A Day in the Life

Justice Breyer Visits the Law School

Although the height of the admissions season has caused a brief hiatus in posting on the blog (applications at Chicago are up this year, which means it has been quite busy around here), we thought today would be a great day to post because there are some exciting things going on at the Law School.  This weekend, the Law School is hosting a "Shakespeare and the Law" conference, featuring a special guest - Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer!  Faculty member Richard Posner, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, will also be performing.  If you want to read more about the conference, check out this post on the Faculty Blog.  

On a somewhat related note, there is a buzz around the Law School as everyone eagerly awaits the announcement of President Obama's first Supreme Court nominee.  Law School professor and Judge Diane P. Wood, currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, has been reported to be on the short list for the Supreme Court nomination.  (There was an interesting profile of Judge Wood in the New York Times earlier this week.)  Judge Wood currently teaches a 1L Civil Procedure course at the Law School. 

Clinics In the News: Institute for Justice Clinic on Entreprenuership Feature

One of the Law School's clinical projects, the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship ("IJ"), was the subject of a recent piece in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, the source for news in the Chicago legal world, highlighting its work with low-income individuals wishing to start up businesses in the Chicago area.  The piece focused on one the project's recent success stories: the Perfect Peace Cafe & Bakery located on Chicago's southwest side.  The shop is a bright spot in what is an otherwise desolate neighborhood but the hope is that its arrival will mark the reinvigoration of the community, not only providing residents with a gathering place but also inspire other businesses to return to the area. 

Project Director and Lecturer in Law, Elizabeth Milnikel, described some of the Project's goals and its recent work for clients like Perfect Peace Cafe & Bakery's owners, Denise Nicholes and Julie Welborn: "We're trying to serve those who can't afford an attorney.  We're convinced that an entrepreneur's ability to create new business creates new opportunity for the entrepreneurs, community members and potential employees."  Among the services IJ provides its 150 clients since its inception nearly ten years ago are: writing and negotiating contracts, creating loan agreements with investors and lenders, acquiring business permits and helping clients understand workplace safety regulations and payroll taxes. 

Nicholes and Welborn praised IJ's attentive and responsive service stating, "It was just a miracle how everything came together, ... [t]here were questions I never knew I had to ask."  Welborn went on to further praise IJ's work on their behalf, "At any time we needed to negotiate with the contractors, architects or landlords, they were a part of it.  To this day, anything I do, I run by them first.  In that alone, I don't even know how to put a value to it."

The benefits of the project extend not only to its clients but also the 2L and 3L students who participate.  Kathy Lee, a 3L in the project and member of the Clinic Student Board, commented: "Being able to see issues real people face and being able to address them ... wading through their stories and picking out the legal roadblocks they might face, that is completely different from the experience of going through hypotheticals" in the classroom. 

IJ is just one of the unique clinical projects at the Law School offering students the opportunity to do transactional work that also intersects with aspects of intellectual property and regulatory law.  You can learn more about the other clinical projects by visiting the Clinical Education homepage as well as visiting past posts on the clinics here on "A Day in the Life."  To read the full piece in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin visit the Law School News Page.

The University of Chicago Law School Connection

Law School alums go on to careers in many different areas -- law (of course!), politics, business, academia, and public interest -- all across the country and around the world.  Despite the myriad of directions our students take after graduation it is not unusual for them to cross paths again and again as they advance through their legal careers.  The appeal of convicted former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio, now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is just one of the latest such examples.  Oral arguments in Nacchio's appeal, held on December 11th, brought together not one, not even two, but four Law School alums who are involved in the case.  Former Law School professor Judge Michael McConnell ('79) (and past Hinton Moot Court judge) sat on the three judge panel who heard arguments from Nacchio's appellate attorney Maureen Mahoney ('78) (Mahoney, whose track record as an appellate attorney is formidable, also successfully represented the University of Michigan Law School in the landmark case on race in admissions, Grutter v. Bollinger,  before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003).  A key issue in Nacchio's appeal was the lower trial court's ruling excluding the expert witness testimony of Law School professor Daniel Fischel ('77).  Rounding out the quartet was U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado Troy Eid ('91). 

Law Students Give High Marks to Lecturer in Law, Senator Barack Obama

We are very fortunate to have as a member of our community Senator Barack Obama, currently a Democratic candidate for President, who began teaching as a Lecturer in Law at the Law School in 1994.    Although Senator Obama has been on leave since 2004, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate, he made a lasting impression while he was teaching. Law School student course evaluations from the past ten years show that our students consistently ranked Senator Obama as one of their top instructors. 

Not only is Senator Obama a member of the Law School community, he and his family are also members of the Hyde Park community, the neighborhood where The University of Chicago is located and home to much of the Law School faculty.  This fall he was occasionally spotted on the Midway watching his daughters’ soccer games.  Today there was an article today in the Chicago Sun-Times in which the Senator discusses his time at the Law School, stating, "I loved teaching."  Take a minute to read the full story, including some equally enthusiastic comments on Senator Obama's days at the Law School from other members of the faculty.

Law School Lecturer in Law, Judge Mark Filip Nominated for U.S. Deputy Attorney General

Highly regarded U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Illinois and Lecturer in Law at the Law School, Mark Filip, was nominated Thursday by newly sworn-in U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to serve as Deputy Attorney General, the second-highest ranking official in the Justice Department.  Filip, who has taught courses in criminal procedure and federal jurisdiction at the Law School since 2004, has been one of our most popular teachers and we will miss him when he moves to Washington.  We all at the Law School wish Judge Filip the best of luck with this exciting new opportunity.

U of C's Police Accountability Project Releases Major Study of Chicago Police Department Misconduct

The Mandel Legal Aid Clinic's Police Accountability Project released Wednesday a groundbreaking study of the Chicago Police Department's supervisory and disciplinary practices in its report, "The Chicago Police Department's Broken System."  The study, co-authored by Clinical Professor and head of the Project, Craig Futterman, prior Clinical Lecturer Melissa Mather, and recent graduate Melanie Miles ('07), outlines the results of a three-year study into the habitual misconduct of a group of Chicago police officers assigned to Chicago's former south side public housing projects.  The study's origins lie in the case of Diane Bond, a fifty year-old resident of Stateway Gardens, one of the former public housing communities located on the south side of Chicago, who was the victim of multiple instances pf physical, verbal and emotional abuse at the hands of the rogue team of officers assigned to the housing project.  The Clinic represented Ms. Bond in her litigation against the individual officers and the CPD and in the course of law students' fact investigation the students uncovered the pattern of abuse and sparked the idea for the study. 

The study, which has gained attention in local and national print publications, radio and television, not only demonstrates fundamental and systematic failures of the Department to address misconduct of its officers, it also discusses ways in which the study's use of statistical analysis can be used in litigation against police officers who engage in the type of abuse examined in the study. 

This type of complex and substantive investigation and scholarship is indicative of the quality of work our students perform as part of their clinical experience.  The study will be published in the upcoming Volume 23 of the Civil Rights Litigation and Attorney Fees Annual Handbook.