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GROWINGACLINICALPROGRAM Meet Robert Lancaster

LEAVINGTHECAMPSITEBETTERLEAVINGTHECAMPSITEBETTER The Odyssey of Rick Richard

AMOSTEXCELLENTLIFE Attorney Michael H. Rubin 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:03 PM Page 2

On the front of the

1936 LSU Law Building

above the frieze, are three

sculpted life-sized figures:

a laborer symbolizing the FAR MORE role of the masses in THAN A support of the law, a COMMON LAW SCHOOL lawyer, and a soldier

representing those who

have fought to safeguard

rule by law.

Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral, and professional degrees. The Paul M. Hebert Law Center is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:03 PM Page 2

VOLUMETWO CONTENTS 2 0 0 9

FEATURES

14 GROWINGACLINICALPROGRAM Meet Robert Lancaster By Julie Baxter

Chancellor 14 36 COVERSTORY:COMINGHOMETOLOUISIANA JACK M. WEISS Chancellor Jack M. Weiss By Julie Baxter Office of Communications and External Relations KAREN SONIAT, Ph.D. 42 LEAVINGTHECAMPSITEBETTER Director The Odyssey of Rick Richard By Joshua Duplechain Office of Publication Design LINDA RIGELL Director and Editor 36 54 AMOSTEXCELLENTLIFE CHERYL GRIFFIN Graphic Designer 2007 Distinguished Alumnus, Mike Rubin By Julie Baxter Contributors JULIE BAXTER JOSHUA DUPLECHAIN PHILLIP GRAGG KAREN SONIAT SECTIONS Photographers DARLENE AGUILLARD 4 CHANCELLOR’SMESSAGE MARIE CONSTANTIN iSTOCKPHOTO.COM 6 WITHINTHECOLUMNS/ News and Activities LSU OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS 42 27 ACADEMICCIRCLES/Faculty News Send letters and comments to: CLASSACTION/ Student News Editor 46 LSU Law Magazine Suite 400, Law Center 58 ALUMNINEWS Baton Rouge, LA 70803 Fax 225/578-8202 [email protected]

LSU Law, the magazine of the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center, is published annually by the Office of Communications and External Relations. The views and opinions expressed in LSU Law are not necessarily those of the LSU Law Center. © 2009 54

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CHANCELLOR’SMESSAGE

S THIS EDITION OF LSU LAW goes to most worthy of detailed study and planning at this only a plan for attracting new scholars to the Law we offered three African American candidates press, our faculty have just returned from a juncture in our history. Center but also a framework for encouraging and tenure-track positions, though we were disappoint- two-day offsite retreat. The goal of the In my estimation, and I think that of virtually assisting our faculty’s scholarly and other efforts ed that all accepted other opportunities. But the retreat was to begin developing a long- all of the faculty members present, the weekend that bring national and international recognition faculty recognizes that we must redouble our range plan for the Law Center as part of was an unqualified success. As we had hoped, the to the Law Center. efforts in coming years if we are to be successful. A our SE ABA accreditation review in retreat set the stage for further, in-depth examina- Admissions and scholarships. In the face of a In the weeks and months ahead, as our plan- 2009-10. We have returned tion of key issues by our faculty shrinking pool of Louisiana law applicants, the ning efforts unfold, we hope that many of you will from the retreat excited about Long Range Planning Commit- Law Center has done a remarkable job in recent give us the benefit of your experience and your the Law Center’s future and tee, chaired by Professor Ken years of attracting top Louisiana and nonresident thinking on the key issues that we will be examin- committed to the hard work Murchison, and its various sub- students. Our entering classes bring with them ing. Other important areas, including our rapidly of planning for that future. committees of faculty and staff. outstanding academic credentials as well as a wide expanding clinical and externship programs and In preparing for the retreat, We also fully intend to obtain variety of extraordinary personal accomplishments. our international student programs, will also the faculty agreed on one basic active input from students, Nevertheless, in a highly competitive law school receive priority attention. Indeed, every aspect of ground rule. At the retreat, we alumni, and others who have a “marketplace” for students, we must examine and the Law Center’s work will be thoroughly assessed would do our utmost to devel- vital interest in the Law Cen- plan for what, realistically, we can do to attract with a view toward the future. op and agree upon a few state- ter’s future. Here, for your even more of the “best and the brightest” (especial- I am deeply encouraged by the collegial, con- ments of principle that were information, but perhaps more ly Louisiana’s own) in the years to come. structive, and forward-looking approach our faculty specific enough to be “action- important, for your rumination In addition to these three areas of priority focus, members have taken as we begin the planning able”—to guide the planning and consideration, are the we resoundingly reaffirmed that enhancing the process. No one here at LSU Law advocates change process—but not so detailed as issues identified by the faculty diversity of our faculty, students, and staff is an over- for the sake of change. But we must be open to to constitute steps of implemen- for priority consideration: arching goal of all of our efforts. Each specific part of thoughtful and responsible change if we are to tation better left to the later stages of the process. Curriculum. Among the issues to be considered our long-range plan will address that goal. In just prosper and adapt to the needs of 21st century law Conversely, we wanted to avoid using our valuable are how our course offerings compare with those of the past year, we have made great strides in attract- students and the 21st century legal profession. It is collective time simply to brainstorm or theoretize to peer schools; whether we afford students sufficient ing minority students. Minority enrollment in this truly a privilege for me to serve as Chancellor at a no particular end. In other words, by the end of the flexibility in choosing their courses of study here; year’s entering class increased from 20 to 33—an moment when so many creative—and, I dare say, weekend, we wanted to identify with some degree of and whether course scheduling and planning increase of some 65 percent over the prior year. open—minds are engaged in so important a com- specificity those aspects of the Law Center’s opera- should reflect a multi-year time horizon. African American enrollment in the 1L class more mon endeavor. tions and culture that the faculty as a whole considers Faculty development. Here we will develop not than doubled (from 7 to 16). On the faculty side,

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Dean Rudy Hasl of Thomas Jefferson School of Sister Prejean is author of the influential inter- Law, Dean Patrick Hobbs of Seton Hall, and LSU national best-selling book Dead Man Walking: An Law Chancellor Jack Weiss provided opening Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the remarks. Keynote speaker was Roger Blanpain, United States for which she received a 1993 Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Laws of the Pulitzer Prize nomination. The book was number Universities of Leuven, Belgium and Tilburg, the one on the New York Times Best Seller List for 31 Netherlands. Numerous panelists addressed topics weeks and has been translated into ten different such as “Comparative Law in Action: Country Per- languages. It served as the basis for the 1996 film spectives;” “Crossing Borders: Practicing Work- by director Tim Robbins, receiving four Oscar place Law in a Globalizing World;” and, “Teaching nominations. Her latest book is titled The Death Beyond Our Borders: The Pedagogy of Interna- of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful tional and Comparative Workplace Law.  Executions. 

SISTERHELENPREJEANSPEAKSON DEATH PENALTY

Left to right, LSU Law Professors John Devlin, Ed Richards, and John Baker.

PRESIDENTIALPOWERAND GLOBALWORKPLACECONFERENCE TERRORISM: DETENTION, AT FOREFRONT OF LABOR AND INTERROGATION AND TRIAL EMPLOYMENT LAW GENERALCOUNSELFORHUMAN Members of the LSU community gathered to International and comparative workplace law hear Law Center professors discuss the constitu- was the focus of a dynamic videoconference held in RIGHTS WATCH SPEAKS AT LAW CENTER tionality of detention, interrogation techniques, 2008 in collaboration with the LSU Law Center, Water boarding is a euphemism for torture, and trial of terrorism suspects. Seton Hall University School of Law, and Thomas according to Dihan PoKempner, General Counsel The free symposium, titled Presidential Power Jefferson School of Law. The event featured inter- for Human Rights Watch. The Law Center’s Inter- and Terrorism: Detention, Interrogation and Trial, nationally recognized speakers on the topic of national Law Society sponsored the symposium on featured Law Professors John Baker, Ed Richards, Expanding Intellectual Borders with International Human Rights that featured several panelists on and John Devlin. The trio discussed the legal issues and Comparative Workplace Law. the topic of torture and the criminal justice system. posed by detention, interrogation, and trial of ter- This was the first conference in the United PoKempner served as the keynote speaker at the rorist suspects and how these challenge our com- States aimed at instructing law professors about Human Rights Symposium in March 2008. mon understanding of the rule of law. global workplace law and its place in the curricu- The Human Rights Watch is the nation’s largest The terrorist attack on the United States on lum of law schools, according to the conference human rights organization and works to protect September 11, 2001 had profound consequences organizers. The conference was co-sponsored by the rights of victims worldwide. for the U.S. legal system, according to the presen- the Thomas Jefferson Center for Law and Social Sister Helen Prejean, Chancellor Jack Weiss described PoKempner as ters. After 9/11, these trends were suddenly Justice and Center for Global Legal Studies, along internationally acclaimed author, spoke one of the foremost authorities concerning interna- reversed. Many young middle-Eastern men legally with Cambridge University Press. to a standing room only audience in 2008 at the tional human rights law. Weiss said her knowledge in the U.S. were seized and interrogated based on LSU Professor William R. Corbett, the Frank L. LSU Law Center. Her talk, titled Actual Innocence “is second to none in this area.”  their religious status. Prisoners were captured in Maraist Professor of Law, was instrumental in and the Death Penalty was “the most absorbing, Iraq and Afghanistan in a conflict that did not fit bringing the videoconference to the LSU Law Cen- insightful presentation I’ve heard in many, many the traditional definition of war recognized by the ter. Corbett is co-author of the first English-lan- years,” said Professor Lucy McGough, director of Genève Convention. The U.S., the speakers con- guage international and comparative employment the Pugh Institute for Justice. The lecture was cluded, has been and will continue to deal with law casebook, The Global Workplace International sponsored by The George W. and Jean H. Pugh issues regarding the legal and moral conditions for and Comparative Employment Law - Cases and Institute for Justice and the LSU Law Public Inter- prisoner confinement, interrogation, and trial.  Materials, published by Cambridge University est Law Society (PILS). Press in 2007. www.law.lsu.edu www.law.lsu.edu 6 LS ULAW LS ULAW 7 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:03 PM Page 8

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ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR Proposal for Concurrent Master of Mass LEEANNWHEELISLOCKRIDGE Communication and J.D. Degrees Approved Lee Ann Wheelis Lockridge, Associate Pro- by Regents fessor of Law, joined the Law Center faculty in 2005. She brings both outstanding academic The LSU Law Center and the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication have credentials and experience to her teaching. created a concurrent degree program through which students can receive a Juris Her research and teaching interests are pri- Doctor (J.D.) and a Master of Mass Communication (M.M.C.) degree. The Louisiana marily in intellectual property and advertising Board of Regents recently reviewed and approved the program. law. She came to LSU from the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where she was a vis- Students will be required to spend approximately four years in concurrent iting assistant professor during the 2004-05 aca- enrollment for J.D. and master’s level courses in the Manship School. demic year. From 1999-2004, Professor Lockridge was an associate in the intellectual- “With this program we will be able to provide interested students with the property section of Thompson & Knight in opportunity to focus on media law issues from more than one perspective,” Dallas, Texas. Before entering private practice, CNN ANALYST AND BEST-SELLING she served as a judicial clerk to the Honorable said Professor Lee Ann Lockridge who is helping lead the effort for the Law AUTHOR JEFFREY TOOBIN IN Eugene E. Siler, Jr., of the United States Court Center. “Students with a mass communication background and those without CONVERSATION WITH CHANCELLOR AT of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. can find value in the ability to combine the two degree programs.We think LSU LAW CENTER Professor Lockridge graduated summa cum creating this environment for combined study will give students a valuable JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN legal analyst and laude from Southwestern University, earning a framework from which to work after graduation in either strictly mass commu- B.A. in chemistry. She earned her J.D. from author, discussed the inner workings of the U.S. nication or legal careers, or perhaps in careers combining both worlds.” Supreme Court and the impact a new presidency Duke University School of Law, graduating will have on its future on May 2, 2008 at the LSU magna cum laude in 1998. At Duke, she was an Lockridge hopes that interest in the program will come quickly, particularly in Law Center. associate editor of Law and Contemporary Prob- Roe v. Wade, Bush v. Gore, Obama v. Clinton lems and the community service coordinator for light of the relatively recent interest in issues such as reporter’s privilege laws and Toobin v. Delay were just some of the topics addressed when Jeffrey Toobin sat down for a the Duke Bar Association. She was admitted to and the effects of internet communication on various media-related fields, candid conversation with Law Center Chancellor the State Bar of Texas in 1998 and to the U.S. including defamation law. Jack Weiss. Patent and Trademark Office in 2001. Before Toobin’s latest book, THE NINE - Inside the leaving private practice for academia, Professor “We are joining a number of other universities in combining strong Secret World of the Supreme Court, was the focus for Lockridge was named one of the “Best Lawyers the question and answer session. His book offers programs in mass communication and law, including Columbia CNN political analyst and insights into the most important and secret legal Under 40 in Dallas 2004” in a D Magazine poll. author, Jeffrey Toobin, speaks to University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,” body in our country, the U.S. Supreme Court. alumni and friends at the annu- She teaches Introduction to Intellectual Based on exclusive interviews with the justices according to Lockridge. al Chancellor’s Council dinner  themselves, The Nine tells the story of the Court Property, International Intellectual Property, held May 2. through the personalities of the nine justices. His Advertising Law, and Advanced Trademark & stories reveal the complex dynamic among the jus- Unfair Competition Law, and has recently pub- tices who decide the law of the land. lished articles on freedom of speech, the copyright Professor Lee Ann Lockridge Toobin defines the 2008 presidential election as fair use doctrine, and international jurisdictional the moment of transition for the institution. He issues related to European data rights. believes the Court now has a conservative majority and predicts that major changes are in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, presidential power, and www.law.lsu.edu church-state relations, following the election.  www.law.lsu.edu 8 LS ULAW LS ULAW 9 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:03 PM Page 10

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LOUISIANA STATE LAW INSTITUTE “On April 7, 1938, at the dedication of the Louisiana lawyers and law teachers from Louisiana’s CELEBRATES 70TH ANNIVERSARY “new” Law School building at LSU, the president law faculties: luminaries like Monte M. Lemann; of LSU announced, “that the Board of Supervisors John H. Tucker, jr.; Ben C. Dawkins; Charles E. Chancellor Reflects on the Profession has approved the establishment, in connection with Dunbar; Ben B. Taylor, Sr.; R.E. Milling, Jr.; Pike FACULTY PLAN NEW WORKSHOP SERIES the [LSU] Law School, of a research organization to Hall; Sumter D. Marks ... the list goes on,” said the Cordell Haymon (’68), president of the Louisiana be known as the Louisiana State Law Institute,” chancellor. The faculty have launched a unique workshop series that will bring Law Institute, and Professor William Crawford (’55), said the chancellor. “I am sure I don’t need to In his remarks, “Reflections on the Profession: new scholars in the legal education community to the Law Center. director, welcomed colleagues and friends to the 70th remind you of the staggering list of the Institute’s Dark Clouds and Silver Linings,” Weiss encour- Beginning Fall 2008, a number of professors from prominent law anniversary celebration of the Louisiana Law Insti- accomplishments: revisions of virtually every signif- aged audience members to contemplate their schools will visit the Law Center to present articles and papers that are tute held on March 14, 2008. The two worked for icant section of the Civil Code; drafting and subse- personal and professional responsibilities to the being prepared for publication. Faculty members will read drafts of several months to ensure that the annual dinner was quent revisions of the Criminal Code; drafting and young people now entering the legal profession. articles, hear presentations by these emerging scholars, and offer com- one that paid tribute to the significant work of the revision of the Code of Civil Procedure, the Trust He described, “a deeply troubling model” in place ments and suggestions on their work. Institute over the decades. Haymon and Crawford Code, the Mineral Code, the Code of Evidence— in many national law firms, where few are named The Committee on Faculty Scholarship has invited five professors designed an evening that allowed participants to view even, Bill Crawford reminds me, thoughtful work as partners; inordinately heavy workloads and bill- from top law schools throughout the country to begin the series. “All artifacts and other historic photographs of the Insti- on the “Disposition of Pornographic Evidence.” able hour expectations are commonplace; and five have accepted, and we’re very excited about their visits,” com- tute’s meetings and activities. Crawford, the James J. Bailey Professor of Law and young lawyers have little contact with live mented Vice Chancellor Chris Pietruszkiewicz, a member of the com- clients. All of which leaves little time for life out- mittee. The committee, which includes Professors Andrea Carroll and Participants of the side work and high attrition. “But the single most Ron Scalise, hopes to have presentations on a monthly basis. Louisiana State Law commonly-cited factor leading to associate attrition Pietruszkiewicz thinks that the program is unique because younger Institute annual banquet, in the last 10 years is a failure on the part of part- members of the profession are invited to share their work. “We think held March 14th in New ners and senior lawyers to effectively train and it will benefit them, in addition to providing us with an opportunity Orleans, are, left to right: manage associates.” to engage in research and discourse in particular legal fields.” William Crawford, director; To contrast what he fears is a far too common Professors participating in the workshop series and their areas of Max Nathan, past presi- model, Weiss reflected on his early mentorship by expertise are: dent; Cordell Haymon, pres- Louisiana Law Institute colleague Judge John I Richard Myers, University of North Carolina; Evidence and ident; Jack Weiss, LSU Law Minor Wisdom. Wisdom, who served on the Unit- Criminal Law Center chancellor, and ed States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, I speaker at the banquet; and, would later receive the Presidential Medal of Free- Montre’ Carodine – University of Charles Weems III, vice dom for his work as a jurist and civil right icon. Alabama; graduate of Louisiana Tech president. “He went out of his way to help others climb the University with a J.D from Tulane; ladder of professional success.” Evidence, Race, Racism and the Law, Weiss described an aspirational model—which Civil Procedure, and International he thankfully says has prevailed in many Louisiana Litigation firms. It might be described as a “beneficent law I Omari Simmons – Wake Forest firm, the kind of firm in which we’d all like our University; Corporate Governance children to practice,” according to the chancellor. and International Law He outlined his suggestions for an “Associate’s Bill I George Geis – University of Alabama The Law Institute was created by Acts of the 1955 graduate from the LSU Law Center, has of Rights …” (visiting at the University of Virginia); Louisiana Legislature, with the purpose of “promot- served as director of the Institute since 1978. I A reasonable expectation of partnership within a Agency and Partnership, Business ing and encouraging the clarification and simplifi- According to archival materials, the first annual reasonable period of time; Planning, Contracts, Mergers and cation of the law of Louisiana and its adaptation to meeting of the Institute was held at the law build- I A reasonable regimen of good work; Acquisitions Montré Carodine present social needs; securing the better administra- ing on March 16, 1940, almost exactly 68 years to I A commitment to mentoring, in the old-fashioned I tion of justice; and, carrying on scholarly legal date from the March 14 anniversary celebration. way; and Robert Chesney – Wake Forest University research and scientific legal work,” according to the Dean Paul M. Hebert, then acting president of the I A commitment to generosity in spirit and practice. (visiting at the University of Texas); one original acts from 1938. University, welcomed the participants to that first of the country’s top emerging scholars in LSU Law Chancellor Jack Weiss, who also serves annual meeting, recalled the chancellor. “That first “These traditional values, in my view, are one of the area of national security law and topics as secretary of the Law Institute, addressed the annual meeting program included a veritable pan- the greatest assets of the legal profession in our relating to terrorism. membership on the occasion of its anniversary. theon of the LSU Law faculty: J. Denson “Red” state. On this the occasion of the 70th anniversary Law Center faculty will also post scholarly “We at LSU have always had a particularly Smith, Joseph Dainow, Harriet “Ma” Daggett, and of the founding of the Louisiana Law Institute, let’s works to the Social Science Research Network strong bond with the Law Institute. The original Henry George McMahon.” Crawford also recount- recognize this valuable asset, treasure it, understand (SSRN), an eLibrary of over 190,000 documents idea for the creation of the Institute came from ed the legacy of the group, saying, “They were fear- it, and preserve it, along with the laws themselves, that has a growing reputation as a primary members of our faculty,” said Weiss as he reflected some intellects—not a pedestrian among them.” for the benefit of the young lawyers of today and source for legal scholarship. on the contributions of the Institute to the Law “Those active in the Institute in those early days generations of Louisiana lawyers to follow.”   www.law.lsu.edu Center and state. also included a who’s who of distinguished www.law.lsu.edu 10 LS ULAW LS ULAW 11 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:03 PM Page 12

