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 Read More

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 Read More

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 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. Read More

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. Read More

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. Read More

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. Read More

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. Read More

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 Read More

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." Read More

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. Read More

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 Read More

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 Read More

Free Speech vs. Infringement in Suit on Alabama Artwork
New York Times
The case is of great interest to “artists all over the country whose free speech rights should not be subject to licensing arrangements by colleges and universities,” said Mark P. McKenna, a law professor at Notre Dame who was part of a group of professors that wrote a friend-of-the-court brief to the Appeals Court on Moore’s behalf. Read More

Obama’s Military Tactics: Risky Missions, Elite Units
National Public Radio WBUR
Rescue is “the category I’d like to put it in, because it’s a limited use of force under international law,” says Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law at Notre Dame. Read More

Kohler Co. steamed over Arizona firm’s name
Salon school makes change to avoid trademark suit
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

People have no hard and fast right to use their name on their business if someone else already has trademarked it, said Durst and two academic experts – Mark McKenna of the University of Notre Dame Law School and J. Thomas McCarthy, senior professor at the University of San Francisco.

McKenna, however, called Kohler Co.’s assertions “a pretty aggressive use of their trademark rights.” > Read Article Read More

Romney Tax Returns Show $7 Million in Donations Over 2 Years
Bloomberg Businessweek
It isn’t unusual for high earners like the Romneys to funnel money into charitable foundations that they control, said Lloyd Mayer, an associate dean at the University of Notre Dame Law School. Read More

SOPA and PIPA are (almost) dead. Now can we talk about the law that already exists?

By Mark P. McKenna

Slate.com, January 20, 2012 Read More

Opinion by Mary Ellen O’Connell

The Guardian, January 20, 2012 > Read Article Read More

Professor Roger P. Alford was in New York City January 11 to accept the "CPR Award for Best Electronic Media About Alternative Dispute Resolution" at a ceremony held at the New York office of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP. Read More

Dean Nell Jessup Newton has announced the appointment of Professor Stephen J. Cribari as co-director (with Professor Geoffrey Bennett) of the NDLS London Summer Program.

Cribari teaches at the University of Minnesota Law School and was previously an NDLS Visiting Professor in London, where he taught a course in Law and Cultural Heritage to rave reviews. A published poet, playwright, screenwriter, and librettist, he is the Reporter for the Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction Committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and a former Federal Public Defender who has twice argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. In Minnesota he teaches criminal procedure, law and archaeology, evidence, physical evidence/expert testimony, and criminal law.

In accepting the post, Professor Cribari said, “London is a rich and rare opportunity and I want to open the classroom into the cultural present as well as the cultural history of London.” Read More

Professor James H. Seckinger has been named the recipient of the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in teaching advocacy by the Stetson University College of Law’s “Educating Advocates: Teaching Advocacy Skills” Conference. Read More

Professor Richard W. Garnett’s USA Today column analyzing the Supreme Court’s landmark church-state decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC was picked up by the Associated Press and subsequently reported by numerous news outlets, including the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Salt Lake Tribune, U.S. News & World Report, and the Washington Post. Professor Garnett’s amicus brief in support of the church in this case can be accessed here. Read More

A Mississippi judge has temporarily blocked 21 of more than 200 executive pardons given this week by outgoing Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) during his final days in office, and University of Notre Dame Professor of Law Jimmy Gurulé counts himself among many who are outraged that Barbour allowed murderers to be released.

“The fact that Gov. Barbour would pardon one convicted murderer absent extenuating circumstances is deeply disturbing,” says Gurulé, who, in his 23 years at Notre Dame, has taken two major leaves to serve as assistant U.S. Attorney General and Undersecretary of the U.S. Treasury Department for Enforcement. “Pardoning four convicted murderers is shocking, insulting to the surviving family members of the murder victims, and demonstrates a callous disregard for our criminal justice system and the rule of law. In my opinion, Gov. Barbour’s actions are indefensible.” Read More

Dean Nell Jessup Newton has appointed Professor Paolo Carozza as the new Director of the Law School’s Center for Civil and Human Rights. He had been serving as the Interim Director of the CCHR in his capacity as Associate Dean for International and Graduate Programs. Read More