C|M|LAW Professor Brian Ray posted an ‘in memoriam’ to Arthur Chaskalson, the first President and Chief Justice of South Africa’s Constitutional Court who died on December 1, 2012.  Ray highlights the critical leadership role Chaskalson played in the South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement and in the creation and building of South Africa’s Constitutional Court.  Ray compares Chaskalson’s role on South Africa’s Constitutional Court to Chief Justice John Marshall’s role in transforming the U.S. Supreme Court.

See:  http://www.iconnectblog.com/2012/12/in-memoriam-chief-justice-arthur-chaskalson/

On November 27, 2012, Crain’s Cleveland Business quoted C|M|LAW Dean Craig Boise in  What the legal community is saying.  The piece posed two questions to five leaders in the Cleveland legal community.  What attributes will be needed for tomorrow’s attorneys? What are some of the significant challenges in the legal field going forward?

In response to those questions, Dean Boise said:

“The legal sector leaders of tomorrow will above all need to be prepared to lead dramatic change. Traditionally, change within the legal sector — for both law firms and law schools —has been glacial. We now face unprecedented challenges that will require us to learn quickly the adaptability and innovation that have long characterized the business sector.

Downward pressure on costs is the greatest challenge the legal field faces over the next five years. Technology and outsourcing have transformed the way companies In virtually every other industry do business, and those companies are now demanding substantial cost concessions from their lawyers. This has led to a reduction In law firm hiring and lower associate wages, which in turn have forced law schools to examine their cost structures in light of a shrinking pool of prospective students.”

Teresa Metcalf Beasley (Senior Counsel, Calfee, Halter & Griswold, LLP), indicated that integrity and professionalism, along with a creative approach to problems, and networking/strong-reputation, would be critical attributes in future lawyers, and that in the future, there must be an emphasis on being flexible andcreative when approaching businesses with ever changing technology.

C|M|LAW alum, CMBA President, and Tucker Ellis partner, Carter Strang said that new lawyers will need the ability to use new technology and adapt to changes, and that they will need to be open to alternative work arrangements.  He also noted that we must find a way to attract best and brightest to our state and local judiciaries.

Jean Robertson (General Counsel, Beck Aluminum) said that the legal sector needs transparent leadership pipelines, and an emphasis on anticipating trends, and that the recession has had a negative impact on job availability.

Finally, Judge Dan Polster (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio) suggests that future lawyers need to be creative problem solvers, with an ability to work collaboratively.  He noted that equal access to services, the high cost of education, and making sure courts receive sufficient resources are significant challenges going forward.

C|M|LAW’s plans to support our graduates entering solo practice by creating a solo practice incubator was featured in this morning’s Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Quoting numbers from the Wall Street Journal and the ABA on the high numbers of law graduates going into solo practice, the article, Solo incubator at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law to help new grads hang out a shingle, by Allison Grant, hails C|M|’s partnership in this project with the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.  In the article, C|M|LAW Dean Craig M. Boise, notes that C|M|LAW has, for many years, seen approximately 15% of its graduates entering solo practice, by choice.  This incubator is an effort, in part, to better support that choice.

Please see: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2012/12/solo_incubator_at_cleveland-ma.html#incart_river

An article on the same subject appeared in Crain’s Cleveland Business on Tuesday, November 27, in an article titled, Cleveland-Marshall will assist solo lawyers – Incubator eventually will  offer them office space, by Michelle Park.

C|M|LAW plans to open a solo practice incubator in the fall of 2013 to support new  graduates of the law school who choose a solo practice career.  Only a few other law schools across the country have opened an incubator, ten of fewer nationally.  The C|M|LAW incubator will be the first and only such effort in Ohio.  The estimated cost of construction will be between 1.2-1.5 million and the solo incubator will built in newly constructed office space within the walls of the C|M|LAW Library, although the library will not be directly accessible from the law office space.  Leases will be for 18-months and, at completion, there will be approximately 15 spaces available.  Some spaces will be available for 2013 graduates, and additional space will be reserved for 2014 graduates.

