New York Law School in the News

The Orange County Register, “First Amendment, unshackled”
By John C. Eastman and Nadine Strossen
Friday, January 22, 2010

NYLS Faculty: Professor Nadine Strossen
Subject: First Amendment/Political Speech during Elections

“…The very nature of our representative democracy depends on a robust exchange of ideas in the political arena, for it is only through such interchange that the people we elect can be held accountable to us.

Yet, for decades now, Congress has been making laws abridging the freedom of speech at its core – political speech during elections. That trend was halted last week by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which struck down a key part of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA, or McCain-Feingold). Civil libertarians and constitutional originalists alike, regardless of their partisan political views, should applaud the court's decision as a great victory for freedom of speech and democracy.”

To read the article in full, click here.

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Publishers Weekly, “At NWU Event, Confusion, Strong Opposition to Google Settlement”
By Andrew Albanese
Thursday, January 21, 2010

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Google Book Search Settlement Event

“…The panel also featured literary agent and attorney Lynn Chu and New York Law School’s James Grimmelmann.

In his balanced talk, Grimmelmann, the only neutral voice on the panel, outlined three major points for audience members to consider when evaluating the deal: the settlement as a new publishing model; the deal’s alignment of authors’ and readers’ interests; and its implications for copyright policy.”

To read the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “Judge Cites Discrimination in N.Y. Fire Dept.”
By Al Baker
Thursday, January 14, 2010

NYLS Faculty: Professor Elise C. Boddie
Subject: Discrimination in the NYC Fire Department

“A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that New York City intentionally discriminated against black applicants to the Fire Department by continuing to use an exam that it had been told put them at a disadvantage.

…‘I can’t recall there ever being a finding of intentional racial discrimination in a pattern-and-practice case against the city,’ said Elise C. Boddie, a professor of constitutional law at New York Law School who formerly litigated employment discrimination cases. ‘I would say this is pretty big.’

…Ms. Boddie, the New York Law School professor, said such rulings against government entities were rare around the nation, adding, ‘To the extent there is a finding of liability, it is usually on disparate-impact grounds, not based on racially discriminatory intent.’

To read the article in full, click here.

Read more coverage at New York magazine.

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TaxProf Blog, “NYLS Offers Summer Tax Institute for J.D. Students”
By Paul L. Caron
Thursday, January 14, 2010

NYLS Subject: Summer Institutes

“New York Law School has announced a 2010 Summer Institute (June 1 to July 27) for J.D. students in four areas of concentration, including tax:”

To read the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “Top Terror Prosecutor Settles Into a Familiar Role”
By Benjamin Weiser
Tuesday, January 12, 2010

NYLS Alumnus: David Raskin ’94
Subject: September 11th Terrorism Case

“…Now, nearly four years later, that prosecutor, David Raskin, looks as if he will get another shot at prosecuting a Sept. 11 case, and this time, he could end up asking that five men be put to death. Mr. Raskin, an assistant United States attorney in Manhattan, is widely expected to be the lead prosecutor in the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other terrorism suspects when they arrive from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, former colleagues say.

…He elaborated more recently in a talk at New York Law School: “Is the government allowed to sort of try Plan A and keep people, you know, detained on an island for years, and then when it doesn’t work out, can we just decide to go a different route?”

Mr. Raskin went on to write articles for several sports magazines before deciding to attend New York Law School. He went into law in part because he was encouraged by a comment by David Stern, the N.B.A. commissioner, during an interview with him, a friend said.”

To read the article in full, click here.

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NPR, “Gay Marriage Ban Faces High-Stakes Test in Trial”
By Kevin Whitelaw
Monday, January 11, 2010

NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard
Subject: Same-Sex Marriage

“Advocates and opponents of same-sex marriage both are anxiously watching a very high-profile, landmark federal trial that opened Monday in San Francisco.

…But it’s also a case that initially divided the gay-rights community, which is concerned that federal courts remain too conservative to rule in their favor.

‘The movement's organizers, who have been litigating on same-sex marriage over the past two decades, have made the very conscious decision to stick to state courts because of their view that the Supreme Court was not yet ready to take on this issue in a positive direction,’ says Arthur Leonard, editor of Lesbian/Gay Law Notes and a law professor at New York Law School. ‘I think they're taking a risk.’

To read the article in full, click here.

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Washingtonian, “Top Lawyers”
By Kashmir Hill and David Lat
December 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Cameron Stracher
Subject: Top Lawyers

“Would you pay $1,000 an hour for this man’s time? The best legal talent doesn’t come cheap—here’s why lawyers make what they do, how they make partner (or don’t), plus the top 1 percent of the area’s 80,000 attorneys.

One Chance to Get It Right

…To be a lawyer, one must go to law school. The practice of law is a monopoly, essentially restricted to holders of law degrees who have passed the bar exam and satisfy other requirements for bar admission. That barrier to entry, coupled with the fear people encounter when they have to deal with the legal system, means lawyers can charge a lot.

…‘Lawyers beget lawyers,’ says New York Law School professor Cameron Stracher. ‘When one side lawyers up, the other one needs to do the same. It’s like nuclear deterrence in a way.’

Bill $250 but Pay Only $35

…Both surgeons and lawyers perform high-stress, high-stakes work. Lawyers, like some doctors, make sacrifices in their personal lives in exchange for big payouts.

…‘Corporate lawyers are essentially selling their souls for a large sum of money,’ says law professor Cameron Stracher, a former Covington & Burling associate and the author of Double Billing, a novel chronicling the misery of being a corporate attorney. Lawyers at large firms are ‘expected to be on call 24/7.’”

To read the article in full, click here.

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Publishers Weekly “The Google Settlement: Why It Matters”
By James Grimmelmann
Monday, November 23, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: The Google Book Search Settlement

“The Google Book Search Settlement, which was amended November 13, is a big document and a big deal: $125 million and a dramatic shift in copyright law. Having spent the last year studying the settlement and writing about it, I'd like to explain why it matters so much. On Google's home turf—search—what it does is almost wholly good. When search engines work right, they empower users to seek out whatever they want to learn. That's the exact opposite of broadcasting, in which a few big speakers choose what everyone else hears. In a world where everyone can self-publish, search engines turn what would otherwise be deafening cacophony into the best party ever, where every guest can instantly join the conversation that most interests them. That's good for freedom, and good for democracy. Building better search engines is a moral imperative.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Library Journal, “Revised Google Settlement Offers Minor Changes on Antitrust Issue, No Response on Library Pricing”
By Norman Oder
Saturday, November 14, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Revised Google Book Search Settlement

“…New York Law School professor James Grimmelmann noted that, while foreign, non-Anglophone books had been taken out and the parties had made some tweaks here and there, the ‘heart of the settlement’s promise, peril, and problems has always been its treatment of unclaimed works—a category that contains the orphan works. Settlement 1.0 allowed Google to use and sell them on an opt-out basis, and Settlement 2.0 does the same. That gave Google exclusive access to a market segment that no one else can enter, and thus raised antitrust concerns.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

To read more about this issue, please visit CNET.

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The Times Online (UK), “Barack Obama love affair with Google ends”
By Dominic Rushe
Sunday, November 1, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Google

“…In the coming months Google will face a series of challenges as its rivals and critics lobby against its enormous dominance on the net and its ambitions elsewhere. The first test comes next week over Google’s controversial plans to build the world’s biggest online library.

…James Grimmelmann of New York Law School said so many parties were looking at the book deal that a settlement could be problematic. His main concern was over the precedent that any agreement might set. ‘The settlement is worrisome not to the extent that it validates the original scanning but in that it creates something in excess of the original submission.’

He said Google’s plans to sell books were ‘never on the table during the original scanning’ and that it was not yet clear what Google intended to do in future with all this new data. Grimmelmann said the case threatened to set a dangerous legal precedent for firms to force disparate parties ‘into a room together and say all of you are going to give up your rights as part of a new deal that we want to make.’”

To read this article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “Running Without a Narrative”
By Cameron Stracher
Saturday, October 31, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Cameron Stracher
Subject: Running

“It’s been 27 years since an American man or woman has won the New York City marathon, and the streak is unlikely to be broken this Sunday. Indeed, since Alberto Salazar’s victories in 1981 and 1982, only one American-born man. Ryan Hall, has managed to run faster than Salazar’s 1981 finish of 2:08:13. While Salazar’s time was a world record when he ran it, Hall’s time (set in 2008 on a faster course at London, where he finished fifth) places him 36th on the list of top marathoners.”

To read this article in full, click here.

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The Register-Guard, “Uncommon jury trial begins”
By Karen McCowan
Wednesday, October 28, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Michael Perlin, Director of the Mental Disability Law Program
Subject: “Guilty but for insanity” defense

“A rare legal scenario began playing out here Tuesday as a jury trial began for a man who agrees he did the crimes but says he was insane at the time.

…The ‘guilty but for insanity’ defense is in itself rare, according to the director of a New York Law School program that focuses on mental disability law. But cases such as Gerlach’s, with a jury being asked to decide whether he was insane, are exceedingly so, said Michael Perlin, director of the International Mental Disability Law Reform Project.

‘Insanity is pled in one quarter of one percent of all cases, and is successful in one-third of that one-quarter, meaning one-twelfth of one percent,’ Perlin said in an e-mailed response to questions from The Register-Guard.

And in 90 percent of that small sliver of cases, he continued, defense and state psychiatric experts agree that the defendant was insane at the time of crimes.

‘Put another way, a jury finds a defendant to be insane when there is disputed evidence in 1/120th of one percent of all criminal cases,’ Perlin said.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Associated Press, “Lawyers want admitted al-Qaida member released”
By David Mercer
Wednesday, October 28, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Stephen Ellmann, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Collaborative Learning
Subject: Sentencing of al-Qaida member

“Defense attorneys for an al-Qaida sleeper agent plan to argue at his sentencing this week that his five years spent locked up without charge was enough punishment and he should be immediately released.

…Stephen Ellmann, a dean at the New York Law School and critic of military trials held at Guantanamo, said al-Marri’s admission that he was an al-Qaida member gives prosecutors a basis for seeking the maximum sentence.

‘The underlying rationale for military detention remains, even if military detention wasn’t appropriate or constitutional, that he might return to the battlefield or the terrorist struggle,’ Ellmann wrote in an e-mail. ‘And that’s a reason to seek the maximum possible sentence.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Financial Times “Industry suffers image problem at crucial time”
By Tom Braithwaite and Gregory Meyer
Tuesday, October 20, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Houman Shadab
Subject: Hedge Fund Regulation

“Hedge funds will have a weaker hand during a crucial week for regulatory reform, according to people in Congress and the industry, as the alleged insider trading case involving Galleon Group’s founder dents their image.

…‘I do think that type of atmosphere is important, at least indirectly, and public perception that hedge funds have ill-gotten gains or are trading on illegal activities—that could [have an effect on regulatory reform],’ said Houman Shadab, associate professor at New York Law School.

To view the article in full, click here.

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Library Journal “Institutional Subscriptions to Google Books with Advertising? Google Won’t Rule It Out”
By Norman Oder
Monday, October 12, 2009

Subject: Institute for Information Law & Policy’s D Is for Digitize Conference

“Would the massive Google Books database, to which many academic libraries presumably would buy institutional subscriptions, contain advertising, unlike with other databases libraries buy? Google says that’s not the plan but won’t rule it out...”

To view the article in full, click here.

