Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson has been invited to join the Board of Advisors of the Institute for Energy Law.  Law school membership in IEL is by invitation only and based on the law school’s energy law capacity in terms of available courses and faculty expertise.  Robertson’s position on the IEL Board brings with it many benefits for the law school and for students interested in energy law.  For example, with Robertson’s Board position, the law school becomes a member of IEL and will receive IEL publications, the Energy Law Advisor, Oil & Gas E-Report, Young Energy Professionals’ Newsletter,  and The Energy Dispatch.  The law school will also receive access to IEL’s Digital Library, which contains substantive papers produced for IEL conferences. In addition to her own complimentary attendance at IEL’s Annual Energy Law Conference each year, Robertson will be able to nominate up to two students to attend at no cost. 

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law, spoke with press outlets recently concerning pending matters in federal antitrust law. He was quoted extensively in a long “tale-of-the-tape” story in Publisher’s Weekly on the Justice Department’s lawsuit challenging the merger or Penguin-Random House and Simon & Schuster, set to go to trial next week.

Sagers was also quoted in a Bloomberg story on the Justice Department’s hiring of veteran antitrust plaintiff’s lawyer Bonny Sweeny, a move that some believe signals the likelihood of major new enforcement actions. 

Professor Laura Hoffman, with a group of other scholars, has published an article in the Boston College Law Review, titled, “Designing an Americans with Abilities Act: Consciousness, Capabilities, and Civil Rights.”

The article discusses the seminal legislation protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, the Americans with Disabilities Act. It highlights the successes as well as shortcomings of the ADA, and takes the next step of proposing a “new piece of legislation that fully incorporates the advanced technology available to individuals, while promoting a more positive understanding of advancing rights and capabilities.” The article describes a “proposed Americans with Abilities Act (AWAA),” designed to “correct the deficiencies in the ADA, ultimately allowing individuals with disabilities to integrate more fully into society.”

The article, which in addition to Professor Hoffman is co-authored by scholars at Yale Law School, Harvard Medical School, the Weill Cornell Medical College, and Penn State Law, is available here.

Dean Lee Fisher spoke to WKYC Channel 3 about the January 6 hearings. Dean Fisher compared the January 6 events to Watergate, noting that Watergate “was a burglary of a little office of the democratic national committee (Watergate). This was an attack on the united states capitol. And while there is some similarities, I think the big difference is that these were acts of violence. It wasn’t some small burglary.”

Dean Fisher also explained that at the hearings, “Most of the witnesses are Republican and have worked for President Trump at the time [of the incident]. That gives it a special layer of creditability.”

Professor Milena Sterio moderated a panel on the topic of “Larfarge: A New Era of Accountability.”  The panel was hosted by the Public International Law & Policy Group and it focused on the recent investigation of a major French company, Lafarge, by French criminal courts, over the company’s alleged complicity in the commission of crimes against humanity in Syria.  The panel recording is available here: https://www.publicinternationallawandpolicygroup.org/expert-roundtable-lafarge

Professor Milena Sterio presented at the International Law Association’s Global Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, on June 21, on a panel titled “Developments in Atrocity Prevention, Investigation and Prosecution.”  Professor Sterio’s remarks focused on the investigation and possible prosecution of atrocities committed at the hands of the Myanmar leadership against the Rohingya refugees. Earlier this year, in  April 2022, Professor Sterio visited the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where she has been leading a human rights documentation project.

On June 26, Professor Kalir was interviewed by Bloomberg News TV about the recent Dobbs Opinion. Kalir was very critical of the opinion, and noted specifically that Justice Thomas’s concurrence may serve as a blueprint for overruling many other rights, including the right to same-sex marriage. 

On June 22, Professor Kalir was interviewed by the Cleveland Jewish News regarding the announcement of a new round of Elections in Israel. 

Finally, on June 29, Professor Kalir published an op-ed in the Cleveland’s Plain Dealer pertaining to the Jan. 6 Committee Hearings. In the piece, Kalir argued that while the Hearings were nothing less than shocking to any Democracy-concerned citizen, they also clearly showed how public servants in the previous President’s immediate vicinity placed the nation’s liberty interest over their own political ambitions, thus revealing their true patriotic nature. In that, Kalir argued, we may still find some how that “We the People” can still stand as one. 

Legal Educator in Residence Howard E. Katz made a presentation on teaching methods and facilitated two group discussions at the annual AALS Workshop for New Law Teachers held June 2-4 in Washington, D.C. Howard has made presentations on teaching to new professors at this conference the last five time it was held. The book Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching, which he co-authored with Professor Kevin F. O’Neill, was given to attendees, as were copies of books from the Strategies and Techniques series (edited by Professor Katz) that provide subject-specific teaching advice.

Professor Milena Sterio moderated a panel discussion on June 10, on the topic of “Women’s Inclusion in Transitional Justice Processes.” The panel was organized by the Public International Law and Policy Group.

The event link and a recording is available here.

Professor Milena Sterio presented at the International Criminal Court Scholars’ Forum on June 10. Professor Sterio presented the article “The Ukraine Conflict and Its Impact on ICC’s Legitimacy,” which she is co-authoring with Professor Yvonne Dutton, of the Indiana University McKinney School of Law.