School of Law

Maxine I. Lipeles, JD, senior lecturer in law and director of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, was honored by the Sierra Club at its annual awards program in San Francisco.

Lisa Cristine Simone, 25, a doctoral candidate in the Program in Physical Therapy at Washington University School of Medicine, died unexpectedly Sept. 29, 2015, in St. Louis.

The Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis has bestowed its 2015 World Peace Through Law Award on former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz.

The Supreme Court decision that the Constitution requires that gay couples be allowed to marry no matter where they live has caused many religious conservatives to feel that the tax-exempt status of religious institutions is under threat. There is a fundamental reason we should protect religious organizations — even those we disagree with, said John Inazu, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Hillary A. Sale, JD, the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law and professor of management at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, recently attended a conference of securities and corporate governance experts in Vienna, Austria, gathered to comment on a model statute for corporate law throughout the European Union.

The fall lineup of the 18th annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series, sponsored by the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, kicks off with two lectures Sept. 16-17. The yearlong series brings to the university nationally and internationally prominent experts from law and related fields to address issues of access to justice. Melvin Oliver, PhD, opens the series at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16 Anheuser-Busch Hall’s Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.

Nancy Staudt, JD, PhD, dean of the School of Law and the Howard & Caroline Cayne Professor of Law, talks about her return to Washington University, her collaborative work around campus and her vision for the law school.

Contract employees and other temporary workers will be able to bargain more effectively with the business entity that controls their working conditions and wages after an Aug. 27 decision by the National Labor Relations Board. The ruling signals a shift toward a more realistic and fact-dependant analysis of the evolving nature of employment in the modern labor market, said noted Washington University in St. Louis labor law expert Marion Crain.

Washington University School of Law’s Center for Empirical Research in the Law is partnering with the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota to create an online searchable database of the tribe’s extensive body of laws and court decisions. By increasing the transparency of tribal law, the project aims to strengthen the institutions of tribal government and promote tribal self-determination.

In 2014, so called “Right to Try” laws, which gave terminally ill patients access to investigational medications, were enacted in five states. More state legislatures are now considering such laws. While time will tell whether these investigational drugs have any significant impact on quality of life or longevity, the legislative debate over such laws must be more informed than it has been, argues Rebecca Dresser, JD, expert in biomedical ethics and law at Washington University in St. Louis.