Recent Activities
| NOVEMBER 2009 Legal Research and Writing Instructor Barbara Hoffman was co-leader of a working group titled “Cancer Survivors’ Insurance and Employment Rights” at the New Jersey Summit on Cancer Survivorship, held in New Brunswick. The summit is sponsored by the New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research to advise the State on the allocation of resources for cancer research and education. The law school was a planning partner for the summit. (November 17) Assistant Professor Joshua Blank moderated a panel titled “Individual Behavior and Decisions” at the annual meeting of the National Tax Association, held in Denver. Panel participants included Professors Louis Kaplow of Harvard Law School, Tom Brennan of Northwestern Law School, and Yair Listokin of Yale Law School. (November 13) The Education Law Center, a public interest advocacy project established by Professor Paul Tractenberg in 1973, received the Hot Schott of the Year Public Policy Award from the Schott Foundation for Public Education at its National Opportunity to Learn Education Summit. Tractenberg was one of about 20 leading civil rights lawyers, education advocates, and legislators from around the country invited to a meeting prior to the summit to discuss ideas for legislation and litigation to advance equal educational opportunity. (November 4) |
| OCTOBER 2009 Dean John Farmer addressed the annual meeting of the New Jersey Association of Criminal Lawyers on the subject of the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. In 2008 Farmer had argued a case on the subject (State v. Pena-Flores) in the State Supreme Court. (October 31) Assistant Professor Joshua Blank organized an event with Seton Hall School of Law and co-hosted by the ABA Tax Section. Titled “Careers in Tax Law,” the panel discussion attracted about 100 students from the two law schools. (October 28) Professor Karima Bennoune was a panelist for “Engendering Counter-Terrorism and National Security,” held at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law. (October 27) Speaking at the “Queering American Studies” conference organized by the Graduate Program of American Studies at Rutgers–Newark, Professor Carlos Ball addressed issues of invisibility and assimilation that are part of seeking legal reforms on behalf of LGBT individuals. (October 23) The new book A Quality Education for Every Child: Stories From the Lawyers on the Front Lines, which includes a chapter on his Abbott litigation by Professor Paul Tractenberg, has been named a finalist in the education/academic category of the 2009 National Best Books Awards competition. (October 20) Clinical Professor Laura Cohen presented on ethical issues in juvenile interrogations at the National Juvenile Defender Center’s Juvenile Defender Leadership Summit in Denver. (October 16 - 18) Professor George Thomas presented a paper at Fordham Law School titled “Miranda Warnings in 1829: The Surprising World of Confessions 1736-1848.” Professor Paul Tractenberg participated in the first meeting of the NJ Department of Education Council on Educational Equity and Diversity. Members of the new Council include leading academics and activists in the field of equality and diversity. (October 14) Professor Sabrina Safrin presented “Transnational Propertization Cascades” at the ESIL-ASIL Research Forum titled Changing Futures? Science and International Law. Held at the University of Helsinki, Finland, the symposium was the first academic conference to be organized jointly by the European and American Societies of International Law. Safrin was an early contributor to the sub-field of international law and science. (October 2) |
| SEPTEMBER 2009 Dean John J. Farmer, Jr. was a panelist at “Balancing Professional and Personal Ethics in Challenging Economic Times,” the Third Annual Jewish Law Symposium sponsored by Chabad-Lubavitch of Southeast Morris County. Randy Cohen, “The Ethicist” columnist for the New York Times, moderated. (September 30) The “Checking Up on Health Care Tax Reform” panel at the ABA Tax Section Fall Meeting in Chicago was co-organized by Assistant Professor Joshua Blank. (September 25) Professor Carlos Ball participated in two panel discussions at the National LGBT Bar Association’s annual meeting. In one panel, he provided a history of laws and regulations aimed at restricting the ability of LGBT individuals to become parents. In the other panel, Ball discussed whether same-sex marriage should be viewed as an end in itself or as a means to achieving the legal recognition of many different forms of familial arrangements. (September 10) The AALS Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues has selected Associate Professor Suzanne Kim’s essay “Toward Skeptical Marriage Equality” to be published in a special volume of the Journal of Law and Sexuality dedicated to “charting the future of sexual orientation and gender identity scholarship.” |
| AUGUST 2009 Clinical Professor Laura Cohen presented on interviewing and counseling adolescent clients at the Practicing Law Institute’s 12th Annual Children’s Law Institute. (August 3) |
