Archive of In the News

The Wall Street Journal, “School Rankings That Matter”
By Cameron Stracher
Monday, December 31, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Cameron Stracher
Subject: Law School Rankings

“But leaving aside the merits and methodology of these particular rankings, we might wonder whether rankings matter at all and, more importantly, if they should. …consider another set of rankings…that didn’t garner as much attention: bar-exam passage rates. The school at which I teach—New York Law School—jumped to fifth on the list of New York area law schools (with an all-time high passage rate of 90%), while Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University leapfrogged to third, behind only NYU and Columbia. Cardozo, however is ranked 52^nd by U.S. News among all law schools (fourth in New York), while New York Law School is ranked in the ‘third tier’ of law schools (along with Albany, Hoftstra, Pace and Syracuse). So which ranking matters?...”

Wall Street Journal subscribers may read the full article by clicking here.

For more about this story click here.

The New York Law Journal, “Law Schools Report Record Gains in Bar Exam Pass Rate”
By Thomas Adcock
November 30, 2007

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

“A third consecutive and significant gain was registered by graduates of New York Law School, whose 296 students this year achieved a 90 percent pass rate, up from 84 percent in 2006 and 74 percent in 2005. This year, New York Law surpassed Fordham University School of Law, which dropped to 89 percent, one point down from last year.

Richard A. Matasar, dean of New York Law, said this year’s graduates were the second class to have gone through the school’s ‘comprehensive curriculum’ program, which monitors students from their first day’s classes throughout their campus career. At the front end, underperforming first-years are required to take extra course work. At the back, 3-Ls undergo ‘a heavy dose of exam-taking and essay writing,’ said Mr. Matasar.

‘You never know scientifically what causes anything,’ he added, ‘but we did see substantial improvement last year, which coincided with the first class that went through [comprehensive curriculum].’

Last year’s New York Law graduates scored an 84 percent pass rate, 10 points over 2005. This year’s 90 percent score, said Mr. Matasar, is ‘all the sweeter.’”

To read the full article, click here.

CFO Magazine, “Debt in Disguise”
By Vincent Ryan
November 28, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Associate Professor Ken Kettering
Subject: Boundary between Securitizations and Loans

“WESCO International Inc….a $5.3 billion distributor of electrical products, has a high-quality customer base and a robust IT platform for tracking the performance of receivables, capabilities demanded by banks and credit-rating agencies.

…‘What interests me is how this product got so big, when its legal underpinnings are arguably shaky,’ says Ken Kettering, an associate professor at New York Law School.

…But even securitization’s detractors admit it is probably here to stay. In the judgment of New York Law’s Kettering, this form of structured finance is too big to fail. If there were ever a ruling in the bankruptcy courts that nullified the structures of true sale and bankruptcy-remote SPEs, the rating agencies would have to downgrade all trade-receivables securitizations to the credit quality of the originators, he says.

‘A court aware of the stakes is very unlikely to make such a ruling,’ says Kettering, ‘and should that event occur, Congress would bail out the product.’”

To read the full article, click here.

The New York Times, “A Low-Tech Writer With a High-Tech Appetite”
By Corey Kilgannon
November 26, 2007

Subject: Writer who borrows computers to get work done

“Alan Flacks…He puts out a regular e-mail newsletter called The Flacks Report: dispatches from the West Side to in-boxes in Albany and Washington bearing information about the latest judicial selection or Democratic club meeting, or, at this time of year, a list of politicians’ holiday parties.

Perhaps more interesting than his postings is how he manages to write them without owning a computer.

A favorite is New York Law School, from which he sent the following e-mail message to a reporter recently, about an appearance by the executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority:

‘I am on their guest computer. Nice. Air conditioned room, I.T. tech to help, fast p.c.’”

To read the full article, click here.

The New York Times, “New Jersey Senator Urges Delay on Repeal of Death Penalty”
By Jeremy W. Peters
November 21, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker
Subject: New Jersey Death Penalty

“The leading social conservative in the New Jersey State Senate, Gerald Cardinale, accused Democrats…of trying to rush a bill repealing the death penalty through the Legislature without sufficient deliberation.

Mr. Cardinale, of Bergen County, appeared at the state Capitol on Tuesday with Prof. Robert Blecker of New York Law School, a prominent death penalty supporter.

‘There’s no emergency here,’ Professor Blecker said. ‘As everybody knows, New Jersey hasn’t executed anybody in decades.’”

To read the full article, click here.

The National Law Journal, “Fine-tuning eyed for student debt program”
By Vesna Jaksic
November 19, 2007

NYLS Staff: Susan Gross, Senior Director of Admissions and Financial Aid
Subject: Debt relief program for law students

“Now that a debt relief program for law students has finally become a reality, the real work can begin.

The American Bar Association (ABA) Student Division plans to lobby legislators in order to change two financially burdensome components of the new law.

…Susan Gross, senior director of admissions and financial aid at New York Law School, said she was optimistic about the law’s intent to help those interested in public sector jobs. ‘Now I can sit with a student and say, “Yes you’re borrowing a lot of money, you’re borrowing through a federal loan program and this is what you can do to be able to follow your passion and work in public interest law,”’ she said. ‘The conversation was very different beforehand; it’s gotten easier now because of the law.’”

To read the full article, click here.

The New York Times, “Prosecution’s Best Pitch is Precision, Experts Say”
By Alan Schwartz
November 17, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker
Subject: Barry Bonds

“…Robert Blecker of New York Law School pointed out that the United States Supreme Court, in the 1973 decision of Bronston v. United States, held that a witness’s answer to a question, even if intentionally misleading or evasive, does not constitute perjury as long as the defense can prove that it is literally true.

Blecker cited Bonds’s answer of ‘no’ to the question, ‘And were you obtaining growth hormone from Mr. Anderson?’ Blecker said that Bonds’s defense could claim that Bonds did not obtain the substance, in the willful sense, but merely received it.

‘President Clinton defended statements that appeared false to most people by saying, “I wanted to be legal without being particularly helpful,”’ Blecker said. ‘There are many ways to interpret what truth is, and, unfortunately, the prevailing legal one is very literal.’”

To read the full article, click here.

For more coverage, click here.

The American Lawyer, “Commentary: Guerilla Tactics Can Help You Survive the Recruiting Jungle”
By Cameron Stracher
November 9, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Cameron Stracher
Subject: Finding a Job

“The leaves are falling, and so are your job prospects. So you didn’t score an on-campus interview? Don’t despair. The best jobs don’t always grow on trees, and finding them often requires a nose like a bloodhound and teeth like a cheetah. It takes pluck and imagination to land the job of your dreams, especially when you’re out by your lonesome in the middle of the jungle – a place where the recruiters don’t call and can’t find you.

Here are a few suggestions to find that dream job when it doesn't come looking.”

To read the full article, click here.
Bloomberg.com "U.S. Cuts Back on Executions as It Debates Lethal Injections"
By Greg Stohr
Thursday, November 1, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker
Subject: Lethal Injections

“The U.S. Supreme Court fight over lethal injections, a dispute that has halted executions nationwide, is highlighting a decade-long trend away from capital punishment.

The justices will consider whether lethal injections create an unnecessary risk of suffering…

‘This is a blip,’ said Robert Blecker, a professor who specializes in the death penalty at New York Law School. A ruling banning the three-drug protocol ‘can be easily remedied.’

Whether the trend will lead to abolition is far from clear. Blecker, an advocate of the death penalty for especially egregious offenses, says he doubts that will happen.

‘I don’t see the master trend away from the death penalty; I see a master trend toward more careful consideration,’ he said. ‘The people are in favor of it because, when you get right down to it, some people deserve to die.’”

To read the full article, click here.

PreLaw, “Debt Smart”
By Karen Dybis and Michelle Weyenberg
Fall 2007

NYLS Faculty and Staff: Susan Gross, director of admissions and financial aid and Professor Karen Gross
Subject: Debt Education for Law Students

“New York Law School sits in the mecca of the legal world. Manhattan employs more lawyers than any other city in the world and the city’s largest firms set the standard for salaries—currently paying $160,000 to first-year associates. And yet, the private law school, just blocks from Wall Street has found that its graduates need debt help.

‘We learn about sex education in third grade, but we don’t learn how to balance a checkbook,’ said David Friedman, public interest fellow for the Coalition for Debtor Education at NYLS.

…Some schools, including NYLS…are taking the lead in debt and finance education. ‘It’s important for people to realize that even a financially literate culture cannot eliminate all the problems,’ said Susan Gross, director of admissions and financial aid at NYLS. ‘New York Law School stands out as a model for how to do this well.’

…Susan Gross of NYLS says if you can successfully grab students as they step in the door, a school is heading in the right direction. …Beginning with first-year orientation, law students at NYLS are getting educated with sessions on managing costs in law school…But to reach the overall needs of the course, Gross said they have conducted some additional workshops on credit scores, consolidation and budgeting, which have all been successful.

…Karen Gross, president of Southern Vermont College and a professor at NYLS says studying student debt loads helped her come to appreciate the financial difficulties that both undergraduate and graduate students encounter. “It’s very easy to be tempted by poor financial products,” she said.

To view the article in full, pick up a Fall 2007 edition of preLaw.

NPR, “Transgender Woman, IRS Fight over Tax Deduction”
By Tovia Smith
Thursday, October 23, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard
Subject: Transgender Legal Affairs

“A Massachusetts transgender woman is suing the IRS for the right to claim her sex-change operation as a medical deduction on her income taxes.

‘There has been an incredible amount of litigation, but the law is all over the place,’ said Arthur Leonard, a professor at New York Law School. ‘It all comes down to the sort of fundamental question of whether the law will accept what transgender people say is their reality. And that requires us to rethink our concept of a dimorphic world where everything is ‘x’ and ‘y.’ Here’s something that’s sort of in the middle’”

To read the full article, click here.

EETimes, “IP experts call for new patent pathway”
By Rick Merritt
Monday, October 22, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck
Subject: Intellectual Property/Peer-to-Patent

“The most promising of the arrivals may be peertopatent.org, launched four months ago by Beth Noveck, a professor at New York Law School. The site provides a structured format for reading new patent applications, and finding and evaluating prior art for them.

‘The theory is that more eyeballs make for a stronger application,’ she said. ‘Inventors don’t always have the resources or incentives to do good searches.’

Applicants who use the service as part of a trial with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office get an expedited review that can cut waiting time from a typical 44 months down to seven, Noveck said. Participants hone their skills and get an early look at pending patents. So far, 1,500 registered users have reviewed 15 applications and found 88 pieces of prior art. Companies including HP, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, Sun and Yahoo are participating in the project, which is backed by foundation grants.”