For more coverage from the Library Journal visit:

Samuelson Says Google Book Search Settlement Doesn't Fully Reflect "Public Trust Responsibilities"

Google's Clancy Wonders: What Happens to Libraries When Ebooks Predominate?

Revised Google Agreement Due in Court November 9

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Associated Press, “NYC Astor trial shines light on jury-room strife”
By Jennifer Peltz
Saturday, October 10, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Randolph Jonakait
Subject: Astor Trial

“Jurors in the epic criminal case about philanthropist Brook Astor’s fortune seemed to have hit a breaking point.

…As in the Astor trial, juries often are asked to work through clashes and do, said New York Law School professor Randolph Jonakait, author of “The American Jury System,” published by Yale University Press.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “Google Working to Revise Digital Books Settlement”
By Miguel Helft
Monday, September 21, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Google Book Lawsuit

“For months, Google and its partners in a class-action settlement that would allow the company to create a vast digital library appeared unmoved by a rising tide of opposition.

…‘The news out of this is that there are frantic negotiations going on in back rooms right now,” said James Grimmelmann, an associate professor at the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, which raised antitrust and other objections to the settlement. ‘The parties are scared enough to be talking seriously about changes, with each other and the government. The government is being the stern parent making them do it.’”

To read this article in full, click here.

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UB Buzz, “New Law School Buildings Open Their Doors”
By Melissa Ezarik
Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Subject: New York Law School’s New Building

“Located at 185 West Broadway, the new building is open for this fall. It’s a glass-enclosed, 235,000-square-foot structure extending five stories aboveground—doubling the size of the campus. The new building features The Mendik Law Library, lounge areas with WiFi, and an open-air terrace with a view of Manhattan on the fifth floor.”

To read the article in full, click here.

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The National Law Journal, “Massachusetts case may be key in gay marriage fight”
By Marcia Coyle
Monday, August 31, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard
Subject: Gay Marriage

“While the high-profile, Ted Olson- and David Boies- managed legal fight against California’s Proposition 8 captures headlines, a carefully planned case quietly underway in Massachusetts federal court could be the gay marriage test with the greatest national impact.

‘If you’re looking to effect legal change, you’re looking for plaintiffs who have been harmed, a lawsuit reasonably well-funded, and the legal expertise to take it up [to] the appellate process,’ said Arthur Leonard of New York Law School, an expert on gay and lesbian legal issues. The Gill case meets that description, he and others believe.’”

To read the article in full, click here.

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Publishers Weekly, “Time Nears to Opt Out of Google Deal”
By Andrew Albanese
Monday, August 31, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Google Book Search Settlement

“With the September 4 deadline to opt out of or object to the Google Book Search settlement just days away, the deal’s critics and supporters have, as expected, ramped up the volume…

…The September deadline represents a key moment in the settlement process—the date by which ‘any copyright owner who wants no part of the settlement has to opt out’ or ‘any party who wants to support or object to the settlement’ must step forward, explained New York Law School’s James Grimmelmann. Simply put, if you don’t opt out by that date, you are in. ‘At the end of the day on September 4,” Grimmelmann added, ‘we’ll know what the battle lines over the settlement are, and who’s on which side.’”

To read the article in full, click here.

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The Observer, “Google’s plan for world’s biggest online library: philanthropy or act of piracy?”
By William Skidelsky
Sunday, August 30, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Google Books

“In recent years the world’s most venerable libraries have played hose to some incongruous visitors. In dusty nooks and far-flung stacks, teams of workers dispatched by Google have been beavering away to make digital copies of books. So far, Google has scanned more than 10 million titles from libraries in America and Europe – including half a million volumes held by the Bodleian in Oxford. The exact method it uses is unclear; the company does not allow outsiders to observe the process.

...Critics point out that, by giving Google the right to commercially exploit its database, the settlement paves the way for a subtle shift in the company’s role from provider of information to seller. ‘Google’s business model has always been to provide information for free, and sell advertising on the basis of the traffic this generates,’ points out James Grimmelmann, associate professor at New York Law School. Now, he says, because of the settlement’s provisions, Google could become a significant force in bookselling.”

To read the article in full, click here.

To read more news coverage, visit The Observer.

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The Wall Street Journal, “The Cap-and-Trade Bait and Switch”
By David Schoenbrod and Richard B. Stewart
Monday, August 24, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor David Schoenbrod
Subject: Government/Environment

“As a candidate for president in April 2008, Barack Obama told Fox News that ‘a cap-and-trade system is a smarter way of controlling pollution’ than ‘top-down’ regulation. He was right. With cap and trade the market decides where and how to cut emissions. With top-down regulation, as Mr. Obama explained, regulators dictate ‘every single rule that a company has to abide by, which creates a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and often-times is less efficient.’

It’s no wonder that the House advertises its American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (also known as the Waxman-Markey bill) as ‘cap and trade.’ And last Thursday a coalition of environmental groups and unions launched a ‘Made in America Jobs Tour’ to sell it as a ticket to ‘long-term economic prosperity.’ But the House bill would, if passed by the Senate this autumn, fail the test of economic efficiency.

Mr. Schoenbrod teaches law at New York Law School, is a visiting scholar at American Enterprise Institute, and was a staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Mr. Stewart teaches law at New York University and was chairman of Environmental Defense Fund."

To read the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “Lawyer and Author Adds His Objections to Settling the Google Book Lawsuit”
By Miguel Helft and Motoko Rich
Tuesday, August 18, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Google Book Lawsuit

“A growing chorus of authors, academics and other book industry figures is objecting to the settlement of a class-action suit that would allow Google to profit from digital versions of millions of books it has scanned from libraries.

…In the latest objection, Scott E. Gant, an author and partner at Boies Schiller & Flexner, a prominent Washington law firm, plans to file a sweeping opposition to the settlement on Wednesday urging the court to reject it.

…‘It may be the most fundamental challenge to the settlement yet,’ said James Grimmelmann, an associate professor at the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, a critic of the agreement whose blog tracks filings and commentary related to it.”

To read this article in full, click here.

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Financial Times, “A Plan to Scan”
By Richard Waters
Thursday, August 13, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Google Book Settlement

“After facing copyright lawsuits in the US over the digitisation project, Google reached a settlement last year that seemed to have something for just about everyone: publishers and authors, because it gives them a chance to make money from long forgotten works; public and university libraries, as it provides them with a way to leap beyond their dead-tree stacks into the digital age; and readers, to whom it brings access to millions of works that would otherwise have remained out of reach.

But this agreement with the US book industry, which awaits court approval, has stirred up the sort of passions that always attach to books, those most cultural of manufactured objects. In particular, the deal has provoked the fear that a more centralised industry will arise as publishing turns digital, upending checks and balances put in place over decades.

‘The book world has done really well out of decentralisation - anyone who has ideas, or access to a printing press, can take part,’ says James Grimmelmann, associate professor at New York Law School, a leading critic of the settlement. Giving Google too much power over old, out-of-print works, he adds, could set the stage for its dominance of the broader digital book market: ‘Control over the past will translate into control over the future of books.’

…Having the world's most comprehensive collection could make it the default first choice for book buyers, overshadowing Amazon.com's claim to be the world's biggest bookstore. ‘You're much more likely to turn to Google first because they'll have many more titles,’ says the law school's Mr. Grimmelmann.”

To read the article in full, click here.

To read more news coverage, visit Inside Higher Ed.

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The Detroit News, “Commentary: Signs point to a gay-friendly Sotomayor”
By Deb Price
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur S. Leonard
Subject: Gay and Lesbian Legal Protection

“To gay Americans, Sonia Sotomayor isn't just any new justice: She will likely hold the balance on a Supreme Court believed to be evenly divided over gay Americans' basic constitutional rights.

…Art Leonard, a New York Law School professor and "Leonard Link" blogger, sees positive signs in her handling of two gay-related cases, Holmes v. Artuz and Miller v. City of New York.

…‘At the time, the lower federal courts, heavily influenced by the Supreme Court's 1986 decision upholding the Georgia sodomy law, Bowers v. Hardwick, were routinely rejecting equal protection claims by gay litigants,’ Leonard explains.

But Sotomayor, then a district court judge, demonstrated a forward-looking mindset.”

To read the article in full, click here.

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Metro News Canada, “NYC Residents and Visitors Alike Go Bonkers for Cupcake Bakeries”
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

NYLS Alum: Lev Ekster
Subject: CupcakeStop

“www.cupcakestop.com.
Check the truck’s daily location at www.twitter.com/CupcakeStop:

The cupcake truck’s owner, Lev Ekster, graduated in May from New York Law School. Law firm jobs were hard to come by, but Ekster noticed that the bad economy hadn’t hurt the long lines outside Magnolia and other cupcake shops.

…And so the CupcakeStop was born, a mobile cupcake truck. Devotees follow Ekster on Twitter to find out where he’ll be; flavours include Key lime and rocky road as well as classics like red velvet, $2.25 (minis, $1).

Ekster says cupcakes are “the ideal mobile food” for 21st-century New Yorkers on the go: cupcake in one hand, and coffee (or maybe an iPhone) in the other.”

To read the article in full, click here.

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Daily Journal, “High Court Ruling Shapes Local Control: California Officials To Seek Relief from Court Oversight”
By Lawrence Hurley
Friday, July 24, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor David Schoenbrod and Professor Ross Sandler
Subject: Supreme Court Case: Horne v. Flores

“Lawyers for California's troubled Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation plan to file a motion Friday to test whether a little-noticed U.S. Supreme Court decision issued last month will help the state extricate itself from long-running institutional litigation.

…‘I think it could have profound consequences,’ said David Schoenbrod, a professor at New York Law School. ‘At last, newly elected mayors and governments can look to find another way to comply with the diktats of federal law.’

Schoenbrod and fellow New York Law School Professor Ross Sandler are known for their critiques of court oversight. Their work was cited in both the majority and dissenting opinions in Horne.

Schoenbrod said the decision could apply to thousands of cases across the country, although the extent of the impact rests on to what extent government lawyers take advantage of it and how lower courts interpret it. The ruling does not necessarily mean governments will be able to walk away from court orders, he stressed, but it will at least give elected officials the chance to suggest other ways of tackling alleged violations of federal law.”

To view the article in full, click here.

To read more news coverage, visit City Journal

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The New York Times, “Ideas Online, Yes, but Some Not So Presidential”
By Saul Hansell
Monday, June 22, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Simone Noveck
Subject: Obama’s New Vision for Open Government

“The [Obama] administration’s goal is to devise regulations that would tell federal agencies how to make their operations more open to the public.

…Beth Simone Noveck, a New York Law School professor who is Mr. Obama’s deputy chief technology officer for open government…has permitted any proposal that was not abusive or repetitive onto the brainstorming site…

…Ms. Noveck has some confidence that the effort will result in better government because…as a professor, she worked with the United States Patent Office…[where] public comments helped patent examiners consider their applications more quickly.”

To view the article in full, click here.

To read more news coverage, visit The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Information Week, and Government Technology.

