News for alumni and friends of Indiana Law
January 2020
In this issue:
- Office for Student Affairs to be named in honor of Dean Leonard Fromm
- Faculty news
- Fischman, Krishnan elected to American Law Institute
- Wintersession wraps up with innovative topics
- Buy a brick, commemorate your commitment
Office for Student Affairs to be named in honor of Dean Leonard Fromm
One of Indiana Law's most beloved mentors and leaders will be honored on Friday, March 27, when the Office of Student Affairs will be named in honor of the late Leonard D. Fromm.
Fromm joined the Law School in 1979 as director for student affairs. From the beginning, he was a strong and effective advocate for students within the school's administration. Just as important, he served the students as a thoughtful, empathetic, and deeply trusted counselor. He knew every student at the school. He was their guide as they grappled with the anxiety of the 1L year, as they became involved in the school's extracurricular events and its social scene, and as they developed as professionals.
Along the way, Fromm advised and assisted them with every imaginable issue: financial problems, relationship challenges, personal growth. Countless graduates have begun stories about their experience at the Law School with the words "I wouldn't have been able to stay in school unless Dean Fromm had ...."
During his 33 years at the law school, Fromm interacted with nearly 6,000 students—60% of our alumni—and he stayed in touch with a staggering number of them. His continued engagement in their lives and careers was, for many, the glue that kept them close to the school.
A ceremony and reception commemorating the naming of the Leonard D. Fromm Office for Student Affairs will take place on Friday, March 27 at 3:30 p.m. in the Jerome Hall Law Library. Alumni and friends who are interested in attending can RSVP via the main page of this edition of ergo.
Faculty news
Dean Austen Parrish has been elected to the executive committee of the Association of American Law Schools and the AALS Deans Steering Committee.
Prof. Gabrielle Goodwin has been elected co-chair (with Larry Solan of Brooklyn Law School) of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Global Engagement. The Law School was well-represented at the AALS's annual meeting, with presentations from Pamela Foohey, Gabrielle Goodwin, Lara Gose, William Henderson, Jayanth Krishnan, Donna Nagy, Austen Parrish, Victor Quintanilla, and Carwina Weng.
Prof. Jeannine Bell delivered an IU Ted Talk titled "Making Progress out of Racial Chaos."
Prof. Ken Dau-Schmidt delivered four lectures in China last fall. He spoke at Nankai University, Tianjin, on "The Impact of Information Technology on Work and Work Relationships—A Legal Perspective"; at Peking University, School of Transnational Law, Shenzhen on "The Problem of 'Misclassification' or How to Define Who is an 'Employee' Under Protective Legislation in the Information Age"; and at Peking University, Beijing and Xiamen University, Xiamen on "Employment in the Information Age—Implications for Labor and Employment Law." The third edition of his casebook, Labor Law in the Contemporary Workplace, has recently been published, and he has written a chapter in The Cambridge Handbook of US Labor Law for the Twenty-First Century. Prof. Kevin Brown also participated in the trip.
Prof. Rob Fischman taught a week-long course on US regulatory law for students in the comparative law graduate program at Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II).
Prof. Joseph Hoffmann participated in a panel about the prevention of torture at the Third Congress on Human Rights in Warsaw.
Prof. Sarah Jane Hughes, along with Tom Kierner, '15, and Steve Middlebrook of Womble Bond Dickinson (US) were recognized by JDSupra for their article, "Developments in the Law Affecting Electronic Payments and Financial Services," which was ranked #5 of JDSupra’s top ten most read 2019 fintech articles.
Prof. Timothy Lovelace was a panelist at the annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History.
Prof. Timothy William Waters's new book, Boxing Pandora: Rethinking Borders, States, and Secession in a Democratic World, has been published by Yale University Press.
Prof. Deborah Widiss wrote an essay for The Conversation titled, "Parental Leave Laws Are Failing Parents."
Read The Docket for faculty quotes and op-eds in state and national media.
Fischman, Krishnan elected to American Law Institute
Robert L. Fischman, George P. Smith II Distinguished Professor of Law, and Jayanth Krishnan, Milt and Judi Stewart Professor of Law and Director of the Milt and Judi Stewart Center on the Global Legal Profession, are the Law School's newest members of the American Law Institute.
Fischman's research explores the relationship between law and conservation implementation. He is one of very few professors to publish in high-impact, peer-reviewed scientific journals as well as in law reviews. He is a co-author of the leading casebook on public land and resources law. His book on management of the National Wildlife Refuge System has become the standard reference in the field. In 2017 Fischman helped lead a team of professors in winning a $55 million Grand Challenge grant to establish an environmental resilience institute at IU.
Krishnan is a socio-legal researcher who focuses on the legal profession, law and globalization, access to justice, and legal education. Much of his work has examined how these areas intersect in India, but he has also written on the ways these issues operate in places such as Anglophonic Africa, Brazil, the Middle East, and other parts of Asia. His work has appeared in both highly reputed law reviews and peer-reviewed journals and in academic press books. His most recent work, "Bhopal in the Federal Courts: How Indian Victims Failed to Get Justice in the United States," will be published this year in the Rutgers University Law Review.
ALI is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law. Worldwide membership is limited to 3,000. Fischman and Krishnan join 16 other Indiana Law faculty in ALI membership. (See ergo, December 2019, p. 15).
Wintersession wraps up with innovative topics
The spring semester began again this year with the school's innovative Wintersession: a week's worth of practical courses taught by experienced adjuncts. Nearly 80 students participated this year in the following courses with these instructors:
- David Milne, '94, In-House Legal Departments
- Hon. Nancy Vaidik, Pre-Trial Litigation: Depositions (with guest instructors Hon. Elaine Brown, '82, Beth K. (Betsy) Greene, '82, Gabriel A. Hawkins, '02, and Frederick W. Schultz, '96)
- Prof. William Henderson, The Lawyer as Business Executive (with guest instructors James H. Beckett, '98, Michael S. (Mickey) Maurer, '67, and Glenn Scolnik, '78)
- Prof. Hannah Buxbaum and Daniel Harris, '84, International Business Transactions: Doing Business in China
- Kimberly Richardson, '06, Workplace Safety and Employment Law
Buy a brick, commemorate your commitment
The Law School continues its campaign to attract additional pledges to our Partners in Excellence program in conjunction with the final months of the Bicentennial Campaign.
Partners in Excellence — donors who pledge at least $2,500 per year for five years to the Law School’s Dean’s Incentive Fund or Fund for Excellence — will be honored with a commemorative brick on the back patio of the Law School. The brick will be installed upon receipt of the first pledge (one brick per pledge). Existing Partners in Excellence will receive a brick when they renew their pledge.
Your commitment as a Partner in Excellence is especially important because it gives the dean flexibility to support the school’s key initiatives, including our five law journals, more than 30 student organizations, pro bono programs and clinics, student scholarships, faculty research, the Jerome Hall Law Library, financial assistance for travel to students’ job interviews, and unexpected needs that arise throughout the year.
More than 50 alumni and friends have already signed up. Join them! To reserve your brick, contact Stephanie Coffey, director of annual giving, at stcoffey@indiana.edu.