School of Law

The American College of Bankruptcy and Washington University in St. Louis School of Law will present a lecture by James H.M. Sprayregen, JD, one of the nation’s top restructuring attorneys, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Recent calls to cut Social Security benefits are grounded in misinformation and misunderstanding, says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “Cutting the program will lead to undiminished deficits, more poverty, less purchasing power, less business income and more unemployment,” he says.

The School of Law is hosting a screening and discussion of the award-winning documentary “Off and Running” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 6, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall. The event is free and open to the public. In “Off and Running,” filmmaker Nicole Opper chronicles the coming-of-age story of Avery, the adopted daughter of white Jewish lesbian parents and sister to two adopted brothers — one mixed-race and one Korean.

An entrepreneur who has helped thousands of people in poverty-stricken countries throughout Africa says she couldn’t have done it without the help of students and professors at Washington University. The Blessing Basket Project bestows its annual World Changer award on WUSTL. Video history and thank you from artisans in Africa included.

Monday, Oct. 4, the opening day of the Supreme Court term, marks Elena Kagan’s first day behind the bench as a Supreme Court justice. Gregory Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University In St. Louis and former clerk for retired Justice John Paul Stevens, says that the experience of oral argument from the other side of the bench will be entirely new to Kagan. “There is no formal or conventional restriction on new arrivals’ participation in argument, but in all likelihood, Justice Kagan will display a bit of reserve at first while she gets used to the rhythm of questioning by nine justices,” Magarian says.

Playground, a film on child trafficking in the United States, will be screened at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 5, in Steinberg Hall auditorium. A panel discussion featuring Libby Spears, the film’s director, and local experts will follow the documentary.

The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., and Washington University in St. Louis announced recipients of grants from the joint Academic Venture Fund that support collaborations between scholars at WUSTL and Brookings working on projects that impact research, education and policy.

Nicholas Kristof, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times and best-selling author, will present “Half the Sky: From Oppression to Opportunity for Women Worldwide” at 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 4, in Graham Chapel. Kristof’s talk, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Lecture in Social Policy, is free and open to the public.

Washington University in St. Louis School of Law and Saint Louis University Law School are co-hosting the Colloquium on Current Scholarship in Labor and Employment Law Friday and Saturday, Sept. 24 and 25.

Tokiyasu Fujita (left), former justice on the Supreme Court of Japan and Hiroshi Itoh, PhD, professor of political science at State University of New York at Plattsburgh, speak during the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law’s two-day symposium Decision-Making on the Japanese Supreme Court Sept. 10. The Center for Empirical Research in the Law hosted the conference.