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for their support, Jindal shared his vision and thoughts with the graduates. “The fear of failure is even worse than failure itself,” said the first-term governor. “You will not always succeed, but you will never succeed if you’re not willing to fail.” Jindal noted that we should embrace failure, reminding graduates and the audi- ence that the heroes we admire struck out more times than they hit home runs, went bankrupt before finding success in businesses, and lost their first elections, but kept going until they achieved their goals and dreams. He then spoke of the importance of pursuing your life’s passions. The governor encouraged grad- uates to find work and relationships that they enjoy, and not to simply do what they think is expected of them. “Sometimes you’re so afraid of failure, that you won’t take the chance you need to succeed. You don’t know until you try. I am telling you to GOVERNORJINDALREMINDS believe in yourself, find something you love, work GRADUATES, “THERE’S NO PLACE hard, and take a chance—there is no limit to what you can accomplish.” LIKEHOME” He also spoke of loyalty, noting that, “everyone is your friend when you win, but the truly valued “Dream big. Go where your dreams take you,” the first time, graduates recessed to the sounds of were held to honor the 2008 student members of people are those who stand by you in the tough Governor Bobby Jindal said in his address to 2008 Gaudeamus Igitur, a traditional commencement The Order of the Coif in the Law Center’s McKer- times as well.” LSU Law graduates. “But remember that, like song used for hundreds of years at universities nan Law Auditorium. In all, 19 students were “I think you’re going to do incredible things Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, you’ll find there’s no throughout the U.S. and Europe. The melody to inducted into Coif, which recognizes the top 10 because the LSU Law Center has given you the place like home.” The governor delivered the com- Gaudeamus was inspired by a medieval hymn dat- percent of the graduating class. tools to succeed. Whatever you accomplish, I hope mencement address at LSU Law Center cere- ing from 1267, and the song is sung in high spirits The ceremony also marked the first time that you will keep a spirit of humility about you.” It’s monies held May 22, 2008 in the Pete Maravich by graduating classes and those participating in the students were recognized for pro bono service. needed, he said, as he humorously recalled the dis- Assembly Center. “Your dreams will take you occasion of graduation. Those students who performed at least 50 hours of appointment of his three-year-old son when he everywhere,” he said, “but I ask you to give “The request to look at Latin honors actually pro bono service received special recognition in the realized his Dad didn’t have a “cool job” like being Louisiana a chance . . . You can dream big right came from a student,” said the chancellor. “We commencement program and wore special recogni- a fireman or policeman. here in Louisiana.” investigated what other law schools do and discov- tion cords. Fifteen students received the pro bono “We continue to focus on reforms to create a “I have a very real bond with LSU,” Jindal said. ered that in addition to recognizing The Order of recognition. new Louisiana that is the best place in the world to  “My parents came to Louisiana so my mom could the Coif, most law schools also award degrees with get a high-paying job and to raise a family, and I study at the university, and I was then born and honors.” am excited to share our reform agenda with today’s raised in Baton Rouge.” In addition to The Order of the Coif, 2008 graduates and our state,” said Jindal. The Law Center awarded degrees to 190 stu- Juris Doctor and Bachelor in Civil Law candidates dents at the commencement exercises. One hun- were eligible to receive their degrees summa cum dred eighty-three students received the Juris laude, magna cum laude, or cum laude. The addi- Doctor (J.D.) and Bachelor in Civil Law (B.C.L.). NEW TRADITIONS HIGHLIGHT 2008 LSU tional honors recognize those students graduating Seven students—representing five countries, LAW COMMENCEMENT within the top 25 percent of the class, “giving a including France, Argentina, Canada and China— boost to the resumes of far more students as they received the Master of Laws (LL.M.). The cere- Law school commencements, like most gradua- interview for jobs,” said Weiss. monies were presided over by Chancellor Jack tion ceremonies, are about tradition. The 2008 Degrees were awarded summa cum laude to stu- Weiss, while Jerry E. Shea, Jr., chairman of the LSU Law graduates, working with Chancellor Jack dents ranked in the top two percent of the class; LSU Board of Supervisors, assisted in the confer- Weiss, added several new elements to the tradition- magna cum laude to those ranked in the next 10 ring of degrees. John N. Gallaspy spoke on behalf al LSU Law ceremony. percent of the class; and cum laude, to students of the LSU Law Class of 1958, which celebrated its Gold, purple, and white honor cords were visi- ranked in the following 13 percent of the class. 50th reunion following commencement. ble in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center as stu- Four students received the summa cum laude After congratulating the graduates on their dents donned cords to symbolize expanded honor. In all, 48 students graduated with the new www.law.lsu.edu accomplishments and thanking family members graduation honors and pro bono service. And, for honors designations. Earlier in the day, ceremonies 12 LS ULAW LS ULAW 13 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:03 PM Page 14

FEATURE Meet ROBERT LANCASTER

BY JULIE BAXTER

OBERT E. LANCASTER is not afraid Morris, and Professors John Devlin, John Church, of a challenge. Right out of law school, and Greg Smith. Lancaster went to work representing “The faculty committee did a tremendous What attracts me death penalty clients at the public amount of work, consulting nationally known defender’s office in Indiana. “I was experts in live-client clinical programs,” Lancaster to LSU is that it excited by the challenge and impor- volunteers. “They put together an impressive tance of the work,” Lancaster recalls. three-year master plan that has us starting with offers tremendous Lancaster worked on numerous cases, adjunct professors and expanding in-house by “ but one of his proudest moments came 2009. By the third year, the vision is to have opportunities for Rwhen a petition for certiorari filed for enough experiential offerings to include half of all the development one of his clients, Coleman v. State, was the law students at LSU.” granted by the United States Supreme Court, and “That’s an ambitious and impressive plan,” of a clinical the case was ultimately reversed and remanded to Lancaster says, “and one that will benefit the stu- the Indiana Supreme Court. “However, it was not dents at LSU, giving them the opportunity to program … using the type of work one could measure success based gain practical experience under the supervision of on court outcomes. It was hard work and work faculty and experienced practitioners in the legal what has worked that taught perseverance.” community.” “well in other insti- Lancaster is optimistic about the future of the Lancaster brings a wealth of clinical experience new LSU Law Center Clinical Legal Education to his post. He views the mission of clinics fore- Program he was hired this year to lead. most as that of educating law students in the fun- tutions and taking “What attracts me to LSU is that it offers damentals of both transactional and litigation the best practices tremendous opportunities for the development of a practice; providing needed legal services to those in clinical program,” he explains, obviously excited the community who could not otherwise afford from successful about the next five years. “We can build a program legal assistance; and promoting social justice. supported by the LSU Law Center with the benefit Lancaster was a clinical student his last year at programs. of other law schools’ mistakes and successes in Tulane Law School, and during his summers in law designing their clinical programs—using what has school, Lancaster volunteered as an intern at the Robert Lancaster worked well in other institutions and taking the Mississippi Capital Defense Resource Center and best practices from successful programs.” the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, But Lancaster, hired from a pool of nearly 40 Georgia. When he finished at Tulane, he went to candidates for the position of the clinical pro- work in Indiana’s public defender’s office because, gram’s inaugural Director and Professor of Profes- he says, it offered immediate experience represent- sional Practice, is quick to credit the LSU faculty’s ing clients. Clinical Legal Education Committee, chaired by “I could give you a crime scene tour of Gary, Professor Lucy McGough, for its preparatory Indiana,” he adds wryly, telling of his varied cases work in laying the foundation for the expanded there, both directly representing inmates on Indiana’s clinical program. death row and acting as appointed counsel for death Convened in August of 2007 to determine how row inmates in federal habeas corpus proceedings. LSU would proceed in structuring its clinical pro- In 1997, Lancaster was selected to receive the gram, the committee included McGough, Chan- Robert M. Cover Clinical Teaching Fellowship at cellor Jack Weiss, Vice Chancellor Cheney Joseph, Yale Law School, where he taught in as many clini- www.law.lsu.edu former Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs Glenn cal courses as he could, including a Housing and www.law.lsu.edu 14 LS ULAW LS ULAW 15 PHOTOBYMARIECONSTANTIN 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:03 PM Page 16

FEATURE FEATURE

Combining his experience with the advice and Domestic Violence Clinic experience—and that is a skill,” he insists. “Giving input of the faculty committee, Lancaster lays out the students a practice experience while they’re in law three component parts of the LSU clinical program: Under the leadership of Director of Legal Serv- school is especially important because it’s a struc- “We’ll have live-client clinical interaction, mod- ices for the Family Protection Program of the Capi- tured environment where we’re showing them eled after the operation of a small legal services tal Area Legal Services clinical adjunct professor exactly what it takes to learn through experience. office,” Lancaster explains. “A law firm within the Ayn Stehr, eight students are working with victims We are also giving students the opportunity to rep- law school, working with real people to resolve of dating, spousal, and domestic abuse who are resent people impacted by poverty and understand their real-world problems.” Certified for limited under protective orders. Students meet regularly in the importance of access to justice for all.” practice under Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XX, class sessions to learn the fundamentals of And the real world “feel” of this new, growing students will represent indigent clients in the Louisiana family law, and are supervised while clinical program does not stop there. Baton Rouge area. interviewing clients, negotiating protective orders, Housed in renovated space on the first floor of “We also want to offer substantial externships, and appearing in court. the Law Center’s 1936 building, the clinical program including both in-school classes teaching the basics “We hope to expand this clinic into a general will have the look and feel of a small law firm with- of the legal subject in question, along with lawyer- family law clinical offering. The legal needs of vic- in the Law Center. “Everything is geared around ing and legal administrative skills, as well as out-of- tims of domestic violence often go far beyond a student learning and the real-world clients they school, real-world work experience.” Lancaster says protective order,” Lancaster explains. “Those needs represent,” Lancaster says, as he sketches out what the program will tap into state agencies, legal serv- often extend to representation for dissolution of this new “law firm” will look like. The architect’s ice providers, judges’ offices, attorneys in practice, the marriage, custody issues, property issues, hous- sketch calls for this firm to include offices for Community Development Clinic, an Immigration legal divisions of hospitals, and other local offices ing issues, and assisting victims in gaining the eco- faculty, work rooms, conference rooms Clinic, a Disabilities Clinic, and a Landlord/Tenant to find opportunities for externships. nomic means to escape domestic violence—all of that will accommodate small-group Clinic. Finally, a “Law Reform: Major Projects Clinic” this is important work and a great training ground classes, and a reception area. “In the Advocacy for People with Disabilities is in the works, where—by Fall 2010—the pro- for students.” Clinic, we represented children in a juvenile deten- gram will select a complex project of serious con- Externships tion facility in Connecticut, and advocated for cern to the community. In contemplating this Family Mediation Clinic individualized education plans for the kids before project, Lancaster explains, the clinic faculty com- Besides continuing the they left detention,” Lancaster says. “We found mittee suggested several possible examples: This clinic includes eight students, under the current externships already that many times those juveniles’ problems could be biotechnology research and development working leadership of Professor Lucy McGough and clinical offered at the Law Center, traced back to local school systems not providing with state agencies; post-Katrina recovery and adjunct professor Scott Gaspard, certified by the Lancaster hopes to increase them with individualized plans to meet their learn- restoration in cooperation with Louisiana’s Road American Academy of Family Mediation. These the number of externship pro- ing and behavioral needs.” Home initiative; Louisiana’s heirship property students meet to learn the fundamentals of family grams offered throughout the Lancaster and his Yale students also worked on issues post-Katrina, and improving the recording dynamics and mediation strategies through lecture state. Professor Todd Bruno, the former On Friday, August 22, prison litigation helping to require access to recre- of the proper owner of property passed down and simulation exercises. Together with those classes, faculty coordinator of the LSU Law LSU Law’s Clinical Legal ation, medical care, and basic accommodations for among family members; or coastal wetlands con- each student has the opportunity to co-mediate— Moot Court Program, will oversee the externship Education Program became inmates using wheelchairs. servation in concert with university departments under the leadership of volunteers from among portion of the clinical program in his new position a reality as 26 student In the Yale clinic facilities, which occupied a and Louisiana’s Department of Environmental board-certified family mediators of the Bar Associ- as Acting Associate Director of the Clinical Legal participants were sworn in three-floor wing of the Sterling Law building in Quality. Students would compare respective merits ation—at least two custody disputes pending trial Education Externship Program. by Louisiana Supreme New Haven, Lancaster tells how the Immigration of legislative, judicial or administrative remedies, with representation by the Capital Area Legal Serv- Further, Lancaster wants to increase the avail- Court Justice Catherine Legal Services Clinic worked with asylum seekers and develop collaborative strategies to help solve ices Program. ability for a student with a specific learning “Kitty” Kimball. from all over the world. Lancaster recalls the case these issues. Lancaster says, “We’re lucky to have extremely goal or career direction to consult with him of one Mauritanian national who witnessed the As of Fall 2008, the following clinical programs talented lawyers like Ayn, Stephen, and Scott about designing a specific placement assassination of most of his family members before are in place: assisting in our program. The participation of dedi- opportunity. he escaped to the United States. “It was one of the cated, effective members of the bar is crucial to our “One very important goal of the most powerful client stories I have ever heard, and success.” clinical and externship program,” a story that had a tremendous impact on the stu- Juvenile Representation Currently, these three clinics are offering near- Lancaster points out, “is that it is dents working on his behalf.” Workshop ly 30 students the opportunity to take clinical available to all students. Some In 2000, Lancaster was hired by American Uni- courses. The plans call for at least 52 students to students find their niche in practice. This workshop includes 12 students and is a be enrolled in Spring 2009 when new clinics will versity in Washington, D.C., to teach a year-long continuation of the juvenile representation work- It’s important that this program criminal defense clinic, and in 2001, he began be added. By Fall 2009, Lancaster expects at least offers that opportunity to all students.” shop that has been in place for four years. Under 62 students to be enrolled in these hybrid clin- teaching on the faculty of Indiana University. Lan- the leadership of clinical adjunct professor It is a journey in which Lancaster caster also has extensive experience teaching trial ics/externships, with at least 80 slots expected to sees himself as a facilitator and an imple- Stephen Dixon, LSU Law Center alumnus and be available by Spring 2010. skills to prosecutors and law students in China. He public defender for juveniles in East Baton Rouge menter—helping to build what has been the dream was the U.S. Faculty Director of the China Trial “We are not only teaching students substantive of so many Louisiana lawyers who are anxious to Parish, these students handle live cases in the local law, or transactional and litigation skills,” Lancaster Advocacy Institute in Beijing, China, prior to com- juvenile courts. provide the very best in training for the young www.law.lsu.edu ing to LSU. explains. “Right alongside those important skills, lawyers who will soon be their colleagues.  www.law.lsu.edu we are teaching these students how to learn from 16 LS ULAW LS ULAW 17 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:03 PM Page 18

