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Faculty News & Briefs

Ken AbrahamKenneth Abraham published “Tribute to Judge Guido Calabresi” in the Annual Survey of American Law and “Risk Aversion, Insurance Insurance, and the Limits of Regulation” in the UC Irvine Law Review.

Abraham presented "Prosser's The Fall of the Citadel" at the Symposium on the 100th Anniversary of the Minnesota Law Review at the University of Minnesota Law School in October.

Margo Bagley

Margo Bagley published “‘Grant Me Justice Against My Adversary’: What Parables Can Teach Us About Organic Seed Growers & Trade Assoc. v. Monsanto,” in Irene Calboli and Srividyha Ragavan, eds., Diversity in Intellectual Property: Identities, Interests, and Intersections (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

In May she presented “Towering Wave or Tempest in a Teapot? Synthetic Biology, Access and Benefit Sharing, and Economic Development” at the International IP Scholars Workshop at Duke Law School in Durham, N.C.

In June Bagley presented “Cross-Border Protection of Intellectual Property: Issues and Opportunities for Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Traditional Cultural Expressions,” at the World Intellectual Property Organization Seminar on IP and GRs/TK/TCEs: Regional and International Dimensions in Geneva, Switzerland.

In September she presented “Digital Biopiracy” at the European Policy on Intellectual Property (EPIP) Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

Bagley’s forthcoming presentations include “‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’: Morality and Misappropriation in Life Sciences Patenting” at a symposium, Patents on Life: Through the Lenses of Law, Religious Faith, and Social Justice, hosted by the Von Hügel Institute, St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge, and the Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy, University of St. Thomas.

Michal BarzuzaIn June Michal Barzuza was elected to the board of the American Law and Economics Association.

She published “Board Interlocks and Corporate Governance” in the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law (2015; with Quinn Curtis); “Self-Selection and Heterogeneity in Firms’ Choice of Corporate Law” in Theoretical Inquiries in Law (Symposium 2015); and “What Happens in Nevada? Self-Selecting into Lax Law” in the Review of Financial Studies (2014; with David C. Smith).
This fall Barzuza is presenting at the Stanford Law and Economics Workshop, the Texas Law and Economics Workshop, and the George Mason Law and Economics Workshop.

In 2014 she presented at the Corporate and Capital Markets Law and Policy and Empirical Law and Economics symposia at Harvard Law School, and was a discussant at the Conference of Empirical Legal Studies and conducted a Law & Economics workshop at UC Berkeley Law School.

This year Barzuza was part of a Kirkland & Ellis M&A Round Table, a discussant at the American Law and Economics Association Annual Conference at Columbia Law School, and at a Law & Economics Workshop at Michigan Law School; and a moderator on Conflicts of Interest on Investment Committees at the Jewish Federations of North America Investment Institute.

Richard BonnieIn the wake of tragic shootings in Virginia and elsewhere, Richard Bonnie ’69 continues to be actively engaged in efforts to reform mental health laws and services in Virginia. He is advising the General Assembly’s Joint Subcommittee to Study Mental Health Services in the 21st Century and made a presentation to the joint subcommittee at its meetings in Staunton in June. He is also serving on a task force established by the commissioner of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, at the direction of the General Assembly, to develop proposals for reducing unnecessary delays in conducting emergency mental health evaluations. Finally, he made a presentation to the General Assembly’s Joint Commission on Health Care in September covering policy issues regarding the psychiatric hospitalization of minors and summarizing trends in involuntary commitment proceedings for adults and juveniles over the past five years.

Efforts to improve the mental health services system have become intertwined with intense debates about the desirability of restricting access to firearms as a means of reducing suicides and gun violence. Since the spring of 2013 Bonnie has served as one of the founding leaders of a Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policies, a coalition of experts from public health, mental health, and law. The consortium has issued major reports recommending state and federal action for restricting access to firearms, based on fair procedures and properly tailored criteria, by individuals whose conduct manifests an elevated risk of harm to themselves or others. Articles coauthored by Bonnie describing the consortium’s approach were published in 2015 in the American Journal of Public Health and the Journal of Behavioral Sciences and the Law.

In June Bonnie presented a paper at the University of Massachusetts Medical School entitled “Reducing Deaths and Injuries while Protecting Constitutional Rights: Searching for Common Ground on Gun Policy.” He also participated in an FBI-sponsored symposium at the Morven Estate in Albemarle County in July on developing best practices for threat assessment and interventions to prevent mass shootings.

