News for alumni and friends of Indiana Law
April 2021
In this issue:
- From the Dean
- Commencement planned for May 7-8
- Five faculty honored with teaching awards
- Race and gender scholar joins faculty
- New LLM degree adds English proficiency courses
- Student honors and achievements
- Career Services Office seeks director, associate director
- Faculty news
- (Belated) Valentine's Day greetings!
- Coming events
- Class notes
From the Dean
It's hard to believe, but the end of the spring semester is rapidly approaching, and plans are taking shape for the fall semester, when we hope to be back on campus and operating in person. Applications for the Class of 2024 are up 16% over last year's, and we expect to welcome a larger class with higher academic credentials this fall.
We also hope to be back on the road later this year if the pandemic continues to abate and the university approves in-person receptions and other alumni events. Watch for updates in upcoming issues of ergo, and read on for the latest news about the achievements of our outstanding alumni, students, and faculty.
Austen Parrish
Dean and James H. Rudy Professor of Law
Commencement planned for May 7-8
Indiana University has continued to impose restrictions on in-person gatherings because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite these barriers, the Law School's Commencement Committee, led by Katie Beck, director of student affairs, has assembled a virtual ceremony with many of the traditions of our annual event, including faculty and student speeches, presentation of awards, and even a student performance of the Alma Mater. The event will be live-streamed at noon EDT on Saturday, May 8. Alumni and friends are invited to join the ceremony on Zoom.
In addition, Law School graduates have been invited to the hooding ceremony during the university's outdoor commencement on Friday, May 7. This event is open to graduates only. More information about both ceremonies is available on the Law School's commencement web page.
Five faculty honored with teaching awards
Five faculty members with honored with prestigious teaching awards on March 26 via Zoom during the Law Alumni Board meeting:
Shana Wallace, Leon H. Wallace Teaching Award
Charles Gardner Geyh, Trustees' Teaching Award
Joseph A. Tomain, Trustees' Teaching Award
Deborah A. Widiss, Trustees' Teaching Award
Terrance Blackman Stroud, '03, Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award
Wallace received the Leon H. Wallace Teaching Award. Named for the school's former dean (who is not related to Prof. Wallace), it is the highest teaching honor given to Maurer School of Law faculty. A former antitrust attorney with the US Department of Justice, Wallace was cited for bringing her impressive background to the classroom while remaining kind and accessible.
Geyh, Tomain, and Widiss received Trustees' Teaching Awards.
In his first-year Civil Procedure course, Geyh quickly dispels any notions that the class will be dull and technical. Students cited Geyh for his innovative teaching methods during the pandemic, such as making video summaries of each class available when faced with teaching the course in a condensed format last fall.
Tomain was recognized not only for his mastery of both privacy and contract law, but also for his recognition of the difficulty and stress of law school. He was also cited for his dedication to the expansion of privacy and cybersecurity law programming through his teaching and through his support of related student organizations.
Widiss's students in Legislation and in Employment Discrimination describe her as a rare professor about whom almost everyone has only good things to say. They praised her teaching methods, which encourage students to gain the confidence to participate in class, even in the Zoom-based environment of the current academic year.
Stroud received the Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award for his supervision of the school's New York Externship Program, in which students spend eight weeks working in public interest positions. The program has become the school's model for guided learning in other markets, including Washington, DC, Miami, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He is the first Black recipient of the Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award.
A special committee of students presented teaching award recommendations to Dean Parrish, who made the final selections.
Race and gender scholar joins faculty
India Thusi will join the Law School this fall from Widener University Delaware Law School. Her research examines racial and sexual hierarchies as they relate to policing, race, and gender. Thusi's articles and essays have been published or are forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, NYU Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Cornell Law Review Online, and Utah Law Review. In addition to her professorship at the Law School, she will hold a joint appointment at the IU Kinsey Institute.
Thusi’s research incorporates her previous legal experience at the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and most recently The Opportunity Agenda, a social justice communication lab that collaborates to effect lasting policy and culture change. She has clerked for two federal court judges and was selected as a Fulbright US Global Scholar for 2020–22. Thusi will teach courses in Criminal Law and in Race, American Society, and the Law.
New LLM degree adds English proficiency courses
The Law School has introduced a two-year LLM with English for law program. This two-step program is designed for applicants who do not yet meet the English proficiency requirements for direct admission to the school's standard LLM degree program. Successful applicants are admitted first to the LLM Pathway program, a year-long program similar to conditional admission. In the Pathway, students will learn about the US legal system and master legal English while earning 12 English for law credits and four credits toward the LLM degree. Much like conditional admission, upon satisfactory completion of the Pathway year, students then continue to the LLM degree program, where they will select courses to complete the remaining 20 credit hours needed to earn the degree.