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In contrast to most states where only the Anglo- American common law prevails, Louisiana’s legal system is based not only Welcoming the on the early Spanish and French law, but includes the most substantial elements New Civilians of the common law as well. LSU law students are trained IVILIAN LAW is forever linked with the history and future of the LSU Law Center. to master not one, but two It is true that the Law Center has always been the flagship law school of a state Professor Andrea Carroll Professor Ronald Scalise Professor Melissa Lonegrass legal systems. This cross- whose French and Spanish heritage has road curriculum provides a woven inseparably into Louisiana’s legal “Beyond preparing our students to practice well Scalise says members of the Common Core Beyond faculty input, LSU Law students have Cfabric the texture of the civil law, with its here in Louisiana, we now have more out-of-state project are extremely interested in Louisiana’s con- at their disposal a library ranked 14th in the nation unique and intense legal codes and sets of rule from which jurispru- students than ever before, so our civilian tradition tributions to the development of modern civil law. in terms of its volume count—currently at dence then springs. serves to prepare all of our students for a global Scalise’s contacts made in Europe, when coupled 853,000 volumes. Within the library, LSU’s For- education. But it is also true that the new civilians are step- economy, instilling in them the knowledge of the with the international faculty members already eign Comparative and International Law collection ping into the prestigious and vital roles that have two major systems in the world.” serving on the LSU Law Center faculty such as ranks on par with the collections of Yale, Colum- traditionally been filled by the familiar “lions” of Ronald J. Scalise, Jr., a Phi Beta Kappa graduate French-born Olivier Moreteau (Director of the bia, and Harvard, with extensive collections of the LSU Law Center. The names are the likes of of the Tulane University Law School, joined the Center of Civil Law Studies) and Alain Levasseur books and comparative/international law journals Joseph Dainow, Saúl Litvinoff, and Thanassi LSU Law faculty in 2004. Scalise says studying (Director of European Studies), complement the written not only in English, but also in French, Yiannopoulos—legendary professors the mention under Professors Thanassi Yiannopoulos, Cindy LSU Law Center’s Global Visitor’s Program. This Spanish, German, and Italian. of whose names at once strikes fear and admiration Samuel, and others while at Tulane, personally program continues to bring in visiting faculty from Flanked by respected LSU civil law specialists in the hearts of 1Ls from the 1960s through today. inspired him to focus his teaching on helping stu- around the world to teach LSU Law students a such as John Randall Trahan—who joined the LSU “To the extent that things are changing, I dents master the ability to think comparatively and broader, more comparative perspective. Law Center faculty in 1995 and teaches courses in Melissa T. Lonegrass is one of the newest addi- Persons & Family, Obligations, Security Devices, believe that the younger civilian faculty share a broadly in the law, rather than being limited to tions to the LSU Law Center’s civilian faculty. and Successions & Donations—the new civilians very broad vision for what the civil law is today,” consideration of only one type of legal system. Graduating first in her Tulane University Law truly are helping to lead the LSU Law Center into said Andrea Beauchamp Carroll who joined the While Scalise continues to work on a variety of LSU faculty in 2003, and teaches a Louisiana- School class, Missy Lonegrass—along with Ron the 21st century. Louisiana civil law projects, he also recently focused Matrimonial Regimes (Community Prop- Scalise, Andi Carroll, and Vice Chancellor Chris However, like the new Civil Law Seminar Ron returned from a visit to Italy as part of his work erty) course. “Beyond maintaining the focus on Pietruszkiewicz—is part of the revival of the Scalise is teaching in Fall 2008—a seminar that with the “Common Core of European Private improving the quality of Louisiana civil law, we are Works-in-Progress Speaker Series: a workshop series explores concepts and institutions in the civil law Law” project. also committed to devoting more time to writing where the LSU Law Center invites junior scholars that transcend traditional doctrinal classification— “The Common Core project is a group of about and teaching broader civilian and compara- from other law schools to come and present schol- these exciting new steps toward academic refine- tive topics.” mainly European scholars who seek to examine arly “works-in-progress,” encouraging feedback on ment are each carefully made on the solid Andi Carroll is a 2000 graduate of the LSU Law European private law with the goal of ascertaining their work from the LSU faculty. This, in turn, foundation built by academic legends. It is part of Center, where she was a member of The Order of whether or not a common core exists,” Scalise spurs new ideas and more research and publishing the journey of a globally recognized civilian torch, the Coif and the LSU Law Review, before clerking explains. Although the Common Core project from the LSU faculty as well. still very much aflame in a country where common for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth focuses on a wide array of topics in Property, Con- “I believe strongly in teaching students to law predominates. Circuit, and working as an associate at the law firm tract, and Tort, Scalise’s work focuses on the specif- appreciate different legal traditions,” Lonegrass “The real misconception is that Louisiana is of Baker Botts in Dallas, Texas. ic topic of penalty clauses in contract. “The project urges. “I think the comparative view helps students somehow ‘bizarre,’” Andi Carroll says. “Our state In 2008, Carroll introduced a new seminar in is much more than a descriptive treatment of a par- to think more critically about the law in their own shares this civilian heritage with the majority of Community Property that surveys not only the ticular issue by a given legal system. It involves jurisdiction, and spurs them to become engaged in countries around the world, and that makes us other eight community property regimes in the scholars from all around Europe explaining how both the development and the reform of the law.” uniquely positioned to prepare students by giving Professor John Randall Trahan United States, but also European community prop- their particular legal system solves specific factual Lonegrass is teaching Legal Traditions, Successions, them the very best education for practicing law not erty regimes. problems or scenarios.” and Sales & Lease. only here in Louisiana, but globally.”  1 8 LS ULAW LS ULAW 19 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:03 PM Page 20

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Faculty committees and admissions directors Center Admissions Committee uses a full file have the difficult job—and the honor—of deter- review,” says Eden, meaning that all elements of a The Competitive mining which students will have the greatest student’s application are considered.

likelihood of success at their respective institu- The competition for students has never been World of Law School tions and best fit the school environment. The tougher. It has led the Law Center to create a process also means fitting together a class with much stronger outreach program to encourage the best academic credentials possible to keep applicants to consider the state’s premier public Admissions rankings high and climbing. law school. “We’ve tried to see that recruiting is Today’s entering classes at the LSU Law Center as robust as it could be. On the front end, when As competition heats “ ASSEMBLING THE FIRST-YEAR CLASS are a testament to a dramatic change in the admis- we go to campuses, we go to the right places. up for students, sion process over the years. LSU Law no longer We’ve been utilizing faculty, current students, The biggest admits excessively large first-year classes, a practice and alumni in ways that are helping. These three getting the right mix that was common for many years. The total size of groups are incredibly important in putting a face recruiting tool the student body is now 576 students, with 201 on the institution.” for the incoming first-year candidates enrolled this fall. Students are As competition heats up for students, getting we have to now “pre-qualified” through the new admissions the right mix for the incoming class is certainly a class is certainly a process—one that is far more selective than in ear- challenge, and that makes the recent success in lier years. A nearly open enrollment in the past has go after these challenge, and that LSU’s numbers all the more remarkable. turned into a highly selective admissions program. Since 2004, the 25th percentile on LSAT scores fantastic students Amid a declining national, regional, and has increased from 151 to 155; the median from makes the recent Louisiana applicant pool, finding just the right 154 to 157; and the 75th percentile from 158 to is scholarship success in LSU’s mix of students is no small feat. From FY 2002- 159. At the same time, GPAs of incoming stu- 03 to FY 2007-08, the number of applicants to dents held steady, with median GPA in 2007 at “money. numbers all the more all law schools nationwide declined by 12.7 per- 3.38 and 75th percentile at 3.7. Eden says that of cent. During the same time period, the number the 2007 entering class, 12 students had 4.0 Eric Eden remarkable. of resident applicants to the LSU Law Center GPAs; seven had 3.9+ GPA; 18 were summa cum declined by 30 percent (from 798 to 556) and laude; 24 were magna cum laude; and 15 were nonresident applicants have declined by 18 per- cum laude graduates. Not bad. cent since 2003-04. “But, putting a face on those numbers is even But it’s not just the LSU Law Center that is more exciting. Each year, we have interesting dealing with a smaller applicant pool. The appli- groups: paramedics, teachers, football players, cant pool for all Louisiana law schools is down 29 nationally recognized dancers, AmeriCorps mem- percent since 2002-03. The 2006-07 figures bers, Peace Corps members, legislative and con- showed only 1,065 students applied to Louisiana gressional interns, and students who speak law schools, down from 1,499 in 2002-03. multiple languages. LSU Law students are an Eric Eden, director of the LSU Law Center’s incredibly talented group,” said Eden. Admissions Office, projects that the decline will “The biggest recruiting tool we have to go after continue, “… though we have stabilized somewhat these fantastic students is scholarship money. both nationally and regionally in the last year … We’ve done a good job in recent years of using the with nationally, applicants falling by 5.3 percent available funds to land students.” Eden notes that last year. At LSU Law, applicants fell by 4 percent.” law schools nationally and regionally are getting While it’s important to have a deep pool of can- more sophisticated in deploying their dollars and didates, he says, “It’s the quality of the student pool that students now have manifold opportunities that is critical. With admissions, the major issues presented to them. “Other law schools are aggres- are getting the best qualified and most interesting sively recruiting these same students. We have to class possible. We also have to bring in the right put money on the table to land them. Scholarships number of students. We work within the applicant are only one piece of the puzzle, but if they’re not can’t compete in this game without a well-thought pool to maximize diversity—in the broadest in place, we don’t have the opportunity to make it HE increasingly competitive nature of the out strategy, carefully planned moves, and putting sense—and credentials,” said Eden. [LSU Law] an option.” Over the last three to five law school admissions process plays out on money on the board in the form of scholarships in LSAT scores and GPA figure prominently in years, the Law Center’s Scholarship Committee campuses throughout the United States each order to get the best and brightest to enroll as admission to the LSU Law Center, but letters of has increased the level of scholarship assistance in spring. It’s a game that pits schools against first-year students. recommendation, life experiences, and the quality order to attract top-notch students. one another, and one where money talks As one would expect, spring is a time of great of an undergraduate’s academic program are also Chancellor Jack Weiss has proposed a new www.law.lsu.edu T anxiety for applicants and admissions’ staff alike. www.law.lsu.edu and often determines who wins. Law schools given weight in the admissions process. “The Law scholarship initiative that the administration feels 2 0 LS ULAW LS ULAW 21 CORR_LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/22/09 9:51 AM Page 22

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will pay big dividends. The Louisiana Distinguished student recipients will also need to demonstrate or table format. “We hope that the exposure to pub- admitted under his leadership. He announced in Public Service Scholars program is being designed to have potential for, distinguished public service. lic service during law school will encourage the November that he will leave the Law Center in attract students with credentials at the 75th per- Law Center officials plan to have scholars par- state’s best and brightest to attend LSU Law and January 2009 to become director of admissions at centile, or a targeted LSAT score at or above 161. ticipate in challenging public service related remain in Louisiana as future leaders,” said Weiss. the University of Arizona Law School where his “This will be a new, highly selective scholarship internships and externships as second- and third- Eden’s work over the past four years has pro- wife, Susanna, is employed. “Arizona is the only program for the most qualified Louisiana resident year students. The group will also meet regularly duced a wonderfully talented and increasing law school that could ever lure me away from students,” said Weiss in his memorandum to the with the chancellor, faculty members, national, diverse student body at the Law Center. Unfortu- LSU. It’s been a real pleasure to live and work LSU Board of Supervisors in March 2008. The state, and local leaders, and their peers in a round- nately, the 2008-09 first–year class is the last to be with the wonderful people at LSU.”

THECOMPETITIVEWORLDOFLAWSCHOOLADMISSIONS

NATIONAL APPLICANT TRENDS* LSU LAW APPLICANT TRENDS LSU LAW LSAT SCORES Applicants to All ABA Law Schools Number of Applicants to LSU Law LSAT Scores for Entering Law Students

Admission and Enrollment * Reflects applicants as of May each year. Trends STATE APPLICANT TRENDS Prospective Students In-State Taking LSAT

2002-2003 Total Louisiana Applicant 2003-2004 Volume Applicant Volume 1,521 2004-2005 Resident Applications To LSU Law

2005-2006

2006-2007

300 500 700 900 1,100 1,300 1,500 1,700 www.law.lsu.edu www.law.lsu.edu 22 LS ULAW LS ULAW 23 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 24

WITHINTHECOLUMNS Barrister to Bard LAW PROFESSOR’S PLAY CONTINUES TO EDUCATE

O SUM UP PAUL BAIER, George M. Armstrong, Jr. Professor of Law, in 500 words T is virtually impossible. Say “good morning” to him and you will get at least 750 back in return. And you will enjoy each and every one of them because not only will it be entertaining, but informative. Who else do you know that can answer the simplest question with quotes from Shakespeare and a chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in the same breath?

Inside his office, which Baier describes as more Bar Association’s film Supreme Court, the first such of a museum, are keepsakes and dusty tomes from work to be shot inside the Supreme Court, in a career that goes back four decades. Two things 1976. But this was a completely different animal. any visitor will invariably be shown stem from his Baier is an avid fan of theatre dating back to his labor of love, “Father Chief Justice” E.D. White and days in high school in Cincinnati, Ohio. On Satur- In this way, Baier was, and still is, seeking to the Constitution—a play about former Supreme day evenings he would put on a tuxedo and attend “rescue Thibodaux’s Confederate soldier boy from Blue and Gray, Holmes and White Court Chief Justice Edward Douglas White, Jr. Shakespeare productions at Cincinnati’s Playhouse the obscurity of forgotten memory.” and his relationship with fellow Justice Oliver in the Park with his friends. It also didn’t hurt that Baier plays the role of Professor Richard Henry Before White and Holmes were colleagues in Wendell Holmes, Jr. there were girls there dressed to the nines. Jesse—a close friend of White’s and the first academ- the Supreme Court, they were enemies on the bat- It is this five-act play for which Baier is best So years later when former Louisiana Secretary ic dean of Tulane University. As Jesse, he narrates the tlefield during the Civil War. Holmes fought for known. The work has earned him praise from of State Fox McKeithen appointed Baier to the play and interjects with the characters onstage. the Union and White for the Confederacy. Holmes many, including former Justices William J. Bren- E.D. White Board—which was designed to edu- Eleven years later and the play—only the second was shot in the back of the neck at Antietam and nan, Jr. and Sandra Day O’Connor. cate people on the chief justice and his father, the to be written about the Court—continues to be White was taken prisoner at Port Hudson. After “An account of the play was published in the former governor—he decided to depart from the performed here and there, with a recent perform- the war, White would have a change of heart in Supreme Court’s newsletter after the ‘world pre- traditional ideas being tossed around and do some- ance in May 2008 at the Louisiana Supreme Court, regards to the leadership of his country, and this is miere,’” Baier said. “I happened to be at the Court thing that would really attract people to the former whose front steps were the setting of the prologue. reflected in his conversation with Holmes and for- visiting Justice O’Connor and she greeted me, say- chief justice. Performing the play at the historic venue was “a mer Justice Louis D. Brandeis in Act III of the ing ‘Playwright are you?’ She took me over to He would write a play based on historical dream come true,” said Baier. play, “At Home.” wastepaper basket, extracted the newsletter, and accounts about White, the “Confederate Gray of “You have struck a noble blow for White, C. J., “I can recollect the day when to me Old Glory asked, ‘When are you bringing the play up here?’” Bayou Lafourche,” and Holmes, the “Union Blue not unlike that struck by Emmet Lavery for was but the emblem of darkness, of misery, of suf- It is important to note that this play—which Coat of Boston.” The dialogue would come from White’s buddy, Wendell Holmes,” wrote John S. fering, of despair and despotism,” White tells made its world premiere on March 8, 1997, at the White’s correspondence, archival manuscripts, and Monagan, author of The Grand Panjandrum: The Holmes. “But ah! In the clarified vision in which it Theater of the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park the opinions of the Court. In addition, notable Mellow Years of Justice Holmes, of Baier’s play. is now given me to see it, although the stars and in Thibodaux, Louisiana, the birthplace of lawyers and judges with little or no acting experience, “It is also one which has been long wanting and in bars have faded away forever, the fundamental White—was Baier’s first attempt at writing a play. but with the necessary backgrounds to play their bringing it forth you have done a service for Ameri- aspirations which they symbolized find their www.law.lsu.edu He had written the screenplay for the American respective roles, would recite the dialogue. can legal history, for the Court, and for Louisiana.” imperishable existence in the stars and stripes!” 2 4 LS ULAW LS ULAW 25 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 26

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After becoming justices on the Supreme Court, National Archives film and audio recordings, the two, though they disagreed at times on court allowing his protagonists to be seen and heard “live rulings and philosophies, would exchange roses and in person” at times during the play. The each year on September 17—the anniversary of archival materials come from different sources, the Battle of Antietam and Constitution Day. some of which Baier stumbled across by accident. “The rose is a symbol of reunion, brotherhood Others have been under his nose, so to speak, at New Faculty Members Join Ranks and the blood shed in the Civil War,” said Baier, LSU’s own Hill Memorial Library. FOUR NEW, DISTINGUISHED FACULTY MEMBERS JOINED THE LSU who positions a single long-stemmed red rose on a “Each semester I walk with my seminar stu- cypress pedestal, center rear, as the signature sym- dents to Hill Memorial Library,” Baier said. “We LAW CENTER IN FALL 2008. bol of the play and a remembrance of loved ones. request a manuscript file, I forget which. It holds a small scrap of paper, a hand-penciled note to the Epilogue Supreme Court’s Reporter of Decisions apropos some little correction of page proof, I forget what. ROBERT E. LANCASTER MELISSA T. LONEGRASS The rose is just one of the visuals used through- It is signed, ‘Yours E.D. White.’ We realize with out the play to help immerse the audience in the Holmes: ‘He Lived.’” Robert E. Lancaster, who previously served as Melissa T. Lonegrass joins the Law Center world of White and Holmes. Baier also uses And through Baier’s play, he will continue to do so. Clinical Professor of Law at Indiana University faculty as an assistant professor of law. Lonegrass School of Law, has been named director of LSU received her bachelor’s degree from Millsaps in Law’s Clinical Legal Education Program and Pro- 2001 and her J.D. from Tulane University Law Professor James D. Hardy, Jr. leads a discussion with fessor of Professional Practice. School in 2005, finishing first in her class. She students during an honors class as Professor Paul Lancaster received his bachelor’s degree at also held a board position on Tulane’s Law Baier looks on in the Tucker Room of the LSU Law Millsaps College in 1989 and his J.D. at Tulane Review. Center. Law School in 1993. She previously worked for Irwin, Fritchie, He was named a Robert M. Cover Clinical Urquhart, & Moore L.L.C. in New Orleans, and Teaching Fellow from 1997-2000 at Yale Law was engaged in general civil litigation, with a Nancy Clark, dean of the Honors College. “They School. Lancaster was also the Washington Col- concentration on products liability and pharma- lege of Law, American University Practitioner-in- attend special events at the Law Center such as meet- ceutical and medical device litigation. Professor Robert E. Lancaster ing with guest speakers and participating in Moot Residence from 2000-01. Her teaching and research interests include Court competitions. Lancaster has extensive experience in clinical Louisiana Obligations, Property, Security Rights, “Our students become highly motivated about programs, having taught the Judicial Externship Successions and Donations, Matrimonial the possibilities of a career in the law and especially Program for Federal District Courts, the Indiana Regimes, Family Law, Civil Procedure, and interested in the Law Center. This is an example of Supreme Court Externship, Indiana Court of Comparative Law. Her teaching assignments the type of cross campus cooperation that can cre- Appeals Externship, and the Superior Court include Successions, Legal Traditions, and Sales. ate wonderful opportunities for LSU students." Externship while at Indiana. He directed and co- Beginning in their first semester, students in the directed the Indiana University Judicial Extern- LEAP program attend information sessions hosted ship Program from 2002-06 and served as CHRISTINAM.SAUTTER PROGRAM HELPS STUDENTS MAKE LEAP TO LAW SCHOOL by Law Center professors and alumni who discuss director of the Chinese Law Summer Program both the law school experience and possible careers and faculty director of the China Trial Advocacy Christina M. Sautter also joins the faculty as The philosophy of students being exposed to the course work of a law school in the law. During the spring semester of their Institute in Beijing. He has also taught Civil an assistant professor of law. Sautter received her as undergraduates is not a new thing. In fact, it dates back to Irnerius, an 11th sophomore year, those who have participated in Practice Clinic and Advanced Clinical Experi- bachelor’s degree from Florida State University in century Italian jurist, and later former President Woodrow Wilson, who felt that the LEAP program during their first two years in ence. Lancaster previously served as Associate 1999, graduating summa cum laude. “you must begin to make your lawyer on the other side of the law school.” the Honors College, as well as other interested Professor at Indiana from 2001-07. He was rec- She also graduated summa cum laude—in the But it was the words of former LSU Chancellor and System President sophomores, are invited to apply for admission ognized as a Dean’s Fellow for 2004-05 and top 3 percent of her class—from Villanova Uni- William Jenkins, who said that the LSU Honors College is “just like Oxford,” into the upper division of the program. awarded the Trustee’s Teaching Award in 2006. versity School of Law in 2002. Sautter was also In their junior and senior years, students in the Lancaster serves on the Board of Governors named to membership in The Order of the Coif. that started the wheels spinning for Paul Baier, George H. Armstrong, Jr. Pro- Professor Melissa Lonegrass fessor of Law, and James D. Hardy, Jr., professor of history and former associ- program take Honors College classes designed for for the Society of American Law Teachers She served as managing editor of the Villanova ate dean of the LSU Honors College. them and taught by LSU Law faculty. Those stu- (SALT) and is Chair of the Public Interest and Law Review. While the works of Chaucer, Dante, and Milton were included in the Hon- dents accepted into the upper division LEAP pro- Social Justice Retreats Committee and a member Before coming to LSU, she served as a law ors catalogue, the works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Benjamin N. Car- gram are then granted conditional early admission of the LGBT Issues in the Academy Committee. clerk for the Hon. H. Emory Widener, Jr. of the dozo were not. Baier and Hardy proposed a course named “The Constitution to the Law Center, provided they meet the require- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. and American Civilization” and 10 years later, it is part of the LSU Law Early ments. After her clerkship, Sautter joined the New York Admission Program, or LEAP. Interested students can sign up for the LEAP City offices of Shearman & Sterling L.L.P. where "The LEAP program gives Honors students the opportunity to get to know law program online by visiting she practiced for three years in the Mergers & school professors and to have a ‘law school experience’ as undergraduates,” said www.honors.lsu.edu/LEAP.html.  Acquisitions Group. see page 28 www.law.lsu.edu 26 LS ULAW LS ULAW 27 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 28

