Quick viewing(Text Mode)

COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL Magazine Winter 2009

COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL Magazine Winter 2009

IN THE CITY OF

Columbia Law School 435 West 116th Street, Box A-2 New York, NY 10027 Magazine

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE Miller’s Time Bankruptcy attorney Harvey Miller ’59 Courting brings his immeasurable Controversy talents to Faculty experts talk to bear on the Adam Liptak about the challenges of Supreme Court’s use of foreign legal precedent an economic downturn Partners in Change The Law School celebrates 100 years of the NAACP

Winter 2009

60602_cvr.indd 2 4/15/09 3:36 PM Up Next: The International Law Issue Arriving this spring

Check out our new website law.columbia.edu/magazine

On the Web Exclusive photos, commenting, web-only content, and more

We want to hear from you! Send us an email and tell us what you think at [email protected]

60602_cvr.indd 3 4/15/09 3:36 PM From thèDean

On February 6, 2009, Dean David M. Schizer spoke at the 60th annual Winter Luncheon, where he honored both Jerome Greene ’28, ’83 HON and Steven Epstein ’68 with the Law School’s highest award: the Medal for Excellence. An edited version of those remarks appears below.

“Since 1964, Columbia Law School’s most distinguished School. It’s a name familiar to every graduate and alumni have been recognized with the Medal for Excel- professor who has graced our halls over the past two lence. The medal is awarded to those whose professional decades: Jerome L. Greene. I regret never having gotten achievements reflect the qualities of character, intellect, to know Jerry personally, as our school, our university, and social and professional responsibility fostered by and our city suffered a profound loss on May 27, 1999, Columbia Law School . . . generously drawing upon their when he passed away at the age of 93. Today we talents and wisdom in support of civic altruism. Steven posthumously award our highest honor to this dedicated Epstein and the late Jerome Greene join a prestigious New Yorker, an ardent Columbian who believed in the list of past medalists, including William O. Douglas ’25, transformative power of giving. U.S. Supreme Court Justice ’59, You already know that our flagship building, the heart and Gerry Lenfest ’58. of Columbia Law School’s intellectual and student life, We could not be more proud. bears his name. You may also be aware that he has been Steven Epstein is a towering figure in the field of a committed benefactor to his alma mater, providing a health care law. He has been called the father of the vast and broad range of support to the university in the health care industry. He has written a book on health law, form of scholarships, professorships, bricks and mortar, and, fortunately for the Law School, he teaches a course and research funding. You may not know, however, that on the subject for us. In 1973, Steven founded the firm of Jerry has enhanced the health and welfare of millions of Epstein, Becker & Green, one of the world’s premier law people whom he will never meet, ensuring their promise firms in health care law, and the firm has grown to 400 for a brighter future through his extraordinary generosity in 10 cities. Steven has a unique ability to help to education and the arts, to medicine, and to the whole people find common ground, and to cut to the heart of of our society. a complex issue so that he can help resolve it. For wise Jerome Greene credited his Law School experience and thoughtful counsel, there is no better source. I know with providing him the tools that made his success as an this from personal experience, because Steven serves as attorney and real estate investor possible, leaving him the chair of our Board of Visitors. His leadership of our with a deeply felt desire to give back. A towering figure Board is inspired. The group is energized, and under his in the lives of many, Jerome Greene’s exceptional leadership, every year, it plays a more central role in the intellect, unique vision, and unwavering commitment to life of the school. social responsibility continue to sustain and inspire us.” [In addition to honoring Mr. Epstein,] it is with admiration and respect that we pay tribute to a man whose name is indelibly linked to Columbia Law

Watch a video of the Winter Luncheon medal presentations. view more law.columbia.edu/mag/excellence-09

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 1

60602_txt.indd 1 4/15/09 3:26 PM Tableof Contents:

58 16 departments

5 16 20 21 22 NEWS & EVENTS SEE ALSO SETTING THE BAR FACULTY FOCUS PROFILES IN Olga Kaplan, Julius Comparative Corporate Climate Change, SCHOLARSHIP Chen, Mia Marie White, Governance, Michael B. Gerrard Elizabeth S. Scott Mathias Oleskow Jeffrey N. Gordon

52 58 LONDON CALLING 64 JUVENILE JUSTICE FACULTY BY DAVID NICHOLSON BY JEFFREY A. FAGAN PUBLICATIONS Susan Liautaud ’89 Taking a hard look at the uses her business practice of sentencing 56 knowledge and juvenile offenders to ALUMNI PROFILES regulatory savvy death in prison. to help nonprofit MILLER’S TIME organizations around MILLER’SBY PETER TIME KIEFER the world get the BYBankruptcy’s PETER KIE FforemostER most out of their Bankruptcy’s expert, Harvey Miller limited resources. foremost expert, ’59, finds inspiration in Harvey Miller ’59, 60 REAL IMPACT the challenges of an finds inspiration in BY BEN McGRATH economic downturn the challenges of an Thanks to a storied, and continues to economic downturn eventful career in build on an already 66 TRANSPLANTING and continues to real estate, Richard unparalleled career. LEGAL SYSTEMS build on an already Richman ’72 has risen BY KATHARINA PISTOR unparalleled career. to the top of Efforts to mirror his profession. or transplant legal systems from other 62 countries face a AT ISSUE ESSAYS host of obstacles. 62 SECURITIES REGULATION 68 56 BY JOHN C. COFFEE JR. CLASS NOTES Discussions about more effective regulation 88 IN MEMORIAM of the U.S. securities industry often involve 92 a tug-of-war between QUESTIONS rules-based and PRESENTED principles-based systems. George Pataki ’70

2 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 2 4/15/09 3:26 PM 24

features

24 34 THE COURT AT A COMMON A CROSSROADS PURPOSE BY ADAM LIPTAK BY PAULA SPAN The Supreme Court In celebration of the NAACP’s justices differ sharply 100-year anniversary, a on whether foreign law detailed look at the links THE DIAMOND CLUB should be considered and connections that BY JOSH LEVIN when interpreting the bind this groundbreaking Thanks to six alumni who U.S. Constitution. Should organization with decided to trade in fantasy the Court shield itself Columbia Law School. leagues for the real from legal developments thing, Columbia Law outside America, or is 44 School has major league there light at the end ORDER IN THE connections to the world of of the tunnel when it COURT? professional baseball. comes to the use of MODERATED BY foreign law? JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN Because of Barack 30 Obama’s victory in ’08, the FUELING CHANGE liberal-conservative split BY LAURA SAUNDERS on the Supreme Court will In an effort to address likely hold steady in the national security and coming years. But Obama’s 40 climate change concerns, election could impact Law School Dean David the Court in other ways. M. Schizer unveils an Professors Greene, Metzger, innovative tax proposal Monaghan, and Morrison that would help curb discuss what lies ahead for America’s dependence the SCOTUS during the on gasoline. new president’s tenure.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 3

60602_txt.indd 3 4/15/09 3:26 PM Columbia Law School Magazine

Dean david m. schizer Associate Dean for Development and Alumni Relations bruno m. santonocito Executive Director of Communications and Public Affairs elizabeth schmalz Editor matthew j.x. malady Editorial Director james vescovi Managing Editor joy y. wang Assistant Editor mary johnson Copy Editor lauren pavlakovich Design and Art Direction baker koppel associates Printing maar printing service, inc.

Columbia Law School Magazine is published three times annually for alumni and friends of Columbia Law School by the Office of Development and Alumni Relations.

Opinions expressed in Columbia Law School Magazine do not necessarily reflect the views of Columbia Law School or Columbia University.

This magazine is printed on FSC certified paper.

Change of address information should be sent to: columbia law school 435 West 116 Street, Box A-2 New York, NY 10027 Attn: Office of Alumni Relations

alumni office 212-854-2680

magazine notices 212-854-2650 [email protected]

Copyright 2009, Columbia Law School. All rights reserved.

now find us online! Visit law.columbia.edu/magazine

THROUGHOUT THE MAGAZINE, NEW ICONS ALLOW YOU TO SAY, DO, SEE, AND LEARN MORE.

Join the news & events One week before the the latter half of the Toobin predicted Toobin was the fi rst presidential election, 20th century—from the next vacancies on journalist to deliver Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s Brown v. Board of the Court would be the annual Rosenberg senior legal analyst and Education, which held Justices Ruth Bader Lecture, which is a staff writer for The school segregation Ginsburg ’59, David usually reserved for Conversation New Yorker, came to unconstitutional, to Souter, and John Paul judges and justices. Columbia Law School Bush v. Gore, which Stevens. And President Persily, who worked to review the Supreme effectively made , with the writer in 2002 Tell us what Court of the past and George W. Bush the he said, is likely to for a New Yorker article Go Beyond present and make a 43rd president of replace liberal-leaning on redistricting, said few prognostications the . departing justices with the decision to stray about the Court Toobin was selected, more of the same. was intentional. you think in our of the future. in part, for his intimate “Jeff Toobin has it “I thought it would be Explore Toobin, who was knowledge of the pretty much right,” said useful to get someone JEFFREY invited to the Law Supreme Court. The Columbia Law School who could speak TOOBIN School to deliver the writer penned the Professor Nathaniel about politics and the comments section 11th annual Maurice best-selling book The Persily, “in that we law,” said Persily, “and interactives DELIVERS Rosenberg Lecture, Nine, which takes a should see a relatively who would not be as ROSENBERG traced the history of behind-the-scenes balanced Court in the restrained as judges are LECTURE the Court through look at the Court. near future.” in talking about the law.” • related to Summit Promotes the the article Power of Technology to Change the World Professor Matthew Waxman fi rst pondered the The summit attracted international organizations potential for technology to combat violent extremism that had successfully used technology to advance Inaugural in 2007, while he was acting director for the their goals. Oscar Morales, of One Million Voices Summit State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. As Against the FARC, used Facebook to unite people aims to YouTube emerged as a forum for political debates around the world against an extremist group that inspire and Facebook became a conduit for political has been terrorizing Colombia for more than 40 action mobilization, Waxman’s brainstorming evolved years. Jamie Tworkowski, of To Write Love on Her into legitimate discussions and concrete actions, Arms, used Myspace to help almost 100,000 people culminating last December with the inaugural from 40 different countries fi nd resources to Alliance of Youth Movements Summit, hosted by cope with mental illness and drug abuse. One man, Columbia Law School. whose identity had to be kept secret for fear of The summit was organized by Howcast Media retribution in his native Egypt, was part of a group and sponsored by Facebook, Google, YouTube, that used Facebook to organize two protests against MTV, the U.S. State Department, and Access 360 the Egyptian government. Thousands of Media. Its goal was to produce a fi eld manual Egyptians joined the protests, but the government that will teach individuals, organizations, and reacted violently. Three people were killed, and View More governmental bodies how to harness digital media hundreds were detained. Simultaneously inspiring tools and inspire young people to act. and devastating, the protests marked the beginning “We at Columbia are excited about helping, of a movement within Egypt that is gaining , Watch videos, designing, and studying innovative public-private thanks to websites like Facebook. The Egyptian partnerships that leverage new technologies to tackle man assured his fellow activists at the summit that some of the world’s greatest challenges,” said the movement would not stop. browse slideshows, Waxman. “Those of us who teach and study law need “We are a country under occupation,” he said, to understand how communication technologies are “and we wish to have our freedom someday.” transforming politics both at home and abroad.” These stories and experiences are now available at Web and listen to audio youthmovements.howcast.com, an online hub that Discuss how digital media can spur change. will allow the next wave of social, political, or ideological join the conversation law.columbia.edu/mag/tech-summit organizers to learn from their predecessors. • Exclusive 8 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINE WINTER 2009 Read additional web-only profiles and articles

Send comments, letters to the editor, or class notes to [email protected] Letters to the editor and class notes may be edited for length and clarity.

correction note for 2008 annual report of donors: Columbia Law School gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Noah B. Perlman ’97 for his Dean’s Cabinet level gift in fiscal year 2008, which we erroneously omitted 4 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 from the 2008 Annual Report of Donors. We apologize for this oversight.

60602_txt.indd 4 4/15/09 3:26 PM News Events:

Eric H. Holder Jr. LAW SCHOOL ALUMNI EARN PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS

With key government Joining Holder in previously general coun- Proclaims positions to fill, President the new administration sel to the Department Columbia Law Barack Obama, a is fellow Covington & of the Air Force under School Day Columbia College Burling partner Lanny President Clinton. graduate, did not stray A. Breuer ’85, who was Antony “Tony” Blinken far from his alma mater. nominated as attorney ’88, the former staff To honor the Law Five Columbia Law general in charge of the director of the U.S. School’s 150th year, School alumni have Justice Department’s Senate Foreign Relations New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined the 44th president criminal division. Breuer, Committee, secured a issued a proclamation in his new administration. who has represented position within the ad- declaring October 25, Eric H. Holder Jr. ’76, President Clinton and ministration as national 2008, Columbia Law School Day. a partner at Covington baseball star Roger security advisor to Vice “Columbia Law & Burling in Washington, Clemens, could inherit President Joseph Biden. School has done as D.C., has become the a number of ongoing And drawing directly much as anyone to first African-American investigations, including from the Columbia Law ensure that the pillar of law upholds our attorney general of the the probe into the School faculty, Obama society, and today, we United States. Holder, Bernard Madoff selected Trevor W. are proud to celebrate who served as deputy scandal. Jeh C. Johnson Morrison ’98 to become Columbia Law’s attorney general under ’82, a partner in the associate counsel to 150th anniversary,” the proclamation President Clinton, said New York office of Paul, the president. In this reads. “We know that he looks forward to a Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton role, which requires a Columbia Law School few games of pickup & Garrison, returns to one-year public service 5 will continue nurturing basketball at the White government work as leave from Columbia, our best and brightest law school legal minds for many House. “I’m not sure general counsel of the Morrison will advise alumni years to come.” to serve in Obama [Obama’s] ready for my U.S. Department of the president on a range administration The honor New York game,” he joked. Defense. Johnson was of legal issues. • commemorates the long history the Law School has with New Discuss the challenges Holder faces as AG. York City—a history join the conversation law.columbia.edu/mag/obama-appt spanning from James Kent, Columbia’s first professor of law and one of the city’s first PROFESSOR PHILIP C. BOBBITT TALKS corporation counsels, to ABOUT COMBATING Michael Cardozo ’66, who is the city’s current Professor Philip Bobbitt recently addressed students and faculty on the corporation counsel. • subject of international terrorism, challenging the audience to rethink its assumptions about war, extremism, and international law in a lecture titled “Can We Combat International Terrorism Consistently with International Law, the U.S. Constitution, and American Values?” “We used to think victory is the defeat of the enemy, like in chess or football,” said Bobbitt, the Herbert Wechsler Professor of Jurisprudence. “I win, you lose. It’s not so anymore.” •

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 5

60602_txt.indd 5 4/15/09 3:26 PM news & events Columbia Law School Convenes Annual Tax Conference AT COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL’S RECENT TAX CONFERENCE, LEGISLATORS, EXPERTS, AND PRACTITIONERS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY GATHERED TO ANALYZE GROUNDBREAKING NEW PROPOSALS AND POLICIES. THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE IS SPONSORED BY THE CHARLES E. GERBER TRANSACTIONAL STUDIES PROGRAM, WHICH WAS FOUNDED BY DEAN DAVID M. SCHIZER AND FORMER DEAN DAVID W. LEEBRON. Past tax conferences held under its ambit have consistently stimulated important and influential conversations. “Academics have time to think imaginatively about what’s not in current law, and the system needs that,” says Tax Analysts Contributing Editor Lee Sheppard,

a regular attendee. “Conferences can generate Dean David Schizer ideas that are later enacted in some form.” presented an innovative Highlights of this year’s meeting included gasoline tax proposal a presentation from Dean Schizer and Yale at the Law Professor Thomas Merrill, who outlined conference. their proposal for a gasoline tax designed former Commissioner Fred Goldberg insisted to promote conservation in a way that is that the IRS is much less subject to influence politically palatable—a combination that has than other agencies, in particular the Justice so far eluded every other oil levy. Columbia Department of the last administration. Law School professor-to-be Michael Graetz As always, the Law School event drew a explained his proposal to scale back both rich mix of attendees, including policymakers the individual and the corporate income tax like Kleinbard, practitioners from major law in exchange for a value-added tax, a change firms in the U.S. and abroad, and academics that would bring the U.S. into harmony with from schools including Harvard and Yale. much of the rest of the world. Ed Kleinbard, Many attendees came in part to celebrate the head of Congress’ Joint Tax Committee—the distinguished career of conference honoree staff of professionals who advise lawmakers Willard Taylor, who recently retired after on the cost and policy implications of 40 years with Sullivan & Cromwell. All were various provisions—offered a new approach eager to hear new ideas that may become to analyzing the salience and costliness of reality sooner rather than later, given the non-tax policy provisions within the tax Obama administration’s mandate for change. law. Conference organizer and Law School “It’s going to be jump ball in tax policy for Professor Alex Raskolnikov led a spirited the next four years,” former Commissioner discussion about IRS enforcement in which Goldberg told attendees. •

“If you want to practice in what I still think is a glamour field, you have to stand out.”camille calman ’06

Columbia Law School for Law, Media & the “You have to make to be realistic in their Alumni recently played host Arts and the Office of people understand this expectations right out of in IP and to several alumni Career Services. is something you’re law school. The perfect who have found early “If you want to really interested in and job is hard to find, he Entertainment success in the fields of practice in what I still not just that you want to said, and it might serve Law Event intellectual property think is a glamour field, go to movie premieres.” students well to take a and entertainment law. you have to stand out,” Meanwhile, Ben McLean more general position at They spoke to students said Camille Calman ’03, senior counsel a law firm and seek out at a panel hosted by ’06, an associate at for Rainbow Media, projects related to media the Kernochan Center Debevoise & Plimpton. cautioned students and entertainment law. •

6 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 6 4/15/09 3:26 PM news & events

“Government lawyers are among the happiest lawyers i’ve ever seen.” —Professor Olati Johnson Former Attorney General

Michael Mukasey Making a Difference Through Gives Leventhal Lecture Government Work When former Attorney Southern District of whether legal lines can General Michael New York, he presided and should be redrawn. Mukasey delivered the over complicated “The next adminis- At least 30 full-time annual Harold Leventhal terrorism-related cases, tration’s ability to professors and 70 Memorial Lecture in including the 1993 plot accomplish our shared adjunct lecturers-in-law October, Columbia Law to blow up New York objectives of keeping at Columbia Law School have experience School Professor City landmarks. But his the nation safe and working in the federal Nathaniel Persily asked daily classified briefings protecting civil liberties government. To show if Mukasey could have never ceased to surprise will depend, as it always students the benefits any superpower, what him. “The enemies has, on getting careful, of such work, several faculty members he would choose. that we face have a impartial legal advice gathered together at “I wish I had the presence literally in from lawyers who deal a recent Law School power of prophecy,” every part of the globe,” with national security panel titled “Making a Difference.” Mukasey replied. he noted, “and yet in issues and getting the “Government That statement many places, they are best lawyers it can find lawyers are among the summed up the focus virtually undetectable.” to do that work,” happiest lawyers I’ve of the lecture, in The question of how Mukasey said. “We ever seen,” Professor Olati Johnson, who must not inhibit them which Mukasey made to deal with terrorism previously served as a case for government is among the most from performing this counsel to the U.S. lawyers and their challenging that a critical function. We Senate Judiciary actions in the realm of democratic government also must not inhibit Committee, noted at the event. Professor national security. can face, said Mukasey. those charged directly Matthew Waxman, When he first became The government must with performing who held senior attorney general in determine how the intelligence functions advisory positions at 2007, Mukasey thought country should protect from asking for candid the National Security Council, the U.S. State he knew something itself, if the steps it’s tak- and honest advice before Department, and about national security. ing are proportional to they act. The stakes are the Department of As a judge for the the threat at hand, and simply too high.” • Defense, agreed with Johnson’s assessment. “My route to Columbia Law School Professor Conrad Johnson recently unveiled the government was driven Collateral Consequences of Criminal Charges Calculator, an innovative tool by intellectual interest,” that allows attorneys, judges, and defendants to gauge what aspects of he said. “[Teaching their lives might be affected if they are convicted of a given crime. Johnson at Columbia] is my developed the calculator in collaboration with Columbia University’s favorite job, but Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CNMTL) and presented the I wouldn’t trade PROFESSOR technology at a recent CNMTL conference. those [government Collateral consequences can include limits on voting rights, child custody experiences] away.” • CONRAD ramifications, and narrowed access to public housing. “Collateral consequences, JOHNSON’S as opposed to the direct ones, can be more important, more severe,” LEGAL said Johnson, the co-director of the Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic. CALCULATOR Johnson’s calculator launched at the end of last year. •

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 7

60602_txt.indd 7 4/15/09 3:26 PM news & events

One week before the the latter half of the Toobin predicted Toobin was the first presidential election, 20th century—from the next vacancies on journalist to deliver Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s Brown v. Board of the Court would be the annual Rosenberg senior legal analyst and Education, which held Justices Ruth Bader Lecture, which is a staff writer for The school segregation Ginsburg ’59, David usually reserved for New Yorker, came to unconstitutional, to Souter, and John Paul judges and justices. Columbia Law School Bush v. Gore, which Stevens. And President Persily, who worked to review the Supreme effectively made Barack Obama, with the writer in 2002 Court of the past and George W. Bush the he said, is likely to for a New Yorker article present and make a 43rd president of replace liberal-leaning on redistricting, said few prognostications the United States. departing justices with the decision to stray about the Court Toobin was selected, more of the same. was intentional. of the future. in part, for his intimate “Jeff Toobin has it “I thought it would be Toobin, who was knowledge of the pretty much right,” said useful to get someone JEFFREY invited to the Law Supreme Court. The Columbia Law School who could speak School to deliver the writer penned the Professor Nathaniel about politics and the TOOBIN 11th annual Maurice best-selling book The Persily, “in that we law,” said Persily, “and DELIVERS Rosenberg Lecture, Nine, which takes a should see a relatively who would not be as ROSENBERG traced the history of behind-the-scenes balanced Court in the restrained as judges are LECTURE the Court through look at the Court. near future.” in talking about the law.” • Summit Promotes the Power of Technology to Change the World Professor Matthew Waxman first pondered the The summit attracted international organizations potential for technology to combat violent extremism that had successfully used technology to advance Inaugural in 2007, while he was acting director for the their goals. Oscar Morales, of One Million Voices Summit State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. As Against the FARC, used Facebook to unite people aims to YouTube emerged as a forum for political debates around the world against an extremist group that inspire and Facebook became a conduit for political has been terrorizing Colombia for more than 40 action mobilization, Waxman’s brainstorming evolved years. Jamie Tworkowski, of To Write Love on Her into legitimate discussions and concrete actions, Arms, used Myspace to help almost 100,000 people culminating last December with the inaugural from 40 different countries find resources to Alliance of Youth Movements Summit, hosted by cope with mental illness and drug abuse. One man, Columbia Law School. whose identity had to be kept secret for fear of The summit was organized by Howcast Media retribution in his native Egypt, was part of a group and sponsored by Facebook, Google, YouTube, that used Facebook to organize two protests against MTV, the U.S. State Department, and Access 360 the Egyptian government. Thousands of Media. Its goal was to produce a field manual Egyptians joined the protests, but the government that will teach individuals, organizations, and reacted violently. Three people were killed, and governmental bodies how to harness digital media hundreds were detained. Simultaneously inspiring tools and inspire young people to act. and devastating, the protests marked the beginning “We at Columbia are excited about helping, of a movement within Egypt that is gaining speed, designing, and studying innovative public-private thanks to websites like Facebook. The Egyptian partnerships that leverage new technologies to tackle man assured his fellow activists at the summit that some of the world’s greatest challenges,” said the movement would not stop. Waxman. “Those of us who teach and study law need “We are a country under occupation,” he said, to understand how communication technologies are “and we wish to have our freedom someday.” transforming politics both at home and abroad.” These stories and experiences are now available at youthmovements.howcast.com, an online hub that Discuss how digital media can spur change. will allow the next wave of social, political, or ideological join the conversation law.columbia.edu/mag/tech-summit organizers to learn from their predecessors. •

8 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 8 4/15/09 3:26 PM news & events Forum Addresses

The ninth floor’s new Sidley Austin Room Diversity in New Ninth Floor for Jerome Greene Hall Higher Education IN DECEMBER, THE LAW SCHOOL’S CENTER FOR INSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE CO-SPONSORED A GROUNDBREAKING Columbia Law School THREE-DAY FORUM TO ADDRESS THE OPPORTUNITY GAP THAT recently completed the LIMITS ACCESS TO HIGHER LEARNING. expansion of Jerome Greene Hall’s ninth The conference, titled “The Future of floor, which added Diversity and Opportunity in Higher meeting areas and space for up to 38 Education: A National Forum on new faculty offices. Innovation and Collaboration,” brought The $18 million project together scholars and academics also added the Sidley from around the country and served Austin Room, which Professor Susan Sturm as a valuable idea incubator for those is a new, 1,120-square- concerned about issues of access to higher education. foot conference room named to honor the “When we collaborate, we come up with our best ideas,” said law firm of Sidley Professor Susan P. Sturm, the director of the Center for Institutional Austin. Many of and Social Change, in her opening remarks at the conference, held the firm’s partners at Rutgers University. The forum was a collaborative effort between are Columbia Law the Center for Institutional and Social Change, Columbia University, School alumni, and Rutgers University, and the College Board. their combined contributions Citing Scott Page’s book, The Difference, Sturm asserted amounted to $1 that “diverse groups are better at solving hard problems than million, which helped homogenous groups of geniuses.” With that in mind, nearly a year fund construction ago, Sturm began to organize researchers, practitioners, and lawyers of the room. who could develop innovative methods for sustaining diversity. “We’re very proud Panelists participated in a series of plenary sessions that ranged in of the new ninth floor, topic from examining merit to reforming curriculums. On the conference’s and the jewel of the floor is this room,” said opening night, Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor inspired Dean David Schizer applause when she proclaimed, “The so-called achievement gap is not an at the Sidley Austin achievement gap, it’s not an ability gap—it’s an opportunity gap.” Room dedication The president of the University of , County, ceremony. “The Law 38 Freeman Hrabowski III, added that colleges must also “protect School has become new junior faculty, particularly minorities and women.” Hrabowski, a warmer place, with faculty offices who is African-American, said those groups often shoulder a greater intensity of in Jerome Greene interaction, and the disproportionate burden, balancing research with informal mentoring building has a lot to of students of similar backgrounds who seek them out. do with that.” During another panel, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger The expansion emphasized that inclusion “was a matter of choice” at a private project, which was university such as Columbia. Bollinger’s defining role in the 2003 designed by the award-winning affirmative action cases at the University of Michigan underscored architectural firm of his belief in the need to defend progress at the institutional level. Paul Segal Associates, Bollinger also cautioned that more than 50 years after the landmark began in May 2007. Brown v. Board of Education decision, “many cities, major cities especially, It is the first major are as segregated, [if not] more than they were in 1960 or 1955.” structural addition to Bollinger’s co-panelist, Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick, Jerome Greene Hall since the 1995–96 said that the current economic climate could have some impact on addition of the how much funding the state of New Jersey would allocate to its building’s three-story, schools, but that university leaders needed to set priorities, deciding sky-lit lobby. • “what we value most . . . access [and] diversity.” •

