Indiana Law Annotated Vol. 15 No.4 September 21, 1998

Indiana Law Annotated Vol. 15 No.4 September 21, 1998

Table of Contents

• NEWS FROM THE ASSOCIATE DEAN
• NEWS FROM THE FACULTY
• NEWS FROM STUDENT AFFAIRS OFFICE
• NEWS FROM CAREER SERVICES
• NEWS FROM STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
• ANNOUNCEMENTS
• EVENTS & LECTURES
• AROUND CAMPUS
• AROUND TOWN
• CALENDAR

NEWS FROM THE ASSOCIATE DEAN

Lauren Robel

The wall along the first floor is covered with the pictures of alumni, chosen as members of the Academy of Law Alumni Fellows for their distinguished careers. Two of those alums passed away recently both of them pioneering women attorneys whose careers and lives transformed the societies in which they lived and worked.

The Honorable Juanita Kidd Stout (J.D. '48, LL.M. '54), who passed away August 21 at age 79, lived a remarkable life of historic "firsts" marked by courage and compassion. A native of Oklahoma, Juanita Stout moved to Pennsylvania in 1954, after receiving two law degrees here, and opened a law practice. After two years with the District Attorney's office, Stout was appointed in 1959 to the Philadelphia Municipal Court, with elections a scant two months away. Her victory in that election made her the first African American woman in the country to win an election to a court of record. She later became the first African American woman to be appointed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. During her years on the bench, she tried hundreds of cases, including the notorious 1993 murder case involving Ira Einhorn.

An article in The Philadelphia Inquirer August 22, 1998, noted, "Although she entered the law when few African Americans and few women entered the profession, colleagues said she overcame racial and gender barriers by winning widespread respect." The former district attorney for whom she first work described her as "the hardest working lawyer in town." When a rule requiring Supreme Court justices to retire at 70 forced her from that position, she returned to the Court of Common Pleas. Judge Stout received hundreds of awards and honors. In 1963, she was appointed special ambassador to the Kenyan independence celebration, and, in 1965, she was named outstanding woman lawyer of the year by the National Association of Women Lawyers. In 1988, she was appointed Justice of the Year by the National Association of Women Judges.

Harriet Bouslog Sawyer (J.D. '36) left the law school for, she thought, a life as a writer. Following her English professor husband to Hawai'i, she was dismayed by the racially stratified society and the poor working conditions she found in the territory. She and her husband left for the mainland after Pearl Harbor, but not before Ms. Sawyer had obtained her Hawai'i law license. While working at the War Labor Board in Washington, she met Harry Bridges, president of the International Longshoreman's Workers Union, a labor union that had organized extensively in California and Hawai'i. In 1946, the ILWU led its workers in the Hawai'i sugar plantations out on strike, and several hundred of the workers were incarcerated under Hawai'i's 1850 Unlawful Assembly and Riot Act, which was used to charge assembling workers with felonies. When the ILWU could not find a Hawai'i attorney to represent it, Sawyer, who had never tried a case before, was sent to the territory to represent these workers. Relying on then-novel constitutional arguments including the argument that the grand juries that indicted the workers were constitutionally invalid because they included no women Sawyer convinced the federal courts to stay the prosecutions in the cases, and they were all eventually dismissed.

Sawyer stayed in Hawai'i for the rest of her career as the ILWU's attorney. She was disbarred in 1952 for protesting the trial of most of the ILWU's leaders under the Smith Act, legislation that had been passed specifically to deport Harry Bridges and which made it a crime to belong to an organization that advocated the overthrow of the United States government. The Act was used extensively in the McCarthy period against suspected Communists. The United States Supreme Court overturned her disbarment in 1959. An article in The Honolulu Advertiser notes that Sawyer "was credited with helping convert Hawai'i from a near-feudal society to one in which respect for civil liberties and workers' rights are paramount." Sawyer passed away on April 18.

NEWS FROM THE FACULTY

Lynne Henderson's article, "Co-Opting Compassion: The Federal Victim's Rights Amendment," appears in 10 St. Thomas Law Review 579 (1998).