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The renovations also included adding electrical continued from page 27 outlets and Ethernet at every seat in every class- room. In hindsight, Morris joked, his colleagues In Fall 2006, she began teaching at Loyola He has held numerous leadership positions were probably not happy about the latter since it University’s College of Law in New Orleans and on faculty committees, including University meant students could surf the Internet to pass the was named a Westerfield Fellow. She taught Senate, Academic Affairs, and the Tulane Law time during lectures. Legal Writing and Research, Appellate Advoca- School Library. Another high-water mark for Morris was his cy, and Mergers and Acquisitions. Diamond has served as an antitrust attorney work in managing a potential budget deficit in his Her teaching assignments at the LSU Law with the Federal Trade Commission and leg- first year as vice chancellor and completely turning Center include Business Associations, Mergers islative counsel to U.S. Rep. Robert Livingston. it around with the leadership of former Law Cen- and Acquisitions, Securities Regulations, Corpo- He was also the co-author of Brown v. Board of ter Chancellor John Costonis. rate Finance. Education: Caste, Culture, and the “I didn’t have any expectations of staying in the Constitution—a book that earned him the 2003 job (when I was asked to take the position),” Mor- David J. Langum, Sr. Prize by the Langum ris said. “I got involved with the renovation from Professor Christina Sautter RAYMOND DIAMOND – Project for Historical Literature. the Law School side and it turned into a multi-year He received the 1999 Harlan B. Carter- job I couldn’t get away from. No Stranger to LSU Law Knight Freedom Fund Award for work on the “I tried to resign several times but Chancellor Second Amendment and right to bear arms. Costonis kept talking me into staying.” Raymond T. Diamond rounds out the He was previously engaged in private practice Morris has gone back to his longtime love of incoming class of faculty members. Diamond at a New Orleans law firm from 1981-84. teaching, which is how he began his career at LSU comes to LSU Law from Tulane University as a Diamond’s teaching areas include Criminal in 1983, after earning his J.D. from the University

visiting professor for Fall 2008. He is no Law, Antitrust, Seminar in Legal History and of Florida in 1980. Law Relations, Administrative Law, and Con- stranger to LSU Law, however, having served as While doing mergers and acquisitions work for stitutional Law. an associate law professor from 1984-90.  the firm now known as Smith, Hulsey & Busey in Diamond received his bachelor’s degree from Jacksonville, Florida, he decided that he would like Yale College in 1973 and his J.D. from Yale Law to try his hand at teaching. The combined com- School in 1977. He has been a member of the mon law/civil law system of Louisiana was intrigu-

Tulane Law faculty since 1990. ing to Morris and he traveled to Chicago for the Association of American Law Schools “meat-mar- Professor Raymond Diamond ket.” There, candidates for teaching positions NOT JUST YOUR AVERAGE across the country were interviewed and Morris PIETRUSZKIEWICZ was hired to work at LSU. “(I remember about my first year) how young There is something different about Chris Vice Chancellor “ MORRIS REFLECTS ON 11 YEARS AS VICE CHANCELLOR I was. I was 28 at the time,” Morris said. “I was Pietruszkiewicz. It’s not his new position as vice younger than some of the students I was teaching. chancellor of business and financial affairs, so Morris has been I went down to check the contracts board … and much as just his overall self. He’s from Scranton, For a man who once held an exciting title such as Pennsylvania, but has never seen an episode of the so effective for a student walked up to help me. “Vice Chancellor of Business/Financial Affairs” after “Everything I expected came true. It complete- wildly popular sitcom “The Office,” which is set in his name, Glenn Morris is surprisingly low-key. ly energized me. I hope the students thought I the very same city. the last 11 years. Aside from a laugh that reverberates around the Pietruszkiewicz once spent 15 minutes during a was a good teacher.” fourth floor of the LSU Law Center and a six-foot concession call to opposing counsel arguing why It’s kind of like Morris teaches Contracts and Business Associ- plus frame, he somehow manages to quietly slip the government was wrong, and he was represent- ations I and II, as well as Corporate Finance. He through the corridors of the building. ing the government as a trial attorney for the U.S. being the guy won’t be far removed from his old position, how- Yet, one look at his track record over the last 11 Department of Justice. who follows Bear years as vice chancellor and his achievements are ever, as incoming vice chancellor Chris To top it off, there is that last name, which in unmistakable. His largest accomplishment—quite Pietruszkiewicz plans on picking Morris’ brain case you’re wondering, is a chore. Don’t think he Bryant. You’d literally, in fact—was coordinating the renovation from time to time. doesn’t know that, hence his alias of “Chris Petro.” of the Law Center’s 1936 and 1969 buildings. The “I suspect that he’ll hope that I forget where He is the triple-word score of LSU Law Center “rather be the guy construction restored the 1936 building’s classic his office is,” Pietruszkiewicz joked. “Vice Chan- professors. In Little League, he was the kid whose exterior, expanded student activities space, and cre- cellor Morris has been so effective for the last 11 name arched from one sleeve to another across the following the guy. ated a legal writing program suite, new faculty years. It’s kind of like being the guy who follows back of his jersey. offices, offices for visiting scholars, and a relocated Bear Bryant (at Alabama). You’d rather be the guy Still, no one said different had to be a bad thing. Chris Pietruszkiewicz Louisiana Law Institute and Law Review. following the guy.”  see page 30 www.law.lsu.edu 28 LS ULAW LS ULAW 29

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continued from page 29 Pietruszkiewicz, the J.Y. Sanders Professor of FROM “80-KATIE” TO “58-SPAHT,” work with the Louisiana Law Institute to update offer—guys and football. She won and enrolled at Law, brings an impressive resume to his new posi- PROFESSORENDSLONGCAREERAT Book 1 of the Louisiana Civil Code by 2010. the University of Mississippi, graduating in 1968 I think my role is tion as V.C. – a position vacated by Glenn Morris In addition, Spaht continues to work and serve with a bachelor of arts degree. LSU LAW CENTER really to work with after 11 years of service. Morris stepped down from as a consultant on the Covenant Marriage Law, “(Ole Miss) was so small then. Everyone came the position of vice chancellor in the summer of which is in effect in Louisiana—the first state to from small towns and it was just the friendliest It was onstage during the LSU Law Center’s 2008 to resume his full-time teaching career. adopt the law in 1997, thanks in large part to campus,” Spaht said. “I had never seen such beau- the faculty and Spring 2008 Commencement that reality set in “I think my role (as V.C.) is really to work with Spaht—Arkansas and Arizona. A number of other tiful girls, all so beautifully dressed. Coming to for Katherine Spaht. For 39 of the last 40 years, the faculty and the chancellor (Jack M. Weiss) to states have introduced similar legislation but none LSU was like a culture shock.” the chancellor to she spent her life at the Law Center, either as a accomplish all of the things that we want to have made it legal. When Spaht graduated from LSU Law in 1971, student or professor, and the end was fast accomplish all of the accomplish,” Pietruszkiewicz said. “We have to she was one of three women out of the 93 total approaching. Like a wave, the gravity of the look at what we have done and access our long- Covenant Marriage graduates, and the second woman to finish first in moment hit her during a part of Gov. Bobby Jin- things that we want range planning goals over the next year and a half.” her class since Frances Landry in 1926. When she dal’s keynote speech about graduates coming Indirectly, it was one lady–not even a real one Pietruszkiewicz earned his J.D. from Loyola started work as a professor in August 1972, she home to Louisiana. actually–that helped begin Spaht’s work with to accomplish. University in New Orleans and his LL.M. from became only the second female law professor at the 1977 “I found myself tearing up … I thought okay, covenant marriage. Had Murphy Brown, a popular Georgetown Law Center. After law school, he Law Center —who was not a librarian —since “Chris Pietruszkiewicz this is really it,” said Spaht, who admitted she character portrayed by Candice Bergen from 1988- served as attorney/advisor to the U.S. Department Harriet “Ma” Daggett. For these reasons, Spaht is would be open to coming back to the Law Center 1998, not chosen to bear and raise her child alone, of Education’s chief administrative law judge and generally considered to be somewhat of a pioneer after a year on a part-time basis should there be a then former Vice President Dan Quayle would not When Spaht graduated was instrumental in the design and implementa- at the Law Center. need for her. have delivered his speech criticizing her for doing tion of the first agency-wide Informal Dispute Res- She, however, is quick to point out that her “I haven’t had time to think about (retirement) so. If that doesn’t happen, then Barbara Dafoe from LSU Law in 1971, olution Center. mother was more of a pioneer, graduating in 1940 really. You know, ‘what’s this going to mean?’ All Whitehead doesn’t write an article in The Atlantic He then moved to the Department of Justice, and the first and only woman at the time, to work she was one of three these big and ponderable Monthly saying he was right. And if that doesn’t where he said he truly enjoyed the responsibility of on the Louisiana Law Review. questions.” happen, then perhaps Spaht doesn’t come to the litigating on behalf of the United States. Still, Spaht was entering rare territory and women out of 93 total While she conclusion that the country’s high divorce rates “The Department of Justice was wonderful. I acknowledged that male students did not expect may be retiring and unwed child bearing are two things having a still stay in touch with my former colleagues there female professors to be as tough as their male coun- graduates, and the from the Law very negative effect on children. and look forward to seeing them every time I get terparts. Being tough, though, was important for Center, Not long after, a friend introduced her to a new back to Washington,” Pietruszkiewicz said. “It was their training Spaht felt, and taught accordingly. second woman to finish Spaht will state legislator named Tony Perkins, now president rewarding to be able to try and reach the right “In 1974, I became a different teacher,” said hardly be of the Family Research Council. Perkins asked first in her class since answer (while working there.) If the IRS were Spaht. “Until then, I had been known as 80 (B+) idle, spend- Spaht to research the problem of divorce and come wrong, we would try to fix it. I recognized that I Katie. Then I became known as 58 Spaht, which ing her time up with four solutions he could take to the legisla- Frances Landry in 1926. was representing not only the government, but all was a low D. Growing up, I wanted to be well- traveling ture. He chose covenant marriage and in the first taxpayers.” liked. But once I came to a professional school and and contin- regular session of 1997, it passed. At the same time, he was teaching a course on was working, I wanted to be respected. I always uing her “The day it passed, I was in Atlanta on my way corporate taxation at the George Mason School of thought it was more important to be respected to Ireland … to trace my family roots,” Spaht said. Law as an adjunct faculty member. Pietruszkiewicz than well-liked.” “(In Ireland) the cover of the International Herald became interested in becoming a full-time faculty Whichever Spaht students remember—and Tribune said ‘Christian Right Movement Wins in member and was soon recruited by LSU Law Pro- some probably have fonder recollections than oth- Louisiana.’ The Covenant Marriage Law helped fessor Lucy McGough and former faculty member ers—she has vivid memories of grading 304 Family spawn the National Marriage Movement.” John White through the Association of American Law exams at Christmas in her first year, the worst Law Schools registry. He officially joined the LSU 80 Katie and 58 Spaht experience of her life she said. There were also a Law faculty in 2001. couple of students in the second semester of her Pietruszkiewicz said he enjoys his home of the Had her father had his way, Spaht would have first year of teaching that stand out for her, last seven years in Louisiana, yet it’s hard to imag- gone to an all-girls college for her undergraduate Louisiana District Attorney Doug Moreau and ine anyone being as loyal as his neighbors back in work. With steely resolve, she resisted, requiring James Carville, political pundit and former advisor Pennsylvania. two things those types of institutions did not to President Bill Clinton. “I remember when I got my security clearance As she prepares for the new life of traveling and (while working for the government), ) and the FBI finishing work started long ago, perhaps Spaht will Professor Spaht at her final LSU walked around my neighborhood in Scranton,” have time to ponder those questions popping into Law Center Commencement Pietruszkiewicz said. “I went home a few months her head during the commencement ceremony. ceremony as a full-time faculty later and and my neighbor, 85 years old at the And if the Law Center should need help in coaxing member. time, runs up and says ‘the FBI was here.’ Then she her back for that part-time gig? Well, LSU will says ‘don’t worry, I didn’t say anything.’” always have guys and football.  www.law.lsu.edu Alias Chris Petro, indeed.  www.law.lsu.edu 30 LS ULAW LS ULAW 31

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ACADEMICCIRCLES ACADEMICCIRCLES HONORINGSAÚLLITVINOFF “ On April 3, 2008, the LSU Law Center faculty, I was going to go When he graduated friends, former colleagues, and distinguished alum- ni gathered in the Tucker Room to commemorate ComeWhatMay... in 1950 with a bach- the publication of a volume of Essays in Honor of into agriculture PROFESSOR WARREN MENGIS elor of science from Saúl Litvinoff. The essays honor the Boyd Professor LSU and an LL.B. when I came back RETIRESFROMLSULAWCENTER of Law and world famous comparativist and civil- from the LSU law ian. Professor Litvinoff also holds the Oliver P. (to LSU) but the On his final day of work, after nearly 30 years school, Mengis as a full-time professor at the Paul M. Hebert Law Stockwell Professorship. hoped his father— Litvinoff has taught at the Law Center since line was too long, Center, Warren Mengis is sitting at his desk the president of the 1965. He earned his undergraduate degree from munching on a blueberry muffin. No big plans to state board of health the Buenos Aires National College; an LL.B., so I went into celebrate the final day, just a couple hours wait at the time—would S.J.D. and S.C.D. from the University of Buenos until his wife comes by to pick him up. commerce law give him a job. He did not, so Mengis, not want- Aires; and, an LL.M. from Yale University. A quiet final day for a man every bit as low-key. ing another commission in the Marines, joined He has taught generations of LSU Law students instead. In talking to Mengis, one gets often humble, the Air Force as a First Lieutenant in the JAG Obligations, Contracts, Sales, Common Law sometimes painfully so, answers to questions department. Warren Mengis Methodology, and International Contracts. “ about his career. During that same conversation, “It was the damndest thing. I got my commis- Professor Olivier Moréteau, Russell Long Chair however, he becomes a sharp and sion and was gone,” Mengis said. “Two of my col- and Director of the Center of Civil Law Studies, comedic storyteller, leaving you leagues got their commission and never got called.” presented the volume—some 860 pages, consisting wondering if what you’ve heard He spent two years in the Air Force, part of 1981 of 46 contributions by jurists from 12 different was true or not but surely that time in Korea outside of Pusan, before return- nations. The book includes testimonials reflecting entertaining. ing in 1952 and practicing law with Luther Cole how Professor Litvinoff contributed to the devel- Born in 1926 in Monroe, for the next 22 years. Cole would go on to opment of the law through his legal practice, Louisiana, Mengis moved become a judge at the district court level, the teaching, written textbooks and treatises, and around frequently as a child appellate court level, and finally, the Louisiana drafting of legislation. before settling back in Monroe Supreme Court. The book honoring the professor was published and graduating from Ouachita by Claitor’s in Baton Rouge and is also available from In 1977, Mengis was appointed an adjunct Chancellor Jack Parish High School in 1944. He professor at the Law Center and until August the Center of Civil Law Studies at the Law Center. then attempted to enroll at LSU 1982, taught a course in legal protection. For him Professor Litvinoff announced his Spring 2009 Weiss declared before he was commissioned by the it was a great arrangement; for his colleagues, not retirement from the Law Center at a special cere- U.S. Marines Corps and sent to so much. mony held Nov. 14, 2008. Litvinoff will be hon- 2008-09 “The Camp Pendleton near San Diego, Cal- “I was one of the few practicing lawyers then ored at the annual Chancellor’s Council dinner on March 20, 2009. ifornia. who came out to school,” said Mengis. “I still Left to right: A tribute by Law Center Chancellor  Year of Litvinoff” “I could type so they put me in the remember my colleagues saying ‘why give up a Jack Weiss for Professors Mengis and Spaht at their legal office doing charges and manly profession to be a teacher?’ But I never retirement reception specifications,” Mengis said. wanted to be a judge for some reason. “I was going to go into “Teaching legal professions, I would get here at agriculture when I 7:30 a.m., finish around 9:30 a.m. and go back to Twenty-six years later and Mengis’ career at came back (to LSU) my office. It was great.” LSU can be summed up fittingly in 47 words— but the line was too When he did join the LSU Law faculty full- his own words taken from his annual faculty long, so I went into time in 1982, Mengis said he had been persuaded report, which rarely, if ever, changed. commerce law by two factors— LSU Law Professor Frank “Professor Mengis taught Sales and Real instead.” Maraist and the bickering between some of his Estate Transactions; Louisiana Procedure, Suc- former colleagues. cessions and Donations; and Louisiana Security Devices; all courses to prepare law students to pass the Bar Exam first and then to practice law in Louisiana and elsewhere. Professor Mengis uses a practical approach to teaching law.” Just the kind of thing you’d expect to read from a man who celebrates with a blueberry muffin.  32 LS ULAW LS ULAW 33 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 34