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 9

60602_txt.indd 9 4/15/09 3:26 PM news & events

Alumni attended cocktail receptions and dinners, and Dean David Schizer mingled with guests, including Todd Stitzer ’78 and his wife, Marenda. LAW SCHOOL HOSTS GLOBAL REUNION IN Columbia Law School LONDON As part of the festivities surrounding its 150th anniversary, Columbia Law School Promotes International recently hosted a global reunion in London. Alumni and friends from around the world enjoyed Investment in historical tours of the city and rides aboard the London Eye, as well as a symposium São Tomé and Príncipe titled “Law in a Global Society.” Lord Patten Karl p. Sauvant, executive director of the Vale Columbia Center on of Barnes, a member of Sustainable International Investment, is trying to put the tiny, two-island the House of Lords and nation of São Tomé and Príncipe on the investment map. former governor of A decade most investors. They may well miss out on Hong Kong, delivered the keynote address ago, the West some interesting opportunities.” titled “Tackling the African country The guide analyzes opportunities for New Global Agenda.” discovered it had investors in agriculture—cocoa, flowers, and The symposium also the potential to fruits and vegetables for export—as well hosted several other produce oil, and as in adventure, eco-tourism, fisheries, and speakers, including Karl P. Sauvant the prospect petroleum. The country is a stable working 10 Columbia Law School professors, who of the financial windfall that could follow democracy with a vibrant multi-party commented on issues made the country’s president, Fradique de system, one of the highest literacy and such as international Menezes, nervous. With weak infrastructure life-expectancy rates in sub-Saharan Africa, intellectual property, in place, São Tomé and Príncipe was and no serious ethnic, linguistic, religious, the global economic vulnerable to corruption, political struggles, or tribal tensions. It is strategically located downturn, human or violence. To stabilize the islands, de in the Gulf of Guinea, the geographic center rights, and terrorism. • Menezes looked to Columbia. of the large markets in west and central Since 2003, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Africa, and the government is committed to director of The Earth Institute at Columbia promoting transparency, good governance, University, has been working with a diverse and private sector–led growth. team of experts to advise São Tomé and “This is a document that can open many Príncipe on how best to achieve economic doors for us,” said President de Menezes at a growth and . A dinner to introduce the guide. collaboration with the Vale Columbia Center, Florizelle B. Liser, the assistant U.S. Trade which is a joint center of Columbia Law Representative for Africa, also attended the 150th School and The Earth Institute, has produced dinner and noted that Africa, as a whole, anniversary the Investor’s Guide to São Tomé and only contributes about 2 percent to world celebration Príncipe, a prospectus aimed at helping the trade. If that amount were increased by just nation attract foreign direct investment. The 1 percent, it would generate about $70 joint project unveiled the guide last fall. billion, which is more than three times the “Investment is the basis for economic amount of aid the continent receives. growth, and that, in turn, is the basis for “We’re not saying there is no need for social development,” Sauvant said. “São aid, but trade is a much greater economic Tomé and Príncipe is off the beaten track for engine,” Liser said. •

10 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 10 4/15/09 3:26 PM news & events

Sesquicentennial

Celebrations Professor Suzanne Goldberg COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL HAD REASON TO CELEBRATE IN 2008, AS LAST YEAR MARKED ITS 150TH ANNIVERSARY. Clinic Files Brief in Gay A yearlong series of celebrations recognized 650 graduates from 41 across the globe toasted this mile- states and 18 nations, a reflection of Marriage Case EVALUATING stone, with events both intellectual the Law School’s tremendous growth JAPAN’S and social that attracted generations and diversification since the first NEW JURY of Law School progeny. class in 1858. Columbia Law School’s SYSTEM Sexuality and Gender In January, Dean David Schizer The year’s attractions built to a Law Clinic filed a kicked off the Law School’s sesquicen- grand finale in October with the friend-of-the-court tennial by hosting alumni gatherings Global Reunion in London, which brief on behalf of several organizations in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo brought together more than 170 and public officials with Professors Benjamin L. Liebman Columbia alumni and friends. A week in ’s and Curtis J. Milhaupt ’89, directors later, Mayor Michael Bloomberg pro- now-historic state of the Law School’s centers for Chinese claimed October 25, 2008, Columbia Supreme Court Professor Curtis Milhaupt case of Kerrigan v. and Japanese law, respectively. Law School Day in New York. The Commissioner of The Columbia Law Stateside, the celebration sesquicentennial celebration drew Public Health. In the School Center for commenced with the annual Winter to a close on October 25, when more case, the court issued Japanese Legal Studies recently hosted a Luncheon at the Waldorf=Astoria than 1,200 alumni, faculty, students, a decision requiring equal marriage rights panel discussion on hotel, at which entrepreneur and and friends of Columbia Law School for same-sex couples, the strengths and philanthropist H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest attended a gala at Cipriani 42nd Street thereby legalizing gay potential pitfalls of ’58 was awarded the Law School’s in . Michael Cardozo ’66, marriage in the state. Japan’s new Saiban-in, or “lay judge,” system. Medal for Excellence. New York City’s corporation counsel, “It is fundamentally unfair, unequal, and The panel, moderated unconstitutional by Professor Curtis to create separate Milhaupt ’89, the relationship rules center’s director, for same-sex and included Law School different-sex couples, professors, as well as as the Connecticut legal professionals from Japan. Among the Supreme Court highlights of the Under the new system, Law School’s 150th recognized,” said year was the Professor Suzanne defendants charged with Sesquicentennial Gala, co-hosted by Goldberg, director serious crimes will be Justice Ruth Bader tried by a panel of six Ginsburg ’59. of the Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic. jurors and three judges, who will rule on both International celebrations read Mayor Bloomberg’s proclamation, “The court reviewed Connecticut’s two guilt and sentencing by continued in May with a conference and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59 sets of relationship a simple majority. in Israel, where the Law School is delivered a survey of Columbians on recognition While panelists reaching out with bold initiatives, the Supreme Court, beginning with rules—marriage for presented pros and cons, audience member including the new Center for Israeli the first chief justice of the United some, civil unions for others—and found Jesse Gillespie ’09 Legal Studies. The event, co-sponsored States, John Jay, who studied law at the state lacked a recognized a unique by the Anti-Defamation League, Columbia University’s forerunner, good explanation for opportunity to gather brought eight Law School professors King’s College, from 1760 to 1764. treating similar couples empirical evidence. so differently.” • “It’s not every day to Tel Aviv to discuss issues involving That night, Ginsburg told the you see a country freedom of speech and corporate audience she plans to continue experiment with governance. Several weeks later, the serving on the Supreme Court for at changes in criminal Law School’s 147th commencement least another eight years. • justice,” he noted. •

Explore a year-in-review interactive media timeline. go beyond law.columbia.edu/mag/sesqui

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 11

60602_txt.indd 11 4/15/09 3:26 PM news & events

New Set of Lowenstein and Berger Fellows Professor Columbia Law School has selected its most recent Coffee Named group OF Lowenstein and Berger fellows.

One of The awards cover Four students focus on the safety Lawdragon’s 100 percent of were named and security of 500 Leading tuition loans for Lowenstein transgender young Lawyers new fellows who make fellows, an honor people in state Berger Fellowship less than $100,000 that supplements custody and on the per year for as long their additional enforcement of New as they remain appointments York City’s gender awarded Lawdragon recently in public interest and fellowships. identity–inclusive named Professor John law. Lowenstein Theodore Roethke anti-discrimination C. Coffee Jr. to its list of Fellowships, ’08 will be the Equal law. Alison Wright established by Justice Works Fellow ’08 will be an the 500 leading lawyers Professor Louis at the International assistant counsel in America. Coffee, the Lowenstein ’53 Institute of the Bay in the U.S. Senate Adolf A. Berle Professor and his wife, Helen, Area for the next Office of Legislative of Law at Columbia Law recognize students two years. He will Counsel. School, has appeared who exhibit the represent asylum The inaugural on the annual listing potential for making seekers and other Berger Fellowship three times. Lawdragon, a substantial non-citizens who are was awarded to a media company that contribution to public unable to hire private Suzannah Phillips provides legal news and interest law. Berger attorneys. Naureen ’08, who will use profiles, selects Fellowships, a new Shah ’07 will be her Columbia Law its honorees through honor established the Sandler Fellow School Henkin- by Max Berger ’71 at Human Rights Stoeffel Fellowship a combination of law and his wife, Dale, Watch this year. to research firm submissions, are given to students Sydney Tarzwell ’07 discrimination that online voting, and who intend to fight is using a Skadden HIV/AIDS-infected company research. • racial, gender, and Fellowship at the women encounter other discrimination Peter Cicchino Youth in accessing throughout Project of the Urban reproductive their careers. Justice Center to health care. •

NEW RESEARCH GRANTS SUPPORT LAW AND INNOVATION $450,000 grant The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has awarded Columbia Law School two new research grants to research as part of its “Law, Innovation and Economic Growth” initiative. contract and The first grant, which totals $450,000, will help support a research project called “Contracting for technology issues Innovation,” which will focus on legal contracts in the context of technological innovation. Columbia Law School Professor Robert E. Scott will lead the project’s research team, which will include fellow Law School Professors Ronald J. Gilson, Victor P. Goldberg, and Charles F. Sabel. The second grant will support the work of Brett Dakin, the first Kauffman Legal Research Fellow at Columbia Law School. Dakin, a former associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, will focus his research on how intellectual property rights encourage centralized decision-making structures. •

12 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 12 4/15/09 3:26 PM news & events

Panel Highlights New Fellowship 16 new faculty The Columbia Journal appointments for program of Gender and Law graduates STUDENTS and the Center for CREATE LAW (CRR) recently hosted SCHOOL a panel discussion at MILITARY the Law School on new ASSOCIATION legal research related to reproductive health and human rights. The event celebrated Law Teaching Program the CRR/Columbia Law School Fellowship Brian Donnelly ‘11 Announces Newest at Camp Fallujah, Iraq program by highlighting the work of its inaugural Last fall, three law students founded the fellow, Khiara Bridges Faculty Appointments Columbia Law School ’02, as well as research Military Association. from other scholars. Columbia Law School’s program on careers in law Abe Cho ’10 served The two-year teaching grooms graduates and associates for with the Marines fellowship presents a careers as law professors. The Program’s in Iraq. SangJoon Co-Directors, Professors Carol Sanger and Trevor “Simon” Han ’09 went new opportunity for Morrison ’98, are pleased to announce that the to Iraq with the U.S. Law School graduates following individuals received faculty appointments: Army. And John Power pursuing academic legal Hely VI ’10 fought THOMAS ANTKOWIAK ’03: GENEVIEVE HEBERT FAJARDO ’97: with the Marines in careers in reproductive Seattle University School of Law St. Mary’s University School of Law . health and human (San Antonio) “Our goal is to rights. Bridges, who ASSOCIATE DEEPA BADRINARAYANA: provide a forum both Chapman University DAVID FLATTO ’97: recently completed her (Orange, Calif.) Pennsylvania State University Dickinson for veterans facing the doctorate in anthropology School of Law (Carlisle, Penn.) tough transition from MATTHEW CHARITY ’99: military to student at Columbia University, Western New England College School of Law RACHELLE HOLMES ’02: life and for civilian is using her fellowship (Springfield, Mass.) George Mason University School of Law students who want (Arlington, Va.) to learn more about to analyze abortion CAROLINE MALA CORBIN ’01: the military,” said jurisprudence by using University of School of Law AZIZ HUQ ’01: University of Chicago Law School association President postmodern theory. YASMIN ABDULLAH DAWOOD ’97: Brian Donnelly ’11. Joining Bridges on University of Toronto Faculty of Law DALE MARGOLIN ’04: The association the panel were Vicki University of Richmond School of Law has already attracted ASSOCIATE KATHARINA (Richmond, Va.) about 25 members, Jackson, a professor at DE LA DURANTAYE: including current and Georgetown University St. John’s University School of Law JENS OHLIN ’05: (Queens, N.Y.) (Ithaca, N.Y.) former military who Law Center and, last have served in Iraq, fall, the Samuel Rubin Afghanistan, and The following individuals from the program received several other foreign Visiting Professor of visiting assistant professor positions: countries, as well as Law at Columbia Law non–military affiliated School; Linda Fentiman, MARC DEGIROLAMI ’06 LL.M.: BEN TRACHTENBERG ’05: students. Members Catholic University Law School Law School represent a wide a professor at Pace (Washington, D.C.) variety of professional University School of SAUL ZIPKIN ’03: experiences, ranging Law; and Jessie Hill, ASSOCIATE ANIL KALHAN: from infantry to Drexel University Earle Mack School an associate professor of Law (Philadelphia) artillery, computers to public affairs. Some will at Case Western Among past participants in the program, Tim Casey ’02 LL.M. and former return to the service Reserve University associate Matt Rossman were granted full professor status at Case Western after graduation as School of Law. • Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland. Also, Aaron Saiger ’98 has military attorneys. • recently received tenure at Fordham Law School. •

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 13

60602_txt.indd 13 4/15/09 3:26 PM news & events 35 Law School graduates have been Skadden fellows Two Alumni

SKADDEN FELLOWS Honored at SUPPORT IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS Winter Luncheon At the annual Winter Luncheon in February, Dean David Columbia Law School Schizer awarded the Medal for Excellence to Steven student Carrie Acus Epstein ’68 and the late Jerome L. Greene ’28. Love ’09 and recent graduate Tanaz Before a crowd of for Excellence is one transformative power Moghadam ’08 recently more than 325 at the of these cherished mo- of giving,” said Dean received notice that they were selected Waldorf=Astoria, Dean ments,” he said. Epstein Schizer. Before he as Skadden fellows. Schizer hailed both offered heartfelt thanks passed away in 1999, With the fellowship’s men as exceptional to his family and said Greene established support, each will members of the Law the award signaled that scholarships and pursue two-year public service projects in the School community. he had struck the right professorships at the area of immigrants’ “Our medalists have balance in life between Law School, set up rights. The two women had profound impact on loved ones, work, and fellowships at Julliard, join the more than 30 Law School graduates the lives of many,” Dean community involvement. served on Lincoln who have been Schizer said. “We could Skadden fellows over not be more proud of the past 20 years. their professional stature Love will work for Western or more impressed with Massachusetts Legal their commitment Left to right: John Services, providing to philanthropy.” Olivieri ‘94, Dawn Greene, comprehensive Dean David Epstein, a senior Schizer, legal services and and Steven developing legal partner at the firm of Epstein ‘68 outreach programs Epstein Becker & Green for immigrant victims in Washington, D.C., is Epstein also lauded Center’s Board of of domestic violence. top award a “towering figure in the his fellow award-winner, Directors, and supported Moghadam, who will draws crowd field of health care law,” Jerome Greene, a lawyer, the Children’s Hospital work for the American of more than Civil Liberties Union Dean Schizer said. Epstein real estate investor, at Montefiore Medical Immigrants’ Rights was instrumental in and philanthropist for Center. His wife, Dawn, Project, will provide 325 developing the legal whom the Law School’s president and CEO of direct representation alumni and friends and community basis for, and acceptance flagship building is the Jerome L. Greene education for low-wage of, managed care as the named. Greene was a Foundation, continues workers who are most prominent form “dedicated New Yorker his commitment to denied the opportunity to work by a federal of health care delivery. and ardent Columbian his alma mater and to verification program. • “Receiving the Medal who believed in the New York City. •

Columbia Law School which account for more than private lenders and by removing legal New Proposal Professor Edward than 50 percent of who service their constraints that inhibit for Preventing R. Morrison recently foreclosures. Research own mortgages. modification. co-wrote a proposal shows that when these The solution, By the authors’ Foreclosures that aims to stem mortgages become according to Morrison estimates, the plan foreclosures through delinquent, servicers of and his co-authors, is would prevent nearly loan modifications. securitized mortgages to facilitate modification, 1 million foreclosures The plan specifically opt for foreclosure over instead of foreclosure, by over three years, at a addresses privately mortgage modification compensating servicers cost of no more than securitized mortgages, much more often who modify mortgages $10.7 billion. •

14 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 14 4/15/09 3:26 PM news & events

Philip Genty Receives Honorary Professorship

Columbia Law School New HRI Professor Philip Genty has been named “Professor Honoris Group Opposes Causa” by a university in Skopje, Macedonia, for his work developing clinical education in Preventative that area. The school, the Ss. Cyril and

Methodius University, Professor Sarah Cleveland KIMBERLÉ has been working with Detention WILLIAMS Genty since 2000 Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute has formed to launch and grow the Detention Without Trial Working Group (DWTWG) to CRENSHAW its clinical program. counter supporters of specialized terror courts and WINS TWO “I’ve worked with a long-term preventative detention of terrorism suspects. wonderful group of FELLOWSHIPS dedicated professors who are also gracious The group also hopes to influence policy implications of current Columbia Law School hosts,” said Genty, who President Obama’s administration, proposals for the detention Professor Kimberlé directs the Prisoners which will be confronted with key without trial of terrorism Williams Crenshaw was and Families Clinic decisions about future treatment suspects, Cleveland said. recently awarded two at Columbia Law of terror detainees. Cleveland and other members fellowships, both of School. “The students The effort, coordinated at of the working group met which she will use to are just amazing and Columbia by the co-director of with members of the Obama explore racial equity in very excited about American society. new educational the Law School’s Human Rights transition team and incoming Crenshaw was opportunities.” Institute, Professor Sarah H. administration officials in honored in December Columbia Law Cleveland, includes two partner mid-December to discuss issues with the prestigious School clinical organizations: the Center for surrounding the closure of Fletcher Fellowship. professors have American Progress and the Guantanamo. Working group With the support of worked to improve National Litigation Project at members urged the transition that award, she hopes legal education in to challenge popular the former Soviet . team to conduct a broad, attitudes about race Union, Poland, Croatia, “Much of the intellectual independent review of the through a project Hungary, Romania, the energy in legal academia has basis for holding the 200-plus titled “Shattering Czech Republic, Serbia been devoted to developing remaining detainees, and the Colorblind Ruse: and Montenegro, proposals for national security to capitalize on the Obama Recapturing the Slovakia, Albania, courts and the long-term administration’s international Legacy of Brown.” and Bulgaria. • Crenshaw was also detention of terrorism suspects,” goodwill by using all diplomatic awarded a fellowship said Cleveland, the Louis tools at the administration’s from the Center for Henkin Professor of Human and disposal to secure receiving Advanced Study in the Constitutional Rights. “The goal states for most of the detainees. Behavioral Sciences of our working group has been On the president’s second day (CASBS) at Stanford to encourage scholarly thinking, in office, he issued an executive University. The CASBS research, and debate as an order to close the detention fellowship, awarded to approximately 45 intellectual counterweight to the center at Guantanamo Bay. scholars each year, will pending reform proposals, and The DWTWG has issued more allow Crenshaw to work to provide scholarly guidance to policy recommendations for the with colleagues from the advocacy community.” new presidential administration, various disciplines to The DWTWG is comprised of including calls to end existing build common sense legal academics as well as experts military commissions and understandings about the role race from other fields, including the specialized terror courts and continues to play in U.S. military and the FBI. Together, to apply a zero-tolerance rule the United States. • they are exploring the legal and regarding torture and cruelty. •

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 15

60602_txt.indd 15 4/15/09 3:26 PM SeeColumbia Law School students excel outside the classroomAlso: BY MARY JOHNSON

Olga Kaplan ’09 remembers vividly the first time she bit into a bright, yellow banana. She was 7 years old, and her family had just moved to Brooklyn from their native Ukraine, Olga Kaplan where grocery store shelves BOLD MOVES were often empty—and never carried bananas. “Having come from a communist country that had fallen apart, I treasure some things that people take for granted,” says Kaplan, now just a few months away from her Columbia Law School graduation. Although Kaplan has mostly shed her Russian accent, the recollections of her brief encounter with communism linger. Those memories helped shape Kaplan’s political values and beliefs, which have found an ideological home in the Law School’s chapter of the Federalist Society. The organization brings together mainly conservative and libertarian students interested in the current state of the legal order. “Its purpose,” says Kaplan, “is to form dialogue that’s not necessarily there.” As chapter president this year, Kaplan has hosted a diverse array of events to expand the organization’s reach. She also hopes to increase alumni participation in the society and create more libertarian public interest opportunities for member students. “I inherited a strong club,” she says, noting that she wants to leave it even stronger. After graduation, Kaplan plans to join the litigation department at Debevoise & Plimpton. “I’m not really sure what I’ll be focusing on,” she says, before adding with a laugh, “but there will be adverse parties involved.”

16 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 photographed by ERIN O’BRIEN

60602_txt.indd 16 4/15/09 3:26 PM Julius Chen A STEP AHEAD

The product of a Southern Chen, a first-generation in the Law Review offices. spring, he was a law student upbringing, American born to a mother “It’s not only that we enjoy intern for Southern District Julius Chen ’09 wears from Hong Kong and a being there,” Chen is quick Judge John G. Koeltl. flip-flops erywhere,ev father from Taiwan, became to point out. “It’s also the Following his Law School regardless of wind, rain, or the editor-in-chief of the thought that we’re helping graduation, and his wedding snow. During his first year Columbia Law Review last to push the bounds of in August, Chen will move at Columbia Law School, February. He manages a legal scholarship.” to Washington, D.C., to clerk Chen’s footwear became his staff of 84 law students Prior to taking the helm for Judge T.S. Ellis III of the signature. “I was known as and scours submissions for at the Law Review, Chen did Eastern District of Virginia. the guy who always wears compelling copy. Sometimes two stints at the Southern Unfortunately, the real sandals,” he recalls. the job requires slim, District of New York. In world requires real shoes. Almost three years later, 36-hour editing deadlines. 2007, he worked in the civil And that means Chen might he is recognized for much Other times it demands division of the district’s U.S. soon bid his omnipresent more than his exposed toes. 2 a.m. wiffle ball breaks Attorney’s Office, and last flip-flops farewell.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 17

60602_txt.indd 17 4/15/09 3:26 PM Mia Marie White BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG FUTURE

Some people decompress through exercise and extracurriculars. Mia Marie White ’10 prefers karaoke. White discovered the healing power of off-key singing during her post-college work with at-risk youths in Ann Arbor, Mich. Monday night karaoke provided a much-needed break from the seriousness of her job. It also revealed a hidden side of White’s personality; it turns out she’s “a lot more of a ham” than she ever knew. Now in her second year at Columbia Law School, the self-described ham is contemplating a career in entertainment law. Last fall, White landed an externship with the business and legal affairs department at VH1, where she drafted, edited, and negotiated performer and presenter agreements for the network’s 2008 Hip Hop Honors awards show. She also helped sort out the legal agreements for Celebrity Fit Club’s next season and conducted research for a litigation project with Viacom, VH1’s parent company. “It was an incredible experience,” says White, who is a member of the Law School’s Entertain- ment, Arts, and Sports Law Society. “It has in- spired a confidence in me to know this is something I can do, and do well.” White sacrificed karaoke Mondays when she came to the Law School, but she has found a new outlet in weekly improvi- sation classes. “Improv is about just being able to laugh at yourself,” White explains. Although the cases she reads for class are often interesting, she says, “they generally don’t make me laugh.”

18 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 18 4/15/09 3:26 PM Mathias Oleskow IN PRODUCTION

American cinema deserves a bulk of the credit for inspiring Mathias Oleskow ’09 LL.M. to become a lawyer. In his native Argentina, Oleskow says, the legal profession focuses more on the written than the oral. But the American movies he watched as a child romanticized the law with images of passionate attorneys pounding their fists on courtroom tables. Although his father hoped Mathias would become an engineer, Oleskow stuck to his Hollywood ideals and immersed himself in the law when he entered the National University in Buenos Aires. While in school, he worked at a boutique law firm, the Argentinean patent office, and a beverage machine importing firm. By the time he graduated, intellectual property experience dominated his resume, which helped him land a job at a Buenos Aires law firm looking to start an IP department. “It was perfect,” says Oleskow, who is a student senator and the director of student affairs for the Columbia Latin American Business Law Association. “I thought it was a good challenge for the future couple of years.” At the firm, Oleskow helped establish the IP department and also took on mergers and acquisitions—uncharted territory for a copyright and trademarks pro. To increase his corporate law savvy, Oleskow decided to pursue an LL.M. at Columbia Law School. Despite a focus on his studies, Oleskow can’t help looking forward. “All the deals that you study or read about in the papers,” he says, “happen here, in New York.” The allure of American law is proving strong, and Oleskow might just stick around.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 19

60602_txt.indd 19 4/15/09 3:26 PM setting the bar Columbia Law School Innovations

Corporate Governance 2.0 professor jeffrey gordon and two of the world’s foremost business law scholars create an innovative class on comparative corporate governance that couldn’t be more timely

by Amy Miller

As financial systems across the globe unravel, business and “The course reflects a lot of what the Law School wants to do,” political leaders are closely scrutinizing the laws governing corpora- Gordon says, “which is to give students the chance to engage with tions. In order to correct current problems and avoid those of the faculty from Columbia and other leading universities through- future, the next generation of business attorneys must understand out the world, taking on difficult, cutting-edge issues of law and how and why corporate governance practices are changing. Profes- legal change.” sor Jeffrey N. Gordon hopes to lend a hand with a unique course Ever since the creation of corporations, the laws regulating how that will help students analyze and learn from varying corporate companies operate have been an important part of business history, governance approaches in Gordon notes. Those laws can help explain the rise and fall of a family- nations across the globe. run empire, or the origins of a global financial meltdown. The new “There’s a belief that better course helps students better understand what factors lead to corporate governance will lead to bet- governance change over time, and how similar reforms have played ter companies and greater out in various nations. For example, it compares the rules in different wealth,” Gordon says. “That’s countries that govern board structure and uses a comparative lens going to give some countries a to analyze the different regimes that apply to corporate takeovers. competitive edge over others.” While the class examines the hazards financial bubbles can Last fall, about 30 students wreak on corporate governance systems, it also teaches a caution- enrolled in the first course, ary approach to modifications in governance. Whenever there is which Gordon co-taught a financial scandal or widespread financial failure, regulation of with two well-known legal corporate governance picks up speed; yet that can freeze short-term experts in the field: John Armour, a law professor at Oxford Uni- solutions in place and put a financial system’s long-term stability versity, and Simon Deakin, professor of law at the University of at risk, Gordon says. Cambridge. The three scholars knew each other’s work well, hav- The course lectures primarily focus on the United States, the United ing met at professional and academic conferences over the years. Kingdom and other European nations, and Japan, though students Last summer, at a conference in the U.K., they decided that, given are encouraged to use theories from the course to explain corporate the teetering economic conditions, the time was right to teach a governance issues at play in, for example, South Korea or Brazil. course on comparative corporate governance. And they agreed to “It’s a course that tries to reward the ambition of the students,” teach it together. Armour is a regular visitor to the Law School, and Gordon says, “and to train them to think in creative ways about Deakin planned to spend a sabbatical at the Law School, as well. the world they will become important professionals and actors in.” So the three scholars pulled together materials for “Comparative Corporate Governance: A Dynamic Perspective.” The result was a Amy Miller is a reporter for Corporate Counsel and American resounding success. Lawyer magazines.

The new course helps students better understand what factors lead to corporate governance change over time, and how similar reforms have played out in various nations.