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NYConvergence, Real Fun: State of Play 2009
By Gloria Sin
Monday, June 22, 2009

Subject: State of Play VI Conference  

“…the sixth annual State of Play, hosted by New York Law School in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood…featured…speakers fast-forward[ing] through their experiences of working with(in) virtual worlds…”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Baltimore Sun, “Stereotypes confound jury selection”
By Tricia Bishop
Monday, June 15, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Randolph Jonakait
Subject: Unreliable Jury Stereotypes

“While many lawyers have long relied on stereotypes to figure out how potential jurors might lean, those characterizations are increasingly turned on their heads, trial consultants said…

…‘The demographics of the jurors have at best a very minor effect on the outcome,’ said Randolph Jonakait, a professor at New York Law School who published the book The American Jury System in 2006.

‘Almost always, it's the evidence that wins the case, not the background of the jury.’”

To read the article in full, click here.

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Government Technology, “Beth Noveck’s Wiki Government (Book Review)”
By Tod Newcombe
Monday, June 8, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck
Subject: Noveck’s new book, Wiki Government

“As the president's deputy chief technology officer for Open Government, Noveck has the formidable task of leading the drive for more transparency, participation and collaboration within the federal government. Her new book, Wiki Government, is Noveck's vision for turning that mandate into action.

…Noveck's solution is to design a governance process that sets up an egalitarian, self-selecting mechanism for gathering and evaluating information and transforming raw data into useful knowledge.”

To read the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “It’s a Cupcake Truck. Need We Say More?”
By Florence Fabricant
Tuesday, June 2, 2009

NYLS Alum: Lev Ekster
Subject: CupcakeStop

“…Lev Ekster… is now running CupcakeStop, a truck that travels between Union Square and Chelsea.

…He thinks he will sell 1,200 to 1,500 a day.”

To read the article in full, click here.

To read more news coverage, visit Crain’s New York Business.

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The Washington Post, “Add Washington Book Prize to the 'Hemingses' Haul”
By Neely Tucker
Friday May 29, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Annette Gordon-Reed
Subject: Her book, The Hemingses' of Monticello

“Historian and author Annette Gordon-Reed has won a literary Triple Crown with her remarkable "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family," her 798-page exploration of Thomas Jefferson and the family of slaves with whom he became intimately involved. The book has won the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize and, yesterday, the $50,000 George Washington Book Prize, given annually to the ‘most important new book about America's founding era.’

…For a decade, Gordon-Reed worked on the new book -- which explores the relationship between Sally Hemings and her master, Jefferson, and their descendants -- in between day jobs as a professor of law at New York Law School, professor of history at Rutgers University and mother to two teenagers.

…‘It's new material for people who are not historians, who don't think about slavery as an institution, who are interested in how individuals coped with all this.’”

To read this article in full, click here.

To read more news coverage, visit The Plain Dealer and The New York Times.

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The Boston Globe, “Obama nomination would boost ranks of Catholics on court”
By Michael Paulson
Saturday, May 30, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Nadine Strossen
Subject: Catholics in the Judicial System

“For the first 50 years of the Supreme Court, there were no Catholics on the bench, and for years after that, there was generally a single ‘Catholic seat.’

…and now, if Judge Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, there will be six Catholics on the nine-member court. The percentage of Catholics on the high court will be more than double the percentage of Catholics in the general population.

…‘It's clear that neither the politicians nor the public nor the media are making any equation at all between Catholicism and even those issues where the church has spoken so strongly,’ said Nadine Strossen, a long-time court watcher as the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union and a law professor at New York Law School. ‘It's a very positive development, when you get to a point where what used to be considered noteworthy diversity goes without notice.’”

To read the article in full, click here.

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Publisher’s Weekly, “Deal or No Deal: What if the Google Settlement Fails?”
By Andrew Richard Albanese
Monday, May 25, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Google Book Search Settlement

“In June, a tense four-year period of legal conflict between publishers, authors and Google over its library scanning program was poised to end with the approval of a visionary class action settlement. But just one week from a key May 5 deadline—by which authors and rights holders opposed to the settlement (agreed to last October; see time line) would have been required to opt out of or object to the deal—the federal judge overseeing the approval process surprised court watchers by granting a four-month extension…

…The solution to what began in 2005 as a simple copyright question is now a complex blueprint for an entirely new digital book business…

…For publishers and authors, that means the stakes are sky-high: if this settlement fails to win approval—and opposition is gathering momentum—what happens next? “Back to the world of private deals for putting books into digital formats,” suggests James Grimmelmann, a professor of law at the New York Law School, who has written extensively on the settlement. “No deals at all for orphan works, and one very big lawsuit over scanning and searching.”

…In his detailed critique, published shortly after the settlement was announced, New York Law School's Grimmelmann was among the first to point out the numerous antitrust issues raised by the settlement.”

To read this article in full, click here.

To read more news coverage, visit The Star.

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The Advocate, “Marriage: ‘Too Big to Fail’”
By Julia Bolcer
Friday, May 8, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard
Subject: Marriage Equality

“A panel of legal experts discussed the recent nationwide progress toward marriage equality…

…Arthur Leonard, a professor at New York Law School, attributed the marriage emphasis in part to media cravings for a ‘sexy subject.’

‘It makes it look like we're all obsessed with marriage, when in fact marriage is only a fraction of the work we’re doing,’ he said.”

To read this article in full, click here.

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ABA Journal, “Derivatives Regulation Becomes a Popular Law School Offering”
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Friday, May 8, 2009

Subject: New Masters in Financial Law Program

“New York Law School has seen so much interest in its derivatives course that is developing plans for a new masters in law program in financial services that will include eight separate classes…”

To read this article in full, click here.

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The Catholic Spirit, “Panelists disagree on when conscience exemptions should be allowed”
By Beth Griffin
Monday, May 4, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Nadine Strossen
Subject: Freedom of Conscience

“Legislation in a democracy generally mirrors public consensus, but individuals who disagree with a law on moral grounds should be allowed to claim an exemption to it, according to panelists at a recent forum on ‘Matters of Conscience: When Moral Precepts Collide With Public Policy.’

…Nadine Stossen [sic], professor of law at New York Law School and former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, said freedom of conscience may be limited only if the limitation is necessary to protect other basic rights such as health and safety.

With respect to abortion and contraception, she said sectarian institutions should not be required to provide services contrary to their beliefs, but they must give candid notification of their policy and make referrals to alternate providers. She said they should also provide the service if there is no other provider, especially in the case of an emergency.

Stossen [sic] maintained that the panelists, while disagreeing on a number of points, all supported ‘giving infinitely more protection to freedom of belief than the Supreme Court has done in the last 18 years.’”

To read the article in full, click here.

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The Tribeca Trib, “A Grand Opening for New York Law School”
By Claire Moses
Friday, May 1, 2009

Subject: New York Law School’s New Building

“The New York Law School threw itself a party last month to celebrate the completion of its just completed glass-encased $200 million… 235,000-square-foot building, at West Broadway and Leonard Street, [which] stands five floors above ground and four below, doubling the size of the school’s campus.”

To read this article in full, click here.

To read more news coverage, visit Curbed.

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The Register, “Microsoft’s TomTom patents under scrutiny”
By Gavin Clarke
Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Subject: Post-Issue Peer-to-Patent

“The Post-Issue Peer-to-Patent site is a project of the Center for Patent Innovations at New York Law School, a project created last year and designed to improve the quality of patents, operation of the patent system, and access to information about patents.”

To read this article in full, click here.

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Software Development Times, “Experts mull changes to software patent process”
By David Worthington
Monday, April 27, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Associate Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Software Patent Law

“In response to the controversy surrounding software patents, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has tightened up considerably on granting them…

…However, bad eggs have managed to slip past patent examiners largely due to a loophole in the patent process…

…That "loophole" is a central issue in patents on software, and U.S. courts are seeking to close it, said James Grimmelmann, an associate professor at New York Law School.

…The U.S. Congress could supplement the courts by passing a law that explicitly states the standard that divides things that are patentable from the un-patentable, Grimmelmann said.

…Grimmelmann, whose law school sponsors a community patent-review project, said that industry peer review would address some of the most recurring and serious problems with bad software patents…”

To read the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “Google’s Plan for Out-of-Print Books Is Challenged”
By Miguel Helft
Saturday, April 4, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Google Book Settlement

“…Google has been scanning the pages of those books…as part of its plan to bring a digital library and bookstore, unprecedented in scope, to computer screens across the United States.

…Groups that plan to raise concerns with the court include the American Library Association, the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, and a group of lawyers…

…Some of Google’s rivals are clearly interested in the settlement’s fate. Microsoft is helping to finance the research on the settlement at the New York Law School Institute. James Grimmelmann, an associate professor at the institute, said its work was not influenced by Microsoft.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Wired, “Who’s Messing With the Google Book Settlement? Hint: They’re in Redmond, Washington”
By Steven Levy
Tuesday, March 31, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Google Book Settlement

“…Google settled the lawsuit brought against it by book publishers and authors concerning its massive book-scanning project…The only obstacle remaining for the settlement to take effect is final court approval…one party nudging its way into the settlement is an Internet-issues oriented group from New York Law School.

…the efforts of ‘the second oldest independent law school in the United States’ is funded in part by Google’s main competitor, Microsoft.

…The chief investigator of the New York Law School project is James Grimmelmann…Grimmelmann laid out the project in a proposal sent to Microsoft. The amicus brief is one of four initiatives the Law School will undertake. The others are a series of a white papers, a symposium on the settlement issues, and a website that will act as a hub of activity for those challenging or asking for changes on the settlement. Though Grimmelmann says other contributors may emerge, currently Microsoft is the sole outside funder of New York Law School’s Google Book Settlement Project.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The National Jurist, “In-house counsel”
By Ursula Furi-Perry, Esq.
March 2009

Subject: New York Law School Alum Justin Xenitelis ’06

“Justin Xenitelis clearly loves his job, his law school and his involvement in the community.

A 2006 graduate of New York Law School and now associate counsel at Thor Equities, LLC in New York City, Xenitelis works in-house as part of a three-attorney corporate law department.

…As a law student, Xenitelis was also involved on his campus. He said staying busy and active made for a gratifying law school experience. He organized his school’s AIDS fundraiser three years in a row, and he founded the Stonewall Law Students Association, which focuses on LGBT rights.

‘I think it’s important not only to attend classes, but to be involved on campus,’ he said, adding that staying active teaches important practical skills, such as learning how to work with students, faculty and others in small groups.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Washington Post, “EPA Presses Obama To Regulate Warming Under Clean Air Act”
By Juliet Eilperin
Tuesday, March 24, 2009

NYLS Faculty: David Schoenbrod
Subject: Regulation under the Clean Air Act

“The Environmental Protection Agency's new leadership, in a step toward confronting global warming, submitted a finding that will force the White House to decide whether to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the nearly 40-year-old Clean Air Act.

…But even those who support cutting greenhouse gases warn that doing so under the Clean Air Act could be complicated. ‘This would be a regulatory maze far exceeding anything we've seen before,’ said David Schoenbrod, a professor of environmental law at the New York Law School.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Business Week, Peer-to-Patent: A System for Increasing Transparency
By John Hagel and John Seely Brown
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck
Subject: Peer-to-Patent

“One of the more interesting of these is an effort conceived at New York Law School by Beth Noveck, a professor there and director of the Institute for Information Law & Policy. This effort, called Peer-to-Patent is run in cooperation with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO).

Almost two years ago, the New York Law School began the "Peer-to-Patent Community Patent Review Pilot" in collaboration with the USPTO. This pilot initiative is a milestone since it represents the first significant effort to apply social software directly to the decision-making process of the federal government.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Washington Post, ‘Blecker’ Deftly Stands Alone On Both Sides Of Death Penalty
By Hank Stuever
Friday, March 13, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker
Subject: Documentary, “Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead”

“‘Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead’ wants to be a documentary about the vast amount of wiggle room between being for the death penalty and being against it.