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definition of “public purpose” in regard to eminent LSU Law Center Professor Named to domain, it looked to O’Connor’s sentiments as a International Continental Law Council benchmark. In a set of 2006 constitutional amend- When voters ments, the Legislature tried to define those parame- “ ters, addressing transfer of expropriated property passed the three Law Professor director for the Center for Commercial and Busi- from former owners to other private entities. constitutional LSU Alain A. Levasseur ness Law’s International Studies Program and the Several areas remained gray though. For was recently appointed as one of 12 Jean Monnet Chair in European Community Law. instance, what constitutes “economic develop- amendments con- foreign members—each one com- Since arriving at LSU in 1977, Levasseur has ment” or “affirmative harm?” And the simplest of ing from a different civil law juris- been no stranger to the international law commu- words—“for,” it turns out, carried with it an enor- cerning eminent diction—to the Scientific Council nity, serving as a visiting professor on numerous mous amount of weight. of the Fondation pour le droit occasions over the last 26 years at the University of “‘For’ could refer to the purpose of a taking or domain in 2006, Continental, or Foundation for Montreal, the Universite d’Aix-Marseille III in to its result,” wrote Costonis. “If ‘for’ means pur- Continental Law. France, the Universite de Louvain La Neuve in Bel- pose, then a transfer to a private entity is not they more than The Council—also made up of gium and the University of Paris. barred … so long as the private benefits associated 10 French members who include The Foundation for Continental Law embodies with the transfer are incidental to its public advan- likely had no idea professors, notaries, judges, bankers the intent to expand the international influence tages. But the transfer will violate the public pur- and corporate officers—is the and claim of international law in the context of “of the implications pose requirement if ‘for’ ignores intervening “brain” of the Foundation, acting as increasing competition between the major legal sys- benefits associated with the transfer, and focuses The end result was that the judge in the case, a breeding ground for future pro- tems, among which the “common law” system has of such an act. only on the taking’s result—the property’s ultimate Judge Madeline Landrieu, ruled in favor of grams, projects, publications and become a vehicle aimed at acquiring larger shares use or ownership by a private entity.” NORA. She, like Costonis, agreed that interpret- John Costonis initiatives in the fields of research of the world market. And if that seems confusing to you, refer back ing the Louisiana constitutional amendments to and education in the domains of The Foundation is involved in more than 20 to the first sentence of this story and imagine your- prevent NORA from acquiring and transferring law and economics. projects worldwide, conducting translations of self a member of the Louisiana Supreme Court. blighted properties would severely impede New Levasseur, the Hermann Moyse, texts, documents, and reports in six languages. Orleans’ post-Katrina recovery. Sr. Professor of Law, is the only appointee from the It also sponsors many publications such as year- New Orleans Redevelopment While an appeal is pending, the final ruling on United States. He is also the director of the Law books of legislation, jurisprudence and scholarly Authority v. Johnson the case could have a large impact on the state’s Center’s European Studies Program, the associate writings. When voters passed the three constitutional constitutional amendments regarding eminent amendments concerning eminent domain in 2006, domain and future disputes or issues involving they more than likely had no idea of the implica- hurricane-blighted property, of which there is still tions of such an act. Indeed, not even all legislators much in New Orleans. Should the city be able to    can agree on what the amendments actually mean. condemn such property and transfer it to a redevel- Nevertheless, those same laws were at the crux of oper; or should the property remain with the for- New Orleans Redevelopment Authority v. Johnson—a mer owner or, at most, remain in public ownership Is a Solution “Eminent”? case that is cited throughout Costonis’ article as if the city seizes it? Ultimately, the answer must Exhibit A in this whole controversy. await a ruling from the Louisiana Supreme Court. COURTS LEFT TO DECIDE OUTCOME OF STATE EMINENT DOMAIN LAW In a nutshell, property owned by Joseph The Court’s interpretation, Costonis writes, Properties in New Orleans, origi- Burgess, who is now deceased, in New Orleans had will help mould these undefined amendments, nally deserted after Hurricane Kat- a long list of citations in the city’s code enforce- perhaps with results that may surprise their rina, are at the center of the debate “Legislators who use undefined terms to define Pre-eminent background ment office. Three health violations, 10 citations original authors.  on the state’s eminent domain laws. other undefined terms obligate the judiciary to for high grass, and years of unpaid real estate taxes clarify their obscure draftsmanship.” In the 2005 case of Kelo v. City of New London, were among the offenses. Habitat for Humanity The above statement is the first sentence and a the U.S. Supreme Court’s majority decision wanted to buy the Burgess family’s two vacant lots neat summarization of LSU Law Professor John favored government’s ability to deploy its eminent and put Habitat houses on them. Enter the New Costonis’ article—Eminent Domain Under the domain power to advance economic development. Orleans Redevelopment Authority, which filed a 2006 Louisiana Constitutional Amendments: The Justice Sandra Day O’Connor dissented, saying court petition in 2007 to take ownership of the Legislature’s Forward Pass to the Judiciary. that government may not expropriate property and property and transfer it to Habitat for Humanity. Essentially, what Costonis addresses in his arti- transfer it to a private entity solely for that pur- An attorney for the Burgess family contested cle is the fact that Louisiana’s Constitutional pose. The government could, however, take and the move and argued that it was contrary to the Amendments regarding eminent domain are filled transfer property that posed an “affirmative harm” constitutional amendments, primarily the one stat- with so many vagaries that they say much without in order to remove the property’s threat to commu- ing that government had to offer seized property saying anything. Consequently, the onus falls on nity health and safety. back to the original owner or his/her heirs before the Louisiana Supreme Court to interpret the laws When the Louisiana Legislature decided to nar- trying to sell it on the open market. regarding, in this case, eminent domain. row the parameters of the Louisiana Constitution’s 34 L S ULAW LS ULAW 35 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 36

BY JULIE BAXTER

In 1948, the Times-Picayune was the only newspaper people read every morning on Soniat Street where Jack Weiss lived. For that matter, it was certainly the morning paper of choice just steps away in the solarium of the 40-year-old mansion at 5120 St. Charles Avenue that had once been home to silent-screen star Marguerite Clark, and just that year had been donated to the city of New

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FEATURE FEATURE

UT THAT YEAR, when New Orleanian In the summer of 1968, when Robert Kennedy large envelope from the Harvard Law Review, telling Jack Weiss was just a year old, he could hardly and Martin Luther King were both assassinated, him he was invited to join the Law Review. “That know that this uniquely Louisiana roux-like Weiss was selected for the Yale internship in Urban was a moment I will never forget,” he says. Bmix of ingredients that combined New Orleans’ Affairs, and worked in the office of the aggressive Weiss’ time on the Harvard Law Review would oldest newspaper, the film industry, and the world Boston Mayor Kevin White, incorporating academ- set him on a path that led to a clerkship with Judge just beyond those books at the library, would take ic ideals on urban planning, and working alongside John Minor Wisdom, on the Fifth Circuit United him on an odyssey from uptown New Orleans, colleagues from the nearby MIT and Harvard Uni- States Court of Appeals in New Orleans, and in “ through the Supreme Court of the United States in versity communities. 1973, a position as senior law clerk for the Chief the heat of Roe v. Wade and President Nixon’s resig- “We had a group of 12 to 15 students and Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Warren nation, to the boardrooms of Manhattan, and back recent Yale graduates who were fanned out all across Burger. It was the year Roe v. Wade was decided, home to serve as the LSU Law Center’s Chancellor. city government in Boston, working during the day, and, that same year, the Watergate scandal would “I really see the concept of the LSU Law Center meeting to discuss models of urban politics and send Weiss, at 26 years old, into the White House as an outward-looking community, connected to planning in the evenings, directed by a couple of with Chief Justice Burger, President Richard Nixon, I really see the the rest of the LSU campus, to state government in really superb Yale professors in urban studies.” and Spiro Agnew, for the swearing in of the newest Baton Rouge, to the Baton Rouge community, and That internship is one of the models that Weiss Attorney General, Elliott Richardson. concept of the LSU to the broader portions of the state of Louisiana.” hopes to emulate at the LSU Law Center. Antici- After two years working as a legislative assistant Talking with Weiss on a spring afternoon in the pating a 2009 start, Weiss often sketches his vision in the Washington office of United States Senator J. Law Center as an Chancellor’s Office at the law school, he is not a out loud, that—on any given fall afternoon— as Bennett Johnston, Weiss would return to Louisiana man to be rushed. His thoughts come deliberately, many as 52 LSU Law students will be out working to work with Stone Pigman. outward-looking and powerfully worded. It is clear that his vision in a diverse array of positions around the Baton Even then, Weiss was cultivating relationships for the LSU Law Center, where he taught as an Rouge area, gaining experience and carrying the with Louisiana lawyers that would help inspire his community … LSU Law Center flag in all of those offices, as he commitment now as chancellor to expand the LSU adjunct professor from 1985-98, is one born not It was the era of Brown v. Board of Education, terms it. Weiss would like to see a Distinguished Law Center’s role as the flagship law school of his Jack Weiss only from his experience as a business litigator in and as the public debate raged over desegregating Public Service scholarship program created at LSU birth state. the top law firms of New Orleans and New York, the New Orleans school system, Weiss remembers a along the lines of the Chapel Hill Morehead-Cain Seeking to incorporate more input from the but also from his deep love for and pride in his group of New Orleans businessmen that included Scholarship model: a student receives a full-tuition hundreds of talented LSU Law Center alumni serv- home state of Louisiana. his father and other names like Moon Landrieu— When Weiss left his first home scholarship and a guarantee of prestigious intern- ing throughout Louisiana and this country, Weiss “ later Mayor of New Orleans, and Adrian ships and/or externships, combined with a colloqui- talks with anticipation about his vision for the on Soniat Street, he was barely Duplantier, who would one day be appointed a fed- um-atmosphere where scholars are sharing and Young Alumni Leadership Council he created in four years old. His parents had eral judge in New Orleans. “They thought it was enriching one another while gaining real-world pro- 2007. The council includes a diverse membership of just bought a lot in Metairie very important that we comply with the constitu- fessional experience. two representative graduates from each of the previ- Club Gardens in the area later tion on that issue.” Back in his office, Weiss confides his hopes for ous 11 years’ graduating law classes. The group known as “Old Metairie,” right The tide of the civil rights movement, and all of continuing to attract more bright young students gathers twice a year to provide policy input and down the street from the Coun- its forces, would prove to be a heavy influence on with the kind of dreams he had that summer—not direction for the Law Center. try Day School. Weiss’ path into the law. only from around the country, but from within As a complement to the Law Cen- “My mother and father saw a “When I went to Yale in 1964, “ Weiss recalls, Louisiana. “I think we have not yet begun to fulfill ter’s Board of Trustees, Weiss is work- plan in House Beautiful magazine “I was very much influenced by the era of JFK.” our potential in attracting as many of the best and ing to create a Board of Visitors to for a house they loved, and they The 35th President of the United States had just brightest of Louisiana to the law school.” And include input from the LSU Law built that house on Park Road,” been assassinated in November of Weiss’ senior year Weiss certainly knows the hopes of those “best and Center’s incredibly accomplished Weiss says, remembering when in high school. In the aftermath of that so-called brightest.” alumni who are practicing and work- the Metairie area of New Orleans Camelot Era, Weiss enrolled in Yale to major in a By the fall of 1968, Weiss put aside his dreams ing around the nation, the globe, and was still “country.” “We’d come special degree called “Politics & Economics,” plan- of becoming a novelist or literary critic, and chose in Louisiana. He is enthusiastic about home at night and our dog ning to train for a career in public service, and per- public service by enrolling in Harvard Law School. bringing together not only Law Cen- would have cornered a possum or haps even to be a candidate himself one day. But He modestly tells how one of his favorite first-year ter alumni and current law students, a raccoon in the garage. Right two young English professors at Weiss’ residential courses was a fascinating study about the power and but to connect current law students to across the street from us, there college persuaded him that he was missing out by effectiveness of courts and their relationship to the main campus as a whole, and to was a wooded area where we not majoring in English literature. It was a sopho- other branches of government, taught that semester raise the national profile of the law could go and pick blackberries.” more English class and John Milton’s “Paradise by “a young professor named Steve Breyer.” school. Weiss believes the law school is Because his parents wanted him to start kinder- Lost,” that sparked Weiss’ passionate interest in In the summer of 1969, Weiss married the girl facing a particularly bright and presti- garten at four years old, instead of five, Weiss English literary criticism. Along that road, in a he says “picked him up” on their 8th grade gious future. attended Isidore Newman, and not Country Day, tutorial program in writing fiction, Weiss found a hayride—Ann Robinson, who had attended New- “I am interested in providing excit- for all 13 years of his schooling. Weiss’ father was a mentor in an author who was not only America’s man High School with him, and had graduated ing programming that causes under- merchant, as Weiss calls him, who managed the first poet-laureate, but whose name would forever, from Tulane. On their honeymoon in Sevilla, graduates on the LSU campus to Gus Mayer series of department stores that began too, be linked with Louisiana: Robert Penn Warren, Spain, Weiss remembers the moment he opened the attend our programs.” Weiss believes www.law.lsu.edu with a shop on Canal Street. author of All the King’s Men. 38 LS ULAW LS ULAW 39 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 40

FEATURE FEATURE

being my friends.” Then he smiles. “That includes Mediation Clinic. Further, students will be offered Weiss hired Clinical Professor of Law at the Lieutenant Governor Bobby Freeman.” externship opportunities around the Baton Rouge Indiana University School of Law, Robert E. Lan- A meeting with representatives of the Dow Jones metropolitan area, including positions in the areas caster, to serve as the first director of the LSU Law Company, which owned the Wall Street Journal, of tax and criminal justice law, along with plans to Center’s Clinical Legal Education Program, and would lead Weiss to move to New York in 1998, begin a Judicial Externship sending students to Professor of Professional Practice. A longtime pub- and become a partner in the law firm of Gibson, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the lic defender with years of experience in death penal- Dunn and Crutcher. Weiss would come to repre- Louisiana Supreme Court and the First Circuit ty cases, Lancaster brings with him clinical teaching sent the world’s most dominant media corpora- Court of Appeal. experience from Yale, American University, and the tions, including CNN, ABC News, The Associated “Without this new phase at our Law Center,” China Trial Advocacy Institute in Beijing, China. Press, The New York Times Company, and The Weiss says, “we would be missing a golden opportu- “We are immensely excited about introducing Pro- Washington Post Company. nity to do two things: to provide extraordinarily fessor Lancaster to our students and to the “The First Amendment is essentially rooted in important kinds of educational experiences to the Louisiana legal community,” Weiss says. “I believe the very simple idea that we’re out to protect the students here, and, secondly, to connect the law that Professor Lancaster has the vision, energy, and A hand painted expression of a multitude of views at any given school with the broader Baton Rouge and experience to build a model clinical program here at the law school is facing a particularly bright and wooden nameplate, moment in time,” Weiss says. “I always felt that Louisiana communities.” our Law Center.” prestigious future. given to Weiss by his was a proposition that I was very deeply committed Having successfully secured $471,600 in state Weiss’ overall focus promises to facilitate better As Weiss explains his interest in creating more children, marks the to and that I found it very fulfilling and worth- funding for the new clinical program in the 2008 communication among students, faculty, alumni, interdisciplinary campus activities at the Law Cen- chancellor’s office. while to defend.” regular session of the Louisiana Legislature, Weiss and the local community, and better promotion of ter, he relates how he has worked with Dean Jack Weiss’ numerous high-profile cases would also points with gratitude to the generosity of LSU the story of the LSU Law Center, broadcasting the Hamilton of the LSU Manship School of Mass include serving as co-counsel for reporter Matthew Law Center alumnus Rick Richard and his wife, great strides being taken now and into the future at Communication to create a dual degree program Cooper and Time, Inc. in 2005, on a petition for Donna, who donated $250,000 to the new clinical this true wellspring of legal talent. that will allow a student to earn a Juris Doctor and certiorari to the United States Supreme Court seek- program. It’s a daunting task that Chancellor Weiss clearly a Master in Mass Communication in four years, ing recognition of reporters’ privilege in the Valerie “With the Richards’ generosity and the potential relishes. After 32 years—“a good run,” he calls it— similar to the J.D./M.B.A program already in place Plame CIA leak case. In 1999, Weiss was a member 40 percent Board of Regents match to a generous in the practice of law, he counts his new home at at the law school. “I think our students would ben- of the post-trial team that secured the complete dis- $120,000 gift from the Judge Earl Veron family, we the LSU Law Center as one of his greatest blessings, efit greatly from those kinds of activities.” missal with prejudice of the largest known libel ver- are well on our way to beginning a clinical program among which he quickly includes his mother, who That early connection with the journalism dict in American legal history—a $223 million libel that both students and alumni will be proud to be a still lives in New Orleans, his wife Candy, his sons school is not surprising in view of Weiss’ long- verdict against Dow Jones in Texas, in the case part of,” explained Weiss. The new program will David and Eli, and his daughter, Annie. standing connection to the business of media and MMAR v. Dow Jones. That same year, Weiss served also place the LSU Law Center on par with its peer Besides that, it has to feel somewhat comforting media representation. as lead counsel for ABC News in the Louisiana institutions around the country, while helping it being back home where he can wake up each morn- It was in 1990, while still an associate at Stone defamation, privacy and newsgathering tort action not only meet American Bar Association site ing to a cup of Community Coffee® and a copy of Pigman, that Weiss was offered the opportunity to arising from the Prime Time Live exposé of Russian requirements, but move up in the national rankings The Times-Picayune again. join the Phelps Dunbar law firm in New Orleans as baby adoptions. of law schools. an “understudy” in representing The Times- Weiss’ experience in the courtroom as a litigator    Picayune in a high-profile case that then-Governor and practicing lawyer not only confirms his realiza- Edwin Edwards’ brother, Nolan Edwards, had filed tion that LSU must prepare its students for an against the paper in Crowley. That experience international practice of law—he is proud to share would turn Weiss into the Times-Picayune’s primary how the International Law Society created in his lawyer in New Orleans. first year at the law school opened to a standing “I was fortunate that the New York Times Com- room only crowd—but also drives what is perhaps pany owned some papers in Louisiana: the his overriding initiative in these early years as chan- Opelousas Daily World, the Thibodaux Comet, and cellor: the establishment of a strong clinical pro- the Houma Daily Courier. When those papers asked gram at the LSU Law Center, placing students on me to represent them, one thing led to another and the front lines in live client experience and real slowly, but surely, I began representing a whole courtrooms as part of their law school curriculum. bunch of media organizations.” Utilizing the leadership of the Clinical Legal Chancellor Weiss, his wife, Weiss likes to tell how he represented the Baton Education Faculty Committee chaired by Professor Ann “Candy” Weiss, and Rouge television station WAFB in a libel suit Lucy McGough, Weiss spearheaded the Fall 2008 children, David, Annie, and Eli. brought against it by former Lieutenant Governor introduction of a live-client clinical program, which Bobby Freeman. “I met some very good lawyers on includes opportunities for students to work and the other side of the case, including Lewis Ungles- earn academic credits —not only in the continuing by, Camille Gravel, Mike Baer, and Ossie Brown. Juvenile Representation Clinic that Professor I’m proud to say that all of those people that I liti- McGough has taught for the last several years, but www.law.lsu.edu gated against vigorously were people who ended up also in a Domestic Violence Clinic and a Family www.law.lsu.edu 40 LS ULAW LS ULAW 41 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 42

ALUMNIPROFILE Leaving the Campsite Better The Odyssey of Rick Richard

BY JOSHUA DUPLECHAIN

HEN OLIVER “RICK” RICHARD was a kid in high school he received the Madison Avenue Journal—which most high school students probably subscribe to—and set as his goal a job as an Waccount executive on Madison Avenue making $100,000 a year.