To read the full article, click here.

Daily News, “Ex-fiance: Gimme back 38G ring”
By Jose Martinez
Thursday, October 18, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Carlin Meyer
Subject: Dispute over Engagement Ring

“A Manhattan man is suing his ex-girlfriend for refusing to relinquish her grip on the $38,000 platinum engagement ring he bought her last year.

‘As long as it was given as a true engagement gift, he has a very good chance of getting it back,” said Carlin Meyer, a professor at New York Law School.”

To read the full article, click here.

New York Press, “Who Will Be Bloomy’s Veep?”
By Edward-Isaac Dovere
Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Subject: Sidney Shainwald Public Interest Lecture with Senator Chuck Hagel

“Ballot laws would let presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg hold off on picking a running mate until late summer…The name most often mentioned by insiders is Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican who has become one of the leading critics of the Iraq War and President George W. Bush’s management of the military.

Speaking at Cooper Union September 25, Bloomberg offered this general insight: ‘This country’s in big trouble and somebody’s got to pull it out. We’ve lost our relationships with the world,’ he said. ‘Somebody’s got to go out and rebuild those relationships.’ Hagel echoes those themes when he spoke at New York Law School October 11 about the need to do just that.”

To read the full article, click here.

Associated Press, “NY Trial Highlights Sexual Orientation”
By David B. Caruso
Wednesday, October 3, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard
Subject: Sexual Orientation/Hate Crime

“Michael Sandy’s killing had all the hallmarks of a hate crime: a gay man ambushed by a group of men, then chased into the path of a speeding car.

…The man who first suggested going after a gay target says he may be gay too.

…Brooklyn prosecutors argue that Fortunato’s sexual orientation is irrelevant. Under New York law, they said, defendants can be convicted of a hate crime even if they bear no actual hatred for their victim.

‘The issue in the case is, why did they select this guy, as opposed to some other guy? They selected him because he was gay,’ said Arthur Leonard, a professor at New York Law School who has been following the case. Therefore, he added, it doesn’t matter whether they actually hated him or merely thought he would be weak and vulnerable.”

To read the full article, click here.

Global Arbitration Review, “BIICL forum draws a crowd”
Friday, September 14, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Tai-Heng Cheng
Subject: Investment Arbitration

“The annual London forum on investment arbitration drew a crowd of more than 170 lawyers today.

…Earlier speakers had included Tai-Heng Cheng of New York Law School…Cheng argued that a tendency to follow prior decisions conferred legitimacy on the international legal system.”

Subscribers to the Global Arbitration Review may read the full article by clicking here.

Winston-Salem Journal, “Plea is no easy deal: Hayes’ situation shows pitfalls of insanity defense”
By Dan Galindo and Bertrand M. Gutierrez
Sunday, September 30, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Michael Perlin
Subject: Pitfalls of insanity defense

"What they switched was upon whom the burden of proof falls. Before Hayes, prosecutors had to show that they defendant should remain confined. Today, a defendant is presumed mentally ill and dangerous, and must show that at least one of those presumptions is not true.

Such difficult requirements are why the insanity defense is rarely used, legal experts say. It is used in less than 1 percent of criminal cases, said Michael Perlin, a professor at New York Law School and the author of The Jurisprudence of the Insanity Defense.

It is successful only about 25 percent of the time, Perlin said, and the overwhelming majority of those cases are ones in which prosecutors agree that the defendant is insane.”

To read the full article, click here.

Washington Post, “Negotiating a Market Where ‘Everything’s Negotiable’”
By Sandra Fleishman
Saturday, September 29, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Andrew Berman
Subject: Real Estate Market

“Even though buyers have more leverage than in the hyper-competitive market of two years ago, they can still turn off sellers if they push too hard, warned Andrew R. Berman, director of the New York Law School Center for Real Estate Studies.

‘If they’re asking $800,000 for the property and you offer $300,000, then you’re just going to irritate the sellers unless there are unusual aspects to the property that would make such an offer reasonable,’ Berman said. ‘The general rule of thumb is if you make an offer that’s more than 10 percent less than the asking price, no one’s going to take you seriously.’

One extenuating circumstance could be that the property has been on the market for months at the same price, Berman said. Another would be if the property is in poor condition.”

To read the full article, click here.

amNew York, “Advocates: Time to get .nyc domain name”
By David Freedlander
Friday, September 28, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor David Johnson
Subject: “.nyc” domain name

“Is it time for the big city to start cornering a piece of the Internet? Experts say the effectiveness of a dot nyc address will depend on how it gets implemented on the Web.

‘Ideally, this will enable people to use the Internet more effectively and bring citizens together,’ said David Johnson, a cyberlaw professor at New York Law School. ‘It’s an untested theory, but what’s the harm in trying.’”

To read the article in full, click here.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, “Giving in to the CEO model”
By Chris Mondics
Monday, September 24, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Elizabeth Chambliss
Subject: Law-firm management

“…Managing partners were inevitably part time, mediating disputes among fellow lawyers and representing the firm at charity balls and other events. They left much of the day-to-day management to paid administrative staff who labored in the shadows. Not anymore. At the biggest firms, the job of the lawyer who is also chief executive has evolved into something approaching a corporate CEO, with much of the same clout and responsibility.

‘Law firms have prided themselves in the past for not adopting corporate-style hierarchies,’ said Elizabeth Chambliss, a law professor at New York Law School, who focuses her research on law firm management. But, she says, ‘the resistance to the full-time CEO model is fading.’”

To read the article in full, click here.

Bennington Banner, “Fashion exec: It’s about creating wants as quickly as possible”
By John Waller
Thursday, September 27, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard A. Matasar
Subject: Dean to speak at Southern Vermont College

“The next installment in the lecture series is a speech on the legal profession by Richard Matasar, the president and dean of New York Law School, on Oct. 18 at 4:30 p.m. Other speeches include one by the president of a steel company, one by a lawyer and one by a leadership consultant.”

To read the full article, click here.

Philadelphia Daily News, “CN8 to fight fine for promo use”
By Ellen Gray
Wednesday, September 26, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Michael Botein
Subject: FCC fining cable program

“Michael Botein, a professor at New York Law School who’s worked with the FCC in the past, said yesterday that the agency has more authority over cable than most people realize.

‘They have the power, but a number of years ago…they decided that because cable was a medium of choice, that it was not like radio or TV,’ and it didn’t need to be treated the same way, he said.”

To read the full article, click here.

The Wall Street Journal, “Hard Case: Job Market Wanes for U.S. Lawyers” By Amir Efrati Monday, September 24, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard A. Matasar Subject: Job Market for Lawyers

"A law degree isn’t necessarily a license to print money these days.

For graduates of elite law schools, prospects have never been better. Big law firms this year boosted their starting salaries to as high as $160,000. But the majority of law-school graduates are suffering from a supply-and-demand imbalance that’s suppressing pay and job growth. The result: Graduates who don’t score at the top of their class are struggling to find well-paying jobs to make payments on law-school debts that can exceed $100,000. Some are taking temporary contract work, reviewing documents for as little as $20 an hour, without benefits. And many are blaming their law schools for failing to warn them about the dark side of the job market.

…Many students ‘simply cannot earn enough income after graduation to support the debt they incur,’ wrote Richard Matasar, dean of New York Law School, in 2005, concluding that, ‘We may be reaching the end of a golden era for law schools.’" To read the full article, visit: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119040786780835602.html?dlbk For additional coverage on this article, please visit: http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2007/09/wsj-end-of-law-.html http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/trying-times-for-law-students/ http://www.careerjournal.com/salaryhiring/industries/law/20070925-efrati.html?mod=RSS_Career_Journal&cjrss=frontpage

The Roanoke Times, “Approach mental health changes carefully”
By Lindsey J. Webb
Thursday, September 20, 2007

NYLS Program: Mental Disability Law Studies
Subject: Mental health care in Virginia

“Webb is a philosophy student at the State University of New York-Oswego and an online participant in the Mental Disability Law Studies Program at New York Law School.

From newspaper articles over the past few months, I gather that many individuals believe Virginia can increase both the access to and quality of mental health treatment by enlarging the scope of committable individuals. I am not sure that this is a logical step.

Simply increasing the population of folks who may be committed under this state's mental health law will not improve the quality of care or access to that care.”

To read the full article, visit:
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/132657

The National Law Journal, “New York Law boosts faculty” By Vesna Jaksic Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Subject: New Faculty/Promotions at NYLS

“New York Law School has appointed five full-time and four visiting professors and promoted two faculty members.”

To read the article in full, visit: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1190106170468

The New York Times, “City Hires Criminal Lawyer for Deutsche Bank Defense”
By William K. Rashbaum
Tuesday, September 18, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor
Subject: City Hiring Criminal Lawyer

“The Bloomberg administration announced yesterday that it had hired a top-flight criminal defense lawyer to assist it in defending city agencies in a criminal investigation into the deadly fire at the former Deutsche Bank headquarters last month.

Ross Sandler, director of the Center for New York City Law at New York Law School, said, ‘It is serious business when the district attorney subpoenas city records, and the city may very well not know its situation until it has counsel and sees what’s going on.’

‘This is a relatively rare event,’ Professor Sandler said. ‘The city is usually on the other side,’ he said, with its Department of Investigation issuing subpoenas and ‘cooperating with the district attorneys and the U.S. attorneys.’”

To read the article in full, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/nyregion/18deutsche.html?ex=1347768000&en=ec9a340eeb2f9984&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Associated Press, “Tennessee plans for first execution in nearly 47 years”
By Kristin M. Hall
Monday, September 10, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker
Subject: Death Penalty/Daryl Holton

“Daryl Holton…killed his three young sons and their half-sister with a semiautomatic assault rifle, court records say. Holton, 45, is now scheduled to die Wednesday at 1 a.m. CDT.

Robert Blecker, a New York Law School professor who supports the death penalty, met Holton two years ago during the filming of a documentary about prison inmates and they talked about why Holton had stopped his appeals.

‘He had what he considered a full and fair trial. He doesn’t want to raise specious legal claims,’ said Blecker, who planned to meet with him once more before he goes into his death watch cell.

‘He professes to believe that his children were better off dead, and it was his responsibility to kill them,’ Blecker said.”

To read the full article, visit:
http://ap.oakridger.com/stories/state/tn/20070909/198253068.shtml
or here:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/10/america/NA-GEN-US-Death-Penalty-Electrocution.php

The New York Sun, “Highest Court To Hear Appeal, Decide Fate of Death Penalty” By Joseph Goldstein Monday, September 10, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker Subject: Death Penalty

“The state’s highest court today will hear an appeal by the last inmate on New York’s death row. In the process, the Court of Appeals, which sits in Albany, will decide the future of capital punishment in New York State, legal analysts say.

