Professor Keith Hall will teach International Petroleum Transactions at Baku State University Law School in Azerbaijan in May 2013.  His students will be Azeri lawyers who are seeking graduate degrees in law that are equivalent to an LLM.  The students will receive two semester hours of credit for the course, which focuses on an industry that is very relevant both to Azerbaijan’s economy and the country’s history.  The country’s first oil well was drilled in the 1870s and by the 1890s Azerbaijan was a major oil center.  Azerbaijan remains a major producer of oil today.   

Professor Ed Dawson’s article Adjusting the Presumption of Constitutionality Based on Margin of Statutory Passage has been accepted for publication in volume 16 of the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law.

On May 12, Professor Dawson will present “Anatomy of a Good Oral Argument,” a video-based demonstration of effective and ineffective oral advocacy, at the National Association of Attorneys General Appellate Practice Conference in Washington, D.C.  He previously presented this training at a joint training conference for the Illinois Attorney General’s office and Illinois State’s Attorney Appellate Prosecutor office, organized by The National Attorneys General Training and Research Institute (NAGTRI) on April 25.

Professor Christina Sautter’s article Promises Made to be Broken? Standstill Agreements in Change of Control Transactions was published in the most recent issue of the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law.

Professors William Corbett and John Church spoke at the second annual University of Louisiana-Monroe School Law Conference on April 30.  Professor Church discussed Louisiana Legislative Act 1 (tenure reform and charter schools).  Professor Corbett spoke on the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 and tort liability of schools.   The conference is geared toward attorneys, school board members, school administrators, central office staff, or those interested in the legal issues affecting K-12 education in Louisiana.

On April 19, Professor Blake Hudson spoke on the topic of “Subnational Forest Policy, Regional Governance Culture, and Global Climate Change” on the “New Governance Structures in Urban Forestry Panel” at the Urban Forests and Political Ecologies Conference held at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Professor Keith Hall spoke on the topic Hydraulic Fracturing: Trade Secrets and the Mandatory Disclosure of Fracturing Fluid Composition at the Legal Aspects of Hydraulic Fracturing Symposium organized by the Idaho Law Review in Boise.

Professor Bill Corbett was recently interviewed by KATC about teachers who are required to sign contracts that contain a morality cause.

Professor Maggie Thomas provided opening remarks and moderated a panel discussion at Louisiana Law Review’s annual symposium: Eastern District of Louisiana: The Nation’s MDL Laboratory.

Professor Thomas was recently interviewed by 225 about her efforts to establish Red Stick German Shepherd Rescue, a local animal welfare organization.

Professor Christina Sautter presented her article Auction Theory & Standstills: Dealing with Friends and Foes in a Sale of Corporate Control (forthcoming in 2013 in the Case Western Reserve Law Review) at the third annual Junior Faculty Business and Financial Law Workshop hosted by George Washington University Law School’s Center for Law, Economics & Finance (C-LEAF) on April 5-6, 2013. The workshop supports and recognizes the work of young legal scholars in accounting, banking, bankruptcy, corporations, economics, finance, and securities, while promoting interaction between them and selected senior faculty.  Her article was one of 12 papers selected for presentation from a pool of over 70 blind submissions.

Professor Christina Sautter participated as a panelist on Current Issues for NDA’s for M&A Deals at the American Bar Association Business Law Section’s 2013 Spring Meeting held in Washington, D.C. on April 6, 2013.

Professor Elizabeth Carter’s article New Life for the Death Tax Debate has been published in the Denver Law Review.

Professor Carter was quoted in The Times Picayune regarding the collection of criminal debt on a defendant’s estate.

Professor Lee Ann Lockridge was recently interviewed for two Baton Rouge Business Report articles concerning trademarks: The Name Game and Faux Pas.

On March 15, Professor Blake Hudson participated as a panelist  on the Gulf Coast Sustainability and the RESTORE Act at the American Society for Public Administration Conference on “Governance & Stability: Local Concerns, Global Challenges”  that  was held in New Orleans.