20 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 ILLUSTRATION BY Celia johnson

60602_txt.indd 20 4/15/09 3:26 PM faculty focus CLIMATE CHANGE

Warming Up professor michael gerrard brings his world-renowned expertise in environmental law to a new columbia center on global climate change

by jennifer v. hughes

Environmental law expert Michael B. “Action is absolutely needed now,” says Ger- Gerrard is no stranger when it comes to grap- rard, who most recently was managing partner pling with long odds. of the New York office of Arnold & Porter, where In the 1970s and ’80s, he was a key member he has practiced for 14 years. of the litigation team fighting the massive The CCCL will also work in conjunction Westway highway project, which would have with other Columbia programs, like The Earth landfilled a large portion of the Hudson River Institute, as well as U.S. agencies and NGOs. alongside Manhattan. “It is especially important to train students “[The project] was endorsed by a series of from abroad so they can play a role in their governors, mayors, both senators, the [U.S.] own countries,” says Gerrard, who has written president,” recalls Gerrard, who joined the Law or edited seven environmental law texts, two of School faculty in January. which were named Best Law Book of the Year After a 13-year battle, Gerrard’s work helped by the Association of American Publishers. kill the proposal in 1985, thus protecting the Gerrard says he has seen the focus in envi- river and making hundreds of millions of dollars ronmental law shift over the years from air and available for subways and buses. It was a win water pollution in the 1970s to hazardous waste for conservationists and mass transit advocates in the ’90s. “Changes in environmental law have alike. More than 15 years later, Gerrard won another high-profile always been driven by scientific developments,” he says. “Science case involving a proposed golf course in Westchester County. His discovers a threat, and, hopefully, legislatures and the courts then adversary was , whose project, nearby residents take action.” The latest frontier is climate change, arguably the feared, would threaten their town’s drinking water. A few years most pressing environmental law concern in the field and one that later, Gerrard helped apply green building principles to the recon- Gerrard says presents difficult challenges. struction of the World Trade Center site. And those are just a few “There are going to be complicated regulatory structures that of the hundreds of complex environmental law matters Gerrard not only did not exist when I graduated law school, but that don’t has handled. even exist today,” he notes. “And they are likely to rival the tax code “Mike is tireless as a scholar and a public interest environmental in complexity.” advocate, as well as a practitioner,” says Pace Law School Professor In the coming years, the U.S. will have to craft new environmen- Nicholas Robinson ’70, who has known Gerrard since the 1970s. tal laws and re-examine agreements like the Kyoto Protocol, which “He’s earned a reputation as one of the nation’s leading environ- expires in 2012. mental law specialists.” “I think it was a global tragedy that the U.S. disengaged from the Now Gerrard is about to take on his biggest challenge yet—devel- Kyoto process in 2001, and it’s going to be very difficult to make up oping legal structures for addressing global climate change. This for lost time,” Gerrard notes. past December, he was named as a professor of professional practice Dealing with issues like Kyoto will be a key part of the CCCL’s and as the director of Columbia Law School’s groundbreaking new mission. Center for Climate Change Law (CCCL). The center will develop “The decisions that have to be made will have an enormous model laws, participate in rulemaking, conduct research, produce impact on the future of the planet,” Gerrard says. “And we are books, and train the next generation of environmental lawyers. hoping to have an influence on those decisions.”

jennifer v. hughes is a freelance journalist who regularly writes for .

illustration by John S. Dykes LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 21

60602_txt.indd 21 4/15/09 3:26 PM profiles in scholarship elizabeth scott

Step by Step family law and juvenile justice expert elizabeth scott is hitting her stride at the law school

by Rebecca Thomas

Four or five times every week, science, and developmental theory to Columbia Law School Professor Elizabeth legal policy issues. S. Scott laces up for the five-minute walk This fall, Harvard University Press from her home to Central Park, where published Rethinking Juvenile Justice, she runs along the scenic footpaths. “It’s which Scott co-wrote with Laurence such a beautiful setting,” she says, adding Steinberg, a professor of psychology at that she limits her runs to two or three Temple University. The book grew out times weekly during New York City winters. of investigations into juvenile crime the When asked if her husband, Columbia’s co-authors conducted between 1995 and Alfred McCormack Professor of Law, 2006, as part of the MacArthur Founda- Robert E. Scott, comes along to help keep tion Research Network on Adolescent her motivated, she lets out a quick laugh. Development and Juvenile Justice. The “No. No. No.” network, headed by Steinberg, was created There are distance runners, there are in response to the increasing number sprinters, and then there are those who— of state laws that made it easier to try like Bob Scott—prefer to walk. Still, when juveniles as adults. the Scotts’ son, Adam—a 2008 graduate of the University of Virginia “What we do is offer a developmental model of juvenile justice,” School of Law—ran his first-ever marathon in Philadelphia just Scott says, in explaining the authors’ proposed reforms. The Scott- before Thanksgiving, both parents “went down to cheer him on.” Steinberg prescription calls for treating adolescents as a distinct An avid strider, Elizabeth Scott took up running some 30 years legal category—not as children, but also not as adults. “The basic ago, and the professor’s habit of going the extra mile extends to argument is that if lawmakers paid attention to scientific knowledge her legal pursuits. At UVA, where she began teaching in 1988, Scott was the Scott took up running some 30 years ago, and founder of the interdisciplinary Center for Children, Families, and the Law. As the professor’s habit of going the extra mile the center’s co-director, the juvenile justice and family law expert tackled contentious extends to her legal pursuits. issues such as the regulation of marriage, divorce, and cohabitation. After serving as a visiting faculty mem- about adolescence, legal policies regulating juvenile crime would ber at Columbia Law School on four occasions, she finally settled both be fairer than contemporary law and would promote social in permanently at Morningside Heights in 2006. The leap was welfare to a greater extent than the law does now.” significant, since Scott had spent the greater part of her career on With her teaching schedule clear last semester, Scott focused the Charlottesville, Va., campus of UVA. She earned her J.D. from primarily on scholarship. But she also indulged her passion for the school in 1977. Two years after graduating, she was named opera and the theater. The Scotts, who married as undergraduates legal director of UVA’s Forensic Psychiatry Clinic at the Institute after meeting at Oberlin College, scored good seats to the plays All of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy. It was at this institute, over My Sons and Equus. The latter, about a disturbed stable boy who the course of eight years, that Scott honed her interdisciplinary commits a terrible crime and the child psychiatrist who treats him, approach to scholarship, applying behavioral economics, social no doubt will make for lively classroom discussion come spring.

Rebecca Thomas is a freelance journalist living in New York City.

22 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 illustration by Stephen Gardner

60602_txt.indd 22 4/15/09 3:26 PM LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 23

60602_txt.indd 23 4/15/09 3:26 PM In an increasingly global, interconnected world where national borders seem to mean less with each passing day, the Supreme Court is grappling with what to do about foreign legal precedent. The justices differ starkly on whether the Court should look to foreign law to inform its decisions or ignore precedent from other countries when interpreting the Constitution. Is there light at the end of the tunnel for the Supreme Court when it comes to the use of foreign law? By Adam Liptak

o n July 19, 2005, the same day The hearing was stacked in favor of that Earl Warren, along with Justices Joseph that John G. Roberts, Jr. was nominated perspective, with three of the witnesses Story, Benjamin Cardozo, Felix Frankfurter, to the Supreme Court, Congress held a competing only in the vehemence of their and Robert Jackson—and noted that seven hearing on an issue that would prove to denunciation of Supreme Court decisions members of the Supreme Court sitting in be a highlight of the future chief justice’s that took into account the views of foreign 2005 had supported the practice. “Indeed,” confirmation hearings. courts in death penalty and gay rights cases. Cleveland said, “it is the critics of the practice The House Judiciary Committee has, it The exception was Sarah H. Cleveland, who who are the innovators now.” turns out, a “Subcommittee on the Consti- is now the Louis Henkin Professor of Human The resolution on citation of foreign prece- tution,” and it had invited four scholars to and Constitutional Rights at Columbia dent by U.S. courts died in committee, but the testify on a proposed resolution condemning Law School and co-director of its Human issue remains alive. In Congress, the press, the citation of foreign law by American Rights Institute. Her testimony was crisp the law reviews, and at the Law School, the courts. The subcommittee’s former chair- and forthright, and it cannot have endeared question of when and how American courts man, Steve Chabot, Republican of , set her to Mr. Chabot. should make use of international and for- the tone in the opening minutes. “The resolution is contrary to over 200 eign legal materials continues to reverberate. “By looking to and relying on the decisions years of American constitutional tradi- The popular debate on the topic, as of foreign courts in the interpretation of our tion,” she told the subcommittee. “Since the several Columbia Law School professors Constitution of the United States,” he said, founding of this country, the federal courts pointed out in interviews, is freighted with “the judiciary is not only undermining the routinely have considered foreign sources of misconceptions. One, as Cleveland told the vision of our Founding Fathers but is chip- law in resolving constitutional questions.” subcommittee, is that the phenomenon ping away at the core principles on which Cleveland listed some towering figures in of citing to foreign law is new. A second this country was founded, chipping away at American law who had done just that—Chief misnomer is that to cite a decision is to be our nation’s sovereignty and independence.” Justices John Marshall, Roger Taney, and bound by it.

24 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 photographed by IAN ALLEN

60602_txt.indd 24 4/15/09 3:27 PM LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 25

60602_txt.indd 25 4/15/09 3:27 PM But there is something broader going on, says Matthew Waxman, an associate pro- fessor at the Law School. “The U.S. legal academy is overwhelmingly international- ist and cosmopolitan in outlook,” he notes, “whereas a sizeable segment of the American polity is nationalist and even proud of American exceptionalism.”

The current controversy arose in a limited set of quite well-publicized Supreme Court cases. “It’s mostly about the death penalty—that’s where it started,” says George P. Fletcher, the Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence. Since the founding Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in Roper v. Simmons, the 2005 decision striking down the death of this country, the penalty for juvenile offenders, tried to use careful language. “The opinion of the world community,” he federal courts routinely wrote, “while not controlling our outcome, does provide respected and significant confirmation for our own conclusions.” ‘‘ That wasn’t careful enough for Justice have considered Antonin Scalia, who dissented. “The basic premise of the Court’s argument—that foreign sources of law in American law should conform to the laws of the rest of the world—ought to be rejected out of hand,” he wrote. resolving constitutional There was a similar exchange in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 decision striking down a Texas sodomy law that criminalized sexual questions. intimacy by same-sex couples. In his deci- sion for the majority, Kennedy cited a series of decisions from the European Court of Human Rights. “The right the petition- ers seek in this case,” Kennedy wrote, “has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom in many other countries.” Scalia, dissenting, said the discussion of foreign law in Lawrence was “dangerous dicta.” The Supreme Court, he said, quot- –Professor Sarah Cleveland ing from a concurrence Justice Clarence Thomas had filed a year before, “should ’’not impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans.” Professor Cleveland notes that Scalia’s role in creating and stoking the debate cannot be underestimated. “A lot of it has to do with the presence of Justice Scalia on the Court,” she says. “His position has fed into hot-button social controversies in the United States—the death penalty, gay rights, abortion.” In addition to Thomas, Scalia can count Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. as allies in his opposition to the citation of foreign law. The Court’s

26 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 26 4/15/09 3:27 PM Cases & Controversies Recent opinions drive divisions on the Court’s use of foreign law

ROPER v. SIMMONS (2005): In an opinion prohibiting the execution of juvenile defendants, Justice Kennedy cites the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the United Kingdom’s ban on capital punishment for juveniles, referring to such illustrations as “instructive.” In dissent, Justice Scalia shoots back that, “the basic premise of the Court’s argument—that American law should conform to the laws of the rest of the world—ought to be rejected out of hand.”

Lawrence v. Texas (2003): Justice Kennedy cites a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights and debates before the British Parliament in striking down an anti-sodomy law that criminalized homosexual sex. Justice Scalia responds by asserting that such citations are “meaningless” and “dangerous” dicta.

Grutter v. Bollinger (2003): Justice Ginsburg, in a concurring opinion upholding the constitutionality of the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policy, cites the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Atkins v. Virginia (2002): Justice Stevens, writing for the majority in a case that barred capital punishment of mentally disabled defendants, notes the world community’s “overwhelming” stance against such executions and references an amicus brief filed on behalf of the European Union. Justice Scalia, in dissent, refers to the practices of the world community as “irrelevant,” and notes that such “notions of justice are (thankfully) not always those of our people.”

more liberal members—including Justices instance, or its references to making and Of course, a lack of facility with interna- John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth enforcing treaties—also appear to require tional relations and foreign authorities may Bader Ginsburg ’59, and Stephen G. or contemplate looking abroad. also be a comment on the insular quality of Breyer—have endorsed Kennedy’s view, “For those who are committed to original- the American legal culture and the homo- as had Justice Sandra Day O’Connor be- ism,” says Lori Fisler Damrosch, Columbia’s geneity of the backgrounds of the current fore her retirement. Chief Justice William Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and justices—all of whom are former federal H. Rehnquist, who died in 2005, made International Organization, “it should be appeals court judges. statements on both sides of the issue. understood that the framers wanted us to “The justices of the current Supreme In academic circles, even some conser- comply with international law.” Court have had less real-world experience vative scholars generally opposed to the Charles Fried ’60, who is visiting the Law with diplomacy than many of their prede- citation of foreign authority in constitu- School from this year, cessors,” Damrosch notes. Chief Justices tional cases have said they might make has said the citation of foreign law should John Jay, John Marshall, William Howard an exception for the provision at issue in be done sparingly, in part because it impos- Taft, and Charles Evans Hughes, for in- Roper—the Eighth Amendment’s ban on es a burden on courts and litigants. There stance, all had substantial international cruel and unusual punish- are questions, too, about experience before joining the Court. ment. Steven G. Calabresi, whether American judges Cleveland makes a similar point. a founder of the Federalist know what they are doing “Nineteenth century judges were much Society and a law pro- go beyond in discussing materials more comfortable dealing with interna- fessor at Northwestern, Interactive map on countries’ from other legal systems. tional and comparative materials than is one example. “It would death penalty positions. “If the justices are going modern U.S. judges are,” she says. “Many law.columbia.edu/mag/ be odd to say,” Professor intl-law-map to do this more,” says early judges spoke foreign languages, and Trevor W. Morrison ’98 Morrison, “there is a ques- they were familiar with using foreign legal notes, “that it’s categorically impermissible to tion of expertise and competence. But materials. For example, the debates among take account of foreign law in considering that’s not necessarily to say that the prac- the judges in the Dred Scott case regarding evolving standards of decency.” tice should be ruled out. It might instead whether time spent by a slave in free ter- Other provisions of the Constitution—its mean that justices should invest more time ritory should render a slave free included grant of power to Congress to punish and energy in the practice, to be sure they extensive consideration of the approach of “Offenses against the Law of Nations,” for get it right.” French, English, and other foreign courts to

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 27

60602_txt.indd 27 4/15/09 3:27 PM this issue, as well as an analysis of the issue under international law.” Many defenders of the practice of con- sulting foreign law also stress that it is not binding on American judges. “Foreign opinions are not authoritative,” Ginsburg said in a speech to the Constitu- tional Court of South Africa in 2006. “They set no binding precedent for the U.S. judge. But they can add to the store of knowledge relevant to the solution of trying questions.” Morrison says there is a counterargu- ment to this line of reasoning. “You’re ei- ther saying it does no work at all,” he says of citing foreign authorities, “or you’re saying [With f]oreign law, it’s relevant.” And if the cited materials do some work, he suggests, “There will be cases in which they will represent the dispositive you can find factor.” That should be acknowledged, Mor- rison says, though he does not categorically oppose foreign authorities being dispositive anything you want. in appropriate cases. In 2005, Scalia had a public conversa- tion with Breyer about these questions and ‘‘ seemed to acknowledge that judges may If you don’t find it in learn something from reading the work of their counterparts abroad. the decisions of France “I mean, just indulge your curiosity,” Scalia told his colleagues. “Just don’t put it in your opinions.” or Italy, it’s in the That comment captures an aspect of the current debate, according to Damrosch. “A number of members of the current judi- decisions of Somalia ciary have been chilled a little bit,” she says. On the other hand, she adds, “It may not be so important what footnote they put in as it or Japan or Indonesia is a thought process.”

At his confirmation hearing in or wherever. 2005, a few months after the House sub- committee on the Constitution met, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. indicated that he was opposed to the citation of foreign law in constitutional cases. “If we’re relying on a decision from a German judge about what our Constitu- tion means, no president accountable to the people appointed that judge and no Senate accountable to the people confirmed that –Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. judge,” Roberts said. “And yet he’s playing a role in shaping the law that binds the ’’people in this country. “[With f]oreign law,” the chief justice added, “you can find anything you want. If you don’t find it in the decisions of France or Italy, it’s in the decisions of Somalia or Japan or Indonesia or wherever. As somebody said in another context, looking at foreign law for support is like looking out over a crowd

28 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 28 4/15/09 3:27 PM and picking out your friends. You can find In Their Own Words them. They’re there.” Those “methodological concerns” are sig- The justices weigh in on the use of foreign law nificant ones, according to Professor Waxman. “There’s an issue of survey bias,” he says, “and concern that a lack of sufficient expertise about the national legal context from which Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.: “[T]he framers would be stunned by one thread might be pulled could undermine the idea that the Bill of Rights is to be interpreted by taking a poll of the utility of drawing on a foreign source.” the countries around the world.” (Senate confirmation hearings, 2006) But several professors said they were dis- heartened by the way in which an important debate over subtle and varied distinctions Justice Stephen G. Breyer: “I believe the ‘comparativist’ view has been turned into a political issue. that several of us have enunciated will carry the day—simply because “You’ve never seen this kind of hostility to of the enormous value in any discipline of trying to learn from the international and foreign authority [in the similar experience of others.” (Remarks before the American Society past],” Professor Cleveland notes. of International Law, 2003) Professor Damrosch points out that she has detected posturing in the debate. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59: “[C]omparative analysis “Those who are on the warpath against emphatically is relevant to the task of interpreting constitutions and what seems to be a benign and non-threat- ening practice,” she says, “have to appeal enforcing human rights.” (“Affirmative Action as an International to certain constituencies to appear more Human Rights Dialogue: Considered Opinion,” 2000) American than anyone else.” But others, as Henry Paul Monaghan, the Justice Anthony M. Kennedy: “It does not lessen our fidelity to Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitu- the Constitution or our pride in its origins to acknowledge that the tional Law, points out, are deeply troubled express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and by what they see as threats to democracy peoples simply underscores the centrality of those same rights within and national sovereignty. Monaghan, in a our own heritage of freedom.” ( , 2005) 2007 article in the Columbia Law Review, Roper v. Simmons cited one distinguished holder of that view, Professor Jed Rubenfeld at Yale Law School. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, JR.: “[Using foreign law as “The institutions and ideologies surround- precedent] allows the judge to incorporate his or her own personal ing international law, at least in its present preferences, cloak them with the authority of precedent . . . and use form, do in fact pose a significant threat to that to determine the meaning of the Constitution. And I think that’s democracy—not by accident, but structurally a misuse of precedent, not a correct use of precedent.” (Senate and by design,” Rubenfeld wrote. confirmation hearings, 2005) Monaghan himself says the issues sur- rounding the citation of foreign law can only be understood “as part of a much larger Justice Antonin Scalia: “[M]odern foreign materials can never patchwork of issues,” including the role of be relevant to an interpretation of . . . the United States Constitution.” international institutions. There is a larger (Remarks to the American Enterprise Institute, 2006) question, he says: “How do we fit into the emerging supranational legal order?” Justice David H. Souter: Though he cited to foreign law in the 1997 case Washington v. Glucksberg, Justice Souter has remained quiet on foreign law’s role in Supreme Court constitutional interpretation. join the conversation Justice John Paul Stevens: “[T]here is a vast difference between, What's your take on this issue? on the one hand, considering the thoughtful views of other scholars law.columbia.edu/ mag/intl-law and judges—whether they be Americans or foreigners . . .—before making up our own minds, and, on the other hand, treating interna- tional opinion as controlling our interpretation of our own law.” The answer, Monaghan says, is that more (Remarks to the Judicial Conference for the 7th Circuit, 2005) engagement with the world is inevitable. “The world,” he says, “is going to get smaller.” Justice Clarence Thomas: “[The Court] should not impose foreign ADAM LIPTAK is the national legal corre- moods, fads, or fashions on Americans.” (Foster v. Florida, 2002) spondent for The New York Times.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 29

60602_txt.indd 29 4/15/09 3:27 PM 30 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 ILLUSTRATION BY david plunkert

60602_txt.indd 30 4/15/09 3:27 PM Fueling Change

Dean David Schizer unveils an innovative tax proposal that would help curb America’s destructive dependence on gasoline by Laura Saunders

ational security, climate change, urban Few would disagree that something needs Nsprawl: Each is a serious issue by itself, to be done, especially to address climate but Law School Dean David M. Schizer and change and national security. American his colleague Thomas Merrill of Yale Law motorists account for 6 percent of the School see a common thread uniting them, world’s carbon dioxide emissions, an amount and it is Americans’ addiction to gasoline. “Our exceeded only by the entire national output dependence on gasoline is casting a shadow on of CO2 emissions from China and the our national future,” warns Dean Schizer. European Union. Carbon dioxide is a ma- At the Law School’s most recent Charles jor contributor to global warming, and there E. Gerber Transactional Studies Program tax is no known way to reduce its effects except conference, Merrill and Schizer proposed a by using less gasoline or switching to a less- gasoline tax taking aim at all three issues. In polluting energy source. Cars and trucks also a novel approach, their levy would take ef- emit carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and fect only when gas prices are low and would particulates that endanger health and the refund all revenues collected directly to U.S. environment in other ways. taxpayers in a way that rewards individual The relation of gasoline to U.S. national se- conservation. The proposal is designed to be curity is just as worrying. Much has changed politically feasible and to change a maximum since the end of World War II, when America of undesirable behavior with a minimum of was largely self-sufficient in energy. Today, government interference. “I’ve never seen a more than two-thirds of U.S. petroleum gas tax I didn’t like,” notes Louis Kaplow of products are imported, often from nations Harvard Law School. “And the benefits from that are unstable, unsavory, or potentially this one would be huge.” hostile—including Venezuela, Nigeria, Iraq,

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 31

60602_txt.indd 31 4/15/09 3:27 PM Angola, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia. A sin- gle year’s oil imports from Venezuela and Nigeria (more than 780 million barrels combined), in fact, is greater than the total in the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve (689 million barrels). Merrill and Schizer’s proposal goes after these ills, plus what they term the “vicious “Our dependence cycle” of urban sprawl, in which decreasing density has led to ever farther-flung sub- on gasoline is casting urbs with larger, energy-gobbling houses a shadow on requiring yet more driving. Although the professors hope their measure will pro- our national future.” mote several types of conservation, Merrill —Dean David Schizer cautions that it should not be viewed as a total solution to U.S. energy problems. “But we think it is a good one,” he says, “and we don’t want the ideal to be the enemy of the possible.” Here is how their plan would work: At the time the law is enacted, tax writers would set a threshold about 10 percent below the then-price of gasoline. So if gas costs $2.25 would feel a pinch, because their refund innovative, which in turn gave them an ad- per gallon when the law is passed, lawmak- would not fully offset the cost of the tax they vantage over their American competitors.) ers could make a set point of perhaps $2.00. paid. Over time, then, the tax would reward At the same time, the measure would send Going forward, taxpayers would know that frugal gas-users and put pressure on those an unmistakable message to oil-producing gasoline might cost more than $2.00 per who are profligate. The latter might then nations that the U.S. is serious about not gallon but would never again cost less. change their behavior; at the very least, they being beholden to them in the future. If gas prices rise to more than $2.00 would be more aware of their outsized use The proposal’s chief drawback, as always, a gallon, the tax would not be imposed at of a scarce and nonrenewable resource. is a historic American resistance to any oil all—so as not to burden U.S. consumers It is easy to see why conferees praised conservation measures. Conferee and Co- further. Instead, it would kick in only when Merrill and Schizer’s proposal as “elegant.” lumbia Law School professor-to-be Michael the price falls below the designated thresh- Because of the profound opposition energy J. Graetz remembers well the demise of Bill old. The actual rate of the tax imposed tax proposals have traditionally aroused, Clinton’s BTU tax proposal in 1993, shortly would vary in order to maintain the price the professors have taken great care to make after Graetz was a senior Treasury official. at the set point. So if the price fell to $1.75 this one politically palatable. The levy would “The American public views the automobile per gallon, then the tax would be 25 cents, be invisible when enacted—because the as its freedom machine and will resist any bringing it up to $2.00. All revenue would threshold is below the price of gas—and large tax on gas,” he says. Residents of areas go into a special fund. disappear when prices are high, greatly who travel long distances by car often assert At the end of each year, the total amount reducing the temptation to repeal it. By that gas taxes are grossly unfair, especially of money in the fund would be divided by refunding all revenue, their plan is not if they live in oil-producing areas like Texas the number of adults over open to the charge that or Wyoming. Other opposition might come 18 in the U.S. Each adult it is just another reve- from those worried about the tax’s effect on would then receive a check nue-grab by tax-hungry the poor, who often cannot afford newer for the quotient—in this web exclusive politicians. They also en- cars or well-located housing. scenario, perhaps $1,000. Read the sured that administration Merrill and Schizer counter that slight Merrill-Schizer proposal. The result: Taxpayers law.columbia.edu/mag/ would be relatively sim- variations of their idea could cope with who drive an average gas-tax-paper ple, piggy-backing on the such issues—varying the tax according to amount would realize no existing system. region, for instance, or weighting the refund net benefit or loss from the Merrill-Schizer The tax’s design also promotes conserva- according to income level. The proposal’s tax. For them, the $1,000 check would be tion in a way that allows market forces to flexibility is yet another of its virtues. Given about equal to the amount they paid in gas- determine the response to it. Should com- the new administration and the urgent need oline tax for the year. But those who con- munities be denser, or cars altered, or fuels for change, perhaps this plan will fare bet- serve gasoline in whatever way—driving less different? Under this proposal, the mar- ter than its forebears. “It is due,” says Dean or not at all, using a fuel-efficient car, or find- ket decides, not policymakers who might Schizer, “and overdue.” ing an alternate fuel—would wind up with be shortsighted or subject to political in- extra dollars in their pockets because their fluence. (Merrill points out that the steep Laura Saunders is a New York–based free- consumption would be less than the average. gasoline taxes long in effect in Europe and lance journalist who has written extensively And those who consume more gasoline Japan actually encouraged carmakers to be on tax issues for Forbes.

32 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 32 4/15/09 3:27 PM LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 33

60602_txt.indd 33 4/15/09 3:27 PM a common purpose

On the occasion of the NAACP’s 100-year anniversary, a look back at how Columbia Law School students and faculty members helped the organization reshape the course of history and bring about positive change for millions By Paula Span

Picture the scene in a dilapidated building at 107 West 43rd Street in the early 1950s. A cadre of law- yers, including law professors and students, has for months been working 15-hour days and longer, without more than an occasional day off. The fatigue is such that one of the younger staffers, Jack Greenberg ’48, traveling home to his family in Brooklyn late one night, falls asleep on the subway, rides past his stop, and awakens in the train yard at the end of the line. The group toils in “a pretty und

crummy set of offices—old desks F and tables and partitions,” recalls onal Greenberg’s classmate Jack B.

Weinstein ’48, who, at the time, ducati

was a recently hired Columbia Law & E professor that Greenberg had re- efense

cruited to join the group. “I would D characterize it as 1930s bail bonds- egal man décor.” The offices are largely L un–air conditioned; the elevator creaks and sometimes stinks of urine. NAACP the But the work is electrifying. Here of

This page: Professor Theodore Shaw ’79 (at right) with Julius Chambers ’64 LL.M. (at center) at the NAACP Legal Defense and sy at the Supreme Court in the early 1990s. Like Chambers, Shaw eventually became LDF Educational Fund, the lawyerly

director-counsel. ’68 and his attorney Constance courte Opposite page: (at center) arm of the nation’s most important Baker Motley ’46 prevailed in their efforts to spur integration at the University of . civil rights organization, Thurgood

On October 1, 1962, U.S. Marshals escorted Meredith to his first class at Ole Miss. hotos

Marshall is leading the campaign P

34 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 34 4/15/09 3:27 PM LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 35

60602_txt.indd 35 4/15/09 3:27 PM to desegregate schools through Now Shaw is the one teaching the race and poverty law seminar. five Supreme Court cases that “Jack sort of passed it on to me,” he says. view more collectively come to be known Browse other historic photos. as Brown v. Board of Education. he NAACP was born in a New York apartment, a response law.columbia.edu/mag/ And Columbia-trained lawyers, by a handful of activists to the lethal riots that had -100 both black and white, play broken out the previous summer in Springfield, Ill. significant roles. Robert L. Carter ’41 LL.M. serves as Marshall’s TThat was Abraham Lincoln’s hometown, and the new deputy and chief strategist. He and Greenberg, along with five group’s founders chose February 12, 1909, the centennial of the others, will argue the cases before the Court in 1952 and 1953. Great Emancipator’s birth, to issue its Call. The eight-paragraph Constance Baker Motley ’46, who joined the effort even before document questioned whether the nation had fulfilled such ideals she had graduated, is researching and writing briefs along with as “assuring to each and every citizen, irrespective of color, the Weinstein and his faculty colleague Charles Black. equality of opportunity and equality before the law, which underlie So begins an extensive and historic association between Columbia our American institutions and are guaranteed by the Constitution.” Law School and the National Association for the Advancement of It had not, the Call concluded: “If Mr. Lincoln could revisit this Colored People, which this year marks a century of struggle for country in the flesh, he would be disheartened and discouraged.” racial and social justice with a series of centennial celebrations. The Legal Defense Fund followed, and though it was separately “The tentacles spread more widely than one could ever guess,” incorporated in 1940, LDF and its parent initially functioned muses Professor Theodore M. Shaw ’79, “all these individuals, all as intertwined organizations. NAACP board members sat on the these relationships, so many connections.” Shaw could serve as Defense Fund board as well; Marshall served simultaneously as the Exhibit A: Drawn as a student to the Law School by its reputation NAACP’s general counsel and as LDF’s first director-counsel. “They for pioneering civil rights involvement, he studied evidence with were connected at the hip,” Shaw says. Before the Fund moved Weinstein. Shaw also enrolled in a seminar on race and poverty to West 43rd Street, the groups had shared office space in a law that Jack Greenberg, by then head of the Legal Defense Fund, midtown building whose directory didn’t even mention LDF as was teaching as an adjunct. A few years after his graduation, Shaw an independent entity. joined the Legal Defense Fund, That changed after the Supreme Court victory. “The southern where Greenberg had entered his Professor Jack senators went after us in retaliation for Brown v. Board of Education,” third decade of leadership. Shaw Greenberg ’48 Greenberg explains. They pressured the Internal Revenue Service, rose to become director-counsel (at left), Constance which threatened the Legal Defense Fund’s tax-exempt status. Baker Motley ’46 (at himself, then, last year, came full Since the law at the time forbade any political lobbying or advocacy center), and Thurgood circle, returning to the Law School Marshall (at right). by a 501(c)(3) organization like LDF, the groups separated their to join Greenberg on the faculty. staff, leadership, and board members. und F onal ducati & E efense D egal L NAACP the

of

sy courte

hotos P

36 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 36 4/15/09 3:27 PM Drawn as a student to the Law School by its reputation for pioneering civil rights involvement, TED Shaw ’79 studied evidence with Jack Weinstein ’48. He also enrolled in a seminar on race and poverty law that Jack Greenberg ’48, by then head of the Legal Defense Fund, was teaching as an adjunct. P hotos

courte

Yet even as they took steps to disentangle themselves, and for harsh word directly to each other, my anger and feeling that he had sy

of decades afterwards endured some tension, “the NAACP has had badly used me were no secret . . . .”

the a mission that’s entirely consistent with the mission of the Legal Nevertheless, Carter determinedly set about protecting the

NAACP NAACP Defense Fund,” Shaw says. At one point, the parent unsuccessfully NAACP from assaults in southern states—wielding, in NAACP sued its spin-off to prevent it from using the initials NAACP, he v. Alabama, a First Amendment argument he had developed L

egal recalls. Yet, “the two organizations have worked together often.” years before in his Columbia Law School master’s thesis. With an After the split, Robert Carter became Columbia Law School’s expanded NAACP legal staff, he pursued a variety of education and D

efense connection to the national NAACP organization. A employment discrimination cases and claimed 21 quiet, even shy man, he’d never quite meshed with At top: The Brown v. victories in 22 appearances before the Supreme

& E & Board of Education team the more charismatic , despite of NAACP Legal Defense Court. Now about to turn 92, Carter has served ducati their dozen years together in the legal trenches. Fund lawyers, including as a federal judge in the Southern District of New When Marshall sent him to the NAACP to be its Professor Jack Greenberg York since 1972. Among his numerous awards, the onal general counsel in 1956, Carter was infuriated by ’48 (middle with arms one he treasures most is the NAACP’s Spingarn

F folded), at the U.S. und what seemed like “obviously a demotion,” he wrote Medal, which recognizes African-Americans for Supreme Court in 1953. in his 2005 memoir. “While we never said one “acts of distinguished merit and achievement.”

