Lee Peoples, Associate Professor of Law Library Science at OCU LAW, spoke at a Georgetown symposium titled "The Future of Today’s Legal Scholarship" held in honor of the late Robert Oakley, former Director of the Georgetown Law Library and a well respected law librarian. Peoples discussed the use of blogs in judicial opinions and litigation.

Peoples also spoke  at the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting in a session titled "Law Librarians Abroad: Is a Foreign Study Program for You?" Darla Jackson, Head of Reference and Access Services at the OCU Law Library, coordinated and moderated a program at  the AALL Annual Meeting titled "Understanding the Mean: How the Average Law Librarian Can Encourage Empirical Research Initiatives."

Peoples designed the Law Library’s new online repository earlier this year, allowing the public to search and access important scholarly works by the law school’s 35 faculty members. Peoples also was a guest on the August 2008 edition of the OCU LAW News Podcast, discussing OCU LAW’s study abroad programs and its summer 2008 Certificate in American Law program.

This week OCU LAW offered students taking the bar exam a lunchtime respite at the Hilton Garden Inn on South Meridian in Oklahoma City. The luncheon is a longtime tradition sponsored by OCU LAW — a chance for faculty, administrators and staff to show their support for students during a stressful and important time. Photos from the event are below.

OCU LAW Professor Carla Spivack’s article To "Bring Down The Flowers": The Cultural Context of Abortion Law in Early Modern England appearing in Volume 14, Issue 1 (Fall 2007) of the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, will be cited in the upcoming edition of the textbook Modern Family Law by D. Kelly Weisberg and Susan Frelich Appleton.

In the cited article, Spivack examines the cultural context that shaped abortion law in early modern England, stating that "the penalties for abortion in the common law had to do with injuries to the woman carrying the fetus and to the putative father, not with injury to the fetus as a person. Further, beliefs about man’s capacity for reason and ensoulment make it unlikely that the pre-quickening fetus was deemed to possess the same human status as the fetus after quickening."

Professor Spivack earned her bachelor’s degree in German Literature from Princeton in 1983, her law degree from New York University in 1999 and a Ph.D. in English Literature from Boston College in 2006. Before joining the OCU LAW faculty, Professor Spivack practiced civil litigation at Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, a New York law firm. She also clerked for the Hon. Robert G. Flanders, Jr., of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Professor Spivack was a guest on the April 2008 edition of the OCU LAW News Podcast, where she talked about her class on Shakespeare and the Law. 

OCU LAW Professor Frederic Schwartz served on the panel of academic contributors for the recently-released Ninth Edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, considered the most widely used law dictionary in the United States.

Schwartz was among the legal experts who participated in editing the recent edition, published in late June. The Ninth Edition contains 2,000 more terms than the previous edition — with more than 45,000 terms in all, and alternate spellings or equivalent expressions for more than 5,300 terms.

Henry Campbell Black established the dictionary with the publication of the first edition in 1891. Black was also a constitutional scholar who helped to found the National Association for Constitutional Government. While other law dictionaries have remained important to the legal profession, over the years Black’s Law Dictionary has emerged as the dictionary of choice in most legal briefs and many court opinions, and has been cited as a secondary source in many U.S. Supreme Court cases.

Both online and printed editions of the dictionary are available through publisher West.

Professor Phyllis Bernard recently offered a keynote presentation for a three-day conference sponsored by the United Methodist General Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

The 2009 Institute of Higher Education drew 62 faculty and presidents from universities and colleges affiliated with the denomination. In her role as founding and current director of the Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution at OCU LAW, Bernard spoke about the power of education to create a more peaceful world.

“How do you fight stereotypes that kill? You fight them with education,” Bernard told educators at the conference. “Education that values both intellect and human dignity can reshape communities." 

The full text of an article about Professor Bernard’s recent speech is here.

Bernard often travels to countries in Africa to work to settle inter-tribal conflicts (she’s pictured here during one of her visits to Nigeria). She talked about her work in Africa in an OCU LAW podcast last year.

A federal appeals court has revived a class-action lawsuit by a group of OCU LAW alumni who were challenging Wisconsin’s diploma privilege, which allows students who graduate from Wisconsin law schools to skip that state’s bar exam. Recent OCU LAW graduate Christopher Wiesmueller argued the suit against the Wisconsin Board of Bar Examiners before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit last April. The case has been followed by national media, including the Wisconsin Law Journal, Wall Street Journal Online, Inside Higher Ed and The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. 

