School of Law

Washington University students still can enroll in one of the 11 online courses being offered this fall through Semester Online, a consortium of top peer universities. Students have until Aug. 26 to register. Courses include a live weekly class plus pre-produced online content that engages students, such as guest interviews and panel discussions.

Administrative law expert Ronald M. Levin, JD, recently was invited to testify before Congress on concerns about the proposed Regulatory Accountability Act. Levin, the William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, has taught and written about administrative law for more than 30 years. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee endorsed the legislation on July 24, sending it to the full House.

Missouri has been held out as a model for juvenile corrections programs, but the court system that puts young people into these programs is in crisis, finds a recent report by the National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC). “Many young people in Missouri wind up having to defend themselves in our juvenile courts – and sometimes from behind bars,” says Mae C. Quinn, JD, professor of law and co-director of the Civil Justice Clinic at Washington University in St. Louis.

Join friends and colleagues next month in a celebration of the life of Kathleen F. Brickey, James Carr Professor of Criminal Jurisprudence. A ceremony and reception will be held at 4 p.m. Aug. 30 in Anheuser-Busch Hall’s Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.

Successful prosecutions of crimes against humanity must occur at the International Criminal Court if it is to succeed in its mandate to punish perpetrators of atrocities and deter others from committing such crimes, argues Leila Sadat, JD, international law expert and WUSTL professor. Her research, arguments and analysis are published in the latest issue of the American Journal of International Law.

Kathleen F. Brickey, JD, a giant in the field of white-collar crime and the long-serving James Carr Professor of Criminal Jurisprudence at Washington University School of Law, died Wednesday, June 19, 2013.

The Supreme Court today struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and rejected a challenge to a lower court ruling that invalidated California’s ban on same-sex marriage, known as Proposition 8. Gregory Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that the immediate effects of these decisions for same-sex couples will be profound. “The demise of DOMA means that the federal government must treat same-sex couples, legally married under state laws, just like opposite-sex married couples for purposes of federal benefits, tax status, etc,” he says. “The nullification of Proposition 8 appears to make marriage available to same-sex couples in the nation’s largest state, under a prior marriage law that Proposition 8 had purported to invalidate.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder effectively kills the most successful weapon our nation has ever produced against racial discrimination in voting, says constitutional and election law expert Gregory Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. He says the Court’s decision reflects a victory for two big ideas: state power, at the expense of racial justice; and judicial power, at the expense of democracy.

Bankruptcy expert Daniel L. Keating, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, is warning policymakers that any tweaks to the bankruptcy code could have unintended consequences and do little to improve the system. The ABI (American Bankruptcy Institute) Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 is collecting input and will prepare recommendations for Congress in coming months.

In the Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics decision, the Supreme Court unanimously held that naturally occurring DNA sequences are “products of nature” and therefore cannot be patented. “The Court’s holding represents a significant shift form the status quo,” says Kevin Emerson Collins, JD, patent law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “It reverses both the lower court and twenty years of precedent at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.