News » Archives » February 2012

Richard L. Hill from the South Bend office of Faegre Baker Daniels LLP has been selected to Indiana Super Lawyers for 2012 in the area of government finance.

Edward A. Sullivan III from the South Bend office of Faegre Baker Daniels LLP has been selected to Indiana Super Lawyers for 2012 in the area of business litigation.

Thomas J. Brunner from the South Bend office of Faegre Baker Daniels LLP has been selected to Indiana Super Lawyers for 2012 in the area of employment and labor.

Julio Quintanilla has been appointed a professor of Introduction to Business Law at Universidad Privada Boliviana beginning February 2012. Quintanilla is a founding partner of “Abogados Consultores Soc. Civ.” In La Paz, Bolivia. The firm specializes in commercial and corporate law.

Brian P. Lennon has joined the law firm of Warner Norcross & Judd LLP in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Prior to joining Warner Norcross, Lennon served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Michigan.

Professor James Kelly and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg will co-chair a task force that will create more options to combat the problem of vacant and abandoned properties that are hurting city neighborhoods.

Prof. Jim Kelly has been appointed by South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg as co-chair of the the new task force on vacant housing. > View article

Kevin Warren has been inducted into the Grand Canyon Athletic Hall of Fame. While at Grand Canyon University, Warren scored 1, 118 points and earned Academic All-America awards while at Grand Canyon. Warren is Vice President of Legal Affairs & Chief Administrative Officer for the Minnesota Vikings. Prior to working for the Vikings, Warren worked with the international law firm of Greenberg Traurig.

Proposition 8 and the Metaphysics of Marriage
JURIST Guest Columnist Robert Rodes of the University of Notre Dame Law School says that while some legal recognition of same-sex relationships has gained widespread support, creating same-sex marriage rights must be left to the democratic processes…

Welcome back, students! Curious about what significant legal events have occurred over Christmas break? Well, if you haven’t been following them yourself (which we hope is the case since break is a great opportunity to focus on other things for a while), then you should visit JURIST to catch up. JURIST is a Web-based news and real-time legal research service provided by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in Pennsylvania (which you may have noticed featured on our new digital library sign).

Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell will deliver the keynote address in London’s Westminster Abbey February 24 to kick-off a special two-day conference on “The Use of Force, Drones, and Jus Cogens Norms in International Law.” > Read More

The Law School’s Sean O’Brien joined a panel discussion February 23 on the Snite Museum of Art Exhibit DIGNITY and its implications for international human rights. Three other panelists representing a cross-section of Notre Dame’s international institutes and centers also shared their perspectives on the University’s current and potential role in supporting international human rights.

Notre Dame’s BLSA Mock Trial Team were crowned regional champions February 18 and now will be advancing to the nationals in Washington, D.C.

Representing NDLS at the 2012 Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Competition at the NBLSA annual convention in Columbus, Ohio, were 3Ls Alvin Adjei, Steven Baugh, Colin Diamond, and Topher Regan.

USA Today has published Professor Rick Garnett’s column analyzing the HHS mandate. The column, which critiques the Administration’s new health insurance mandate on religious freedom grounds, can be read in its entirety on USA Today’s website.

Prof. Jim Seckinger donated a set of materials to the library from CLE workshop he taught in December on questioning of expert witnesses in international arbitration. See: http://innopac.law.nd.edu/record=b1358558. Also of note for the practicing lawyer is the 2011-2012 edition of volume 14 of the annual review of ―Family Law – Children in Need of Services‖ in the Indiana Practice series published by West. This volume is authored by Eric Smithburn and Ann Carol Nash.

Mary Ellen Schill has been elected President of the St. Norbert College Alumni Board of Directors, effective October 2012.

Guest columnist Jimmy Gurulé of Notre Dame Law School says that Congress may have chosen to protect national security interests over the rights of criminal defendants in allowing a lower standard of constitutional protections under FISA. > See Jurist.org for full column.

Robert J. Konopa, a partner at Tuesley Hall Konopa in South Bend, Indiana has been named to the 2012 Indiana Super Lawyers list as a top attorney in Indiana. Konopa’s specializes in civil litigation.

Column: HHS mandate still undermine religious freedom?
USA Today
Richard W. Garnett is a professor of law and associate dean at the University of Notre Dame and a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law & Religion at Emory University.

MSNBC
This morning on “Up” Father Bill Dailey, a Roman Catholic priest and Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, discussed the Obama administration’s birth control coverage requirements, calling them “gravely immoral and unjust”. > Watch Clip

Danielle Hermanny has been appointed executive assistant to the President of the University of Portland. Hermanny will assist Holy Cross Father William Beauchamp with legal affairs and coordinate the projects of the university’s board of regents.

President Barack Obama’s proposed adjustments to the new Health and Human Services rule requiring Catholic institutions, including the University of Notre Dame, to provide health care plans covering contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs continue to violate religious liberty, according to O. Carter Snead, professor of law at Notre Dame.

“Today’s ‘compromise accommodation’ is nothing of the sort,” Snead said. “The original uproar across the ideological spectrum was in reaction to the administration’s requirement that virtually all religious employers cover abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization in violation of their strongly held beliefs."

The Kresge Law Library recently installed a digital sign between the Commons and the Library entrance. The sign will be used to display current legal headlines, news about Notre Dame Law School faculty, useful tips from the law librarians and current weather information. It will also be used to provide information to visitors about events being hosted in the law school. In addition, the sign will be connected to the university’s NDAlert system to display up-to-date information regarding campus emergencies. An additional sign will be installed in the main atrium later this year.

Thomas R. Curtin has been elected to the ABA Board of Governors with a 3-year term beginning in August 2012. Tom will serve as Governor for District 3, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The New Mexico State Senate has confirmed John H. Bemis has been confirmed as Secretary of the Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources Department. Bemis is a former assistant commissioner for oil, gas and minerals at the State Land Office.

Professor Mark P. McKenna argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit Feb. 2 in a landmark trademark infringement case. Professor McKenna appeared as an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) in support of sports artist Daniel Moore, who has been locked in litigation with the University of Alabama regarding the sale of Moore’s paintings of Alabama football games and merchandise bearing reproductions of those paintings.

Prof. McKenna’s amicus brief is available here.

The New York Times article describing the case and quoting Professor McKenna is available here.

NDLS Professor Carter Snead co-authored an Op-Ed about Planned Parenthood and the Susan G. Komen Foundation that was published in the Wall Street Journal Feb. 6. Professor Snead is the future director of the Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. His co-author, Robert P. George, is professor of jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program at Princeton University. The full Op-Ed is available here

George Ng is a new partner at Snell & Wilmer L.L.P. in Orange County, CA. Ng has extensive domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions experience. He has held various senior management roles with publicly-traded, global biotechnology companies.

3Ls Ryan Raybould and Caitlin Shetter recently competed in the Fifth Annual UC Davis Asylum and Refugee Law National Moot Court Competition. Ms. Shetter and Mr. Raybould made it to the finals and placed fifth out of 22 teams nationally, earning Notre Dame Law School a plaque and a Top 8 placement in Notre Dame’s first year participating in this moot court competition.

The team earned top marks from the judges and high praise for Notre Dame. > Read More

Let there be light! After almost a year of consultations and visits by electricians both on campus and off, the lamps in the law library reading rooms are now fully operational.