The Seventh Circuit’s decision reverses a 2007 decision by U.S. District Judge John C. Shabaz, who dismissed the case. The Seventh Circuit ruled that the case had been prematurely dismissed and gives the plaintiffs, including Wiesmueller’s wife Corrine and OCU LAW alumna Heather Devan, the chance to prove their case in district court. Wiesmueller, a Milwaukee native, originally filed the suit while a student at OCU LAW. He has since taken and passed the Wisconsin Bar Exam and is practicing law in Waukesha, Wisc.

OCU LAW Professor Arthur G. LeFrancois spoke to Oklahoman reporter Michael Kimball this week about the Oklahoma City Police Department’s new policy requiring a 48-hour waiting period before collecting a statement from an officer forced to use deadly force against a suspect. The policy was adopted last year and differs from normal investigative protocol wherein civilians are questioned immediately after shooting someone in self-defense.

"One could say police officers warrant a kind of presumption in their favor because they’re … sworn to uphold the law, and in a sense they defend all of us," LeFrancois said. "(But) one might wonder why, in some of these cases, techniques that are appropriate for others aren’t appropriate for police officers."

The full text of the story is available on NewsOK.com.

The 2008 elections may seem like only a short time ago, but already potential candidates are gearing up to run in 2010. OCU LAW alumni number many among those who aspire to lives of public service, and two of them have recently announced that they will stand in Oklahoma’s 2010 statewide elections.

OCU LAW Class of 2005 graduate and current Oklahoma State Senator Todd Lamb announced recently that he will run for Oklahoma Lieutenant Governor. Senator Lamb earned his bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma State and worked for four years in the administration of former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating before attending law school. In 1998 he became an agent with the United States Secret Service. He was first elected to the Oklahoma State Senate in 2004.

It also was announced recently that 1976 OCU LAW graduate and former State Senator Owen Laughlin is considering a run for State Treasurer. Sen. Laughlin served for 12 years in the State Senate before his term limit expired in 2008. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Okla., and has worked in the banking and real estate industries for over 20 years. More information on his recent filing with the Ethics Commission is available at the Enid News & Eagle website.

In addition to his busy role as senior attorney and manager of Global Public Policy at Intel’s Washington, DC, office OCU LAW alumnus Brian Huseman ‘97 is also blogging for the semiconductor chip maker.

Policy@Intel launched in April as a place to exchange ideas and opinions with Intel’s Global Public Policy staff.  The blog gives the public policy staff a platform "to share Intel’s strategy and to address key opportunities and challenges facing the technology and innovation community."

Most recently, Huseman offered a post about a hearing related to privacy issues in the U.S. healthcare system.

In his role at Intel, Huseman focuses on a variety of issues dealing with competition, trade, privacy and workforce policy. Huseman recently joined Intel from the Federal Trade Commission, where he most recently served as Chief of Staff. Prior to that position, he served as an advisor to the chairman on a variety of consumer protection issues. He previously was a staff attorney in the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection where he litigated Internet fraud cases and was the FTC’s point person on spam. Huseman joined the FTC in 2001 after spending almost two years at the Department of Justice, Criminal Division. Brian also served as a judicial law clerk to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma and to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In this month’s episode of the podcast, we talk to Professor Andrew Spiropoulos, who is the head of OCU LAW’s Center for the Study of State Constitutional Law and Government. Professor Spiropoulos talks about this year’s session of the Oklahoma Legislature and the potential effects of federal stimulus money on the future of the state’s government. He also talks about the agenda undertaken by the newly majority-Republican body.

From 2005-2006 Professor Spiropoulos was the Senior Counselor to the Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, where his duties included serving as chief policy advisor and negotiator.  Professor Spiropoulos clerked for Judge Danny Boggs of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and practiced law with the Chicago firm of Gardner, Carton & Douglas before joining the faculty. He has been a Heritage Foundation Salvatori Fellow and is an adjunct scholar with the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. He was the reporter for the Uniform Interstate Enforcement of Domestic-Violence Protection Orders Act.

To listen to the podcast click below or in the sidebar at left. The podcast also is available through iTunes, Podcast Alley and Odeo.

 

 Episode 16 - June 2009: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download