News in Brief: Fall 2017

Celebrating Lutie Lytle

Michigan Law hosted the 11th Annual Lutie A. Lytle Black Women Law Faculty Workshop and Writing Retreat in July. The seven-day event—which combines professional development and networking with opportunities for focused writing and peer feedback—celebrates Lytle, one of the first women law professors in the United States. It was conceived by Michigan Law alumna Angela Onwuachi-Willig, ’97, the Chancellor’s Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and is hosted at a different law school each year. This was the conference’s first time in Ann Arbor; Professor Laura Beny was the Lutie Lytle host.

The newest members of the Michigan Law family

began their 1L year by participating in Service Day at locations throughout Detroit, after a welcome address by Mayor Michael Duggan, ‘83. Even the famed Spirit of Detroit statue featured some maize and blue in honor of U-M’s bicentennial.

Moot Court speaker speaking behind podium

Campbell Champ

Current 3L Joshua Rothenberg won the 92nd annual Henry M. Campbell Moot Court Competition in April. Brian Dressel, ’17, was the runner-up.

Summer Employment

Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Ecuador, England, Germany, Italy, Japan, Laos, Qatar, South Korea

Foreign countries where 1Ls and 2Ls completed summer employment opportunities in 2017

Legal Writing Contest Recipients posing with awards

3Ls Helen Marie Berg and Adam Kleven won the Detroit Bar Association’s Legal Scholar Writing Contest. Their paper, which they wrote for Michigan Law’s Detroit Litigation Advocacy Workshop, focused on how the City of Detroit can use litigation strategies to end blight. Berg and Kleven were presented the award at the Detroit Bar’s annual meeting in June.

2017 Fiske Fellows Named

The 2017 Fiske Fellows had an opportunity to meet their benefactor, Bob Fiske, ’55, HLLD ’97, in Ann Arbor in April.

Pictured with Fiske are Fellows (left to right) Andrew Sand, ’15, an assistant general counsel in the Office of the General Counsel, Federal Bureau of Investigation; Danielle Angeli, ’16, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, general crimes unit; Sommer Engels, ’16, an honors attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice’s environment and natural resources division, appellate section; and Matt Evans, ‘15, a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s environment and natural resources division, environmental crimes section.

The Fiske Fellowship Program encourages recent graduates to pursue positions as government lawyers. The Fellowship pays both college and law school debt for three years plus a stipend.

Alexandra Kemmerer, who is the scientific adviser and coordinator at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Berlin, and Eric Stein’s biographer, wrote a column in June for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about archiving the late professor’s Michigan Law office.

“The door opened, and out of books, notes, pamphlets, boxes, and cases there was a legacy. As I entered the office of the legal scholar Eric Stein in the Law Quadrangle of the University of Michigan on a cold October day in 2011, everything seemed familiar—and yet strange. The smell of yellowed pages and dusty books lingered in the dry air from the heating system. I had often sat on the old sofa that was covered with files, reprints, and stacks of photocopies, in front of the stain[ed] glass window, underneath diplomas and honorary certificates lined up along a narrow strip of wall. But the protagonist, the master of all these printings and writings—he was missing. Eric Stein had died that summer.”

High Bar

Nine alumni became members of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court in April.

They are, from left to right: Richard Burns, ’71; Herbert Kohn, ’63; Kevyn Orr, ’83; May Liang, ’89; Anton Natsis, ’83; Matt Nolan, ’06; Carla Schwartz Newell, ’85; Sean Grimsley, ’00; and Paul Astolfi, ’00. Pictured with the inductees is John Nannes, ’73 (front row, middle), who moved for their admission to the Court.

Cabinet Meeting

Broderick Johnson, ’83, leveraged former co-worker and alumni connections when he asked Valerie Jarrett, ’81, to co-teach a November meeting of his Government Relations Practicum at Michigan Law. In addition to being law school contemporaries, Johnson and Jarrett both served in high-ranking roles in the Obama administration: Johnson was assistant to the president and cabinet secretary, and Jarrett was Obama’s senior adviser.

A2 ➔ Azerbaijan

2L Hira Baig, dual-degree student Omar El-Halwagi, and 1L Andrew Bulovsky were among 50 students from around the world who were selected to attend the inaugural Global Young Leaders Forum, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in August. To be an invited participant, individuals needed to represent a major national or international scholarship, or be a young entrepreneur already making their mark on the world. Baig and El-Halwagi were Truman Scholars; Bulovsky was a Marshall Scholar.

Michigan Law Alumni

Seven were appointed as deans of U.S. law schools in 2016–2017.

They are Richard Bierschbach, ’97, Wayne State University; Michael T. Cahill, ‘99, Rutgers Law School–Camden; Heather Gerken, ’94, Yale University; William P. Johnson, ’01, Saint Louis University; Michael J. Kaufman, ’83, Loyola University Chicago; Eric Mitnick, ‘91, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; and Christopher J. Peters, ’92, the University of Akron.

Nannes 3L Challenge

74% of 3Ls and LLMs participated in the Nannes 3L Challenge, which encourages students to commit to making a gift to the Law School Fund in each of the first four years after they graduate. In exchange, students can designate $250 to the student organization or journal of their choice, thanks to the generosity of John Nannes, ’73. More than $56,000 for student groups was raised during this year’s challenge.

Law Quad Pavers: 23,960+

The square footage of the ashlar bluestone pavers—roughly half the size of a football field—that are replacing the slate pavers in the Law Quad as part of the walkways construction project.