Bonnie and his research team at the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy are collaborating with Jeffrey Swanson and his research team at Duke University on a study funded by the National Science Foundation to assess the effectiveness of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in reducing suicide and gun-related violence by persons with mental health commitments and other adjudications that disqualify them from purchasing firearms under state and federal law. Bonnie and Swanson also submitted written testimony in June to a U.S. Senate committee considering the Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act, a proposal to restore the firearm rights of veterans determined by the Veterans Administration to lack the capacity to manage their financial affairs due to mental illness.

Finally, Bonnie devoted time during this period to reform of the juvenile justice system and other aspects of law relating to adolescents and young adults. He presented a paper entitled “Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Summary of Recent Reports by the National Academy of Sciences” in June at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and another paper at a Temple Law Review Symposium in October on the implications of emerging developmental neuroscience research for law and policy relating to young adulthood. In May he was also appointed by the American Law Institute to serve as a co-reporter for a newly approved Restatement on Children and the Law. He was also elected to membership in the ALI.

Jonathan CannonIn September Jon Cannon participated in a panel discussion of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Michigan v. EPA sponsored by the Administrative Law and Agency Practice section of the D.C. Bar.

In October he traveled to China to address the All China Lawyers Association (in Xian) about U.S. environmental law and to speak at the Natural Resources Defense Council regional headquarters (in Wuhan). In November he is holding a faculty workshop on his book, Environment in the Balance, at the University of Michigan Law School. 

George CohenIn October George Cohen participated in a symposium at Fordham Law School on Lawyering in the Regulatory State. He presented a paper entitled "The Laws of Agency Lawyering."


 

Ashley DeeksIn October Ashley Deeks participated in the Duke-Yale Foreign Relations Roundtable, where she presented on the role of consent to the use of force in the Obama Administration. In November she is serving as a commentator to the 2015 Frankel Lecture by Harold Koh at the University of Houston, which will address humanitarian intervention.

This spring the American Journal of International Law will publish her review of Michael Glennon’s book National Security and Double Government.
Deeks also contributed a number of blog posts to Lawfare, including posts on issues related to the use of force by the United States in Somalia and the United Kingdom in Syria; the need for surveillance diplomacy; and the forthcoming Tallinn Manual 2.0 on cyber operations.

In March Deeks will present an article on international law and intelligence agencies at the University of North Carolina Law School’s faculty workshop.


Michael DoranMichael Doran presented "The Puzzle of Non-Qualified Retirement Pay" at the Columbia Tax Policy Colloquium in October and at the Virginia Invitational Tax Conference in November, and will present at the University of Colorado Tax Policy Colloquium in April 2016.

 

Kim FerzanThis summer Kimberly Ferzan sent to Oxford University Press the completed manuscript of a festschrift for Michael Moore, her mentor, friend, and former professor, which she is co-editing with Stephen Morse (University of Pennsylvania): “Legal, Moral and Metaphysical Truths: The Philosophy of Michael S. Moore.” The volume includes her contribution, “Self-Defense: Tell Me Moore.”

Ferzan also completed “Consent and Culpability,” a solicited symposium contribution for the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law.

In September she attended a workshop at Yale Law School on Douglas Husak’s forthcoming book on ignorance of law, and also presented a paper, “Defending Honor,” at a workshop on two books on just war theory—Helen Frowe’s Defensive Killing and Seth Lazar’s Sparing Civilians—at the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs.

In November she is presenting “Defending Honor” at the Harvard Law and Philosophy Colloquium.


Brandon GarrettWhile a visiting fellow this summer at All Souls College, Oxford, Brandon Garrett presented a draft paper, “The Decline of the Virginia (and American) Death Penalty,” at Warwick Law School and at the Death Penalty Project in London. He also gave a talk, "Too Big to Jail: The Evolution of Corporate Prosecutions in the U.S.," at the Political Economy of Financial Markets Seminar, St. Antony’s College; and a talk, "Too Big to Jail: How Corporations Are Prosecuted in the U.S.," in an All Souls Visiting Fellow Seminar.

In July he gave a talk, "The Use of Blinded Eyewitness Identification as a Forensic Procedure," at the International Symposium on Forensic Science Error Management hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Arlington, Va.; and a talk, "The Law and Science of Eyewitness Memory," at the National Black Prosecutors Association conference in Washington, D.C.

