InBrief eNewsletter | Vanderbilt University Law School

Faculty News Briefs

Faculty in the News – links to news articles and opinion pieces featuring Vanderbilt Law faculty

Margaret Blair was a speaker at a conference on the topic of “Does Company Ownership Matter?”, sponsored by the Centre Cournot pour la Recherche en Economie, in Paris, Nov. 29-30. I was on a panel headed by Nobel Laureate and MIT Professor Robert Solow.

Frank Bloch is serving as an independent expert on a project funded by a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to train Chinese law professors in teaching advocacy and clinical legal education. The project is being run by the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in partnership with American University Washington College of Law and three Chinese law schools. Professor Bloch, who has done similar training in India, will evaluate the two-year project and provide ongoing expert advice. “The ultimate aim of the project, which is part of USAID’s Rule of Law Program, is to train Chinese law professors to teach advocacy skills and clinical law courses as part of China’s efforts to rebuild its legal system,” Bloch said. Professor Bloch recently participated in a three-day workshop, “The Social Contract Revisited: The Modern Welfare State,” sponsored by the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford, where he presented a paper, “Disability and the Contract for Income Support in the Modern Welfare State.”

James Blumstein organized the law school’s new Cooper Lecture Series together with Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Dr. Harry Jacobson. Professor Blumstein also organized and coordinated the inaugural Cooper Lecture, which was delivered by Stanford health economist Alain Enthoven. In November, he participated in a roundable on legal and regulatory issues related to health care sponsored by FRESH Thinking (Focused Research on Efficient, Secure Healthcare), a special project of Stanfod’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences headed by economist Vicktor Fuchs and Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel.

Lisa Schultz Bressman and Kevin Stack were featured at the ABA conference as speakers on a panel addressing the topic “The Unitary Theory Revisited: The Presidency in Changing Times.” Professor Bressman also spoke on a panel addressing “Judicial Review of Agency Inaction: How Far Is It from Southern Utah to Massachusetts?”

Mark Brandon will present a paper at a conference, “The Limits to Constitutional Democracy,” at Princeton University Feb. 14-16, 2008, addressiing the topic “How Can Constitutions Cope with Emergencies and War?” The conference is jointly sponsored by Princton’s Center for Human Values, Program in Law and Public Affairs, and James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

Rebecca Brown participated in a three-day event in Bergen, Norway, celebrating the award of the 2007 Holberg International Memorial Prize to Ronald Dworkin. The Holberg Prize was established by the Norwegian Government for outstanding scholarly work in the fields of the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology. In connection with the award, the Holberg Fund invited a panel of legal theorists to engage Professor Dworkin on different aspects of his work. Professor Brown spoke on “Equality of Respect and Hate Speech.”

Ellen Wright Clayton is chairing an Institute of Medicine committee formed to evaluate Title X family planning.

Paul Edelman will deliver an MAA Invited Address, “Mathematics and the Law: The Apportionment of the House of Representatives,” at the upcoming Joint Mathematical Meeting of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America in San Diego January 6-9. The Joint AMS-MAA Mathematical Meeting is the largest annual gathering of mathematicians in the U.S. and is expected to attract more than 5,000 attendees. Professor Edelman’s research includes the application of mathematics and modeling to legal issues such as measuring representation, measuring voting power, and assessing comparative fault. “Since the founding of the United States, the decennial ritual of apportioning representatives to the House among the states has generated controversy,” Professor Edelman says. “It’s an excellent example of how mathematics can illuminate the law and how law can motivate mathematics.”

Professor Edelman and Tracey George published a widely discussed paper as the culmination of a project both serious and playful: To determine if there was a legal equivalent of the mathematician Paul Erdos, a scholar whose work was so prolific, influential and broad in scope that he served as a hub for the network of scholarly collaboration. In the paper, which pays homage to John Guare’s 1990 play, “Six Degrees of Separation,” and the popular trivia game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” Professors Edelman and George conclude that University of Chicago Professor Cass Sunstein is the legal Erdos. His collaborators on the Vanderbilt faculty include University Distinguished Professor W. Kip Viscusi , and Beverly Moran included a chapter by Sunstein in her edited volume on the Clinton impeachment.

In addition to celebrating the release of the third edition of his book, The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights by Oxford University Press [read story] , Jim Ely presented a paper, “Economic Liberties and the Original Meaning of the Constitution,” at the Siegan Memorial Conference on Economic Liberties and the Constitution at the University of San Diego Law School in November.

Chris Guthrie , who continues his service as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, recently published “Misjudging” in the Nevada Law Journal. Several prominent academics and a federal judge published comments on the article, which was based on Guthrie’s 2006 Saltman Lecture at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Along with his long-time collaborators, Jeffrey Rachlinski and Judge Andrew Wistrich, Professor Guthrie also published an article, “Blinking on the Bench: How Judges Decide Cases,” in the Cornell Law Review. He also delivered a talk, “Mind Games: The Psychology of Negotiation,” at the ADR Institute in Atlanta.

Laurence Helfer organized the annual meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization at Vanderbilt Law School Oct. 17-19. Read an article about the WIPO Conference. Professor Helfer recently joined the editorial board of the peer-reviewed Journal of Word Intellectual Property. In December, he served as a commentator at two conferences: “Ruling the World: Constitutionalism, International Law and Global Governance,” held at Temple University Law School; and “International Courts and Tribunals in the 21st Century: The Future of International Justice,” held in The Hague in the Netherlands.