Indiana Law's LLM program was founded more than 100 years ago and is among the oldest in the country. Read more about our graduate legal studies programs here.
Student honors and achievements
Two student organizations recently received awards at the national level. The Latinx Law Student Association was named National Chapter of the Year at the 2021 National Latina/o Law Student Association conference, and the school's Black Law Students Association was named Chapter of the Year for the Midwest Region, the sixth time in the past 10 years BLSA has been honored.
Charles Westerhaus was named a Westin Scholar by the International Association of Privacy Professionals, Amika Ghosh was appointed an IU Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow, and Kat Grant was elected student chair of the National Disability Justice Steering Committee.
Students in the Law School's clinical programs and national moot court competitions brought home several honors this spring. Earlier this month, the Seventh Circuit granted a habeas corpus petition filed by students in the federal habeas litigation clinic under the direction of Prof. Seth Lahn and Adjunct Prof. Michael Ausbrook, '93, In Lewis v. Zatecky, the court reversed the district court, holding that the petitioner had received “not merely inadequate assistance of counsel, but a failure of representation so serious that counsel ha[d] entirely failed to function as the client’s advocate.” Kaitlin Willbanks presented the case in oral argument before the court.
Rita Xia was selected as best oralist in the Global Antitrust Institute’s Invitational Moot Court Competition at George Mason University Law School. Prof. Shana Wallace coached the team. Liam Williams took top oralist honors in the Chicago region in the Saul Lefkowitz International Trademark Association Moot Court Competition. And Madalyn Clary was runner-up in The Closer, a national transaction competition held each January at Baylor Law School. Prof. Mark Need, '92, supervised her success, the second year in a row the school has made the finals.
Finalists in the school's internal International Arbitration Moot Court Competition were Alexa Wilson, Monica McCoskey, Samira Suleiman, and Janelle Shankin. Natalia Rivera and Willow Thomas won the Internal Trial Competition. And Elizabeth Adams, Mary Kate Hetzel, Amanda Marino, and Natalie Shepherd were the finalists in the school’s Sherman Minton Beginner Trial Competition.
Prof. Khagesh Gautam, an SJD candidate, co-authored The Law of Emergency Powers with four Indian Supreme Court justices. Michael Froedge, Carsten Parmenter, and Caroline Sebastian were elected to the editorial board of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Career Services Office seeks director, associate director
Directors in the Career Services Office spend most of their time doing one-on-one advising with students, helping them identify their interests, preparing them for the job search, and helping them meet their career goals. They also work with employers and externship hosts, develop and present programming, and plan and lead events to connect students with practitioners.
The associate director is a new position focused on employer relations, but also contributing to career advising. Candidates with a background in law or in student services or higher education are welcome to apply for both positions, and diverse candidates are particularly encouraged. For more information, visit the IU Jobs website.
Faculty news
Laura Fonseca has been appointed director of diversity, equity, and inclusion for the Law School, effective July 1. Fonseca joined the school's Career Services Office in 2018. In addition to working with student groups and student organizations, she will work closely with the Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Committee; with the director of student affairs, Katie Beck; and with the Office of Admissions, including Kendra Abercrombie, associate director, who oversees diversity recruiting initiatives. In addition to her impressive background in recruitment, international development, career services, and employer relations, Fonscea has experience leading DEI trainings and discussions and has worked with the School of Medicine on diversity and hiring initiatives. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in higher education, focusing on change and institutional influence over equity-centered policy.
On February 17, Steve Sanders joined IU Media School Dean James Shanahan in the semester’s first episode of the podcast, Through the Gates at IU. The episode was entitled “Free Speech After Insurrection.”
Asaf Lubin delivered the keynote address at the Southern California Association of Law Libraries 49th Annual Institute: Data Privacy in the Age of the Cloud on February 18. He spoke on “The End of Privacy: Regulating Covert Intelligence in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism.”
On February 19, Mark Janis moderated a panel during the Design Patents Symposium: Navigating and Rectifying the Design Patent Muddle, hosted by University of California–Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.
Jay Krishnan’s work, “The Immigrant Struggle for Effective Counsel: An Empirical Assessment,” was highlighted by the Immigration Law Professor Blog as the Immigration Article of the Day on February 19.
Luis Fuentes-Rohwer represented the Law School in the Big 10 Law School Speaker Series: New Court, New Administration, New Congress. On February 23, he led a webinar entitled “Racism on Constitutional Legacy: American Empire and Puerto Rico.”
On February 24, Victor Quintanilla spoke in a panel session related to access to justice as part of the Legal Tech and the Future of Civil Justice Speaker Series hosted by Stanford Law.