| JULY 2009 Professor John Leubsdorf spoke as a member of the panel on “Are You an Advocate or a Neutral? The Ethics of Expert Witnessing” at the annual meeting of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers, held in Chicago. (July 30) Professor Emeritus Norman Cantor lectured at Gratz College’s continuing legal education program on “After We Die: Rights and Rites of the Human Cadaver.” He shared the podium with Rabbi Elliot Dorff, rector and distinguished professor at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. (July 23) Professor Paul Tractenberg, a resident fellow at the Bellagio Center this summer, made a presentation to the other fellows on his work in using law to pursue social justice for disadvantaged urban students. (July 16) Emeritus Professor Saul Mendlovitz gave a talk on “Elan Vital and Death” at the Lindisfarne Association annual meeting, held at the Upaya Zen Institute in Santa Fe. (July 16) Emeritus Professor Al Blumrosen presented a paper, co-authored with his son Alex Blumrosen, at the ILO Conference on Regulating for Decent Work, held in Geneva, Switzerland. The paper was titled “Using Statistics to Measure Diversity Compliance by Establishing Deviations from Labor Market Practices – A Model for Effective and Economic Regulation in the Global Computer Age.” (July 9) |
| JUNE 2009 Professor Stuart Green presented “Theft by Omission” at a Conference in Honor of Sir Gerald Gordon, held at Edinburgh University Law School (June 12). He presented “Community Perceptions of Theft Seriousness: A Challenge to Model Penal Code and English Theft Act Consolidation” (written with Matthew Kugler) at the University of London Criminal Law Seminar Group, St. Mary’s College, London. (June 9) Associate Professor Anna Gelpern participated in “Policy Issues in Global Financial Reform,” a workshop with Canadian policymakers sponsored by the Canadian International Council, the Centre for International Governance Innovation, and the Centre for Trade Policy and Law. Gelpern is a member of the Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform. (June 10) Assistant Professor Joshua Blank presented a draft of his article titled “Not Seeing Is Believing: Why Tax Privacy Matters” at the Junior Tax Faculty Workshop at Brooklyn Law School. (June 5) |
| MAY 2009 Assistant Professor Steve Gold, director of the Environmental Law Clinic, spoke at a community workshop on “100% Organic Anti-Racism: Environmental Justice and Anti-Oppression” sponsored by the Metro New York District of the Unitarian Universalist Anti-Racism Conclave. (May 30) “Rewriting Frankenstein Contracts: Workout Prohibitions in Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities” by Associate Professor Anna Gelpern (with Adam J. Levitin) was selected for presentation at the 2009 Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. The paper will be published in the Southern California Law Review in September. (May 30) Professor Vera Bergelson presented “Strict Liability and Affirmative Defense” as a panelist at the Law and Society Association annual meeting, which was held in Denver. (May 29) Associate Professor Suzanne Kim was selected to present her article “Marital Naming/Naming Marriage” at the Emerging Family Law Scholars Conference at the University of Colorado Law School on May 27. She also presented this article in Denver at the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association. (May 28) Professor Emeritus Norman Cantor made a presentation titled “Decision-making Clashes Between Families and Medical Practitioners” to the ethics committee consortium organized by the Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly in the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate. (May 14) NJN interviewed Associate Dean Greg Mark about the concept of the rule of law and Professor Frank Askin about Northwest Austin v. Holder for upcoming Due Process broadcasts. (May 13) Clinical Professor Sandy Freund, co-director of the Federal Tax Law Clinic, made a presentation at the May 7 ABA Tax Section meeting on Collection Alternatives. |
| APRIL 2009 The Urban Legal Clinic joined with the National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC), the ACLU of New Jersey, and the Children’s Justice Clinic at Rutgers–Camden to file an amicus curiae brief in State in the Interest of PMP, a juvenile justice case before the New Jersey Supreme Court. PMP involves an issue of first impression for the Court: at what point in a juvenile delinquency case does a child’s constitutional right to counsel attach? Together with a NJDC attorney, Clinical Professor Laura Cohen and two of her students, Matt Coleman ’09 and Kelly Targett ’09, wrote the brief, which brought cutting-edge brain and adolescent development research before the Court to support an argument in favor of early and unwaivable attachment of the right to counsel. Cohen and her students also undertook and briefed a 50-state survey of attachment law. (Case was argued on April 28.)  