The latest edition of the OCU LAW Professional and Career Development Center’s eNewsletter is now available online. PCDC eNews is published twice a month in the fall and spring semesters with special editions during the summer. 

In this edition:

Low Bono - What Is It?

Most students have heard of pro bono, whereby legal services are provided for no charge, but might not be familiar with the term "low bono," services provided for a discounted fee. According to an article in Small Firm Business on March 31, 2005, the way many attorneys find satisfaction is through a mixture of "bread and butter" work and pro bono or "low bono" work.

Depending on where students may work during law school, the term "low bono" may resonate all too well. For example, getting experience in a district attorney or public defender’s office is invaluable. So invaluable, those positions typically do not pay much, regardless of the geographic market. Students gladly accept this scenario as they know the live experience they will receive outweighs the low pay.

In this episode of the OCU LAW News Podcast, University General Counsel and Distinguished Lecturer in Law J. William Conger talks about how he became a lawyer, how he became a legal educator, his hopes for the next generation of lawyers and his work in increasing access to the legal profession among lower-income groups. Professor Conger is past President of the Oklahoma Bar Association. 

Listen to the podcast in the player at left or by clicking below. The OCU LAW News Podcast also is available through iTunes, Podcast Alley and Odeo. 

 

 Episode 13 - March 2009: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Every spring OCU LAW hosts its annual black-tie benefit gala and awards dinner. The Legal Affair 2009 will return to Oklahoma City’s historic Skirvin Hilton Hotel on April 25. All proceeds from the evening will support the OCU LAW Scholarship Fund. 

William R. "Bill" Burkett will receive the Marian P. Opala Award for Lifetime Achievement in Law. Cathy Christensen ‘86 will receive the Community Service Award, Professor Emeritus Richard E. Coulson ‘68 will be recognized as the Distinguished Law Alumnus, Donna Suchy ‘99 will be named Outstanding Young Alumna, and Hall, Estill, Hardwick, Gable, Golden & Nelson, P.C. will be named the Law Firm Mark of Distinction. 

For more information on attending or sponsoring the Legal Affair, contact OCU LAW Assistant Dean for Advancement Marc Thompson at (405) 208-5442 or e-mail lawevents@okcu.edu. 

The Oklahoma City University Law Review announced its 2009-2010 Board of Editors and Staff Editors. Serving as Editor-in-Chief will be Katherine Lee Holey. Mike Chase Ritter was named Managing Editor, and Lori McConnell and Bradley Michelsen were named Articles Editors. Amanda Warren and Christopher Wills were named Resource Editors, and Heather Basler, Amanda Bullington, Dearra Johnson, Nicholas A. Johnson and John Wiggins were named Staff Editors. Joshua Snavely will serve as Executive Editor.

OCU LAW, like many colleges and universities around the nation and the world, has been expanding its online presence. In an effort to communicate more effectively with current and prospective students, alumni, faculty, staff and the greater legal community of which we are a part, OCU LAW has branched out into the world of Web 2.0 and social media. The OCU LAW website, blog and podcasts represent our flagship online efforts, but there are a number of places around the web to connect with us:

• OCU LAW’s newest foray into social networking is with our Twitter feed, which is a tool that many universities, businesses and individuals use to broadcast 140-character announcements, missives, and questions. Users may subscribe to OCU LAW’s Twitter status updates and, if they choose, receive them as SMS messages via their mobile phones. OCU LAW is one of the first higher education institutions - and the first law school - in Oklahoma to utilize Twitter to communicate with its constituents.
• OCU LAW has a Facebook page. Users of the web’s most popular social networking site may become fans of the law school and connect with classmates, alumni, faculty and staff. 
• For professional networking, OCU LAW has set up a group at LinkedIn that members of the community may use to connect with one another, as well as other members of the legal profession.
• For some time OCU LAW has hosted photos at Flickr. Visitors to the site may view and download photos from OCU LAW events and archives, and may order prints by signing in with a Yahoo! ID. More information on using the Flickr site is available here.
• OCU LAW hosts videos at the popular video-sharing site Vimeo, allowing internet users to view past lectures and events, as well as commercials and announcements of upcoming events and interviews with alumni, including our brand-new Profiles in Success video series. 

Users of any of the above sites are encouraged to connect with OCU LAW online and keep up-to-date of coming events and breaking news, and to connect with other members of the law school’s large and growing community of students, alumni, faculty, staff and supporters. 

As part of its ongoing commitment to professional and career development, OCU LAW has launched a new series of online video interviews to offer students career preparation advice from successful attorneys.

The series of videos, called Profiles in Success, builds on a monthly podcast already available from Assistant Dean for Admissions Bernard Jones and Assistant Dean for Professional & Career Development Gina Rowsam.

