Oct. 29 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Oct. 29 issue of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Thomas McAffee, student Lynell Reyes, and alumna Stephanie Buntin '11.

Professor McAffee is an expert on the Constitution and an advocate for its thoughtful interpretation. One of the founding faculty members at Boyd, he has been teaching in law schools for more than 30 years.

Reyes is the Latin Bar Association liaison for La Voz, Boyd's Latino student association. She recently completed a Corporate Summer Internship Program at Switch, where she worked on a variety of topics from property to contracts to regulatory compliance.  

Buntin is an intellectual property attorney in the Las Vegas office of Michigan-based firm Howard & Howard Attorneys PLLC. Her practice focuses on trademark prosecution and patent prosecution for businesses.

To subscribe to Boyd Briefs, visit law.unlv.edu/BoydBriefs.

Artists Speak to UNLV Law Copyright Class

Photo © 2015 Gary A. Trimble

Guest speakers enrich the intellectual environment at the Boyd School of Law, contributing their expertise, practical observations, and varied perspectives. This semester Professor Marketa Trimble invited two performing artists to her Copyright course to share their experiences with and opinions of copyright law: Professor and Director of Opera Theater, Voice at UNLV Dr. Linda Lister, and Las Vegas Headliner of the Year twice running, Mr. Frankie Moreno.

Dr. Linda Lister is Associate Professor of Music at UNLV and Director of Opera Theater, Voice at UNLV. In addition to her educational roles, she has many solo soprano credits, including performances with the Washington Symphony Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Las Vegas Philharmonic, and numerous opera roles, including one of her favorites, Musetta in “La Bohème.” She is also a composer of vocal works and operas, including a chamber opera about the Brontë sisters entitled “How Clear She Shines!”, and the author of numerous articles and the 2011 book “Yoga for Singers: Freeing Your Voice and Spirit Through Yoga.” In 2014 she was awarded the American Prize in Directing, and in 2015 she directed the UNLV Opera to two First Place Awards in the 2015 National Opera Association Collegiate Opera Scenes Competition in both the musical theatre and graduate opera divisions.

Photo © 2015 Gary A. Trimble

Mr. Frankie Moreno is an Emmy-nominated international recording artist, singer, songwriter and composer, and one of the most popular performing artists in Las Vegas today. From his childhood days on “Star Search,” to headlining at the Stratosphere, to his performance in 2012 on “Dancing with the Stars,” he has performed to sold-out shows across the United States, including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and The Hollywood Bowl. His touring has taken him around the world, and this year, after thrilling Las Vegas audiences with his “Under the Influence” series of concerts at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, he went on to Australia to thrill audiences Down Under. Mr. Moreno participates in many educational activities: with the students of the Gilbert Magnet School in Las Vegas he recorded an iconic version of the official state song of the State of Nevada “Home Means Nevada” for Nevada’s Sesquicentennial celebration in 2014.

Photo © 2015 Gary A. Trimble

Professor Lister and Mr. Moreno shared with students their many experiences with copyright law, including their very first encounters with copyright law, how technology has changed the challenges that artists and the copyright laws face, and how different copyright law issues arise in the various types of art that artists create. From composing their own music, to performing and recording music by others, to using works either in or out of copyright, artists face a multiplicity of copyright challenges. Professor Lister and Mr. Moreno also opined on how copyright law and its practice can enhance – or at least not impede – their work, and explained what they would like lawyers to know when lawyers work with or represent artists. Law students at Boyd are fortunate to study copyright law in a city that is the home of such talented artists who are so generous in sharing their experiences with students and the community.

Oct. 22 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Oct. 22 issue of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Jeanne Frazier Price, student Evan Wozniak, and alumnus Matt Christian '02. 

Professor Price is director of Boyd's Wiener-Rogers Law Library. She and her colleagues have made the law library a focus of the intellectual life of the law school, for faculty and for students.

Wozniak is a 2013 magna cum laude UNLV graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He spent the year following his UNLV graduation as a technical writer for National Security Technologies, a contractor to the United States Department of Energy. After spending his 1L year in the Northwest, he transferred to Boyd. 