…Blecker, a New York Law School professor, supports the death penalty on such a contrary and nuanced level -- he calls himself an ‘emotional retributivist’ -- that it has set him apart from both sides of the debate and a large swath of the legal realm. Blecker’s work has turned him into a lovably raving, single-minded gadfly who has the sole consolation of knowing he’s right.”

To view the article in full, click here.

To read more news coverage, visit The ABA Journal and the Washington City Paper.

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Ars Technica, “Trolls Square Off Against Tech in Patent Reform Fight”
By Julian Sanchez
Thursday, March 5, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Mark Webbink
Subject: Peer-to-Patent

“Over 50 years after its last major overhaul, there's a widespread sense that the US patent system has gone off the rails.

…One portion of the bill, which recapitulates the Patent Sovereignty Act, is raising some eyebrows at the crowd sourced patent examination initiative Peer to Patent…According to Mark Webbink, director of the Center for Patent Innovations at New York Law School, that language ‘would appear to bar Peer to Patent or similar outsourced function from ever being mandated as a part of the examination process.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The National Law Journal, “Next moves for newly-unemployed associates”
By Karen Sloan
Thursday, March 5, 2009

NYLS Staff: Margaret Reuter, Assistant Dean for Career Planning
Subject: Internet Job Searches

“…More and more, today’s jobs searches start by logging onto the Internet instead of with an informal face-to-face interview and a handshake.

…For all the benefits of Internet job sites, they have plenty of drawbacks. Margaret Reuter, assistant dean for career planning at the New York Law School, said that many job boards carry the same postings, which can turn off searchers.

‘There’s a huge amount of similarities between job search Web sites, and there’s a gazillion of them,’ Reuter said. ‘It’s easy to be numbed by the familiarity of the same postings, as people bounce from site to site.’”

To read the article in full, click here.

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New York Law Journal, “Report by Law Schools Urge Cap-and-Trade on Pollutants”
By Michael J. Paquette
Tuesday, March 3, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor David Schoenbrod
Subject: Breaking the Logjam Report

“In a joint effort, New York Law School and New York University School of Law have issued a report concluding that an effective response to climate change requires Congress to adopt and cap-and-trade approach to conventional pollutants. David Schoenbrod of New York Law School…co-led the year-long project.”

New York Law Journal subscribers may read the article in full by clicking here.

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The New York Times, “An Advocate of Killing Killers Learns From One”
By Jeremy W. Peters
Friday, February 27, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker
Subject: “Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead”

“…A new documentary that opened on Friday at Cinema Village in Greenwich Village, ‘Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead,’ is something of an outlier as well. It devotes itself to probing Mr. Blecker and his deeply held view that society has an obligation to execute its most coldblooded killers if it truly aspires to carry out justice. By examining the case for capital punishment, Ted Schillinger, the film’s director, wades into territory largely ignored in the documentaries and feature films that have examined the subject.

…This film’s unconventional approach is the product of two most unconventional relationships: one between Mr. Blecker and Mr. Schillinger and another between Mr. Blecker and Daryl Holton, a man executed by Tennessee in 2007 for killing four young children.

…And that gave Mr. Schillinger a remarkable opportunity to examine the death penalty in all its emotional complexity.

…‘The movie is proof that if you’re going to open the door consciously and approvingly to your emotions, things are going to happen that you don’t expect and that you don’t mean to happen,’ Mr. Schillinger said.”

To read the article in full, click here.

To read more reviews of “Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead” visit:

The New York Times
The New York Post
New York Law Journal

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The New York Law Journal, “Man Found Entitled to Inherit Estate of His Same-Sex Partner”
By Noeleen G. Walder
Tuesday, February 3, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard
Subject: The Rights of Same-Sex Partners

“Recognizing the validity of a same-sex marriage between New Yorkers contracted in Canada, a Manhattan surrogate has ruled that a man is entitled to inherit the entire estate of his deceased male partner.

According to Arthur S. Leonard, a New York Law School professor who specializes in issues of sexuality and the law, Surrogate Nahman erred in failing to recognize the controlling authority of the Martinez case, which he did not mention in his decision.

He called Surrogate Glen’s citation of Martinez ‘significant.’ While only a trial-level decision, it signals the court’s willingness to give the same rights to surviving spouses of same-sex couples and heterosexual couples, Mr. Leonard said.”

New York Law Journal subscribers may view the article in full here.

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The Huffington Post, “Obama’s Guantánamo Mistake: He’s Not Closing Gitmo the Right Way”
By Brandt Goldstein
Thursday, January 22, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Visiting Professor Brandt Goldstein
Subject: Closing Guantanamo Bay

“President Obama is shutting down Guantánamo, but he’s doing it the wrong way. I am not talking about the practical matters involved: where to put the detainees, how to prosecute them, whether to send some to other countries, and so forth… Obama has issued an executive order -- a directive from the president -- to shut down the prison. That alone is not enough. What Obama must do now is work with Congress to enact a federal statute that outlaws forever the use of Guantánamo as a detention facility.

The problem with an executive order is that it can be changed -- easily. President Obama himself could reverse his new order tomorrow. That's almost certainly not going to happen, of course. But if Obama’s out in four years, or eight, and a new president -- say, Mitt Romney -- wanted to reopen Guantanamo as a detention facility, he could do so the moment he takes office. (Recall that Romney said he wanted to double the size of Guantánamo.)”

To view the article in full, click here.

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preLaw “Most Innovative Law Schools”
By Karen Dybis
Winter 2009

Subject: New York Law School chosen as one of the most Innovative Law Schools in the country

“Staid. Boring. Predictable. These adjectives describe what some people think about law school.

Their opinions would change radically if they could see what a select group of legal institutions are doing these days.

New York Law School is making history — and getting its students top-notch careers — through its academic centers, which focus on project-based learning. The idea, said Dean Rick Matasar, is to give students real-life skills such as team building, how to work on a deadline and the ability to respond to criticism in a positive way.

‘The beauty of (project-based learning) is it challenges students to engage in the project — and lets the whole world judge their work,’ Matasar said.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Law Observer, "The Other Big Transition: Change.gov Content Shifts to Whitehouse.gov at Noon"
By Gillian Reagan
Tuesday, January 20, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck
Subject: President Obama’s Technology Innovation and Government Reform group

“Yesterday at Change.gov, the Technology Innovation and Government Reform group featured in a video on the site. Micah Sifry of TechPresident.com described ‘three rising stars of open and collaborative government’ featured in the video, including Beth Noveck, author of the forthcoming book Wiki Government.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Law Journal, “Lawyer Cannot Be Prosecuted for Giving Advice, Panel Finds”
By Vesselin Mitev
Friday, January 16, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Adjunct Professor Oscar Michelen ’85
Subject: The right of attorneys to advise clients

“A lawyer facing criminal charges for advising 10 nurses they could quit their jobs at a Long Island nursing facility gave ‘objectively reasonable’ advice and cannot be prosecuted, a Brooklyn appeals panel has ruled.

…Oscar Michelen, a partner at Sandback, Birnbaum, & Michelen in Mineola, who represents Mr. Vinlaun, said he felt vindicated by the decision.

‘We won,’ Mr. Michelen said in an interview yesterday. ‘It’s a vindincation for the nurses, certainly for the rights of attorneys and for the lawyers who represent people in the labor and health fields. This was a dangerous prosecution from the beginning.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Boston Phoenix, “Speak no evil? Why tightening up on anti-Obama speech is a bad idea”
By Adam Reilly
Wednesday, January 14, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Nadine Strossen
Subject: Freedom of speech

“Anthony Lewis’s free-speech credentials are impeccable…Recently, though, Lewis has been reassessing the legal standard for how far threatening speech should be allowed to go.

...‘We need to have historical humility,’ says Nadine Strossen, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union and a professor at New York Law School. ‘Each era tends to have historical hubris —“This is the greatest danger ever posed to the values we hold most dear.’ We tend always to exaggerate the danger — and to unnecessarily cut off civil liberties.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports, “The Top 10 Events of 2008 in the Legal Academy”
By Brian Leiter
Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Subject: New York Law School

“6. New York Law School, meanwhile, has made clear that it is the most underrated law school in New York.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “Early Test of Obama View on Power Over Detainees”
By Adam Liptak
Saturday, January 3, 2009

NYLS Faculty: Professor Brandt Goldstein
Subject: Barack Obama on Detainees

“Just a month after President-elect Barack Obama takes office, he must tell the Supreme Court where he stands on one of the most aggressive legal claims made by the Bush administration – that the president may order the military to seize legal residents of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime.

The new administration’s brief, which is due Feb. 20, has the potential to hearten or infuriate Mr. Obama’s supporters, many of whom are looking to him for stark disavowals of the Bush administration’s legal positions on the detention and interrogation of so-called enemy combatants held at Navy facilities on the American mainland or at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

…‘If they adopt the Bush administration position, or some version of it,’ said Brandt Goldstein, a professor at New York Law School, ‘it is going to be a moment of profound disappointment for everyone in the legal community and Americans generally who believe that the Bush administration has tried to turn the presidency into a monarchy.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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FindLaw, “Bringing Transitional Justice Home: President Obama’s Dilemma about the Past Administration’s Human Rights Abuses – What is to be Done, and Who’ll be the Judge?”
By Ruti Teitel
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Ruti Teitel
Subject: Punishing Human Rights Abuses at Guantánamo

“While we don’t know what Barack Obama will do first after he becomes President January 20th, it is clear that he has been given a mandate to end some of the worst abuses of the rule of law in U.S. history. President-elect Obama has already said he will close Guantánamo and put an end to torture, whether by the U.S. military or civilian operatives. But there is also a need to reckon with the last seven years. Those who both planned and carried out the abuses should be held responsible, while the innocent must have a chance to be cleared.

Yet who should judge is a challenging question…”

To view the article in full, click here.

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New York Law Journal, “Cornell Tops in N.Y. Bar Exam Pass Rate; State Average Hits High”
Friday, December 5, 2008
By Thomas Adcock

NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard A. Matasar
Subject: Bar Pass Rate

“Ninety-nine percent of Cornell Law School graduates passed on their first attempt at the New York state bar examination in July, placing it first among the state's 15 law schools, which together tallied a historically high 91 percent average pass rate.

…Fordham Law and New York Law substantially increased their respective scores by six and four points

…Dean Richard A. Matasar of New York Law credits his school's persistent advance in pass rates -- as low as 68 percent in 2004 compared with this year's 94 percent -- with a full flowering of its Comprehensive Curriculum Program.

…"If a school is attentive, it can help its students with the skills they need to pass the bar," said Matasar. "I think all schools are serious about this. It's the name of the game."

To read the article in full, click here.

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Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports, “Law professor/historian Gordon-Reed Wins National Book Award”
By Brian Leiter
Friday, November 28, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Annette Gordon-Reed
Subject: National Book Award

“Law professor/historian Gordon-Reed Wins National Book Award”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports, “NYLS’s Reza Named 2008 Carnegie Scholar”
By Brian Leiter
Tuesday, November 25, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Sadiq Reza
Subject: 2008 Carnegie Scholar

“NYLS’s Reza Named 2008 Carnegie Scholar”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Washington Post, “Obama Names Team to Create ‘Innovation Agenda’”
By Cecilia Kang
Tuesday, November 25, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck
Subject: Obama Innovation Team

“President-elect Barack Obama today unveiled who will oversee his ‘Innovation Agenda,’ a set of policy proposals that aim to make government operation more transparent, use high-technology to create jobs and get average citizens more involved in government.

