Professor Ray Diamond spoke before the Federalist Society chapter at Tulane Law School, debating the future of 2nd Amendment jurisprudence after Heller v. District of Columbia (2008), which held the right to keep and bear arms to be an individual right. The debate concerned as well the Supreme Court’s anticipated decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago, in which a key issue is whether the right to keep and bear arms is incorporated under the 14th Amendment’s due process clause.
Professor Diamond was also named to the AALS Hurricane Katrina Honor Role for his service as a pro bono consultant to the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus on voting rights issues. In this capacity, he drafted objections to post-hurricane election law changes that were subject to pre-clearance by the Department of Justice, and drafted objections to a Federal Emergency Management Administration decision not to release the addresses and other contact data of hurricane displaced residents to authorities responsible for conducting elections in Louisiana.
Professor Christine Corcos chaired a panel, “Law, Justice, and the Other On Television,” and presented a paper, Psychics and Prosecutors: Battling For Credibility and Attention on America’s Airwaves, at the 13th Annual Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities, held March 19 and 20, at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. She has also been invited to begin blogging at Feminist Law Professors, one of the leading law blogs in the United States; Feminist Law Blogs has won an ABA Blawg 100 award from the American Bar Association for the past three years.
In April, Professor Lee Ann Lockridge participated in the Junior Scholars in Intellectual Property workshop held at the Michigan State University College of Law. The paper selected for and discussed at the workshop, “Honoring International Obligations in U.S. Trademark Law: How the Lanham Act Protects Well-Known Foreign Marks (and Why the Second Circuit was Wrong),” will be published next year in the St. John’s Law Review.
In March 2010, Professor Robert Lancaster presented at the national “Field placements 5: Responding to Changing Times Conference” sponsored by the University of Miami School of Law. Professor Lancaster presented on the impact that the economic decline has had on field placement programs. The presentation was titled, Should the (Bleak) Legal Employment Outlook Redefine Field placement Programs? Also in March, Professor Lancaster spoke at Breaking In: A Workshop on Becoming a Law Professor, Adjunct, or Administrator at Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco, California.
VISITING
Mr. Olivier Brochenin, Consul General of France, attended the lecture given by Mr. Pierre Arcand at the LSU Law Center. Professor Olivier Moréteau, Russell Long Chair, introduced the students taking the new Introduction to French Law course that he is teaching in French this Spring 2010 at the Law Center. He asked the Consul General to be the “Parrain” of the first Intro to French Law class, composed of Richard Bond, Bradley Bourgeois, Laura Graham, Hannon Laplace, Julie Olinde, and Pablo Reyes.
Mr. Pierre Arcand, Minister of International Relations and the Francophonie of the Province of Quebec visited the State of Louisiana on recently to sign a joint declaration on cooperation in the areas of education, culture, and youth. Mr. Arcand gave a public lecture in the auditorium of the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center on “Québec: An International Player and Leader in the Francophonie” after a welcome address and introduction by LSU Chancellor Michael Martin and Ms. Ginette Chenard, who represents the Province of Quebec in the Southern United States. Mr. Arcand commented on the cooperation programs Quebec develops with other Canadian provinces and some of the United States, in New England, and the Great Lakes, with a focus on the cooperation with Louisiana, including CODOFIL, the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana.
STAFF HIGHLIGHTS
Albin Murtagh, Law Center Business Manager, recently earned his certified public accountant certificate. Murtagh has been an employee at the Law Center for 15 years. Said Murtagh, “I knew that I wanted to be a CPA as far back as when I scheduled a bookkeeping class in my sophomore year in high school. And, it only took me 27 years.”
