Chancellor Jack Weiss joined other First Amendment scholars in a recent panel discussion titled, Developments in First Amendment Jurisprudence. If you’re interested in First Amendment law, you’re likely to be familiar with the November 12-13, 2009 conference in New York City, Communications Law in the Digital Age. The conference, sponsored by the Practising Law Institute (PLI), featured five nationally prominent lawyers and scholars, including the Law Center’s own Chancellor Jack Weiss. The conference is recognized as one of the most comprehensive in the field, covering the latest issues and case law in media, intellectual property, digital communications, and privacy law.
Joining Chancellor Weiss on the panel were.
Kathleen M. Sullivan, author of one of the nation’s leading casebooks in constitutional law, a former dean of Stanford Law School and professor of law at Harvard Law School.
Paul M. Smith of Smith of Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C., an active Supreme Court attorney who has argued many important cases — most notably Lawrence v. Texas. Smith also worked extensively on other First Amendment cases before the Supreme Court. The cases involved issues ranging from defamation to commercial speech to “adult” speech on the Internet.
RonNell Anderson Jones, Associate Professor of Law at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, a constitutional law, First Amendment, and media law authority. Jones clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and directed the 2007 Media Subpoena Study, a nationwide study of the impact and frequency of subpoenas served upon the media.
Weiss specialized in defending the rights of the nation’s media, most notably Dow Jones & Company, Inc., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, prior to joining the LSU Law Center as Chancellor.
The panel was moderated by Lee Levine, one of the nation’s leading media attorneys and coauthor of the annual PLI program. Levine taught Comparative Media Law at the LSU Law Center’s program in Lyon last summer and will return to teach the course in the summer of 2010. He practices with Levine Sullivan Koch & Schultz, LLP in Washington, D.C.
Panelists addressed such issues as the future of broadcast regulation after the Supreme Court’s ruling in the “fleeting expletive” case; limits on campaign finance regulation in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in the “Hillary movie;” the possibility of a new category of unprotected speech involving graphic images of cruelty to animals; government speech and public forum doctrines; and the rights of religious student groups to exemptions from generally applicable anti-discrimination rules in public schools and colleges.
PLI delivers cutting-edge continuing legal education seminars, books, treatises, webcasts and audio briefings on subjects critical to the legal profession.
Professor Raymond Diamond was the Dorothy L. Thompson Civil Rights Lecturer at Kansas State University on September 16, along with William Merkel of Washburn University School of Law. The 2009 lecture was guised as a debate titled, “The New Understanding of the Right to Bear Arms.” The debate took place in light of a local movement to allow students with licenses to carry concealed weapons on college campuses in Kansas. As the Thompson Lecturer, Professor Diamond also guest taught an undergraduate class on teaching methods in the College of Education. The topic focused on using comic book literature as a tool to teach social science concepts related to law, history, gender, and race.
Professor Robert Lancaster, Director of the LSU Law Center’s Clinical Legal Education program, serves as Secretary of the Board of Governors of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT). The mission of the organization is to enhance the quality of legal education by advancing social justice within the curriculum and promoting innovative teaching methodologies; extend the power of law to underserved individuals and communities; and to make the legal profession more inclusive and reflective of the great diversity of this nation.
Professor Lancaster also successfully passed the July 2009 Louisiana Bar Exam and was sworn in as a Louisiana lawyer on October 22, 2009.
Professor Alain Levasseur presented a paper titled, “Traduction du Droit et Droit de la Traduction,” or “Translation of Law and the Law of Translation,” at a gathering of over 150 lawyers, professors, and European Union officials on October 14–16 in Poitier, France. He attended the proceedings at the invitation of JURISCOPE, the CNRS and the University of Poitiers. The papers will be published in book form by Dalloz.
Professor Olivier Moreteau gave a public lecture on the digest of 1808 on October 8 at the Magnolia Mound Plantation, as part of the Lectures at the Mound Series. His presentation was titled, “The Digest of 1808: A Milestone in Louisiana History; A Cornerstone in Louisiana.”
On October 9, Professor Moreteau discussed the commemoration of the Bicentennial of the Digest of 18-08, “What have we learned in a Year?” The event was the opening of the Judge Allen M. Babineaux International Civil Law Symposium, by invitation of the Francophone Section of the Lafayette Bar Association.
Professor Christine Corcos was an invited speaker at Regent University Law School’s Broadcast Media and the Law Symposium on October 9-10, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where she gave a talk entitled “The Raging Paranoia of Network Censors”: The Unintended Consequences of the FCC’s Fleeting Expletives Policy. Her remarks will be published in the law review’s upcoming Symposium issue.
Professors William Corbett, Robert Lancaster, Lee Ann Lockridge, Scott Sullivan, and Olivier Moreteau addressed the LSU Law Society of International Law during its September 14–18 International Law Week.
Dr. Nono Makarim, distinguished visitor to the LSU Law Center for Civil Law Studies, provided the 5th Session of the Saul Litvinoff Lecture Series held on November 19. The topic was, “Freedom of the Press in Indonesia, a Case of Collective Misinterpretation.” He has been engaged in evaluation of the teaching of legal methods in order to assist the Indonesian Judicial Commission in the design and administration of law exams to assess candidates for the position of Justice at the Indonesian Supreme Court. He holds an LL.M. and S.J.D. from Harvard University Law School and is Of Counsel with Makarim & Taira S. in Hakarta, Indonesia.
Dragomir Cosanici, Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Services and Law Library Director, has published a number of new works:
• Introduction to the California Style Manual Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) Lesson (2009) www.cali.org
• Book Review of Hilmshurst and Breau’s PERSPECTIVES ON THE ICRC STUDY ON CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW, 37 Int’l J. Legal Info. (Forthcoming Spring 2009)
• Book Review of Millar’s An HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT, Newsletter of the Legal History and Rare Book Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries (Fall 2008) available at http://www.aallnet.org/sis/lhrb/Lhrb-14-3.pdf
He was also a speaker at the national American Association of Law Libraries Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. on July 26, 2009. His presentation (with Lakatos, Gabor and Ellsworth) was titled, “Emerging from the Cocoon: Innovative Ways to Re-Teach Legal Research to Externs and Summer Associates,” and focused on the latest pedagogical techniques and strategies on teaching externs and summer law associates.
STAFF HIGHLIGHT
Cynthia Bland, Administrative Assistant in the Law Center for the past 8 years, (came to the Law Center in August, 1991) has been honored with the 2009 LSU Foundation Staff Outstanding Service Award. She began working at LSU on May 8, 1978 and has given a total of 31 years of service to the LSU community.