NEWS FROM STUDENT AFFAIRS OFFICE

SENIOR GRADUATION MEETING

On Monday, September 21, at noon, in Room 121, there will be a meeting for 3Ls to discuss graduation activities, including composite picture taking, and to form committees to plan the events of graduation weekend.

SMOKING POLICY

Additional ashtrays have been placed in the southeast garden patio for smokers. Thanks again to all smokers for using this area. Once again, our policy prohibits smoking at the entrance areas to the student lounge, where there are numerous intake fans, and in the main door area off Indiana Avenue.

WRITING CONTESTS

For those of you writing research papers, check out the various writing contests that are posted outside Room 024. There are lucrative prizes to be won, as many of our former students can attest. In addition, you might get published in a journal that is not a household journal! See a complete list of these opportunities at: http://www.people.memphis.edu/~law/

LONDON CONSORTIUM PROGRAM

As of today, there are a few spaces remaining for students who might wish to go on our London program Spring Semester 1999. See Dean Fromm immediately if you might be interested.

GOLF OUTING

Everyone should have received information about the student/alum/faculty golf outing scheduled for Friday afternoon, October 2. See Dale in Room 024 if you need another application form. Remember, the deadline for submitting is Monday, September 28.

FACULTY COMMITTEES

SLA has extended its deadline for submission of applications for participation in Law School governance committees until Tuesday evening of this week. Get your application to their drop slot in the SLA bookstore office.

NEWS FROM CAREER SERVICES

Finding the Right Job outside the On-Campus Interview Program and Some Miscellaneous CSO Details

During the first weeks of the fall "on-campus interview" season, it may seem hard to believe job opportunities exist outside the realm of the large private firms and the federal agencies that are scheduled to come to interview students at the school. But a variety of other rewarding alternatives do exist smaller private firms; firms from distant cities; public interest organizations; federal, state, and local governments; and corporations and consulting firms. These employers typically do not interview on campus, but the Law School possesses resources that can help you find them.

The school has successfully recruited more employers to interview on campus than in other recent years. But the fact will remain that the majority of students will need to use strategies in addition to on-campus interviews to secure employment. So, the question naturally arises: How do the other students find permanent, post-graduation legal employment?

The answer is that students use a whole range of job-search tactics some suggested by the Career Services Office, some by faculty, and some by friends or other IU graduates and that they look for and find jobs that are remarkably varied. The Career Services Office supports the entire range of job search tactics.

Resources of the Career Services Office

In addition to organizing and orchestrating the on-campus interview program, the Office maintains an extensive range of materials about jobs, types of practice, and databases of potential employers that it "updates" periodically. Every first-year student gets an orientation to the Office, and the Office has guides who explain the contents of the library and databases designed to help users.

Students use the guides and databases in the Office to find prospective employers (including agencies and judges), to find potential grants to finance their non-profit projects, and to make contacts to assist them in creating a network to support their job searches (more on this issue below), and in pounding the pavement (more on this issue below, also).

Both Kathleen Austin and Christine Rodden are available to answer students' questions about job searches, etc.

Career Exploration

The Law School offers a wide array of Career Exploration opportunities, including seminars on specific areas of practice sponsored by the Office; supervised clinical experiences through the school's Community Legal Clinic, Children's Advocacy Clinic, Inmate Legal Assistance Clinic, and Protective Order Project; and the summer internship program in federal and state government or with federal or state judges that Deans Lauren Robel and Len Fromm organize.

In addition, the Office posts part-time employment opportunities for students that cover virtually all types of public and private practice legal environments, including work in surrounding counties with prosecutors and judges, and with various children's advocacy groups.

Networking

Every year some students find their summer positions or post-graduation employment by using networks of friends, IU graduates, and friends of friends or graduates. These networks begin with the student asking a small number of people they may know about their practice of law and the opportunities in that practice area, or with the student asking the initial group of persons for names of individuals and employers they might approach to discuss employment opportunities in particular fields telecommunications, health law, Indian law, child advocacy, education law, management consulting, etc. Networks often lead directly to a job: I recently heard one student share a lead for a local law firm with another student at the Women's Law Caucus party.