Professor Emeritus Saul Mendlovitz organized the Law and Humanities Institute Symposium: Honoring J. Allen Smith, which brought several distinguished scholars to the law school on April 23–25. The late J. Allen Smith taught Property at Rutgers from 1963–1984 and was the founder of LHI, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting interdisciplinary studies between law and the humanities. Professor Emeritus David Haber, one of the speakers at the conference, is vice chair of LHI and Mendlovitz is a member of the board.Professor Carlos Ball and Associate Professor Suzanne Kim were among the Rutgers–Newark faculty invited to discuss their scholarship at the Chancellor’s Annual Research Day. Ball spoke mostly about his new book, From the Closet to the Courthouse: Five LGBT Lawsuits That Have Changed Our Country (Beacon Press, 2010), while Kim discussed her article forthcoming in the Indiana Law Journal which highlights the role that language and names play in the construction of status in family law. (April 23) Professor James Pope was a panelist at the conference Slavery, Abolition, and Human Rights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Thirteenth Amendment, held at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Conference papers will be published in The Promises of Liberty: Thirteenth Amendment Abolitionism and Its Contemporary Vitality (Alexander Tsesis, ed.) (Columbia University Press, 2010). (April 18) Professor Mark S. Weiner gave a talk on “Culture and the Role of Law” at a German-language conference titled (in English) Interdisciplinarity in the Legal Sciences, held at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Bielefeld, Germany (April 17). He delivered a paper titled “The Supreme Court Under President Obama” at the Heidelberg (Germany) Center for American Studies. (April 14) Assistant Professor Joshua Blank was a panelist at the Free Movement in the European Union: A Business and Tax Perspective conference at Seton Hall University School of Law. Blank served as a commentator on a paper titled “Tax Expenditures and Global Labor Mobility” by Professor Ruth Mason of the University of Connecticut School of Law. (April 8) The Rutgers–Newark-based Institute on Education Law and Policy (IELP), whose founding director is Professor Paul Tractenberg, is one of the collaborators in a new training program for New Jersey school administrators. The goal of LEGAL ONE (Law, Ethics and Governance for All Leaders, including an Overview of New and Emerging Issues) is to meet the state-mandated requirement that all school leaders receive at least 12 hours of professional development in school law, ethics and governance over the course of four years. In other IELP news, Tractenberg and co-director Alan R. Sadovnik, R–N professor of education, sociology and public affairs, are co-directors of the new Newark Schools Research Collaborative. The collaborative between the Newark Public Schools District and Rutgers–Newark will undertake a district and school-by-school analyses of student achievement and school effectiveness in the city’s public and charter schools. (April 8) Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz (Ret.) spoke about sentencing reform in New Jersey when she visited Professor Vera Bergelson’s combined Punishment and Sentencing and Advanced Criminal Law classes. (April 6) Bergelson presented a paper titled “Justification or Excuse? Exploring the Meaning of Provocation” as a panelist at the conference on Criminal Law and Excuses, held at Texas Tech Law School. (April 3) Professor Frank Askin was honored for his contributions to clinical legal education at the conference titled “The Legacy of Arthur Kinoy and the Inspirational and Collaborative Dimensions of Clinical Legal Education: Honoring 40 Years of Clinics at Rutgers–Newark.” He also moderated the conference’s morning panel. (April 3) Associate Professor Suzanne A. Kim presented her article “Marital Naming/Naming Marriage: Language and Status in Family Law,” forthcoming in the Indiana Law Journal, at the annual conference of the Association of Law, Culture, and the Humanities at Suffolk University School of Law. Her presentation was part of a discussion she chaired titled “Is Family Law the New Home of Feminist Legal Theory and Queer Theory?” (April 3) Professor Mark S. Weiner delivered a presentation on Victorian jurisprudence and the destruction of the clan at the faculty enrichment series at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. (April 3) Associate Professor Anna Gelpern presented her paper “Financial Crisis Containment” at the George Washington University Law School Panic of 2008 Conference. (April 3) The paper was published in May in the Connecticut Law Review financial crisis symposium issue. Assistant Professor Steve Gold participated in a panel on “Causation” at A Symposium on the Third Restatement of Torts, which was held at Wake Forest University School of Law and sponsored by Wake Forest, the University of Texas at Austin, and the American Law Institute. Gold commented on a paper presented by Professor Joe Sanders of the University of Houston. The entire panel presentation can be heard at http://law.wfu.edu/news/multimedia/?mid=88. (April 2) “The Straight Route to Withholding Hand Feeding and Hydration” by Professor Emeritus Norman Cantor was published in the April American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB 9(4):57, 2009). The comment is addressed to the article “Unnecessary Time Pressure in Refusal of Lifesaving Therapy” that appears in the same volume of AJOB. |