In August Garrett presented to an Association of Federal Defense Attorneys Webinar, "Negotiating Effective Non-Prosecution and Deferred Prosecution Agreements."

In September he gave a talk entitled "Too Big to Jail: Theory and Evidence on Corporate Prosecutions," at a UVA Law alumni reception. Garrett presented a book chapter, "Convicting the Innocent Redux," and participated in a plenary panel discussion at a conference, Wrongful Convictions and the DNA Revolution: Twenty-Five Years of Freeing the Innocent, at Northeastern University School of Law.

In October Garrett spoke on a panel regarding the Virginia Writ of Actual Innocence at the University of Richmond Law School, and presented a paper, "Cumulative Constitutional Harm," with Kerry Abrams at American University, Washington School of Law.

Lee Kovarsky and Garrett have just signed a contract to write a Concepts and Insights Series book, The Death Penalty, for Foundation Press.

Garrett completed drafts of three book chapters: “Convicting the Innocent Redux” (chapter in Wrongful Convictions and the DNA Revolution, Daniel Medwed, ed., Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2016); “The Constitutional Rights of Corporations in the United States” (chapter in Understanding the Modern Company, Barnali Choudhury, ed., Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2016); and “Individual and Corporate Criminals” (chapter in Research Handbook on Corporate Crime and Financial Misdealing, Jennifer Arlen, ed., Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2016).

His recent op-eds include, in August, “Coerced Confessions and Jailhouse Snitches: Why the Death Penalty Is so Flawed” in The Conversation; in June, “Last Words for the Death Penalty” (with Lee Kovarsky) in the Huffington Post; and in March, “Time to Crack Down on Recidivist Banks” in The Conversation.

In April, Garrett was elected to the American Law Institute. He is currently assistant reporter on a project regarding policing.

 

George GeisIn addition to his vice dean duties, George Geis recently published a book chapter entitled “Shareholder Power in India” in the Research Handbook on Shareholder Power (Edgar Elgar, 2015). He gave a presentation at the University of Chicago Law School, where he also visited as the Charles J. Merriam Scholar during the spring 2015 quarter. His latest article, “Ex-Ante Corporate Governance,” is forthcoming. It explores the increasing efforts of both shareholders and managers to shape their corporate governance power via tactics that move from ex-post response to ex-ante planning.

 

Michael GilbertThis fall Michael Gilbert received the UVA Student Council Distinguished Teaching Award. He is the first law faculty member to be selected for the honor.

Gilbert teaches courses on legislation, law and economics, and election law. The award is given annually to recognize a teacher who makes a positive and lasting impact on the University by developing relationships with students through the creation of an engaging and challenging classroom atmosphere.

Recipients of the award are chosen by a selection committee composed of undergraduate and graduate students who consider both quantity and quality of nominating letters, said Shelbey Keegan, co-chair of the Student Council Academic Affairs Committee.

"Out of 65 nominations, Professor Gilbert received a whopping total of 30, and each nomination was clearly very sincere and demonstrated to us how deserving he is of the award," Keegan said.

The group praised Gilbert's ability to relate obscure legal doctrines to students' cultural touchstones.

"In his Law and Economics class he has illustrated the economic reasoning that underlies criminal behavior by drawing on episodes of 'The Wire,' the principle of the tipping point by discussing the changing fashion of Brooklynites, and hidden costs by way of an example having to do with yuppies and diaper disposal," Joel Johnson ’15 wrote. "His lectures are serious, but they are laced with nerdy asides, self-effacing jokes, and subtle jabs at the absurdities of life.

"The upshot of all this is that students learn the material, and we learn it well. We have a great time learning because we feel as though we've made a friend in Professor Gilbert."


Risa GoluboffNext February Risa Goluboff is publishing a book, Vagrant Nation: Police Power, Constitutional Change, and the Making of the 1960s (Oxford University Press, 2016).

She is discussing the book this fall at a number of venues: in September at the Fairfax County Bar Association, in October at the Legal History Workshop of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and at the University of Texas as part of a conference, “The Constitution and Economic Inequality.” There will also be a book panel at the Law School in February. In March, she will discuss the book for the Great Issues series at the UVA Miller Center.