Alex Hurder has been appointed Chair of the Commission of Mental and Physical Disability Law. Professor Hurder, who has been as a member of the Commission for the past three years, will serve a one-year term. “The role of the commission is to advise the entire American Bar Association and participate in the development of policy regarding disability rights,” Hurder said. “The Commission’s main focus for the past couple of years has been to encourage the employment of lawyers and other individuals with disabilities within the legal profession. Many people with disabilities have strengths abilities and talents useful to a law firm or judgeship.”

Owen Jones delivered the keynote lecture, “Evolution, Primates, Neurons, and the Law,” at the annual conference of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (APLS) in Cincinnati on October 12. His article “Law, Responsibility, and the Brain,” co-authored with several British neuroscientists, appeared in P.L.O.S. Biology, a leading biology journal. His commentary “Implications for Law of a Unified Behavioral Science” appeared in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. An article on “The Origins of the Shared Intuitions of Justice,” with Paul Robinson and Robert Kurzban of the University of Pennsylvania, will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Vanderbilt Law Review. And Professor Jones is currently completing work on an article, with Erin O’Hara and Jeff Stake, on “Economics, Behavioral Biology, and Law,” which compares the interdisciplinary fields Law & Economics and Law & Behavioral Biology. His work at the intersection of law and neuroscience, with several Vanderbilt colleagues, was featured in a discussion of “neurolaw” on National Public Radio, as well as in several radio science programs in Canada and Austria, and in news outlets such as ABCNews.com. He continues as Director of the Society for Evolutionary Analysis in Law (SEAL). He co-taught a new course on Law and Neuroscience during Fall 2007 with Jeff Schall of Vanderbilt’s Psychology Department.

Stefanie Lindquist was selected as chair-elect of the Law & Courts Section of the American Political Science Association at the organization’s annual meeting in Chicago this fall. Her term will begin with the 2008 APSA meeting.

Beverly Moran received a $110,000 grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation for the production of a series of papers and a conference on the race implications of various tax rules. The papers are scheduled to be presented at the Black Congressional Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference. She recently completed a term on the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools and will start a three-year term on the Association’s membership committee, which is responsible for accreditation.

Michael Newton has been selected to participate as an invited expert in support of the Genocide Prevention Task Force , co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and William Cohen to generate practical recommendations to enhance the U.S. government’s response mechanisms to emerging threats of genocide and mass atrocities. Professor Newton will participate as an expert on a working group that will assist in the Task Force Report to be issued in December 2008. He also participated as an invited expert at a working conference, “The Responsibility to Protect and the International Criminal Court: America’s New Priorities,” organized by the Center for International Human Rights, Northwestern Law School, and was held in conjunction with the R2P Coalition, American Bar Foundation, and the Chicago Global Forum. The conference will issue a report in Spring 2008.

Erin O’Hara joined the MacArthur Foundation grant on Law and Neuroscience as a member of the Network on Decisionmaking. Her edited two-volume book, The Economics of Conflict of Laws, was just released by Elgar Publishing. She will serve as chair-elect of the AALS section on Conflict of Laws in 2008-09 and as section chair the following year. Professor O’Hara gave a presentation on “Contract and Trustworthiness” at a conference at the Georgetown University Law Center on Contract and Promise in September and a faculty workshop on “The Law Market” at Florida State University Law School in November. She will deliver a paper, “European Choice-of-Law Reform and the U.S. Law Market,” at a conference on “The New European Choice-of-Law Revolution: Lessons for the United States?”, at Duke Law School in February 2008.

Dean Edward L. Rubin received an award for distinguished scholarship from the American Bar Association’s Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. Dean Rubin was recognized for his 2005 article, “The Myth of Accountability and the Anti-Administrative Impulse” (103 Michigan Law Review 2073), which garnered the Section’s annual award for scholarship for 2005. The award, which recognizes scholarly work that makes a significant contribution to the study of administrative and regulatory law, was presented at the 2007 Administrative Law Conference in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 25.

Suzanna Sherry participated in the annual Supreme Court Preview at the Bill of Rights Institute at the College of William and Mary. The Preview is designed to educate journalists about the upcoming Supreme Court Term. Professor Sherry discussed the Guantanamo detainee cases and a First Amendment case. She also participated in a conference at the University of Pennsylvania Law School on “Fairness to Whom: Perspectives on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005.” At that conference, she focused on the intersection of the Erie doctrine and nationwide class actions.

Kevin Stack presented a paper on a panel addressing “Sources of Presidential Power” at a conference addressing “The Role of the President in the 21st Century” at Boston University School of Law.

Carol Swain has been appointed to the Advisory Committee to the Civil Rights Commission.

Michael Vandenbergh, professor of environmental law, co-director of the Regulatory Program and leader of the Vanderbilt Climate Change Research Project, and former chief of staff of the EPA, has been appointed to an advisory group formed by Nashville Mayor Karl Dean to help develop environmental policies and programs. The group also includes Anne Davis, ’81, Mayor Dean’s wife and an instructor of law on Vanderbilt’s legal writing faculty.

W. Kip Viscusi will serve as Project Director for a study, “The Appropriateness of Panel-Based Findings,” for which Vanderbilt University has received an EPA award for $120,000. The study’s purpose is to determine the effectiveness of panel-based internet survey administration as well as the accuracy of survey results. The project, which involves collaborative work with Duke University, will be completed by 2011.

Professor Viscusi and Professor of Law & Economics Joni Hersch made headlines when they released a study indicating that each pack of cigarettes a man smokes reduces the value of his life by $222. For women’s the results are $94 per pack.

2007-08 Faculty Presentations – A listing of scholarly presentations by Vanderbilt’s law faculty during the current academic year