| MARCH 2009 Associate Professor Anna Gelpern gave a paper at the Georgetown University Law Center conference on Sovereign Wealth Funds. (March 30) The paper has been selected for presentation at the September 2009 symposium on the governance and regulation of sovereign wealth funds jointly sponsored by the National University of Singapore and the Asian Society of International Law. Assistant Professor Joshua Blank presented his article “Overcoming Overdisclosure: Toward Tax Shelter Detection,” 56 UCLA L. Rev. __ (forthcoming, 2009), at the 2009 Tax Law Colloquium at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas. (March 27) Professor Jon Dubin was a speaker on a panel entitled “The Future of Clinical Legal Education” at a conference celebrating 35 years of clinical legal education at the University of Maryland Law School. (March 6) In a discussion sponsored by the Princeton Bioethics Forum, Professor Gary Francione talked about his rejection of the concept of animals as property. (March 3) |
| FEBRUARY 2009 Faculty adviser for the Art Law Society, Associate Dean Carol Roehrenbeck presented a program on “The Repatriation of African Art: Art Scholars and Art Lawyers Discuss African Nations’ Fight to Retrieve Their Art Treasures.” The program featured art historians and attorneys whose focus is art law. (February 25) Professor Carlos Ball presented a paper titled “Martha Nussbaum, Essentialism, and Human Sexuality” at a symposium held at Columbia Law School honoring the work of Martha Nussbaum. The paper will be published later this year in the Columbia Journal of Gender & the Law. (February 13) Professor Paul Tractenberg delivered the keynote address at “The ‘E’ in Thorough and Efficient: How Can We Ensure Efficiency in Spending School Tax Dollars?” The forum was sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs’ Policy Institute for the Region and the New Jersey School Boards Association. (February 6) |
| JANUARY 2009 Assistant Professor Joshua Blank presented “Overcoming Overdisclosure: Toward Tax Shelter Detection,” 56 UCLA L. Rev. __ (forthcoming, 2009) at the Southern Methodist University School of Law Tax Policy Colloquium. (January 23) Professor Jonathan Hyman spoke at the Hudson County Inn of Court on the subject of mediation of lawsuits. (January 12) Associate Dean Greg Mark moderated the AALS Section on Legal History session titled “Backbone of the Federal Judiciary: The Study and Biography of Federal Appellate Judges.” (January 9) Associate Professor Anna Gelpern spoke at the Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services Section lunch at the AALS annual meeting in San Diego. She also presented her research on the derivatives industry as a member of the AALS Commercial Law Section panel on institutional pluralism. (January 9) |
| DECEMBER 2008 Associate Professor Suzanne Kim presented her article “What’s in a Name? Language and Status in Family Law” to the Greater New York Emerging Scholars Workshop at Cardozo Law School. (December 4) Professor Gary Francione discussed “Animal rights vs. Animal Welfare” with the Animal Ethics Study Group at Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. (December 4) |
| NOVEMBER 2008 Professor Stuart Green gave lectures on moral ambiguity in white collar crime at Bocconi University, Milan and the University of Messina, Sicily in connection with publication of the Italian translation of his book, I crimini dei colletti bianchi: Mentire e rubare tra diritto e morale (Lying, Cheating, and Stealing: A Moral Theory of White-Collar Crime). (November 26 and 27) Professor Carlos Ball spoke to a a group of social scientists, lawyers, and activists who gathered in Washington, DC, for a program organized by UCLA’s Williams Institute on legal issues related to parenting by LGBT people. (November 21) Professor Mark S. Weiner presented a paper entitled “Victorian Jurisprudence and the Cultural Foundations of the Rule of Law” at the annual meeting of the North American Victorian Studies Association, held at Yale University. (November 16) Associate Professor Anna Gelpern delivered her paper “Financial Crisis Containment” for the Business Faculty Workshop at American University Washington College of Law on November 6 and “Collective Action Problems in Loan Modification” at the University of Connecticut School of Law November 14 symposium, The Subprime Crisis: Going Forward. The paper is forthcoming in the University of Connecticut Law Review. “The Un-Exceptionalism of U.S. Exceptionalism” was presented by Professor Sabrina Safrin at the Georgetown University Law Center International Legal Theory Colloquium. (November 10) Professor Twila Perry was a panelist for “Engaging the Family,” part