As a 1L, Christian began working as a law clerk at a small firm specializing in public construction law. He graduated magna cum laude and has focused his practice on complex construction claims ever since. While a shareholder at Kolesar & Leatham, one of his clients, Clark County, asked him to come work in-house. It was an opportunity he could not pass up, and he has been with the District Attorney's Civil Division since 2013. 

To subscribe to Boyd Briefs, visit law.unlv.edu/BoydBriefs.

Professor Marketa Trimble Attends Patent and International Law Conference at UC Irvine School of Law

Marketa Trimble is a professor of law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Oct. 16, Professor Trimble participated in a Patent Sovereignty and International Law conference hosted by the UC Irvine School of Law.

The conference examined the recent "Declaration on Patent Protection and Regulatory Sovereignty Under TRIPs" document and explored the balance between international patent harmonization and national sovereignty. As one of several distinguished faculty from law schools across the nation, Professor Trimble presented on the topic of “Patent Working Requirements.”

In her research, Professor Trimble focuses on intellectual property and issues at the intersection of intellectual property and private international law/conflict of laws.

Oct. 15 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Oct. 15 issue of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Rebecca Nathanson, student Mackenzie Warren, and alumnus Christopher Hicks '01. 

Professor Nathanson directs both the Kids' Court School and the education advocacy clinic in the Thomas & Mack Legal Clinic. The most important thing she's working on now is the expansion of the Kids' Court School, a program she established at Boyd 12 years ago. More than 1,000 children have participated in the program that educates child witnesses about the judicial process.

Warren, the youngest main news anchor in Las Vegas local television history, traveled a unique road to this distinction. As a journalist and now in her second year at Boyd, Warren has embraced the opportunity to channel her passion for discovery, storytelling, and advocacy.  

As a fifth generation Nevadan, Hicks is proud to be a member of the inaugural graduating class of Nevada's first accredited law school. In 2014, he was elected Washoe County District Attorney and serves as the chief law enforcement officer for the county and the attorney for all of the county's departments and commissioners.

To subscribe to Boyd Briefs, visit law.unlv.edu/BoydBriefs.

Oct. 9 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Oct. 9 issue of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Ian Bartrum, student Christopher Sauser, and alumna Sonya Miller '13.

Professor Bartrum is one of Boyd's experts on the Constitution. He's currently working on a book with the tentative title, The Contested Constitution. The book develops the concept that when people refer to the "Constitution" they are not usually talking about a document, but rather about a particular social practice.

Chris' appreciation and respect for study of the rule of law developed during his 25-year tenure with the United States Air Force as a military police officer. His service has taken him around the country and around the globe.

Miller is a lecturer and the director of the Federal Tax Clinic at the University of South Dakota School of Law. Following graduation at Boyd, Sonya earned an LL.M. in Taxation at Villanova University. She also clerked for the Honorable Mary S. Brennan, J.T.C., in the New Jersey Tax Court.

To subscribe to Boyd Briefs, visit law.unlv.edu/BoydBriefs.

New Edition of Professor Marketa Trimble's Casebook to be Published in December

Marketa Trimble is a Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

The fourth edition of Goldstein and Trimble's International Intellectual Property Law, Cases and Materials, a casebook that Professor Trimble co-authored, will be published in December.

The book, co-authored by Professor Paul Goldstein of Stanford Law School, "organizes contemporary foreign, as well as U.S., case law and literature to equip law students with the knowledge they need to engage in international intellectual property practice, in both transactional and litigation settings."  

In her research, Professor Trimble focuses on intellectual property and issues at the intersection of intellectual property and private international law/conflict of laws.

Professor Mary LaFrance Publishes New Casebook

Mary LaFrance is the IGT Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law.

Professor LaFrance recently published a casebook titled LaFrance, Scott, and Sobel's Entertainment Law on a Global Stage.

The book, co-authored by Geoffrey R. Scott and Lionel Sobel, "provides coverage of a variety of subjects not found in other entertainment law books, including analytical/transactional/experiential material on some of the unique problems that arise in representing an entertainer; entertainment industry contracts; taxation of entertainers; selling an idea; and the implications of the internet to entertainment and the identities of artists."

Professor LaFrance’s teaching and research interests include domestic and international intellectual property law, as well as the taxation of intellectual property.

