Winter 2022

@UMICHLAW

@UMICHLAW: Winter 2022

Constitution Day in the Quad

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson

The Law School welcomed Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to Hutchins Hall to speak about her experience in state government and the importance of election security and voting rights, among other topics. The Constitution Day event was moderated by Richard Friedman, the Alene and Allan F. Smith Professor of Law, and is held at Michigan Law every September to commemorate the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787.

Remembering 9/11

Remembering 9/11

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Law School hosted a panel organized by the U-M Donia Human Rights Center that examined the attack’s lasting impact on victims and for individuals caught up in the counter-terrorism initiatives that followed the event. The panel was moderated by Steven Ratner, the Bruno Simma Collegiate Professor of Law and the director of the Donia Center, and included commentary from Visiting Professor of Law Karima Bennoune, who is the special rapporteur on cultural rights at the United Nations and the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis.

Faculty News

  • Monica Hakimi, the James V. Campbell Professor of Law, has been named one of two editors-in-chief of the American Journal of International Law. Hakimi teaches and writes on public international law and U.S. foreign relations law. The appointment is effective in April 2022.
  • Catherine A. MacKinnon, the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law, was one of only two women included on a recent list of the most cited legal scholars of all time, according to new research published in The University of Chicago Law Review. MacKinnon is number 40 on the list, which was compiled by a librarian from Yale Law School.
  • Professor from Practice Barbara McQuade, ’91, a former federal prosecutor, and Professor of Law Alicia Davis, who teaches and writes in the fields of corporate governance, capital markets, and mergers and acquisitions, were named to Crain’s Detroit Business’s 100 Most Influential Women, a list that is compiled every five years.
  • Margo Schlanger, the Wade H. and Dores M. McCree Collegiate Professor of Law, has been nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If confirmed, she will take a leave of absence from Michigan Law to lead the USDA’s anti-discrimination efforts in program delivery and the treatment of employees. Schlanger founded Michigan Law’s Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, a national repository of information about large-scale civil rights cases.
  • David M. Uhlmann, the Jeffrey F. Liss Professor from Practice and the director of the Environmental Law and Policy Program, has been nominated by President Biden to serve as assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. If confirmed, he will lead federal criminal, civil, and administrative enforcement of environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, hazardous waste laws, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Luis C.deBaca
Luis C.deBaca

Luis C.deBaca, ’93, Joins Michigan Law Faculty

Luis C.deBaca, ’93, a diplomat who served in the Obama administration as ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons and as director of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking, has returned to Ann Arbor to join the Law School’s faculty. For the past two years, C.deBaca has been a lecturer at Yale Law School and the Yale School of Architecture, and Senior Fellow in Modern Slavery at Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. 

Following his graduation from the Law School, C.deBaca joined the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division through the Attorney General’s Honors Program, where he investigated and prosecuted cases of police misconduct, hate crimes, and involuntary servitude/slavery. He later served as counsel to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. From 2009 to 2014, C.deBaca served as ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons. In 2017, he retired from the Department of Justice as one of the country’s most decorated federal prosecutors. 

C.deBaca has been active in the Hispanic National Bar Association, on police reform initiatives, and as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A graduate of Iowa State University with an emphasis on rural communities, C.deBaca was an editor of the Michigan Law Review and chair of the Latino Law Students Association during his studies at Michigan.

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Law at the Bottom of the Earth

Ted Kill, ’07, covered a lot of ground between Michigan Law and his arrival in Antarctica, when he travelled to the continent as part of an interagency federal government inspection team. His journey to the bottom of the earth started with a clerkship at the International Court of Justice that he secured through Michigan Law, which served as a bridge to joining the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser. 

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