The Office has both a guide to networking and a videotape of faculty and students showing former students how to create a job-search network.

Pounding the Pavement

Every year some students launch searches for cities they like (Chicago, St. Louis, Orlando, San Antonio, Santa Fe, Seattle, Denver, San Francisco) and find jobs strictly through research and perseverance. Although sometimes aided by IU alumni/ae in the respective city, some of these students send cold letters, call and schedule interviews with prospective employers, and otherwise explore every job lead they come upon until they get a job.

Some students prudently start this process by scheduling informational interviews in person in the city or cities they are considering, beginning early in the year. Personal visits to cities, particularly distant locations, help to persuade potential employers that the student is serious about finding employment in that city.

If you are interested in any one of these job-search strategies, please see Kathleen Austin or Christine Rodden in the CSO. In addition, the CSO is in the process of scheduling some seminars for students that it sponsors on an annual basis. Two of these may be of particular interest: (1) on a date yet to be announced, Professor Francie Hill of the Child Advocacy Clinic will discuss employment opportunities in state and local government in Indiana with a focus on children's issues; and (2) in October or early November, a panel of recent graduates currently clerking for judges will discuss the values of clerking and the clerkship application process. Faculty typically follow the clerkship seminar with an additional briefing session for those students who plan to apply; this session typically happens in late November. If you are interested in children's issues or clerking, please hold your general questions until the pertinent seminar.

NEWS FROM STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

ACLU STUDENT CHAPTER MEETING

The IU Student Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union will hold its first meeting on Thurs., Sept. 24, at Kilroy's on Kirkwood at 5:30p.m. This will be a quick meeting to focus our agenda and accept nominations for officers. All interested persons are encouraged to attend. If you cannot make it but are interested, please contact Dave at 336-1997 or via e-mail at dfineber@indiana.edu.

INTERNATIONAL LAW ASSOCIATION

Brown Bag with Professor Delbruck on Wed., September 23, at 12 noon in Room120. Professor Delbruck's talk is "To Defend or Not To Defend: The Bombings in Sudan and Afghanistan." Bring your lunch drinks and cookies provided.

LOTUS FESTIVAL & ILA

The Bloomington Lotus (World Music and Arts) Festival runs September 23 27 at various venues around town. On Saturday, September 26, "Lotus Outdoors" (a free concert) will take place from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Dunn Meadow (7th & Indiana). ILA members and other interested students will be attending the event together. If you are interested in attending the concert as a group, meet in the law lobby at 2:30 p.m., and we'll walk over together.

OUTLAW

Outlaw, IU Law's gay and lesbian student organization, will hold its cocktail hour organizational meeting on Thursday, September 24, at 6:30. Tentatively, the meeting will be held in the Faculty Lounge on the second floor. Come meet with students who are interested in the issues affecting gays and lesbians, including workplace discrimination, same-sex adoption, and military recruitment at the Law School. Meetings are open to all Law School students, faculty, and staff who are interested in these issues, regardless of sexual orientation.

PUBLIC INTEREST LAW FOUNDATION

PILF will have a meeting on Tuesday, September 22 at 12:15 in Room 120. Chris Rodden will speak about Pro Bono Students of America, a program which helps arrange short-term internships for law students. Hope to see you there!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

GRANT OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENTS

There is a potential grant opportunity for any students wishing to travel to Spain, Portugal, or Latin America (defined as including from Mexico to Brazil) for short-term research purposes. The IU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies is now applying for an institutional Tinker Foundation Field-Research Grant, which would pay for all of the travel expenses for such research trips. The grant application is due on October 1, so time is extremely short. The grant awards will be announced no later than January 1. Any interested students should see Professor Hoffmann as soon as possible (and no later than Wednesday, September 23). This opportunity applies not only to American JD students, but also to international graduate students (even if they would be conducting research in their own home countries).