Goluboff is also appearing in an online course for teachers on the Federal Judiciary for James Madison’s Montpelier. She is teaching her own six-session online graduate course for teachers on Constitutional History for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

In November the Law School hosted a conference (with the Miller Center and the History Department) to celebrate Charles W. McCurdy and inaugurate the Charles W. McCurdy Fellowship in Legal History. The fellowship is jointly sponsored by the Law School and the Miller Center, and is part of the Miller Center National Fellows Program.

In December Goluboff and her husband, Rich Schragger, will co-teach a course at Tel Aviv University on Advanced Topics in U.S. Constitutional Law: Race and Religion, and she will present on her book to their legal history workshop.

Rachel HarmonIn July Rachel Harmon published “Federal Programs and the Real Costs of Policing” in the NYU Law Review. She also presented her paper, “Why Arrest?” at CrimFest 2015 at Yeshiva University, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, and at the UVA Law summer faculty workshop.

 

Andrew HayashiAndrew Hayashi’s paper “Determinants of Mortgage Default and Consumer Credit Use: The Effect of Foreclosure Laws and Foreclosure Delays,” coauthored with Sewin Chan at New York University and Wilbert Van der Klaauw and Andrew Haughwout of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will be published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.

He continues to work with Michael Gilbert on a paper analyzing the strategic behavior of government agencies and regulated parties when the costs of enforcing the law are uncertain.

He presented a paper on Economic Models of Mens Rea in September at Vanderbilt University and again in March at the University of Toronto. In November he will present “Effects of the 2008 Federal Stimulus Payments on State Tax Return Filings” at the National Tax Association Annual Meeting. Hayashi is also organizing the annual junior tax scholars conference, to be held at UC Irvine in June.


Deborah HellmanDeborah Hellman published “Unintended Implications,” a commentary on an article by John Mikhail in the Virginia Law Review’ssymposium issue on Jurisprudence and (its) History, and “Equal Protection in the Key of Respect” in the Yale Law Journal, part of a symposium issue celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She also published “Political Participation: A Hybrid Sphere” in the online version of the NYU Law Review.

Hellman presented a new paper, “Two Concepts of Discrimination,” forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review, at a Constitutional Law Workshop at the University of Chicago Law School and at the Law and Philosophy Colloquium at Harvard Law School. She was a participant in a symposium on “Advancing a New Jurisprudence for American Self-Government and Democracy,” at Harvard Law School. In addition, she delivered a public lecture on “Political Bribery and Responsive Politics” at the Keller Center for the Study of the First Amendment at the University of Colorado. Lastly, Hellman presented her chair lecture on “Money and Rights,” celebrating her inauguration as the D. Lurton Massee Professor of Law at the University of Virginia.

This fall Hellman will deliver a lecture at the University of Vermont in honor of recently deceased professor Alan Wertheimer.

 

Dick Howard A. E. Dick Howard ’61 visited England during the summer, giving lectures in London, Oxford, and Salisbury. Some of the lectures were inspired by 2015's being the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. At the British Library, Howard gave the annual Robert H. Smith lecture on American Democracy, cosponsored by the Library's Eccles Center, the American Embassy, and the Benjamin Franklin House. His lecture highlighted the library's special exhibit, "Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy."

At Salisbury Cathedral, Howard lectured on "Magna Carta's American Adventure." The cathedral has one of the four extant copies of the 1215 Charter. Howard's lecture concluded a series of eight lectures at Salisbury featuring leading English judges and scholars.

In Oxford, Howard presented a paper at a conference, hosted by Oriel College, on how Magna Carta has contributed to the diffusion of constitutionalism around the world. While in Oxford, he also spoke on "Magna Carta's American Journey" at the Bodleian Library. Howard's lecture was chosen to inaugurate the library's new lecture hall, a feature of the Bodleian's recently renovated Weston Library.

The influence of the American constitutional experience on other countries and cultures was the subject of a lecture Howard gave at the American Embassy in London. Organized by American Ambassador Matthew Barzun, the session offered members of the embassy's staff the opportunity to explore a range of constitutional topics in which culture shapes constitutional attitudes.

At Oxford's Lady Margaret Hall, Howard spoke on the origins of judicial review and constitutional supremacy. His remarks were part of the annual Howarth & Smith Law Lecture, made possible by alumna Suzelle Smith ’83 and her partner, Don Howarth.