One of the questions that might be answered here is whether we again have an abolitionist court willing to reach out and block every conceivable execution,’ a professor at New York Law School who advocates the death penalty in certain instances, Robert Blecker, said.”
To read the full article, visit: http://www.nysun.com/article/62281

The New York Times, “Breaking a Lease” By Jay Romano Sunday, September 9, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Lucas A. Ferrara Subject: Breaking a lease “Q What are a renter’s rights when seeking to cancel a lease before the end of the term? Though there are no provisions in my lease allowing for liquidated damages, my landlord wants two months’ rent for allowing me to break the lease. This seems excessive. A Neither a landlord nor a tenant can break a lease unless the right to do so is spelled out in the lease or is granted by some statute or regulation, said Lucas A. Ferrara, a Manhattan lawyer and an adjunct professor at New York Law School. If a tenant breaks a lease without justification, Mr. Ferrara said, market forces will play a critical role in determining the tenant’s liability. For example, if the rent being paid is below market value, the landlord will probably be delighted to end the lease early. ‘Problems arise when the owner can’t find a new tenant at the existing rent or is forced to rent for less money,’ Mr. Ferrara said.” To read the full article, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/realestate/09qa-001.html?ex=1346990400&en=74e4774b07666ce4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Newsday, “$500 or full disclosure”
By Emily Pickrell
Friday, September 7, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Marshall Tracht
Subject: Property Condition Disclosure

“To pay or not to pay? That is the question facing many home sellers trying to understand whether paying $500 will let them off the hook from having to fill out a Property Condition Disclosure Statement, which informs buyers about the condition of a property…There is disagreement among real estate attorneys, however, about the protection the fee provides to the seller.

‘Is the $500 an opt-out?’ asks real estate attorney Marshall Tracht, a Hofstra University professor and dean who is a visiting professor at New York Law School for a year. ‘The statute is completely unclear on that critical notion.’”

To read the full article, visit:
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzremain075360628sep07,0,99962.story

The Economist, “A patent improvement”
By Lucy Vigrass
Thursday, September 6, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck/Institute for Information Law and Policy
Subject: Peer to Patent

“…In an attempt to fix these problems, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Britain’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and the European Patent Office are evaluating a radical change: opening the process up to internet-based collaboration.
The scheme, known as “Peer to Patent”, was created by Beth Simone Noveck, a professor at New York Law School. It applies an unusual form of peer review to a process which traditionally involves only a patent applicant and an examiner. Anybody who is interested may comment on a patent application via the internet. The scheme was launched as a one-year pilot programme in America on June 15th. Sean Dennehey of Britain’s IPO, who sits on the project’s advisory board, says his organisation will follow suit by the end of the year.
The USPTO’s pilot scheme will scrutinize 250 patent applications in a handful of computer-related fields, with the approval of the applicants. The first examples have been submitted by IBM, Intel, Microsoft and other technology giants. The text of each application is posted in full for public scrutiny, and members of the public can sign up to participate in the review process.
Eventually, the ten pieces of prior art that receive the most votes in the Peer to Patent community perusing each patent are sent to the patent examiner…
The hope is that Peer to Patent will reduce both uncertainty for inventors and unnecessary lawsuits because dodgy applications will be uncovered and rejected quickly.

Ms. Noveck…is a believer in grassroots democracy. If Peer to Patent’s goal of cleaning up the patent system was not already audacious enough, she thinks the project could also serve as demonstration that the public, helped by technology, can participate more fully in its own governance.”

To read the full article, visit:
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=1198563&story_id=9719020

McGuire Woods LLP, “The Peer-to-Patent Program: Addressing Software Patent Risks”
Thursday, September 6, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck/Institute for Information Law and Policy
Subject: Peer to Patent
“…new software patent applications are pre-screened by amateur patent examiners. These examiners are collaborating via the use of concepts and processes such as those found on websites like Wikipedia and Digg to find and analyze prior art.
This one year pilot is being run in conjunction with the New York Law School’s Institute for Information and Policy, which created the Peer-to-Patent system. It is currently limited to a maximum of 250 patents, and at this stage patent applicants must affirmatively opt in to the system. Only patent applications covering computer architecture, software, and information security are being considered for the trial. If successful, the project could be extended to a greater number of patents, and also to other categories of patents. Thus far, 1,000 people have registered to be a part of the project.”
To read the full article, visit:
http://www.mcguirewoods.com/news-resources/item.asp?item=2807

The Washington Post, “Fending Off The Mortgage Crunch”
By Nancy Trejos
Sunday, September 2, 2007

NYLS Faculty: Professor Andrew Berman
Subject: Mortgages

“In the first three months of this year, the percentage of U.S. mortgages entering foreclosure was the highest since 1979, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Now lenders, consumer advocates and the government are trying to contain the damage. Last week, President Bush announced that the Federal Housing Administration would begin a program to allow homeowners who have good credit but can’t afford their mortgages to refinance to FHA-insured mortgages.
One thing in your favor is that lenders don’t want to foreclose, for the simple reason that it costs them money. ‘Banks don’t want to be in the business of owning real estate,’ said Andrew Berman, associate professor of law and director of the Center for Real Estate Studies at the New York Law School.”
To read the full article, visit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/31/AR2007083102379.html?hpid=smartliving

The Wall Street Journal, “Welcome to the Law, One Ls!”
By Cameron Stracher
Friday, August 31, 2007
NYLS Faculty: Cameron Stracher
Subject: Advice for new law students
“…look to your right; look to your left. Raise your hand. Welcome to law school.”
To read the full article, visit:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/08/31/cameron-stracher-welcome-to-the-law-one-ls/

The American Lawyer, “Last Word” By Cameron Stracher Summer 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Cameron Stracher Subject: His recent book, “Dinner with Dad: How I Found My Way Back to the Family Table” “I did not live happily ever after. In 1994, burned out on law firm life, I left my job at a firm for a cushy in-house position at CBS. Shortly thereafter, I wrote a book about some of my experiences, Double Billing, in which I described the trials and tribulations of a young associate at a big corporate firm. It looked like I’d made a clean getaway. But nearly a decade later, I found myself living the life I had fled, absent from the family table, returning home when my children were asleep. My 50-hour weeks had morphed into 60, then 80. My BlackBerry buzzed constantly, and my voicemail overflowed. How, I wondered, did I get here, and was there any going back?” To read the article in full, you must be a subscriber to The American Lawyer

ABA Journal, “New York Real Estate Lawyers’ Blog” Thursday, August 9, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Adjunct Professor Lucas A. Ferrara Subject: Real Estate Blog “‘Witty analysis of the latest cases and developments in the law as they impact New York (and the rest of the world)’ Author: Lucas A. Ferrara is an adjunct professor at New York Law School and a partner at Finkelstein Newman Ferrara in New York City.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.abajournal.com/blawgs/new_york_real_estate_lawyers_blog/

Business First, “ABA pushes law schools for more exam tie-in” By Jodi Sokolowski August 2, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard A. Matasar Subject: ABA standards “The ABA has proposed a new interpretation of the ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools that ties a law school’s compliance with ABA standards to student performance on state bar exams. New York Law School Dean Richard Matasar…said whether law schools like it or not, they’re in the ‘bar-preparation business as well as the lawyer-training business.’ ‘We have to do both,’ he said. ‘We’d like to say (a law school’s job is) about training students to be great lawyers, but they have to be able to pass the bar exam to be admitted as lawyers.” If anything, he believes, the proposed interpretation is opening the door to greater dialogue on how law schools and states can formulate a uniform national standard. ‘Overall, this is not a popular proposal,’ Matasar said, “but it’s not the end, it’s just the beginning of the dialogue on where we’ll go from here.’” Paid subscribers may read the article in full, by visiting: http://buffalo.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2007/07/30/story13.html

Managing Intellectual Property, “Meet IP’s most important figures” July/August, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck Subject: Influential People in Intellectual Property “For the fifth year, MIP has put together a list of the most influential people in IP. Two years ago, Beth Noveck was teaching a class on intellectual property to students at New York Law School when she says she was hit by the irrationality of the patent granting system. ‘I was explaining to them how patent examination works and then mid-class I paused, looked at them, and said: ‘This is crazy’. In the day and age of wikipedia and internet technology, why does the system ask one patent examiner to make a decision that could be better made by more than one person?’ Beth Noveck, a lawyer, software entrepreneur, academic, and creator of a university do-tank, has spent much of the past two years working on the project – called the Peer-to-Patent or the Community Patent Review – in which applicants for software patents at the USPTO are encouraged to allow their applications to be published early so that their peers can submit any prior art that may be relevant to the invention. Within the first two weeks of the year-long project, patent applicants had submitted five patents for peer review, others are in the pipeline and more than 1,000 people had signed up to take part in the commentary.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.managingip.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1401121&Title=MIP%20reveals%20the%20most%20influential%20people%20in%20IP

University Business, “Law School’s ‘Ingenious Deal’ Recognized” July, 2007 Subject: New Building Project “Colleges and universities aren’t exactly known for their real estate prowess. So it’s not surprising that only one higher ed institution entered the 2006 Real Estate Board of New York’s Sales Brokers’ Most Ingenious Deal of the Year. Yet It was New York Law School’s entry that came out on top.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.universitybusiness.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=826&p=4#0

The New York Times, “When 3 Really Is a Crowd” By Elizabeth Marquardt Monday, July 16, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard Subject: Lesbian Child Support Dispute “The case, Jacob v. Schultz-Jacob, involved two lesbians who were the legal co-parents of two children conceived with sperm donated by a friend. The panel held that the sperm donor and both women were all liable for child support. Arthur S. Leonard, a professor at New York Law School, observed, ‘I’m unaware of any other state appellate court that has found that a child has, simultaneously, three adults who are financially obligated to the child’s support and are also entitled to visitation.’ What is the harm if other American courts follow Pennsylvania’s example? For one thing, three-parent situations typically involve a couple and a third person living separately, meaning the child will get shuffled between homes, and this raises problems. Fortunate children have many people who love them as much as their parents do. But in the best interests of children, no court should break open the rule of two when assigning legal parenthood.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/opinion/16marquardt.html?ex=1342238400&en=90e6239f82f0f488&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Inside Higher Ed, “Conference Wrapup: Financial Literacy and SMART Grants” By Andy Guess and Doug Lederman Thursday, July 12, 2007 NYLS Staff: Susan Gross Subject: Financial Literacy “Solving the debt problem probably requires solving the acknowledged financial literacy problem in the United States, and that’s where a number of self-motivated financial aid administrators have started working toward a solution. The answer, they’ve found, can come in the classroom, and an array of approaches to on-campus financial literacy programs – some that work, and some that don’t – was discussed at a pair of sessions at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators’ annual conference on Tuesday. Susan Gross, the senior director of admissions and financial aid at New York Law School, a private urban institution not affiliated with a university, said her pilot program yielded improved financial literacy as determined by pre- and post-testing, as well as a greater willingness from students to follow ‘best practices’ such as checking their credit scores or purchasing paper shredders.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/12/nasfaa