Professor Michael Kagan Warns Municipal Lawyers about Constitutional Problems with Immigration Enforcement

Boyd Professor Michael Kagan warned lawyers for municipalities that immigration enforcement is riddled with constitutional problems, and that local governments risk liability if they detain people at the request of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Speaking on Oct. 5 to the International Municipal Lawyers Association in Las Vegas, Professor Kagan explained that unlike routine law enforcement by local police, ICE does not normally obtain any neutral finding of probable cause before placing people in immigration detention.

At the municipal lawyers conference, Kate Desormeau, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrant Rights Project, warned that recent federal court decisions had found local governments liable for civil rights violations when they kept people detained on the basis of "ICE detainers." ICE detainers are requests from ICE to local police to hold a person, but are not neutral findings of probable cause as is normally required to deprive someone of liberty under the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Professor Kagan has recently analyzed what he calls "immigration law's looming Fourth Amendment problem" in a forthcoming article in the Georgetown Law Journal. He advised the municipal lawyers that the Department of Homeland Security could fix the problem by seeking review by neutral Immigration Judges before arresting or holding people on immigration grounds. But until DHS does so, he advised that municipalities would be wise not to risk their own liability by detaining people on behalf of ICE.

Professor Kagan co-directs the Immigration Clinic and the Boyd School of Law.

“Magistrate Judges and the Transformation of the Federal Judiciary” – A Conference at the Boyd School of Law

On Sept. 25 and 26, 2015, the William S. Boyd School of Law, in cooperation with the Duke University School of Law and the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution, hosted a conference at Boyd entitled “Magistrate Judges and the Transformation of the Federal Judiciary.” The conference organizers, Professor Thom Main of the Boyd School of Law, and Professor Mitu Gulati of Duke Law School, assembled a distinguished group of speakers who discussed the important members of the federal judiciary who are often neglected by researchers – magistrate judges. Although magistrate judges are responsible for a significant portion of the federal district court workload – as the statistics presented at the conference demonstrated – researchers have typically bypassed magistrate judges and their essential role in the functioning of the federal judicial system.

The conference combined the contributions of both academics and judges, with the academics presenting their research and the judges providing commentary. The conference began with the roles reversed, however, as Judge Philip Pro, Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, presented his research on magistrate judges that he conducted as a graduate student in the inaugural class of Duke Law School’s master’s program in judicial studies. His research inspired the organization of the conference, and so the conference opened, appropriately, with his presentation. His research project and the other research projects presented at the conference explored the roles of magistrate judges from various perspectives and through different methods, including empirical qualitative and quantitative methods. Discussion of the papers benefitted from an audience that was as experienced and expert as the panelists; local and out-of-state judges, law professors, and practitioners added perspective and depth. The debate often revolved around issues concerning the accessibility of data, with academics, judges, and representatives of the Judiciary’s Administrative Office discussing the desirability, availability, and feasibility of data collection regarding various indicators of common interest.

The conference presenters and attendees included nationally renowned judges, academics, and legal practitioners from across the United States who are interested in the work of magistrate judges. Among the participants were Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, federal district court judges, current and former magistrate judges, judges who at some point were unsuccessful candidates for magistrate judgeships, state court judges, public defenders, and representatives of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The panels were moderated by Boyd Dean Daniel W. Hamilton and Boyd professors Ann C. McGinley, Jean Sternlight, and Jeffrey W. Stempel. The contributions presented at the conference will be published in a forthcoming special symposium issue of the Nevada Law Journal.

Oct. 1 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Oct. 1 issue of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Stacey Tovino, student Bridget Kelly, and alumnus Mike Lee '06.

Professor Tovino is a Lehman Professor of Law and Director of UNLV's Health Law Program. Currently she is writing a series of articles, forthcoming in the Boston College Law Review and Minnesota Law Review, designed to improve health care in the context of immigration detention.

Kelly always wanted to be a lawyer, but an interest in linguistics and speech-language pathology led her college studies down a different, exciting path. Now enrolled in Boyd's part-time evening program, Kelly is realizing her earlier dream of becoming an attorney and continuing her passion for responsible patient care by focusing on business and health care law.

Lee has published opinions from the Ninth Circuit and the Nevada Supreme Court, and has been recognized with numerous accolades. Practicing in the field of civil litigation, he opened Michael B. Lee, PC in 2011.

To subscribe to Boyd Briefs, visit law.unlv.edu/BoydBriefs.