The American Bar Association held its 2015 meeting in London. Howard organized and moderated the meeting's concluding plenary session, devoted to assessing the future prospects for global constitutionalism. His panelists included Richard Goldstone, a former justice of South Africa's Constitutional Court; Lord Igor Judge, former lord chief justice of England and Wales; Baroness Patricia Scotland; Diane Wood, chief judge of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals; and Sir Robert Worcester, chairman of the Magna Carta 800th anniversary committee.

At the request of the British Broadcasting Corporation's World Service, Howard did an interview on the intersection of the Anglo-American constitutional tradition with global constitutionalism. The program was broadcast from the Temple Church, the "Mother Church of the Common Law." BBC told Howard that the broadcast would be heard by 45 million people—a large classroom by anyone's standards.

While in London, Howard made remarks at a reception for alumni and friends of the Law School. The reception took place in the legendary Reform Club, founded in 1836 by members pledged to support the Reform Bill of 1832.

Howard published an article, "The Changing Face of the Supreme Court," in the Virginia Law Review. The article traces changes in the Court since the days of the Warren Court, when Howard clerked for Justice Hugo L. Black. The article looks at the justices, life at the Court, and the Court's relation to the country.

Howard also wrote several articles about Magna Carta and its influence in the modern world. These include "Magna Carta's American Journey," in the Temple Church's publication, Magna Carta: 1215–2015. On this side of the Atlantic, Howard contributed a chapter to Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor, published by the Library of Congress in connection with the library's display of the Lincoln Cathedral copy of Magna Carta.

Leslie KendrickIn June Leslie Kendrick ’06 published "Nonsense on Sidewalks: Content Discrimination in McCullen v. Coakley" in the Supreme Court Review. The article addresses the First Amendment implications of a recent case in which the Supreme Court invalidated a picketing buffer zone around a Massachusetts abortion clinic. Kendrick is currently completing a book review of Seana Shiffrin's Speech Matters: On Lying, Morality, and the Law for the Harvard Law Review. She is also working on an essay on Justice Brandeis' free speech jurisprudence for a 2016 series of conferences at Brandeis University commemorating the 100th anniversary of Justice Brandeis' appointment to the Supreme Court.

In September Kendrick delivered the keynote address at the 2015 Constitution Day celebration at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, Tenn. She also participated in an online American Bar Association CLE previewing the 2015 Supreme Court term, and appeared in an ABA Supreme Court Preview at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

Douglas LaycockIn April Douglas Laycock lectured on “Religious Liberty and the Culture Wars” at Santa Clara University in California.

In May he gave the Plenary Address on “Religious Liberty, Health Care, and the Culture Wars” at a conference on Law, Religion, and Health in America at the Harvard Law School, and he spoke on “Recent Litigation Involving Religious Liberty Issues”at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in New York City, and again at a conference in Baltimore of the lawyers who represent the various bodies of the United Methodist Church.

In June he spoke on “Hobby Lobby, Religious Exemptions and Antidiscrimination Laws” at the National Convention of the American Constitution Society in Washington, D.C. In February, he spoke on “Hobby Lobby and Other Recent Religious Liberty Litigation”to the University of Michigan Alumni Club in Richmond.


Michael Livermore In July Michael Livermore published (with several coauthors) "The Measurement of Subjective Value and Its Relation to Contingent Valuation and Environmental Public Goods" in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS One. That piece presented the results of a multi-year collaboration with a group of neurologists and economists that examined how the brain processes information about environmental value. Livermore published a follow-up opinion piece, "What Is Nature Worth to You?" with study co-author Paul Glimcher, a professor at the Center for Neural Science at New York University,that appeared in The New York Times Sunday Review.

In May Livermore's forthcoming article, “A Quantitative Analysis of Writing Style on the U.S. Supreme Court” (with Keith Carlson and Daniel Rockmore), received considerable media attention, including coverage by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR. That article uses computational tools to examine how writing style has evolved on the Court over time. Livermore continues to work in collaboration with a group of computer scientists at Dartmouth College to apply advanced automated text analysis techniques to the law.

Livermore's article "Political Parties and Presidential Oversight" will appear in the Alabama Law Review this fall. He has two forthcoming book chapters: "Environmental Law and Economics"(with Richard L. Revesz) in the Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics (Francesco Parisi, ed.) and “Setting the Social Cost of Carbon" in Climate Change Law (Daniel Farber and Marjan Peeters, eds.). He is currently working on an article that examines the political consequences of federalism, which he will present at Cornell Law School in the fall.

