LSU Law is pleased to announce its lineup of distinguished guest scholars who will visit the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center during the Spring 2024 semester.
The esteemed group of speakers and lecturers will cover a variety of topics, including Supreme Court legitimacy, environmental governance, voter emancipation, the Second Amendment in American culture, and more. The lectures will take place in the Tucker Room and are open to LSU Law faculty and invited guests. Attendees will have the opportunity to review papers being presented at each lecture in advance of each speaker.
Spring 2024 Faculty Speaker Series
Professor Carla Laroche, Tulane Law School
Wednesday, Jan. 10 | 12:40 p.m. | Work-in-Progress: “Voter Emancipation from Slavery’s Afterlife”
Professor Carla Laroche has dedicated her career to increasing access to justice and opportunities for systemically excluded communities. Her research analyzes how people navigate civil legal systems and seek to access their civil rights when they have criminal arrest and conviction histories.
Laroche has been recognized with various awards from the National Bar Association and American Bar Association. She has also volunteered and served as a board member for several national organizations, including co-chairing the ABA Criminal Justice Section Women in Criminal Justice Task Force, serving as a board member of the ABA Center for Human Rights, and serving on the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law School’s Criminal Law Section.
Prior to joining Tulane Law, Laroche was an Associate Clinical Professor at Washington & Lee University School of Law where she founded and directed their Civil Rights and Racial Justice Clinic.
Professor François du Toit, University of Cape Town
Thursday, Jan. 18 | 12:40 p.m. | “South Africa as a Mixed Jurisdiction”
Professor François du Toit joined the University of Cape Town as Professor and Head of the Private Law Department on Jan. 1, 2023. His research focuses on three main themes: the impact of constitutionalism and public policy on testamentary freedom; the invalidity of wills and specifically how the effects of formalism in the law of wills can be mitigated; and the conceptualization of the trust, especially regarding the core elements of the trusts encountered in mixed jurisdictions.
du Toit’s research is frequently cited by South African High Courts and the Supreme Court of Appeal. In 2021, his work was cited by the Constitutional Court in judgements for King v De Jager and Wilkinson v Crawford, two consolidated applications that each required engagement with the principle of equality and the principle of freedom of testation in the context of a private will and a private trust respectively.
du Toit previously served on the faculty at the University of Western Cape, where he taught succession and trust law.
Professor Ádám Fuglinszky, Eötvös Loránd University
Tuesday, Jan. 23 | 12:40 p.m. | Working title: “Harmonization of the Law in Europe”
Professor Ádám Fuglinszky is a Professor of Civil Law at Eötvös Loránd University, the oldest, largest, and most prestigious university in Hungary.
From 2013-2020, Fuglinszky served as Editor in Chief of the ELTE Law Journal, which is considered one of the leading English-language law journals in Hungary. The goal of the journal is to explore contemporary, practical issues in the field of private law, criminal law, constitutional and administrative law, international law, and European law. Fuglinszky is a founding member of the journal.
In addition to his role on the faculty of Eötvös Loránd University, Fuglinszky is also a visiting professor at Andrássy University Budapest (AUB).
Professor Santiago Legarre, Universidad Católica Argentina
Tuesday, Jan. 30 | 12:40 p.m. | “A Modified Approach to Overruling for the ‘Conservative-Majority’”
Professor Santiago Legarre began his academic career teaching at the Universidad Austral before joining Universidad Católica Argentina in 2007. Legarre is also a Visiting Professor at the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center and at the Valparaiso University Law School (Indiana). He has been a visiting scholar at Columbia University, the University of Oxford and the University of Notre Dame.
After graduating from Oxford University with his law degree, Legarre clerked for the Argentine Supreme Court. His academic interests include constitutional law and jurisprudence, and he is a main researcher at CONICET, the Argentine National Council for Research. He has been invited by law institutions around the world to present on topics like comparative.
While visiting Strathmore Law School, Legarre developed a teaching system of expressing knowledge through art. He also teaches a workshop on creative writing for law students.
Professor Professor Frédérique Ferrand, Université Jean Moulin, Lyon 3
Tuesday, Feb. 6 | 12:30 p.m. | 43rd John H. Tucker Jr. Lecture in Civil Law: “Evolutions in European Family Law: Towards a Common Core”
Professor Frédérique Ferrand has been on the Université Jean Moulin, Lyon 3 faculty since 1990, and her teaching and scholarship focuses on French, European, and comparative civil procedure law and enforcement law, family law, civil law, and comparative law.