The National Law Journal, “ABA Moves to Tighten Bar Passage Standards” By Leigh Jones Tuesday, July 10, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard A. Matasar Subject: ABA Bar Passage Standards “Under pressure from the U.S. Department of Education, the American Bar Association has proposed to tighten bar passage requirements for law schools, a change that is drawing a sharp rebuke from deans and others who claim that it would create an unfair standard for accreditation and result in an administrative mess. Many in legal education say that they see the need for a standard that is more precise in measuring bar passage rates, but they assert that the current proposal is deeply flawed. ‘It’s just going to be chaos,’ said Richard Matasar, dean of New York Law School.’ A member of the board of directors for the American Law Deans Association, Matasar has drafted an opposition letter that board members are expected to sign in the next few days.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.law.com/jsp/law/careercenter/lawArticleCareerCenter.jsp?id=1183971980829&pos=ataglance

EDN Electronics Design, Strategy, News “Electronics industry hones in on specific patent-reform provisions” By Tam Harbert Tuesday, July 10, 2007 Subject: Peer-to-Patent “There’s one point that virtually all sides in the patent reform debate agree on: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) needs help. The agency currently faces a backlog of more than 735,000 patents, according to John Doll, U.S. commissioner for patents. Indeed, among the goals of patent reform is to improve patent quality and the operations of the PTO. A pilot project that the PTO launched in June could point the way to improvement: throw open the doors and let the broader technical community help. Historically, patent review is a closed process: an inventor files for a patent and the PTO reviews it in private. So the Peer Review pilot, a joint initiative between the PTO and the Community Patent Review Project, organized by the New York Law School’s Institute for Information and Policy, will focus on software-related technologies. It will allow outside technical experts to submit information relevant to particular patent claims.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6458289

Rutland Herald, “College to offer career-track legal course” By Patrick McArdle Monday, July 9, 2007 Subject: Southern Vermont College program with New York Law School “Southern Vermont College has reached an agreement with New York Law School that will allow the college’s best students to take a six-year path toward becoming a lawyer. The program will only be open to incoming students who have shown academic promise and they must maintain high grades during their time at the private Bennington college. Southern Vermont College President Karen Gross was a professor of law for more than 20 years at New York Law School before coming to the small, private liberal arts college. Scribner said the connections Gross had made in her time there had helped the college set up the affiliation.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070709/NEWS02/707090375/1003/NEWS02

IPS Inter-Press Service, “Rights-US: High Court Ruling Could Mean More Death Sentences” By Srabani Roy Tuesday, July 3, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker Subject: Death Penalty “The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the disqualification of a juror who expressed doubts about the death penalty, leading critics to predict that future juries will be more likely to hand down convictions in capital trials. …Last year, the number of death sentences reached the lowest level in 30 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The availability since the 1990s of a life sentence without the possibility of parole is another major factor in the drop in the number of death sentences. But citizens are almost evenly split between their support for the death penalty and life without parole as a punishment for premeditated murder, according to a Gallup poll last year. But Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School and a supporter of the death penalty for the ‘worst of the worst’ offenders, disagrees. ‘Even in life without parole, a person can kill again,’ Blecker said. ‘He can kill fellow prisoners, officers, or medical personnel. Life without parole doesn’t mean isolation. And life-without-parole sentences can be commuted by the executive.” Blecker also criticized the wording of recent polling questions. He said that if people were asked about specific, concrete examples of the worst crimes, instead of only about the appropriate punishment for ‘murder,’ polls would show a much greater support for the death penalty.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38407

PC World, “Peer-to-Patent Allows Public to Find Prior Art” By Grant Gross Friday, June 22, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Beth Noveck Subject: Peer-to-Patent “U.S. technology vendors submitted five patent applications for last Friday’s launch of a Web site that allows the public to review proposals before patents are granted. Less than a week later, the public has submitted claims of previous inventions that could invalidate each one. The program has multiple goals, chief among them to weed out invalid patents, said Beth Noveck, a professor at the New York Law School who originally proposed the program in July 2005. Many tech vendors have pushed Congress to fix what they see as a broken patent system, and one of the biggest concerns is that overworked USPTO examiners grant too many undeserving patents. One goal is to ‘improve the quality of patents by providing the patent office with more and better information about inventions for which applications are filed,’ Noveck said. ‘We want to prevent the issuance of undeserving patent claims.’” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,133316-c,technology/article.html

The New York Times, “New York Law to Expand by Staying Put” By Sana Siwolop Tuesday, June 20, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard Matasar Subject: Building Project "Expansions are rarely easy in space-challenged Manhattan, and sometimes it’s just easier to chuck an address and move elsewhere. But as officials at New York Law School in TriBeCa are demonstrating, it can pay to stay in place, if a real estate owner is able to think creatively to extract as much value as possible from a property and to make a move at exactly the right moment. The centerpiece of the expansion will be a new 235,000-square-foot nine-level glass-sheathed building whose foundation is being laid at a site that formerly held the school’s parking lot and a 10,000-square-foot residential building at 54 Leonard. Mr. Matasar said his school desperately needed more space, not just for classrooms but also for additional administrative offices, an auditorium and small teaching spaces. It also needs space, he said, so that it can better group its seven academic centers, which focus on areas like business law and policy. ‘Right now, there is no logic to where you are here,’ he said. ‘We want people to be able to work together.’" To read the article in full, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/realestate/commercial/20law.html?ex=1339992000&en=251e6cc01468d47c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The New York Times, “Positive He’s a Killer; Less Sure He Should Die” By Adam Liptak Monday, May 21, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker Subject: Death Penalty “The last part of a death penalty trial, the part where the jury decides whether the defendant will live or die, is a sort of referendum on capital punishment. …The prosecution had commissioned Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School, to visit three maximum security prisons in Illinois and prepare a video documentary of life on the inside. He compiled 19 hours of footage. The lifers he talked to did not seem to be in excruciating psychologically pain. In the end, prosecutors decided not to show the videotape, concerned, perhaps, that Professor Blecker’s support for the death penalty would become an issue.” New York TimesSelect subscribers may view the article in full by visiting: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/us/21bar.html&OQ=_rQ3D1&OP=683562b8Q2FQ27u-CQ27(DQ3Chh(Q27GqqnQ27qwQ27G3Q27Q26DQ27G3CHQ3CKo(fT

Courier Post, “Committee Moves to Ban Death Penalty” By Michael Rispoli, Gannett State Bureau Friday, May 11, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker Subject: New Jersey’s Death Penalty “In front of a divided audience, a contentious state Senate Judiciary Committee approved a measure that would eliminate capital punishment in New Jersey. The New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission released a report in January that said the death penalty does not meet evolving standards of decency, the legal system cannot ensure an innocent person will not be executed... Reforming the system was not an option in the report, said Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School. Blecker, who testified before the commission last year, said the report was ‘tainted by abolitionists’ and erred in not giving recommendations to fix the current system.” To read the full article, visit: http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070511/NEWS01/705110358/1006

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, “P.A. Sperm Donor to Lesbian Couple Ordered to Pay Child Support” By The Associated Press Thursday, May 10, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard Subject: Lesbian Child Support Dispute “A sperm donor who helped a lesbian couple conceive two children is liable for child support under a state appellate court ruling that a legal expert believes might be the first of its kind in the U.S. ‘I’m unaware of any other state appellate court that has found that a child has, simultaneously, three adults who are financially obligated to the child’s support and are also entitled to visitation,’ said New York Law School professor Arthur S. Leonard, an expert on sexuality and the law.” To read the full article, visit: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_506968.html

The Star-Ledger, “Senators Weigh Bill to Outlaw Execution” By Robert Schwaneberg Thursday, May 10, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker Subject: New Jersey’s Death Penalty “…West Orange Police Chief James Abbott was asked last year to serve on a commission studying capital punishment…But after reviewing the evidence, he came to this conclusion about the death penalty: ‘It really just doesn’t work.’ Abbott is expected to share that view today with the Senate Judiciary Committee as it considers bills to abolish New Jersey’s death penalty, which has never been carried out since it was reinstated in 1982. The senators also will hear from Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School, who plans to tell them that capital punishment is ‘sometimes uniquely the only appropriate response. The reality is life without parole is not adequate punishment in some cases.’” To read the full article, visit: http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1178772296234960.xml&coll=1

CrimProf Blog, “CrimProf Spotlight: David Chang” By Mark Godsey Saturday, April 28, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor David Chang Subject: Profile “This week the CrimProf Blog spotlights New York Law School CrimProf David Chang. At first glance, David Chang’s reserved exterior belies the deep feelings he has for righting society’s wrongs, especially with regard to racial discrimination. But his passion and commitment to addressing these issues quickly become clear not only through his conversation and writings, but also through his actions. Professor Chang, who has been on the New York Law School faculty since 1983, brings this appreciation for intellectual development into his classroom.” To read the article in full, visit: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/2007/04/crimprof_spotli_2.html

The National Law Journal, “Lawyers, law students gather to hear Patriot Act’s architect” By Thomas Adcock Friday, April 27, 2007 NYLS Event: Program in Law and Journalism Subject: Conversation with John Yoo “On Friday, he spoke downtown at New York Law School during a public lunchtime interview with New York Times reporter Adam Liptak on the subject of Mr. Yoo’s relationship with the media. …the Times’ Mr. Liptak took a collegial tone with Mr. Yoo, 39, who between college and law school worked as a newspaper reporter in Washington, D.C. At several points, Mr. Yoo distanced himself from full responsibility for the controversial notions expressed in his 2002 legal memo which he advised then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez that ‘enemy combatants’ linked to nonstate players, such as al Qaeda, did not enjoy protections under the United National Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which the United States is a signatory. Mr. Yoo left the New York Law audience with his own thoughts on the future.

