation in statute titles, and considers what these evolving trends say about the state of affairs in our federal Congress.

Falk to Serve on Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s First Conviction Integrity Unit

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Professor Patricia J. Falk

Professor Patricia J. Falk

C|M|LAW Professor Patricia J. Falk has been appointed to serve on Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty’s newly announced Conviction Integrity Unit.  Falk, along with the other members of the group, will review innocence claims made by felons convicted of crimes in Cuyahoga County.  In particular, the group will review applications from prison inmates, attorneys and felons who believe they were wrongly convicted. 

For a Plain Dealer article on the topic, as well as a link to the Prosecutor’s Office’s full policy on the topic,click here:

http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2014/04/new_conviction_integrity_unit.html

Sagers Speaks on Apple Case in New York, Chicago, and Case Western Reserve University

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Professor Chris Sagers

Professor Chris Sagers

In February, C|M|LAW’s James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law Chris Sagers was invited to discuss his work on the Justice Department’s price-fixing lawsuit against Apple, United States v. Apple, Inc., before the Antitrust Section of the New York State Bar Association.  In January, he spoke about the case as a guest speaker before the Case Western Reserve University’s faculty of law.

Sagers will also speak on the topic again later this week as one of four speakers at the Loyola University of Chicago’s 2014 Consumer Antitrust Colloquium, one of the best attended annual conferences in antitrust.

Sagers has been quoted on the case frequently in the media, and has spoken on it several times previously.

 

 

Robertson Writes in Crain’s on Ohio Supreme Court Oral Argument regarding Local Attempts to Regulate Zoning of Shale Wells

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Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

C|M|LAW Professor and Associate Dean Heidi Gorovitz Robertson published Awaiting the court’s word on validity of local zoning control of well locations, in Crain’s Cleveland Business’ Energy Report on April 4, 2014.  In this post, Robertson notes that many Ohio communities hope to exercise some control over the shale oil and gas activities that will take place within their jurisdictions. Monroe Falls, in particular, would prohibit drilling in residentially zoned space and impose some other local requirements.

If the Ohio Court of Appeals was the end of the line, Monroe Falls’ zoning ordinance would be dead in the water, along with other local efforts to enact similar ordinances affecting the location of wells.  But Monroe Falls appealed to the Supreme Court of Ohio  and on February 26, 2014, the  Court heard oral argument on two specific issues. First, it considered whether the state statutes concerning oil and gas drilling deprive municipalities such as Monroe Falls of their Ohio Constitutional home rule authority to enact and enforce zoning laws (such as prohibiting shale drilling in residential zones).  The second issue was whether Monroe Falls’ ordinances, some of which required oil and gas drillers to submit information to Monroe Falls conflict with the state’s oil and gas law when the driller has already secured a drilling permit from ODNR.

Ohio and the affected driller, Beck Energy, argued that if the court allows localities to create their own rules, even zoning rules, the practice would undermine the state’s ability to carry out the Legislature’s statutory directives.  Monroe Falls, however, argued that local land-use regulation could operate in harmony with the state’s control of drilling operations and would not, therefore be pre-empted by the state law.

A couple of justices expressed serious doubts that ODNR really has “sole and exclusive authority” to preclude all local oversight with no administrative appeal. At least one seemed bothered that the statute does not expressly state a preclusion for municipal zoning authority, whereas the Legislature has shown that it knows how to do this in other statutes.  Justice Paul Pfeifer focused on the fact that under Ohio’s oil and gas statute, a driller can appeal a denied drilling request to the state agency, but a landowner has no opportunity to appeal the state’s decision to grant a driller’s permit request.

Only a few of the justices spoke up substantially at the oral arguments. We’ll have to wait to hear from the others when the opinion is released.  In the meantime, localities across the state will be watching to learn whether they will be able to decide where shale oil and gas drilling may occur within their borders.

To read the full post in Crain’s, click here:

http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20140404/BLOGS05/140409906/awaiting-the-courts-word-on-validity-of-local-zoning-control-of-well

 

Mika Writes on Increased Importance of Appearance of Contracts

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Legal Writing Professor Karin Mika

Legal Writing Professor Karin Mika

C|M|LAW Legal Writing Professor Karin Mika recently published Visual clarity in contract drafting in Clarity, a journal published twice a year by Clarity-international, an international association promoting plain legal language.  The article discusses how the appearance of contracts (including font, paragraphing, and white space) contribute to the quality and user-friendly nature of the contract.  The article emphasizes how contracts must be usable instruments for those entering into a bargain and also suggests that people have become quicker readers so more visual cues are needed in written works to enhance people’s understanding of content.

Here is a link to the article:

http://clarity.shuttlepod.org/Resources/Documents/Clarity%2070..pdf​