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 37

60602_txt.indd 37 4/15/09 3:27 PM As NAACP general counsel, Robert Carter ’41 LL.M. claimed 21 victories in 22 appearances before the Supreme Court during the 1950s and ’60s. Among his numerous awards, the one he treasures most is the NAACP’s .

t the Legal Defense Fund, meanwhile, the bonds also intensified. “The staff was heavily Columbia for a long, long time, maybe up to half the people,” says Greenberg, who Atook the helm at the LDF when Marshall was appointed to the federal bench in 1961, and who kept the pipeline flowing. Julius Chambers ’64 LL.M., for example, was the LDF’s very first student intern and later succeeded Greenberg as director-counsel. Greenberg also brought aboard his former student Ted Shaw, William Robinson ’66, and, later, Patrick O. Patterson ’72, Judith Browne-Dianis ’92, and Deborah Fins ’92, among others. ’74 put his years with the LDF to use under President , as the assistant attorney general for civil rights. Lawyers could travel the well-trod path in either direction. James S. Liebman worked on school desegregation, capital punishment, and habeas corpus cases as LDF’s assistant counsel in the 1980s, then became the Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law at Columbia. The association hardly ended with Liebman’s Law School appoint- ment, however; he has arranged for students to assist with briefs for Supreme Court cases he has undertaken, pro bono, for LDF. He has also involved students in a major capital punishment investiga- tion, with the LDF as a partner. und

James Meredith ’68 occupies a unique category: He wasn’t an F LDF staffer, but one of its most prominent clients. An African- onal American military veteran attempting to integrate the University of

Mississippi in 1961, Meredith’s case generated international head- ducati

lines. Constance Baker Motley eventually won his admission in an & E extended court battle; Meredith was nevertheless repeatedly turned efense

away from the university, amid rioting, by the governor of the state. D It took Army troops and the National Guard, along with the Jus- egal tice Department and a proclamation by President Kennedy, to get L Meredith registered. His graduation from Ole Miss in 1963 was the most thrilling day in Motley’s career, she later said. And it wasn’t NAACP the coincidental that when Meredith decided he wanted to study law, he of

came to Columbia. sy

Julius Chambers ’64 LL.M. (at center) was the Legal Defense courte

Fund’s first student intern. He later went on to succeed Professor Jack Greenberg ’48 (at right) as LDF director-counsel. hotos P

38 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 38 4/15/09 3:27 PM racial bias in capital punishment among legal scholars and civil rights activists,” Fagan says, and to “identify strategies to reduce racially disproportionate treat- ment of racial minorities in both death penalty cases and through- out the criminal justice system.” Meanwhile, Columbia Law School students contributed 2,559 hours of pro bono work for the Legal Defense Fund be- tween 1996 and 2007, and Law School students intern there In the Fund’s early years, the half-credit Columbia course called virtually every summer. “It’s one Legal Survey, taught by Professor Walter Gellhorn ’31, operated as of the more exciting placements,” says Akua Akyea, the director of a kind of incubator, preparing civil rights attorneys for work at LDF international and summer programs at the Law School’s Center for and other public interest organizations. Its bland name was deliber- Public Interest Law. Students who compete for LDF internships ate: Gellhorn, who had already been compelled to appear before “like that the organization takes on cases that are difficult and new, Congress to swear that he wasn’t a communist, “didn’t want the fac- and require a level of creativity by lawyers that you don’t find in a lot ulty to know what [the course] was about,” says Greenberg, who took of other organizations,” Akyea says. (Among the lengthening list of the course for four semesters. “He didn’t lie about it, but he didn’t ad- Columbia Law School alumni who’ve interned for LDF: Eric Holder vertise it. The dean at that time was not very friendly to civil rights.” ’76, the U.S. attorney general.) That’s an odd, antiquated notion now. Take, for instance, the case Sometimes, connections be- of Anurima Bhargava ’02. “Much of the reason I went to Columbia tween Columbia Law School, was because of its work in civil rights and human rights law,” says the NAACP, and the LDF arise the young lawyer. Bhargava studied civil procedure with Greenberg in less straightforward ways. (“he taught us through his experience litigating LDF cases”) and Consider the events of Decem- took Professor Susan Sturm’s yearlong field research seminar on ber 1992, when students were workplace equity. protesting Columbia Univer- Joining LDF herself in 2004, Bhargava now directs the organi- sity’s plans to build a biomedi- zation’s education practice. (Kirsten Clarke ’00 and Jin Hee Lee cal research center on the site of ’00 are also current LDF lawyers.) “In many of our cases, we work the Audubon Ballroom, where with local chapters of the NAACP, either as our clients or as ties to was assassinated. the community,” Bhargava points out. “NAACP chapters still serve A throng descended on the as the eyes and ears of the LDF.” Hamilton Hall offices of the Columbia College dean—at the Top left: Professor Ted he connections continue to multiply. Several years ago, Shaw ’79, Elaine Jones, time, Law School alumnus Jack as the Law School began contemplating some sort of the first female head of Greenberg. Among the protest institute that would “rethink the framework for seeking the LDF, and Caroline leaders was a junior named legal and social justice,” Professor Susan Sturm recalls, Kennedy ’88. Top right: .

P Anurima Bhargava hotos T she and her colleagues learned that the Legal Defense Fund was ’02 directs the LDF’s “He chained me into my office!” considering a similar idea. The resulting Center for Institutional education practice. Above: says Greenberg, still sounding a

courte and Social Change, launched in 2007, represents a Columbia Law Professor Jeffrey Fagan bit indignant. The protest lasted School and LDF collaboration—an attempt, Sturm says, to answer spoke at a 2007 LDF/ only a few hours, after which sy Columbia Law School

of questions like: “What does racial justice look like in an era when the Greenberg emerged, gave the conference on racially

the courts are in retrenchment mode?” and “What does it mean to be a disparate patterns in demonstrators “a tongue-lashing,” NAACP NAACP leader for people of color at this historic moment?” About a dozen applying the death penalty. walked out onto Broadway, and Law School faculty and 30 students each year have undertaken got into a cab. Jealous and three L

egal projects for the center dealing with issues such as higher education, other students were suspended for a semester. Four years passed low-wage work, policing, and housing policies. before he returned to Columbia and completed his political science D

efense Dovetailing concern about progress on civil rights issues has also degree, but Jealous made up for lost time. “He ended up being a led to such joint events as “Twenty Years after McCleskey v. Kemp,” a Rhodes scholar,” Greenberg notes. & E & 2007 conference co-sponsored by the Law School and LDF to mark And last summer, Benjamin T. Jealous became the 17th ducati what Professor Jeffrey Fagan calls “an unpleasant landmark”—the president—and, at 35, the youngest—of the NAACP. Supreme Court ruling that racially disparate patterns in applying onal the death penalty did not violate constitutional prohibitions against Paula Span is a contributing writer for Washington Post Maga- F

und racial discrimination. With the conference, which drew about zine and teaches at the Columbia University Graduate School 125 participants, both organizations hoped “to reignite interest in of Journalism.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 39

60602_txt.indd 39 4/15/09 3:27 PM 3The Diamond 3club

Thanks to Mark Attanasio, Gary Goldring, , 3and three fellow Law School alumni who traded in fantasy leagues for the real thing, Columbia has major league connec- tions to the world of professional baseball. Brewers, Rays, and Nationals front-office members talk about what it’s like to own a baseball franchise, make the tough calls, and live out childhood dreams. by josh levin

40 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 ILLUSTRATION BY brad yeo

60602_txt.indd 40 4/15/09 3:27 PM LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 41

60602_txt.indd 41 4/15/09 3:27 PM Like every boy who grew up in in “I felt like we needed to make that decision in the most important city in the world,” he the 1960s, Mark Attanasio ’82 dreamed of to make the playoffs,” he says. “It was a very says, “is a challenge that’s unique.” playing center field for the Yankees—and hard call for personal and other reasons, Along with trying to put a winner on the like every boy in that era, he eventually realized but you shouldn’t take the job if you don’t field, Kasten has had ample opportunity to he wasn’t Mickey Mantle. want to make those decisions.” take advantage of his Columbia Law School So what do you do when you love baseball education. Kasten, who now sits on the but can’t hit a ball 500 feet? In the early tan Kasten has been making those Board of Directors of the Sports Lawyers 1980s, Attanasio satisfied his baseball kinds of tough calls for three Association, served on the owners’ negoti- jones by participating in one of the earliest decades. When Kasten got his ating committee during baseball’s 1994–95 rotisserie (now known as fantasy) leagues— Sstart as in-house counsel for the strike, and he managed the legal and busi- slotting players onto an imaginary team Atlanta Braves, he was given simple march- ness task of overseeing the construction and tracking their statistics with some ing orders: “I was told to stay near [former of three major sports facilities: Atlanta’s Lbuddies. Two decades later, the investment Braves owner] Ted [Turner] and make sure Turner Field and Philips Arena, and Wash- banker had worked his way up to the ma- he didn’t get into trouble.” This proved an ington’s Nationals Park, which opened in jors, becoming the majority owner of the impossible task. Soon after Kasten signed 2008. “There are days when I wonder what Brewers. Like all rookies, he on, Turner was suspended for a year by it would be like to just be a more conven- had “a lot to learn,” Attanasio recalls. “Run- Commissioner Bowie Kuhn for violating tional lawyer, and then all my friends who ning a real baseball team is a lot tougher baseball’s tampering rules—the Braves are the more conventional lawyers talk me than running a rotisserie team.” owner had announced at a cocktail party out of that very quickly,” he says. Kasten says Attanasio isn’t the only Columbia Law that he would shell out whatever amount he realized just how lucky he’s been when School graduate who has turned a life in was necessary to sign outfielder Gary Mat- Law School classmate (and Nationals sea- baseball from fantasy into thews. While Kasten was son ticket holder) Eric Holder ’76 told him reality. Gary Goldring ’82 fighting the suspension in how much everyone envied Kasten’s job. is part-owner of the Tampa court, Turner tried to jolt “And he was the deputy attorney general at Bay Rays. Stan Kasten ’76, the Braves out of a losing the time!” Kasten says, still disbelieving. the longtime president of streak by naming himself the Atlanta Braves and now the manager for one game. nlike Kasten, Mark Attana- the president of the Wash- The Braves lost that game, sio didn’t act on his baseball ington Nationals, has been and Kasten once again dreams right away. At the Law working in the game since found himself having to pla- USchool, Attanasio organized he graduated law school. cate an angry commissioner. a sports law panel that included NBA And Attanasio brought three Kasten, 56, got into base- Commissioner David Stern ’66, then the fellow alumni—Marc I. Stern ball serendipitously. After league’s executive vice president. But while ’69, and Richard and Alison taking the New York and he briefly considered becoming a sports Ressler ’83—to the Brewers Stan Kasten ’76 has worked New Jersey bar exams, he agent, Attanasio found himself drawn to as investment partners. in baseball since his Law celebrated by going on a corporate law. After two and a half years For Attanasio and his co- School graduation. cross-country ballpark tour at Debevoise & Plimpton, he moved to in- horts, is a place where with his wife. At a Braves game, he spot- vestment banking, working with Michael childhood fantasies mingle with decid- ted Turner and introduced himself; within Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert. He edly grown-up challenges. When Attanasio weeks, he had a job offer. Kasten remembers has been a senior partner with Trust Com- bought the Brewers in 2005, the team had that his parents, neither of whom followed pany of the West (TCW) since 1995, when just suffered through its 12th straight losing sports, “were mildly to moderately horri- that firm bought Attanasio’s investment season. Despite improving to an 81-81 record fied” about his decision to join the Braves company, Crescent Capital Corporation. in Attanasio’s first year as principal owner, rather than take a job doing antitrust work “there were all these articles mentioning that at a Manhattan firm. It was only years later, we were still not winners,” he remembers. Kasten says, that they “developed some That was nothing compared to the heckling understanding that whatever the hell I was he received when the team traded fan favor- doing, at least I was being successful.” ite Lyle Overbay that offseason. “When I told The secret to Kasten’s success: Put to- my wife, Debbie, she promptly told me that gether a team you can trust. Manager Bobby she wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the Cox, General Manager John Schuerholz, night,” he says. “My son Mike told me that he and Kasten, who was named the Braves’ was done with the Brewers.” president in 1986, led the Braves to the This past season, the 51-year-old Atta- title, 12 straight division nasio and Brewers General Manager Doug crowns, and universal acclaim as baseball’s Melvin made an even tougher call: firing model franchise. Now, as the president of Manager Ned Yost with 12 games left in the the Nationals, Kasten is trying to bring season. The Brewers responded by making the same success to Washington, D.C. “The Mark Attanasio '82 signs autographs at the the postseason for the first time since 1982. opportunity to build a team from scratch Brewers' opening day 2008 festivities.

42 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 42 4/15/09 3:27 PM 3 “There are days when I wonder what it would be like to just be a more conventional lawyer,” admits Stan Kasten ’76. But Kasten realized just how lucky he’s been when Law School classmate Eric Holder ’76 told him how much everyone envied Kasten’s job. “And he was the deputy attorney general at the time!” 3

The –based Attanasio began fandom. Last October, the self-described to think seriously about owning a baseball “compulsive Phillies fan” was confronted team after a pair of local clubs, the Angels with a Milwaukee-Philadelphia matchup in and Dodgers, were purchased by new own- the playoffs. “It’s a very interesting thing to ers in 2003 and 2004, respectively. When have your historical team against the team the Brewers went on the market shortly that you own a piece of,” Stern says, calling thereafter, he submitted a bid during the it an emotional toss-up. “I actually think 2004 season. Attanasio was selected to he was rooting for us,” Attanasio says. “But be the new owner after the regular sea- he was able to get out of that existential son concluded, and the deal was approved dilemma when the Phillies beat us.” in January 2005. Now four years into his tenure with Milwaukee, Attanasio says the he Phillies didn’t just knock off patience he learned while investing in the Attanasio’s Brewers this fall. They financial markets has helped him adjust to also took down the Rays, a team his new field. “In both businesses, you as- Tthat’s partly owned by Attanasio’s semble a lot of data, and you try to project classmate and former pickup basketball an outcome,” he says. “In baseball, you’ve opponent Gary Goldring. After retiring Dean David Schizer and Gary Goldring '82 made a bet on a guy, and he has to perform from Goldman Sachs, Goldring and some at Columbia. or not perform. Like with a stock, there’s colleagues, led by businessman Stuart Stern- a trend line: It’s up and down and up and berg, purchased the Rays in 2005. “Stu Bay Rays.” His only disappointment: “It’s down, but it should be trending up. If you’ve [Sternberg] has proven to be quite adept at too bad that both my team and Mark’s team made the right talent call, you can’t give up running the baseball team, and the rest of us didn’t make it to the World Series.” on the player because he’s in a slump.” function as a board and listen to the busi- With the Brewers and Rays both on the For Attanasio, it’s been invaluable to ness prospects,” says Goldring. “It’s been very rise, it is not far-fetched to think that the have Marc Stern and Richard and Alison interesting learning about a new business.” 2009 World Series will turn into a Colum- Ressler—all friends and fellow Columbia Goldring, who lives in New Milford, bia Law School reunion of sorts. Kasten, Law School alumni—on board as inves- Conn., and spends the majority of his time meanwhile, continues to work at rebuilding tors and advisors. “Marc, Richard, and working with nonprofits like the Earth- the Nationals, while also drawing mention Alison have been huge supporters of mine watch Institute, says that, because he’s as a potential commissioner when forever, and they supported me in this based in the Northeast, the most gratifying retires. “That job’s not open,” Kasten says, unequivocally,” Attanasio says. “It was a part of the Rays’ 2008 season was playing “which is just as well, because I love doing real act of friendship.” For the 64-year- the Yankees and Red Sox. “We were his- my job. I love the adrenaline of competing.” old Stern, TCW’s vice chairman, buying torically a bye week for teams when they into the Brewers was more than an act of would come to Tampa,” he says, “and now JOSH LEVIN is an associate editor at Slate friendship—it was the source of a crisis in everybody has to [worry about] the Tampa magazine.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 43

60602_txt.indd 43 4/15/09 3:27 PM Order in the Court

Four esteemed constitutional law scholars discuss what’s in store at the Supreme Court during President Obama’s administration Moderated by Joseph Goldstein Photographed by Spencer Heyfron

On a snowy afternoon late last year, Professors Jamal Greene, Gillian Metzger, Henry Paul Monaghan, and Trevor Morrison gathered for a conversation? about the cases, controversies, and conundrums sure to arrive at the Supreme Court during Barack Obama’s presidency. The professors discussed an array of topics ranging from Guantanamo Bay to same-sex marriage, and engaged in some crystal ball–gazing about how the composition of the Court may change over the next four years. Although a dramatic shift in the Court’s liberal-conservative balance of power seems to have become far less likely as a result of Obama’s victory, the professors discussed several specific ways in which the new administration will almost certainly have an impact on the Court. An edited transcript of the conver- sation, which was moderated by veteran legal affairs reporter Joseph Goldstein, follows.

44 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 44 4/15/09 3:27 PM 60602_txt.indd 45 4/15/09 3:27 PM “In the Obama administration, the Supreme Court is to the right of both the president and Congress. So it’s not very likely that Obama and Congress are going to conspire to create some sort of Cheney-on-steroids regime that the Court is going to have to rein in.” —Professor Jamal Greene

oldstein: I’d like to start administration policies, and may not be what the outer boundaries of the govern- with the issue of Guantana- reflective of the kinds of cases we’ll see ment’s war powers are. We might not be mo Bay and then open it up going forward. It’s not at all clear that the able to continue that, he says, going forward, Gfrom there for some crystal Obama administration would adopt if the war on terror persists—and if, I ball–gazing. If you close Guantanamo, as policies yielding additional cases of that sort. think he’s suggesting, not very subtly, the Obama says he intends to, what are some executive and legislative branches insist on of the legal questions that might land Metzger: Do you think that, on al-Marri, really pushing the constitutional envelope. before the Court? it will make a difference what Obama does I think he’s also suggesting it would be a in terms of possible additional procedural bad thing if the Court were forced to really Morrison: In Hamdan, [the Court] said that, on separation of powers grounds, the Joseph Landau’s recent article on closing Guantanamo. military commission system the president web exclusive law.columbia.edu/mag/landau-detention had established by executive order exceeded his authority. But because of the nature of protections for the determination of enemy clarify the outer boundaries of that con- that holding, it didn’t say much about how combatant status? To some extent, one of stitutional power, because there is so little individual rights questions might bear in the things the Obama administration does to go on. The Court’s unsure itself how it the context of a military commission have in its power is [the ability to] preempt would draw that line. And that’s the con- proceeding. So if the government were to some of the constitutional issues by the text in which the Obama administration try and prosecute individuals not in an regulations they adopt to govern any could make it that the Court doesn’t have Article III court, the way its attempt to do tribunals they hold or any determinations to offer final answers, by itself exercising that might interact with criminal procedure they make about enemy combatant status, some greater measure of restraint. rights familiar to us under the Bill of and therefore the authority to hold. Rights, or other individual rights provisions, Goldstein: What other controversies could potentially come to the Court. Morrison: I think that’s right. There are might provoke the Court to map out, even If the government detains people opportunities for the Obama administration against its own will, the outer limits of the without [attempting] to try them in any to make it much less likely that the Court president’s war powers? context, that could [also] bring questions would have to reach a number of ultimate to the Court. In fact, one is already on its constitutional questions. In the Boumediene Morrison: If you go beyond detention, it’s way there, in the al-Marri case. The Su- case last June, one of the most telling, possible that the Court might be called upon preme Court has said things about enemy under-remarked-upon passages in Justice to address how the Fourth Amendment combatant detention, but it has not given Kennedy’s opinion for the majority comes applies to surveillance without a warrant anything like a comprehensive answer. very near the end, where he says, for over 200 in pursuit of some national security aims, But al-Marri is really the product of Bush years we’ve gotten by without knowing where the target of the warrant, or at least

46 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 46 4/15/09 3:27 PM “One of the important actors is the Department of Justice. It’s going to have a very different feel from its predecessor. It’s going to be staffed by people who are critical of claims of unilateral executive power. They’re committed to a different attitude.” —Professor Henry Paul Monaghan

one of the targets of the surveillance, is to have a very different feel from its Metzger: [One issue] I think will play a role a foreign entity. That’s the question the predecessor. It’s going to be staffed by peo- here is the fact that Obama did not take Supreme Court reserved in a case called ple who are critical of claims of unilateral [federal] funding, and the issues about the Keith, which is its only important statement executive power. When they get to ability to garner sufficient funds. To some on how the Fourth Amendment interacts Washington, they’ll modify those views extent, I think it has changed the wisdom on with national security surveillance. because there seems to be a virus inside the campaign finance. He was able to generate executive department. But, nonetheless, massive amounts of money outside of the Monaghan: I think very few of the issues they’re committed to a different attitude. presidential funding system from a broad you’re talking about are ever going to see I do think one of the issues that will enough array of campaign donors that the the light of day at the Supreme Court. The reach the Supreme Court will affect the corruption issues are harder to argue. I Obama administration is not confronta- business community. Because of the think it complicates some of the arguments tional. He’s got a majority in both houses change in character on the Court, [with in favor of campaign finance[ reform]. [of Congress]. So any legislation he wants Justices] Roberts and Alito, I think they to get, he can pass. The Supreme Court is not are going to be more sympathetic to taking Greene: I also think there’s just no political going to cripple the power of the executive up securities cases, and that there will be appetite for campaign finance reform in to act swiftly and decisively. The problem a diminution, I hope, in their interest in this country. There are so many issues on of the [Bush] administration was that it refining the statutes that govern the avail- the table that campaign finance is really at wanted to go it alone. He could’ve gotten a ability of habeas corpus. So we could see the bottom of everyone’s list and requires lot of [his agenda] through legislation. a shift away from, perhaps, constitutional way too much political capital to really cases toward issues that are important to have any traction in this administration. Greene: The other important point—and the business community. this is a corollary to what [Professor Metzger: But whether they might do Monaghan is] saying—is that in the Metzger: In thinking about areas where anything on the advertising front, Obama administration, the Supreme I see some potential for the Court pushing I don’t know. Court is to the right of both the president in a new direction, what about campaign and Congress. So it’s not very likely that finance and First Amendment?Buckley Greene: The Supreme Court will push back Obama and Congress are going to conspire seems to me to be under siege. Conceivably, very hard on that. to create some sort of Cheney-on-steroids you might have a more favorable Congress regime that the Supreme Court is going to for more regulation. Metzger: Yes, exactly. They seem to have no have to rein in. sympathy for regulation there. Goldstein: How will Obama’s election Monaghan: One of the important actors in inform the way the Court thinks about Monaghan: There are two models of cam- this is the Department of Justice. It’s going campaign finance reform? paign finance. There’s[ Justice Stephen]

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 47

60602_txt.indd 47 4/15/09 3:27 PM “We may all be in agreement that there is going to be less movement on the Court than is broadly predicted in the media.” —Professor Trevor Morrison

Breyer, who says this is an administrative Monaghan: My crystal ball says it’s not Morrison: The very strong assumption law problem: If you’re going to have elections, going to happen, too. I’m just afraid he’s that most people begin with is that it will you’re going to have to regulate them. And going to appoint people too far to the left. be a judge. Speaking normatively, I think then you have people like [Justice Antonin] something is lost when a Court doesn’t Scalia who think this is a free speech issue. Greene: I think we all agree it’s fairly likely have people with experience within the Justice Thomas, also. And Kennedy. But that that his first appointment will be female. institutions that it is the Court’s business lineup is not going to change in our crystal ball. And given the additional qualification to regulate. that he might want a [racial] minority, Morrison: We may all be in agreement that there is one female, Hispanic Court of Monaghan: I think it’s likely he will go our crystal ball says there is going to be less Appeals judge, who is a Democrat, [likely outside [the judicial ranks]. Except for the movement on the Court than is broadly to be considered]. [Sonia Sotomayor] case. predicted in the media. Goldstein: Sonia Sotomayor. Greene: I think [he will do so] if he gets Metzger: I think if the crystal ball only goes multiple appointments. But that’s not clear. three years . . . one appointment. Greene: She’s probably on the short list. Monaghan: One thing I don’t like to see of Goldstein: If you could advise Obama Monaghan: She apparently is on the short people appointed to the Court [is] people on whom to appoint, what names would list. And she happens to be very able. She’s who are not interested in law. We’ve got you float? a hard, hard worker. people trained as lawyers who go into public administration but are not really interested Monaghan: Well, we would differ on that. Metzger: So far, the one prediction I would in law. I don’t mind taking somebody in I think that the rest of the group and I are have based on Obama’s appointments to from the outside, so long as I think that not in sympathy. date is that clearly he will take . . . person will be interested. So I’d like to take somebody from a law firm. That isn’t going Morrison: That means you get to go Monaghan: Quality. to happen either, [though] you could take first, Henry. someone like Seth Waxman, who you Metzger: Yes. He’ll take the demographics know is interested in the law. Monaghan: I’d appoint another judge—and into account, but he is not going to this isn’t going to happen—like Alito and appoint somebody to satisfy a particular Goldstein: I’d like to wrap things up by Roberts. Those are my ideal judges. interest group or audience if he doesn’t asking what sorts of cases you expect an feel like the quality is up, particularly Obama Civil Rights Division to bring? Metzger: My crystal ball says that’s not on the Court. It’s just not what he’s And what are some issues in civil rights going to happen. going to do. law that may end up before the Court?