Members of the group: …Beth Noveck.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Washington Times, “Internet firm to reward researchers for patent evidence”
By Joelle Tessler
Monday, November 24, 2008

Subject: Peer-to-Patent

“A start-up company wants to have a say in the high-stakes patent disputes that loom over many industries.

The company hopes to build on the progress being made by Peer-to-Patent, a program run by New York Law School that publishes patent applications online in order to gather prior art to be passed along to the Patent Office during the examination process.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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TaxProf Blog, “NYLS Hosts Conference on Representing Non-Traditional Couples”
By Paul L. Caron
Friday, November 21, 2008

Subject: NYLS Conference

“NYLS Hosts Conference on Representing Non-Traditional Couples”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “Book Prizes Awarded With Nod to History”
By Motoko Rich
Thursday, November 20, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Annette Gordon-Reed
Subject: National Book Award for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

“Annette Gordon-Reed won the National Book Award for nonfiction on Wednesday night for ‘The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family,’ a sweeping, prodigiously researched biography of three generations of a slave family owned by Thomas Jefferson.

Ms. Gordon-Reed, who celebrated her 50th birthday on the night of the awards, was the first African-American author to win the prize for nonfiction since Orlando Patterson won for ‘Freedom’ in 1991. ‘I can’t say what a wonderful November this has been,’ she said. ‘It’s sort of wonderful to have the book come out at this time. People ask me if I planned it this way; I didn’t. All of America – we’re on a great journey now and I look forward to the years to come.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The National Law Journal, “Law School Deans, Profs Ponder Reasons for Decline in Minority Enrollment”
By Thomas Adcock
Thursday, November 20, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Dean Richard A. Matasar
Subject: Minority Enrollment in Law Schools

“The controversy surrounding Columbia Law School's documentation of a ‘disturbing’ decline in enrollment of minority students at law campuses around the country has deans and professors in New York state discussing a perceived cultural bias in the LSAT examination, combined with the test's exaggerated importance as an element of the annual rankings of their institutions by U.S. News & World Report.

‘There is a lot of risk aversion in American law schools,’ said Matasar, who acknowledged the steady decline. ‘Schools are much more reticent to take chances for two reasons: fear of the U.S. News rankings and fear of taking more marginal students who might risk the school's bar exam pass rate.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Wired Blog Network, Epicenter, “We Are All Patent Reviewers”
By Jeff P. Howe
Thursday, November 20, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Beth Noveck
Subject: Peer-to-Patent

“In my book I chronicle how Beth Noveck, a professor at New York Law School, was trying to harness the network -- which is to say, all of us -- to improve the process. She launched Peer-to-Patent in June of last year, in cooperation with the USPTO, as well as such companies as IBM and Microsoft, whose outsized patent portfolios exercise a magnetic force for frivolous litigation.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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PropertyProf Blog, “Korngold on the Mortgage Crisis”
By D. Benjamin Barros
Wednesday, November 12, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Gerald Korngold
Subject: Mortgage Crisis

“Gerald Korngold (New York Law School) has posted Legal and Policy Choices in the Aftermath of the Subprime and Mortgage Financing Crisis on SSRN.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Scoop Independent News, “US: Keeping Minorities Out Of Law School”
By Lawrence R. Velvel
Tuesday, November 11, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Elizabeth Chambliss
Subject: Minorities and Law School Admission

“If law school enrollment today is made up largely of the white and the wealthy, it is because the American Bar Association, the chief accreditor of the nation’s law schools, has designed the rules that produce this outcome.

New York Law School professor Elizabeth Chambliss, author of the Commission’s report, described law as ‘one of the least racially integrated professions in the United States ...’ She called the LSAT ‘one of the main barriers to increasing diversity among law students.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Popular Science, “Dear Mr. President”
By Daniel Engber
Monday, October 27, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck and Peer-to-Patent
Subject: Information Technology

“Good morning, Senator (or should I say ‘President-elect’?)…

...As the next president, you should strive for something more substantial than online fireside chats, open-ended forums for public comments, and town-hall meetings in streaming video. Instead of devoting resources to these superficial, large-scale interactions, think small. New York Law School’s Noveck has worked to promote a radically different vision of how the opinions and expertise of regular Americans might be tapped to improve government decision-making.

…Her ideas are being tested at a social-networking Web site associated with the U.S. Patent Office called Peer-to-Patent. Here’s how it works: Government employees now spend much of their time checking that the ideas contained in patent applications are sufficiently novel and interesting. Peer-to-Patent allows them to recruit unpaid specialists from around the world by posting the applications online.

…The software behind Peer-to-Patent isn’t especially complicated or new, nor does the site strive for mass appeal. It simply tries to draw in the particular people who might be able to answer a particular question. Now imagine that instead of building some bloated, mass-interaction site like E-Petitions, you set up a multitude of these smaller, special-interest sites. Each government agency could thus reach out to only those users with the expertise relevant to a particular policy.”

To read the article in full, please click here.

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Internet Evolution, “Patent Reform Pending”
By David F. Carr
Friday, October 24, 2008

NYLS Staff: Christopher Wong, Project Manager at the Institute for Information Law & Policy
Subject: Patent Reform

“…Experiments like Peer-to-Patent could be part of the answer. It was launched by the Patent Office and the New York Law School in June 2007 to provide applicants with faster patent reviews. In its first year, only 23 patents passed through the system; a few dozen more are expected in 2009.

This solves the ‘information deficit’ plaguing areas like software, where the Patent Office often has too little information to make a good decision on whether to issue a patent, says Christopher Wong, a project manager at New York Law School’s Institute for Information Law & Policy, which runs the site. ‘That’s probably the most fundamental aspect of what’s wrong with the patent system,’ he says.

In its first report, Peer-to-Patent cited the Yahoo smart drag-and-drop application as one of its successes because of the number of quality prior art submissions participants provided. A lot of the attention it attracted was because it had a big name attached to it and because of the title,’ Wong says. ‘Bloggers looked at it and said, “Hey, they’re trying to patent drag-and-drop”’

To read the article in full, please click here.

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The American Lawyer, “Stealth, Cunning Needed to Land a Job”
By Cameron Stracher
Wednesday, October 22, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Cameron Stracher
Subject: Landing a legal job in today’s economy

“…there are a few things you can do to improve your odds and avoid the unemployment line.

…First, don’t despair. As a law professor and practicing lawyer, I have seen my share of downturns. Although the market may be bad, it’s never as bad as they say. The wheels of commerce never stop grinding; they just slow and, occasionally, roll over people.

…‘Make a mental – and financial – plan that the job-hunting process will take six to eight months,’ says Meg Reuter, assistant dean for career planning at New York Law School.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Sacramento Bee, “Fate of 11,000 same-sex marriages uncertain if Prop. 8 passes”
By Jennifer Garza
Tuesday, October 21, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Visiting Professor Lawrence Levine
Subject: Proposition 8

“An estimated 11,000 couples have wed since the California Supreme Court ruled in May that same-sex marriages are legal.
Two weeks before the election, it's not clear what happens to them if state voters approve Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage.

…‘I can think of no other state where this right has been taken away retroactively. It would be extraordinary if it happened,’ said Larry Levine, who teaches at McGeorge Law School and is currently a visiting professor at New York Law School.
The bottom line, said Levine, is that this is uncharted territory. ‘No one really knows what's going to happen.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Legal Times “Supreme Court Stays Above Economic Fray – for Now”
By Tony Mauro
October 1, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor David Schoenbrod
Subject: Supreme Court’s non-involvement in Economic Crisis

“As the nation’s stunning financial crisis competed with a riveting presidential election campaign for Washington, D.C.’s attention last week, the other branch of government – the Supreme Court – remained blithely uninvolved.

…Handing off huge gobs of power to the executive branch also can raise issues of unconstitutional delegation of authority. After the Depression, the Court invoked that doctrine in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, the so-called ‘sick chicken’ case. The Court struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act on grounds that it delegated too much power to the executive, declaring that ‘extraordinary conditions, such as an economic crisis, may call for extraordinary remedies, but they cannot create or enlarge constitutional power.’

That was then. The current Court is much more open to letting Congress delegate its traditional powers to the executive branch, says New York Law School professor David Schoenbrod, author of a book on the doctrine. He is also a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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preLaw, "Best Public Interest Law Schools"
By Michelle Weyenberg
Fall 2008

Subject: New York Law School Named in "Best Public Interest Law Schools" List

New York Law School was recently named as one of the “Best Law Schools for Public Interest Law” in the fall 2008 edition of preLaw magazine; of the 75 law schools that made the list, New York Law School ranked 15th.

From the article:

"Today, more students want to work in the public interest field than in the last 15 years. By the time these students are getting to law school, many are already infected with the 'public interest bug,' said David Stern, chief executive officer for Equal Justice Works.

...To compile the rankings of the Best Law Schools for Public Interest Law, The National Jurist used a scoring system based on a 100-point scale to assign point values to law schools in three equally weighted categories--student involvement, curriculum, and financial factors."

To view the article in full, pick up the Fall 2008 edition of preLaw magazine.

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The New York Post, “One Party Wasn’t Always a Problem”
By R.B. Bernstein
Sunday, October 12, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Adjunct Professor R.B. Bernstein
Subject: The possibility of Democratic control in the Presidency and Congress

“For the first time since 1993, a new presidential term may open with the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate in the hands of the Democrats. Although pundits argue that this is a prescription for government run amok, American history suggests that this is not always the case.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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BusinessWeek, “Lehman: One Big Derivatives Mess”
By Matthew Goldstein and David Henry
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Kenneth Kettering
Subject: Lehman Brothers

“In 2003, legendary investor Warren E. Buffett called derivatives ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ Buffett predicted that the complex financial instruments would morph, mutate, and multiply ‘until some event makes their toxicity clear.’ The failure of Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ) may have been the disaster he imagined.

…It turns out that Lehman, like other big dealers, was running a perfectly legal but highly risky game moving money from firm to firm. It used the collateral from one trading partner to fund more deals with other firms. The same $100 million collected in one deal can be used for many other transactions. ‘Firms basically can use [the money] as their own collateral for anything they want,’ says Kenneth Kettering, a former derivatives lawyer and currently a professor at New York Law School. But when the contracts terminate as the result of bankruptcy, the extra collateral is supposed to be returned.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Chronicle for Higher Education, “Company’s Lawsuit Over Free Scholarly Organization Tool Generates Buzz”
By Jeffrey R. Young
Friday, October 3, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Thomson Reuter’s Lawsuit against George Mason University

“…Even if the lawsuit has merit, the approach of suing rather than working out a deal with the university is terrible public relations in an academic community that values openness, said James Grimmelmann, an associate professor of law at New York Law School who wrote about the issue on his blog. ‘Using lawsuits like this to squelch a freely shared and very valued piece of software has very terrible PR effects,’ he said in an interview with The Chronicle this week. ‘This is exactly the wrong way to sell to an audience that cares about sharing.’

To view the article in full, click here.