Professor Christina Sautter spoke at the University of Iowa College of Law’s Journal of Corporation Law Symposium on Ten Years After Omnicare: The Evolving Market for Deal Protection Devices.  Other Symposium speakers included: Chief Justice E. Norman Veasey (Former Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court); Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster (Delaware Court of Chancery); Professor Steven M. Davidoff (The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law); Sean J. Griffith (Fordham University School of Law); Professor Brian J.M. Quinn (Boston College Law School); and Megan W. Shaner (The University of Oklahoma College of Law) as well as partners from Potter Anderson & Caroon LLP; Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates. 

Professor Kevin Bennardo’s commentary, Prisoner-Plaintiffs and the Frontiers of Frivolousness: Why Claim Value Should Play No Role in In Forma Pauperis Frivolousness Determinations, was recently featured in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law’s Amici Blog.

In “Founders’ Fear of Division Made the Deal Inevitable,” Vice Chancellor Ray Diamond examines the three-fifths clause in an op-ed as part of the New York Times’ Room for Debate series.

On February 19, in connection with Black History Month, Vice Chancellor Raymond Diamond presented a paper, “Brown v. Board of Education, History, Legacy, Implications,” at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Asylum Division of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.

Professor Keith Hall spoke on the topic “Recent Developments in the Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing” at the Florida State University College of Law Spring 2013 Environmental Forum, “Effectively Governing Shale Gas Development,” in Tallahassee.

Professor Robert Lancaster has been appointed to the Louisiana State Advisory Committee for the United States Commission on Civil Rights.  Congress has directed the Commission to establish state advisory committees (SAC’s) in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to study issues and forward advisory reports to the Commission on matters within the agency’s jurisdiction that reflect the views of the majority of SAC members producing the report.

Professor Christina Sautter presented a work-in-progress tentatively entitled The Real Deal on Deal Protection on February 2 during the 2013 Northeast Regional Scholarship and Teaching Development Workshop at Albany Law School in Albany, NY. 

Professor Kevin Bennardo’s article, Sweeping Up Guideline Floors: The Misguided Policy of Amendment 767 to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual, was recently published in the UCLA Law Review Discourse.  The article challenges a recent amendment to the federal sentencing guidelines that raises the floor of the Guidelines range of imprisonment for all counts in a multi-count conviction to match a mandatory minimum sentence applicable to one of the counts.

Professor Christina Sautter’s work-in-progress,  Auction Theory & Standstill Agreements: Dealing with Friends and Foes in a Sale of Corporate Control, was featured as a poster presentation during the January 2013 American Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA.  

Vice Chancellor N. Gregory Smith’s article Judicial Disqualification in America was recently published in volume 2 of the International Journal of Procedural Law.

Professor Bill Corbett’s article, Unmasking a Pretext for Res Ipsa Loquitur: A Proposal to Let Employment Discrimination Speak for Itself, will be published in volume 62:3 of the American University Law Review in early 2013.  On January 6, 2013, Professor Corbett will be speaking on a  panel with other professors at the AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans on the topic of “Torts and Compensation Systems – Tort and Compensation Principles in Related Fields.”    

Professor Melissa Lonegrass’ article, Finding Room for Fairness in Formalism—The Sliding Scale Approach to Unconscionability, will appear in the upcoming volume of the Loyola University Chicago Law Review. She will participate in a panel titled, Collegiality and Service: A Balance, during the inaugural Beginning & Newer Law Teachers Workshop to be held at the 2013 Southeastern Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting.  Professor Lonegrass, who served as Secretary for the Central Law Schools Association during the 2011-2012 academic year, was elected Vice President of the same organization for the upcoming academic year. 

Professor Heidi Thompson presented her poster,Over the Rainbow: Using Color and Pop Culture to Gently Introduce ILs to the Structure for Legal Analysis, at the 2013 AALS conference in New Orleans in January.