of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project’s 25th anniversary conference, Transcending the Boundaries of Law. The project is based at Emory Law School. (November 8) Clinical Professor John Kettle was the moderator for the “Health of Professional Athletes and Obligation to Perform” panel at the Seton Hall Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law symposium From the Arena to the Streets — The Pressures Placed on Athletes, Entertainers, and Management. Panelists included Andrew Bondarowicz ’04, owner and president of the Aregatta Group. (November 7) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded Assistant Professor Steve Gold a Bronze Medal for Commendable Service “for protecting public health and the environment through the Clean Air Act New Source Review acid plant settlement with E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company.” Gold was previously a senior attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice and EPA was his client. He was lead negotiating counsel for a group of plaintiffs which reached the 2007 settlement. (November) Clinical Professor Laura Cohen discussed interviewing and counseling adolescent clients at a conference hosted by the New York Legal Aid Society. (November) |
| OCTOBER 2008 “Innovation After the Revolution” was presented by Associate Professor Anna Gelpern at the Conference on the Emerging Paradigms of Rationality, held at the University of Minnesota School of Law. Different versions of the presentation, co-authored by Mitu Gulati, will be published in the Queen’s Law Journal (Canada) and Capital Markets Journal (Oxford University Press). (October 31) Assistant Professor Joshua Blank took part in the conference “Tax Policy and Tax Administration for the 21st Century” held at Columbia Law School. (October 24) Professors Jon Dubin and Jonathan Hyman were small group facilitators at the Clinical Law Review Workshop for works in progress, held at NYU Law School to assist scholars in the clinical field to develop and refine their thoughts and writing. (October 18) Dean Stuart L. Deutsch received a special tribute from New Jersey Appleseed during its 2008 Awards Gala. (October 15) Assistant Professor Steve Gold, director of the Environmental Law Clinic, contributed to comments that a group of law professors prepared for submission to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, criticizing the agencies’ proposed changes to regulations under the Endangered Species Act. He also submitted separate comments. (October 14) Professor Stuart Green was the lead speaker at the University of Houston Law Center symposium “White Collar Crime: Issues in Tax Fraud.” (October 14) Professor Emeritus Saul Mendlovitz presented “Preventing Genocide: A United Nations Emergency Peace Service Eradicating Armed Conflict” as part of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights’ fall speaker series colloquium on Globalization: Reform, Resistance and Rights. The R-N Division of Global Affairs was a co-sponsor. (October 13) “Financial Crisis Containment” was the topic of Associate Professor Anna Gelpern’s presentation at Duke University School of Law’s Global Law Workshop. (October 6) Clinical Professor Penny Venetis spoke at Seton Hall Law School’s First Monday program entitled “The Election Process: Is Your Suffrage Suffering?” (October 6) Professor James Pope delivered “The Glorious Labor Amendment, Then and Now” at the University of Colorado School of Law faculty colloquium. (October 3) |
| SEPTEMBER 2008 Associate Professor Anna Gelpern presented “Choices at the Precipice: Containment and Distribution in Financial Crisis” at the Workshop on Crisis and Response: Whither International Financial Regulation?, sponsored by the Centre for International Governance Innovation and University of Waterloo, Cambridge, Ontario (September 27) and at the annual meeting of the Canadian Law and Economics Association, held in Toronto. (September 26) Professor James Pope delivered the third annual Kermit Hall Memorial Constitution Day Lecture on “Liberty and Justice for All? Class, Race, and the United States Constitution” at the College of St. Rose. (September 25) He spoke on “Class Conflicts of Law” at a University of Buffalo Law School conference marking the 25th anniversary of James B. Atleson’s Values and Assumptions in American Labor Law. (September 18) Professor Paul Tractenberg provided the legal perspective on the civil activism that laid the foundation for the establishment of Essex County College at the college’s Constitution Law Day. (September 25) Assistant Professor Joshua Blank participated in a symposium on wealth transfer taxation at NYU School of Law. (September 19) Professor Frank Askin was the keynote speaker at the Rutgers–Newark campus commemoration of Constitution Day. (September 17) Associate Professor Suzanne Kim presented her article “When Words Matter: Language and Social Meaning in Marital Names, Same-Sex Marriage, and Family Law” at Boston University’s Northeast People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference. (September 13) |