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Newsweek, “A Lawyer’s New Jefferson Memorial: The next chapter in the Hemings saga”
By Jennie Yabroff
Monday, October 13, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Annette Gordon-Reed
Subject: Her new book “The Hemingses of Monticello”

“…That early, firsthand experience with the interplay of race and history informs much of Gordon-Reed’s work, including her compulsively readable new book, ‘The Hemingses of Monticello,’ in which she traces the family history of Sally Hemings, the slave who had a 38-year relationship with Thomas Jefferson. …she is best known for 1997’s groundbreaking ‘Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy,’ which examined historians’ treatment of the Jefferson-Hemings liaison, and made a strong case that Jefferson fathered seven children with Hemings. DNA testing a year after the book came out vindicated Gordon-Reed’s assertion, and made her book a cause célèbre among Jefferson scholars.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Bloomberg News, “UBS Helps Lilly Buy ImClone, Says Price Too High”
By Zachary R. Mider
Monday, October 6, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Jeffrey Haas
Subject: Lilly Purchase of ImClone

“UBS AG bankers helped Eli Lilly & Co. strike a $6.5 billion deal to buy ImClone Systems Inc. while their own research analyst said Lilly was paying too much.

…‘That’s a very odd occurrence,’ said Jeffrey Haas, a securities law professor at New York Law School. ‘What would be troubling to me is if I was on the board of Lilly. I’ve got investment bankers telling me $70 a share makes sense, whereas a research analyst at the same company is saying otherwise.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Bloomberg News, “Bloomberg to Seek Re-election, Term Limit Law Change”
By Henry Goldman
Thursday, October 2, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Ross Sandler, Director of the Center for New York City Law
Subject: Mayor Bloomberg and Term Limit Law

“New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he would seek re-election next year and is working with the City Council to amend a 15-year-old law limiting elected officials to two terms, as the Wall Street slump imperils the city’s economy.

…The City Charter would permit such a change, said Ross Sandler, director of New York Law School’s Center for New York City Law.

‘It’s a local law and can be changed the same way as any other, through council action, public referendum or an act of the state Legislature,’ he said.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “Seeing Past the Slave to Study the Person”
By Patricia Cohen
Saturday, September 20, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Annette Gordon-Reed
Subject: Her new book, “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family”

“When, 11 years ago, DNA evidence convinced most experts that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings, many people talked about what the discovery said about Jefferson. Yet few seemed all that interested in what it said about the young girl he owned.

Annette Gordon-Reed was one of those few...Their story is contained in her book “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family” (W.W. Norton), to be released on Monday. In nearly 800 pages she follows four generations of Hemingses, starting with their origins in Virginia in the 1700s and continuing through 1826, when Jefferson died and his home, Monticello, was put up for sale.

‘I wanted to tell the story of this family in a way not done before’ so that readers can ‘see slave people as individuals,’ Ms. Gordon-Reed said.

...'Robert, James, Elizabeth and Sally are not concepts but people,’ she added, referring to the Hemings family.”

To view the article in full, click here.

Read the Washington Post article here.

Read the New York Sun article here.

Listen to the NPR segment here.  

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The Associated Press, “Patent Program Polls the Public”
By Joelle Tessler
Monday, September 15, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck
Subject: Peer-to-Patent program

“Some of the biggest players in the technology industry complain that the U.S. patent system is broken, putting too many patents of dubious merit in the hands of people who can use them to drag companies and inventors to court.

‘The Patent and Trademark Office is the agency of citizen creativity, and it needs more and better information to do its job of awarding patents to those citizens who are truly the most creative,’ said New York Law School professor Beth Noveck, who came up with the idea for Peer-to-Patent. ‘A patent is a pretty significant monopoly, so we want to make sure we are giving it to the right people.’

…But some of the most contentious patents have come out of the tech sector, since software and other-cutting edge technologies are relatively new to the Patent Office and evolving quickly, explained Mark Webbink, director of New York Law School’s Center for Patent Innovations, home to Peer-to-Patent, and former general counsel for Red Hat.

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Star-Ledger, “Books: All in the Family”
By Jonathan E. Lazarus
Saturday, September 13, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Annette Gordon-Reed
Subject: Newly published books

“For more than 600 always compelling, sometimes highly disturbing pages, Annette Gordon-Reed animates the saga of an American slave family whose enormous resilience and humanity helped compensate for their status as non-persons and allowed them to cope with the caprices and emotional cruelties of their master, Thomas Jefferson.

Most remarkable of all, however, is Gordon-Reed’s ability to chart the profoundly asymmetrical yet tightly bound-up relationship between master and slaves, leaving one astonished by the degree of interdependence and intimacy in a brutal system that should have engendered none.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Newsday.com, “People on the Move, Sept. 15”
By Laura Mann
Friday, September 12, 2008

NYLS Staff: Alissa Kane
Subject: New Hires

“Alissa Kane has been named center administrator for the Justice Action Center and the Center for Professional Values and Practice at New York Law School in Manhattan. The East Islip resident previously was legislative aide to the Islip Town Board.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “How to Know When Tax Deal Isn’t A Good Deal”
By Lynnley Browning
Wednesday, September 10, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Tanina Rostain
Subject: Tax Planning for the Affluent

“You have just left the accountant’s office with a plan to keep more of your hard-earned millions of dollars in your hands, rather than turning them over to the I.R.S.

Smart, legal tax planning? Or the first step toward a nasty audit — one that could cost you seven figures in unpaid taxes, interest, and penalties; might get you sued by the agency; and could even end in a perp walk?

With both the I.R.S. and the Justice Department’s tax division widening their crackdowns on questionable tax shelters to include scrutiny of offshore banking services and trusts, the issue of safe tax planning for the affluent has become more urgent than ever.

…‘Here are three warning signs that a tax deal should be avoided,’said Tanina Rostain, a legal ethics scholar at New York Law School: ‘When the tax savings promised are many times the amount of the initial investment, when you are told that there is no financial risk involved and when you are urged not to show it’ to anyone else.

‘When the stakes are big,’ she added, ‘getting a second opinion from a tax expert not involved in the deal is a good idea.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The National Law Journal, “New York Law School appoints new faculty”
By Vesna Jaksic
Tuesday, August 27, 2008

Subject: New Faculty

“New York Law School has appointed five new full-time and three visiting professors, and has promoted an existing faculty member.

…New York Law School has more than 13,000 graduates and enrolls some 1,500 students in J.D. and LL.M. programs.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “LPGA sets our English policy”
By Larry Dorman
Monday, August 26, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard
Subject: English policy for golf players

“Concerned about its appeal to sponsors, the women’s professional golf tour, which in recent years has been dominated by foreign-born players, has warned its members that they must become conversant in English by 2008 or face suspension.

…Arthur S. Leonard, a professor of law at New York Law School and an expert on employment issues, said that in some states a potential claim of national origin discrimination can be made if the players can show that this rule targets players of Korean origin.

He added that the LPGA ‘would be subject to the New York State Human Rights Law with respect to any tournaments taking place in New York, and it is possible that the public accommodations provisions of that law could apply to this situation.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Vermont Public Radio, “David Johnson on the new virtual headquarters law”
Interview By Jane Lindholm
Wednesday, July 30, 2008

New York Law School Professor David Johnson was interviewed by VPR about a bill recently signed into law by Vermont Governor Jim Douglas that will allow companies to set up virtual businesses in the state. Vermont is the now the first state to have such a law. In the interview, Professor Johnson, creator of the law, discusses the benefits of the law to the state of Vermont and the virtual companies.

To listen to the interview, click here.

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Reuters, “Sordid Details on Offer In Celebrity Divorce Cases”
Wednesday, July 9, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Richard Sherwin
Subject: Celebrity Divorce

“…New York is the only U.S. state where parties in a contested divorce have to show fault in order to split. And battling spouses' efforts to prove cruel or inhumane treatment, abandonment or infidelity have provided valuable fodder for tabloids, Web sites and television shows.

‘It's the ultimate evisceration of the public/private distinction,’ said New York Law School professor Richard Sherwin, who writes about law and pop culture. ‘Everything that is private is now public.’

‘…The field in which (celebrities) operate involves their own self-interest and unfortunately they're not seeing how kids are injured in the process,’ Sherwin said.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Seattlepi.com, “Schultz sticks with Sonics suit”
By Greg Johns
Tuesday, July 8, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Marc Edelman
Subject: Legal action to reclaim Sonics basketball team

“While many are ready to dismiss the notion that Howard Schultz has any chance of unwinding the sale of the Sonics to Clay Bennett, the attorney for the Starbucks coffee mogul says there is good reason his client didn't take part in last week's settlement with the Oklahoma City ownership group.

…Schultz's suit is the lone legal weapon left that could bring the former Sonics club back to Seattle. A class-action claim by several Seattle fans still must play out in King County District Court as well, though that suit seeks financial damages instead of challenging the franchise's move.

…Marc Edelman, professor of sports law at New York Law School, said he doesn't believe there has been a single case where a team was ordered to reverse course after being allowed to play games in a new city at any level of professional sports.

‘It's extraordinarily difficult,’ Edelman said. ‘The biggest challenge is not the claim, but the remedy. It's extremely unconventional to unwind a transaction that has been closed for over two years, where the buyer of the team has already substantially performed by paying the purchase price of the team…’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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CFO, “Vermont Wants to Be the ‘Delaware of the Net’”
By Alan Rappeport
Monday, June 30, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor David Johnson
Subject: Vermont on the edge for newer tech companies

“A bill signed into law earlier this month positions [Vermont] as a leader in incorporating so-called virtual firms — those without a physical headquarters, actual paper filings, and directors' meetings (they're all online.) If it succeeds, it could emerge with the nation's first virtual tech corridor.

…David Johnson, a professor at New York Law School and head of the Virtual Company Project has lobbied for Vermont to change its rules for Limited Liability Companies (LLC) as a way of adapting corporate structure to the Internet age.

‘People are coming together online to create valuable things,’ says Johnson. ‘They do that for social reasons or reputational reasons, but they find it difficult partly because of traditional barriers in corporate law.’”

To view this article in full, click here.

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Computerworld, “eBay backs off controversial PayPal-only plan in Australia”
By Linda Rosencrance
Friday, June 27, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Marc Edelman
Subject: Australia’s competition agency forces eBay to pull PayPal-only plan

“EBay Inc. has, for the moment, backed off a plan that would force sellers in Australia to only use PayPal, which eBay owns, as their online payment method.

…Whether or not such a plan would pass regulatory muster in the U.S. is not so cut and dried, said Marc Edelman, a law professor at New York Law School and a former antitrust lawyer.

…‘If there are companies out there that compete with PayPal and provide the same services, and they feel that this would preclude them from having a real opportunity to compete in the market because eBay is requiring PayPal only, it will be interesting to see if they bring a challenge,’ he said.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Metro, “Should psychiatric hospital patients be permitted to have sex?”
By Harlan Spector
Wednesday, June 25, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Michael Perlin
Subject: Supervision of psychiatric hospital patients tread on human rights

“A Cuyahoga County court case involving a patient who had multiple sex partners at a psychiatric hospital highlights what one lawyer called ‘one of the most threatening issues’ facing mental health officials.

It may be inevitable that patients engage in sexual relations, particularly in state hospitals where they may live for months or years. But it represents a clinical and legal minefield.