Amy Applegate, Jeannine Bell, and Seth Lahn participated in the Monroe County Bar Association’s Bench and Bar Conference on February 26. Applegate led the section meeting on family law. Bell delivered the keynote address, “Am I a Racist??!! First Steps in Recognizing and Dealing with Implicit Bias.” Lahn co-led the CLE session on "No-Contact Orders vs. Contact-Orders."
Pamela Foohey participated in the panel session, “Macrofoundations for Consumer Finance,” as part of the 3rd Annual Consumer Law Scholars Conference hosted by University of California–Berkeley Law Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice on March 4-5.
On March 10, Terrance Blackman Stroud participated in the panel session, “Developing a Culture of Intersectional Inclusion in the Public Sector,” as part of the Reimagining the Future of Human Resources in the Public Sector Virtual Event hosted by the Public Sector Network. He has also been elected as an inaugural member of the American Public Human Services Association Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Peer Community. On April 9, Stroud moderated the Careers at the United Nations panel session hosted by the Indiana University Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies as part of its International Law & Institutions Week.
On March 12, Mark Janis participated in Intersections in Intellectual Property: Trends, Policies, and Strategies Conference hosted by the University of Illinois–Chicago John Marshall Law School Center for Intellectual Property, Information & Privacy Law. His session was titled “Infringement at the Intersection: Designs, Trade Dress & Copyright.”
Asaf Lubin presented in a panel session on “The Government’s Role in Fostering Cyber Insurance Markets,” as part of the Cyber Insurance Conference jointly hosted by the University of Connecticut Insurance Law Center and the University of Minnesota Law School on March 12.
On March 15, David Gamage testified before the Connecticut General Assembly Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee Public Hearing.
On March 16, Asaf Lubin participated in the virtual workshop, “The Protection of IT Supply Chains under International Law” hosted by the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, & Armed Conflict as part of the Oxford Process on International Law Protections in Cyberspace. His topic: “The 5 Things You Should Know about Espionage in International Law in under 5 Minutes.” On March 18, he participated in a webinar titled “Cybersecurity Insurance: Is Regulation the Answer?” hosted by the Henry Jackson Society on March 18. On March 19, Lubin was elected vice-chair of the International Law and Technology Interest Group within the American Society of International Law.
On March 22, Amb. Feisal-al Istrabadi participated in a panel discussion on “Iraqi Diaspora Mobilization and the Future Development of Iraq” hosted by the Atlantic Council Middle East Initiatives.
On March 25, Hannah Buxbaum served as the 2021 Groitus Distinguished Discussant for the American Society of International Law Groitus Lecture hosted by the American University Washington College of Law.
On March 29, Austen Parrish moderated a panel on law, law school, and legal profession as part of the IU Wells Scholars Program.
John Applegate was appointed interim executive vice president and IU Bloomington provost on April 2 by President Michael A. McRobbie. His term will begin on July 1.
Jody Madeira participated in the O’Neill Conversation Series on Gun Violence hosted by the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs on April 5.
Carwina Weng discussed “Confronting Trauma in Clinical Law Teaching” in an episode of the Society of American Law Teachers Teaching Social Justice podcast on April 8.
On April 8-9, Leandra Lederman participated in the 24th Annual Critical Tax Conference hosted by the University of California, Irvine School of Law Graduate Tax Program. She both moderated a panel and presented scholarship entitled “Of Risks and Remedies: Best Practices in Tax Rulings Transparency.”
Deborah Widiss spoke in a panel session on menstruation and employment as part of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law symposium, Are You There, Law? It’s Me, Menstruation, on April 9.
On April 14, Pamela Foohey participated in the panel discussion, The Pandemic’s Economic Impact: Exploring Commercial and Consumer Finance Issues, sponsored by the University of Oklahoma College of Law.
(Belated) Valentine's Day greetings!
Did you and your spouse meet each other while you were in law school? If so, we'd like to hear about it! Share the story of how you met—along with photos if you have them—and we'll include it in the summer print issue of ergo. Submit your info to lawalum@indiana.edu by May 1. If you've already submitted a story, many thanks!
Coming events
The Arthur M. Lotz Office of Alumni and Development is planning virtual receptions on Friday, August 27 and Thursday, September 16 at noon ET. Planning is also under way for Alumni Weekend on October 1 and 2 and Prof. Kevin Brown's annual BLSA/LLSA alumni gathering on October 2. These events are subject to the university's policies on in-person events this fall, which will be determined later this summer. Watch for updates in ergo and in emails from the Alumni Office.
Class notes
Be sure to follow the Law School on Facebook and Twitter for the most up-to-date news on the Law School community. For more information about your classmates, and to submit your own news, visit our class notes page.
Read In the mediafor faculty quotes and op-eds in state and national media.