‘If there’s another 9/11,’ he said, ‘the Patriot Act will be like child’s play compared to what people will be asking for.’” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1177664673760

The New York Post, “Buying Game” By Lois Weiss Wednesday, April 25, 2007 NYLS Center: Center for Real Estate Studies Subject: Succeeding in a Real Estate Career “Responding to the need for more lawyers trained in complicated real estate matters, the New York Law School just started the Center for Real Estate Studies on its Lower Manhattan campus. The Center is dedicated to the study of the private practice of real estate law and the public regulation of real estate.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.nypost.com/seven/04252007/realestate/buying_game_realestate_lois_weiss.htm

The Sunday Times of Sri Lanka, “Bush, Howard swapping refugees like commodities” By Thalif Deen Sunday, April 23, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Tai-Heng Cheng Subject: Refugee Swap between Australia and the United States “By housing refugees on the island of Nauru and at Guantanamo Bay, both Australia and the US are trying to avoid their legal obligations under the Refugee Convention. Article 32 of the Convention prohibits states from expelling refugees living lawfully in their territory, but Guantanamo and Nauru are not part of the US and Australia’s sovereign territories, respectively, argues Professor Tai-Heng Cheng, associate director at the Centre for International Law at the New York Law School.” To read the article in full, visit: http://sundaytimes.lk/070422/Columns/inside.html

Law.com, “Legal Thinkers Clash in Debate on U.S. Surveillance” By Ari Kaplan Monday, April 23, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Nadine Strossen Subject: Domestic Surveillance “Better more domestic surveillance than another Sept. 11, 2001, type of attack on U.S. soil? That was the question in a lively, sold-out, Oxford-style debate sponsored by The Rosenkranz Foundation at the Asia Society’s New York headquarters Wednesday night. …Strossen, a New York Law School professor and the first woman to lead the ACLU, said that in America today, we have ‘security theater’ as opposed to actual security. Strossen, like the others opposing the question at issue, is not opposed to surveillance, per se—just surveillance that is not carried out according to the Constitution’s precepts. ‘The government is trying to find a needle in a haystack by adding more hay,’ she said of the increasing surveillance information through which authorities need to search.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1177059868568

The New York Times, “Colleges Relying on Lenders to Counsel Students” By Julie Bosman Saturday, April 21, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Karen Gross Subject: Lenders Counseling Students “Karen Gross, the president of Southern Vermont College and a professor of law at New York Law School, said depending on a student’s prospective job, income and health, consolidating loans was often unwise. For example, she said, students who take certain public sector jobs may sign away available benefits if they consolidate federal loans. ‘There is no shortage of erroneous information that a student could receive in a group counseling session,’ Ms. Gross said. ‘Student loan consolidation makes sense for many students, but for many students it is absolutely not the right choice.’ She added that ‘the reason this is bothersome is that students are required to engage in exit interviews, and so lenders have a captive audience.’” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/education/21exit.html

The Inter Press News Agency, “U.S.-Aussie Refugee Swap Comes Under Fire By Thalif Deen Friday, April 20, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Tai-Heng Cheng Subject: Refugee Swap between Australia and the United States “Asked if Australia and the United States may be trying to avoid their legal obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention, professor Tai-Heng Cheng, associate director at the Centre for International Law at the New York Law School, told IPS the two countries may not be technically violating either the Refugee Convention or international law. Article 32 of the Convention prohibits states from expelling refugees lawfully in their territory, but Guantánamo and Nauru are not part of the United States and Australia’s sovereign territories, respectively, he argued. ‘The global community needs to seriously reconsider how we might coordinate our efforts to protect refugees without unduly burdening states.’” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37415

New York Post, “Between the Bricks: Soho Gets Tattoo Togs” By Lois Weiss Wednesday, April 18, 2007 Subject: New Building “Woody Heller and Howard Nottingham of Studley took home the prestigious Most Ingenious Deal of the Year Award given out by the Real Estate Board of New York at Club 101 last night. Heller and Nottingham’s entry, Creation of a New Home for New York Law School, included the sale of the site at 240 Church St. and the construction of a 200,000 foot building for its library, classrooms, and students pace on an adjacent parking lot. A second phase will connect the buildings with existing structures.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.nypost.com/seven/04182007/business/soho_gets_tattoo_togs_business_lois_weiss.htm See coverage in the New York Observer: http://www.observer.com/20070423/20070423_John_Koblin_finance_commercialbreaks.asp

The Shelbyville Times-Gazette, “Liberty for all, but not for slaves” By John I. Carney Friday, April 13, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Annette Gordon-Reed Subject: Thomas Jefferson “Dr. Annette Gordon-Reed, author of ‘Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy,’ delivered the 11^th Thomas Jefferson Lecture Thursday at the University of Tennessee Space Institute. Gordon-Reed’s focus was on the philosophical outlook of the founding fathers and how it related to slavery. Gordon-Reed said at the outset that she would happily take questions about the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings—the topic of her well-known book—during the question-and-answer period which followed the lecture, but none were asked. Gordon-Reed teaches for both New York Law School and the New York campus of Rutgers University, and no one asked about the Don Imus—Rutgers controversy either. Gordon-Reed noted that history programming on cable television has increased Americans’ interest in the Revolutionary War era, and in Jefferson in particular. She noted that a historian who had delivered one of UTSI’s previous Jefferson lectures jokingly refers to the third president as a ‘meal ticket.’ Gordon-Reed’s 1997 book defended what was then a disputed claim that Jefferson fathered children by his slave Sally Hemings. Soon after, DNA testing confirmed a ‘high probability’ of that claim, and Gordon-Reed was able to point out two years later that the facts had fallen right in line with her earlier work.” To read the full article, visit: http://www.t-g.com/story/1198336.html

The New York Law Journal, “Legal Community Tackles Question of Due Process Rights for Detainees” By Thomas Adcock Friday, March 30, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard A. Matasar and Professor Brandt Goldstein Subject: Storming the Court “Eastern District Judge Sterling Johnson Jr., who in 1993 became the first federal judge to rule that the Constitution applies to Guantanamo, leased in perpetuity from the Havana government but regarded as sovereign territory of Cuba, addressed a gathering at New York Law School on March 19. Also speaking were New York Law Professor Brandt Goldstein, author of ‘Storming the Court: How a Band of Yale Law Students Sued the President and Won,’ and one of those students, Ray Brescia, now an attorney with the Urban Justice Center. Last week’s appearance by Judge Johnson and Mr. Brescia at New York Law School marked 15 years to the day that Yale Law students filed their successful suit in the Eastern District on behalf of Haitian immigrants who fled the island nation when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was deposed. In a scathing opinion, Judge Johnson declared policies of the Clinton administration unconstitutional as applied to Haitian detainees at Guantanamo who insisted on being heard in open court. ‘This is a glimpse into what legal education really means—the intersection of passion and knowledge,’ said New York Law Dean Richard A. Matasar. He advised current students to heed the New York Law motto, ‘Learn law and take action.’” New York Law Journal subscribers may read the article in full by visiting: http://www.law.com/jsp/nylj/PubArticleNY.jsp?id=1175159039270

The Wall Street Journal, “What Next on Global Warming?” By David Schoenbrod Thursday, April 5, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor David Schoenbrod Subject: Global Warming “Now that the Supreme Court has decided that the EPA must deal with global warming under the Clean Air Act, what will happen? Not much, if the past is the prologue. The 1970 statute called for reducing all then-known pollutants to healthy levels by 1977. Yet 100 million Americans still breathed unhealthy air even in 1987 – and many still do. This failure should be laid at the doorstep of Congress: It crafted a law that members could vote for to achieve an end, but left the means – the rules and regulations – of achieving that end to others. That way, legislators could take credit for a popular goal, but shift the blame to the EPA for costs of achieving it. No wonder they voted for the statute all but unanimously. Because the provision of the Clean Air Act under which the EPA now must deal with global warming leaves the hard choices up to the agency, we should expect delay.” Wall Street Journal subscribers may read the article in full by visiting: http://users2.wsj.com/lmda/do/checkLogin?mg=evo-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB117573661283960491.html%3Fmod%3Dopinion%26ojcontent%3Dotep To read the article in full, visit: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8173

The New York Times, “Adding Method to Judging Mayhem” By Adam Liptak Monday, April 2, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker Subject: Depravity Scale and the Death Penalty “Prof. Blecker, an authority on the death penalty at New York Law School who sits on an advisory board assisting Dr. Welner, said the survey had the potential to focus attention on sadistic cruelty, which he said ‘is the essence of who deserves to die.’ But Professor Blecker also worried about how a numerical scale would be used in practice. ‘Would it remove the arbitrariness?’ he asked. ‘Or merely give the illusion of objectivity?’” To read the article in full, you must be a TimesSelect subscriber.

Time, “Why is a DOJ Lawyer Taking the Fifth?” By Reynolds Holding Wednesday, March 28, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Randolph Jonakait Subject: U.S. Attorney Firings “More plausible is that Goodling suspects committee members of a planning a ‘perjury trap,’ trying to catch her in a lie. And even if she does tell the truth, the committee could still get her if her testimony contradicts what others have told the committee, creating inconsistencies that might ‘leave her liable for at least being indicted for perjury,’ explains Professor Randolph Jonakait of New York Law School. ‘Many federal criminal statutes are written incredibly broadly,’ explains Jonakait. Laws against ‘obstruction of justice might be one of them.’” To read the full article, visit: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1603785,00.html

The Capital Times, “Woman, New Woman to Wed: Transexual Status Gives Judge Pause” Friday, March 23, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard Subject: Transgender Marriage “By law, marriage in Wisconsin is described as a union between one man and one woman. But what if the man is a transsexual? There have been similar cases in a handful of states across the nation, said New York Law School Professor Arthur S. Leonard, an expert in sexual orientation law. ‘At some point, there has to be legislation about it,’ Leonard said. ‘It’s taking society time to adjust to the concept of transsexuality and figure out what the legal rules should be.’” To read the full article, visit: http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2007/03/23/0703230326.php

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Is there a groom in the room? Judge to rule: Transgendered past calls wedding’s legality into question” By Derrick Nunnally Thursday, March 22, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard Subject: Transgender Marriage “New York Law School professor Arthur S. Leonard, an expert in sexual-orientation law, said it would take ‘an unusual decision’ to prohibit the Terry-Winstanley marriage. In the handful of other states where the issue has been litigated, courts have taken the side that one’s birth gender is the legal gender for the purpose of marriage, Leonard said. A ruling that Terry has physically become too much of a woman to marry a woman would have one unexpected outcome, he said. ‘The transsexual legal movement would hail that result,’ he said.” To read the full article, visit: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=580965

Crain’s New York Business, “Developers, city working on affordable Queens units” By Julie Satow Monday, March 19, 2007 Subject: Center for Real Estate Studies “‘In the next 60 days, the city will make an announcement’ about a new housing program for middle-income New Yorkers, Mr. Ross said at a breakfast at New York Law School last week.” Crain’s New York Business subscribers may read the article in full by visiting: http://www.crainsny.com/