It might be disappointing then to learn that the 1977 LSU Law Center graduate never realized that dream. Instead, he settled for becoming the chief executive officer and president of a $7 billion energy company and being friends with Warren Buffett. Not a bad Plan B.

Rick Richard with his wife, Donna (far right), visit with Mary Joseph (´70) during the occasion of the 2007 Chancellor’s Council dinner.

At right: Richard, chairman of CleanFuel USA, is a proponent of alternative fuels, including cellulosic ethanol which can be produced from a variety of agricultural plant wastes such as sugarcane and corn stover, or even switchgrass and sawdust. In addition, his company advances propane as an alternative energy source. www.law.lsu.edu PHOTOBYMARIECONSTANTIN 42 L S ULAW LS ULAW 43 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 44

ALUMNIPROFILE ALUMNIPROFILE

But it isn’t his success that attracts people to program will help the underrepresented get legal him, as much as his general worldview. Richard is advice and give students real-world experience.” the guy who, as the old cliché goes, “never forgot The Richards are also involved in helping the where he came from.” You hear it in his affinity for city of Lake Charles flourish, working to preserve LSU; his hometown of Lake Charles, Louisiana— parts of the city and bringing in new businesses, “ where he lives with his wife, Donna—and the peo- such as a $1.8 billion petroleum company in the ple who taught and worked with him as he made Port of Lake Charles. his way up through the business world. “Always leave your campsite better than you “I see myself as a Will Rogers-type,” Richard found it,” said Richard. “I’ve always thought that said. “I’ve never met a man I didn’t like, and I when I leave a company, if I’ve left it in good shape always believe people are good until I have a reason from a human resources and financial standpoint, not to. I learned from my time in the courtroom then I had accomplished my goal. (In regard to and from the LSU Manship School of Mass Com- Lake Charles), I want to make my campsite better.” munication that there needed to be a civility pres- Commission needed a new commissioner, Richard back, we didn’t get bonuses. We were also able to Always leave your ent. I think there’s a demise in that today.” DAYS AT LSU was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to re-direct a number of executives who hadn’t had Perhaps it’s that philosophy that has fueled sev- succeed Matthew Holden. The decision was either the chance to perform before.” campsite better than When Richard says that he enjoyed his time at 1977 staff of the student eral of Richard’s recent endeavors. In the spring of stay in Lafayette, Louisiana as a partner at Hayes, Richard also shook things up by naming Cathy the LSU Law Center, he genuinely means it. newspaper, The Civilian. 2008, he and Donna pledged $500,000 to the For- Durio & Richard or heed the President’s call. Abbott as C.E.O. of the company’s interstate you found it ... Granted, when he talks about how he enjoyed the Left to right: Bill Lowery, ever LSU Campaign from their foundation, the Needless to say, at the age of 29, Richard pipeline subsidiaries, making her the first woman challenge of the curriculum, one tends to think Rick Richard Rick Richard, Ginger Roberts, Rick and Donna Guzman Richard Charitable became the youngest commissioner in the history to head a major natural gas pipeline company. “this must be the kind of guy who subscribed to and Clay Latimer Foundation. Half the amount helped fund a chair of FERC, earning him the moniker of “boy com- “Cathy Abbott was from the John F. Kennedy in Diversity, Media & Public Affairs within the the Madison Avenue Journal when he was a kid.” missioner.” It was made even more interesting in School of Government at Harvard University and Manship School. The other half went toward help- But he really did make the most of his time at that he was now the decision maker implementing had all the background you need to run a ing support the Law Center’s Clinical Legal Educa- LSU, working as a photographer at the Daily the laws he had helped Johnston pass years earlier. pipeline,” Richard said. “We needed a change in tion Program. Reveille, restarting The Civilian—the Law Center’s culture because it was a bankrupt culture. Her hir- “All minorities are underrepresented in the student newspaper—and helping put together the THE $7 BILLION MAN ing set the tone that we intended to become a media and that was the impetus for the gift to the first Assault and Flattery event, which featured a company of the future and not the past.” “ Manship School,” Richard said. “I felt like there compelling performance of The Devil and Daniel After Richard’s term with FERC expired and he was a lack of funding for minorities in journalism Webster with Professor Saúl Litvinoff as the Devil had served in senior management positions at Ten- FUELFORTHEFUTURE schools, and I felt like with the Forever LSU and Jay Dardenne as Daniel Webster. nagasco, Enron’s Northern Natural Gas Co. Oliver “Rick” Richard presents Campaign, there was an opportunity to give. “With The Civilian, we started small. It was (“when Enron was good,” Richard is quick to Some time after leaving Columbia in 2000, Chancellor Weiss with his “With Chancellor Jack Weiss coming on board two pages of legal paper folded over,” Richard point out) and New Jersey Resources Corp., he set Richard was approached by “an old Conoco hand” second gift in support of the at the Law Center, I wanted to help him get the said. “I was editor and publisher and we sold ads, his sights on the Columbia Gas Company—later about propane and ethanol. Adhering to his friend LSU Law Clinical Legal clinical education program jump-started. The which we used to pay for the paper … so we had Columbia Energy Group. By this time, he had Buffet’s philosophy of investing in a company with Education Program. free editorial control of the paper. We eventually become the first non-engineer to run a major a good idea and good people, Richard consulted brought it up to the size of a tabloid, but it was pipeline. The fact that he was a journalist and a with the company for a time before becoming only 16 pages. lawyer hadn’t prevented him from serving in that chairman in 2005 of CleanFuel USA, Inc. – recog- “My belief is, wherever I go (in business), to role before, and it wasn’t about to stop Columbia, nized as the leading global manufacturer of certi- take over the mode of communication. Then you which was in dire straits. fied and approved alternative fuel dispensing can have fun outside the normal channels.” The company had suffered from bad manage- equipment for both propane and Ethanol 85. ment, customers who had sued for fraud and abuse Currently, the company is trying to build an POTOMAC FEVER and a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in the wake of infrastructure for people to fill up with alternative natural gas deregulation. fuels by working with major distribution compa- After passing the bar in 1977, Richard was After Richard arrived in 1995, the company set nies to put dispensers at their stations. CleanFuel is working with the firm of Sanders, Downing, Kean, a record net income in 1997 of $273.3 million. also getting involved with a new fuel called cellu- and Cazedessus when he was recommended to for- Richard would be named to U.S. News and Busi- losic ethanol, or super ethanol, made from nearly mer Sen. J. Bennett Johnston as a legislative assis- ness Week’s List of Most Underpaid C.E.O.’s for all organic matter, including sugarcane, agricultural tant. He soon contracted a case of “Potomac Fever” Value. Buffett was ranked No.1 and Richard was waste and corn stover, or even switchgrass and saw- and left the legal world to join Johnston in Wash- ranked No. 5. dust. ington, D.C. “We gathered a team, put together a consulting It’s all part of Richard’s worldview, leaving the The major thrust of his work there was “all firm, and spent six months scouring through the campsite better than he found it. things energy,” learning everything from the min- corporation,” Richard said. “We started a program ing of uranium to the capturing of solar energy. So called Columbia Value Added, which meant that if in 1982, when the Federal Energy Regulatory we [management] didn’t earn the cost of capital    www.law.lsu.edu 44 LS ULAW LS ULAW 45 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 46

STUDENTNEWS CLASS ACTION

# # # # While much progress has been made regarding CHANCELLORFORMSSTUDENT P. J.s & ANGEL TREES women in the law profession, Ms. JD’s mission ADVISORY BOARD; ENCOURAGES # statement says there is still work to be done. “If you can balance public service and school, Here She Is# “I don’t think there are the same barriers today STUDENT INVOLVEMENT you can do it once you’re in practice,” said John as there were 40–50 years ago,” said Richardson, Breffeilh, a rising 2L and former Peace Corps MS. JD “We’re all about students,” said Chancellor Jack who was asked by Law Center Chancellor Jack member who served in Benin, West Africa. Weiss as he addressed the first meeting of the Breffeilh helped to organize the Public Interest Weiss to participate in Ms. JD. “A lot of firms are newly formed Student Advisory Board. “It’s why working with women … there has been a change in Law Society (PILS) community service activi- we exist.” ties during the past academic year. the mega-firm culture. If you lose an associate after Weiss formed the group in 2008 with the five years, that’s a huge loss because you’ve sunk a Under the leadership of Kristin Lundin, express purpose of encouraging a more in-depth past president, along with Missy Shaw- lot of money into her.” and candid exchange of ideas and views between Brown and Caroline Johnson, Breffeilh and the Richardson, who was ranked first in her class of the students and the Chancellor’s Office. An open group of 70 plus students achieved a milestone for 197 this past year, is a Baton Rouge native and invitation was sent to the student body asking for LSU Law service activities—both legal and commu- earned her bachelor’s degree in political economy applications from those interested in serving on the nity service oriented. The 1,000 Hours Challenge with a minor in Spanish from Georgetown Univer- advisory group and students enthusiastically volun- Project encouraged students to get engaged. “We sity. At the same time, she began working with Sen. teered, according to the chancellor. exceeded our expectations,” he said. Mary Landrieu. In nearly five years, she would Students serving on the Student Advisory Board Among the service programs were a tutoring ini- serve as a legislative staff assistant and intern; leg- in FY 2008-2009 are: tiative, the Reading Friends Program; MLK Day islative correspondent for health, education, wel- 1Ls: James Morgan Field, Jonathan Love, Graham school clean ups; church group volunteer projects; fare, women and children; and finally, deputy Ryan, Albert "Chip" Saulsbury, Jason St. BR Bar Association social security appeals program; communications coordinator. Julien, Norman Riean, Kevin Blanchard, Seth and Thirst for Justice, the free legal clinic in South “I knew I wanted to do something with govern- Weinstein, Laura Beth Graham, Ashley Mayes, Baton Rouge. ment, so I went to (Washington), D.C. There’s no Erin Cesta, Margaret Richie, Barbara Balhoff, In addition, students conducted a “P.J. drive” to better place to work than ‘the Hill,’” Richardson Holly Stuart collect pajamas for needy children and sponsored an said. “Working with Sen. Landrieu was great angel tree for Christmas gifts. The PILS website also 2Ls: Charlotte Youngblood, Robert Savage, Sarah because in a way, I got to remain close to Louisiana. encouraged students to, “Take out your aggression Public Interest Law Society Cable, Scott M. Levy, Irina Fox, Ashley Tufts, I got to see behind the scenes of how the govern- on a 2’x4’ and some nails.” Students participated in members gather with Professor Sally Richardson Scott Sternberg, Melissa A. Shaw-Brown, ment works and got to help … make things better. more than 10 Habitat for Humanity builds. John Devlin. Christopher Odinet, Victoria Viator  When Sally Richardson found out that she was “I was with her before Hurricane Katrina and going to be part of Ms. JD, her first thought was the 10 days after. It was a devastating experience 3Ls: Lynette Roberson, Kristen Lundin, Catherine similar to what most people would probably be and at the same time inspiring.” Jenkins, Tabatha Olivard, Drew Smith, thinking —“what is this?” and, “I am not wearing Richardson hopes to get involved with energy Damon Bowe, Bradley Aldrich, Michelle a bikini.” law in the future, primarily by working with the Shamblin, Janell C. Weil, LaToya Jordan, In actuality, Ms. JD is a non-profit, non-partisan firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Jeff Coreil, Waukeshia Jackson organization coordinated by law students for women which was recognized by Chambers and Partners as The advisory board identified and studied a in all arenas of the legal profession. It provides a the top energy regulatory practice group in 2007, variety of issues, ranging from scheduling to keep- space for various conversations about the com- receiving a Band One designation, the highest ing up with peer schools. The 2008-09 board will plex issues that women face and the possible ranking a firm can receive. work on individual issues during monthly meet- solutions. It also explores the work of female Richardson will graduate in May 2009 and clerk ings with the chancellor. attorneys and provides networking opportunities, for the Hon. W. Eugene Davis in the Fifth Circuit In addition to the board, the chancellor encour- critical analysis of relevant news, and thoughtful U.S. Court of Appeals next summer.  aged students to meet with him during office hours, discussions for women about their chosen fields attend informal lunches, and participate in “town of law. hall” meetings held each semester. “We want to fos- ter a law school community that has an openness to change, is imaginative, forward-looking, and has a www.law.lsu.edu culture of scholarship and service,” said Weiss.  46 LS ULAW LS ULAW 47 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 48

CLASSACTION CLASSACTION 2007-08 Law Center Moot Court/Trial Advocacy Teams Win Three National Titles New Challenges Ahead for Bruno Tax Competition Three national titles highlighted a successful T WAS IN 2003, while LSU was hosting a regional round of the National Moot Erin Bray, David season for the LSU Law Center’s Moot Court and Court Competition, that Todd Bruno, who had been an assistant professor of legal Conachen, and Adam Trial Advocacy teams, which placed in 11 of its 21 I Savoie with attorney- competitions during the 2007–08 academic year. research and writing at the LSU Law Center since 2001, volunteered to coordi- advisor Jenny Phillips, Students Erin Bray, David Conachen, and nate the competition. As the LSU Moot Court and Mock Trial program developed and more won first place at the Adam Savoie won first place at the National Tax students joined, former Chancellor John Costonis wanted someone to take it over in a National Tax Moot Moot Court Competition in St. Petersburg, Flori- more professional capacity and asked Bruno to helm the burgeoning program. Court Competition in da, marking their second first-place finish and St. Petersburg, Florida, fourth top-three finish in the last four years at the Since then, the program has reached new heights, winning various regional and national marking their second competition. championships, as well as numerous individual honors at virtually every tournament it first-place finish and In addition, Waukeshia Jackson and Jamal has entered. fourth top-three finish Suleiman won first place in the Best Brief Category in the last four years at at the National Black Law Students’ Association While Bruno will remain as faculty coordinator of the program, his new role as acting the competition. Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition. associate director of clinical legal education for externships will allow him to help build The team of Lauren DiLeo, Delon Lewis, and another important part of the Law Center—the new Clinical Legal Education program. Leila Parvizian also won first place for authoring ICC Champion the Best Brief in the International Criminal Court In that position, Bruno will help develop placements for students with lawyers and judges The team of Leila Competition. The brief was published in the Pace to work with real clients and gain real-world law experience. Currently, the plan is to cre- International Law Review. This was the third year Parvizian, Delon ate externship opportunities in three primary areas—a judicial externship, a local and Lewis, and Lauren that Pace Law School hosted this competition and state government externship where students are placed with an organization such as the DiLeo won first place LSU has advanced to the Final Round each year— for authoring the Best the only law school in the world to have done that. State Attorney General’s office, and a public interest externship where students are Brief in the Interna- “Overall, I’d say on a scale of one to 10, this placed within the Public Defenders Office, for example. tional Criminal past year was an eight,” said Todd Bruno, faculty Bruno will continue working through the latter part of 2008 to develop those placements Court Competition. coordinator of the Law Center’s moot court and The brief was mock trial programs. “We did have three national by contacting judges and various state agencies to arrange student opportunities. published in the Pace championships, a state and a regional championship International Law in competition … it was a great season. But our Review. goal is to receive recognition at every event whether that is in an individual or team category. world champion, a United Nation’s Secretary Advocate in the first preliminary round and We are always looking to improve.” described his presentation as “flawless.” Donohue won the same honor in the third pre- It was also a season that saw Moot Court teams, “This event is generally considered the most liminary round. NBLSA which totals 75 students, travel to New York; Vien- prestigious of all moot court competitions in the Nicholas Pascale was named first runner-up in Frederick Douglass na, Austria; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In fact, world,” Bruno said. “Advancing out of the pre- the Best Individual Oral Advocate category at the Competition LSU was one of eight universities to participate in liminary rounds is an absolutely amazing accom- Judge John R. Brown Admiralty Moot Court Com- Jamal Suleiman and the University of Puerto Rico’s first Trial Advocacy plishment; and to think that these students did it petition in New Orleans. Peyton Lambert also Waukeshia Jackson Competition, reaching the semifinals and earning a in just LSU’s second year at the competition received an Honorable Mention at the competition. won first place in the first place in Best Cross Examination. makes it even more impressive.” Finally, the team of David Geerken, Jon Best Brief Category At the Willem C. Vis International Arbitration In other competitions, the team of Savoie, Derek Forester, and Jonathan Ringo advanced to the at the National Black Moot held in Vienna, LSU competed against stu- Tanner, Latoya Jordan and Conachen finished sec- final rounds of the 58th Annual Moot Court Law Students’ dents from 205 law schools representing 53 coun- ond in the First National Sports Arbitration Com- Competition—the oldest and largest in the Association Frederick tries. It was the second year the Law Center was petition at Tulane. The students participated as two nation—in New York City. It was the second time Douglass Moot Court represented at the tournament. The team of Bray, teams and represented both the player and the team in three years that the LSU Law team qualified Competition. Jeff Keiser, Andrew Lilly, Sara Taylor, Shaundra in a mock baseball salary arbitration. for the final rounds by winning first place in its Westerhoff and Lewis – who was recognized in the At the National Environmental Moot Court regional competition. LSU was one of only 28 Best Individual Advocate Category – advanced to Competition, the team of Sarah Stogner Brehm, teams out of 189 to advance to the final rounds, the Final Elimination Rounds. Alyse Richard, and Megan Donohue advanced to placing it in the top 15 percent of all law schools Lewis was one of 83 students out of more than the quarterfinal round—the ninth year in a row who entered the competition.  1,000 to receive the honor. In the round against that LSU advanced that far in the competition, www.law.lsu.edu Germany’s Freiburg University, the defending which it won in 2006. Richard won Best Oral www.law.lsu.edu 48 LS ULAW LS ULAW 49 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 50

