Three Honorary LL.D. Degrees to be Awarded at Commencement

At a recent meeting of Southwestern's Board of Trustees, the Board voted to award honorary Doctor of Laws degrees to three deserving individuals who have contributed significantly to Southwestern, legal education and the community. Being honored on May 20 during the law school's 92nd Commencement Ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles will be Judge Arthur Alarcón, Professor Beverly Rubens Gordon '54, and Ms. Janice Manis.

The Honorable Arthur L. Alarcón, Senior Judge of the United States Court of Appeals, has had a long and distinguished legal career. He was the first Hispanic appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals when he was named to the federal bench by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. A graduate of the University of Southern California Law Center, he served for nine years as a Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles where he was one of the first prosecutors to obtain a murder conviction without a confession or the corpus delecti. He went on to work for several years as legal advisor and Chief of Staff as well as chair of the California Parole Board under Governor Edmund G. Brown, who named Judge Alarcón to his first judicial post on the Los Angeles Superior Court in 1964. In 1978, Governor Jerry Brown elevated him to the California Court of Appeal, where he served for one year before his appointment to the Ninth Circuit. He took senior status in 1992. Over the years, Judge Alarcón has been instrumental in founding such organizations as the Mexican American Scholarship Foundation Assisting Careers in Law (MAS FACIL) and the Council on Mexican-American Affairs, and has served on the boards of the Los Angeles Legal Aid Foundation, the Boys and Girls Clubs, Coro Foundation, and the Performing Arts Council. He is the author of many publications on criminal law and procedure and also served on the faculties of the California College of Trial Lawyers and the California Judicial College, and taught criminal law courses at the University of Southern California and Loyola Law Schools. A long-time friend of Southwestern, he was a popular member of the adjunct faculty for many years, teaching Federal Courts and taking numerous Southwestern students as externs in his court.

A major force in legal education for over four decades, Professor Beverly Rubens Gordon earned her J.D. degree at Southwestern, where she later served on the faculty and went on to establish two other southern California law schools. After graduating first in her law class in 1954 and becoming a member of the California State Bar, she taught at Southwestern for ten years and founded one of the leading bar review courses. In 1964, she became the first Dean of Orange University School of Law in Santa Ana, which would eventually become Pepperdine University School of Law. Two years later, she was instrumental in the formation of the Beverly Law School in Los Angeles, where she served as Dean of Administration and a member of the faculty. The school became affiliated with Whittier College in 1975 and is now Whittier College School of Law. In the early 1980s, Professor Gordon served as a Visiting Professor at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, and in 1986 she was honored by the Whittier College Board of Trustees as the law school's first Professor Emeritus. During her career as an educator, Professor Gordon chaired or served as a member of evaluation teams for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the California State Department of Education, the State Bar Select Committee to study accreditation standards of California law schools, and the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. She has received numerous awards for teaching excellence from Southwestern, the Beverly Law School and Whittier School of Law, and was honored as Southwestern's Alumna of the Year in 1980. She has been a close friend and advisor to the law school for over half a century.

Janice A. Manis, Director of Administrative Services, has played a key role in the development of Southwestern for more than 25 years. She is responsible for planning and managing the campus building renovation and preservation projects; coordinating property acquisition and development; overseeing law school facilities, emergency operations and auxiliary services; directing staff recruiting and human resource programs and policies; and supervising the annual Commencement ceremony. She also authored more than a dozen major administrative guides and handbooks, and performs a major role in financial matters, including serving as Acting Chief Financial Officer in 2005-6. Most significantly, Ms. Manis was instrumental in coordinating all aspects of the transformation of the law school's Bullocks Wilshire Building, other facilities and grounds into one of the most highly admired and technologically advanced law school campuses in the country. A cum laude graduate of Pomona College, Ms. Manis came to Southwestern after serving for several years as Project Coordinator managing operations and budgets for federal research and training grants for the University of Minnesota, where she was also a Regents Scholar in psychology and management. She is active in the facilities sections of the Association of American Law Schools and the American Bar Association as well as the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources and the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Southwestern Welcomes New Adjunct Faculty

Hon. Mitchell L. Beckloff - Community Property

Professor Patrick Crawford - Federal Partnership Law & Tax

David Rosenbaum - Video Game Law

Southwestern Professors Help Judges Polish Writing Skills

Professors Michael Frost and Paul Bateman have partnered in a unique effort to help judges advance at one of their most essential responsibilities: drafting opinions. What began as a one-time job evaluating a course for the National Judicial College (NJC) has blossomed into regular engagements for the professors, where they have taught members of the bench how to improve their writing for the last 15 years. "Sometimes their writing simply needs to be burnished a little bit stylistically. Sometimes the material is not as well organized as it ought to be," Professor Frost said.

