School of Law

Washington University in St. Louis School of Law’s Trial Team swept the inaugural Missouri Attorney General’s Cup Trial Competition held in Jefferson City, Mo., Nov. 12-14, taking first and second place in the championship round.

Before delivering the Stein Lecture in Ethics for the Assembly Series Nov. 17, humanitarian and actress Mia Farrow participated in a seminar on human trafficking at the School of Law in Anheuser-Busch Hall. Karen Tokarz, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service and director of the Dispute Resolution Program, led the group of social work and law students.

Van Jones, JD, wants to put Americans to work — millions of Americans, and not just any kind of work. The former special adviser on green jobs to President Barack Obama has a clear vision to solve the two most profound challenges facing the United States today: poverty and pollution. He will share that vision for the Assembly Series at noon Tuesday, Nov. 30, in Graham Chapel.

Washington University in St. Louis School of Law will host a screening of the award-winning documentary Family Affair at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall.

Students in various disciplines throughout universities receive hands-on training through service-learning programs such as law school clinics. But that type of academic training is under attack from both big business and legislative bodies, say two professors from the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “Recent legislative and corporate efforts to interfere in the operations of law clinics indicate that academic freedom is at risk when hands-on student learning bumps up against ‘real-world’ disputes,” write Robert Kuehn, JD, and Peter Joy, JD, in “‘Kneecapping’ Academic Freedom,” the recent lead article for “The Conflicted University,” a special edition of Academe, the publication of the American Association of University Professors. 

Standard and Poor’s recently released study on “Global Aging 2010: An Irreversible Truth” calls for the raising of the retirement age and says that age-related public spending is “unsustainable without policy change.” But Merton Bernstein, LLB, the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis, says raising the retirement age could be a costly mistake.

The continuing debate over same-sex marriage has put the issue of gender at the forefront of conversations about whom the law recognizes as a child’s parents. “The shift in family law’s treatment of gender has been transformative,” says Susan Appleton, JD, family law expert and the Lemma Barkeloo and Phoebe Couzins Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Charles W. Burson, JD, senior professor of practice at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law and former chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore, says that the midterm elections reflect a dramatic turn from the wave of aspiration that defined our politics in 2008 to the wave of grievance that defines these midterm elections. “The Tea Party movement is the embodiment of that phenomenon. In Missouri, this wave has put the seats of Democratic Congressmen Ike Skelton and Russ Carnahan at risk, but the same wave may have also put at risk the seat of Republican Representative Jo Ann Emerson.”

The Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District will hold a special session at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 3, in the School of Law’s Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall.  

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Marion Crain, JD, the Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law at Washington University In St. Louis, looks at the act’s history and says changes in the American workplace and other factors raise the question of how the NLRA will adapt in the future.