Past Events - 2012
BU Law Commencement
Sunday, May 20, 2012
The commencement ceremony for BU Law took place on Sunday, May 20th at 9:00 a.m. in Agganis Arena. This year's commencement speaker was Roderick L. Ireland, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
Congrats & best wishes to BU Law's Class of 2012!
A Lecture by Donald Light - "The Role of Law in the Epidemic of Harmful Side Effects from Prescription Drugs: The Risk Proliferation Syndrome"
Monday, April 23, 2012
Prescription drugs are one of the most beneficial parts of modern medicine. Yet they have become the major iatrogenic source of illness and death. This presentation explained the Risk Proliferation Syndrome that centers around legal and regulatory practices harmful to society, science, medicine, and patients.
Donald Light has been the Lokey Visiting Professor at Stanford University and is a professor of comparative health care at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. A founding fellow of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, he has received the William Foote Whyte distinguished career award for applied sociology and is the editor of The Risks of Prescription Drugs (Columbia 2010).
A Lecture by Miguel Maduro - "The Promises of Constitutional Pluralism"
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Luís Miguel Poiares Pessoa Maduro is a Visiting Professor of Law and Gruber Global Constitutionalism Fellow at Yale Law School. He is also Professor and Director of the Global Governance Programme at European University Institute. He served as Advocate General for the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg from 2003 to 2009. He specializes in European Union law, international economic law, constitutional law, and comparative institutional analysis. He has been a visiting professor at several academic institutions, including the College of Europe (Bruges), Instituto de Estudos Europeus da Universidade Católica Portuguesa, University of Chicago Law School, and the London School of Economics. He is a graduate of the European University Institute and the University of Lisbon.
For more information, please contact Professor Daniela Caruso.
Still Waiting for Tomorrow: The Law and Politics of Unresolved Refugee Crises
Monday, April 2, 2012
This international conference, co-sponsored by BU Law, the American Society of International Law and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, addressed the law and politics of protracted refugee situations. The first part of the conference focused on the scope and ramifications of such refugee crises on a global basis. The second part aimed at identifying state responses and policies addressing potential solutions to refugee crises.
Download Conference Agenda (PDF)
Speakers:
Karen Abuzayd, Former Commissioner- General, UNRWA
Claude Bruderlein, Harvard University
Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR
Bill Frelick, Human Rights Watch
Juan Garcés, Garcés and Prada Abogados, Spain
Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, Oxford University
Agnes Hurwitz, UNDP
Kristine Huskey, Physicians for Human Rights
Timothy Longman, Boston University
Karen Musalo, U.C. Hastings College of the Law
André Nollkaemper, University of Amsterdam
Michele R. Pistone, Villanova University School of Law
Andrew I. Schoenholtz, Georgetown University Law Center
Robert D. Sloane, Boston University School of Law
Jeffrey Smith, Counsel to the Frente POLISARIO
Moderators:
Susan Akram, Boston University School of Law
Elizabeth Badger, Boston University School of Law
Pamela Goldberg, UNHCR
Tom Syring, Norwegian Immigration Appeals Board
Richard Wright, UNRWA Representative Office
21st Annual Public Interest Project Auction Gala
Thursday, March 22, 2012
The Public Interest Project is a student-run organization founded in 1984. Their mission is to provide grants to students who accept unpaid summer positions with non-profit, public interest or government organizations. Their goal is to foster a commitment to pro bono work and community service in all our grant recipients, whether they choose to pursue a public interest career or to work in the private sector.
The Auction Gala is PIP's largest fundraiser, bringing together faculty, students, alumni, and friends for an evening of food and drink in an exciting auction atmosphere. Please feel free to contact PIP at buslpip@gmail.com with any questions or comments about the Auction. More information is available at bupip.org.
A celebration of the publication of The Odd Clauses: Understanding the Constitution through Ten of Its Most Curious Provisions by Jay Wexler, Professor of Law
Monday, March 5, 2012
Professor Jay Wexler has recently published The Odd Clauses: Understanding the Constitution through Ten of Its Most Curious Provisions (Beacon Press). If the United States Constitution were a zoo, and the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth amendments were a lion, a giraffe, and a panda bear, respectively, then The Odd Clauses would be a special exhibit of shrews, wombats, and bat-eared foxes. Past the ever-popular monkey house and lion cages, Professor Wexler leads us on a tour of the lesser-known clauses of the Constitution, the clauses that, like the yeti crab or platypus, rarely draw the big audiences but are worth a closer look. Just as ecologists remind us that even a weird little creature like a shrew can make all the difference between a healthy environment and an unhealthy one, understanding the odd clauses offers readers a healthier appreciation for our constitutional system. With Wexler as your expert guide through this jurisprudence jungle, you’ll see the Constitution like you’ve never seen it before. The Odd Clauses puts these intriguing beasts on display and allows them to exhibit their relevance to our lives, our government’s structure, and the integrity of our democracy.