The New York Times, “Partner Adopted by an Heiress Stakes Her Claim” By Pam Belluck and Alison Leigh Cowan Monday, March 19, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard Subject: Same-sex Couples Adopting Their Partners “…some same-sex couples began using the adoption process to establish financial security or inheritance for their partners, said Arthur S. Leonard, a professor at New York Law School. ‘Before we had domestic partnership ordinances, before same-sex marriage or civil unions, back then there wasn’t much you could do,’ Professor Leonard said. Then as now, the adoption laws varied by state, and it is not known how many of these arrangements have been made. In New York, some people sought adoption as a way to inherit a rent-controlled apartment from a same-sex partner, Professor Leonard said, but a 1984 court ruling said that same-sex couples could not use adoption to create legal family ties. A state court in Delaware later allowed same-sex partner adoptions there, Professor Leonard said.” To read the full article, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/us/19adopt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

NY Sun, “Developer Ross Says Real Estate at ‘Best Moment’ in History” By Jay Akasie Wednesday, March 14, 2007 Subject: Center for Real Estate Studies “…for master developer Stephen Ross, the chairman, chief executive officer, and founder of the Related Cos., the economy couldn’t be better. Mr. Ross is the new chairman of the Real Estate Board of New York, a powerful local industry trade association that traditionally excels in hyping the city’s real estate market. During his address to New York Law School’s Center for Real Estate Studies, Mr. Ross described a national and local real estate scene that is as good for developers as it has ever been.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.nysun.com/article/50463

Crain’s New York Business, “2nd-Tier Schools Merit a 2nd look: As attorney demand explodes, recruiters go beyond top programs; find unexpected talent” By Andrew Marks Monday, February 26, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard A. Matasar Subject: Recruiting at 2nd-Tier Law Schools “With demand for lawyers sky-rocketing, recruiting and hiring on local campuses ranging from New York Law School to Hofstra, Rutgers and St. John’s has become as important to many elite firms as visiting higher-echelon schools. Firms are learning to appreciate the background and experience of many students at these second-tier schools. The hunger for fresh talent is clearly having an impact on schools. Last year, New York Law saw a 50% increase in the number of second-year students who landed summer associate positions at big firms, notes dean Rick Matasar. ‘Students who might not have gotten that second look in ordinary times are getting job offers,’ Mr. Matasar says.” Crain’s New York Business subscribers may read the article in full by visiting: http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070225/SUB/70223014&SearchID=73274262314605

Washington Post, “Open Call From the Patent Office” By Alan Sipress Monday, March 5, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck Subject: Community Patent Review, Peer-to-Patent “The Patent and Trademark Office is starting a pilot project that will not only post patent applications on the Web and invite comments but also use a community rating system designed to push the most respected comments to the top of the file, for serious consideration by the agency’s examiners. The project, scheduled to begin in the spring, evolved out of a meeting between IBM, the top recipient of U.S. patents for 14 years in a row, and New York Law School Professor Beth Noveck. Noveck called the initiative ‘revolutionary’ and said it will bring about ‘the first major change to our patent examination system since the 19^th century.’ Noveck said the online program would not only produce better information for examiners to consider but also make the patent process more democratic.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/04/AR2007030401263.html

Bennington Banner, “Lecturer Warns of Changing Workplace” By Mike Gleason Friday, February 23, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Carlin Meyer Subject: Law and the Workplace “Speaking at Southern Vermont College Thursday, New York Law School professor Carlin Meyer said the laws that will affect the workplace of the future are in flux. Meyer’s talk, the second in a series of five, was titled ‘Law and the Workplace: What rights will we lose and what protections will we have?’ Meyer said current trends have created additional divides in the employment world. ‘We’re becoming not just a society of haves and have-nots, but also a society of those who have access to rights and those who don’t,’ Meyers said. ‘The salary divide is beginning to be mirrored in other areas, like health coverage and free speech.’” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.benningtonbanner.com/search/ci_5287068

New York Law Journal, “Real Estate is Hot” By Thomas Adcock Friday, February 23, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard A. Matasar and Professor Andrew Berman Subject: Center for Real Estate Studies “New York Law School has become the latest campus in the state to establish a program of hands-on instruction in real estate law… ‘Real estate has also become a major source of capital in the private and public financial markets,’ added Mr. Berman, director of the newly announced Center for Real Estate Studies at New York Law School. That is certainly true in the case of New York Law, in the midst of a four-year $190 million expansion and renovation of its Worth Street campus in lower Manhattan… …It enabled New York Law to move forward with a bond sale through the New York City Industrial Development Agency in order to nearly double its physical size—from 205,000 square feet to 346,000—and provided the school with what Dean Richard A. Matasar has termed ‘a resource base that in the years to come will give us the capacity to build and improve student support, expand the faculty [and] add greater depth to [our curriculum].’ Mr. Matasar noted that the new center builds naturally on a growing interest in real estate law among the student body—350 students enrolled in 11 real estate courses this year compared with some 157 students who enrolled in four courses in 2001…” New York Law Journal subscribers may read the article in full by visiting: http://www.law.com/jsp/nylj/PubArticleNY.jsp?id=1172138585732

Associated Press, “N.C. Medical Board Mum a Month After Decision Halted Executions” By Steve Hartsoe Thursday, February 22, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker Subject: Death Penalty “‘The real, sustainable opposition will be over the possibility of executing an innocent person,’ said Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School and proponent of capital punishment. He also believes doctors should not have a role in executions, saying the lethal injection process has become ‘too medicalized.’ ‘We should never put to death those we rightly hate any way that resembles a hospice death scene of those we love,’ Blecker said.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.heraldsun.com/state/6-822168.cfm

NY Sun, “Surprise: Real Estate Boom is Padding Lawyers’ Accounts” By Eliot Brown Thursday, February 22, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Andrew Berman Subject: Center for Real Estate Studies “The citywide building boom is translating into a huge windfall for real estate lawyers, as deals for mega-projects, new condominium towers, and warehouses-turned-lofts are filling their filing cabinets… The New York Law School recently announced the creation of its Center for Real Estate Studies, and has been expanding its real estate program from four classes a year to 12 in the past five years. ‘Everyone’s interested in it — everybody wants to be a developer, they want to go work for a law firm, work in-house,’ said the director of the center, Andrew Berman.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.nysun.com/article/49094

USA Today, “Terror Suspect’s Claim: Too Traumatized for Trial” By Laura Parker Tuesday, February 13, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Michael Perlin Subject: Mental Health of Prisoners “In court papers, they say Padilla — initially accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive ‘dirty bomb’ — was treated so severely that it amounted to torture and rendered him mentally incompetent to now stand trial on terrorism charges that could bring him life in prison. ‘I don’t think there is anything to compare to this case,’ says Michael Perlin, a professor at New York Law School who specializes in mental health and the law. ‘This is an extraordinary singular case.’” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-13-padilla-cover_x.htm?csp=N009

The New York Times Magazine, “The Needle and the Damage Done” By Elizabeth Weil Sunday, February 11, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Robert Blecker Subject: Death Penalty & Lethal Injection “People on both sides of the death-penalty debate dislike the fact that executions are modeled on a medical procedure. ‘The final scene in the execution chamber too nearly resembles the final scene at hospices,’ Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School who is in favor of the death penalty under certain circumstances, told me. ‘Doctors should not be involved with lethal injection. How we kill people we hate should never resemble easing excruciating pain for those we love. Those settings should not even vaguely resemble each other. It’s perverse.’ Blecker, a ‘retributivist’ proponent of the death penalty, argues that the death penalty is and should remain a deep expression of public hate, and he goes so far as to claim that some convicts deserve to die painful deaths. To underscore his point, he described men who have maintained torture chambers or who have defiled their victims while they were alive. ‘Do you know what Morales did?’ he asked me about the murderer at the center of the lethal-injection case in California. ‘He ripped the flesh from a young woman's face with a claw hammer, then dragged her down, bleeding in excruciating pain, across a road into a ditch and then raped her and stabbed her to death. Retribution, the conscious infliction of pain and suffering because and only because some people deserve it, is the essence of punishment. The sadistic rapist murderer--why should he feel no pain as he dies.’ In his 1975 treatise, ‘Discipline and Punish,’ the philosopher Michel Foucault observed that in the West, the locus of punishment has shifted away from the body to the soul, and because execution requires an act of violence, it is a task we are almost ashamed to perform. ‘Foucault was not a fan of the death penalty, but he was right,’ Blecker told me, ‘the twitching, the moaning, we can’t even tolerate that.’ Executions, to be ethical, must be transparent, Blecker maintains: ‘My view is that executions should be public, that we should take responsibility for what we do. If we can’t face it, we should abolish it.’” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/magazine/11injection.t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin
The New York Times, “Q & A: Triggering a Rent Increase” By Jay Romano Sunday, February 11, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Adjunct Professor Lucas A. Ferrara Subject: Rent Increases “Lucas A. Ferrara, a Manhattan real estate lawyer and an adjunct professor at New York Law School, said that under existing rules, an owner is allowed to seek a rent increase from regulated tenants when he has made an approved major capital improvement.” To read the full article, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/realestate/11qa.html

L.A. Times, “EBay bans auctions of virtual treasures: Players of online games spend big on digital loot. But the site is worried about legal issues.” By Alex Pham Saturday, February 03, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck Subject: Virtual Items from Online Games “Citing ‘complex legal issues,’ EBay Inc. has decided to yank auctions of virtual items garnered from popular online games such as ‘EverQuest’ and ‘World of Warcraft.’ From a legal standpoint, game companies hold all the cards. Subscribers to these games explicitly agree to a contract, called a user agreement, stating that the intellectual property rights of anything they create in the game belong to the game publishers.