Michael Perlin, a New York law school professor and legal-rights advocate for the mentally ill, argues that ‘the fact someone is in a psychiatric hospital is in itself not reason to rob them of their sexual autonomy.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Managing Intellectual Property, “Peer-to-patent increases prior art submissions”
By Eklavya Gupte, London
Monday, June 23, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Simone Noveck and Mark Webbink, Executive Director of the Center for Patent Innovations
Subject: Peer-to-patent project

“The USPTO’s peer-to-patent project has led to a big increase in prior art submissions but has failed to bring in fresh patent applications in its first year, according to a report.

…Mark Webbink, executive director of the Center for Patent Innovations at the New York Law School, who was also one of the authors of the report, said it revealed some pleasing statistics.

‘The level of users was very satisfying. The sheer volume of prior art that was being generated showed that people were actively engaging in the pilot. We were very happy to get a good response from people outside of the US like the UK, Canada, Europe, and even in Japan. It was good to know that people outside of the US were paying attention to this development,’ he said.

…Beth Simone Noveck from the New York Law School, who helped launch the project with the USPTO, said: ‘As the first example of harnessing public knowledge to improve a government process, the first year of peer-to-patent was an unquestioned success.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Weekly News Digest, “Peer-to-patent Pilot Releases Report on Pilot Project”
By Paula J. Hane
Thursday, June 19, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck
Subject: Peer-to-Patent

“Peer-to-Patent (www.peertopatent.org), the web based government social networking project, has released a report on the results of its 1-year pilot. Peer-to-Patent seeks to improve patent quality by connecting the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to an open network of scientific and technical experts to enhance the patent examination process.

Launched on June 15, 2007, by New York Law School Professor Beth Noveck together with a network of corporate and academic collaborators and in cooperation with the USPTO, Peer-to-Patent is the first networking project with a direct link to decision-making by the federal government…”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Wall Street Journal, “Notes From China: Legal Education Playing Catch-Up, in a Hurry”
By Ashby Jones
Thursday, June 5, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Brandt Goldstein
Subject: Legal Education in China

“Editor’s Note: Brandt Goldstein, a visiting associate professor at New York Law School and author of the book, Storming the Court, is on a Ford Foundation travel grant speaking at several Chinese universities. He will file occasional dispatches with the Law Blog during his journey. Below is his first.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Cybercast News Service, “High Court Unlikely to Settle ‘Gay Marriage’ Issue, Experts Say”
By Pete Winn
Tuesday, May 27, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Albert Leonard
Subject: Supreme Court on Gay Marriage

“Last week’s decision by the California Supreme Court establishing homosexual marriage there has raised a number of questions, one of them being whether the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually take up the issue. Some of the nation’s top legal experts disagree on whether that will happen.

…New York Law School professor Albert Leonard, editor of Lesbian/Gay Law Notes, meanwhile, told Cybercast News Service that marriage is almost always regarded as a question of state law, and the Supreme Court is unlikely to pass judgment on the California’s court’s decision.

‘If the secretary of state out there in California certifies the initiative that has been submitted to amend the state constitution, and it goes on the ballot in November and it passes, it could be challenged as a violation of the federal constitution,’ Leonard said.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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New York Post, “Groveling For Office”
By R.B. Bernstein
Sunday, May 25, 2008

NYLS Faculty: R. B. Bernstein
Subject: Presidential Candidates Sacrifice Dignity for Votes

“It's hard to say what it takes to be president, but it's easy to figure out one thing you don't need: Shame.

From Hillary Rodham Clinton's and John McCain's stilted appearances on "Saturday Night Live," to Barack Obama's reading the "Top 10 list" on Dave Letterman, this campaign season is less Lincoln-Douglas than torch council on "Survivor." Is anything beneath a candidate in these pop culture-obsessed times?

R. B. Bernstein, distinguished adjunct professor of law at New York Law School, is completing his new book, ‘The Founding Fathers Reconsidered.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The National Law Journal, “New York Law School creates Center for Financial Service Law”
By Leigh Jones
Thursday, May 22, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Ronald H. Filler
Subject: Center for Financial Service law

“New York Law School has created a Center for Financial Service Law, led by Ronald H. Filler, managing director of Lehman’s Brothers’ capital markets prime services division.

…Filler, who joins the law school as a professor of law, will serve as the center’s director.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Boston Globe, “Access to excess”
By Ross Kerber
Thursday, May 15, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Jeffrey Haas
Subject: Fidelity traders receiving gifts for business

“New government documents filed this week detail the extent to which financial firms jostled to win the lucrative trading business of mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments of Boston.

‘There seems to be a historic tradition of broker-dealer firms engaging in these types of an old-boy system of compensation that loses sight of who the ultimate client is,’ said Jeffrey Haas, who teaches mutual fund regulation at New York Law School.

The filings also suggest how routine the practice was at the time. Haas, the New York Law School instructor, said the large number of firms vying for Fidelity's business may explain why Jefferies was so aggressive in dispensing benefits, to stand out from competitors.

‘It sounds like Jefferies calculated that because others are doing it, that this was going to be a cost of doing business,’ Haas said.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Law Journal, “The Next Big Thing: Young Attorneys Envision Golden Future in Virtual Law”
By Thomas Adcock
Friday, May 16, 2008

NYLS: Institute for Information Law & Policy, Adjunct Professor S. Gregory Boyd, and 2L Brian Pyne
Subject: Virtual Law

“‘Virtual Law,’ as specialists call it, is not your father’s law. And according to some aspiring lawyers, it is the next big thing.

…To that end, Mr. Pyne, a second-year student at New York Law School, works at the campus Institute for Information Law and Policy. He has also secured a summer associate job with Drakeford & Kane, a small Manhattan firm with a growing practice in virtual law.

…Among Mr. Pyne’s mentors is S. Gregory Boyd, a 34-year-old associate at Davis & Gilbert… ‘These numbers tell a story greater than the interest in the virtual world among most attorneys,’ said Mr. Boyd, an adjunct professor of intellectual property law at New York Law.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Times, “The Serene Life of a Fighter for Civil Liberties”
By Robin Finn
Friday, May 16, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Nadine Strossen
Subject: Leaving the ACLU

“Even before she exercised her civil liberties and resigned this week as president of the American Civil Liberties Union after an 18-year incumbency – somewhat spoiled by internal sniping in the past two years – an ‘On Golden Pond’-ish serenity was inescapable in Nadine Strossen’s weekend house at the Sedgewood Club, a bucolic 92-home enclave tucked into a Putnam County hillside.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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New York Daily News, “DA boosts ranks of boro’s litigators”
By Nicole Bode
Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Subject: New York Law School Alumni Named as New Prosecutors in Queens

“The Queens District Attorney’s office has added a slate of new prosecutors to its staff.

…‘It’s a kind of whirlwind,’ said Regan, a 2006 graduate of New York Law School.

…Dmochowski, a 2005 New York Law School grad, worked as an attorney for the NYPD.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Computerworld, “Sizing up Microsoft and Yahoo: Did anybody win?”
By Linda Rosencrance
Sunday, May 4, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Marc Edelman
Subject: Microsoft/Yahoo

“Microsoft gave up its effort to acquire Yahoo because the software company decided it wasn’t worth the cost and potential negative publicity involved with a proxy fight, said Marc Edelman, a law professor at New York Law School and a former antitrust lawyer, in an e-mail. Either that, or Microsoft figured it couldn’t win in a proxy fight, he said.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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American Lawyer Daily, “Shearman Eliminates General Counsel Post”
By Susan Beck
Friday, May 2, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Elizabeth Chambliss
Subject: Elimination of Position at Shearman & Sterling

“Elizabeth Chambliss, a law professor at New York Law School who has written about law firm general counsel, says that Shutkin’s ouster surprised her, especially since so many firms are creating general counsel positions. ‘They’re swimming against the tide to some extent. It’s clear that the full-time professional model [for a general counsel], where it’s a separate job, is taking hold.’ Chambliss notes that Shutkin was respected in the law firm general counsel community and that the elimination of his job ‘raised eyebrows.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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National Law Journal, “Program allowing public review of patent applications on Net speeds the process”
By Sheri Qualters
Monday, April 14, 2008

Subject: Peer-to-Patent

“The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that a pilot program involving public review of patent applications over the Internet has helped it quickly reject claims that are obvious or not novel in more than a quarter of the pilot’s patent applications. The USPTO has issued non-final rejections of at least one claim in five out of the first 19 patent applications in the…Peer-to-Patent pilot program, which it launched last June with New York Law School.”

Subscribers to the National Law Journal may view the article in full by clicking here.

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BNA, “Peer-to-Patent Project Has Already Produced Results, Sponsors, PTO Say”
Monday, April 28, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck
Subject: Peer-to-Patent

“Prior art and commentary submitted by members of public under the nine-month old Peer-to-Patent examination project have already weeded out five patent applications that might otherwise have been mistakenly allowed, according to an April 25 statement by New York Law School, which initiated the project in cooperation with the Patent and Trademark Office.”

This article is only available by subscription to BNA.

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Privacy & Security Law Report, “Class Complaint Alleges Blockbuster Violated Video Privacy Act in Facebook Data Sharing”
By Susan Pagano
Monday, April 28, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Lawsuit against Blockbuster

“New York Law School intellectual property and Internet law associate professor James Grimmelmann told BNA April 22 that he has expected lawsuits like Harris’ to be filed and was eager to see Blockbuster’s reply to the complaint.

…Grimmelmann said that when an individual rents or buys a movie from Blockbuster online, ‘Blockbuster sends a message to your computer that causes your computer to tell Facebook that you rented that movie.’ He said that ‘Facebook will then send an announcement to your friends that you rented or purchased this movie.’ ‘I am still puzzled as to what Blockbuster’s defense is going to be,’ Grimmelmann said. He did not see anything in the text of the Video Privacy Protection Act that would ‘give them an out.’”

This article is only available by subscription to Privacy & Security Law Report.

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The New York Times, “The Verge of Expulsion, the Fringe of Justice”
By Adam Liptak
Tuesday, April 15, 2008

NYLS: The New York Law School Law Review
Subject: Federal Immigration Caseload

“…the Second Circuit is struggling with the output of prolific immigration lawyers like Frank R. Liu. In the last three years, Mr. Liu has filed more than 50 appeals in federal courts, most of them to the Second Circuit, in New York.

…Other immigration lawyers handle even more preposterous caseloads than Mr. Liu. Seven small immigration firms each had more than 100 appeals pending in the Second Circuit in the spring of 2005, according to a study published in The New York Law School Law Review. One of them had more than 300. These appeals are part of a yet larger phenomenon. In recent years, the number of immigration appeals has more than quintupled, a consequence of revisions to the way immigration cases are handled.”

To view the article in full, click here.

To view Law Review article, click here.

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Government Executive, “Senator urges agencies, Congress to hire more disabled employees”
By Alyssa Rosenberg
Monday, April 14, 2008

Subject: Fourth Annual Tony Coelho Lecture in Disability Employment Law and Policy

“The federal government must hire more people with disabilities to meet its obligation as a model employer, said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., in a Monday lecture at New York Law School. ‘We should show employers by example why it makes good sense to hire and promote people with disabilities,’ he told students and professors during the fourth annual Tony Coelho Lecture in Disability Employment Law and Policy in New York.