C|M|LAW Professor Jonathan Witmer-Rich and C|M|LAW student Brendan Heil  published a Op-Ed piece in today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Titled Keep DNA evidence private,  their article appears in a written pro/con debate in the Sunday opinion pages responding to the Ohio Supreme Court’s recent decision in State v. Emerson.  According to Witmer-Rich and Heil, in Emerson, the Court held that ‘the Fourth Amendment does not protect an individual’s personal DNA profile.’  In the Court’s words, “[a] person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her DNA profile extracted from a lawfully obtained DNA sample.”  Witmer-Rich and Heil argue that the Court  unnecessarily eroded DNA privacy for Ohio citizens.  The Plain Dealer, upon receiving the piece, solicited a response from Jacob S. Sherkow (a fellow at the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford Law School), linked below.  Although the Plain Dealer will not be publishing responses, Witmer-Rich and Heil respond below to Sherkow’s piece.

To read Witmer-Rich and Heil’s article, please click here: http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/12/keep_dna_evidence_private_jona.html

To read the other side of the debate, written by Jacob Sherkow (Stanford), please click here: http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/12/dna_profiles_vs_sequences_jaco.html

In response to Sherkow, Witmer-Rich and Heil offer the following:

First:  Had the Ohio Supreme Court reasoned the way Sherkow did–clearly distinguishing between a limited “DNA profile” and broader types of DNA information, and making clear it was only the former that enjoyed no Fourth Amendment protection–it would have been more plausible and less alarming.  The decision used much broader logic than Sherkow does, and thus has potentially broader implications than his (more reasonable) opinion.  That’s partly why we called the opinion not only “startling” but “unnecessary,” i.e. the case could have been affirmed on much narrower grounds.

Second:  Sherkow’s argument is that we need not worry about the government using our DNA profile, which “only” identifies us and does not represent the entire DNA sequence.  This suggests that there should be no objection to the government requiring everyone in the country to submit a sample to a national DNA database, so long as only the profile is used and not the sequence.  If you find this troubling, you should find something troubling about Sherkow’s view.

C|M|LAW Professor Brian Ray posted an article on i.CONnectblog, a blog sponsored by the Journal of Constitutional Law and ConstitutionMaking.org.  This piece is the first installment of I•CONnect’s Article Review & Response Series.  In it, Professor Ray reviews David Landau’s article on “The Reality of Social Rights Enforcement.” Professor Landau then responds to Professor Ray’s review.

To read the post, click here:

http://www.iconnectblog.com/2012/10/article-review-response-david-landau-on-social-rights-enforcement/#comment-1025

On October 22, 2012, C|M|LAW Clinical Professor Emeritus Kermit Lind was quoted in the Detroit Free Press in an article by Eric D. Lawrence, Metro taxpayers foot bill as banks walk away from homes.  The article was about homeowners who walk away from their homes when they can no longer make mortgage payments.  This leaves cities with unpaid taxes, and potential nuisances that have to be dealt with at the expense of the taxpayers.

According to Lind, “local officials often face a tough challenge in notifying the mortgage servicer when a problem, such as a nuisance issue, arises.  He said taxing entities seeking unpaid taxes — such as county treasurers, or municipalities dealing with nuisance violations — have no choice legally but to contact those listed on property records. And the company on file is likely not the loan servicer, the company that might be designated to handle things such as tax payments.  A simple solution, Lind said, would be for banks to file an affidavit with the register of deeds that lists the name of the servicer.

“It’s up to them to do something about it,” Lind said of banks. “If the servicer isn’t doing their job, then the burden shouldn’t be on the taxpayer for that.””

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To read the full article, see:
http://tablet.olivesoftware.com/Olive/Tablet/DetroitFreePress/SharedArticle.aspx?href=DFP%2F2012%2F10%2F22&id=Ar00114