The monthly podcast offers both prospective students and current students advice on preparing for law school and a legal career. OCU LAW launched the monthly podcast in October.

About the video project Rowsam says, "In this uncertain economic climate, it’s more important than ever that students have in mind what success can look like and begin taking steps to position themselves to achieve it. Our development of this video series is designed to show various examples of success and to educate and inspire current and prospective students about ways they can develop their own successful careers."

By logging on to the Profiles in Success video page, students can watch interviews with successful OCU LAW alumni and other members of the legal community as they discuss important preparations for a career in the law.

The initial series of videos features OCU LAW alumni like Peter Dobelbower, general counsel at Hobby Lobby — one of the nation’s largest arts and crafts retail chains; Tynan Grayson, an associate with Crowe & Dunlevy in Oklahoma City; and Juan Rodriguez, with the U.S. Attorneys Office in Dallas.

Below is the first video in the series featuring Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater:

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled that an Oklahoma law that prohibited employers from banning guns in employees’ locked cars was not pre-empted by federal law and should be allowed. OCU LAW Assistant Professor of Law Michael O’Shea discussed the case with Journal Record reporter Marie Price in an article appearing today. 

O’Shea’s academic work focuses on the parts of the Bill of Rights that are often "confrontational" or controversial, including the Second Amendment. O’Shea appeared on a number of state and national media outlets last spring when the Supreme Court ruled on its first Second Amendment case in decades, that of D.C. vs. Heller. 

The question in this most recent case was whether the Occupational Health and Safety Act’s requirement that employers provide their workers a place of employment free of "recognized hazards" included handguns left in parked and locked cars. A federal judge had ruled that those guns constituted a "recognized hazard," a decision that the Tenth Circuit panel disagreed with, allowing Oklahoma’s law to stand.

"The question was whether risk of gun violence in the workplace should be considered a recognized hazard, such that, to the extent the Oklahoma laws prevented an employer from preventing that hazard, that would be a kind of conflict that leads to federal pre-emption," O’Shea told the Journal Record.

The full text of the article featuring Professor O’Shea’s analysis is available at the Journal Record’s website.

Last week the popular social networking site Facebook caused a stir with a change in its TOS, or Terms of Service, which stated that Facebook owned user-uploaded content even if users removed the content or cancelled their accounts. The popular blog Consumerist first noticed the change, igniting a controversy which resulted in Facebook withdrawing the change in the TOS. 

OCU LAW Professor Deborah Tussey spoke to Don Mecoy, Business reporter with the Oklahoman, about the controversy and its legal implications. Their Q&A is available on the NewsOK website. 

On Thursday OCU LAW Professor of Law Phyllis Bernard will speak on a panel at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Moritz is hosting a symposium on Alternative Dispute Resolution titled "The Future of ADR: Incorporating Dispute Resolution Into Society," and Bernard will speak on the opening panel, titled "Why A Twenty-First Century Law Practice Will Not Thrive Using Nineteenth Century Thinking (With Thanks to George Lakoff)". Bernard also will publish an article by that title in the symposium issue of the Ohio State University Journal on Dispute Resolution later this year. In October 2008 Professor Bernard presented at Fodham Law School’s annual ADR symposium on "The Evolution of the New Lawyer."

On March 21 Professor Bernard will present at Marquette University Law School’s International Media and Conflict Resolution Conference. She will give a presentation about political and social volatility and the press, focusing on Nigeria, where she has done mediation training on this issue via a U.S. State Department grant that she wrote. Professor Bernard also will appear in the spring 2009 ABA Dispute Resolution magazine, which will run an article she wrote based in large part on discoveries made through OCU LAW Mediation Clinic students over the years.

The latest edition of the OCU LAW Professional and Career Development Center’s e-Newsletter is now available. PCDC eNews is published twice a month in the spring and fall semesters, with special editions during the summer. 

In this edition:

Interview Questions Designed To Trip You Up

As students prepare for the interviewing process, there is no shortage of advice or wisdom on the topic. How to handle a particular question, "What is your greatest weakness?" seems to foster varying viewpoints. For a recent take on how some employers are processing responses to this question, please check out a recent article by Joann S. Lublin titled A Question to Make a Monkey of You published by the Wall Street Journal Online. Special thanks to Nellie O’Mara-Morrissey, Class of 2011, for suggesting that it be shared with students.

The Professional and Career Development Center is open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday; 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday; and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays, as well as by appointment to accommodate evening students. The PCDC provides resources to students and alumni in helping them to develop professional skills and to connect with career opportunities and potential employers. For more information or to schedule an appointment call (405) 208-5332 or visit PCDC’s website.