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I don’t

IrinaIrina Fox Fox remember “ “But those recruiters were very good. When I At a party for her section during that same walked out of there, I called my mom and said ‘I semester, she met a classmate with a similar back- the last time think I just joined the Air Force.’ Apparently, you ground and both decided that there was a strong NoNo Time Time to to Stop Stop don’t need to be a citizen to join the Air Force.” need at the Law Center for an international law Her three-plus years in the Air Force proved to society. They started with five students, including I said ‘I’m be time well spent, as Fox credits the overall experi- themselves, and membership grew to nearly 100 in ence for helping her learn to manage her time— less than a year. andand Smell Smell the the “ bored.’ It something she has to excel in these days with a Thus far, the society has brought to campus family, a clerkship, and law school. speakers on a variety of topics, notably Dinah RosesRoses ...... Yet Yet During those three years at Scott Air Force Base PoKempner, the general counsel for Human Rights would be in Illinois, she worked as a clinical laboratory tech- Watch who spoke on torture. Fox hopes to see the “ nician in the base hospital and went to school at society grow in membership, with elections for nice to be night at the Community College of the Air Force, officers to be held at some point. There are also earning an associate of applied science in medical plans for movie nights, which would screen inter- They said we bored. laboratory technology. national movies dealing with topical issues; the Fox also met her husband, Brent, at the base development of a co-curriculum with other law can’t tell you over post office when he spotted her reading Readers schools abroad; and greater cooperation with inter- Digest and began speaking Russian to her. They national students outside the Law Center on the the phone ... so I married and had their first child, Kamilah. After main LSU campus. earning her master’s degree in international rela- If it sounds like Fox is burning the candle at put the babies in tions from Webster University in St. Louis and both ends, it’s because she is. Leisure time is a having a second child, Elijah, she and Brent moved phrase she would have to look up in the Webster’s the car and ran to to Baton Rouge, Brent’s hometown. Dictionary she keeps handy. And she isn’t the only RINA FOX, a second-year law student at the “It was right across the wall from my bedroom … Fox had not forgotten about law school and was one going to school. Her children go to Baton the law school. I could hear the sound of meat being grinded,” Fox particularly attracted to LSU’s Law Center because Rouge International School, where they are learn- LSU Law Center, is a self-described nerd. She Irina Fox I said. “I called Health Services to come and do it offered education in both the common law and ing to speak Spanish and French. Kamilah also will admit this, several times, over the course of a conversation, confessing to even reading all of something about it. They came to our door and civil law, which was practiced in Russia. When it takes Chinese twice a week and at home, Fox the terms and conditions that come with a new they already had a bag of meat in their hand, so we came to getting in, however, the post office would speaks Russian to both children. “ credit card. knew that nothing was going to happen.” once again play a key role. “I hear my classmates say ‘what should I do Fox is also second in her class, a mother of two, Fox, being “fearless” and 21, moved to America, “The postman had screwed up our mail and it with the afternoon?’ or the phrase ‘I’m bored.’ I a former senior airman in the U.S. Air Force, an working odd jobs in Minnesota and then Chicago, was all being returned to sender,” Fox said. “I called don’t remember the last time I said ‘I’m bored.’ It immigrant from Russia and yes, a certified opti- where she was offered a job as an optician after the admissions office and said can you please tell me would be nice to be bored. cian. But this is a lot of information to take in at shopping for frames one day. After two years in the if I’ve gotten in or not. They said we can’t tell you “The first break I got was in December. I didn’t once, so the best way to get to know her is to start Windy City, she began to consider law school but over the phone but we can fax it to you. I didn’t have anything to do. I just sat on the couch all day at the beginning. found it was too expensive for her. So Fox consid- have a fax, so I put the babies in the car and ran to long. But I think if I didn’t have kids, I wouldn’t Before she emigrated from Russia in 1999 at the ered the next logical step—the U.S. Air Force. the law school. My son got revenge on them by do as well in school. They keep me focused … it’s age of 21, the Soviet Union was falling apart. Cor- “I thought law school was the thing in Ameri- screaming in the admissions office for half an hour.” a paradox.”  ruption and bribery were running rampant and the ca,” said Fox. “The law was everywhere and I In August 2007, Fox began her first semester as city where she lived—Nizhny Novgorod, the third thought I needed to know the law … I might as an LSU Law student and said she was just hoping largest city in the country—was no different. The well go to law school. It was too expensive so I vis- to keep her scholarship. Instead, she was elated— final straw she said came when a meatpacking com- ited an Air Force recruiter, thinking it was a long- and admittedly astounded—to find herself third pany was built onto the condo where she and her term plan. I wasn’t a U.S. citizen so I didn’t think I in the class. On the flipside, her free time was family lived. could join right away. completely gone.

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developed a passion for assisting victims of domes- Asheville, she participated in three projects aimed tic violence,” said Lundin, a 3L. She views the at protecting and restoring native ecosystems of the summer fellowship as an important learning expe- Southeast. Her interest in environmental law led to rience since she hopes to continue this line of work the summer program where she conducted legal upon graduation. research on projects to protect the endangered Thomas Mallory who will graduate in Decem- mussels in Indian Creek, add the Cerulean Warbler ber 2008, worked in San Antonio during the sum- to the nation’s list of threatened species, and save mer to establish a “pro se” divorce program, over 25,000 acres of Pisgah National Forest Samuel Brown another effort to assist abused women and those through designation as a National Scenic Area. facing divorce proceedings. “The program helps Charles Bukowski, American short-story women to adequately represent themselves and writer, poet, and novelist gave us that famous their children during proceedings, with no costs to quote, “You begin saving the world by saving one the individual,” said Mallory. person at a time.” He’d be pleased to know that Lynn Austin, 2L, is intent on saving the Pisgah seven LSU Law students did just that … but also National Forest in North Carolina, along with a managed to save a forest and a few of the world’s few mussels and warblers. As a summer legal intern smallest creatures, as well.  at Wild South, a non-profit organization based in Nancy Austin

ROM protecting the endangered Cerulean Public Service Job Fair. She spent the summer Warbler to representing the state’s most working in the community lawyering, housing, needy citizens, LSU Law 2008 summer pub- and client education programs. The fellowship lic interest fellows were engaged in an afforded Ziober a small stipend. impressive array of service programs. Seven Several students received awards to work with Fstudents received the competitive fellowship city, state, and federal agencies. Carrie Mills, awards this summer, enhancing their career goals Dustin Talbot, and Sam Brown, worked with the while fulfilling dreams in the process. Baton Rouge Office of the Public Defender, the “I want to use the legal profession to make a federal Public Defender program, and the New Dustin Talbot difference in my community, as did [Judge] Bobby Orleans City Attorney’s Office, respectively. Mills Leslie Ziober DeLaughter,” said Leslie Ziober, a 3L. Ziober had worked with the Office of the Juvenile Defender, a previously served as a summer news intern in Vicks- program that relies heavily on interns, according to burg, Mississippi. “I interviewed Judge DeLaughter, Stephen Dixon, Assistant Public Defender in who in 1994 served as a prosecuting attorney in Baton Rouge. Dustin Talbot’s internship with the the murder trial of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Federal Public Defender for the Middle and West- Delaughter won the case, and Byron De La Beck- ern Districts of Louisiana afforded him the oppor- with, a Ku Klux Klan member, was sentenced to tunity to conduct research and review Presentence life in prison. Since his conviction, there have been Reports. Sam Brown was engaged in everything similar reopened trials from the Civil Rights era from “depositions to witness interviews,” during Kristen Lundin that have prosecuted hate crimes.” The earlier sum- his work with the New Orleans D.A.’s office. Carrie Mills mer internship convinced her that law was her Kristen Lundin, president of the Law Center’s future and a way to fulfill her passion—helping the Public Interest Law Society, received a clerkship disadvantaged. She recalled the experience in her with the American Bar Association’s Commission application for the Law Center’s summer public on Domestic Violence in Washington, D.C. The interest fellowships. organization provides technical assistance and Ziober found out about an opportunity to work training to attorneys representing victims of Leslie Ziober, Carrie Mills, and Nancy Austin with the Montana Legal Services Association in domestic violence. “…While working for the www.law.lsu.edu Helena, Montana through the Law Center’s Virtual Battered Women’s Program in Baton Rouge, I www.law.lsu.edu 52` LS ULAW LS ULAW 53 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 54

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Honored
OT MANY Louisiana lawyers can say they have played jazz piano on stage in an as the East Coast hotel where their opening act for the evening was a young singer 2007 named Natalie Cole—daughter of the great jazz vocalist Nat King Cole. Distinguished Then again, not many lawyers in Louisiana are as comfortable sitting down to LSU Law Center Njam with a jazz band as they are standing up to give an appellate argument.

Alumnus: BUT MIKE RUBIN (‘75) is that lawyer. He is Alvin Rubin to the United States Court of Appeals ATTORNEY equally at home expounding on real estate law, or lec- for the Fifth Circuit, where his rulings would turing on legal ethics to national conference audi- include ending Louisiana’s exemption of women MICHAEL H. ences, as he is preparing an appellate argument in from juries; applying the Voting Rights Act to I love teaching. It

his office in the McGlinchey Stafford firm in Baton Louisiana’s local elections; and upholding the forces me not to speak RUBIN Rouge, or teaching mortgage and finance law to rights of government employees to criticize their third-year LSU Law students at 7:30 in the morning supervisors and organize unions. in ‘legalese.’ I teach ... or even scoring string quartet wedding music. Judge Alvin Rubin served as an adjunct professor (He’s composed more than 40 copyrighted songs.) for more than four decades at his alma mater, the only seniors—3Ls. I When I met with Rubin one wintry morning in LSU Law Center, teaching almost every course in his 13th floor office, he quickly offered me a cup law school, Mike Rubin remembers. “My brother teach them as my col- of tea, and we sat down to talk where his clients and I made a conscious decision that if we stayed “ would normally sit, next to a book shelf scattered here, we knew we would be known as Alvin leagues, and I try to with several pictures, some of them wedding pho- Rubin’s sons, which had advantages and disadvan- tos, of his grown daughters, Bethany and Gillian. tages. But my father never pressured us.” teach them that law is Without missing a beat, when I ask him how he Indeed, Mike Rubin almost became a full-time not a group of little would describe himself, Rubin tells me: “I am my musician, which some of his closest friends would “ wife’s husband and the parent of my children.” For point out may have been a loss to the music boxes—here’s a box of Rubin, everything else is “just an occupation,” as industry. While he was studying English at he terms it. But it is an occupation to which he Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he torts, here’s a box of was born, in many ways —and one for which he would graduate as an honors student, Rubin has not lacked enthusiasm. worked four nights a week playing jazz, “which contracts. We talk It is hard to talk about Mike Rubin’s accom- was not very popular in the ‘60s,” he remembers. plishments without mentioning his heritage. Born His band performed from 8 p.m. till midnight at about how the entire in Baton Rouge, the son of Alvin B. Rubin and “the hotel school on top of the hill” on the Uni- Janice Ginsberg Rubin, Mike Rubin attended the versity of Massachusetts Amherst campus. “The web of the law is University Lab School from the first through the girl who would warm up the audience was Natalie woven. eleventh grades. When his father was appointed by Cole,” Rubin smiles. “You see what happened, President Lyndon B. Johnson to the Federal Dis- where she ended up and where I am.” Mike Rubin trict Court in New Orleans in 1966, the family Rubin’s office is decorated with an eclectic, moved to New Orleans, and Mike Rubin split his mostly modern, mix of art. There are pieces from senior year in high school into a half a year in Lon- the visit he and his wife, Ayan, made to the spec- don as a foreign exchange student, and the last half tacular Louisiana Museum that sits in an old park of the year at Country Day School in Metairie, in Denmark, looking across the famous Oresund from which he would graduate. Bridge to Sweden. There is a plate from an art Rubin admits that he and his brother David show in St. Louis; two pieces from Tuscon, Ari- knew that setting up their law practices in Baton zona; and a dollar bill cartoon clipping from a Rouge would mean daring to live their professional newspaper he bought in London, England. (Rubin lives within the legacy of their father. By 1977, himself is a cartoonist, often signing cards or notes BY JULIE BAXTER President Jimmy Carter had appointed Judge he sends friends with an original cartoon.) www.law.lsu.edu 5 4 LS ULAW LS ULAW 55

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a speech at the ABA convention, and my speech is a year (speeches that often include a quick song or school jaded.” He is quiet for a moment. “I think set for 9 a.m. Sunday morning – the death spot,” a few moments at the keyboard), which means he you ought to come out of law school with the same he laughs. “But the day before I go to a lunch is traveling 80 to 100 days out of the year, he idealism and excitement that you went in. It’s very where Ayan is among the honorees, along with says—trips that he’s proud to add almost always hard. I understand that. But I think you ought to Peter Jennings, Geraldo Rivera, Lucy Arnaz’s hus- include his wife. “We always travel together,” he come out of law school with the same idealism that band, Lawrence Luckinbill—they’re all there. And says, “and usually we’re fighting over who gets the you came in with, but with more knowledge.” I’m the spouse!” He laughs again. “It was fun.” laptop. In the last five years, we’ve been apart Mike Rubin has spent a lifetime accumulating After graduating from the LSU Law Center in maybe three nights.” that knowledge. He talks enthusiastically about his 1975, Mike Rubin would work his way up to Part- In Fall 2008, Rubin will travel to London to latest round of reading—from recounting his read ner in the Sanders, Downing, Kean and Cazedessus lecture on the comparison of the United States of a biographical comparison of Thomas Edison firm in Baton Rouge, and then founded his own rules involving ethical negotiation versus the and Bill Gates, to explaining how he has recently firm, Rubin, Curry, Colvin & Joseph, in 1983. In British rules. “The essence is: if you’re negotiating, been fascinated in the similarities between the writ- 1993, Rubin’s firm merged with the McGlinchey you are in some sense lying,” he explains. “You are ings of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, in that Stafford law firm, where he serves now as the senior misleading the other side, not revealing the entire they both, in the telling of their tales, allow the attorney and member of the firm’s Managing Policy truth. The purpose of my talk is at what level of reader to understand from their vantage point what Committee and he also heads McGlinchey’s appel- puffing, or misleading, are you willing to make, it is the young narrator does not. late practice. and how far will you let the other side misperceive It’s a literary love affair that I soon understand In fact, Rubin has argued major cases before your bottom line?” goes back at least to Mike Rubin’s eighth birthday, numerous state and federal appellate courts, includ- Ethics is one of the most frequent topics Rubin when instead of a birthday card, his mother, an ing the U.S. Fifth and Seventh Circuit Courts of addresses in his lectures around the country. He is accomplished poet and author, wrote him his own Left to right: Mike and Gillian Rubin Parrish; 2007 LSU Law Center Appeal and the Louisiana Supreme Court, in cases quick to argue that lawyers’ ethical dilemmas so personal haiku. It is just one of the many ingredi- Distinguished Alumnus Mike Rubin; Janice Rubin; Ayan Rubin; David and involving constitutional law, labor law, legal ethics, publicized now have been around long before the ents in Mike Rubin’s life that makes the term Robbie Rubin; Bethany Rubin Henderson and Daniel Henderson. local governmental zoning affecting private inter- recent debates over changes in the legal profession. “Renaissance Man” almost an understatement. He ests, property rights, and tax issues. Rubin has han- He points out that the American Bar Association is a man who has not only learned what it takes to dled trial work in ground-breaking cases involving adopted a Canon of Ethics as far back as 1908— attain the highest honor in each of his fields of “My wife and I have a very contemporary Louisiana finance and secured lending, as well as and even then, Alabama had already produced the endeavor, but who also has managed all the while taste,” Rubin says. “And very similar tastes.” Rubin major multimillion dollar commercial cases involv- first Code of Ethics for lawyers. to maintain an irresistibly entertaining sense of tells the story of how, on their six-week honey- ing contract disputes, construction issues, environ- “Law is a huge business enterprise now,” Rubin humor, turning most of his admirers into friends. moon in England in 1972, he and Ayan ducked mental law, and federal voting rights disputes. says, arguing that the practice emphasizes much Simply put: Rubin’s has been a life most excel- into a small art gallery one rainy afternoon. After And it is clear that this highly competitive player different skills than in years past, as young lawyers lent. In fact, you might say, it is a life that has separately scouring the gallery for about half an loves the game. are joining firms now that include hundreds, even been … in a phrase that Natalie Cole would hour, they both met up, ready to leave, and both “At the appellate level, the facts are set,” he says. thousands, of lawyers. “You have to pick and appreciate … unforgettable in every way. volunteered that they had each seen only one piece “Now you have to talk about which principles of choose much earlier what you want to specialize in that they had liked. “It turned out to be the same law should have been applied. The law that you as a young lawyer. I am, fortunately, one of the last    lithograph,” Rubin laughs as he tells it. They choose makes all the difference.” Then he turns to generalists.” brought it home. discussing the Supreme Court. “At the Supreme And Rubin has shared what he has learned, At 58 years of age, Rubin tells how he and Ayan Court, you’re really talking philosophy.” Seamlessly, serving more than 31 years as an adjunct professor have maintained an extraordinarily devoted rela- he is teaching now. “Not merely in this case, but teaching real estate, finance, and ethics,, among tionship. “We get up every morning at 4:30 a.m.,” across the board. You’re deciding what makes sense, other classes, at LSU and the law schools of South- Rubin says, “and we go walking together—usually not merely for this case, but for society. Whether ern University and Tulane University. with Frank Maraist,” another popular professor it’s the Louisiana Supreme Court, or the U.S. “I love teaching,” he beams. “It forces me not to who needs no introduction to any LSU Law stu- Supreme Court, we don’t weigh the total number speak in ‘legalese.’ I teach only seniors—3Ls. I dent who has experienced his legendary first-year of judges below who voted for or against as the case teach them as my colleagues, and I try to teach Torts course. makes it way up the appellate ladder. The Supreme them that law is not a group of little boxes—here’s While Rubin is proud of having created and Court is final, not necessarily because they’re cor- a box of torts, here’s a box of contracts. We talk starred in the first broadcast “lawyer talk show” in rect, but because they make a decision on which about how the entire web of the law is woven.” the country—known as Lawline, the program aired law to apply and how to apply it. And that’s what Rubin sees the LSU Law Center’s mission as from 1976 to 1979 on Louisiana Public Broadcast- you discuss at the Supreme Court level: the policy two-fold: as the primary training ground for ing (LPB) —yet he seems more proud that his wife that the law mandates.” Louisiana’s lawyers, and as an institution tasked Ayan, the educational programming coordinator at Rubin is the immediate past-president of the with creating a constant vision of excellence LPB for over 25 years, who developed a variety of American College of Real Estate Lawyers, an elite through the research and writing of its professors. projects that won several Suncoast Emmys, and 800-member national organization, and also one of “I’m concerned that students come into the law which were twice awarded the highest media award only 50 U.S. attorneys elected to the Anglo-American school with great visions of justice and righteous- bestowed by the American Bar Association (ABA): Real Property Institute. He gives 20 to 30 speeches ness, and for some reason they come out of law the Silver Gavel Award. “At one point, I am giving www.law.lsu.edu 56 LS ULAW LS ULAW 57 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 58

