Business & Entrepreneurship

The WUSTL community recently honored David M. Becker, JD, associate dean for external relations and the Joseph H. Zumbalen Professor Emeritus of the Law of Property, on his 50th year of teaching at the School of Law.

The upcoming holiday season brings with it the annual gaze upon religious displays — and the legal issues that come with them. “The Supreme Court’s approach to public religious displays under the Establishment Clause has been less than clear,” says John Inazu, JD, expert on religion and the constitution and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.“Some commentators have described it as the ‘three plastic animals rule’ –a Christian nativity scene on public property passes muster if it is accompanied by a sufficient combination of Rudolph, Frosty, and their friends.” Inazu says that future litigation will likely press against this line-drawing, but even apparent victories for religious liberty may come at a significant cost.

More than 1,100 School of Law alumni and friends are returning to campus today and tomorrow for Alumni Weekend and to celebrate the 2012 milestone of Professor David M. Becker’s 50th year of teaching. Becker, JD, associate dean for external relations and the Joseph H. Zumbalen Professor Emeritus of the Law of Property, is a popular teacher and mentor known for his service and dedication to the law school.

Advances in medicine allow doctors to keep patients alive longer, tackle fertility problems and extend the viability of premature babies. They also lead to a growing number of moral questions for both the medical provider and patient. “Across the country, so-called conscience legislation allows doctors and nurses to refuse to provide abortions, contraception, sterilizations, and end-of-life care,” says Elizabeth Sepper, JD, health law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “But legislators have totally overlooked the consciences of providers who have made the conscientious judgment to deliver care and of the patients who seek these treatments.” Sepper says that conscience in the medical setting needs to be protected more consistently. “The one-sided protection of refusal cannot stand,” she says. “Just as we wouldn’t say that giving students vouchers only for Christian schools furthers religious freedom, we can’t say that current conscience legislation successfully lives up to its goal of protecting conscience.

Critical data for more than 2,300 federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) cases now are available online thanks to a multi-year effort of researchers at Washington University School of Law’s Center for Empirical Research in the Law (CERL). The EEOC Litigation Project, which spans the period between 1997 and 2006, makes readily available detailed information about the EEOC’s enforcement litigation to legal scholars, social scientists, and policy-makers.

Panos Kouvelis, PhD, senior associate dean and director of executive programs at Olin Business School and an expert in the field of supply chain management, has been named to the U.S. Commerce Department’s new Advisory Committee on Supply Chain Competitiveness.

Academicians, business leaders, judiciary members and a key watchdog group will come together to discuss the future of legal education at “The Law School in the New Legal Environment Symposium” at Washington University School of Law Friday, Oct. 26. The symposium will examine issues such as affordability and access to legal education; faculty; preparation for practice; job placement; and online legal education and how it will change traditional law schools. “Lawyers and law students are facing serious challenges with employment, debt and career satisfaction,” says Kent D. Syverud, JD, dean of the law school. “This symposium will address how American law schools can embrace needed change rather than avoiding it.”

Olin Business School MBA student Michael McLaughlin made a triumphant return to campus Oct. 2 after hiking back-to-back the Appalachian and Ozark Trails, a journey of more than 2,500 miles.

The law school is hosting a Special Session of the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District on Thursday, October 11 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom (Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 310) beginning at 1 p.m. The attorneys for the three cases―regarding a property line dispute, legal representation of a defendant in a child sexual abuse case, and an alderman’s defamation claims―will have 15 minutes each to argue their sides.  A Q&A on judicial procedure and an informal Q&A on judicial clerkships will follow the special session.

International economic forecaster and social observer Jeremy Rifkin will talk about preparing for the third industrial revolution at noon Thursday, Oct. 11, in Graham Chapel. A book signing will precede the lecture.