To celebrate the publication of this learned and clever book, we invited three distinguished scholars to comment on it and Professor Wexler responded.
Book Symposium
Welcome:
Dean Maureen O’Rourke, BU School of Law
Moderator:
Professor and Associate Dean James E. Fleming, BU School of Law
Commentators:
David Barron, Professor of Law, Honorable S. William Green Professor of Public Law, Harvard Law School
Trevor Morrison, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Adam Samaha, Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School (visiting at Harvard Law School)
Response:
Jay Wexler, BU School of Law
3rd Annual Asian Pacific American Alumni Conference:
Breaking Barriers and Overcoming Obstacles in the 21st Century
Saturday, March32, 2012
The theme of this year's Annual Asian Pacific American Alumni (APALSA) conference was “Breaking Barriers and Overcoming Obstacles in the 21st Century.” The event featured trailblazing individuals who have made an impact in the community at large – including those who are considered first in their field where Asians Pacific Americans are traditionally underrepresented, who have taken unconventional career paths, and who have opened new doors of social change and progress.
APALSA has successfully hosted this conference for the past two years, and past speakers have included in-house counsel, a former judge from Japan, a former UN Associate Eligibility Officer in Syria, among many other distinguished BU Law alumni. The conference offered the opportunity for alumni – old and new – to connect with students and other alumni, to discuss many important Asian Pacific American issues within the legal profession as well as the world at large.
With more than thirty alumni, sixty students, and six of BU law’s largest diversity organizations participating, the APA Alumni Conference is APALSA’s most prominent event of the year.
The Law Is Not a Game: A Judge’s Reflections on Ethics
Shapiro Lecture featuring Mark L. Wolf, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts
Monday, February 27, 2012
The Max M. Shapiro lecture featured the Honorable Mark L. Wolf, who spoke about ethical issues that have arisen during his career as a private lawyer, prosecutor and judge.
Appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 1985 by President Reagan, Judge Wolf became chief judge in 2006. Previously, he served in the Department of Justice as a Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, and as Deputy U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. He also worked in private practice with Surrey, Karasik & Morse in Washington, D.C., and with Sullivan & Worcester in Boston.
The Max M. Shapiro lecture is BU Law’s principle endowed lectureship. It serves as a tribute to the memory of Max Shapiro (’33), a lawyer who devoted his career to examining the place of legal ethics in trial advocacy.
Shadow Banking: Past, Present, Future
A Symposium Presented by the Review of Banking & Financial Law
Friday, February 24, 2012
Many observers of the U.S. financial system blame the shadow banking system for the Great Recession of 2008. The shadow banking system is commonly defined as the chain of financial intermediaries engaged in providing credit by relying largely on short-term liabilities to support long-term assets with limited regulatory supervision. This symposium, co-sponsored by Boston University School of Law and the Boston Bar Association, brought together financial practitioners and leading scholars to examine the history, function and regulation of the shadow banking system. Panelists focused on four topics: (1) what the shadow banking system is, (2) the investment techniques and technologies employed by the financial sector, (3) how the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 attempts to regulate shadow banking, and (4) where shadow banking will go from here.
Keynote Speaker:
Jonathan R. Macey, Yale Law School
Inaugural Address:
Steven L. Schwarcz, Duke University School of Law
Panelists:
Ronald S. Borod, DLA Piper
Tamar Frankel, Boston University School of Law
Claire A. Hill, University of Minnesota Law School
Cornelius K. Hurley, Boston University School of Law
H. Norman Knickle, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Scott Le Bouef, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP
Cynthia C. Lichtenstein, Boston College Law School
Saule T. Omarova, UNC School of Law
David Reiss, Brooklyn Law School
P. Morgan Ricks, Harvard Law School
Eric D. Roiter, Boston University School of Law
Moderators:
Mark Fagan, Harvard Kennedy School and Boston University School of Law
Martin Lacdao, Boston University School of Law
Download moderator & panelist biographies (PDF)
Download symposium schedule (PDF)
Beyond Identities: The Limits of an Anti-discrimination Approach to Equality
Annual Distinguished Lecture Featuring Martha Albertson Fineman, Emory University School of Law
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Martha Albertson Fineman is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. An internationally recognized scholar in family law, feminist jurisprudence, and law and society, she directs the pioneering Feminism and Legal Theory Project and the Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative. She is the author of pathbreaking books, such as The Neutered Mother, the Sexual Family and Other Twentieth Century Tragedies (Routledge, 1995) and The Autonomy Myth: A Theory of Dependency (The New Press, 2004), and is at work on The Vulnerable Subject: Anchoring Equality in the Human Condition (Princeton, forthcoming). She has edited or co-edited many volumes of scholarship growing out of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, including, most recently, Transcending the Boundaries of Law: Generations of Feminism and Legal Theory (Routledge, 2010) and What Is Right for Children? The Competing Paradigms of Religion and Human Rights (Ashgate, 2009). She has received many awards for her teaching and writing, including the prestigious Harry Kalven Prize for her work in law and society. This lecture will be published in the Boston University Law Review.