 

Ruth MasonRuth Mason coauthored an amicus brief (with Michael Knoll) cited by the U.S. Supreme Court four times in Comptroller of Maryland v. Wynne. Her 2008 article “Made in America for European Taxation: The Internal Consistency Test” was quoted in the same case.

She published "Wynne: It’s Not About Double Taxation" (with Michael S. Knoll) in State Tax Notes; and “Comptroller v. Wynne: Internal Consistency, a National Marketplace, and Limits on State Sovereignty to Tax” in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online (with Knoll). See related story.

 

Greg MitchellIn October Gregory Mitchell gave a talk on “The Dangers of Closed Minds, and How to Avoid Them” to the Virginia Mediation Network at its fall conference held in Richmond. Mitchell and Dr. Philip Tetlock of the University of Pennsylvania published an entry, Implicit Attitudes, in Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Mitchell is currently working on a book on American courts with David Klein from the Politics department at the University of Virginia.

 

John MonahanLast spring, with his former students David Faigman ’86 (professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law) and Christopher Slobogin ’77, LL.M. ’79 (professor at the Vanderbilt Law School), John Monahan published “Group to Individual (G2i) Inference in Scientific Expert Testimony” in the University of Chicago Law Review. Another article by the same authors, titled “Gatekeeping Science: Using the Structure of Scientific Research to Distinguish between Admissibility and Weight in Expert Testimony,” is forthcoming in the Northwestern University Law Review.

The eighth edition of his casebook with Professor Emeritus Laurens Walker, Social Science in Law, recently appeared. In addition, Monahan published “The Inclusion of Biological Risk Factors in Violence Risk Assessments” in the Oxford University Press book Bioprediction, Biomarkers, and Bad Behavior: Scientific, Legal, and Ethical Challenges, as well as “Risk Redux: The Resurgence of Risk Assessment in Criminal Sanctioning,” with Jennifer Skeem, in the Federal Sentencing Reporter.

A number of Monahan’s articles and chapters—often with coauthors—will be published in the coming months, including “The Individual Risk Assessment of Terrorism” in the Handbook of the Criminology of Terrorism; “Social Science in Law: Continuity and Change” in the Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Law; “Risk Assessment in Criminal Sentencing” in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology; “Evidence-Based Sentencing: Public Openness and Opposition to Using Gender, Age, and Race as Risk Factors for Recidivism” in Law and Human Behavior;Psychosis Uncommonly and Inconsistently Precedes Violence Among High-Risk Individuals” in Clinical Psychological Sciences; and “Gun Violence and Stranger Victims in the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study” in Psychiatric Services.

Earlier this year Monahan was appointed to the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences of the National Research Council. He was an invited participant at meetings of the United States Sentencing Commission, the Justice Center of the Counsel of State Governments, and the Safety and Justice Challenge of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

 

Dotan OliarIn August Dotan Oliar presented at Northwestern Law School a draft chapter on the use of copyright registrations in empirical studies as a part of a conference for the Research Handbook on the Economics of Intellectual Property Law (forthcoming 2016); and a draft of a coauthored paper with Bob Brauneis (George Washington Law School) analyzing copyright registrations from 1978–2012 at the IP Scholars Conference at DePaul College of Law, Chicago. The paper is the result of cooperation with the Copyright Office, which provided data for the piece.

Oliar and Brauneis presented earlier versions of the work in March at the Intellectual Property Law Speakers Series, University of San Diego School of Law and the St. John’s Intellectual Property Law Colloquium in New York City; in February at the Intellectual Property Colloquium, Loyola Law School in Los Angeles; and in October 2014 at the IP Scholarship Seminar at University of California-Berkeley Law School.

 

Robert O'NeilIn September the UVA Board of Visitors dedicated a newly renovated building on Rugby Road to Robert O’Neil. The BOV proclamation states:

Whereas, Robert M. O’Neil was the sixth president of the University of Virginia, from 1985-1990; and

WHEREAS, Mr. O’Neil set and achieved significant goals during his presidency, including improving student and faculty representation of African-Americans and faculty representation of women at the University; and

WHEREAS, Mr. O’Neil established task forces to study the status of women and minorities at the University, and under his tenure, the Holland Scholarships were launched to encourage increased enrollment of African-American students, and the Women's Center opened; and

WHEREAS, Mr. O’Neil developed four new programs of study at the University, including biomedical ethics, environmental science, women's studies, and Tibetan studies, and he also established a new degree, a masters of teaching in the Curry School of Education; and

WHEREAS, after serving as president of the University, Mr. O’Neil became the first director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, strengthening his stature as a leading authority on the First Amendment; and

WHEREAS, during his presidency, Mr. O’Neil made a mark that was significant and long-lasting, and he remains a Professor of Law Emeritus and University Professor Emeritus;

RESOLVED, the Board of Visitors names the Rugby Road office building O’Neil Hall.

