Business & Entrepreneurship

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.

The annual celebration of Pulpit Freedom Sunday on Oct. 7 encourages pastors to preach politics from the pulpit. The Internal Revenue Code exempts certain organizations including churches from taxation, but prohibits them as a condition of tax-exemption from “any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” “Both the restriction and Pulpit Freedom Sunday raise important questions about the relationship between church and state, the role of religious argument in political discourse, and the significance of clergy in political debate,” says John Inazu, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and expert on religion and the Constitution.

Signs, billboards, and placards are such a familiar part of the landscape that we often don’t notice them. However, even the humblest “on premise” sign is protected by the highest law of the land, the U.S. Constitution’s free speech clause. Daniel R. Mandelker, the Howard A. Stamper Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, has set out to help local governments and municipalities appreciate that fact with his new book, Free Speech Law for On Premises Signs. Published online at ussc.org and landuselaw.wustl.edu, the book will be released in hard copy later this year by the United States Sign Council.

Washington University in St. Louis has been ranked among the top schools in the nation for entrepreneurship by Entrepreneur magazine’s annual Princeton Review report. The annual survey names the schools with the top 25 undergraduate and top 25 graduate entrepreneurship programs in the nation.

More than 2 million consumers got to gloat Friday about their shrewdness in procuring an iPhone 5, with its larger screen and 200 additional features through its new operating system. But once the novelty wears off, will they still enjoy their purchase? It depends on why they bought it, says new research from a marketing professor at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Workers pour sweat, blood and even dollars into the firms that employ them, especially in a labor market characterized by employment and retirement insecurity, says Marion Crain, JD, expert on labor and employment law and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Work can shape one’s life in ways that run to the core of identity,” she says. “Work law, however, ignores these realities of interdependence and mutual investment, committing itself to a model of employment as an arm’s length, impersonal cash-for-labor transaction.” Crain suggests looking at other legal models such as marriage law to more accurately respond to the realities of the employment relationship, particularly at termination. 

The Public Interest Law and Policy Speakers Series continues Thursday, Sept. 20, with Goodwin Liu, associate justice of the Supreme Court of California, on “Federal Law in State Court: Handling Conflicts over Arbitration, Immigration, and Constitutional Rights” at noon in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom (Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 310). The 2012-13 series features judges, lawyers, authors and academics with expertise in public interest law and policy. For a full list of the 2012-13 speakers visit http://law.wustl.edu/pilss/.

Britain’s royal family has obtained an injunction against the French magazine Closer to prevent it from publishing topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton. “The case would likely come out differently if it were brought in the United States,” says Neil Richards, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Richards, an internationally recognized expert in privacy and free speech law who hails from England, explains that English and European courts have been very aggressive in stopping media from publishing pictures delving into the sex lives of celebrities.