GEORGETOWNFEATURE / A CHANGING WORLD LAW SPRING/SUMMER 2017 WORLD A CHANGING 5 / News: The Highlights 22 / Feature: Georgetown Law Responds to a Changing World 44 / Feature: Tech at Georgetown Law 60 / Campus: Our Faculty, Staff and Students 75 / Alumni: Leading the Way i Georgetown Law GEORGETOWN LAW Spring/Summer 2017 ANN W. PARKS Editor BRENT FUTRELL Director of Design INES HILDE Senior Designer MIMI KOUMANELIS Executive Director of Communications TANYA WEINBERG Director of Media Relations and Deputy Director of Communications RICHARD SIMON Director of Web Communications JACLYN DIAZ Communications and Social Media Manager BEN PURSE Senior Video Producer JERRY COOPER Communications Associate MATTHEW F. CALISE Director of Alumni Affairs JANE AIKEN Vice President for Strategic Development and External Affairs WILLIAM M. TREANOR Dean of the Law Center Executive Vice President, Law Center Affairs Cover design: INES HILDE Contact: Editor, Georgetown Law Georgetown University Law Center 600 New Jersey Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001 [email protected] Address changes/additions/deletions: 202-687-1994 or e-mail [email protected] Georgetown Law magazine is on the Law Center’s website at www.law.georgetown.edu Copyright © 2017, Georgetown University Law Center. All rights reserved. “Whatever your passion is, pursue that.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg 2017 Spring/Summer 1 INSIDE / 10 / 14 Custodians of the Constitution: A Conversation with Khizr Khan IIEL Celebrates Black History Month As Professor Neal Katyal notes, it often takes an immigrant Our Institute of International Economic Law welcomes new to teach us about America. members of the Congressional Black Caucus. / 16 / 18 Making History: Avril Haines (L’01) Supreme Court Win Haines, a 2017 Alumnae Award winner, talks about her Professor Brian Wolfman, students in his new Appellate government service in the national security arena. Courts Immersion Clinic and his research assistant — a special-education advocate — all win big in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District. 2 Georgetown Law \ INSIDE / 22 / 44 A Changing World Tech at Georgetown Law In these times of transition, understanding the law is more A new Institute for Technology Law & Policy, with Executive important than ever. Director Alexandra Reeve Givens, adds to an already stellar fleet of tech initiatives. 04/ Thoughts from the Dean 05/ News 22/ Feature: A Changing World 44/ Feature: Tech at Georgetown Law 60/ Campus 75/ Alumni 90/ Class Notes / 61 Construction Notes Professor Wally Mlyniec (L’70) is making a name for himself through writing — about Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Crossing project. 2017 Spring/Summer 3 NEWSTHOUGHTS / CONVINCING FROM THE DEAN EVIDENCE \ A Changing World ith the change in presidential Wadministrations that split the 2016- 2017 academic year, politics in Wash- ington is moving at a pace never before seen in our lifetimes. Every week, every day — sometimes in a matter of hours — a new set of legal issues takes promi- nence in the headlines and in the nation’s consciousness, issues that require clearheaded, principled legal discourse from all points on the political spectrum. As a legal historian, I have certainly never seen anything like it. But what strikes me as an observer is that the same unique character- istics that have always attracted the most talented students to Georgetown Law — academic rigor, Washington, D.C., location, commitment to social justice — are the same qualities that are propelling members of our community to the forefront today. Whether they are opining on the constitutionality of the travel ban, testifying before Congress on health care, fighting for the disadvantaged through organizations like the ACLU, outlining the credentials of a Supreme Court nominee or working in Con- gress to fight for clean air and clean water, our faculty, alumni and students are taking center stage. I am proud that we can provide Georgetown Law students with the opportunity to be where the action is, not just geographically but at the highest professional and intellectual levels. Every day, our longstand- ing commitment to public service is showing itself: through students working on briefs and arguments in our clinics, alumni working to get clients through the nation’s airports or faculty inspired to action by something that showed up on their Twitter feed that day. In the inaugural issue of our newly designed alumni maga- zine, we will provide a glimpse of our changing world through the eyes of the Georgetown Law community members who are working through these changes: in health care, the envi- ronment, national security, immigration, the courts and more. In this, we are all interconnected; we are all stakeholders in the future of our country and the world. William M. Treanor Dean of the Law Center Executive Vice President, Law Center Affairs 4 Georgetown Law / NEWS IMMIGRATION #DOJustice Georgetown Law students rally in front of the Department of Justice to protest the travel ban. INES HILDE 2017 Spring/Summer 5 NEWS / CONVINCING EVIDENCE SUPREME COURT Ginsburg to New Students: Pursue Your Passion Advice for law students starting their careers? Help those less fortunate, and take advantage of what law school has to offer. “I hope while you are in law school, you will think about what it is you really care about,” Ginsburg said. ost law students — or practicing lawyers for that mat- tual respect endured through a shared love of opera, a sense of ter — would consider themselves lucky to encounter humor and a determination to get their judicial opinions as good a Supreme Court justice during the course of their as they could possibly be. Mcareers. For several hundred incoming Georgetown Law students, “Whenever I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, this happened on their fifth or sixth day of law school. the majority opinion ultimately released was clearer and more Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg came to the Law Center on convincing than my initial circulation,” she said. “Justice Scalia September 7 as the Distinguished Lecturer to the Incoming honed in on all the soft spots and energized me to strengthen the Class, addressing more than 300 J.D. and LL.M. students in Hart Court’s decision.” Auditorium. Advice for law students starting their careers? Help those less “The excitement in this community in anticipation of this fortunate, and take advantage of what law school has to offer. “I talk has been great,” said Georgetown Law Dean William M. hope while you are in law school, you will think about what it is Treanor, as he introduced Ginsburg. “When I announced [at you really care about,” Ginsburg said. “Is it the environment? Is Orientation] that Justice Ginsburg would be speaking to you here it [fighting] discrimination? Is it the way we run our elections? today…there was an audible gasp, and then wild applause.” Whatever your passion is, pursue that.” Ginsburg spoke of her 23-year friendship with the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Though the pair would differ as judges, their mu- Photo Credit: Bill Petros 6 Georgetown Law CONVINCING EVIDENCE \ NEWS SOCIAL JUSTICE Evan Wolfson Delivers 2016-2017 Hart Lecture n 1983, Evan Wolfson — who would later In his lecture, entitled “The Freedom to Marry become the founder and president of Win: Transformation and Triumph to Celebrate, Freedom to Marry — published a paper as a Lessons to Adapt and Apply,” Wolfson, now a Istudent at Harvard Law entitled “Samesex Mar- Distinguished Visitor from Practice at the Law riage and Morality: The Human Rights Vision of Center, described how he was able to add four key the Constitution.” Wolfson’s paper asserted that ingredients to this initial vision. He needed the same-sex couples should have the freedom to marry, Constitution, for starters. But to go from Baker v. a prospect that was then so unlikely that more than Nelson — in which the Supreme Court in 1972 dis- one professor declined to supervise his work. Treanor, in fact, not only missed a challenge to a state same-sex marriage ban The paper also asserted that same-sex couples did most of the typing — to Obergefell in 2015, Wolfson would also need a should fight for the freedom to marry, at a time — on a typewriter shaky movement, a strategy and a campaign. when attempts at litigation had been unsuccessful in even by 1983 standards “We understood, and learned early on, that the courts for more than a decade. The country was — he also delivered the winning through the law, and indeed changing the simply not ready. And for his efforts, the young law historic paper to the law, were the key,” he told the audience gathered on student received only a B. registrar. the 12th floor of Gewirz Student Center. “The way Flash forward to 2015, when Justice Anthony we would do that was not going to be centered in a Photo Credit: Bill Petros Kennedy would echo points Wolfson made in question of doctrine, or litigation, or the method- that 1983 paper in the Supreme Court’s majority ology of engaging the law alone. In order to win in opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, guaranteeing same- the law, we needed all the rest.” sex couples a right to marry. “He knew that it was And as for that grade? While Wolfson’s paper is possible,” said Georgetown Law Dean William M. widely known for serving as a roadmap to victory, Treanor — who along with Associate Dean Joshua what may not be commonly known is the role that Teitelbaum introduced Wolfson at the 2016-2017 Dean Treanor played in the story. Treanor, in fact, Hart Lecture on September 28. “He dedicated not only did most of the typing — on a typewriter himself to it, and the world has changed in large shaky even by 1983 standards — he also delivered part because of his vision.” the historic paper to the registrar.