C|M|LAW Professor John Plecnik has just given permission to Professor Robert Sitkoff (Harvard) to include a classroom example he created in his first year of teaching to illustrate the modes of intestate distribution.  Plecnik’s illustration will appear in the teacher’s manual and in PowerPoint slides accompanying the new edition of Dukeminier & Sitkoff, WILLS, TRUSTS, AND ESTATES (9th ed. 2013), the leading American coursebook on trusts and estates.

C|M|LAW’s Professor Jonathan Witmer-Rich comments in an IdeaStream interview on the Madison indictment for triple murder.  See:

http://www.ideastream.org/news/feature/55130?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

C|M|LAW Legal Writing Professor Karin Mika and C|M|LAW Legal Writing Professor Emerita Barbara Tyler attended the Association of Legal Writing Directors conference June 26-28 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Mika and Tyler participated on a panel called “Love me Now or Thank me Later,” arguing that the Dunning-Kruger effect colors law student reviews of law faculty teaching. This references a 2012 article that Tyler published in the Touro Law Review with Catherine Wasson, a Legal Writing Professor from Elon University.

On July 1st, C|M|LAW Associate Dean Mark Sundahl began a two-year term as the Chair of the International Law Section of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.  The International Law Section provides a forum for international law practitioners as well as for student members of the CMBA with an interest in international law.  The section holds monthly luncheon meetings featuring a presentation on current issues in the field of international law.  An annual full-day CLE event is also organized for the spring.  Dean Sundahl plans to involve students to a larger extent in the section’s activities in order to raise student awareness of the importance of international law in the era of globalization.

C|M|Law’s James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law Chris Sagers had a new post  on the HuffingtonPost last week concerning last week’s Supreme Court decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc.  In the case, the Court held that so-called “reverse payment” or “pay for delay” agreements between branded drug manufacturers and would-be generic competitors are not only subject to antitrust law, but are likely illegal in any case in which the reverse payment is “large.”  Sagers offers thoughts about why the case matters not just for the narrow context of the drug sector, but for antitrust law and competition generally.

You may read Sagers’ post here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-sagers/the-drug-patents-case-the_b_3480866.html

Professor Chris Sagers

C|M|Law’s James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law Chris Sagers was widely quoted in the press recently concerning the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Apple, alleging that Apple had coordinated a price-fixing conspiracy among publishers of electronic books.  In addition to his own post about the case on the HuffingtonPost (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-sagers/the-fate-of-apple-and-ant_b_3480835.html) Sagers was quoted in several  articles in Publisher’s Weekly (concerning Apple’s trial strategy, see http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/57395-at-hearing-judge-says-she-is-leaning-against-apple.html,  concerning the likely scope of the remedies it may face, (see http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/57395-at-hearing-judge-says-she-is-leaning-against-apple.html), and in a long summation of the case after trial had closed (see http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/retailing/article/57943-why-apple-loses.html).  He was quoted on the technology website CNET on the testimony of key witness Eddy Cue (see http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57589185-37/apples-eddy-cue-yep-we-caused-e-book-pricing-to-rise/), and in another long summary of the case (see http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57586765-37/apple-and-the-doj-face-off-over-e-book-prices-faq/), as well as in the widely read InformationToday (see http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/Apple-Gambles-on-Winning-Ebook-Antitrust-Suit-90274.asp).

On April 27, C|M|LAW Professor David Forte delivered a paper in Washington to the Wilson Seminar of the Natural Law Center of Claremont University.  The Wilson Seminar on the role of Natural Law in American Constitutional Jurisprudence, is named for James Wilson, a central figure in the formation of the Constitution, and sponsored by the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. The topic of the latest meeting was the Parameters of Religious Liberty.  Professor Forte’s contribution centered on what kinds of “religion” the framers had in mind when they went out of their way in the First Amendment to guarantee the “Free Exercise of Religion.” It was entitled  Satan, Religious Freedom, and the Natural Law.