Dan OrtizDan Ortiz wrote a piece called “Comparative Positive Political Theory and Empirics” with Elizabeth Magill ’95, the dean of Stanford Law School and a former colleague at the Law School. He has also been working on a cert petition in Mueller v. Mueller for the Supreme Court Litigation clinic.


Sai PrakashThe modern president is often criticized when he wields executive power without seeking congressional approval, but a new book by Saikrishna Prakash says that type of autonomy is very much in keeping with how the role of the executive was conceived.

"The presidency established by the Constitution was really quite regal in the sense that it was really a quite powerful office," said Prakash, author of Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive. Published by Yale University Press, the book offers the most comprehensive study of the origins of the American presidency to date.

"Though the founders were concerned about excessive presidential power, or more precisely excessive executive power, they nonetheless created a very strong institution — stronger than any that existed in America prior to 1787," Prakash said.

In 13 chapters, the book traces the origins of Article II of the Constitution, which establishes the presidency, and tries to explain the legal traditions behind each provision and what people of the time period took the provisions to mean. Prakash, who has written extensively on presidential power, drew upon well-known and obscure sources to reconstruct the understood powers, duties and responsibilities of the office. For more on the book and a video interview with Prakash, see bit.ly/imperialpresidency.

While other authors have noted the similarity of the presidency to a monarchy, Prakash’s goal was to compile an authoritative source for the rationales behind this view, he said.

"The name 'presidency' today certainly doesn't conjure up in our minds a monarchy," he said. "But one of the interesting things in the book is that a dictionary of the era defined 'monarch' with the word 'president.' This suggests that 'president' had some connection to 'monarch.'"

Prakash's scholarship extends beyond the presidency to also encompass the separation of powers among the branches, and he teaches courses on constitutional law and foreign relations law, in addition to a class on presidential powers.

This spring Prakash gave a talk on the book at Oxford University. He also published “50 States, 50 Attorneys General, and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend” in the Yale Law Journal (with Neal Devins); “The Sweeping Domestic War Powers of Congress” in the Michigan Law Review; and “The Boundless Treaty Power Within a Bounded Constitution” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2015; symposium on Bond v. United States).

Earlier this fall, Dean Paul Mahoney announced that Prakash is the recipient of the Roger and Madeleine Traynor Faculty Achievement Award. The award is generally given every other year to a senior faculty member in recognition of his or her scholarly achievement.

"Sai's work focuses on the Constitution's structural provisions, particularly the separation of powers," Mahoney said. "He is one of the country's most influential voices on the original meaning of those provisions."

Mahoney said he appreciated counterintuitive insights in Imperial from the Beginning.

Mildred RobinsonMildred Robinson wrote achapter, “It Takes a Federalist Village: A Revitalized Property Tax as the Linchpin for Stable, Effective K-12 Public Education Funding,” in The Enduring Legacy of Rodriguez with Harvard Education Press. The book, edited by Kimberly Jenkins Robinson (University of Richmond School of Law) and Charles J. Ogletree Jr. (Harvard University School of Law), was released in October.


Fred SchauerAt the biennial conference of the International Association for Legal and Social Philosophy, Fred Schauer gave one talk on the theory of evidence, another on law and coercion, another on legal education as graduate education, and another on the normativity of law. There was also a day-long “author meets critics” session about his book The Force of Law, with commentators from Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, and the United States, and a response by Schauer.

Schauer published “The Politics and Incentives of First Amendment Coverage,” part of a symposium on free speech theory, in the William & Mary Law Review; “Out of Range: On Patently Uncovered Speech” in the Harvard Law Review Forum; “On the Utility of Religious Toleration” in Criminal Law and Philosophy; and “Legal Fictions Revisited” in (Maksymilian Del Mar & William Twining, eds.,) Legal Fictions in Theory and Practice (Springer, 2015).