Each year, Professors Frost and Batemen conduct a handful of seminars for practicing judges from all over the country. About half are held at the NJC in Reno, Nevada, where judges from across the spectrum go to hone their professional skills. "When we do a session, we read their work first," Professor Bateman explained. "That gives us some idea of what we're going to do for a particular session. We customize it each time."

The professors also visit judges' organizations across the country and lead seminars for workers compensation judges, tribal judges, tax judges and various other associations from Washington to West Virginia.

"They do an outstanding job," said the Hon. Susan Bussey, executive director of the Oklahoma Merit Protection Commission, who enlisted Professors Frost and Bateman to teach a group of judges from the Commission after attending one of their seminars at the NJC. "All of our judges are sharp, and they've been writing for a number of years, but there's no question that since they took the class, their writing has benefited."

Professor Frost explained that judges face all sorts of obstacles when writing opinions. From grappling with tight deadlines to being forced to adapt their writing to pre-existing templates, judges are often highly constrained. What's more, if they turn out work that's less than high quality, they're not likely to hear about it from their clerks or colleagues. At their seminars, however, the professors provide the judges with ample feedback - a crucial tool for improving one's work, especially in this field. "Judges really lead a very isolated life," explained the Hon. William Dressel, president of the NJC. "They can't go and discuss their opinion with someone. They produce their work in a very solitary fashion ... [Professors Frost and Bateman] are really able to engage the judges and get them to examine the type of writing they do. And the judges absolutely love them." Both professors have taught legal writing at Southwestern for more than 25 years.

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FACULTY ACTIVITIES

• Panelist, "Recent United States Supreme Court Environmental Law Cases," Spring 2007 Environmental Law Symposium, LACBA

• Speaker, "Charting Student Study Efficiencies,"  Southern California Academic Support Workshop, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, California

• "Distributive and Corrective Justice Issues in Contemporary Tobacco Litigation," 27 SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 577 (1998) and ARISTOTLE AND MODERN LAW (R. Brooks and J. Murphy, eds.; Ashgate Press, 2003) cited in "Torts Rationales, Pluralism, and Isaiah Berlin," 14 GEORGE MASON LAW REVIEW 329 (Winter 2007; C.J. Robinette)
• "Ending the Punitive Damage Debate," 45 DEPAUL LAW REVIEW 301 (1995) cited in "Punishment by the People: Rethinking the Jury's Political Role in Assigning Punitive Damages," 56 DUKE LAW JOURNAL 1110 (2007; N.S. Chapman)
• JUSTICE AND TORT LAW (Carolina Academic Press, 1997) cited in "The Role of Retributive Justice in the Common Law of Torts: A Descriptive Theory," 73 TENNESSEE LAW REVIEW 177 (Winter 2006; R. Perry)
• "A Consumer-Use Approach to Products Liability," 33 UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS LAW REVIEW 755 (Summer 2003) cited in "Baseball Bats in the High Tech Era: A Products Liability Look at New Technology, Aluminum Bats, and Manufacturer Liability," 16 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 353 (2006; M.R. Wilmot)
• Quoted in "A Dog's Life: What's it Worth?" Los Angeles Times; comments republished by Lawyers.com, Seattle Times (online edition) and Journaltimes.com
• Interviewed regarding pet food poisoning and owners' tort claims in the eyes of the law, KPCC

• Site Team Chair, Provisional Accreditation, ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Faulkner University School of Law, Montgomery, Alabama

• "Broadcast Technology as Diversity Opportunity: Exchanging Market Power for Multiplexed Signal Set-Asides," 59 FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL 1 (December 2006)

• "Lawyer Satisfaction in the Process of Structuring Legal Careers," 41 LAW AND SOCIETY REVIEW 1 (with R. Dinovitzer; 2007)
• Chair, AALS Committee on Research Meeting, Washington, D.C.