…‘Congress, we should look at ourselves,’ he said. ‘We honestly don’t know how many people with disabilities work in Congress. In the Senate, each office is its own little kingdom. There is no central effort to engage more people with disabilities.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The New York Law Journal, “Toward a Progressive Green Policy”
By Thomas Adcock
Friday, April 11, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor David Schoenbrod
Subject: Breaking the Logjam Conference

“More than 40 attorneys from across the country, drawn from academia as well as government and private practice, assembled in Manhattan for a recent symposium aimed at urging next year’s new president and Congress to end partisan squabbling and enact fresh policy for addressing a host of environmental problems from climate change on down. The symposium, titled ‘Breaking the Logjam: an Environmental Law for the 21^st Century,’ was held at New York University Law School, in cooperation with New York Law School and the NYU Environmental Law Journal.

…A ‘big fat book’ aimed at ‘an intelligent public,’ according to New York Law School Professor David S. Schoenbrod, will follow next spring, with the intent of stoking public demand for policy progress. ‘The current structure of environmental law is anti-innovation because so much is based on centralized, highly restrictive controls,’ said Mr. Schoenbrod, who as a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in the 1970s led efforts by the nascent environmental bar to force restriction of lead in gasoline. The symposium last month, said Mr. Schoenbrod, was ‘about finding ways of protecting the environment, while at the same time liberating the private sector to find smarter ways of making things.’ He added, ‘We think a law-making moment is coming.’”

New York Law Journal subscribers may view the article in full by clicking here.

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Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports, “New York Law School on the Move: Bonfield, Chused, and Tracht”
By Brian Leiter
Thursday, April 10, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professors Lloyd Bonfield, Richard Chused, Marshall Tracht
Subject: New Hires at New York Law School

“In addition to Gerald Korngold from Case Western, New York Law School has also made (or recently made) tenured hires of…”

To view the article in full, click here. 

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “Other Web giants crowd Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo”
By Todd Bishop
Wednesday, April 9, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Marc Edelman
Subject: Bid for Yahoo

“Microsoft Corp.’s bid to acquire Yahoo Inc. has suddenly become a lot more competitive, or at last a lot more crowded.

…It’s not uncommon for one acquisition bid to spark a wave of industry consolidation, said Marc Edelman, a New York Law School professor. What’s unusual about this situation, he said, is the array of companies and markets involved in the possible alliances – including online services, Internet and social networking markets.

‘The net effect of all of this is going to be very complicated, and something presumably the Department of Justice, as well as possibly the Federal Trade Commisssion, is going to need to take a very close look at,’ he said. ‘It’s going to take very detailed economic analysis – more so than your traditional two-companies-into-one merger.’”

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The American Lawyer, “Commentary: There Are Only Two Kinds of Law Schools”
By Cameron Stracher
Wednesday, April 9, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Cameron Stracher
Subject: Law School Rankings

“What’s in a number? For law schools – and the students who love/hate them – everything. We’re talking rankings, and from the attention paid to the annual lists (the most prominent of which is U.S. News & World Report’s), it would appear that the only thing better than attending a school in the single digits is a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship. But do the numbers really matter? Put in a different way, will it change your life to claw a few more rungs up the rankings ladder?

…It turns out there are really only two tiers of law schools – those where students decide which firms they want to interview at and those where the firms decide. Most law schools belong to the latter group.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Washington Internet Daily, “Law School Project Seeks to Bridge E-Government, Grassroots Sites”
By Louis Trager
Wednesday, April 8, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck

“A Chicago civic-improvement site, meant as a model for bridging e-government and complaint sites, is planned this year by the creator of Web 2.0 collaboration tools for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Libya’s Gaddafi Foundation. Beth Noveck, the director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, said she’s raising money to start the site within six months.

She spoke Friday at a Stanford University seminar on human-computer interaction. Noveck said she wants to use advanced visualization technology and social-psychology concepts in the planned Green Chicago site. Those elements would make it an example of how much more effective online civic efforts can be if they break down the separation of government and activist work, she said.

Noveck’s work is based on principles of open-source software, she said: Groups are smarter than individuals, open processes work better than closed ones—so collaboration is preferable to people voting and commenting individually as in conventional civic action.”

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New York Times, “Cleaning up the Environment in D.C.”
By John Tierney
Wednesday, April 2, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professors David Schoenbrod and Ross Sandler
Subject: Breaking the Logjam Conference

“…That message comes from scholars who met at the New York University School of Law last weekend for a conference titled “Breaking the Logjam.”

…Similar reforms of the Clean Air Act was proposed at the conference by David Schoenbrod and Ross Sandler of New York Law School, who represented the Natural Resources Defense Council in its lawsuit to take lead out of gasoline three decades ago, and by Joel Schwartz of the American Enterprise Institute, who was formerly with the Clean Air Coalition.

“We call for building on the parts of the Clean Air Act that have been most successful in reducing pollution,” Mr. Schoenbrod said. “All involve Congress taking responsibility for direct federal regulation of important sources with the sources given flexibility on how to achieve congressional targets.”

To view the article in full, click here. 

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New York Law Journal, “Ruling Says Divorce Available for Lesbian Canadian Union”
By Noeleen G. Walder
Tuesday, February 26, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard
Subject: Same-sex marriage

“A woman’s claim that her partner could not divorce her because their same-sex marriage was void under New York law has been rejected by a Manhattan judge.

The court also held that the woman’s partner, who was neither the biological nor adoptive parent to two children born right before and during the couple’s marriage, was entitled to a hearing on her continuing custodial rights.

Arthur S. Leonard, a New York Law School professor and expert in lesbian and gay legal issues, said that to his knowledge this case is the first time a same-sex couple married in Canada has attempted to invoke jurisdiction of the New York courts in a divorce proceeding.”

New York Law Journal subscribers may view the article in full by clicking here.  

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Daily News, “Law students help small investors”
By Phyllis Furman
Monday, February 18, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Howard Meyers
Subject: Securities Arbitration Clinic

“For years, Jacoby did nothing until she heard about free legal advice offered by New York Law School’s securities arbitration clinic. Teams of third-year law students supervised by the clinic’s co-director, Howard Meyers, they took on her case. Recently, they reached a settlement with brokerage firm that sold Jacoby the annuity, and a check arrived in the mail.

…Over the last two months as the Dow has tanked, the clinic at New York Law School has seen inquiries surge by 50%. ‘It’s a great feeling to apply what you have learned and help someone out,’ said third-year New York Law student Lucas Charleston, 26, of Red Bank, N.J., who worked on Jacoby’s case.

…The clients of New York Law School’s arbitration clinic generally earn less than $75,000 a year. The damages in their cases often range from $5,000 to $75,000, though there are no limits. ‘We evaluate each client on a case by case basis,’ Meyers said. ‘We’re extremely cautious – we won’t take frivolous suits.’”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Omaha World-Tribune, “New lethal injection protocol is possible”
By Henry J. Cordes
Sunday, February 10, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker
Subject: Lethal Injection

“As Nebraska now considers moving from electrocution to executing its convicted killers by lethal injection, it could be trading a legally rejected form of execution for a legally suspect one.

…New York Law School professor Robert Blecker is a strong death penalty supporter. He has no problem with painful executions, asking, ‘can’t some killers deserve a quick but painful death?’

But even Blecker accepts that the way states are administering lethal injection today ‘is replete with problems.’

‘It really does require a lot of skilled and trained personnel to administer,’ he said, ‘and there are so many ways it can be botched.’”

To view the article in full, click here.  

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The New York Times, “Always on the City’s Side in Court, and Without a Good Nickname”
By Clyde Haberman
Friday, February 8, 2008

NYLS Center: The Center for City Law
Subject: City Law event

“…The reason for bringing this up is that the department commanded the limelight at a symposium the other day at New York Law School, in TriBeCa. The occasion was the publication of “Fighting for the City,” by William E. Nelson, a law professor at New York University. His book is a history of the law office, written with its cooperation and published by the New York Law Journal. The main event was a panel discussion among seven men who served the last four mayors as corporation counsel, the cumbersome title assigned to the chief city lawyer, reflecting the fact that he represents the city in its capacity as a corporate entity.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “We Do, Says NY Appellate Court”
By Ryan Thompson
Monday, February 4, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard
Subject: Gay Marriage

“New York must recognize same-sex marriages that are legally performed outside the state, according to one state appellate court. And perhaps most interesting, the appellate court that decided this on Friday sits in Rochester, not in New York City.

…“It’s interesting that it’s unanimous,” said New York Law School Prof. Arthur Leonard. “The Fourth Department in general tends to be more conservative.”

To view the article in full, click here.  

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The New York Times, “Ask About Tenant-Landlord Issues”
Thursday, January 24, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Adjunct Professor Lucas A. Ferrara
Subject: Tenant-Landlord Issues

“Lucas A. Ferrara, a partner at Finkelstein Newman Ferrara, is taking questions from readers through Jan. 30 on tenant-landlord issues. Readers are invited to submit their questions using the comment box below.

…In 2002, Mr. Ferrara was appointed an adjunct professor of law at New York Law School.”

To view the article in full, click here.

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Tucson Citizen, “Noteworthy new paperbacks”
Thursday, January 24, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor James F. Simon
Subject: His book, Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President’s War Powers’

“Simon, a professor at New York Law School and the author of six previous books, examines the passionate struggle that existed between these two men during the worst crisis in American history, the Civil War.”

To view the article in full, click here. 

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National Post, “Real life economic woes come to Second Life”
By Craig Offman
Wednesday, January 23, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor James Grimmelmann
Subject: Second Life

“While the bricks-and-mortar world reels from the subprime mortgage crisis, the imaginary universe of Second Life is suffering from its own easy-money schemes.

…‘This is just another phase in the site’s maturity where it’s affecting the real world,” said James Grimmelmann, a professor at the New York Law School and an expert on internet law. ‘There is now enough money flowing through that it shows that is significant. If it were Monopoly money people were losing, no one would care.’”

To view the article in full, click here. 

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The Wall Street Journal, "Tracking Stocks Are Now a Relic"
By Palash R. Ghosh
Wednesday, January 9, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Jeffrey Haas
Subject: Tracking Stocks

“Tracking stocks, once a popular innovation on Wall Street during the halcyon 1990s, now appear to be on the verge of extinction. Jeffrey Haas, a professor at New York Law School, estimates that at their peak there were about 40 tracking shares in the late 1990s.

‘The demise of tracking stocks is closely related to the demise of the dot-com boom,” Mr. Haas said. ‘Many of the trackers established back then were designed to take advantage of the tremendous valuations foisted upon anything related to dot-coms. So, any traditional conglomerate that had some kind of Internet-related business—whether an online brokerage or online travel—wanted to exploit the incredible price multiples that the market was giving to these unproven businesses.”

Subscribers to the Wall Street Journal may read the article in full by clicking here.

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National Journal, “Legal experts, labor leaders decry e-mail ruling”
By Aliya Sternstein
Monday, January 7, 2008

NYLS Faculty: Professor Carlin Meyer
Subject: Labor Law

“A recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that lets employers block employees from using company e-mail for ‘non-job-related solicitations’ flies in the face of a labor law meant to protect democracy in the workplace, some professors argue. N

ew York Law School professor Carlin Meyer said the board’s finding contradicts the labor act, which was supposed to guarantee a fair shot at unionizing.

‘This is one more decision that tilts against that goal and creates even more employer-dominant workplaces,’ Meyer said.”

To view the article in full, click here.

Press Contact:

Nancy Guida, VP of Marketing and Communications
212.431.2325
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