She has participated in several international and European research programs, including the Commission on European Family Law, and she also serves as director of the Institute for Comparative Law Édouard Lambert (IDCEL) and research team director of the International, European and Comparative Law Research Center (EDIEC).
Ferrand will present current trends in European family law, including recent cooperation on family matters within the European Union and the emerging trend of implementing national European family laws on matters like divorce while continuing different approaches to certain sensitive issues, in the 43rd John H. Tucker Jr. Lecture in Civil Law.
Professor Matthew Kim, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Thursday, Feb. 22 | 12:40 p.m. | “Restoring Supreme Court Legitimacy: An Empirical Study of Why the Supreme Court Should (Not) Consider Public Opinion”
Professor Matthew Kim is a three-time graduate of Harvard University, receiving his master’s degree and postdoctoral degree from Harvard University and his juris doctor from Harvard Law School. As a law student, he received the Stephen L. Werner Prize, which is awarded annually to the student with the best paper in the field of criminal justice.
Kim teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, and empirical legal research. His article “Exclusionary Rule and Judicial Integrity: An Empirical Study of Public Perceptions of the Exclusionary Rule” was recently published in Missouri Law Review. He joined the faculty at the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 2023.
Kim will present at LSU Law as part of the SEC Scholarly Exchange.
Professor Brannon Denning, Samford University Cumberland School of Law
Tuesday, March 5 | 12:40 p.m. | Working title: “The Second Amendment in American Culture, Politics, and Law”
Professor Brannon Denning joined the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in 2003 where he teaches courses on constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, and foreign affairs.
Among other topics, his research includes the Constitution and the Second Amendment. Denning recently published The Advantage of Being Armed: The Second Amendment in American Culture, Politics, and Law with co-author Professor Robert Cottrol of George Washington University School of Law. He also authored and published a casebook, Guns and the Law: Cases, Materials, and Explanation, with University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law Professor Andrew Jay McClurg.
Denning spent two years in the health law group at Baker Donelson Bearman and Caldwell PC in Memphis before he accepted a position as a research associate and senior fellow at Yale Law School. He taught at Southern Illinois University School of Law prior to joining the Cumberland School of Law.
Professor Josh Galperin, Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law
Thursday, March 7 | 12:40 p.m. | Working title: “Governing Private Environmental Governance”
Professor Josh Galperin’s research and teaching covers environmental law, administrative law, food and agriculture law and policy, property, constitutional law, and tort law. He has published extensively on environmental law, with particular emphasis on the role of non-governmental advocates in the creation and maintenance of environmental law, takings and just compensation, invasive species policy, and private environmental governance.
Galperin previously served as a policy analyst and research attorney for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), where he established a hybrid legal, grassroots, and analytical effort to catalyze retirement of the Southeast’s least efficient coal plants. He has also served as legislative counsel for the Vermont General Assembly, staffing House and Senate committees on agriculture.
A graduate of Vermont Law School, Galperin has taught at Yale Law School and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He has served on the faculty of Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law since 2021.
Professor Shi-Ling Hsu, Florida State University College of Law
Wednesday, March 13 | 12:40 p.m. | “Capitalism and the Environment”
Professor Shi-Ling Hsu is an expert in the areas of environmental and natural resource law, climate change, law and economics, and property. He has published in a wide variety of legal journals and recently co-authored the casebook “Ocean and Coastal Resources Law.”
Prior to entering academia, Hsu was a senior attorney and economist for the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. and practiced law in California. He previously taught at George Washington University School of Law and served on the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law before joining Florida State University College of Law.
Hsu is a founding member of the Society for Environmental Law and Economics, an interdisciplinary organization that brings together legal scholars, economists, and interested researchers in other fields to address important environmental issues.
Professor Howard Katz, Cleveland State University College of Law
Thursday, March 21 | 12:40 p.m. | “Innovative Teaching Techniques”
Professor Howard Katz was appointed as the first legal educator-in-residence for Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 2017. He advises faculty and staff on best practices on a variety of areas, including admissions, academic support, bar passage, curriculum, and teaching.
Katz previously served as a professor of law at Duquesne University Kline School of Law. Earlier in his career, he served as director of strategic planning and policy for the Cuyahoga County Treasurer’s Office and as chief counsel to the Cleveland City Council.
Katz is a member of the executive committee of the New Teachers Section of the American Association of Law Schools and the best practices implementation committee of the Clinical Legal Education Association.