In October the American Bar Foundation and the University of Chicago Law Review jointly hosted a day-long symposium about The Force of Law and a book on the expressive function of law by Richard McAdams ’85.Commentators were from the Northwestern University, University of Southern California, New York University, University of Michigan, University of Illinois, and Yale Law Schools, with responses from Schauer and McAdams, with all papers and responses to be published in Law and Social Inquiry.

Schauer became a co-editor of Jesse Choper et al., Constitutional Law, and Steven Shiffrin, et al., The First Amendment, the 12th edition of the former and the 6th edition of the latter, both published in July.

In August he presented a paper on “Precedent” at the Latin American Conference on Procedural Law in Cartagena, Colombia; and in September a paper on “Source Formalism in International Law” at a conference on source in international law in Fribourg, Switzerland.


Ben SpencerA. Benjamin Spencer has joined the Wright & Miller Federal Practice & Procedure treatise as an author and will be publishing an update to volume 5A this spring, to be followed by updates and new editions of additional volumes. He also will be publishing an article this winter entitled “Rationalizing Cost Allocation in Civil Discovery” (to be published in the Review of Litigation). Most recently, Spencer published the revised 4th edition of his casebook, Civil Procedure: A Contemporary Approach (West Academic, 2015).

Spencer remains active with the state’s two main bar groups. Earlier this year, he was named to the board of governors of the Virginia Bar Association. He also will remain active in the bar this year and next as a member of the Virginia State Bar Council and as a member of its Future of Legal Practice Committee and Bench and Bar Relations Committee.


Paul StephanPaul Stephan ’77 is currently teaching a graduate-level course, Energy Resources in Emerging Markets, at Melbourne Law School, after which he will teach a graduate-level course, Doing Business in Emerging Markets, at Sydney Law School. He will then teach a course on international civil litigation at the Peking University School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, China. In October Stephan taught two courses at Paris II on the common law system.

Pierre-Hugues VerdierOver the summer Pierre-Hugues Verdier presented a chapter on the new generation of financial sanctions against states such as Iran and Russia, and their impact on U.S. and international financial institutions, at workshops at the University of Michigan and Georgetown University. The chapter is part of a book project on new actors and developments in international financial regulation. He also participated in a workshop at Northwestern University organized by the journal International Organization, to discuss his empirical work with Mila Versteeg on the reception of international law in national legal systems around the world. Verdier also had the privilege of welcoming all new LL.M. and S.J.D. students to the Law School in his capacity as acting director of the Graduate Studies Program.

Rip Verkerke

In September Rip Verkerke presented a new paper at the International Labour Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. In October he participated in an international conference on labor law and policy at Renmin University Law School in Beijing, and gave speeches at both Renmin and Nankai University in Tianjin. 

George YinGeorge Yin’s major project this past year was to complete a manuscript entitled “Preventing Congressional Violations of Taxpayer Privacy.” The paper asserts that the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee violated the law in 2014 when it voted to disclose the confidential tax information of 51 taxpayers. Because, however, the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution insulated the committee from prosecution for the violation, the paper recommends new restrictions on committee access to the information to prevent a future breach of taxpayer privacy.

Yin presented an earlier version of the paper to several faculty and student audiences, including a Tax Law and Public Finance Workshop at Georgetown Law Center, a Tax Policy Colloquium at NYU Law School, a Georgetown faculty workshop, and the Critical Tax Conference held at Northwestern University Law School. The paper will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Tax Lawyer, published by the Tax Section of the ABA.

In late 2014 he delivered the keynote address to the 18th Annual Western Conference on Tax Exempt Organizations (EO) in Los Angeles, co-sponsored by the Loyola (L.A.) Law School and the UCLA School of Law. His topic was “The IRS’s Misuse of Scarce EO Compliance Resources,” and his remarks were published in Tax Notes (2015).

During the past year, he published two other pieces relating to the IRS’s controversial administration of the EO tax laws: “Reforming (and Saving) the IRS by Respecting the Public’s Right to Know” in the Virginia Law Review, and a short summary, “Saving the IRS” in Tax Notes (2014). He and his coauthor, Karen Burke, also completed the manuscript for the second edition of their casebook, Corporate Taxation, published by Wolters Kluwer.

Some of Yin’s other activities included commenting on a paper on partnership taxation at the National Tax Association’s 2015 symposium in Washington, D.C., continuing his consulting work for the IRS’s “Tax Gap” Advisory Group, and commenting on papers at the Law School’s 1st Annual Invitational Tax Conference.