• Author and Proposed Adoption, "Guidance Notes on Arbitrator Conduct;" Chair, Legal Issues Subcommittee Meeting; Presenter, "Current U.S. Developments in Arbitration;" and Participant, NAFTA Advisory Committee on Private Commercial Dispute Resolution (NAFTA Article 2022 Committee) Annual Meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Appointed, Joint Working Group on Legal Services, U.S.-India Trade Policy Forum
• Chair, International Trade in Legal Services (ITILS) Task Force Meetings, ABA, Miami, Florida and Washington, D.C.
• Speaker, "The Role of State Bars in the Regulation of Multijurisdictional Legal Practice," National Association of Bar Executives Annual Meeting, Miami, Florida
• Organizer and Moderator, "Use of International and Foreign Law in U.S. Courts: The Controversy" and "Use of International and Foreign Law in Courts: Perspectives from Abroad," ABA Section of International Law Spring Meeting, Washington, D.C.
• Participant, American Bar Foundation's Fellows Advisory Research Council Meeting, Miami, Florida

• EFFECTIVE LAWYERING: A CHECKLIST APPROACH TO LEGAL WRITING AND ORAL ADVOCACY (with D. Yokoyama; Carolina Academic Press, 2007)
• "Sovereignty's Continuing Importance? Traces of Trail Smelter In The International Law Governing Hazardous Waste Transport" in TRANSBOUNDARY HARMS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW: LESSONS FROM THE TRAIL SMELTER ARBITRATION (R. Bratspies, ed.: Cambridge University Press, 2006)
• "Litigating Canada-U.S. Transboundary Harm: International Environmental Lawmaking and the Threat of Extraterritorial Reciprocity," 48 VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW (with S. Hsu, forthcoming)
• "Mixed Blessings: The Great Lakes Compact and Agreement, the IJC, and International Dispute Resolution," 2007 MICHIGAN STATE LAW REVIEW (Spring 2007)
• "Changing Territoriality, Fading Sovereignty, and the Development of Indigenous Group Rights," 31 AMERICAN INDIAN LAW REVIEW (Summer 2007)
• "Storm in a Teacup: The U.S. Supreme Court's Use of Foreign Law," 2007 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW 637 (2007; the article will also serve to launch the University of Illinois Law Review's new online companion - The Illinois Law Forum)

• Interviewed regarding U.S. Supreme Court not to hear the appeals of detainees at Guantanamo Bay military prison, challenging the constitutionality of their continued imprisonment, ABC Radio Network News
• Interviewed regarding Australian citizen David Hicks's guilty plea before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, to a charge of providing Material support to a terrorist organization, Australian Broadcasting Corp.
• Interviewed regarding the standoff between Congress and President Bush over using the subpoena power to force his top aides to testify under oath and on the record about the firings of eight U.S. prosecutors, "Dateline Washington," Radio America Network

• INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE DESKBOOK 3rd ed. (17th Release, Practising Law Institute, 2007)

• Presenter, "IP and Entertainment Law," Thomson-West Meeting
• Presenter, "Law of Ideas," ALI-ABA Annual Entertainment, Sports and Arts Program

• Quoted in "Regulatory hurdles may be low for Enterprise," The San Luis Obispo Tribune

• EFFECTIVE LAWYERING: A CHECKLIST APPROACH TO LEGAL WRITING AND ORAL ADVOCACY (with A. Parrish; Carolina Academic Press, 2007)
• Appointed President-Elect, Japanese American Bar Association of Greater Los Angeles

ADJUNCT FACULTY

• Presenter, "Mastering Mediations," Combing Claims Conference, City of Industry, California

• Chair/Participant, International Academic Forum on Planning, Law and Property Rights, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Participant, Inaugural International Conference on Planning Law: The New Dutch Spatial Planning Act, The Hague, The Netherlands

ABA • American Bar Association
AALS • Association of American Law Schools
LACBA • Los Angeles County Bar Association
NALP • National Association for Law Placement