News in Brief: Spring 2016

The Future University Community

Title of colloquium to be organized and overseen by Martha S. Jones in conjunction with the University’s 2017 bicentennial celebration. Jones— Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, professor of history, Afroamerican, and African studies, and adjunct professor of law—was named one of five Presidential Bicentennial Professors.

At the dinner table during the holidays, I always set a plate for him.

Delores Monson, mother of Michigan Innocence Clinic client Lamarr Monson. The Clinic is seeking a new trial for him.

Students smiling, and cheering at the student funded fellowship auction

$59,055

is the amount raised at the 2016 SFF Auction in support of 1l summer funding

The [Entrepreneurship] Clinic gave me a foundation in legal concepts that I draw on every day in my practice, such as the protection of intellectual property and the difference between employees and contractors, and introduced me to startup ecosystem players like accelerators and venture capital firms.

Lyman Thai, ’12, an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California.

149

is the record-high number of exonerations in the United States in 2015, averaging three per week. A record 58 defendants were exonerated in homicide cases, averaging more than one a week, according to Michigan Law's National Registry of Exonerations.

Although it strikes many people as odd and ill-suited or a poor fit for our system of government, it is what it is, and sovereign immunity is definitely a vibrant part of the law.

Professor Gil Seinfeld in The Washington Post about why it will be difficult for residents of Flint, Michigan, to sue the state for reparations related to their lead-tainted water.

I can personally see that we are getting closer to a more fair and equitable society.

—Broderick Johnson, ’83, chair of the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force, and cabinet secretary and assistant to President Obama, during a talk at the University in February.

Four

Skadden Fellowships awarded to Michigan Law students and graduates this year, the most the Law School has received in the Fellowship’s more than 25 years of existence. 3Ls Cari Carson, Julie Kornfeld, and Amanda Merkwae, along with Charlie Gerstein, ’13, were awarded the prestigious fellowships for 2016. Michigan Law has had 33 Skadden Fellows since the program began.

Mini-seminars taught at Michigan Law professors’ homes this year

Collecting Art: Museums and the Law
Change the Law!
Detroit: Pre- and Post-Bankruptcy
Elizabeth Warren and Financial Reform
A$$#*&%s, Bull$#!t, and the Law
Wellness for Lawyers
Contagion
Outsiders: Memoir and the Fault Lines of Identity
The Stories Behind the Supreme Court Cases
Theater and the Moral Foundations of the Law
#EmploymentLaw: Employment Law and Social Media
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Does International Law Matter?
The Wire
Anatomy of a Supreme Court Case
Career Paths in Public Interest Law
Law(yer)-Bashing and the Rule of Law

2L Alexis Bailey Brings Military Experience to the Veterans Legal Clinic

Basic training. A highly regimented schedule. A litany of demanding and sometimes demeaning rules designed to break down underclassmen so they can be built back up again as a unit, a team. Very little about the Air Force Academy is easy. If you’re 2L Alexis Bailey, there’s also the September 11 attacks, which happened when she was a sophomore.