Newsletter: Vol. 7, Issue 2, August 2021

Newsletter: Vol. 7, Issue 2, August 2021

From the Director

Greetings from the Stewart Center on the Global Legal Profession. Since our last newsletter, we have been extremely busy with several projects that we are eager to share with you. In addition, we are so excited that we will be back in person this fall! We have a number of initiatives that we are planning at the Law School, and below is a preview of them, along with a summary of the other important work that several of our colleagues have been doing lately. Please stay safe and well.

Jayanth Krishnan
Milt and Judi Stewart Professor of Law
Director, Milt and Judi Stewart Center on the Global Legal Profession

Update on 2021 Stewart Fellows

Lara Gose continues to do an outstanding job administering the Stewart Fellows Global Externship Program, which because of the pandemic, had to once again provide remote summer internships for our students. The students worked at a range of internationally situated offices, including with three new employers for 2021: Helsinki Foundation (Warsaw, Poland), DLA Piper-Budapest (Hungary), and CTA Tocantins Pacheco Advogados (São Paulo, Brazil). Thirteen JD students were part of the 2021 Stewart Fellows class.

Immigration continues as a Center focal point

The Center remains committed to examining the different ways that American immigration policy is affecting so many non-citizens who continue to struggle at the border and within the country. We have released papers on the difficulty non-citizens have in accessing counsel, with the asylum system, and in obtaining domestic-violence visas.

Our latest research looks at the American Samoan community, and how these individuals have been denied citizenship by Congress and the federal courts, despite being born on a U.S. territory. The paper argues that this group deserves citizenship and examines how a series of immigration precedent lends support for their claim. The study will appear in the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal in early 2022.

Additionally, we plan to host a series of immigration talks this year, including having leading immigration scholar Professor Ingrid Eagly (UCLA) serve as our distinguished Fuchs Lecture speaker in April.

Additional funding received

The Center is pleased to announce that we were recently awarded a grant to support the 10th International Summer School "Future Lawyers and Economists: Essential Skills to Success" to be held on August 19-28, 2021 at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University. The grant will allow us to provide innovative skills-focused courses in English to Russian students of law. The IKBFU summer school also celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, and we look forward to participating in this event with our colleagues in Kaliningrad.

Tribute to legal profession scholar published

An essay marking the groundbreaking contributions of Professor Marc Galanter (University of Wisconsin–Madison), a pioneer of the legal profession and the law and society movement, was recently written by Professor Krishnan. This work will be featured as part of a symposium hosted by the University of Chicago Law Review. The essay can be found here.

Legal profession graduate student earns SJD

Rowland Atta-Kesson, a highly respected lawyer from Ghana and affiliate with the Center, earned his doctorate from the Law School in May. Dr. Atta-Kesson wrote a terrific dissertation entitled "Corporatizing Administrative Law for Economic Constitutionalism In Ghana: An African Legal Study." His thesis argued that lawyers, in large part, are crucial actors necessary for establishing a more efficient bureaucracy in Ghana. Dr. Atta-Kesson’s doctoral committee consisted of Professors Krishnan (chair), Fred Aman, and Dan Cole.

Individual highlights

Several of our Center’s colleagues have been extremely productive on work relating to the bar, bench, and law and society more broadly. Here are samples of their influence.

• Professor Kenneth Dau-Schmidt is publishing an article spearheaded by Professor Kevin Brown entitled, "Does US Federal Employment Law Cover Caste Discrimination Based on Untouchability: Then there is the Bostock v. Clayton County Approach," 46 N.Y.U. REV. OF LAW & SOC. CHANGE (forthcoming 2022). The article is the first major one that does a comprehensive analysis of the ways that caste discrimination is covered by existing federal employment discrimination law. Professor Dau-Schmidt and Professor Kaushik Mukhopadhaya have just had a second article accepted for publication in the Journal of the Legal Profession. The article is titled "Men and Women of the Bar: A Second Look at the Impact of Gender on Legal Careers." The 6th edition of Professor Dau-Schmidt's employment law book, Legal Protection for the Individual Employee, was just published by West.
• Prof. Charles Gardner Geyh and co-authors James Alfini and James Sample published the 6th edition of their treatise, Judicial Conduct and Ethics. His article, "The Architecture of Judicial Ethics," is scheduled for publication in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review later this year. His paper, "The Twilight of Judicial Independence," which he delivered as the Frank Battisti memorial lecture at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law last year, will be published by the Case Western Reserve Law Review this fall. He wrote an entry entitled "The Challenge of Judicial Independence," for The Constitution in 5 Minutes (David Klein & Joseph Smith eds., forthcoming, Equinox Publishing), and The Conversation solicited him to write an op-ed on the role of the federal courts in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
• During the spring 2021 semester, Lara Gose developed and co-taught a course that is part of the new Learning and Working (LAW) LLM Program through the Office of Graduate Legal Studies and International Programs. She also participated in two training events sponsored by the Center’s partner in Russia, the Center on the Development of Legal Clinics: one in Nizhny Novgorod (November 2020) and the other in Samara (May 2021). At the training in Samara, she also was part of a round table discussion on administrative and professorial roles in US and Russian legal education. In August she will teach a professional formation course in the Baltic Federal University Summer School for Law Students.
• Professor William D. Henderson continues his work with the Institute for the Future of Law Practice (IFLP, “I-flip”), as well as writing and editing for Legal Evolution, an online publication focused on legal innovation. One of his most recent posts reviewed Positively Conflicted, a book by lawyer-mediator Sam Ardery, '83, that Professor Henderson describes as “the right book for any lawyer seeking a rich and fulfilling life, which is a larger category than one’s career.”
• Professor Shruti Rana has been working with Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) leaders throughout the state of Indiana to address hostility and violence against AAPI Hoosiers. On March 11 she was a guest on the program Advocacy in the AAPI Community on WFHB Radio. On March 22 she was interviewed on anti-AAPI hate crimes on NPR affiliate WFYI radio on All IN. On March 25 she was a panelist for "Legal, Global, and Personal Reflections on the Atlanta Murders," hosted by the Maurer School of Law and the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Affairs. On March 29 she was interviewed about Asian American legal history on the Ricky Jones Show (iHeartMedia), and on April 20, she was interviewed on anti-AAPI hate crimes by WISH-TV. Professor Rana also recently published "Seismic Shifts: The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Gendered Fault Lines and Implications for International Law," in the Australian Year Book of International Law, Volume 39 (special issue 2021).
• Professor Carwina Weng participated in two events sponsored by our Russian partner, the Center on the Development of Legal Clinics, at Lomonosov Moscow State University. The first event, on May 29, was a round table on clinical legal education to discuss innovations and trending issues in clinical education, which drew participants from all over Russia, the United States, Brazil, and India. Then, on June 18, she participated in a recorded session called “Access to the Legal Professions in Different Countries,” to discuss how different countries control entry to the legal professions through education, licensing, and ethics. Professor Weng also will be teaching in August at the 10th International Summer School, "Future Lawyers and Economists: Essential Skills to Success," to be held at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University. She will also serve as the acting director of the Ronald A. Peterson Clinic at Seattle University School of Law in the 2021–22 academic year.