OUTREACH FOR LEGAL LITERACY

Students interested in teaching in fifth-grade classrooms should contact Professor Orenstein at avivaorenstein@ law.indiana.edu. Openings are still available. First-year law students are welcome. Commitment enstails 1-2 hours per week. More information will appear in the next issue of ILA.

MOOT COURT BRIEF DEADLINE

Just a reminder to the Sherman Minton Moot Court competition participants: the deadline to turn in your briefs is Friday, October 9, at noon.

MOOT COURT PARTICIPANTS NOTE THE PITFALLS OF APPELLATE BRIEF WRITING

Matt Gutwein will speak about the common pitfalls in brief writing on Monday, September 21. The discussion is presented by the Moot Court Board and will take place at 7:00 p.m. in Room 125.

Mr. Gutwein is a top graduate of our law school (Class of 1988) and went on to a clerkship with the Honorable Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Diego, CA. He then joined Onek, Klein & Farr, a leading Supreme Court litigation firm in Washington, DC. After that firm dissolved, Mr. Gutwein moved back to Indiana, where he has served as an appellate litigator with the Indiana Attorney General's Office and as Counsel to Indiana Governor Evan Bayh. Mr. Gutwein is now with the law firm of Baker & Daniels and will be teaching a class on Civil Rights at the Law School during Spring 1999 semester. Mr. Gutwein has spoken to Moot Court participants in previous years and uses a unique approach in relaying the common mistakes to avoid.

This discussion will be useful not only to the current Moot Court competition participants, but also to all students with an interest in improving their brief writing skills.

ATTENTION 1Ls

A recruiting questionnaire has been placed in your mail slots. This information is very helpful to the Admissions Office in many ways, including recruiting efforts and determining areas that can be improved upon and expanded. Please take a few minutes to complete the form and leave it in the drop box as designated. Thank you for your suggestions and cooperation.

EVENTS & LECTURES

PANEL ON IMPEACHMENT PROCESS OCTOBER 1

What does the constitution have to say about the impeachment process? What do we know about the law of impeachment and what is unsettled? Join Professors Baude, Bradley, and Conkle in the Moot Court Room on Thursday, October 1, at noon, for an informal brown bag on these issues.

AROUND CAMPUS

The Institute for Biblical and Literary Study is pleased to announce a lecture, "American Biblicism, Civic Religion, and the First Amendment," by David Lyle Jeffrey, F.R.S.C., Professor of English, University of Ottawa, on Monday, September 28, at 4 p.m. in Ballantine Hall, Room 310.

David Jeffrey is a distinguished medievalist who has worked extensively in the field of biblical interpretation, most notably as general editor and principal contributor to the monumental Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (1992). His many publications include volumes on The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, Chaucer and Scriptural Tradition, and, most recently, People of the Book: Christian Identity and Literary Culture.

AROUND TOWN

David L. Schanker, a 1993 Law School graduate, has combined his love of law and writing and his observations of life in Indianapolis in the creation of his first novel, A Criminal Appeal. Schanker appeared at Barnes and Noble here in Bloomington on Saturday, September 19 from 2 to 4 p.m., to sign copies of the book, recently published by St. Martin's Press.

Originally from New Jersey, Schanker obtained a master's degree in creative writing from Columbia University and stayed in New York for several years as a writer before coming to IU. He now practices malpractice and insurance fraud law in Indianapolis.

CALENDAR

Monday, September 21, Sherman Minton Moot Court Board presents a discussion with Matt Gutwein on the common pitfalls of brief writing, 7:00 p.m. in Room 125.

Tuesday, September 22, PILF meeting, 12:15 p.m. in Room 120.

Wednesday, September 23, Brown Bag with Delbruck, 12 noon in Room 120.

Thursday, September 24, ACLU Meeting, 5:30 p.m., Kilroy's on Kirkwood.

Thursday, September 24, Outlaw cocktail organizational meeting, 6:30 p.m., tentatively in the Faculty Lounge.

Saturday, September 26, Lotus Outdoors, 2:30 p.m. in the Law lobby.

Friday, October 9, Sherman Minton Moot Court Competition briefs due, 12:00.

Updated: 18 September 1998