School of Law

“Universal health care is getting the attention it deserves, but unfortunately, the proposals receiving the most attention ignore the ‘Big Leak,'” the enormous non-benefit costs incurred by health care providers who must match their billions of billings with thousands of differing private health care plans,” says Merton C. Bernstein, a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Coles Professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. “Putting everyone under the Medicare umbrella would eliminate that leak,” he says. Bernstein is available to discuss current universal health care proposals as well as the Medicare-for-all option.

Presentations about Guantanamo and the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy are among the highlights of the School of Law’s 10th annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series.

Presentations about Guantanamo and the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy are among the highlights of the School of Law’s tenth annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series, which begins Sept. 10. All lectures will be held at noon in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall. They are free and open to the public.

Below is a link to the Washington University news release about the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings for 2004-05: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/3627.html To view a full listing of U.S. News magazine, book and Web-only rankings for 2004-05, please visit the U.S. News & World Report site: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

“If all of the other defendants accept plea deals, and Vick does not, Vick will become the last man standing,” says Christopher A. Bracey, associate professor of law and of African and African-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis. “This means that he will not only bear the brunt of a focused prosecution, but one substantially assisted by his former co-defendants.” He is following the case and is available for interviews.

Bracey”The situation does not look good for Michael Vick and his co-defendants,” says Christopher A. Bracey, associate professor of law and of African and African-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis. “Vick’s indictment on charges related to dog fighting contains multiple allegations of overt acts, and only one needs to be proven in order to sustain a conviction.” Bracey says that this indictment raises a number of cultural and legal questions. He is following the case and is available for interviews.

The School of Law’s American Indian Law and Economic Development Program and the St. Louis law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal have garnered an important legal victory concerning the sovereignty of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. Working with local attorneys in South Dakota, they helped the tribe defend a federal lawsuit challenging the authority of the tribe’s courts to hear a discrimination case brought by tribal members against a non-Indian bank doing business on the reservation. In a twenty-one-page opinion released on June 26, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a 2003 discrimination verdict by a tribal jury awarding nearly a million dollars in damages, interest, and costs to the aggrieved tribal members.

The School of Law’s American Indian Law and Economic Development Program and the St. Louis law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal have garnered an important legal victory concerning the sovereignty of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. Working with local attorneys in South Dakota, they helped the tribe defend a federal lawsuit challenging the authority of the tribe’s courts to hear a discrimination case brought by tribal members against a non-Indian bank doing business on the reservation. In a twenty-one-page opinion released on June 26, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a 2003 discrimination verdict by a tribal jury awarding nearly a million dollars in damages, interest, and costs to the aggrieved tribal members.

Immigration law expert Stephen H. Legomsky says that an easy way to put a serious dent in illegal immigration is to exempt the spouses and young children of legal immigrants from numerical ceilings, just as we now exempt the spouses and children of U.S. citizens. Legomsky is the author of America’s leading law school textbook on immigration law and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. He has advised both Republican and Democratic administrations and several foreign governments on immigration, refugee and citizenship issues. More…

Washington University in St. Louis is creating a new International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) to encourage and coordinate university-wide and external collaborative research in the areas of renewable energy and sustainability — including biofuels, CO2 mitigation and coal-related issues. The university will invest more than $55 million in the initiative, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.