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CLASS OF 2002 CLASS OF 2004 CLASS OF 2006 CLASS OF 2008 YOUNG ALUMNI LEADERSHIP COUNCIL: Annie LeBlanc Dallon Bush Nathan Gaudet Christopher Hester Jackson & Walker Percy & Percy Sullivan, Stolier & Resor Watson, Blanche, Wilson Dallas, TX Gonzales, LA New Orleans, LA and Posner Baton Rouge, LA Law Ambassadors Russell Mosely Oscar M. Gwin IV Brian Su Mosely Law Firm, LLC Christovich & Kearney Howrey Law Firm Jennie Miller Baton Rouge, LA New Orleans, LA Washington, D.C. Andrews Kurth, LLP Houston, TX

CLASS OF 2003 CLASS OF 2005 CLASS OF 2007 Stephen LaFleur Julie Baxter Slattery Johnson Gold, Weems, Bruser, Moore, Walter, Thomp- Blanchard, Walker, Sues & Rundell son, Thomas, Papillion & O’Quin & Roberts Alexandria, LA Cullens Shreveport, LA Baton Rouge, LA Kyle Bacon Lucie Kantrow Kean, Miller, Hawthorne, Kerrie Crockett Phelps Dunbar D’Armond, McCowan & Miami-Dade Office of Baton Rouge, LA Jarman, LLP the State Attorney Lafayette, LA Miami, FL

Norma Bennet Named Chair of Young Alumni Leadership Council

In 1985, she received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Princeton University and subsequently joined the U.S. Air Force, reaching the rank of captain and serving in the first Gulf War. At LSU, she was a member of the Moot Court Board, a Chancellor Weiss and Law Center Chancellor Jack Weiss YOUNGALUMNILEADERSHIPCOUNCIL finalist in the Tullis Moot Court Competition, and vice president Council members gather in of the Black Law Students Association. LSUannounced the formation of a Young ROSTER front of the LSU Memorial Alumni Leadership Council in late 2007, creating “Norma Bennett is a proven leader,” Weiss said. “Her legal Tower during the October a group that will serve as ambassadors who can tes- CLASS OF 1998 CLASS OF 2000 career, service in the Gulf War, and leadership role while at the 2008 meeting. tify to the value of an LSU Law legal education, bring new ideas to the Law Center from their Catherine Maraist Norma Bennett LSU Law Center make her an excellent choice to chair this respective regions, and assist in recruitment of out- US Attorney’s Office Fish & Richardson P.C. impressive group of young LSU Law alums. I’m looking forward standing students. Baton Rouge, LA Houston, TX to the positive engagement of the Council in the substantive The Leadership Council, comprised of 22 Kimberly Robinson Kevin Ainsworth Norma Bennett, a 2000 graduate of the LSU Law Center, was issues of the Law Center.” members representing alums from the past 11 Jones, Walker, Waechter, Jones, Walker, Waechter, named chair of the Law Center’s Young Alumni Leadership Bennett is a director of the Houston Intellectual Property Law graduating classes, meets with Weiss each fall and Poitevent, Carrère & Poitevent, Carrère & spring semester to discuss issues and experiences of Denègre Denègre Council by Chancellor Jack M. Weiss in early 2008. Association, a Houston Young Lawyers Foundation Fellow, and interest to the Law Center. Faculty and staff, along Baton Rouge, LA Baton Rouge, LA Bennett is “Of Counsel” with Fish & Richardson P.C. in Hous- the southern regional director of the American Intellectual with community representatives, frequently partici- ton, Texas. She is a former associate in the Patent Litigation Property Law Association’s Giles Sutherland Rich Moot Court pate in the discussions with the council. CLASS OF 1999 CLASS OF 2001 The membership hails from five states, in addi- practice of the Litigation Regulatory Department of Weil, Got- Competition. She is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the tion to Louisiana, and represents a wide range of Jeffrey B. Norman Raley Alford III shal, & Manges’ Houston office. She has represented clients in American Bar Association, American Intellectual Property Law practice areas. City of Atlanta Stanley Flanagan & several industries, including oil and gas, energy services, phar- Association, and the Houston Bar Association. She is admitted Department of Law Reuter “(The group) will offer feedback on ways in maceutical, and computer industries. Her clients have included to practice before the U.S. District Courts for the Southern Dis- which the Law Center can be responsive in prepar- Atlanta, GA New Orleans, LA Microsoft Corporation, Exxon Mobil Corporation, and Shell Oil trict of Texas and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. ing students for the ever-changing practice of law,” Melanie Mulcahy Laurence J. Centola said Weiss, who added that the council will serve as Derbes Law Firm, LLC Martzell & Bickford Company. www.law.lsu.edu “the eyes and ears for the law school in their worlds.” Metairie, LA New Orleans, LA 58 LS ULAW LS ULAW 59 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 60

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In St. Bernard Parish, Neuner and the LSBA “For more than three months, I’d be surprised if ’76 Law Center Graduate Frank Neuner helped set up a temporary office center for 80 the majority of Frank’s waking hours, seven days a practicing attorneys who had their offices week, weren’t spent on helping lawyers and pre- Named 2008 Distinguished Alumnus destroyed by Katrina. They rented an office trailer serving an effective legal system,” said Jim Roy, and equipped it for the lawyers to use free of LSU Board of Supervisors member and a 1976 charge. The trailer was put on location in January graduate of the LSU Law Center. of the Year 2006 and remained there until April 2007. Recently, Neuner was appointed by Gov. Bobby In addition, monies were raised for three public Jindal as chair of the Public Defender Board. He defender positions in New Orleans, a study by the continues to work on improving the criminal jus- In the days, weeks, and months following Hur- than his contribution as president of the Louisiana National Legal Aid & Defenders Association of the tice system throughout the state with a primary ricane Katrina, there were many concerns at the State Bar Association during the time of the 2005 criminal justice system and indigent defenders emphasis on New Orleans and the areas affected by top of people’s minds. The welfare of the Louisiana hurricanes,” said Judge Catherine “Kitty” Kimball, office in New Orleans, and a co-sponsored confer- Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. legal system, however, was probably not one of the a 1970 graduate of the LSU Law Center and the ence on indigent defense in Louisiana with Yale concerns keeping people awake at night. 1999 Distinguished Alumna of the Year. Law School. Yet Katrina’s reach did extend that far, displac- “At a time when lawyers, clients, files, offices    ing lawyers and affecting those who needed legal and court systems were in significant disarray in a aid in the wake of the hurricane. Enter Frank large part of Louisiana, Frank worked tirelessly to Neuner, Jr., a 1976 graduate of the LSU Law Cen- restore the functioning of the legal system. At the ter and a managing partner of same time, (he was) shepherding Laborde & Neuner in Lafayette. the numerous contributions of Road Lafayette had luckily escaped members of the bar to others the carnage of Hurricane Katri- ravaged by these storms.” Warrior na and shortly thereafter, Hurri- A large part of Neuner’s work cane Rita. Seeing a need in the following the hurricanes CHANCELLORMEETSALUMNI; legal community, Neuner and involved communication. Con- his associates answered the call. sequently, Neuner said he and DISCUSSES INITIATIVES “My law firm was up and his associates were lucky to have “What a great year for our alumni pro- running. We had available office the help of volunteers from the gram,” said Karen Soniat, Director of Commu- space and we were able to house Texas Bar Association who spent nications and External Relations for the Law most of the (Louisiana State Bar their Labor Day weekend help- Center. “Our alums were anxious to welcome Association) here at our office ing to set up a webpage where the new chancellor in their communities, and for more than two months fol- lawyers could find their clients he was a real road warrior. We visited 11 differ- lowing Hurricane Katrina,” and vice versa. ent cities in Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, and Neuner said. “I also realized that A call center was also estab- Washington, D.C.” more than half of the practicing lished within the Law Center, For Weiss, a native of New Orleans, the trips lawyers in the state were dis- and Neuner worked with Beth afforded him the opportunity to meet graduates placed from their homes and offices for more than Abramson, a representative from the American Bar and also to renew acquaintances with former 30 days after the storm. Association’s Young Lawyer Division and FEMA, friends and colleagues from his earlier days in Pete Seale (’67); Craig Murray (’76), chair of the Houston LSU Law Tradition of “I saw a real need to assist them with communi- who was displaced herself, to set up the hotline. Louisiana. Close to 600 graduates and friends Excellence Campaign; Tom Getten (’74), and John Nesser, III (’73) welcome cation and eventually with small stipends to get “I saw this as a type of clinical project that could attended the various events. Gatherings were Chancellor Jack Weiss (2nd from left) to Houston at an alumni and friends reception them back on their feet.” involve giving law students practical experience held in Alexandria, Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Cov- held on March 11, 2008 at the Coronado Club. For these and other efforts, Neuner was named while helping hurricane victims at the same time,” ington, Dallas, Houston, Lake Charles, Mon- the 2008 Law Center Distinguished Alumnus of Neuner said. “Another project we initiated, with roe, New Orleans, Shreveport, and the Year by Chancellor Jack M. Weiss, joining the the help of Mike Rubin and the Disaster Task Washington, D.C. Other cities are on the cal- likes of Judge Alvin B. Rubin, Sen. Russell Long, J. Force, which he chaired, was offering grants for endar for 2009. The events have allowed Chancellor Weiss to share his observations regarding the Bennett Johnston, Patrick A. Juneau, and Michael attorneys in need. The $500 grants were awarded Weiss has launched a variety of initiatives students, programs, and faculty at the Law Center. His remarks have focused on Rubin. The award is given annually to an alumnus to attorneys who expressed intent to continue prac- since his appointment as chancellor, including a noted improvements over the last 10 years as well as the opportunities and challenges who exemplifies the highest quality and ethical ticing in Louisiana. dramatic expansion of the clinical legal educa- of the next decade. standards of the legal profession. It also recognizes “While the amount may not seem like much,” tion experience available to students, formation “Chancellor Weiss is a nationally known attorney who will continue our strong personal and professional achievements, as well as added Neuner, “for someone in need, it was a real of a Young Alumni Leadership Council, and traditions and build on the national reputation of the LSU Law Center,” commented loyalty to the LSU Law Center. benefit. I believe it proved to many of the recipi- jumping head first into A Tradition of Excel- LSU Law grad Sam Gregorio (76), who chaired the Northwest Louisiana reception “Frank has excelled in many legal and leader- ents that the LSBA cares about them and can pro- lence: The Campaign for LSU Law. held in Shreveport, the first city that the chancellor visited in Fall 2007. ship arenas that bring credit both to the Law Cen- vide useful benefits to them.”  www.law.lsu.edu ter and the profession, but maybe none greater 60 LS ULAW LS ULAW 61 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 62

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Regional campaign steering committees and team members include: W.SHELBYMCKENZIE,CHAIR

Alexandria/Central Region Malcolm Johns Hank Gowen Ross Mouhot Bernard Johnson Bill Owens, (chair) John Nesser III Allison Jones Andrea Aymond Susan Pennebaker Jerry Jones James A Bolen, Jr. Mark Pickering John Madison Walter E. Dorroh, Jr. Jim Raborn Kay Medlin Charles D. Elliott Glen Rigby Herschel Richard, Jr. Henry C. Gahagan, Jr. Kenneth Roche Larry Shea Chris Roy, Sr. Samira Salman Vicki Warner Brandon Sues Mark Schroeder Stephen Yancey II John Whaley Pete Seale Northeast Baton Rouge Region Susie Woodard Thomas M. Hayes III (chair) Cordell Haymon Houma/Thibodaux Ashley Burch Mathile Abramson CLASS OF 1967 ENDOWS $60,000 SCHOLARSHIP; Danny Cavell (chair) Brian Crawford Julie Baxter James “Jimmy”Dagate Ben Hanchey ENCOURAGES OTHER CLASSES TO GIVE Will Coenen Cliff Dickerson Cyd Page John deGravelles Andy Reed Russell Woodard Members of the Class of 1967 established an denial on our part of providing many deserving Jim Dore’ endowed scholarship to make a meaningful and individuals the same opportunity given to us when Jane Triche William Kline North Shore permanent contribution to LSU Law. The gift will tuition was negligible.” Donna Lee Lafayette provide an annual scholarship to one or more LSU The generosity of the following donors made Christine Lipsey Hank Miltenberger (chair) Law students. Organizers of the class gift campaign the endowment possible: Jim Bailey, John Breaux, Van Mayhall Pat Juneau (chair) Dawn Amacker sought to create a gift that reflected their genuine Robert Carpenter, Merritt Chastain, Jude Fanguy, Michael McKay Richard Chappuis Michelle Blanchard appreciation for all they had received from their Frank Fertitta, Jimmy Gaidry, Russ Gaudin, Jarrell Robert Morgan Tommy Hightower Howard Daigle legal education. They also hoped that their gift Godfrey, Bill Ledbetter, William Kaufman III, Rob Scheffy Frank Neuner Richard Knight would encourage future reunion classes to match Charles McCowan, Vernon McManus, Carole Eulis Simien Mike Remondet Bob Leake or exceed their scholarship gift. Mosely, Madison Moseley, Raleigh Newman, Bill Lewis Unglesby Katherine “Kay” Theunissen Todd Reeves On behalf of the class, the committee stated, Owens, Randy Parro, John Pugh, Pat Pendley, Alex Cyril Vetter Julian Rodrigue, Jr. New Orleans “In a nation as wealthy as ours, we must reach Rankin, Kenney Riley, Pete Seale, Billy Tauzin, and Ed Walters Southwest qualified students who cannot afford the high costs John Wilson. John Busenlener (chair) of education. To do otherwise would constitute Dallas/Fort Worth Tim Daniels Emmett Sole (chair) Mark Chevallier (chair) M. Taylor Darden Lee Boyer    Jane P. Brandt S. Gene Fendler Roger Burgess Lori Cameron Jan Hayden Paul Foreman Tom Crichton John Laborde David Hanchey FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN Tom Fee Gene Lafitte Jennifer Jones REACHES MILESTONE Susan Halsey Susie Morgan Kathy Kay Don Jones Frank Purvis Winfield Little A Tradition of Excellence: The Campaign for LSU Texas, and other areas with concentrations of LSU Charles F. Seemann III Bill McCall Law has reached an important milestone … the Law graduates. Houston Dean Sutherland Thad Minaldi Patrick Vance Raleigh Newman campaign is one-third of the way toward the cam- Under the leadership of campaign chair Shelby Craig Murray (chair) Rock Palermo paign goal of $28 million! As of June 30, 2008, McKenzie (‘64), 11 regional campaign steering Kent Adams Northwest Rick Richard $9.5 million has been raised with the help of a committee teams have been established. Some 125 Peter Arbour Allen Smith committed campaign team and many generous regional team members are hard at work within the Mary Beth Balhoff Sam Gregorio (chair) Jeff Townsend, Jr. alums and friends. The campaign, part of Forever regions. Ran Coleman Reginald Abrams LSU, goes through 2010. The Law Center retains "Our team, along with Chancellor Weiss, is Mike Cromwell Michael Adams only what it raises in the campaign. committed to the campaign," said McKenzie. Deborah Gentry John T. Cox, Jr. During this past school year, 14 campaign kick- "We look forward to helping the Law Center off events were held in cities throughout Louisiana, achieve its goal." www.law.lsu.edu    www.law.lsu.edu 62 LS ULAW LS ULAW 63 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 64

ALUMNINEWS

IMAGINE LSU LAW with a total enrollment of fewer than 100 students. You receive lots of very, very personal attention from Daggett, Malone, Hebert, McMahon—professors you describe as “giants in the profession.” Dean Hebert negotiates with the Dean of Women for relief of the midnight curfew for women in residence—because the party is just getting good.You graduate and are sworn into practice before the Supreme Court of Louisiana. You go to war and return,andmournforclassmateswhodon’t.Youbuild a practice and build a family; sometimes you build a practice with your family of LSU lawyers. You look The Campaign for LSU Law up, and it’s been more than half a century. These are just a few of the memories Les Avocats, graduates of LSU Law of 51 years or better, shared with each other on May 23, 2008, when more than 70 gathered together for the first time ever. They met Chancellor Jack Weiss, who spoke briefly about the For more information, contact clinical program and the challenges of an environment Office of Alumni Relations where we compete for the best students in Louisiana 225/578-8645, [email protected] and elsewhere. But mostly, they used their time togeth- er to reconnect with each other and to recall with fond- ness the institution that helped make possible some remarkable careers and legacies of service. 

www.law.lsu.edu 64 LS ULAW The next annual Les Avocats luncheon will be Friday, May 29, 2009. LSU IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/ACCESS UNIVERSITY • LSU • 10M • 0109 2009LSULawMag:Layout 1 1/21/09 1:04 PM Page 66