First Monday - April 4, 2011

In this issue:

• Moot Court Team Earns National “Best Brief” Honor
• Bellwood Lecture to Feature Author of “My Prison, My Home”
• “Statewide Class of 2011” Celebrates Achievements and Public Service
• Student Organizations Bring Special Programs and Speakers to Campus
• Practitioners Collaborate with College of Law in Hosting ABA “Representation in Mediation” Competition

Moot Court Team Earns National “Best Brief” Honor

3L students Brian Dickson and Andrew Jorgenson returned home last week from the John J. Gibbons National Criminal Procedure Moot Court Competition at Seton Hall University, where they received the “best petitioner’s brief” award. Dickson, who received his undergraduate education at Carroll College of Montana, and Jorgensen, a graduate of Idaho State University, also advanced to the “sweet sixteen” round in the oral argument phase of the national competition. Forty law schools sent teams to the 2011 Gibbons Competition, now in its 18th year of specializing in advocacy on issues of criminal law and criminal procedure. The Idaho students were coached by UI law professor Alan Williams, who teaches criminal procedure, evidence, and litigation courses. He can be contacted at afwilliams@uidaho.edu.

Bellwood Lecture to Feature Author of “My Prison, My Home”

On Friday, April 29, 2011, the Sherman J. Bellwood Memorial Lecture Series will present a unique program. Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, founding director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., will speak on the topic “My Prison, My Home: A Scholar's Personal Perspective on the Middle East and the Search for the Rule of Law.” In 2007 Dr. Esfandiari was imprisoned in Iran for 105 days upon the unfounded suspicion that she was a spy. She was released after the U.S. State Department in the Bush Administration, as well as political leaders, scholars, and journalists around the world, took up her cause. She will share a perspective crystallized by that personal experience and informed by her interdisciplinary scholarship on the Middle East. The lecture, which is open to the public, will begin at 4:00 p.m. Pacific time in the Administration Auditorium on the Moscow campus. The lecture will be available via live web feed at www.uidaho.edu/live, as well as via compressed video to the University of Idaho Boise Center, Room 162. Earlier in the day, the Bellwood Lecture will be preceded by a panel discussion, to be held in the College of Law courtroom, for an audience consisting primarily of law students, faculty, and staff. The panel discussion will focus on the meaning of the rule of law and on the opportunities and challenges facing persons dedicated to advancing democracy and human rights in a turbulent world.

In addition to the events in Moscow on April 29, our Bellwood speaker will deliver remarks at a reception the preceding evening -- Thursday, April 28, 2010 -- in Boise. During the reception, to be held at the Boise Centre on the Grove at 5:30 p.m. Mountain time, Dr. Esfandiari will offer commentaries on issues facing the Middle East. The reception is free, but attendance is limited and an RSVP is required. The RSVP may be submitted by e-mail to law-events@uidaho.edu. Further information about the Bellwood events.

“Statewide Class of 2011” Celebrates Achievements and Public Service

On March 26, at the Class of 2011 celebratory banquet in Moscow, the College of Law recognized the 3L students who comprise the College’s inaugural statewide graduating class. The historic class of 2011 includes 29 students who have pioneered the third-year program in Boise, as well as 75 students who are completing all three years of their law study in Moscow (including a student in the College’s semester-in-practice program). The College chartered a bus to bring Boise students to Moscow for the celebratory event, which was keynoted by Law Advisory Council chair and state Senate Majority Leader Bart M. Davis (Law ’81), of Idaho Falls. Reflecting on his own graduation exactly thirty years earlier, during a time of economic recession, Senator Davis assured the students that their Idaho degrees would serve them well, as his degree had served him. He noted with approval the increased presence of women in the graduating class, in comparison to his own. He urged all students to “follow the good path” of civility and high moral values; to resolve conflict wherever possible, rather than creating it; and to measure their success in terms beyond dollars. The tenor of his remarks resonated with the commitment the Class of 2011 already has demonstrated to pro bono service. Law instructor and pro bono program director Trapper Stewart lauded the class for compiling approximately 10,800 donated service hours -- with “alternative spring break” activities and other late-semester service yet to be tallied – encompassing such endeavors as court-appointed special advocates for children, wills and living wills clinics, tenant rights and responsibilities education, assistance to qualified applicants for naturalization and U.S. citizenship, aid to small business entrepreneurs, supervised work in offices of public defenders and Idaho Legal Aid, and participation in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. The “Above and Beyond” award for exceptional pro bono service was conferred upon student Ruth Coose (Moscow). The “Spirit of the Clinic” award was made by Professor Maureen Laflin, Director of Clinical Programs, to Jason Crume (Boise). The “Spirit of the Class” award was presented by Elizabeth Brandt, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, to Leon Samuels (Moscow), and the “Outstanding Student Service” award was presented by Helen Albertson, Associate Dean for Students and Administration, to Laura Keys (Moscow). Further information about the graduating class celebration and the upcoming graduation ceremony may be obtained from Anne-Marie Fulfer, Director of Career Development (amfulfer@uidaho.edu).