‘It’s extremely clear that these contracts are enforceable,’ said Beth Noveck, a professor at New York Law School. ‘That's not open to debate. It’s a question of whether the players will tolerate this over the long term.’” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/business/la-fi-ebay3feb03,1,580947.story

USA Today, “Wider Death Penalty Sought” By Emily Bazar Wednesday, February 07, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker Subject: Death Penalty “Missouri. Gov. Matt Blunt said in his State of the State address last month that he wants a mandatory death penalty for the murder of law enforcement officers. Blunt, a Republican, says the state must protect its public servants and the death penalty would be a deterrent. Robert Blecker, a law professor at New York Law School who specializes in the death penalty, says the Supreme Court has found mandatory death sentences unconstitutional because they don’t allow defendants to present mitigating evidence. Blunt says his measure will take that into account.” To read the article in full, visit: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-06-death-penalty_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

ABC News “Primetime” “Convicted Killers Set Free ‘Depraved Indifference’ Charge Allows Some Confessed Killers to Go Free” By Maggie Burbank and Gerry Wagschal Tuesday, February 6, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker Subject: Depraved Indifference “Payne is not the only person who was set free in this manner. His case inspired other prisoners in New York convicted on the charge of depraved indifference to challenge the courts to re-examine their convictions too. New York Law School professor Robert Blecker finds these prison releases troubling. ‘Bartow was convicted under the wrong theory,’ Blecker said. ‘Not because the jurors made a mistake, and not because the prosecutors made a mistake, but because the court invited them to do it. ‘Coming to a neighborhood near you may well be an intentional killer released for one reason only, because he was convicted under the wrong theory.’” To view a transcript of the story, please visit: http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2853532&page=1

CNBC “Morning Call” Friday, January 26, 2007 NYLS Faculty: Professor Howard Meyers Subject: Stock Options Regulation Professor Meyers appeared on the program to discuss whether there is a need for increased regulation in light of recent stock option backdating scandals. To view the interview, visit: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=170268599

The Wall Street Journal, “Meet the Clients: Law Schools Rarely Teach Students How to be Lawyers” By Cameron Stracher Friday, January 26, 2007 Subject: Legal Education NYLS Faculty: Professor Cameron Stracher “The recent arrest of Anderson Kill & Olick paralegal Brian Valery for practicing law without a license raises a number of questions about how the ersatz Fordham graduate could have gotten away with representing corporate clients in complex litigation—without ever having gone to law school. The more salient question, however is: Would it have mattered if he had? Legal education has been taking a beating recently…There appears to be an emerging consensus that although law schools may teach students how to ‘think like a lawyer,’ they don’t really teach them how to be a lawyer. It is not hard to agree. One of the biggest problems with the current state of legal education is its emphasis on books rather than people. If law schools really want to change the way they train young lawyers, they would look to medical schools. The latter require clinical ‘rotations’ in the last two years of a student’s education and then demand at least one more year of training after graduation. By the time your doctor is licensed, he has examined hundreds of patients.” To read the full article, visit: http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110009581
Communications Technology, “The Business of Metro Ethernet: The Case of Time Warner Cable and New York Law School” By Mike Robuck January 2007 NYLS Staff: John Southard Subject: Setting up Ethernet for NYLS “John Southard stepped into a technology firestorm when he came on board as the temporary CIO at the New York Law School in late summer two years ago. Southard…was faced with the school’s ambitious plan to build a new academic building in multiple phases while at the same time renovating existing buildings and moving some services across the street. ‘…which created the need for a flexible, reliable, fully self-healing and redundant metro E(thernet)-LAN/WAN (local area network/wide area network),’ he said. ‘At NYLS, to connect to our main campus with the rest of our displaced departments across the street, there were a limited number of providers who had feeds into that location. I knew that Con Ed, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon did.’ With the project clock ticking, Southard said TWC had a design and agreement in place with NYLS in the September/October timeframe. To read the full article, visit: http://www.cable360.net/ct/sections/features/21348.html

New York Law Journal, “Lawyer’s Bookshelf” Reviewed by Sonia E. Miller Friday, January 19, 2007 Subject: Review of The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds edited by Jack M. Balkin and Beth Simone Noveck NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Simone Noveck “Reading ‘The State of Play’ is an adventure. It is the first step of a journey into the outer limits of the physical world and the inner realms of the virtual within the boundaries of society’s comfort zone. It is an exploratory glimpse into how digital worlds may change the future, reshape our own reflection, and challenge real-world laws.”
New York Law Journal By Michael Botein Tuesday, January 16, 2007 Subject: Municipal Wi-Fi NYLS Faculty: Professor Michael Botein “Americans have become increasingly used to wireless (cellular) telephones to the extent of using more wireless than wired lines. Wi-Fi is technologically similar to cellular. It is a wireless, radio-based medium, at present used mainly for transmitting high-speed data on a broadband basis. It thus is a natural means of accessing the Internet for laptop computers and other mobile uses.” New York Law Journal subscribers may read the article in full by visiting: http://www.law.com/jsp/nylj/PubArticleNY.jsp?id=1168596132731

The New York Times, "What’s Online: The Lazy Top 10 Anything" By Dan Mitchell Saturday, December 30, 2006 Subject: End of Year Top 10 Lists NYLS Faculty: Visiting Professor Dan Hunter “As any media consumer knows, this is the season of the list. Dan Hunter of the blog Terra Nova, which focuses on virtual worlds and online gaming, notes that late December ‘is the point where lazy editors tell their lazy pundits to knock out a couple of hundred words structured around the topic: “Top Ten Moments in X for 2006,”’ where X stands for the subject the media outlet covers (terranova.blogs.com).” To read the full article, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/business/30online.html
The Tribeca Trib, "Soldier’s Story" By Carl Glassman Friday, December 29, 2006 Subject: New York Law School Student’s Experience in the Iraq War “Shawn Tabankin, 32, completed New York Law School in Tribeca last month. As a lieutenant in the Army National Guard, he took a leave of absence after his first year of law school to lead a platoon in Iraq, for which he received the Bronze Star. He is the school’s only veteran of the war in Iraq. This is his story, as told to Trib editor Carl Glassman.” To read the full article, visit: http://www.tribecatrib.com/
New York Law Journal, "Majority of Law Schools Enjoy Increase in Bar Exam Pass Rate" By Thomas Adcock Friday, December 15, 2006 Subject: Bar Exam Results “Fourteen of the state’s 15 law campuses posted increases in the rate of successful first-time candidates for the New York state bar examination in July. This year’s improved pass rates included a four point boost for the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, to 90 percent from last year’s 86 percent; 10-point increases at Albany Law School and New York Law School, to 88 percent from 78 percent and to 84 percent from 74 percent, respectively; and an eight-point rise at Syracuse University College of Law, to 81 percent from 73 percent.” New York Law Journal subscribers may read the article in full by visiting: http://www.law.com/jsp/nylj/PubArticleNY.jsp?hubtype=TopStories&id=1166090722770

ZDNet, "U.K. Considers Wiki to Ease Patent Bottleneck" By Tom Espiner Thursday, December 14, 2006 Subject: The Community Patent Review Project NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Noveck “Recommendation 23 of the Gowers Review states: ‘The Patent Office should conduct a pilot of Beth Noveck’s Community Patent Review in 2007 in the U.K. to determine whether this would have a positive impact on the quality of the patent stock.’ Professor Beth Noveck, director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at the New York Law School, recommended a system of peer review for patents in the U.S. in a September 2006 paper entitled ‘Community Patent Review Project Summary’.” To read the full article, visit: http://news.zdnet.com/2102-3513_22-6143921.html

The New York Sun, "Saving Our City from D.C." By David Schoenbrod Tuesday, December 12, 2006 Subject: Environment and the Federal Government NYLS Faculty: Professor David Schoenbrod “As the president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, recently said, ‘We cannot deal with 50 different [state] policies. We need a national approach to greenhouse gases.’ By a ‘national approach,’ he means a federal law that pre-empts state regulation. Whether we line up with President Bush or Al Gore on global warming, we should be leery of federal laws that squelch state environmental protection measures. The country has been down that road before. Big businesses crave uniformity, but replacing 50 regimes with one big one can hurt public health, including in cities such as New York. I know this from personal experience.” To read the full article, visit: http://www.nysun.com/article/44972
TrueNYC: What Would You Do With $135 Million? Wednesday, December 06, 2006 Subject: Running a Law School NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard A. Matasar “Richard A. Matasar, Dean of New York Law School, speaks candidly on a variety of topics including the business of running a law school, the school’s plans after selling its library for $135 million, and advice…” To view the interview, visit: http://www.truenyc.com/lawstudents/dean-matasar.html

Crain’s New York Business, "Colleges Cram to Cope as Costs Take Off, School Executives Fit More Buildings into Tight Budgets" By Steve Weinstein Monday, December 4, 2006 Subject: College Capital Projects NYLS Faculty: Dean and President Richard A. Matasar “…At colleges and universities across the city, the small, tightly knit teams of professionals who oversee building construction and renovation have been working flat-out in recent years to keep up with soaring demand for classroom and dormitory space. Now they have to cope with a new crisis as costs threaten to outrun budgets set by fund-raising efforts years earlier. Some schools have actually managed to turn rising land prices to their advantage. The New York Law School owned an underdeveloped parcel on Church Street in TriBeCa for over 40 years. Early this year, the school sold the site and air rights from adjoining properties, and used the proceeds to build a new academic hall. ‘When the boom came, we decided to put in a serious effort into unlocking the value of our property,” says Rick Matasar, the school’s president.’” Crain’s New York Business subscribers may read the article in full by visiting: http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=toc

ABA Journal, "The Best Route: ABA Conference Considers Options for Countries Seeking Transitional Justice" By James Podgers December 2006 Subject: The International Criminal Court NYLS Faculty: Professor Ruti Teitel “Only four years after coming into existence, the International Criminal Court has become the subject of rethinking among some experts. ‘It’s way too soon to conclude what the ICC’s contribution to peacemaking and the rule of law will be,’ says Ruti Teitel, a professor at New York Law School. ‘The real question is: How will the ICC interact with processes at a national level?’ Despite activities in other regions, Africa is where issues in transitional justice are likely to play out most significantly in the near future, said speakers at the conference sponsored by the International Law Section. Teitel cautioned against temptations to view the ICC’s role as paramount to national legal structures in efforts to address human rights violations in Africa and elsewhere. While the ICC stands for legal norms that represent the collective thinking of the international community, it still may not be the best vehicle for achieving reconciliation at a national or even local level, she said. ‘I’m quite concerned about the emphasis on Africa,’ Teitel said. ‘Is the ICC a European court for Africa?’” ABA Journal subscribers may read the article in full in the December 2006 edition.
C-Net, "IRS Taxation of Online Game Virtual Assets Inevitable" By Daniel Terdiman Sunday, December 03, 2006 Subject: The State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium NYLS Faculty: Professor William LaPiana “…Saturday panel called ‘Tax and Finance’ at the State of Play/Terra Nova symposium, the fourth annual gathering at New York Law School of academics, lawyers and other scholars to talk about the legal, social and economic issues surrounding virtual worlds. The panel was formed in the context of recent questions…about whether the transfer of virtual assets, or player’s acquisition of virtual loot by, for example, killing monsters, creates taxable events. First up was William LaPiana, a wills, trusts and estates professor at New York Law School. He approached the question by examining whether estate taxes would accrue on the transfer to an heir of a sizable collection of valuable virtual assets.” To read the full article, visit http://news.com.com/IRS+taxation+of+online+game+virtual+assets+inevitable/2100-1043_3-6140298.html
New York Law Journal, "Effects of ‘Hernandez’ Reach Beyond Marriage" By Mark Fass Tuesday, November 28, 2006 Subject: The Same-Sex Marriage Debate NYLS Faculty: Professor Arthur Leonard “The Court of Appeals’ July ruling in Hernandez v. Robles has had implications beyond its core holding that same-sex couples may not marry in New York. In New York, courts have found that the decision stands for a number of holdings broader than merely barring same-sex marriage. Courts from Washington to Nebraska to Massachusetts have cited Hernandez to support their decisions to narrow or restrict the rights of gays to marry. But New York Law School Professor Arthur Leonard, an expert on gay rights, contended that in fact, the Court tackled issues broader than the constitutionality of state Domestic Relations Law. The Court decided doctrinal issues of constitutional law regarding due process and equal protection, which have potential ramifications for other cases, according to Mr. Leonard. Hernandez’s equal protection ruling—that 'the restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples is subject only to rational basis scrutiny'—carries particular significance, Mr. Leonard added, because gay-rights cases often center on such arguments. Hernandez could be applied to such issues as adoption, benefits and discrimination, he suggested.” New York Law Journal subscribers may read the article in full by visiting: http://www.law.com/jsp/nylj/PubArticleNY.jsp?hubtype=TopStories&id=1164636900532