48 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 48 4/15/09 3:27 PM “Obama will take the demographics into account, but he is not going to appoint somebody [to the Court] to satisfy a particular interest group or audience if he doesn’t feel like the quality is up. It’s just not what he’s going to do.” —Professor Gillian Metzger

Monaghan: A set of cases I expect to see Obama administration]. And I also think it from review by the Supreme Court of before the Court are disability cases. Section 2 [of the Voting Rights Act] might the United States. It seems to me that There’s a lot of movement in the disability get more litigation than it has in the past that state strategy has just about run its world, a lot of rethinking. And I think that several years in terms of voter suppression course—that prospects for winning at the will become a greater priority than it has cases, and maybe even voter ID cases. state level are being seriously cut back by been for the [Bush] administration. passage of constitutional amendments at Metzger: And in two years, we’ve got a the state level, which should change Metzger: The other place I think you’re new census. So there will no doubt be the rational litigator’s assessment of the going to see individual rights challenges redistricting issues coming out of that. risk . . . [and] should make it more likely involves abortion. The Court, with the My crystal ball says [there will be] at least that someone starts arguing this as a Gonzales v. Carhart decision, basically one case there. federal constitutional matter. [If so, is the invited as-applied challenges, but also Court likely to look at the issue in the suggested much more legislation Monaghan: On the Court, there’s not a lot foreseeable future?] [restricting the scope of the abortion of sympathy for the Voting Rights Act. It’s right] is possible. As to how the Obama in a state of recession. I, myself, think that Metzger: I don’t think [a case will make administration responds to that: My guess [Section 5] of the act is unconstitutional it to the Supreme Court very soon] is that they file a brief at and can’t be reconciled on marriage. the amicus level probably with other decisions. The opposing what they see Court might weaken that, Monaghan: The case that might get to as more restrictive because the conservative the Supreme Court as a federal question is measures, but aren’t that go beyond majority will still be there. prohibiting adoption [by same-sex Listen to the audio slideshow active on the ground. and full, unedited conversation. couples]. That’s an interesting case. law.columbia.edu/mag/ Morrison: What do you obama-scotus-audio Greene: Another civil think about a different Metzger: Yes. There’s an 11th Circuit rights [area] I think it’s issue that’s broadly under case on that. And you know what else important to bring up [is] voter rights civil rights: After Lawrence v. Texas in might get [some attention from the and voter suppression, which I think is 2003, there was an explosion in litigation Court]? There are some versions that are very much at the top of the agenda for the all at the state court level over same-sex currently percolating of “don’t ask, don’t Obama Justice Department. A lot of the marriage. There was a conscious decision tell” challenges. voter ID statutes that were passed in made to plead those cases as state consti- [Voting Rights Act] Section 5 jurisdictions, tutional law cases, not federal. The thinking Goldstein: We are out of time, so that will the Justice Department let go through. was that if they actually won a case at a have to be the last word. Thank you all for I think that’s less likely to happen [in an state high court, they wanted to insulate your insights and predictions. •

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 49

60602_txt.indd 49 4/15/09 3:27 PM 50 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 50 4/15/09 3:27 PM in focus:

The people, personalities, and perspectives making an impact this season

class notes 88 ? alumni 62 in memoriam 52 profiles at issue 92

Sections: essays faculty questions publications 56 68 presented

PHOTOgraphed by IAN ALLEN LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 51

60602_txt.indd 51 4/15/09 3:27 PM faculty publications:

Recent books by Columbia Law School faculty members address topics ranging from the prosecution of international human rights violations to the intricacies of French law

TORT LIABILITY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES By George P. Fletcher { ha r t publishing : 2 0 0 8 }

In his new book, Tort Liability for Human Rights Abuses, Columbia Law School Professor George P. Fletcher presents a bold new theory that urges the use of tort law, rather than the traditional criminal law, to fight human rights abuses worldwide. In defending this view, Fletcher draws upon an act of Congress passed 220 years ago: the Alien Torts Claims Act of 1789. “This provision in the First Judiciary Act has created a unique version of universal jurisdiction—one you would never expect to find in the United States,” says Fletcher, the Law School’s Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence. “The term [universal jurisdiction] was probably unknown at the time and yet, today, the Alien Torts Claims Act of 1789 is probably the most effective instrument to correct the evil of human rights abuses in the world.” In the book, Fletcher examines a series of cases, starting with Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, which extended the jurisdiction of U.S. courts to tortious acts committed around the world, and culminating in the 2004 case of Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, which involved the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s abduction of a Mexican citizen in a drug case. Through his analysis, Fletcher shows how torture cases led to a reawakening of the Alien Torts Statute, thus giving legal practitioners a tool with which to assist victims of torture and other extreme human rights abuses. Tort Liability for Human Rights Abuses also closely examines current cutting-edge cases, particularly those involving liability for funding terrorism. •

52 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 PHOTOgraphed by IAN ALLEN

60602_txt.indd 52 4/15/09 3:27 PM Law and Judicial Duty By Philip Hamburger { ha r va r d univ e r si t y p r e ss : 2 0 0 8 }

Law and Judicial Duty, as an aspect of their that is necessary to bring Columbia Law School ancient office or duty to the evidence into view,” Professor Philip Hamburger’s decide in accord with the Hamburger writes in the book. latest book, offers a law of the land. In debunking the notion penetrating look at the Part of the overriding faith of a distinct power of history of judicial review. The in the reported origins of judicial review, Hamburger authority of judges to declare judicial review, Hamburger reveals the importance statutes unconstitutional suggests, is due to the of the common law ideals is traditionally thought to supposed lack of evidence of law and judicial duty, have developed from the that it existed prior to the which together require judges 1780s through the time of 1780s. Another factor is to hold unconstitutional the Supreme Court case of the tendency to ignore the acts illegal. Judicial review Marbury v. Madison in 1803. evidence from English, state, is not a distinct power, According to Hamburger, and lower court decisions. he asserts, but simply part however, that history is Hamburger argues that of a judge’s job. largely an illusion. although there is no evidence “Law and Judicial Duty In his book, Hamburger of a distinct power of judicial is legal history on a grand challenges the view that review, there is plentiful scale,” says R. Kent Newmyer, judges have a distinct power evidence of the judges’ duty author of John Marshall & the of review to hold statutes to decide in accord with the Heroic Age of the Supreme unconstitutional. He argues law of the land, including Court. “The book will reshape that such authority has almost any constitution. “A simple the scholarly debate about always belonged with judges, shift in focus from judicial the origins and nature of not as a distinct power but review to judicial duty is all judicial review.” •

The Genesis of the GATT By Petros C. Mavroidis, In their book, the of the GATT was to set the stage for Douglas A. Irwin & Alan O. Sykes authors examine expand international subsequent volumes what the historical trade, thereby that will delve deeper { camb r idg e univ e r si t y p r e ss : 2 0 0 8 } record indicates about promoting world into the economic the GATT framers’ prosperity and logic behind the GATT. • The Genesis of the Institute that explores objectives, as well as serving as a vehicle GATT, by Columbia the foundations of how the provisions for maintaining world Law School Professor world trade law as of the GATT evolved peace. However, the Petros C. Mavroidis, found in the GATT through international framers of the GATT Dartmouth College and other World meetings and drafts. were mindful of the Professor Douglas Trade Organization The book notes that costs of achieving such A. Irwin, and agreements. the two main framers far-reaching objectives Stanford Law School The GATT, the of the GATT were the and were not willing Professor Alan O. immediate predecessor United Kingdom and to disproportionately Sykes, discusses the to the WTO, was the United States, allocate the costs of economic logic behind created to reduce and that developing achieving them. the development of tariffs and other countries’ influence In this volume, the General Agreement trade barriers and to was noticeable Mavroidis, the Law on Tariffs and Trade develop a commercial only after the mid- School’s Edwin B. (GATT). It is the first agreement on trade 1950s. The authors Parker Professor of in a series sponsored practices among its acknowledge that an Foreign & Comparative by The American Law affiliated countries. underlying purpose Law, Irwin, and Sykes

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 53

60602_txt.indd 53 4/15/09 3:27 PM faculty publications

THE RISE OF TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS FROM EMERGING MARKETS: THREAT OR OPPORTUNITY?

Edited by Karl P. Sauvant, with Kristin Mendoza & Irmak Ince { e dwa r d e lga r publis hing : 2 0 0 8 }

In their new book, The Rise of Transnational Corporations from Emerging Markets: Threat or Opportunity?, Columbia Law School Lecturer-in-Law Karl P. Sauvant and Law School students Kristin Mendoza and Irmak Ince assemble a group of leading academics to examine the growing presence of emerging markets in the global foreign direct investment (FDI) market. Traditionally, Sauvant says, 90 to 95 percent of FDI has come from developed countries. But recent data shows that FDI from emerging markets has Sesquicentennial grown from negligible amounts in the 1980s to $300 billion now. Essays of the Faculty of The subject of foreign direct investment is Columbia Law School particularly timely { columbia law school : 2 0 0 8 } now, as emerging markets come to In celebration of Columbia Law School’s 150th anniversary, the Law School the aid of ailing is pleased to present a new commemorative volume titled Sesquicentennial economies worldwide. As developed countries Essays of the Faculty of Columbia Law School. Throughout the Law School’s continue to suffer from the global financial crisis, distinguished history, the legal scholarship of its professors has shaped the and therefore invest less internationally, the American system of justice, advanced the laws of nations, and changed the International Monetary Fund expects FDI from fabric of global society. emerging markets to grow by 3 percent this year. In this volume, members of the faculty examine a variety of topics, ranging Still, the entrance of new players to the field of from current events to historic milestones. They discuss free speech and FDI undoubtedly raises issues related to regulation international courts, religion and constitutional law. The current faculty and increased competition. Those issues dissect sovereign wealth funds and U.S. prompted Sauvant, the executive director of the securities markets and the future of our Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International society. In their exploration of various Investment, to ask himself and readers whether legal issues, they continue the scholarly this trend is a threat or an opportunity. tradition that began with their legendary web exclusive “I think it’s overwhelmingly an opportunity,” professorial predecessors, scholars such Read essays from this ebook. Sauvant says, “an opportunity to integrate as James Kent, Francis Lieber, Adolf Berle, law.columbia.edu/mag/ emerging markets more in the international and Herbert Wechsler ’31, to name a few. • sesqui-essays economy and give them more of a stake.” •

54 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 54 4/15/09 3:27 PM faculty publications

Public Opinion and Constitutional Controversy Edited by Nathaniel Persily, Jack Citrin & Patrick J. Egan { ox fo r d univ e r si t y p r e ss : 2 0 0 8 }

Public Opinion desegregation, school public–opinion controversies together and Constitutional prayer, abortion, the backlash in the wake in one place,” says Controversy, a new death penalty, gay of Lawrence v. Texas, Persily, an expert on book from Columbia rights, and national which struck down constitutional law, Law School Professor security. The book a Texas law that the Supreme Court, Nathaniel Persily, unites essays from prohibited sexual acts election law, and University of California, scholars who explore between same-sex American politics. Berkeley Professor Jack each issue in depth, couples, and the “This is an incredibly Citrin, and New York utilizing cutting-edge Massachusetts high useful book— University Professor data to analyze how court’s invalidation indispensable for Patrick Egan, presents public opinion has of that state’s ban on anyone interested in the first comprehensive shifted over time, and same-sex marriage. the way constitutional analysis of American how it impacts the Persily says he and his law really works,” says public opinion on the courts and electoral co-authors wanted to Larry Kramer, Dean key constitutional politics. Each essay compare that reaction and Richard E. Lang controversies of the illustrates the gap to the public response Professor of Law at 20th century. Those between the public and in other high-profile Stanford Law School. controversies include the Supreme Court on culture-war cases, “We need to know what these hotly contested but that no volume this book teaches us: issues and investigates compiled the relevant how the public absorbs why this divergence public-opinion data. judicial decisions and has grown or shrunk “This is the only what it makes of the over the last 50 years. book that actually controversies that The book grew puts American public preoccupy lawyers, out of the authors’ opinion on all the judges, politicians, examination of major constitutional and scholars.” •

INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH LAW Edited by George Bermann & Etienne Picard { kluw e r law in t e r nat ional : 2 0 0 8 }

In their new book, the country’s legal their discretion, and since Introduction to French system, including tax 1974, the government has Law, Columbia Law law, intellectual property been authorized to assess School Professor George law, European Union the constitutionality of Bermann and Etienne law, family law, and existing laws. To navigate Picard, a professor of law civil procedure. this complex territory, at the University of Paris France adheres to Bermann, the Jean Monnet I (Pantheon-Sorbonne), many established legal Professor of EU Law decipher the complex statutes in effect since the and the Walter Gellhorn bodies of law that govern Code Civile of 1804 was Professor of Law, and legal practice in France created. However, there Picard have created a today. A compilation of are several aspects of the guide for practitioners and 17 chapters, each written country’s legal system a comprehensive survey of by a distinguished French that leave it vulnerable to French law, covering each legal scholar, the book change. Judges are able legal field in substantive covers multiple facets of to create public law at and procedural detail. •

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 55

60602_txt.indd 55 4/15/09 3:27 PM harvey miller: Miller’s Time

Inspired by the challenges of an economic downturn, Harvey Miller ’59, bankruptcy’s eminence grise, builds on an already unparalleled career BY Peter Kiefer

It is a testament to his reputa- billion in assets for the nation’s and can now reference is un- J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., over tion as America’s preeminent fourth largest investment bank, matched—everything from whether the current financial bankruptcy attorney that Har- Lehman Brothers. Texaco and Macy’s to Eastern crisis could have been averted vey Miller ’59 has earned some It is, at least for now, the larg- Airlines and Drexel Burnham. by increased regulations. notable monikers over the years. est Chapter 11 case in U.S. history. As a result of the recent eco- “My entire career, people have The New York Times recently It would seem that Miller’s ca- nomic downturn, Miller is be- told me the market is perfect,” referred to him as “The King of reer has been leading inexorably ing solicited more and more Miller says when asked about the Bankruptcy.” And The Wall Street toward this particular moment for his advice and expertise. At forum discussion. “The market is Journal dubbed Miller “Dr. in history. He recently returned a recent Law School forum, he not perfect. The market runs on Doom,” which put him ill at ease. to Weil, Gotshal & Manges af- debated with Michael Patterson rumors, and the market is based “My mother was having some ter decamping to investment ’67, a retired vice chairman of on confidence. What happened health problems, so I was con- bank Greenhill & Co. in 2002. on September 15 is you destroyed cerned how she would inter- Prior to that, Miller had spent It would seem the confidence of the market.” pret it,” Miller says at his of- 33 years building Weil’s bank- that Harvey It has been a year and a half fice overlooking Central Park. ruptcy department into one of Miller’s career since Miller returned to the prac- “But when she read it, she was the most prominent debtor-side has been leading tice he helped erect. In financial thrilled because she thought her practices in the country. inexorably terms, those 18 months have son had finally become a doctor, According to Leonard Rosen, toward this seen seismic shifts, and more are which is the ambition of every a retired founding partner of particular expected. But he appears surgi- Jewish mother!” Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, moment in history. cally calm about his decision. While the financial markets what makes the 75-year-old Mill- “I am really much more com- pinball around and economic er so successful is his willingness fortable, more connected to and prognostications continue to to both negotiate and, if neces- challenged by being in a law firm darken, Miller is entitled to a sary, go to the mat for his client. environment,” he says. “I even bit of levity: Business for him “He combines the skills of have the same phone number. It and his firm, Weil, Gotshal & a good litigator with the skills is like returning home, not with- Manges, is booming. After be- necessary to make a deal,” says standing Thomas Wolfe.” ing involved in almost every Rosen. “And he has a phenom- major bankruptcy case of mod- enal memory for every case he Peter Kiefer is a New York– ern times, Miller is putting the has ever worked on.” based freelance writer who has finishing touches on his biggest Indeed, the list of bankrupt- written for the Rome bureau of feat: the liquidation of $613 cies Miller personally oversaw The New York Times.

56 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 photographed by mike mcgreggor

60602_txt.indd 56 4/15/09 3:27 PM LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 57

60602_txt.indd 57 4/15/09 3:27 PM susan liautaud: london calling

Susan Liautaud ’89 is on a mission to help nonprofit organizations get the most out of their limited resources BY David Nicholson

From her modest base in London’s of people and cultural context. At the core of iner, she draws on a wealth of ex- Knightsbridge, Susan Liautaud Liautaud, who is also working Liautaud’s work perience to create individualized ’89 competes against the big toward a Ph.D. in social policy is a passion for solutions for clients. At the core guns in international consulting. at the London School of Eco- problem solving, of her work is a passion for prob- She stands out by proving that nomics, founded her own firm, something lem solving, something nurtured great ideas can be mightier than Imaginer, in 2005. It’s what she nurtured at at Columbia Law School in ways corporate muscle. But that’s not calls a “one-woman shop,” with that Liautaud applauds to this Columbia Law the only way she separates herself. high-level graduate students vol- day. “The professors routinely School in ways Liautaud doesn’t charge for unteering as interns. Although gave exams without clear an- her services. based in London, Liautaud con- that she applauds swers,” she recalls, “so I loved it.” Her pro bono advice helps sults for clients in France, the U.S., to this day. Her work with Imaginer international nonprofit orga- and, increasingly, other countries. touches on such intractable nizations that range in size and In return for working pro bono, issues as child poverty and the represent numerous sectors of Liautaud asks clients to comply impacts of the global downturn activity—from human rights to with a series of ethics standards on nonprofits. The need for homeless issues to international tailored to fit each organization. NGOs to husband their resourc- aid. The work, which benefits The results can be startling. In es and act with the utmost re- groups like Amnesty Internation- one example, a French NGO op- gard to accountability and eth- al France, is rewarding and hum- erating in developing countries ics will only increase along with bling. “It is a privilege to partner worked closely with Liautaud on pressures on the communities with these groups,” she notes, “and a dossier for government funding. they serve, Liautaud notes. “It’s I am extremely proud of the work “The Ministry of Finance said essential in this environment to they do.” Liautaud’s specialties they hadn’t seen an application guide organizations efficiently include everything from account- so focused on accountability and and with the aim of first-in-class ability to strategic planning, man- ethics in 20 years,” Liautaud says. accountability,” she says, “while agement, and governance issues. Before moving across the never losing sight of the people She is particularly adept at guid- pond, Liautaud practiced in- who drive those organizations ing organizations through the ternational business law at Sul- and the people they serve.” regulatory and voluntary account- livan & Cromwell in the 1990s. ability mechanisms that emerged She also served as associate dean David Nicholson is a London-based in the wake of scandals such as for international and graduate journalist and author who has Enron and United Way. She al- programs and lecturer-in-law at written for , ways focuses on the importance Stanford Law School. At Imag- The Financial Times, and GQ.

58 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 photographed by michelle sank

60602_txt.indd 58 4/15/09 3:27 PM LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 59

60602_txt.indd 59 4/15/09 3:28 PM richard richman: Real Impact

Thanks to a trailblazing, success-laden career in real estate, Richard Richman ’72 has risen to the very top of his profession By Ben McGrath

Last May, during a luncheon at ing developed in the United paign of Howard Samuels, and lege students, stressing the im- Revson Sculpture Plaza, Rich- States each year, and conducts through these efforts he met portance of luck—“being in the ard P. Richman ’72 had a conver- business in every state except future real estate personalities right place at the right time”— sation with a woman concerned Hawaii. “We have been equity such as Donald Trump and and taking a long view of history. that her 23-year-old couldn’t investors in six apartment com- Stephen Ross, of The Related At Columbia, he read The Great find a reasonably priced apart- plexes in Wasilla, Alaska,” he Companies. It was also the be- Crash: 1929, by John Kenneth ment in Manhattan. Soon after, says. “We were among the few ginning of a long side-career Galbraith, which, in the wake the woman, who lived on the people in the United States who in politics, and Richman has of the subprime mortgage col- Upper West Side, sighed about actually knew Sarah Palin.” twice served as the Connecticut lapse, has served as a helpful a new high-rise development Richman grew up in Great finance chair for the Democrat- lesson about bubbles and busi- going up in her neighborhood, Neck, N.Y., in the 1950s, when ic presidential candidate. ness cycles. “I tell kids to Google and Richman was reminded of Nassau County was the fastest In his remaining spare time, the land boom in Florida in the the difficulties inherent in his growing county in the United Richman gives lectures to col- 1920s,” he says. “That started business, not to mention public States—its farms and estates “At the end of the the Great Depression. Things policy. “The trouble is, every- transforming seemingly over- do repeat themselves.” body wants affordable housing,” night into suburban tract hous- day, it’s a business Early in winter, Richman he says, and then jokes, “but if ing. It was a natural breeding where we change attended a ribbon cutting in we can’t build more housing be- ground for a future real estate people’s lives.” Yonkers for the new Croton cause of sprawl in the suburbs, developer and financier, al- —Richard Richman Heights Apartments, one of and we can’t have more density though Richman didn’t become his firm’s latest developments. in the city, I give up!” specifically interested in the “We are taking down the old Richman is the chairman of field until he arrived at Colum- federal public housing, which The Richman Group, one of the bia in the early ’70s for a joint- was, quite honestly, more about nation’s largest owners and de- degree program in law and warehousing people than giving velopers of rental property, and business, and took a course in them great homes,” he says. “At in the 20 years since he found- the new discipline of financing the end of the day, it’s a business ed the company, he has seldom subsidized housing. (He now where we change people’s lives. been in the position of giving serves on the Dean’s Council at You take a young family and up. The Richman Group main- the Law School.) give them a new place to live.” tains offices in 12 cities, has a While at the Law School, financial interest in roughly 10 Richman also volunteered for Ben McGrath is a staff writer at percent of the affordable hous- the failed gubernatorial cam- .

60 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 photographed by HAROLD SHAPIRO

60602_txt.indd 60 4/15/09 3:28 PM 60602_txt.indd 61 4/15/09 3:28 PM at issue: Securities Regulation

Debates over how to best regulate the U.S. securities industry often involve a tug-of-war between rules-based and principles-based systems By John C. Coffee Jr., Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law and Director of the Columbia Law School Center on Corporate Governance

Around the globe, securities regulators have a new mantra: In truth, the debate between “principles-based” regulation. Uniformly, they are proclaiming “rules” and “principles” (or “standards”) has gone on in that they are moving toward “principles” and away from “rules.” academia for decades, and both The Financial Services Agency in the U.K. announced a shift to sides in this debate can make some obvious points: “rules” are a “comprehensive principles-based” system in 2003, and British precise, relatively certain, pro- Columbia followed a year later. In the United States, Treasury Sec- mote equality, and reduce the likelihood of bias or the abuse retary Paulson has suggested that to maintain global competitive- of power. Conversely, the case ness, the United States must quickly shift to a “principles-based” for “principles” is that they pro- vide flexibility to, and demand system, and a variety of business groups have issued similar calls. accountability from, the regu- One thing then is clear: At least as a rhetorical strategy, siding lator, can adapt to changing circumstances, and permit with “principles” certainly gains one more popularity than taking those subject to them to make the side of “rules.” Indeed, merely to juxtapose the two is to suggest their own choices about the means of compliance. All this has a contrast between reasoned and cogent “principles” and musty been said many times before. old “rules” that have been collecting in some legal attic for decades So why has one side seemingly suddenly won the debate? and desperately need a ruthless editing. But why then is the Clearly, there are subtexts United States (and particularly the SEC) seen by these critics as the to this debate. To understand them, let’s use a simple example. leading example of a system that is “rule-driven”? After all, the If a legendary torts scholar, United States is the home of legal realism, while Europe is usually such as Columbia’s Willis Reese, were asked a half century ago to thought to be much more characterized by legal formalism. explain the difference, he might

62 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 62 4/15/09 3:28 PM have drawn the following con- trast: “Drive at a reasonable rate of speed” is a principle. “Drive at 60 mph” is a rule. Both have some advantages. The principle fits all cases and recognizes that contexts (e.g., night versus day, good weather versus bad) might differ. Conversely, the 60 mph rule has bright lines, poses no real interpretive problems, and, most of all, is easy to enforce. A traffic court that had to listen to several hundred motorists explain each day why they were driving reasonably under the circumstances (at 70 mph) might find it impossible to function. So this gives us one insight into the debate: those who wish to soften enforcement may prefer a principles-based system. For issuers and accountants want At least as a remains subject to very broad an- example, securities regulators safe harbors as a protection rhetorical ti-fraud rules ex post. Rule 10b-5 often impose specific, detailed, against the threat of litigation. strategy, siding is the very model of a “princi- and broadly prohibitory rules A general “principles-based” ples-based” standard because it with “principles” on brokerage firms in order to standard often leaves open states only the most general of protect retail customers. If a triable questions as to wheth- certainly gains commands: disclose all mate- principles-based system said er the regulated person truly one more rial information. That the issuer instead only “treat the customer complied with it. In the United popularity than prepared a 100-page prospectus fairly,” this might permit the States, where contingent fee- taking the side complying with the SEC’s man- broker-dealer to invent innu- motivated plaintiff’s attorneys dated “rules” in Regulation S-K is merable reasons ex post as to can bring securities class ac- of “rules.” no defense to a claim that it failed why its conduct had been fair tions involving potentially to satisfy the broader “principle” under all the circumstances. billion-dollar claims, the dan- of full disclosure set forth in Rule Still, the enforcement variable ger is simply unacceptable that proscribed conduct occurred. In 10b-5 because it allegedly with- actually cuts both ways. Some- a judge or jury might find the contrast, a principle may permit held some material fact. times the regulated also prefer defendant not to have complied the regulator to decide after the Although fashions may change, bright line standards. The lead- with a broad, aspirational prin- fact both what conduct should the “rules” versus “principles” debate ing example of such a prefer- ciple. In contrast, in Europe, be impermissible and whether it will probably never end, and any where the class action is still in fact occurred. This gives the imaginable system must con- largely unknown, the need for regulator either greater flexibil- tain both. More importantly, in safe harbors is less pressing. ity or more arbitrary power—de- a time of financial crisis when web exclusive The point then is that the legal pending on one’s perspective. investor confidence has eroded, Download the ebook. environment counts. One cannot Curiously, while the United any attempt to shift dramati- law.columbia.edu/ mag/at-issue identify the optimal point on the States is seen as “rule-fixated,” it cally the balance between prin- continuum from hard-and-specif- actually plays it both ways. With- ciples and rules is risky and could ence involves the United States’ ic rules to aspirational principles in the context of securities regu- further undermine the credibility inventory of “generally accept- without taking into consider- lation, a U.S. issuer that wants of regulators. Reformers should ed accounting principles” (or ation these environmental factors. to sell its securities to the public therefore be guided by the an- “GAAP”), which is generally Another way to view the rules/ must prepare a prospectus, con- cient motto of Augustus: “Festina recognized to be a maze of com- principles dichotomy is in terms taining very elaborate disclosures Lente”—make haste slowly. plex and minutely specific rules. of how much the regulator must set forth in the SEC’s Regulation Why does U.S. GAAP tilt this decide in advance. A rule gen- S-K. This is a lengthy manual This essay was reprinted way when international financial erally contains a prescription describing in great detail what from the recently published reporting standards are far of the conduct that is permis- must be disclosed. But, once the Sesquicentennial Essays of the more “principles-based”? The sible, leaving it to the fact-finder issuer satisfies these require- Faculty of Columbia Law School. answer is that United States to determine only whether the ments on an ex ante basis, it still © 2008 John C. Coffee Jr.

illustration by Michael austin LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 63

60602_txt.indd 63 4/15/09 3:28 PM at issue: Juvenile Justice

What do we gain from sentencing juvenile offenders to death in prison? By Jeffrey A. Fagan, Professor of Law and Public Health and Director of the Center for Crime, Community, and Law

More than 2,500 What comparison can there really be . . . between consigning persons are a man to the short pang of a rapid death, and immuring serving sentences of life without him in a living tomb, there to linger out what may be a long life the possibility of in the hardest and most monotonous toil, without any of its parole, or death alleviation or rewards—disbarred from all pleasant sights and in prison, or sounds, and cut off from all earthly hope? natural life, for crimes committed —John Stuart Mill (1868) as minors. About one in six were Despite banning the execution of minors in 2005 following Roper v. Simmons, the United States less than sixteen still leads the world by a wide margin in harsh punishments of adolescent offenders. Today, more years of age than 2,500 persons are serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole, or death in prison, at the time of or natural life, for crimes committed as minors. These sentences are popular—forty-two states allow them—and are used promiscuously. Most of the 2,500 were convicted of homicide, but more than one their crime, and in four were accomplices in murders that he or she neither knew about nor intended. Many commit- at least thirty ted crimes other than murder. Half have no prior criminal convictions. About one in six were less than were thirteen sixteen years of age at the time of their crime, and at least thirty were thirteen or younger. or younger. Critics suggest that natural life is a slow, irreversible death sentence no different than an execution. They cite Roper’s logic and language to claim that the same evidence of lesser emotional, neurological, and physical maturation of adolescents makes them “categorically less culpable” than adults, signifi- cantly shifting the calculus of penal proportionality. They note that the same factors that make them less culpable also make them less deterrable. Abolitionists point out that, as one of only three countries that authorizes and uses natural-life sentences for minors, the United States opposes an overwhelm- ing international consensus. And state legislatures are slowly pulling back: one state recently banned death-in-prison sentences for minors and legislation is pending in several others to do the same. Since 2000, death-in-prison sentences for minors have declined sharply and at a rate that exceeds the steady decline in juvenile violence.

64 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 64 4/15/09 3:28 PM on a fifteen-year-old murderer, what it means to be imprisoned noting that proportionality for sixty years or more.” analyses are narrowly limited Finally, as did the Roper to instances of gross dispropor- court, critics cite the inability tionality: “youth has no obvious of judges and juries to accu- bearing on this problem . . . rately render individualized mandatory life imprisonment assessments about whether a without parole is, for young and teenager’s immaturity and de- old alike, only an outlying point velopmental deficits attenuate on the continuum of prison sen- her culpability. The Roper court tences.” Some courts simply dis- also worried about actual in- regard age and narrowly limit nocence arising from the vul- proportionality tests to the bal- nerability of teenagers to false ance between the crime and the confessions. Courts can detect sentence imposed. One court these errors in capital cases be- ruled that death-in-prison sen- cause of strong (super) due-pro- tences for even preteen offenders cess footprints, but some errors are within the boundaries of are revealed even after appellate society’s current and evolving remedies are exhausted. Critics standards. Other courts say that fear similar mistakes given the youths forfeit any age-related wide statutory net of noncapital sentencing discount for dimin- crimes where relief is elusive. ished culpability once the case is transferred to the criminal court A constitutional challenge where a natural-life sentence to natural life sentences is inevi- may be mandatory. table, but faces difficult hurdles. But other courts reject the Natural-life sentences are path notion that age is a fiction in dependent on juvenile waiver proportionality analyses. The or transfer laws that often cede Illinois Supreme Court over- jurisdictional choice to prosecu- turned a natural-life sentence tors and legislators, effectively for a first-time offender of age deregulating punishment of fifteen, finding that such dispro- minors. But narrowing prin- portionality “shocks the moral ciples could be applied to cabin sense of the community.” One these laws. States could limit court ruled that a similar sen- natural-life sentences for mi- tence for a youth of fifteen con- nors to capital crimes. Evidence Certainly, there is room for without the possibility of pa- stituted severe cruel and unusu- of fractured proportionality pushback and counterreform role is itself a severe sanc- al punishment that “under all could be persuasive to state leg- by proponents. These statutes tion, in particular for a young islators when the actual human have proliferated for more than person,” for whom most of faces of excessive punishment two decades in lockstep with the her life lies ahead. Second, the are visible, so that parents and growth of punitive juvenile jus- Roper court rejected any pun- web exclusive legislators can forge a sense of tice policies, signaling a shared ishment that would perma- Download the ebook. linked fate to animate law reform. law.columbia.edu/ preference among legislatures. nently mortgage adolescents’ mag/at-issue The argument is simple: Even so, the tension between full human development: What marginal benefits to legislative preferences and the “[w]hen a juvenile . . . commits circumstances shocks the gen- crime control or retribution do Roper jurisprudence broadens a heinous crime . . . [we] cannot eral conscience of society today we gain from a sentence of life the narrowly tailored debate extinguish his life and his and is intolerable to fundamen- without parole for a juvenile into substantive jurisprudential potential to attain a mature tal fairness,” and pointed to the over what we now gain from questions on the limits of juvenile understanding of his own “undeniably lesser culpability of sentences of thirty or forty or justice and raises normative humanity.” And third, the court children for their bad actions, fifty years? The answer, given questions about the punishment linked immaturity to the un- their capacity for growth, and the reality and severity of life in of adolescents. likely prospect of deterrence. society’s special obligation to prison, is, none at all. But the big fight is about [them].” Another court reject- THE Roper court casually proportionality. In Harris v. ed “virtually hopeless lifetime This essay was reprinted entered this debate on three Wright, the Ninth Circuit re- incarceration” by questioning from the recently published fronts. First, it noted that “the fused to overturn a mandatory “whether a thirteen-year-old can Sesquicentennial Essays of the punishment of life imprisonment natural-life sentence imposed even imagine or comprehend Faculty of Columbia Law School.

illustration by james kaczman LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 65

60602_txt.indd 65 4/15/09 3:28 PM at issue: Transplanting Legal Systems

Efforts to mirror or transplant legal systems from other countries face a host of obstacles By Katharina Pistor, Professor of Law

Over the past two decades legal reforms and legal standardization have become critical tools in economic development strategies. While law has always featured prominently in the minds of legal advisors to foreign governments, it took a discovery in economics that institutions are critical determinants of economic development—or that “institu- tions rule” as some have put it—to bring about the spread of highly standardized legal rules or the comprehensive commodification of law that we observe today.

Unfortunately, copying foreign Initial Conditions be ill equipped for an environ- cases laws once transplanted law and transplanting it to dif- Gerschenkron famously argued ment characterized by greater hardly change over time, in- ferent environments have not that “economically backwards” centralization. At the very least, dicating that local agents have proved to be a very successful countries adopt different strate- they are likely to play a differ- different tools at their disposal development strategy. The ex- gies for economic development ent role in the host environment to resolve the governance prob- perience with legal transplanta- and that these strategies have than in the home environment. lems they face. Similarly, im- tion over the past two hundred long-term implications for the A detailed study of the reception porting state-of-the-art share- years has been rather dismal. institutions that govern eco- of European law in Colombia holder and creditor protecting Countries that transplanted nomic life in those countries. during the nineteenth century laws has had little measurable legal systems wholesale by and The process of capital accu- documents how law was en- impact on the development of large have less effective legal in- mulation, for example, may re- acted and changed without any financial markets in the former stitutions today than countries quire active intervention by the impact on economic outcomes socialist countries of Eastern that developed their formal law government, which influences and without much apparent un- Europe and the former Soviet internally. There are several the choice of institutions (big derstanding by lawmakers as to Union. Interestingly, foreign possible explanations for this banks; state-owned financial what the introduction or change banks have been more likely result: initial economic condi- intermediaries), and thereby of a particular set of legal rules to respond to legal change in tions in the law-receiving country; shapes the institutional founda- might entail. My own research these countries than domestic a political regime not conducive tion of the economy. Legal insti- on the evolution of corporate institutions, suggesting that the to governance by law; cultural tutions that were first created in law in ten jurisdictions (about perception of the importance of differences; and incompatibility an environment that favors in- half of them transplant coun- legal change varies significantly with pre-existing legal institutions. dividual entrepreneurship may tries) suggests that in many across players.

66 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 66 4/15/09 3:28 PM direction of causality is little understood. The bulk of evi- dence suggests that the hope that transplanting law would alter cultural preference seems to be misplaced.

Legal Irritants The transplant metaphor im- plies that the introduction of foreign law may result in either outright rejection, or reception. In fact, there are many inter- mediate solutions. Teubner uses the term “legal irritant” to describe such intermediate responses of a law-importing jurisdiction with a well-devel- oped legal system of its own (in this case, the United Kingdom). The receiving legal system will not necessarily reject the trans- planted law, but frictions be- Political Regimes and Countries that bankruptcy law became an im- tween preexisting norms and Legal Governance transplanted portant tool in the hands of the regulations will be revealed. The distortion of formal law legal systems tax authorities to “toll the bells Over time these frictions will be that on its face benefits entre- to firms”—to selectively force smoothed out and the imported preneurs by political factors has wholesale by and firms out of the market, and in law will be assimilated to pre- been termed the “Kirby Puzzle,” large have less extreme cases into state control. existing local institutions. The based on Professor William effective legal imported law may change the Kirby’s analysis of the market institutions today Law and Culture for medium-sized companies The fact that different societies than countries in Shanghai in the 1920s. Un- are governed by different sets der the newly introduced law that developed of norms and processes and web exclusive on limited liability companies their formal law that this may adversely affect Download the ebook. law.columbia.edu/ (LLC), a company had to reg- internally. the efficacy of legal transplan- mag/at-issue ister with the authorities to be tation has been most famously legally recognized as an LLC. stated by Montesquieu in legal system at the margin, but Only then could it benefit from This phenomenon is not lim- 1748. Because of cultural dif- the imported law itself will also limited liability and indepen- ited to China or to the question ferences across societies, it change its character. dent entity status. Interestingly, of incorporation. Many laws would be a “grand hasard”—a In sum, the development of the majority of companies that that might benefit investors, matter of luck or chance—for effective legal systems is a com- called themselves limited li- shareholders, creditors, and norms that were developed in plex phenomenon, which is still ability companies and added ultimately companies, such as one society to hold in another. little understood. Available data the acronym to their names disclosure requirements, can Empirical evidence supports to date indicate that changing had, in fact, not registered and also reveal to the tax authorities this claim. In a recent study, the law on the books in most thus could not legally grant the activities of the company in Licht et al. show that avail- cases is not an effective develop- their owners limited liability question. As a result, such laws able measures of the quality ment policy. Future research will protection. Kirby interpreted are frequently ignored to avoid of “rule of law” are closely as- need to develop a better under- this phenomenon by point- contact with and possible in- sociated with cultural features. standing of the conditions for ing to the prevailing fear of the tervention by a predatory state. Thus, societies with a strong alternative forms of governance, state: “It had become fashion- Recent developments in Russia preference for individualism of when and how they change, able and modern to attach the suggest that in some countries and egalitarianism as opposed and if and how they can be influ- term youxian gongsi (limited the executive has become quite to hierarchy and embedded- enced to further the public good. company) to almost any enter- sophisticated in employing laws ness score much higher on rule prise. But it was not in vogue to that were designed to resolve of law indices. This does not This essay was reprinted register with the government, private disputes for his or her imply that culture is static and from the recently published even with the very weak central own ends. Most famously il- unchanging, but that cultural Sesquicentennial Essays of the government of 1916–28.” lustrated by the Yukos case, differences matter. Still, the Faculty of Columbia Law School.

illustration by Ken Orvidas LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 67

60602_txt.indd 67 4/15/09 3:28 PM class notes: Staying in Touch

Columbia Law School alumni from around the world share news of their professional and personal accomplishments

1935 Clarence S. Barasch Joseph B. Russell currently of Galatz, Gillock & Associates, team is developing affordable contributes articles to the New serves as a hearing examiner at was recently honored by the housing in New York City. York Law Journal on matters the New York City Department ’s related to real estate brokerage. of Health and Mental Hygiene. Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Hugh Cooke MacDougall His latest submission analyzed The position follows his Section. Galatz received the has been the official Cooper- Justice Cardozo’s opinion in retirement from the New York Pursuit of Justice Award, stown Village historian since Meinhard v. Salmon, a case City Taxi and Limousine which recognizes lawyers and 2003. MacDougall and his decided some 80 years ago. Commission, where he was judges who have excelled at wife, Eleanore, moved back to an administrative law judge. ensuring access to justice. Cooperstown, N.Y., after he 1948 Russell continues to serve as retired. MacDougall had been Ward Chamberlin was an active arbitrator with the 1958 a U.S. Foreign Service officer featured in ’ docu- Financial Industry Regulatory Meyer Eisenberg recently for nearly 30 years. mentary film seriesThe War, Authority and the National completed his third year of which chronicles the personal Futures Association. teaching a seminar on regulation 1959 experiences of those who lived and policies for capital markets Richard Forman volunteers through World War II. Cham- 1954 at Columbia Law School. This as an arbitrator in New York berlin, who helped found PBS, Robert Pitofsky, the Joseph spring, Eisenberg is serving as City’s civil court. He and his recently received the Dean’s and Madeline Sheehy Professor a visiting professor of law at wife, Joan, recently took a cruise Award for public leadership in Antitrust and Trade Willamette University College that circumnavigated Africa. from the Hubert H. Humphrey Regulation Law at Georgetown of Law, where he is teaching a Institute of Public Affairs, as University Law Center, recently seminar on securities regulation. Richard F. Irwin is handling well as the Cassandra Pyle published a book titled How mostly pro bono matters as Award from NAFSA: Association the Chicago School Overshot the Martin L. Fried retired in he nears retirement from his of International Educators. Mark: The Effect of Conservative 2007 after 39 years of teaching law practice. Irwin previously Economic Analysis on U.S. taxation and trusts and estates worked for ITT Corporation 1952 Antitrust (Oxford University at Syracuse University College in New York until 1995. Irwin Donald A. Robinson formed Press: 2008). In the book, of Law. Fried is of counsel at and his wife, Sonja, have three a new litigation firm in Pitofsky brings together essays Hancock & Estabrook in Syra- grandchildren, two in college Newark, N.J., called Robinson, by 15 experts who analyze cuse, N.Y., where his practice and one in high school. Wettre & Miller. Robinson was the rise and recent fall of includes personal, corporate, recently appointed by the American antitrust regulation. real estate, and estate taxation. Richard D. Rosenbloom is federal court to membership senior counsel in the New York on a special rules committee 1956 Jerome Kretchmer is starting office of Boylan, Brown, Code, tasked with drafting local rules Neil G. Galatz, a name a new business with his daughter Vigdor & Wilson, where he for patent cases. partner in the Las Vegas firm Andrea. The father-daughter works as an arbitrator and

68 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 68 4/15/09 3:28 PM class of: ’74

Robert Krulwich The Simplifier

When Robert Krulwich ’74 graduated from Columbia Law York magazine has since dubbed him “the man who sim- School, he received a unique job offer—one with a catch. plifies without being simple.” John Wharton, a founding partner at the New York City Krulwich’s newest project is co-hosting the NPR show law firm Paul Weiss, said Krulwich, who had been a sum- Radiolab with Jad Abumrad. The program, which the mer associate at the firm, could work there if he prom- hosts call a show about curiosity, has attracted a cult-like ised to take a year off first. Wharton liked Krulwich and following among young, educated listeners. “It’s like being believed he could succeed as a lawyer, but the veteran in a garage band with a style you never thought anyone attorney also knew a year away from the law might put would listen to,” Krulwich says. “The future for me is just Krulwich on a path he would enjoy even more. to see where this is going to go.” Wharton was right. Krulwich never made it back to Paul Weiss. He became NEW YORK MAGAZINE HAS DUBBED KRULWICH “THE a journalist and is now a correspon- MAN WHO SIMPLIFIES WITHOUT BEING SIMPLE.” dent with ABC News and for NPR’s Science Desk. Over the years, Krulwich had learned to decode various topics for his own edification. “I’ve always been a bit of a slow processor,” he says. He decided to use that approach in journalism to make complex issues accessible to as many people as possible. The method has become his signature, and New

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 69

60602_txt.indd 69 4/15/09 3:28 PM 1962 mediator. Rosenbloom also Michael R. Brown retired Henry F. Minnerop, a partner serves as a judicial hearing officer recently after practicing labor at Sidley Austin in New York, in state Supreme Court and for and employment law for 40 has taught several classes at the New York State retirement years. Brown is now teaching New School University that Bruce Ducker, a founding system. Rosenbloom and his negotiations at the Boston focus on Supreme Court partner of Ducker, Mont- wife, Bea, have two daughters University School of decisions from the Civil War to gomery, Aronstein & Bess in and seven grandchildren. Management. He also teaches the present. Minnerop makes Denver, recently published two labor law at Suffolk University his daily, 25-mile round-trip novels: Dizzying Heights: The 1960 Law School in Boston. commute—from Englewood Aspen Novel (Fulcrum: 2008) Joel Handel recently joined Cliffs, N.J., to midtown and Home Pool: Stories of Fly the New York office of Seyfarth Richard Cummings’ off- Manhattan—by bicycle. Fishing and Lesser Passions Shaw as a partner in the firm’s Broadway production of Soccer (Stackpole: 2008). Ducker, corporate practice group. Moms From Hell had a 1964 who has written nine novels successful run at Theatre-Studio Edward H. Cantor has since 1975, has won the 1961 Inc. in New York. Cummings increased his commitment to Colorado Book Award and the John L. Davenport volunteers also wrote a recent article on the nonprofit, non-legal Macallan Short Story Prize, in four days a week for the defense contractors for community since he retired addition to a Pulitzer nomination. Conservation Law Foundation, titled “Lockheed, Stock, and from his law practice in 1998. an environmental advocacy Two Smoking Barrels,” which Cantor serves as an officer Eugene S. Friedman recently organization headquartered in has been well received. and director of several nonprofit celebrated his 40th wedding Boston. Davenport serves as de organizations, and he continues anniversary with his wife, facto general counsel and also 1963 to take courses at Yale University. Karen. The couple’s daughter, works on Clean Water Act issues. Joel Davidow, an interna- Cantor has been married to Gabrielle, is an associate at tional antitrust law specialist, his wife, Micki, since 1971. Lankler Siffert & Wohl in recently finished writing The couple has one son and New York. Their son Douglas Misconduct Claims and two grandchildren. is a photographer based in Defenses Against Assertions of New York, and their son James Patent Infringement (Oxford is the general manager of the University Press: 2009). The Qualia Resort on Hamilton book is the first comprehensive Island in Australia. review of conduct defenses and counterclaims. It includes a William Nickerson retired William A. Dreier, a member focus on existing case law and in January after 22 years as a of Norris McLaughlin & Marcus litigation strategies. member of the Connecticut in Bridgewater, N.J., was General Assembly. Nickerson, recently selected for inclusion Paul B. Lichtman is a moti- who spent four years in the in the alternative dispute vational speaker who coaches state House of Representatives resolution section of The Best aspiring actors and writers. and 18 years in the state Senate, Lawyers in America 2009. Currently a member of the most recently served as the Dreier heads the firm’s worldwide Academy of Motion Picture Arts chief deputy minority leader products liability practice. and Sciences and the Academy and ranking member of the of Television Arts & Sciences, Finance, Revenue, and Peter Lawson Kennedy, a Lichtman launched his own Bonding Committee. founding partner in the firm acting and writing career after of Adler Pollock & Sheehan working with several Eastern Eleanor Rosenthal is a in Providence, R.I., married European governments on various certified teacher of the Alexander Marie Wemyss, a retired industries as they moved from Technique, a hands-on way fourth-grade teacher, last June. communism to privatization. to help people improve their

70 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 70 4/15/09 3:28 PM class of: ’83 Jeffrey Light Rockin’ Out

By his own admission, Jeffrey Light ’83 is a “very mediocre Light also dabbles in other aspects of the entertain- guitarist,” a failed musician who turned his infatuation with ment industry. He has served as the “music consigliere” to rock ‘n’ roll into a 25-year career in entertainment law. So Electronic Arts, the world’s leading video game publisher, while he might not be able to jam with the Rolling Stones, for the past 20 years and has been the outside attorney the band does appear on his list of celebrity clients. That for 20th Century Fox for just as long. He also represents star-studded roster also includes Christina Aguilera, the the inventors of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, two hugely Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the Eagles. Light is heavily successful video games that allow even the least talented involved in his clients’ work, and nearly all of them have musicians to feel like rock stars. visited his Santa Barbara ranch for dinner. “These people Despite constant celebrity contact, Light can only recall are family,” he says. being starstruck once, at a meeting with the Eagles. As Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and Light’s clients include the Rolling Stones, Timothy B. Schmit sat at a conference Christina Aguilera, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, table in the exact order in which they and the Eagles. always appear on stage, Light could not help but think to himself, “Wow, this is cool.” Joe Walsh was amazed for an entirely different reason. Appar- ently that was the first time the band had been in the same room together before noon since 1973.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 71

60602_txt.indd 71 4/15/09 3:28 PM physical and mental functioning. the Hawaii Democratic Party Southern District of New York, practice focuses on health care Over the years, Rosenthal has and also serves on the board of attended the 2008 Democratic law, has been a member of the added several complementary the Oahu Emergency Amateur National Convention in Denver board since 2000. disciplines to her alternative Radio Club. Archer travels as a delegate. Flannery is a reg- therapy practice, which she with his wife, Andrea, to exotic ular guest commentator on Fox 1974 started in 1975, including locales like Botswana and New News, The O’Reilly Factor, and David Bence is a solo craniosacral therapy, visceral Zealand, and is also involved Hardball with Chris Matthews. practitioner in Torrance, Calif., manipulation, and neural in documentary and video where his practice consists of manipulation. production projects. 1973 probate, trusts, wills, and Ann (Seltzer) Lewis is of general business litigation. Arthur Silverman recently Frank R. Fioramonti is the counsel in the New York office joined Duane Morris as a partner administrative law judge for of Ropes & Gray, where she Robert M. Diamond was in the firm’s New York office. the New York State DMV is a member of the health recently selected for inclusion Silverman, who specializes in Traffic Violations Bureau in the care practice. in the real estate section of construction law, was previously Bronx. The position is the Virginia Super Lawyers 2008. part of the construction latest in a series of government Pamela C. McGuire retired in Diamond is a partner in the practice at Thelen. service appointments for 2008 after 30 years as in-house Falls Church, Va., office of Fioramonti. He and his wife, counsel at PepsiCo, a stint that Reed Smith. 1966 Sheila, have also been avid included seven years as general Edward J. Bergman is the home exchangers for the past counsel for The Pepsi Bottling James M. Dubin was recently director of mediation studies at 20 years, temporarily trading Group and three years as named chairman of The the Center for Bioethics at the homes with other families PepsiCo’s compliance officer. Jewish Guild for the Blind’s University of Pennsylvania. around the world in lieu of board of directors. Dubin, a He is also a lecturer in the renting hotel rooms. Edna Rubin Sussman, helped senior partner at Paul, Weiss, Department of Legal Studies and spearhead the launch of the Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, Business Ethics at the university’s Charles L. Gholz was recent- Global Warming Task Force in has been a member of the Wharton School of Business. ly selected for inclusion in the Westchester County. She pub- Guild’s board since 1989 and intellectual property litigation lishes and lectures extensively has served on its nominating, 1967 section of Virginia Super Lawyers on the environment. governance, budget, and Paul H. Wilson Jr. was 2008. Gholz is a partner at finance committees. recently named executive vice Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, president, general counsel, and Maier & Neustadt in Alexandria, Thomas N. Keltner is a secretary of First Wind Va., where he is the head of the member and general counsel at Holdings, an independent patent interference section. Wien & Malkin in New York. North American wind power company. In his new position, 1969 Don R. Weigandt is a Wilson will oversee the com- James Silbert is a partner at managing director with pany’s legal affairs and manage Silbert & Hiller in New York. J.P. Morgan Private Bank, its legal team. Wilson was Both of the firm’s named partners where he has counseled clients previously a senior corporate are members of the class of 1969. and colleagues on tax and partner in the New York office estate planning matters for the of Debevoise & Plimpton. 1972 last 10 years. He has spoken on Robert André is a partner Frederick Y. Yu, a member at these subjects in public forums 1968 in the Seattle firm of Ogden, Sherman & Howard in Denver, and with the financial press. Guy P. D. Archer retired from Murphy & Wallace. Colo., was recently elected Weigandt intends to pursue government practice in Hawaii chair of the Board of Trustees his third career as an adjunct in 2000. He is a member of the John P. Flannery, a former for the National Conference law professor at one or State Central Committee for federal prosecutor for the of Bar Examiners. Yu, whose more law schools.

72 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 72 4/15/09 3:28 PM 1975 Linda Baumann is a partner of New York 2008 Cornerstone public and private universities, in the Washington, D.C., office Award, which honored his out- nonprofit health care facilities, of Arent Fox, where she standing pro bono legal work and other institutions that concentrates her practice on with nonprofit organizations. Frederick S. Gold, a partner serve the public good. New health care regulatory and Buhle, a partner in the New at Shipman & Goodwin in York Governor David Paterson transactional matters. Baumann York office of Weil, Gotshal & Stamford, Conn., recently recommended Williams to also serves on the Governing Manges, serves as volunteer authored the first chapter in the post, where he will serve as Council of the American Bar general counsel to the Dystro- Strategies for Successful the authority’s first African- Association Health Law phic Epidermolysis Bullosa Mediation: Leading Lawyers on American leader. Section. BNA Books, a division Research Association of America Understanding Client Goals, of the Bureau of National (Debra). Debra is the only Communicating Effectively, 1978 Affairs, recently published the national nonprofit organization and Facilitating an Agreement John B. Henry II, through his second edition of Baumann’s dedicated to finding a cure for (Aspatore Books: 2008). In company, eLawForum, recently book, Health Care Fraud and epidermolysis bullosa, a rare his chapter, titled “Mediating saved his Fortune 500 clients Abuse: Practical Perspectives genetic skin disease. Business Disputes in the Midst $500 million in six transac- (BNA Books: 2007). of Litigation: The Art of a tions. The company, which Eric Fishman, a partner in Facilitated Statement,” Gold Henry founded seven years Esteban A. Ferrer recently the firm of Holland & Knight, analyzes the mediation pro- ago, helps large corporations marked his one-year anniver- married Shuly Rubin Schwartz cess—from a private mediation reduce the cost of litigation. sary in the New York office of last August. Schwartz is the between parties to a complex Paul Hastings, after spending dean of the undergraduate business dispute during the lit- Thomas W. White, a senior 17 years in the firm’s Stamford, division of the Jewish Theolog- igation process—and discusses partner at WilmerHale, was Conn., office. Ferrer married ical Seminary in New York. strategies and tactics for maxi- recently named chair of the Lelia Nutting in February, a mizing a mediation’s success. American Bar Association match that added three E. Ann Gill recently joined Business Law and Accounting children to his family. Seyfarth Shaw as a partner in Mathew Hoffman recently Committee. White is also the firm’s New York office. joined Barton Barton & involved with the board of 1976 Plotkin as of counsel and head Covenant House in Washington, Jo Anne Chernev Adlerstein, 1977 of litigation. Hoffman spends D.C. The organization provides who practices immigration Elizabeth K. Blake, general much of his spare time as a help for at-risk youths in the law and white-collar defense counsel and senior vice presi- rabbi, providing services at underserved areas of the capital. at Cohen Tauber Spievack dent for government relations weddings, bar and bat & Wagner in New York, was and advocacy at Habitat for mitzvahs, and funerals. 1979 recently selected for inclusion Humanity International, was L. Howard Adams is a tax in New York Super Lawyers profiled inThe National Law partner and a member of the 2008. The American Immigra- Journal in November. salary committee in the New tion Lawyers Association has York office of Cahill Gordon & also recognized Adlerstein as a Reindel, where he has worked Pro Bono Champion. for the past 25 years. Adams focuses his practice primarily Douglas F. Allen recently on corporate transactions and joined the New York office of financial instruments. Seyfarth Shaw as of counsel Paul T. Williams Jr. was in the firm’s trusts and estates recently appointed executive Philip Feder was recently practice group. director of the Dormitory honored by A Community of Authority of the State of New Friends (ACOF), a Los Angeles Warren T. Buhle recently York, which provides financing nonprofit organization that received the Lawyers Alliance and construction services to provides housing and services

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 73

60602_txt.indd 73 4/15/09 3:28 PM to homeless people suffering Kiyonaga and his wife have program for the New Haven, Ronald Minkoff is a partner from mental illness. Feder has four children. Conn., mayoral election. at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & been president of ACOF for Wechsler is also serving as Selz, where he focuses on six years, while also serving as Joseph S. Magnano is the director of research for City commercial litigation. Minkoff head of the global real estate associate general counsel for Ethics, a nonprofit also serves as an adjunct department in the London North America in the New organization that provides professor of professional and Los Angeles offices of York office of Zurich Financial information and advice on responsibility at Fordham Paul Hastings. Services. Magnano and his wife, municipal government ethics. University School of Law. Catherine, have three children. In addition, Wechsler is a Jonathan T. Fried, ll.m., volunteer for Common Cause 1981 was recently named Canada’s Connecticut, an organization Richard Andersen recently ambassador to Japan. Prior committed to honest, open, joined the New York office of to accepting the position, and accountable government Patton Boggs, where he will Fried was executive director and increased citizen practice tax and international for Canada, , and the participation in democracy. law. Previously, Andersen led Caribbean at the International the New York tax practice at Monetary Fund. 1980 Arnold & Porter. Paul D. Friedland, a partner Dora Irizarry, a judge for Suzanne McSorley, a share- at White & Case in New York, the Eastern District of New holder in the litigation depart- was recently appointed to York, was recently honored ment of Stevens & Lee in New the Board of Trustees at the with the Brooklyn Bar Jersey, moderated and served American School of Classical Association Foundation’s on a panel of construction Studies at Athens. Friedland, annual award for Outstanding industry professionals at the who is co-head of White & Achievement in the Science American Bar Association Case’s international arbitration of Jurisprudence and Forum on Construction in practice group, has participated Public Service. Chicago last September. in numerous international McSorley concentrates her arbitrations, principally involving Kenneth Isaacson recently practice on commercial litigation oil and gas, telecommunications, published his first legal and dispute resolution, and construction. thriller, Silent Counsel counseling clients in the (Windermere Press: 2007). construction, manufacturing, Thomas H. Hill, LL.M., a William A. Escobar, a The novel tells the story of a pharmaceutical, insurance, and visiting professor at partner and co-chair of the lawyer bound by attorney-client health care industries. Chicago-Kent College of Law, litigation practice group in privilege to keep the identity has been named an Illinois the New York office of Kelley of his client (a hit-and-run Susan (Rudow) Nudelman, Institute of Technology (IIT) Drye & Warren, was recently driver responsible for the a private practice appellate Coleman Foundation Faculty selected by the Minority death of a small boy) a secret. attorney in New York, recently Scholar for the 2008-09 Corporate Counsel Association New York Times best-selling won an appeal in Sanatass v. academic year. Hill will spend as one of 16 Leading Law author Linda Fairstein has Consolidated Investing Co. Inc. a year working with the Firm Rainmakers of 2008. called the book a “stunning In its decision, the New York institute’s Entrepreneurship The association advocates for debut” by “an exciting new State Court of Appeals upheld Program, for which he will provide the expanded hiring, retention, voice in crime fiction.” absolute owner liability under insight into how entrepreneurs, and promotion of minority the New York Scaffold Law. engineers, and scientists can attorneys. Escobar was chosen John C. Kiyonaga has a solo work with lawyers in areas like because of his legal accom- law practice in Alexandria, Va., Robert F. Wechsler is company information, plishments and his success in where he focuses on criminal currently the administrator of contracts, negotiations, and business development at the defense and civil litigation. a public campaign financing intellectual property. highest levels.