Student Organizations Bring Special Programs and Speakers to Campus

At the College of Law, student organizations undertake not only to organize extra-curricular activities but also to provide substantive co-curricular programs that enhance the teaching and learning environment. A salient example is the forthcoming Law Review symposium on conjunctive water resources management (previewed in last month’s edition of “First Monday”). Other examples include a lecture by Idaho Chief Justice Daniel Eismann (UI Law ’76), an invited guest of the Federalist Society, on the topic "The Fallacies of a 'Living, Breathing' Constitution." A colleague on the Idaho Supreme Court, Justice Roger Burdick (UI Law ’74), is scheduled to appear this month as a guest of Phi Alpha Delta (Borah Chapter), for a presentation on oral advocacy. The Intellectual Property Club has sponsored a presentation on trademark law and the saga of the “Idaho Potato,” by Boise attorney Patrick Kole. The IP Club also has sponsored a presentation by Sherry Gordon, Assistant Attorney General, State of Washington (assigned to the Attorney General’s Office at Washington State University), on a university’s right to patented inventions, with particular focus on the recent U.S. Supreme Court litigation involving Stanford University. The Native American Law Student Association (NALSA) has hosted its third annual keynote speaker event, this year featuring Julie Kane (UI Law ’89), Managing Attorney for the Nez Perce Tribe. Ms. Kane spoke on current legal issues facing Indian Country, as well as on her career path and her advice to law students interested in the burgeoning field of Native American Law. NALSA also is a collaborator with the student Environmental Law Society in a forthcoming Tribal Water Rights panel program that is scheduled to include Clive Strong (UI Law ’78), Deputy Attorney General (Chief, Natural Resources Division), State of Idaho.

The Multicultural Law Caucus (MLC) has been extraordinarily active this year, sponsoring or co-sponsoring programs that have included “Palestine, Israel, and the Separation Wall,” featuring UI College of Education Professor Melissa Saul and College of Law Library Professor Michael Greenlee, whose presentation illuminated a 2004 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Separation Wall and contained a brief discussion of a 2005 Israel Supreme Court opinion addressing the ICJ advisory opinion. Other MLC-sponsored programs featured Air Force JAG Major Airon Mothershed (UI Law ’01), speaking on the topics “Diversity Unites: A Celebration of Our Veterans,” and “Women in the Military” (co-sponsored by the Women’s Law Caucus). The MLC collaborated with the OUTLaws student organization to sponsor a faculty panel composed of Professor Emeritus James Macdonald, Professor Michael Satz, and Associate Dean Elizabeth Brandt, who discussed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. In addition, the MLC sponsored a training session titled “Don’t Cross That Line,” featuring Boise trial lawyer Keely Duke; Vancouver, Washington, trial lawyer Connie Taylor (UI Law ’93); and Professor/Clinical Programs Director Maureen Laflin, focusing on trial practice strategies and issues for women litigators. The Latino Law Caucus (LLC) has been active as well, sponsoring a program titled “The Unauthorized Practice of Law: The Effect of Notarios on the Latino Community.” The program featured a panel including Boise attorney Monica Salazar and Hon. Ricardo Pineda, Mexican Consul to Idaho. The LLC further sponsored a special program titled “Central America, Human Security, and Indigenous Political Autonomy,” featuring presentations by College of Law Professor Monica Schurtman and Bruno Baltodano, a teacher of International Relations at Washington State University.

The College of Law is grateful to these student organizations, and to others, for contributing to the diversity of viewpoints openly expressed, and critically but respectfully examined, in our academic community.

Practitioners Collaborate with College of Law in Hosting ABA “Representation in Mediation” Competition

On March 5-6, 2011, the College of Law hosted teams from six law schools participating in the American Bar Association regional “Representation in Mediation” competition. The College received collaborative help from 23 attorneys and mediators from Ashton, Boise, Grangeville, Coeur d’Alene, Lewiston, Moscow, as well as Pullman and Wenatchee, Washington – all of whom gave up their weekends to serve as mediators and judges for the competition. Boise attorney-mediator W. Anthony Park (UI Law ’63) generously underwrote the College’s costs for hosting the competition, and served as mediator for the final round. Judges for the final round were Boise attorney-mediator Merlyn Clark (UI Law ’64), UI Professor of Business and Economics Jan Rauk, and College of Law Professor Richard Seamon. Other competition judges and mediators included Ed Litteneker (UI Law ’78), Scott Olds (UI Law ’91), Melanie Baillie, Frances Thompson (UI Law ’81), Nance Ceccarelli (UI Law ’07), Randy Fife, Deborah McCormick (UI Law ’05), Lynn Hossner, Jolene Halladay, Jay Johnson (UI Law ’77), Romney Hogaboam (UI Law ’05), Mike Curley, Jennifer Douglass (UI Law ’02), Greg Dickison (UI Law ’91), John Sahlin (UI Law ’84), Dan Lebeau (UI Law ’06), Nancy Greenwell, Laurene Sorensen, and Dorothy Wiley (UI Law ’80). Idaho 3L student Pleasy Wayas was the student coordinator for the event. She was assisted by other members of the UI Law Students for Appropriate Dispute Resolution organization. The University of California-Hastings College of the Law team won first place and will advance to the national competition at the annual meeting of the ABA Dispute Resolution section. Other schools competing included the University of Utah, University of Montana, Seattle University, the University of Oregon, and the University of Idaho. 3L student Don Gamble, 2L students Lauren McConnell and Aaron Tribble, and 1L student Jessica Kinslow ably represented the College of Law in the competition. They were coached by Professor and Clinical Programs Director Maureen Laflin. Clinical Professor Pat Costello served as competition director. Further information about the ABA competition is available from Professor Costello (Costello@uidaho.edu).