Paste Magazine, "Jack M. Balkin and Beth Simone Noveck..." By Thomas Bell Tuesday, November 28, 2006 Subject: Book Review of The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Simone Noveck “With diverse essays from game designers, social scientists and legal scholars, The State of Play is a provocative consideration of virtual jurisprudence.” To read the article in full, visit http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article?article_id=3588

The New York Times Magazine, "Gay Donor or Gay Dad? "
By John Bowe
Sunday, November 19, 2006

Subject: Sexuality and the Law
NYLS Faculty: Arthur S. Leonard, Professor of Law

“Primary among the reasons mothers to be choose to become impregnated by a known donor who remains part of the family is a reluctance to raise children in the shadow of anonymous heritage. As one donor dad, an East Coast lawyer named Guy, told me, his lesbian co-parents ‘felt like it was important for their kids to know as much as they could about their story. When there’s an anonymous donor, it’s not always an ideal situation for the child.’…

“Agreeing to be a father while stepping out of the way means navigating a thicket of emotional and legal issues. ‘I talk to a lot of guys who have this offer from women,’ Guy, the East Coast lawyer, said. ‘And I always say: You’ve got to completely trust these people. Because this relationship is going to be so tested in so many ways. If you can’t talk through every single, possible issue, this is not going to work. You’ve got to be able to bring your fears to them and vice versa.’”

“Drawing up an agreement can have what Guy called ‘immense stop-look-and-listen value.’ That is, it makes ‘you think for a minute about what you’re doing.’ But as he readily admitted, such documents—even when drawn up by a lawyer—often carry little legal weight. According to Arthur Leonard, a New York Law School professor and an expert on sexuality and the law, families can draft as many documents as they want, but ‘in the eyes of the law a parent is either the biological parent or an adoptive parent or, in some jurisdictions, a de facto parent.’ At best, co-parenting agreements serve as a way to establish intent, which state courts can choose to factor into their decisions—or not. Charged, above all, with looking out for the best interest of the child, judges are free to ignore even the most well-drawn documents.” …

To read the article in full, visit
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/magazine/19fathering.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

The Wall Street Journal Opinion, "Rule of Law: Make Benefit Glorious Legal System of America "
By Cameron Stracher
Saturday/Sunday, November 18–19, 2006

Subject: American Civil Justice System
NYLS Faculty: Cameron Stracher
Professor of Legal Writing
Publisher, NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL LAW REVIEW
Codirector, Program in Law & Journalism

“Borat’s best joke may soon be America’s civil justice system.

“Last week, two college students featured in the hit movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” sued the producers of the film in Los Angeles Superior Court. The “mockumentary,” which is a blend of fiction and non-fiction, features comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as he travel from his ‘home’ in Kazakhstan across the U.S., encountering various bigots, dopes and dupes along the way. Mr. Cohen has an uncanny ability to fool people (including politicians and journalists) into believing that he is really a boorish, cringe-making foreign journalist, rather than a comedian.”

NATURE, Special Report, "The Politics of Breathing"
By Emma Marris
November 16, 2006

Subject: Environmental Law
NYLS Faculty: David Schoenbrod, Trustee Professor of Law,
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

“David Schoenbrod, professor of environmental law at New York Law School, argues that Congress knew about this problem in the wording of the [Clean Air] act when it was passed in 1970. In a recent article he quotes the act’s sponsor, Senator Edmund Muskie, as saying in 1977: ‘Our public health scientists and doctors have told us that there is no threshold, that any air pollution is harmful. The Clean Air Act is based on the assumption, although we knew at the time it was inaccurate, that there is a threshold.’ (Regulation 29 (3), 2006).

“Congress passed the [Clean Air] act anyway, Schoenbrod contends, so that it could make the perfect decisions about banishing harm and let the EPA worry about the inevitable compromises. ‘The EPA, as a practical matter, must decide exactly how much health risk to tolerate,’ he says. ‘The EPA weighs health risks against cost.’”

NATURE subscribers may read the article in full by visiting:
http://www.nature.com/news/

New York Daily News, "It’s big deal as city parcels out $11B of work to private sector "
By Greg Wilson
November 6, 2006

Featuring: Center for New York City Law
Subject: Contracting with New York City
NYLS Faculty: Ross Sandler

“In the last fiscal year, city officials sealed more than 46,000 deals with private contractors, according to the study from New York Law School’s Center for New York City Law. …”

“Contracting with New York City is big business,” said the center’s director, Ross Sandler.

To read the article in full, visit
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/467820p-393682c.html

Associated Press, "Firms to Submit Patents for Peer Review”
By Dan Caterinicchia, AP Business Writer
Tuesday October 24, 3:48 pm ET

Featuring: Institute for Information Law & Policy
Subject: Peer-to-Peer Patent Review
NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Simone Noveck

“A handful of leading technology companies will soon submit some of their patent applications for ‘open peer review’ under a pilot project at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

“A steering committee comprised of lead patent counsel for the financial sponsors and an advisory board will oversee the initiative, which will be administered by the Institute for Information Law & Policy at New York Law School, in collaboration with the patent office.…”

To read the article in full, visit
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8KV6SD01.htm

CBS 2 Investigates: Videotape Cops At Own Peril
Police Take Exception To Citizens With Video Cameras
By Ti-Hua Chang
Oct 20, 2006 12:33 am US/Eastern

Subject: Criminal Law and Procedure
NYLS Faculty: Professor Sadiq Reza

“Reza said when an officer arrests someone, or even gives a summons, he or she can order the person to stop whatever they’re doing, including videotaping. However, as in Phillips' apparent case, if you are not being arrested or given a summons and are not interfering with an arrest, you have a constitutional right to videotape.…”

To read the article in full, visit
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_292230125.html

Information Today, Inc. “The Patent System on Tilt: IBM Seeks to Change the Game”
by K. Matthew Dames
October 16, 2006

Featuring: Institute for Information Law & Policy
Subject: Peer-to-Peer Patent Review
NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Simone Noveck

“A pilot for community patent review is scheduled to begin at the PTO sometime in 2007, according to Brigid Quinn, deputy director of the PTO’s public affairs office. ‘The pilot program will allow peer review of 200 specific patent applications. A number of organizations, including IBM, have agreed to participate in the project. In return for their participation, the USPTO will take up review of these applications much earlier in the process than they would normally be examined, which is a boon for filers.’…”

To read the article in full, visit
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb061016-1.shtml

The National Law Journal, “IBM’s New Initiative Could Change the Patent Process”
By Sheri Qualters
October 13, 2006

Featuring: Institute for Information Law & Policy
Subject: Peer-to-Peer Patent Review
NYLS Faculty: Professor Beth Simone Noveck

“‘Patent applicants have to take some responsibility for the quality of patent applications,’ said Manny Schecter, associate general counsel for intellectual property law at IBM. IBM officials say the company also plans on spending ‘thousands of hours’ each year reviewing other filers’ patent applications part of a community patent review pilot project developed by New York Law School’s Institute for Information Law and Policy.

The pilot project’s Web site will gather comments about patents in the pilot project to see if outside commentary helps the patent office.…”

To read the article in full, visit http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1160643919303

Los Angeles Times, latimes.com, “Scalia Debates Law, Liberties With ACLU Chief”
In a televised session, the Supreme Court justice defends his views before a liberal crowd of 1,500.
By David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer
October 16, 2006

Subject: Civil Liberties and Constitutional Law
NYLS Faculty: Professor Nadine Strossen

“Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia went before 1,500 members of the American Civil Liberties Union on Sunday to explain his views on the Constitution and on the proper role of judges, winning polite applause from the liberal audience.

… he and the ACLU's longtime president, Nadine Strossen, debated the law and civil liberties in an hourlong session televised by C-SPAN.…”

To read the article in full, visit
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scalia16oct16,0,3031110.story

The Star Ledger, “Prof Wants Execution Saved for ‘the Worst of the Worst’”
By Robert Schwaneberg, Star-Ledger Staff
Thursday, October 12, 2006

Subject: Capital Punishment
NYLS Faculty: Professor Robert Blecker

“‘I feel certain that in some cases, the death penalty and only the death penalty is an adequate moral response,’ Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School, told a commission studying whether New Jersey’s never-used 1982 capital punishment law should be repealed.…”

To read the article in full, visit
http://www.sentencing.nj.gov/downloads/pdf/articles/2006/Oct2006/news03.pdf

The National Law Journal, “For these law students, the next stop is Tehran”
By Emily Heller/Special to The National Law Journal
Monday, September 11, 2006

Featuring: Center for International Law
Subject: Foreign Policy Project
NYLS Faculty: Professor Tai-Heng Cheng

“The Iran Project is a collaboration between the New York Law School’s Center for International Law and Network 20/20, a New York-based nonprofit organization of 200 young workers in 30 professions in the United States.

The program has several components. First is identifying and describing what the 20,000 nongovernmental organizations working in Iran have managed to accomplish. Next, a delegation from Network 20/20 and the law school will travel to Iran this fall. Then, in early 2007, the project will present its findings before an international conference.…”
To read the article in full, visit:
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1157629869023

Bloomberg.com, “U.S. Cuts Back on Executions as It Debates Lethal Injections”

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