74 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 74 4/15/09 3:28 PM Stephanie Breslow Breaking Barriers

Stephanie Breslow ’84 is the first woman to serve on the executive committee at the 88-partner New York law firm of Schulte Roth & Zabel. Breslow reached that lofty position thanks to years of hard work and an open disregard for societal expectations. There were few women attorneys at the top to guide her, so she had to feel her own way. “It was daunting,” says Breslow, who specializes in investment management, partnerships, and securities. “I would see women sort of getting de- class railed, and I gave a lot of thought to why that was.” of: ’84 Her desire to tear down boundaries is, in part, genetic. Breslow’s mother worked at the Weill Medi- cal College of Cornell University as a biochemistry pro- fessor, a position she achieved in the 1950s, when sexism permeated American culture. “To me, having a serious profession is something I just took for granted,” says Breslow. “I never considered scaling back.” Having built a solid and successful career, Breslow now makes time to promote gender equality in the law, pe- riodically speaking to women’s law groups about how to scale the gender barrier and succeed. She has also Breslow now makes time to signed on as the first advisory board member to Profes- promote gender equality in the sor Katherine Franke’s Gender & Sexuality Law Program law, periodically speaking to at the Law School. “When I was a more junior lawyer, women’s law groups about how sexism was much more overt,” Breslow recalls. “I think to scale the gender barrier things have dramatically improved since then.” and succeed.

Andrew WeissmanN The Right Stuff

In 1997, Andrew Weissmann ’84 helped topple Vincent was really good, and really right,” says Weissmann, who “The Chin” Gigante, of the . Five was, at the time, a clerk for the late Judge Eugene Nickerson years later, he prosecuted senior Enron officials for their of the Eastern District of New York. “And I just thought, crimes. He followed that with a stint as special counsel to ‘That’s a really good way to spend your time.’” the director of the FBI. After 11 years as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the East- Weissmann traces his illustrious career back ern District of New York and a year with the FBI, Weiss-

class to a pivotal moment when he watched an as- mann has moved to the other side of the courtroom, as of: ’84 sistant U.S. Attorney argue a case in court. “He a criminal defense attorney specializing in white-collar cases at Jenner & Block in New York. Weissmann spent 11 years At the firm, Weissmann is again making as an assistant U.S. news. He recently argued before the 2nd attorney before serving Circuit in an effort to change legal standards as special counsel to the for corporate criminal liability. Weissmann director of the FBI. is looking to make it harder to prosecute corporations for the actions of employees who break company regulations. “You’ve now got an anomaly that it’s easier to prosecute criminally than civilly,” he says. The appeals court has reserved judgment on the case but has suggested it be ar- gued before the Supreme Court, which would make broader change possible. Weissmann says that is what he has been hoping for all along.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 75

60602_txt.indd 75 4/15/09 3:28 PM Marisa Jacobs recently Susan D. Charkes is currently Bianca Russo is an in-house Kevin Hall opened the firm of joined Covanta Holding Cor- working in environmental lawyer at J.P. Morgan Chase & Kull Hall in Santa Monica, Calif. poration as vice president of planning for a nonprofit Co., where she heads the investor relations and corporate watershed association, where legal group that works on Mark A. Kass recently became communications. Covanta is she advises municipalities on securitization transactions a partner in the Washington, the world’s largest owner and improving legal and practical for J.P. Morgan Investment D.C., office of Nixon Peabody. operator of large-scale energy- protection of natural resources. Bank. Russo and her husband, Previously, Kass led the Israeli from-waste facilities, which use Charkes writes a regular Michael Sekus, recently business practice at Mintz Levin municipal solid waste to generate nature column for a regional celebrated their 25th Cohn Ferris Glovsky & Popeo. clean, renewable energy. newspaper. She also hosts a wedding anniversary. podcast on her website, 1982 susancharkes.com, titled 1985 Paul Gardephe was sworn “Because Nature Tells Me So.” Andrea Bonime-Blanc in as a U. S. district judge in recently became the general the Southern District of New Jamie Gallagher joined counsel, chief compliance York on August 8, 2008. Rainbow Media Holdings officer, and corporate secretary Previously, Gardephe was a as executive vice president of Daylight Forensic & Advisory, partner at Patterson Belknap and general counsel in 2008. an international compliance Webb & Tyler in New York, Rainbow Media is a division and regulatory advisory firm Michael Levin, a best-selling where he chaired the firm’s of Cablevision and owns four headquartered in New York City. author, recently co-wrote litigation department. national cable TV networks: Making Jack Falcone (Touch- AMC, WeTV, IFC, and the stone: 2008) with Jack Garcia, Mark H. Moore has joined the Sundance Channel. Previously, an FBI agent who infiltrated New York office of Reavis Parent Gallagher was general counsel the Mafia. The book was Lehrer as counsel. Moore focuses for Tommy Hilfiger. featured on 60 Minutes in on litigation, arbitration, and October. Levin, who has written, mediation of business disputes. Paul Tvetenstrand recently co-written, or ghost-written joined the New York office close to 60 books, is currently Chip Reid was recently named of Sonnenschein Nath & working on projects with TV the chief White House corre- Rosenthal as a partner. personality Leeza Gibbons, spondent for CBS News. Reid sports broadcasting legend joined CBS News in 2007 and Donald E. Vaughan, a Jim Lampley, and Lawrence travelled with Senator John partner in the Boston law firm Taylor Jr., son of NFL great McCain during the 2008 of Burns & Levinson, is the Steven P. Eichel has been Lawrence Taylor. presidential campaign. president of the Boston Early named co-chair of the Boston Music Festival, which will Bar Association’s Tax Section. 1983 present a concert series at the Eichel is a partner at Choate David C. Bloomfield was Morgan Library & Museum in Hall & Stewart in Boston. promoted to full professor New York City this year. at Brooklyn College, CUNY where he teaches education 1984 law and heads the master’s Edward Klees is general program in educational counsel with the University of leadership. He is on the executive Virginia Investment Management committee and teaching faculty Co. (UVIMCO). He lives in of the Urban Education Ph.D. Charlottesville, Va., with his Program at the CUNY wife, Susan, and daughters Laurie Magid has been ap- Graduate Center. Jessica and Rachel. pointed acting U.S. Attorney

76 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 76 4/15/09 3:28 PM class of: ’89

Celeste Koeleveld Courtroom Drama

Celeste Koeleveld ’89 first knew she As executive assistant corporation counsel wanted to be a lawyer at the age of for public safety at the New York City Law 12, when she wrote a play titled The Department, Koeleveld oversees both the Big Trial. The script, which Koeleveld special federal litigation division and the still has, pits a passionate defense family court division. attorney against an irascible judge in the trial of a man falsely accused of murder. “It is very Perry Mason,” she says, “very melodramatic. The characters say things they would never say for real. It’s wildly contrary to how things actually go in court.” Koeleveld would know. She has spent the bulk of her career in the criminal division of School. “[This new position] seemed like a very appeal- P hotographed the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of ing change for me.” New York, where she eventually became chief of the Koeleveld now oversees the 70-attorney Special Federal criminal division. Koeleveld left the Southern District Litigation Division, which handles federal police and cor- last year, when she was appointed to her current po- rection officer litigation. She also supervises the 100-attorney

by

S sition as the New York City Law Department’s execu- Family Court Division, which deals with juvenile prosecu- usanne tive assistant corporation counsel for public safety. “I tion. “It’s helped me see a whole new part of litigation was starting to feel like it was time for a change,” says and government, and I think it’s been great,” she says. “I’m E

lstein Koeleveld, who is also an adjunct professor at the Law happy I’ve found something else I enjoy doing.”

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 77

60602_txt.indd 77 4/15/09 3:28 PM for the Eastern District of investment giant to Barclays Y. Ping Sun served as speaker Pennsylvania, where she leads Capital last year. Shapiro now at a swearing-in ceremony for an office of more than 130 serves as the head of the 1,500 new citizens in Houston attorneys. Magid is the first restructuring and finance 1988 last November. woman to hold that position. group at Barclays. Jillian Barron, a shareholder with Sebris Busto James in 1989 Michael Schmidtberger Bellevue, Wash., was recently Gil Anav is the founding recently joined the management named president-elect of the partner of Anav, Bartolini y committee at Sidley Austin Washington Defense Trial Asociados, a six-attorney firm in New York. Schmidtberger Lawyers, a statewide association in Mexico City dedicated to is also a member of the firm’s of civil defense attorneys. international transactional executive committee and serves and general corporate work. as the global co-head of the Stan Berman recently joined Anav and his wife, Ana Maria firm’s 110-lawyer investment Sidley Austin as a partner in Vitoria-Vazquez, have been management practice. the firm’s Washington, D.C., married since 1996 and office. Berman represents have a 7-year-old daughter, James A. Wilson was recently 1987 electric utilities and other Deborah Guadalupe. named chair of the American Ron Cai, LL.M., was recently electric-industry participants Bar Association’s Antitrust Law named Legal Committee chair in complex, high-stakes litigation Jodie (Simon) Friedman Section. Wilson is a partner of the American Chamber and appeals at the Federal and her husband, Sanford, at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and of Commerce (AmCham) in Energy Regulatory Commission, had their first child, Samuel Pease, where he is a member Shanghai. Cai, a practice partner at state regulatory commissions, Nathan, last March. Friedman of the firm’s litigation practice in the Shanghai office of Davis and in the courts. has been vice president, deputy group. As section chair, he will Wright Tremaine, will be general counsel, and assistant serve a one-year term. responsible for keeping AmCham P. Rivka Schochet, a principal secretary of International members informed of current in the Detroit office of Miller Flavors & Fragrances Inc. in 1986 legal developments in China. Canfield Paddock and Stone, New York since 2001. Joseph M. Harary was re- recently spoke at the Interna- cently promoted to president David Meister recently joined tional Franchise Association’s David Neal recently became and chief executive officer of the New York office of Franchise Opportunities for vice chairman of the U.S. Research Frontiers Inc., the Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher Women and Minorities Board of Immigration Appeals. developer and licensor of & Flom, where he will be a seminar. Schochet was joined Former Attorney General fast-responding SPD-Smart member of the group handling by her colleague at the law Michael Mukasey appointed light-control film technology. white-collar crime. firm, Irene Bruce Hathaway, to Neal to the position. discuss what information one Jack Nadler is a partner at Edward F. Petrosky recently should know about the legal Simone Wu was recently Squire Sanders Dempsey in became co-chair of Sidley aspects of franchising. named outstanding chief legal Washington, D.C., where he Austin’s accounting and finance officer as part of the Washington practices telecommunications committee, as well as co-chair of Michele Sherman Metropolitan Area Corporate law. In recent years, he has the firm’s capital markets group. Davenport is a partner at Counsel Association’s fourth advised clients in Asia, Africa, Petrosky, who works in the New Cameron & Hornbostel in annual Corporate Counsel and the Middle East regarding York office of Sidley Austin, has Washington, D.C., where she Awards. Wu, who is senior vice market liberalization and been a member of the firm’s practices international trade president and general counsel regulatory restructuring. executive committee since 2007. law. Davenport recently for XO Communications, passed all the necessary exams was selected in part for her Mark Shapiro, previously the to qualify as a solicitor in the leadership during a $780 million head of restructuring at Lehman Supreme Court of England transaction to clear XO Brothers, led the sale of the and Wales. Communications’ senior debt.

78 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 78 4/15/09 3:28 PM class of: ’90

Anika Rahman Her Life’s Passion

Anika Rahman ’90 was raised by three strong, university- for women’s health and human rights. She spent three educated women in her native Bangladesh: her grand- years at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton before launch- mother, her aunt, and her mother. Rahman’s non-traditional ing her public-interest career as a founding director of upbringing wasn’t easy. Her mother was rendered a social the international program at the Center for Reproduc- outcast after divorcing Rahman’s father. “Life’s passions tive Rights (formerly known as the Center for Repro- come from your own personal experience,” Rahman says ductive Law and Policy). The switch meant longer hours and a 70 percent pay cut, but financial Rahman’s early encounters with injustice gain was never Rahman’s main objective. inspired her to dedicate more than 15 years “I so wanted to be the best I could be of her life to advocating for women’s health because I believed in what I was doing,” and human rights. she says. “Your satisfaction has to come from the belief that you’re im- proving people’s lives.” Rahman is now the president of Americans for the United Nations’ Population Fund, where she continues to advocate for women’s issues. The in discussing her youth. “I have seen women in my family organization helps build moral, political, and financial sup- suffer. I saw the way the world was treating them, and it port for the Population Fund, which is essentially the Unit- was wrong, outright wrong.” ed Nations’ women’s health agency. Her life is no longer as Rahman’s early encounters with injustice inspired her focused on the law, but, Rahman is quick to point out, “law to dedicate more than 15 years of her life to advocating alone is never enough to get social justice moving.”

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 79

60602_txt.indd 79 4/15/09 3:28 PM 1990 Monica Jahan Bose is an Block of the United States with Montana’s Department office of Leonard, Street & artist/activist living in Paris. In District Court in the Eastern of Justice. Deinard as of counsel. At the January, her work was featured District of New York ruled that firm, Nielsen will focus his in a solo art exhibition at the the government could not use Andrea Fastenberg is an practice on estate planning, Galerie Médiart. Bose’s paintings ethnicity as justification for attorney with the New York probate, and business law. delve into her Bangladeshi suspect detention. City Law Department’s Legal heritage, her struggles with Counsel Division, where her John Olivieri is a partner in religious fundamentalism, the John S. Reardon, CEO of work consists of legislative the New York office of White & subjugation of women, and the the software company Critical drafting and providing advice Case. Olivieri and his wife, destruction of the environment. RF Inc. in Alexandria, Va., is to city agencies on current Veronica, welcomed a baby currently working with a programs and new initiatives. boy, Alexander, last February. 1992 playwright to adapt a children’s Fastenberg and her husband, Andrew M. Dansicker novel he wrote for the stage in Marcel Kahan, have three Marta (Galan) Ricardo is recently founded his own law a local children’s theater. The daughters, ages 13, 11, and 5. an academic counselor and firm in Hunt Valley, Md. book, titled The South Overlook director of student organizations His firm focuses on employment Oaks (Seven Locks Press: Michael Mannheimer at Columbia Law School. law, including sexual 2006), is meant for readers teaches courses in criminal harassment, discrimination, between the ages of 5 and 10. law, criminal procedure, Rutledge Simmons is the wrongful termination, It was selected by the National evidence, and the death penalty deputy general counsel for employment contracts, and Press Club as one of the top at Northern Kentucky Univer- NeighborWorks America, a constitutional law. Dansicker books of 2006 and by The sity’s Salmon P. Chase College national nonprofit organization recently obtained one of Washington Post as a top of Law. Mannheimer and his in Washington, D.C., that is Maryland’s largest judgments children’s book for that year. wife, Janet, have a 2-year-old engaged in community in an overtime compensation son, Bradley. economic development issues, case on behalf of furniture Jenny Rivera, LL.M., has particularly affordable housing installation workers. returned to the faculty of the Ellen (Bowden) McIntyre and foreclosure prevention City University of New York works part time as an assistant efforts. Simmons is also chair Norman Farrell, LL.M., School of Law after serving as U.S. Attorney in Nashville, of the Community Economic recently became the deputy New York State’s special deputy Tenn., specializing in affirma- Development Committee of prosecutor of the International attorney general for civil rights. tive civil enforcement cases. the American Bar Association’s Criminal Tribunal for the At the law school, she will McIntyre and her husband, Business Law Section. former Yugoslavia (ICTY). UN serve as director of the Center Patrick, are the parents of Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Latino and Latina Rights 2-year-old twins and a Harry Turner, the vice appointed Farrell to the position, and Equality. newborn baby girl. president and general counsel which follows his previous of a subsidiary of Renesas role as principal legal officer in 1994 Christopher McKee Technology Corp., married ICTY’s Office of the Prosecutor. Richard Akerman, LL.M., practices law with his brother Brian Keil, the director for recently became a partner in in a firm he established 12 client reporting in the 1993 the Stockholm law office of years ago. Their practice is institutional brokerage division Anthony C. Ofodile, LL.M., Hannes Snellman. Previously, limited to privately held corpo- of Charles Schwab & Co., of Ofodile & Associates in Akerman was a partner at rate matters, estate planning, last August in San Francisco. Brooklyn, successfully Setterwalls, also in Stockholm. and tax-exempt organizations. Turner works in the sales and represented the plaintiffs in McKee and his wife, Eugenia, marketing arm of the Japanese a recent federal case in which Steve Bullock was recently recently welcomed a baby girl, semiconductor manufacturer. two Egyptian-born men sued elected attorney general of the couple’s fifth child. the government after being de- Montana. Bullock previously Mara Verheyden-Hilliard tained and questioned for four served with Montana’s Arthur Nielsen recently recently wrote an editorial hours in 2004. Judge Frederic secretary of state as well as joined the St. Cloud, Minn., commentary that was featured

80 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 80 4/15/09 3:28 PM class of: ’99 Sterling Ashby toy story

Sterling Ashby ’99 knows a lot of things kids don’t. It’s In January of 2007, Ashby received his first 9,000 units, not something he’s proud of; it is something he is looking a shipment that included the company’s inaugural three to change. action figures: Coleman, Banneker, and Henson. The toys Take, for example, Barnstorming Bessie Coleman. She are available at about 25 museums around the country, as was a pilot who performed daredevil stunts in the 1920s. well as online, and Ashby has plans to diversify his inven- Then there is Benjamin Banneker, a mathematician, as- tory in the future. He has already had multiple requests tronomer, and surveyor who challenged to mold various historical innovators, like the first Russian on the issue of slavery. And Matthew Alexander Henson cosmonaut, into pliable action figures. “This is not a toy was the first man to set foot on the North Pole. All were African-Ameri- Ashby launched History in Action Toys to can, and all remain relatively unheard help children enjoy learning about real-life of among today’s youth. heroes of the past. That knowledge gap inspired Ashby, of counsel in the Washington, D.C., firm of Leftwich & Ludaway, to launch History in Action Toys several years ago. The company creates ac- tion figures that help children enjoy learning about real-life heroes of the past. “You’re talking about individuals and accomplish- that’s going to move a million units, but you’re connecting ments,” Ashby says. “We’re empowering young people with kids,” Ashby says. “When you see a kid connecting with great stories.” with something you helped make, it’s pretty special.”

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 81

60602_txt.indd 81 4/15/09 3:28 PM in the Outlook section of The Rory Lancman, the legal affairs at Hydra Biosciences, office director of Global Rights, Washington Post. In the com- assemblyman for Queens, is a privately held biopharmaceu- an international non-govern- mentary, Verheyden-Hilliard completing his first term in tical company in Cambridge, mental organization that con- challenged the legitimacy of office. Lancman has authored Mass. Bellon previously served ducts human rights education, Washington, D.C.–area police a number of state laws related as assistant general counsel, monitoring, and advocacy. checkpoints. Verheyden-Hilliard, to the judicial process and intellectual property, at Infinity In Morocco, Bordat designs a constitutional rights attorney homeland security, including Pharmaceuticals. and implements programs in and co-founder of the Partnership the Libel Terrorism Protection collaboration with local for Civil Justice, is representing Act. That act protects Erika Munro, a senior director NGOs to promote the individuals suing to end the New York journalists and of business affairs at truTV, enforcement and advocacy city’s checkpoint program. authors from politically moti- married Keith Kennerly last of women’s rights. vated, overseas libel judgments, June in the Bahamas. such as what occurred when Lou Gray co-founded Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim DreamBox Learning, a web- bin Mahfouz sued New York based learning company, last author Rachel Ehrenfeld in March. The company, based in Britain, where 23 copies of her Bellevue, Wash., is developing book identifying bin Mahfouz an online math game called as a financier of terrorism were DreamBox Learning K-2 sold over the internet. Math. The game brings together fun, interactive, game-style Yash Rana, a partner in the adventures with a serious math 1995 New York office of Goodwin curriculum. It is scheduled to David P. Burns recently became Procter, was recently selected be released this year. a partner in the Washington, to lead the firm’s new office in 1997 D.C., office of Gibson, Dunn & Hong Kong. Rana, who will Jennifer Eichholz recently Y. Ernest Hsin recently Crutcher. Burns’ practice head the Hong Kong office with became a partner in the Phoenix became a partner in the Palo focuses on white-collar criminal another partner from the firm, office of Quarles & Brady. Alto office of Gibson, Dunn & defense, internal investigations, also leads Goodwin Procter’s Eichholz practices corporate Crutcher. Hsin practices regulatory enforcement, and India practice and has ample services, mergers and acquisi- patent litigation and counsels litigation matters. experience representing clients tions, and securities law. clients on all aspects of in cross-border transactions. intellectual property law. Steven M. Davidoff, an Edward L. Schnitzer was associate professor of law at Gerardo Sandoval recently named partner in the 1999 the University of Connecticut, successfully ran for a seat on New York office of Hahn & Dovi Adlerstein is counsel at married Rabbi Amy Jacques, the San Francisco Superior Hessen, where he is a member Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell in the vice president, jewish Court in the November 2008 of the bankruptcy department. Dallas, Texas. He is married education and identity, of the election, defeating an incumbent with three sons, ages 9, 7, and 4, Columbus Jewish Federation to become one of only a few 1998 and a daughter, who is almost 2. in Columbus, Ohio, last July. Hispanic judges currently on Laura Rebecca Bach, who Davidoff, who also writes that bench. Sandoval is also a prosecutes homicides for the A. Roman Boed, LL.M., is the regularly for the New York member of the San Francisco U.S. Attorney’s Office in coordinating legal officer for Times’ DealBook blog as the Board of Supervisors. Washington, D.C., married the Appeals Chamber of the Deal Professor, will serve as a Jacob Lipscomb, a D.C. police United Nations’ International visiting professor at The Ohio 1996 officer, last March. Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. State University Michael E. Christine Bellon was re- In that position, Boed, who is Moritz College of Law for the cently appointed vice president Stephanie Joy Willman based in Holland, leads a team 2008–09 academic year. of intellectual property and Bordat is the Morocco field of lawyers assisting the judges

82 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 82 4/15/09 3:28 PM Ank Santens International Affinity

Ank Santens ’99 LL.M. always believed philosophy was her Santens came to the United States from her native calling. Her parents disagreed. Sometimes parents know best. Belgium in 1997. Fresh out of law school, she found a job “They thought being a lawyer was the perfect job for with a multinational pharmaceutical company assisting me, as I am strong-willed, outspoken, and analytical,” the international counsel in both corporate matters and Santens recalls. “I ultimately did combine a bachelor’s in legal disputes. Litigation quickly captured her fascination. philosophy with my last year in law school, “Whereas reading contracts put me to sleep, I found the class but I realized that the contemplative—read: submissions in pending litigation and arbitrations fascinat- of: ’99 isolated—life of a philosopher was not for me.” ing,” she says. “In short, I realized that I loved advocacy.” The international aspect of her work also The international aspect appealed to Santens, who speaks Flemish, of her work appeals French, English, Spanish, and German. to Santens, who speaks After completing her LL.M. at Columbia Flemish, French, English, Law School, she put her newfound zeal Spanish, and German. for dispute resolution and her cosmopoli- tan background to good use in the New York office of White & Case, where she was recently promoted to partner. “My clients are all around the world,” Santens says. “And most have become friends or at least friendly, which is something in which I take pride. It shows they are happy with my work and the results.”

Cristian Conejero Roos Going Global

As a junior associate at the Chilean firm of Claro y Cía., As counsel for Latin America and Cristian Conejero Roos ’03 LL.M. was appointed to serve the Iberian Peninsula at the as local counsel in a shareholder dispute between the International Court of Arbitration, owner of a Chilean brewery and one of its German Conejero Roos handled roughly partners—a case with daunting financial implications. 800 cases over four years. “That was really my first contact with a true international arbitration case,” Conejero Roos recalls. “But I felt that it was the perfect [opportunity] because I was able to use my litigation skills and at the same time get to know the world of international transactions.” Conejero Roos decided to further his study of interna- tional arbitration by pursuing his LL.M. at Columbia Law School. After graduating, he spent a year as a foreign associate in the New York office of Shearman & Sterling and then joined the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Court of Arbitration in Paris as counsel for Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. Over the next four years, as Conejero Roos built up his French language skills, he handled roughly 800 cases. Conejero Roos left the ICC more than a year ago to become of counsel in the Madrid office of Cuatrecasas. “It was clear that I wanted to be at the ICC a certain number of years to learn the skills,” he says. “At some point, it was a natural move to go back to private practice.” In his new en- deavor, Conejero Roos splits his time between class of: ’03 Madrid and Paris and is exploring other fields of practice, like investment arbitration.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 83

60602_txt.indd 83 4/15/09 3:28 PM 2001 with drafting decisions and 2000 Jason N. Golub was recently orders. Boed recently earned Fraser Keith Cameron, promoted to counsel in the his Dutch racing license. When LL.M., is a junior partner in New York office of WilmerHale. he is not spending time with Hervé N. Linder, LL.M., the media group of McKinsey his three sons, he practices his and his wife, Marta, are proud & Company, a management Kohki M. Kubota was recently driving skills. to announce the arrival of consulting firm in New York. promoted to counsel in the their daughter, Valentina Cameron married Kelly Kristin New York office of WilmerHale. Rebecca Hornstein Doede, Kubitschek Lopes Linder, who Smith, a director of corporate a vice president with Barclays was born on November 7. communications for UBS, in Capital, and her husband, Laguna Beach, Calif., last August. Timothy, married last Elysia Ng-Baumhackl September on the 95th floor recently accepted a position Andrew L. Fabens recently of the John Hancock Center in as deputy legal counsel to became a partner in the New Chicago. The couple currently the chairman of the Joint York office of Gibson, Dunn & resides in New York City. Chiefs of Staff in Washington, Crutcher. Fabens represents D.C. With this assignment, issuers and underwriters in Delphine Heenen, LL.M., Ng-Baumhackl continues public and private corporate recently accepted a consultant her career in the Judge finance transactions in both position at Bain & Company in Advocate General Corps of U.S. and international markets. Mehrin Masud-Elias, an Brussels, Belgium. Previously, the . She associate in the Philadelphia Heenen was a managing previously served as agency Sean C. Feller recently office of Duane Morris, was associate at Linklaters. counsel in the Navy’s General became a partner in the recently appointed secretary of Litigation Division. Los Angeles office of Gibson, the Philadelphia chapter of the Ryan S. Karben is the principal Dunn & Crutcher. Feller’s South Asian Bar Association. of the Law Office of Ryan Tam T. T. Pham recently practice includes incentive com- Scott Karben in Monsey, N.Y., accepted a position as managing pensation plans, non-qualified Scott Ostfeld, senior man- and managing director of director at Major, Lindsey & deferred compensation plans, aging director of the invest- Fleishman-Hillard Government Africa in San Francisco. Pham, and executive employment and ment firm JANA Partners, was Relations, an international who is a former corporate severance arrangements. recently featured in Bloomberg lobbying and political consulting attorney and in-house counsel, Markets magazine. firm. The New York State Bar specializes in the placement of Brian K. Nagatani recently Association has designated associates at top-tier law firms opened a new law firm, Andrew A. Schwartz is an Karben an Empire State and in select in-house positions Hixson Nagatani. The Silicon associate professor at the Uni- Counsel in recognition of his in Northern California. Valley–based firm represents versity of Colorado Law School, pro bono work to provide free companies of all sizes in where he teaches classes in legal representation to patients Douglas D. Stalgren is employment law matters. contracts and corporations. wrongly denied coverage by the director of real estate legal their health insurers. for CFT Developments, an Rezwan D. Pavri was recently Angela J. Smith joined the affiliate of Panda Express/ named partner in the Palo San Diego office of Baker & Akiko Kobashi, LL.M., does Panda Restaurant Group, in Alto, Calif., office of Wilson McKenzie as an associate in corporate legal work for the Rosemead, Calif. Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. the dispute resolution Bank of Japan in Tokyo. Pavri focuses on a broad range practice group. Smith will Joel Villaseca, LL.M., is of corporate and securities law focus her practice on complex currently living in Jerusalem, matters, including mergers and business litigation. where he is a legal officer with acquisitions, and securities the United Nations Relief and offerings for public and private 2002 Works Agency for Palestine companies, investment banks, Jason M. Cooper, the business Refugees in the Near East. and venture capital firms. affairs executive in the theatre

84 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 84 4/15/09 3:28 PM class Tutu Alicante of: ’05 In Pursuit of Justice

At the end of last summer, Tutu Alicante Through his organization, EG Justice, ’05 LL.M. stood in a hospital and gazed Alicante works tirelessly to bring positive at his newborn baby girl, thinking of all change to the people of Equatorial Guinea. the opportunities the child would have because she was born in the United States. She could elect government rep- resentatives, access quality health care, and get a first-rate education—things that many people in Alicante’s native Equatorial Guinea can only dream about. Through his organization, EG Justice, Alicante works tirelessly to bring those opportunities to the people in his home country. But the West African country gained its independence from that moment in the hospital made him want to work Spain in 1968. The organization works with citizens to end even harder. government impunity and advocate for lasting democratic “I’m hopeful,” Alicante says. “I want people to think reform. It collaborates with international organizations to beyond the history that has defined us.” bring critical human rights issues to the attention of global Alicante launched EG Justice in 2007 through a fellow- policymakers and undertakes grassroots campaigns to ship from Echoing Green, which invests in and supports reform institutions inside the country. “We have to mobilize emerging social entrepreneurs. EG Justice is the first Equatorial Guineans outside and inside the country,” human rights advocacy initiative devoted to Equatorial Alicante says. “We cannot let a government have abso- Guinea, which has suffered under two dictatorships since lute power over absolutely everybody.”

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 85

60602_txt.indd 85 4/15/09 3:28 PM department of Creative Artists Ray-Hodge is also president of Menéndez in Lisbon, where Sarah Kunstler recently Agency’s New York office, and his the Native American Bar he specialized in mergers and co-directed a documentary wife, Elisabeth Mayer, welcomed Association of Washington, acquisitions and finance. with her sister that premiered their son, Ezra, last October. The D.C., and sits on the Advisory Last year, he took a sabbatical at the Sundance Film Festival new addition is a little brother Board of American University’s during which he researched in January. The film chronicles for the couple’s first son, Noah. Washington Internships for and taught at Lisbon University the life of their father, the Native Students program. School of Law and served as late civil rights attorney Matthew Draper was recently a visiting scholar at Columbia William Kunstler. It is the promoted to counsel in the James Yong Wang recently Law School. first feature film for the New York office of WilmerHale. joined the New York office of sisters, who run a small Greenberg Traurig as a share- Paul Gutman is an associate production company called holder in both the corporate with Carroll, Guido & Groffman Off Center Media. and securities practice group in New York. The firm repre- and the Asia practice group. sents musicians, independent Andres Molina-Araujo, Wang will focus on expanding record labels, and other partici- LL.M., recently accepted an Greenberg Traurig’s private pants in the music industry. associate position at Duran & investment funds practice, with Osorio in Bogota, Colombia. a particular focus on China and An Hertogen, LL.M., and Previously, Molina-Araujo was an other Asian countries. John Ip, LL.M., celebrated their associate at Prieto & Carrizosa. Atleen Kaur, an associate in wedding with ceremonies in the Ann Arbor office of Miller 2004 Auckland, New Zealand, and Lyria Bennett Moses, LL.M., Canfield Paddock and Stone, Ana Pottratz and Flavio Leuven, Belgium. The couple is a senior lecturer at the was recently elected president Acosta married last July now resides in Auckland, University of New South Wales of the South Asian Bar in Melrose, Minn. The couple where Ip is a lecturer at the in Sydney, Australia. Moses Association of Michigan. currently resides in Jersey University of Auckland’s Faculty and her husband, Daniel, Kaur was also appointed to City, N.J. of Law. Hertogen is working welcomed a baby girl, Tiana the Board of Trustees of the toward her Ph.D. Michelle Moses, last October. City of Ann Arbor Employees’ Juan Biset, LL.M., is the Tiana will be a little sister to Retirement System. corporate counsel for Rio Madhu Khatri married Tejesh the couple’s son, Joshua. Tinto, a large mining company Srivastav in New Delhi, where Suzanne A. Spears was re- in Argentina. Biset and his the couple currently resides. Asami Nagao, LL.M., and cently promoted to counsel in wife, Flor, have two sons, Mototsugu Kani welcomed a the London office of WilmerHale. Nicolas and Manuel. baby girl, Miyuki, in September. Nagao works for the legal divi- 2003 Jessica De Boeck, LL.M., sion of NTT Communications Angela Chien recently moved is an attorney with GDF Suez, Corporation in Japan, where to California to work in-house where she assists the company she specializes in international with Google’s legal department. in finance law and assessing legal matters. Chien previously spent four political risk in connection years in Zurich, where she with its energy development Frederic Rochat, LL.M., and administered the settlement projects in the Middle East, his wife, Gwendoline Egger fund for Holocaust assets. Asia, Africa, and South America. Rochat, are proud to announce De Boeck and Jan Lepoutre the birth of their son, Balthazar Vanessa L. Ray-Hodge is welcomed their first baby, a boy François, who was born on an associate at Akin Gump named Mathis, last October. April 12, 2008, in Lausanne, Strauss Hauer & Feld, where Switzerland. Balthazar François she works in the American JosÉ Ferreira Gomes, LL.M., will be a baby brother to the Indian law and policy group. was an attorney with Uría couple’s daughter, Juliette.

86 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 86 4/15/09 3:28 PM news brief Good Work Law School Alumni Receive Pro Bono Honor

The Sanctuary for Families’ Associates Committee re- Sanctuary for Families is the largest nonprofit organiza- cently recognized seven Columbia Law School alumni for tion in New York State dedicated exclusively to serving their outstanding contributions to pro bono legal work on domestic violence victims and their children. Pro bono at- behalf of the Sanctuary’s Center for Battered Women’s torneys work closely with Sanctuary’s staff attorneys to Legal Services. provide a range of legal services that can include every- The alumni honored at the Sanctuary’s annual benefit were: thing from divorce and child custody representation to Harris Cohen ’07, Qian Allison Gao ’06, Violetta Guberman protective orders. Watson ’06, Geoffrey G. Hu ’06, Jennifer L. Murray ’03, Randi W. Singer ’98, and The award recipients donated hundreds of Jennifer M. Westerfield ’07. The recipients hours to the Sanctuary for Families’ Center work at some of New York City’s largest for Battered Women’s legal services. law firms, and they have volunteered hundreds of hours on cases involving immigration, child custody, trafficking, contested and uncontested divorces, orders of protection, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues.

2005 mentally ill defendant who was Bronx that provides free legal previously served as a clerk Stephen P. Buhofer, LL.M., charged with capital murder in representation. Goldstein is for Senior Judge Jack B. an attorney at Becker, Glynn, Montgomery, Ala. The defen- a law clerk for Judge Chester Weinstein ’48 of the United Melamed & Muffly in New dant would have been eligible J. Straub of the United States States District Court for the York, recently published an for the death penalty. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Eastern District of New York. article titled “Structuring the Circuit in Manhattan. Law: the Common Law and 2006 2008 the Roman Institutional Sue-Yun Ahn married 2007 Allison Frisbee married System” in the Swiss Review of Charles Kitcher last July. Anya Emerson, a 2008 Equal Charles Reed in Concord, N.H. International and European Ahn is currently a clerk for Justice Works fellow sponsored They currently reside in Law. Buhofer’s article is based Supreme Court Justice Ruth by the Greenberg Traurig Washington, D.C. on the LL.M. essay he wrote at Bader Ginsburg ’59, and Kitcher Fellowship Foundation, has Columbia Law School. is an associate at Covington & begun a two-year project with Sarah Hollinshead, who Burling in Washington, D.C. the New York Legal Assistance began a clerkship in January Michael Josenhans, LL.M., The two met while attending Group. The project provides for Judge Sidney H. Stein of was recently awarded the Columbia Law School. appellate representation for the Southern District of New Teufel Excellence Award from low-income New Yorkers and York, married Benjamin Sigman, the Teufel Foundation in Marcin Chyliński, LL.M., their children on appeals from a senior associate in the New recognition of his doctoral dis- recently joined the Warsaw New York City Family Court to York office of Economics Re- sertation, titled “Cross-Border office of Weil, Gotshal & the Appellate Division. Emerson search Associates, last August. Tender Offers.” Josenhans and Manges as a partner in the his wife welcomed a daughter, firm’s corporate department. Ella Marlen, recently. Ella Marlen is a little sister for the Lucy Jane Lang is an couple’s son, Paul Johan. assistant district attorney for New York County. please email your news to [email protected] with the heading “Class Notes Submission” in the subject Kate Weisburd, a fellow line. Please be certain to include your year of graduation in with the Death Penalty Clinic Katherine Wagner-McCoy the email. Photo attachments are welcomed, but due to space limitations, the magazine cannot guarantee publication at the UC Berkeley School of married Jacob Goldstein last of submitted photographs. Law, led a team of clinic stu- July. Wagner-McCoy is a staff Class Notes submissions may be edited for clarity and space. Columbia Law School dents recently in securing a lawyer at Bronx Defenders, a Magazine cannot guarantee publication of all items. life-sentence plea for a severely nonprofit organization in the

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 87

60602_txt.indd 87 4/15/09 3:28 PM in memoriam:

The Columbia Law School community extends its deepest sympathy to the loved ones of recently deceased alumni

on top of the car and surveyed Israel, and a beloved rabbi. Queens. Congregation Alexander Rubin ’30 the area, glimpsing only one He passed away on December members recall Rackman as october 6, 2008 house. That was enough for the 1, 2008, at the age of 98. a courageous rabbi who older Rubin, who viewed that Rackman was the valedicto- wasn’t afraid to be honest in Alexander Rubin ’30 was a single house as the first sign of rian of his class at Manhattan every situation. prominent Miami real estate development, making the land Talmudical Academy. He “He wasn’t judgmental,” investor who found success a good prospect for investment. graduated in 1927 and went congregation member Rita through thoughtful, long-term “He taught me to be long-term on to attend Columbia Law Kramer told The Jewish Star. planning. He passed away on oriented and very analytical School. When World War II “He would see things from October 6, 2008, at the age of 101. and to look for value,” Robert began, he enlisted and became many facets and would always Rubin, who attended both told The Miami Herald, calling a colonel in the Air Force try to encourage more obser- Columbia College and Columbia his father “a person of integrity Reserve. During his military vance, or more indulgence, Law School, grew up in Brook- . . . who tried to think in an service, Rackman also held or more study.” lyn, N.Y. He inherited his interest intellectually serious way. That’s the position of chairman of Toward the end of his life, in real estate from his father, the mindset I grew up with.” the commission on Jewish Rackman divided his time Morris, who invested heavily in Rubin’s wife of 73 years, chaplaincy in the U.S. between homes in New York oceanfront property in the early Sylvia Seiderman Rubin, passed Armed Forces. and Ramat Gan, Israel. part of the 20th century. After away nine months before her Rackman served as president “He lived a good long life, graduating from the Law School, husband. Rubin is survived by of the New York Board of Rabbis and we shall miss him,” Rubin practiced law briefly at his son, Robert, his daughter, between 1955 and 1957, and Kramer said. “There weren’t the firm of Hetkin, Rubin & Jane Zirin, who is a psychiatrist as president of the Rabbinical many like him.” Hetkin. He moved to Miami in in New York, and his grandchil- Council of America between 1947 and became an investor. dren and great-grandchildren. 1958 and 1960. He was also a Rubin’s son, Robert, who vice president of the Religious was secretary of the Treasury Zionists of America. in the Clinton administration Emanuel Rackman ’33 In addition to the prestigious and is currently a director at december 1, 2008 positions he held at various Citigroup, recalled to The Miami organizations, Rackman was Herald how his father once Emanuel Rackman ’33 was also a popular rabbi with the drove him to a parcel of open the chancellor of Bar-Ilan Congregation Shaaray Tefilah, land. Both father and son stood University in Ramat Gan, which was then in Far Rockaway,

88 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 88 4/15/09 3:28 PM of President John F. Kennedy. York City before enlisting in passed away on August 2, She rose to become the assistant the Army during World War 2008, at the age of 89. general counsel in the Treasury II. He stormed France’s Seiberling attended Department. “I could see that the Beach on D-Day as part of the Staunton Military Academy Charlotte Walkup ’34 ongoing work of the government American invasion and helped and Harvard University before august 16, 2008 under Kennedy would be very liberate the Buchenwald enlisting in the Army. In World exciting, almost like the New concentration camp, one of War II, Seiberling helped Charlotte Walkup ’34 was an Deal,” Walkup recalled in the oral the largest camps established plan motor transport for the assistant general counsel in history. “I felt like a racehorse by the Nazis. Thereafter, he D-Day invasion and won the the U.S. Treasury Department that came out of the stable!” ensured that his commanding Legion of Merit, as well as and one of the first women to Walkup held that position officer forced the neighboring the Bronze Star. graduate from Columbia Law for almost 10 years before villagers to visit the camp, When he returned from the School. She passed away on returning to private practice. the existence of which they front lines, Seiberling used August 16, 2008, at the age of 98. She is survived by her husband consistently denied. the GI Bill to attend Columbia Walkup’s main inspiration of 41 years, retired Navy In 1963, together with Braun Law School before joining the for pursuing a legal career was Captain Homer A. Walkup, and Cashman, Pryor founded family business, Goodyear her father, Charles H. Tuttle, two children from her second Pryor Cashman. The firm Tire. At the age of 51, fueled the U.S. Attorney for the South- marriage, three stepchildren, specializes in entertainment law by his frustrations about the ern District of New York. “As six granddaughters, 10 great- and has more than 125 attor- Vietnam War, Seiberling made children, we always had dinner grandchildren, and seven neys, with offices in New York a successful run for Congress. together with father,” Walkup great-great-grandchildren. and Los Angeles. Pryor retired In Washington, he helped recalled in an oral history hon- in 1985 and moved to Colorado draft more than 60 oring the first women admitted to be closer to his family. parks-related bills. One of to Columbia Law School. “He Saul “Pete” Pryor ’38 Mort Lewis, the longtime those bills created Ohio’s first would recount his tales; he was october 23, 2008 manager of Simon & Garfunkel national park, the Cuyahoga always the gladiator who won who knew Pryor for more than Valley National Park. Another the cases and saved the day.” Saul “Pete” Pryor ’38 was an 50 years, recalled that when he statute protected more than When Walkup graduated in entertainment lawyer who first saw the attorney in action: 100 million acres of federal 1934, she joined the Solicitor’s co-founded, with David A. “I immediately discharged my lands in Alaska, thus doubling Office of the Department of Braun ’54 and Gideon Cashman lawyer and hired Pete Pryor. the size of the country’s the Interior and worked closely ’54, the law firm of Pryor He handled everything so pro- national park and refuge with tribal councils on various Cashman. At the firm, he rep- fessionally, and we remained system and tripling the Native American reservations resented some of the industry’s close friends right up until the amount of land designated to implement the Indian biggest names, including Duke last day of his life.” as wilderness. Seiberling also Reorganization Act of 1934. Ellington, Bob Dylan, Paul helped create the Historic During World War II, Walkup Newman, Neil Diamond, Simon Preservation Fund, which provided legal assistance to & Garfunkel, and Tony Bennett. John F. Seiberling ’49 gives millions of dollars in the Bureau of Mines. She then Pryor passed away on October august 2, 2008 preservation grants to states served as assistant general 23, 2008, at the age of 92. and communities each year. counsel in the Washington Pryor was born to Russian John F. Seiberling ’49 was a His work earned him the and London offices of the immigrants and graduated scion of the Goodyear Tire and recognition of President United Nations Relief and from City College in 1935. Rubber Company family and Bill Clinton, who awarded Rehabilitation Administration. At Columbia Law School, an eight-term congressman Seiberling the Presidential After devoting some time to he served as editor of the from Akron, Ohio. An avid Citizens Medal in 2001. raising her children, Walkup Columbia Law Review. outdoorsman, he helped write Seiberling is survived by his returned to government Pryor initially joined the laws protecting and expanding wife, Elizabeth, and their three service following the election firm of Jaffe & Jaffe in New national parks. Seiberling sons: John, David, and Stephen.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 89

60602_txt.indd 89 4/15/09 3:28 PM Van Doren is survived by 1983, a move that prevented and providing pro bono legal Charles Van Doren ’49 his wife of 41 years, Regina developers from reworking the advice to Aborigines. august 23, 2008 Mary Ridder Van Doren, his neighborhood’s signature After receiving his J.S.D. brother, Lawrence, his sister, irregular blocks. from Columbia Law School, Charles Van Doren ’49 was a Isabel, his son, Hal, and his After 19 years with the com- Winterton returned to Aus- pioneering expert on nuclear four daughters: Charlotte, mission, Miner resigned in tralia and began lecturing at weapons nonproliferation and Rebecca, Margaret, and Marie. 1994. The dedicated preserva- the University of New South international nuclear energy tionist then became an adjunct Wales, where he met his wife, law. He passed away on August associate professor in the Rosalind. He taught for more 23, 2008, at the age of 84. Dorothy Miner ’61 Graduate School of Architecture, than 28 years at the university, Van Doren attended Harvard october 21, 2008 Planning and Preservation at which awarded him the Jubilee University and Columbia Law Columbia University. Medallion in 1999 and the title School before enlisting to serve Dorothy Marie Miner ’61 of emeritus professor in 2004. on the Pacific front in World fought to protect historic Winterton published War II. His experience in the landmarks nationwide in her extensively throughout his Army first piqued his interest 19 years as counsel to the career and served on multiple in the potential of nuclear New York City Landmarks constitutional reform bodies power, but once atomic bombs Preservation Commission. in Australia. He was appointed were dropped on Hiroshima She passed away on October to the Constitutional Commis- and Nagasaki, Van Doren 21, 2008, at the age of 72. sion’s Executive Government decided to dedicate his life to Miner received her bachelor’s Advisory Committee and the preventing the spread of such degree from Smith College in Republic Advisory Committee. devastating weapons. 1958. She then earned a J.D. He also served as a delegate to After his return from combat, from Columbia Law School the Australian Constitutional Van Doren launched his legal and a degree in urban planning Convention in 1998. career at Simpson Thacher from Columbia College. Winterton is survived by his & Bartlett in New York. Van The Landmarks Preservation wife, Rosalind, and his four Doren then transitioned to the Commission named Miner to George children: David, Philip, public sector, joining the U.S. the position of counsel in 1975, Winterton ’76 J.S.D. Madeleine, and Julia. Arms Control and Disarmament and she developed a reputation november 2008 Agency in 1962. At that agency, for her meticulousness, always where he eventually became adhering to principle and George Winterton ’76 J.S.D., assistant director for nonpro- procedure. Miner played an a prominent Australian consti- liferation, Van Doren worked important role in the seminal tutional scholar and a well-re- on the Limited Test Ban 1978 Supreme Court case of spected voice in the debate over Treaty, the Treaty on the Penn Central Transportation whether to change Australia Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Co. v. New York City, which from a constitutional monarchy Weapons, and other international upheld the landmark status to a republic, passed away in agreements designed to block of . November, at the age of 61. the spread of nuclear weapons. The Court held that the build- Winterton’s inspiration Van Doren, a cousin of ing’s landmark status did not for studying the law was his Charles Van Doren, whose amount to an unconstitutional mother, Rita, who was forced story is immortalized in the taking of property by the city. to abandon her own legal filmQuiz Show, retired from And that legal interpretation studies in Vienna when World government work in 1981 set important precedent for War II began. Winterton, who Alice Haemmerli ’90 and became a consultant on landmarks commissions received his law degree from october 25, 2008 nonproliferation of nuclear across the country. Miner also the University of Western weapons. He also taught helped designate the 17th- Australia, defined his legal Alice Haemmerli ’90 was the seminars on nuclear energy law century street plan of Lower career by taking up the cause assistant dean of graduate at Georgetown University. Manhattan as a landmark in of Aboriginal advancement legal studies and international

90 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009

60602_txt.indd 90 4/15/09 3:28 PM programs at Columbia Law Mary M. Berberich ’38 Joan S. Vasiliadis ’53 July 1, 2008 July 2, 2008 School, where she guided many Lisa B. Deutsch ’97 international graduate january 7, 2009 David V. Easton ’38 Paul Ivan Birzon ’59 October 23, 2008 August 30, 2008 students through the rigors of the American system. Lisa B. Deutsch ’97, Alfred M. Lilienthal ’38 Jack D. Samuels ’59 October 6, 2008 May 3, 2007 She passed away on October litigation counsel at Dewey 25, 2008. & LeBoeuf in New York, was Mortimer Traktman ‘39 Alan G. Marer ’61 September 16, 2008 September 19, 2008 Haemmerli graduated known for her tremendous summa cum laude from Vassar work ethic, good humor, and William J. Heck ’42 Hugh J. Kelly ’62 October 4, 2008 August 1, 2008 College, where she won both a unwavering dedication to her Woodrow Wilson Fellowship clients. Deutsch passed away Perry E. Hudson Jr. ’42 Richard F. Horowitz ’64 and a Fulbright Scholarship on January 7, 2009, at the August 28, 2008 September 11, 2008 that took her to the London age of 36. Arthur Kanter ’42 Yoshimoto August 2, 2008 Watanuki ’64 M.C.L. School of Economics. There, Deutsch, who received her Date of death unknown she earned her first master’s undergraduate degree from Joseph M. Midler ’47 August 2008 Lowell L. Garrett ’65 degree and met her late the University of Pennsylva- August 6, 2008 husband, Freddy. Haemmerli nia, served as a summer Donald Osley ’48 also attended Harvard associate at Dewey & LeBoeuf’s September 17, 2008 Raymond P. Harris ’65 August 10, 2008 University, where she earned a predecessor during her time Mark Riegel ’48 master’s in international at Columbia Law School. May 2, 2007 Stuart A. Yoffe ’65 December 12, 2007 relations, as well as a Ph.D. Following a federal court Nicholas John Stathis ’48 in international law. Her law clerkship, Deutsch returned September 5, 2008 Richard H. Webber ’68 August 31, 2008 degree from Columbia Law to the firm, where her litigation Charles L. Brieant ’49 School added yet another practice focused on intellec- July 20, 2008 William Rosenblatt ’70 November 14, 2008 academic accomplishment tual property, antitrust, Lawrence Edwin Filson ’49 and set her on a new career employment, fiduciary duties, September 21, 2008 Bennett E. Bozarth ’71 May 27, 2008 path. She practiced intellectual and insurance. Deutsch Reuben M. Ginsberg ’49 property law at Debevoise & worked tirelessly for her August 23, 2008 Keiji Matsumoto ’71 LL.M. November 8, 2008 Plimpton for several years clients, including Olympic Gordon W. Paulsen ’49 before assuming her position hopeful Oscar Pistorius, December 20, 2008 Rodney Johnson ’73 as assistant dean. whose case she took pro bono. July 14, 2008 Muriel Henle Reis ’49 At Columbia Law School, A South African sprinter October 29, 2008 Lauren Donovan ’79 Haemmerli established many whose legs were amputated December 5, 2007 Roger C. Ward ’49 exchange programs and when he was 1 year old, September 5, 2008 Joseph Owen Pellington ’87 LL.M. worked diligently on behalf of Pistorius initially was barred October 25, 2008 Edmund J. Brunswick ’51 her students. She maintained from the qualifying round of June 19, 2007 Donna E. Arzt ’88 LL.M. her focus on intellectual the 2008 in November 15, 2008 Harris B. Henley ’52 LL.M. property law, teaching seminars . Deutsch helped to August 20, 2008 and publishing regularly on reverse that decision, which William F. Kracklauer ’89 November 6, 2008 John Webb ’52 the topic. In 2001, one of allowed Pistorius to compete September 18, 2008 Haemmerli’s IP articles was against able-bodied athletes. Ned E. Fellman ’03 March 26, 2008 Edward E. Schmitt ’53 LL.M. cited by the U.S. Supreme Deutsch’s colleagues at July 10, 2008 Court in the case of New York Dewey & LeBoeuf remember Times v. Tasini. her as always ready with a Haemmerli is survived by smile and a remark that would please email In Memoriam notifications to her daughter, Justine, her make others around her smile, [email protected] with the heading “In Memoriam” in the subject line. sisters, Laura Shannon and as well. She is survived by her Marta Bartolozzi, her twin parents, Ronald and Eleanor As part of this email, please be certain to include the full name of the deceased, the year of graduation from brother, David, and her niece, Deutsch, and her fiancé, the Law School, and the approximate date of death. Heather Shannon. Matthew Cohen.

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE 91

60602_txt.indd 91 4/15/09 3:28 PM Questions presented alumni spotlight George Pataki ’70 George E. Pataki served as the governor of New York from 1995 through 2006. He is now counsel at the international law firm of Chadbourne & Parke LLP in New York, where he practices environmental and corporate law and spearheads the firm’s climate change practice.

Who has been your greatest inspiration? My father, who taught me the value of honest hard work and respect for all people.

How do you define success? To me, success means that you have done all you can to help leave the world a bit better place than you found it.

Why did you go to Law School? I was interested in government and politics, and I felt that understand- ing the law would be an important part of being able to effectively influence government and the political world.

Who is your favorite lawyer of all time (real or fictional)? Benjamin Hersh, a small-town general practice attorney from my hometown of Peekskill, N.Y. He helped a lot of working- class families understand the complex legal world, and while he made plenty of money as a lawyer, he also did a great deal for people simply on a hand- shake and out of kindness.

Finish this sentence: You wouldn’t catch me dead without . . . My BlackBerry.

One thing you absolutely must do before you die? I would like to travel to Kazakhstan and central Asia, an area that always intrigued me.

Thing for which you are most thankful? My family and friends.

92 COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINe WINter 2009 PHOTOgraphed by mackenzie stroh

60602_txt.indd 92 4/15/09 3:28 PM Up Next: The International Law Issue Arriving this spring

Check out our new website law.columbia.edu/magazine

On the Web Exclusive photos, commenting, web-only content, and more

We want to hear from you! Send us an email and tell us what you think at [email protected]

60602_cvr.indd 3 4/15/09 3:36 PM COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK

Columbia Law School 435 West 116th Street, Box A-2 Columbia Law School New York, NY 10027 Magazine

LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU/MAGAZINE Miller’s Time Bankruptcy attorney Harvey Miller ’59 Courting brings his immeasurable Controversy talents to Faculty experts talk to bear on the Adam Liptak about the challenges of Supreme Court’s use of foreign legal precedent an economic downturn Partners in Change The Law School celebrates 100 years of the NAACP

Winter 2009

60602_cvr.indd 2 4/15/09 3:36 PM