Bringing Torture Home: American Soldiers and the Legacy and Legality of Torture
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Joshua E.S. Phillips, a reporter and author of None of Us Were Like This Before: American Soldiers and Torture, spoke about what many soldiers cannot: the devastating legacy of torture on the United States’ veterans who witnessed or participated in it, with commentary from George Annas, J.D, M.P.H. For additional information about the author, please visit www.noneofuswerelikethisbefore.com.
The Market Abuse Unit as a Response to the Call for Specialized Federal Securities Law Enforcement
A Lecture by Daniel M. Hawke (LAW '89)
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
The BU Center for Finance, Law & Policy, the Graduate Program in Banking & Financial Law and the Review of Banking and Financial Law presented a lecture by Daniel M. Hawke (LAW 1989), National Unit Chief, Market Abuse Unit, Division of Enforcement and Director, Philadelphia Regional Office, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In his capacity as Unit Chief, Mr. Hawke oversees nationwide investigations into large-scale insider trading networks and rings -- so-called "organized" insider-trading, large cap market manipulations, system-based and platform-driven trading violations such as front running, collusive trading, best execution and abusive short selling violations as well as other systemic, institutional regulatory violations, internal control violations and other abusive market practices. In his capacity as Regional Director, Mr. Hawke oversees the Commission's regulation and enforcement programs in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Mr. Hawke joined the SEC's Philadelphia Office in March 2005 as head of its enforcement program. Between 1999 and 2005, he served as a Branch Chief and Senior Counsel in the SEC's Division of Enforcement in Washington, D.C. where he was involved in bringing significant enforcement actions involving public company accounting and financial disclosure, broker dealer regulation, insider trading and Regulation FD.
Prior to joining the Commission, Mr. Hawke was a litigation partner at the law firm of Tucker, Flyer & Lewis in Washington, D.C. Mr. Hawke, 48, is a 1989 graduate of Boston University School of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Boston University International Law Journal, and a 1985 graduate of Tulane University where he received his bachelor's degree in political science.
AJLM Symposium
The American Right to Health: Constitutional, Statutory, and Contractual Healthcare Rights in the United States
Saturday, January 28, 2012
As part of an annual special issue of the American Journal of Law & Medicine, this year’s symposium examined Americans’ healthcare rights and freedoms and their potential impact on the Supreme Court’s upcoming consideration of whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is constitutional. Opponents of the ACA argue that the new law violates structural constitutional constraints. Yet, concerns voiced in the media and in electoral campaigns have focused on the law’s substance, particularly the notion that the government could compel individuals to buy health insurance. The symposium, hosted at BU Law, explored questions about the interplay of structure and substance in the ACA and the litigation surrounding it.
Contributing Authors:
Richard Epstein, University of Chicago, with Paula Stannard, Alston & Bird LLP
Jessie Hill, Case Western Reserve University
Marshall Kapp, Florida State University
Gary Lawson, Boston University, with Dave Kopel, Independence Institute
Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, University of Georgia
Abigail Moncrieff, Boston University
David Orentlicher, Indiana University
Katherine Record, MPH Candidate, Harvard University
Theodore Ruger, University of Pennsylvania
Neil Siegel, Duke University
Joel Teitelbaum, George Washington University, with Lara Cartwright-Smith, George Washington University, and Sara Rosenbaum, George Washington University
Stacey Tovino, University of Nevada
Steven Willis, University of Florida with Nakku Chung, Member, The Florida Bar
A PDF of the conference agenda can be viewed here.
Association of American Law Schools Reception in Washington D.C.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Dean O’Rourke & the BU Law Alumni Association hosted an Association of American Law Schools (AALS)
reception on January 5th at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC.