Professor Michael Kagan Pens Latest On-Line Symposium Installment of Texas v. United States

Michael Kagan is co-director of the Immigration Clinic and an associate professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law. 

On Nov. 22, Professor Kagan posted an essay on the ImmigrationProf blog arguing that the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was wrong to require an arduous administrative process known as "notice and comment" for President Obama's deferred action programs for immigrants (DACA and DAPA). He also suggested that the Department of Justice (DOJ) may also have erred by not pointing out strongly that the court was making a mistake in the way it interpreted the Administrative Procedure Act: 

"The main impact of requiring notice and comment would be to empower unelected and unaccountable frontline DHS employees who happen to disagree with the elected President about how the immigration enforcement discretion should be used,” Professor Kagan said. “That would not be a good thing for American democracy.” 

The essay also read: “I would also like to suggest that the Department of Justice has made a questionable strategic choice by trying to convince the Fifth Circuit that DAPA and DACA are not really binding on frontline DHS officials. DOJ has in essence argued a question of fact when the lower courts have primarily erred on a question of law. The Fifth Circuit has erred in the way it has defined ‘binding’ rules, and in so doing it has made it more difficult for the President to perform as Chief Executive when frontline public employees disagree with the President’s policy choices. While conservative legal thinkers (and judges) may generally oppose President Obama's immigration policies, they should be concerned about an approach to administrative law that makes it difficult for a President to direct federal agencies that are staffed by people with contrary policy preferences."

Professor Kagan spent a decade developing legal aid programs for refugees in the Middle East, and has written several of the most widely cited articles in the fields of refugee and asylum law.

Nov. 20 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Nov. 20 issue of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Michael Kagan, student Gil Lopez, and alumna Venicia Considine '08.

Professor Kagan is co-director of Boyd's Immigration Clinic and widely known for his research and published work in refugee and asylum law.

Lopez works full time during the day at Nevada State College as a GEAR UP ambassador and attends law school at night. He has been involved in the Latin Chamber of Commerce's Latino Youth Leadership Conference for the last 10 years.

Considine is a staff attorney in the consumer rights project at the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada. She represents clients against predatory or usurious practices by banks, mortgage companies, and payday and title loan lenders.

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

UNLV Boyd School of Law, or “Casebook & Textbook Central”

The intellectual reach of the Boyd faculty extends far beyond the borders of the State of Nevada. The faculty’s activities in advocacy and scholarship and its active participation in national and international organizations promote Boyd’s name nationally and internationally. The faculty’s authorship of casebooks and textbooks highlights its expertise in specific areas of law and exports the faculty’s reputation to law schools where professors teach and students learn from these casebooks and textbooks.

In October 2015 the Boyd faculty celebrated a new addition to the collection of casebooks and textbooks authored by Boyd professors: the first edition of Professor Mary LaFrance’s latest casebook LaFrance et al., Entertainment Law on a Global Stage, West, 2015. The publication of this new casebook is another opportunity to celebrate the expertise of the Boyd faculty in its publications.

Forty percent of the Boyd faculty have authored or co-authored casebooks and textbooks on a wide variety of legal subjects. Students encounter some of the casebooks in their first-year law subjects, such as property (Hamilton et al., Property: Cases and Materials, Foundation Press, 10th ed., forthcoming) and civil procedure (Stempel et al., Learning Civil Procedure, West, 2d ed., 2015).

Many Boyd faculty-authored casebooks and textbooks are or will be used in upper-level courses that are popular with large numbers of students – books such as Main et al., Remedies, Foundation Press, 6th ed., forthcoming; Rapoport et al., Ethical Lawyering in Real Life: Materials and Problems, Aspen, forthcoming; and Shoben et al., Remedies: Cases and Problems, Foundation Press, 6th ed., forthcoming.

Some casebooks and textbooks are designed for highly specialized courses, for example Birdsong et al., Natural Resources Law: A Place-Based Book of Problems and Cases, Aspen, 2d ed., 2009; Rothstein & McGinley, Disability Law: Cases, Materials, Problems, LexisNexis, 5th ed., 2010; Stempel et al., Principles of Insurance Law, LexisNexis, 4th ed., 2012; and White et al., Complex Litigation: Cases and Materials on Litigating Social Change, Carolina Academic Press, 2008. The strength of the faculty’s health law specialization is highlighted by casebooks and textbooks in this dynamic area of law, such as Griffin & Krause, Practicing Bioethics Law, Foundation Press, forthcoming; and Tovino, HIPAA Privacy Law: Theory, Policy, and Practice, forthcoming.

A number of casebooks and textbooks are designed for courses that focus on enhancing students’ lawyering skills; these books are authored by the faculty of the nationally recognized lawyering process and alternative dispute resolution programs at Boyd, for example Edwards, Legal Writing and Analysis, Aspen, 4th ed., forthcoming; Pollman et al., Examples and Explanations: Legal Writing, Aspen, 2011; and Sternlight et al., Dispute Resolution: Beyond the Adversarial Model, Aspen, 2d ed., 2010.

The global perspective of the Boyd faculty is evident in the comparative perspective and the coverage of international developments in faculty-authored casebooks and textbooks such as Blakesley et al., Global Issues in Criminal Procedure, West, 2011; LaFrance et al., Entertainment Law on a Global Stage, West, 2015; Rowley et al., Global Issues In Contract Law, West, 2007; and Goldstein & Trimble, International Intellectual Property Law, Cases and Materials, Foundation Press, 4th ed., 2016.

The more than 50 casebooks and textbooks authored by the Boyd faculty are used not only by professors at Boyd, but also by professors at other law schools throughout the United States; Boyd students study from some of the same materials as do students at law schools such as Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and the University of Michigan.

Professor Rachel Anderson Named a Leader in Diversity

Rachel J. Anderson is a professor of law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

The National Jurist magazine named Professor Anderson to its list of 20 law professors recognized for making a significant contribution to diversity in legal education. The results were presented in the article, “Why Diversity Matters,” and appear in the magazine’s Fall 2015, Back to School issue.

Nearly 100 nominations for outstanding minority law professors were received by the magazine, of which 20 were selected for going beyond the norm of furthering diversity efforts.

The article read: “Rachel Anderson has had her hand in a number of programs that offer an opportunity for law students to put critical perspectives on race and law into practice at the law school and in the community. One, the Youth & Justice Workshop, is an annual community event in which youth engage in conversation about their rights and responsibilities. …In the Youth Voting Rights Project, which Anderson co-created, high school teachers and law students engage in education on advanced citizenship.”

Professor Anderson's research and teaching interests focus on business law, civil and human rights, empirical legal studies, and international law.

Nov. 12 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Nov. 12 issue of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Terrill Pollman, student Rebecca Wolfson, and alumnus Jason VanMeetren '11.

Professor Pollman was on the founding faculty at the Boyd School of Law. She is nationally recognized for designing and developing Boyd's Lawyering Process Program, consistently ranked top five in the nation.

Wolfson, whose parents are both attorneys, spent a summer during college in London working for a member of Parliament. She has accepted a judicial clerkship starting in August with the Honorable Valerie Adair.

VanMeetren practices real estate law at one of Beverly Hills' most trusted firms, Eisner Jaffe. His practice group focuses primarily on real estate finance and acquisitions/dispositions of multi-family and commercial properties -- from negotiation through final closing. 

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

Professor Marketa Trimble Contributes to Recently Published Book

Marketa Trimble is the Samuel Lionel Intellectual Property Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

In the recently published book, Patent Enforcement Worldwide, Professor Trimble contributed a chapter titled "The Extraterritorial Enforcement of Patent Rights."

The book is edited by Christopher Heath, a member of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office. The publication features reports on the patent enforcement practice in the 15 most litigated countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

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

Food Law Presentation at Boyd

Photo © 2015 Gary A. Trimble

Food is an important part of life in Las Vegas: many of the more than 40 million tourists who visit Las Vegas each year come in part to enjoy the fine restaurants in the city, and for many of the 2.1 million inhabitants of the Las Vegas metropolitan area good food is a part of their daily lives. It is therefore no surprise that issues such as quality, provenance, and safety of food are of paramount importance, including the legal aspects of these issues.

On November 2, 2015, Boyd faculty and students enjoyed a presentation from Professor Barry Levenson, an expert in food law. Professor Levenson is the founder and curator of the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin, and teaches food law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He has authored three books, including Habeas Codfish: Reflections on Food and the Law, published in 2001 by The University of Wisconsin Press. Professor Levenson’s distinguished legal career has included the position of Assistant Attorney General and head of the Criminal Appeals Division of the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Justice. He takes pride in being the only lawyer ever to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court with a jar of mustard in his pocket (Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868 (1987)).

Photo © 2015 Gary A. Trimble

Professor Levenson detailed the development of health law in the United States over the past 100 years and discussed FDA regulations and labelling issues. He pointed out the latest trends in food law, including litigation concerning the intersection of the Lanham Act and FDA regulations. In addition to Boyd faculty and students, faculty and students from the UNLV William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration also attended the presentation, and local food critic John Curtas enriched the discussion with his observations.

Food law expertise is also represented on the Boyd faculty: Professor Bret Birdsong (on leave 2013-2015) has taught food law at Boyd and has published on the topic; Professor Mary LaFrance has written about food labelling issues; and Professor Marketa Trimble teaches about geographical indications and appellations of origin in her International Intellectual Property class.

Computer Scientists Discuss Their Views of Copyright at Boyd

Photo © 2015 Gary A. Trimble

To the surprise of some copyright law students, copyright law protects computer programs and regularly affects the work of computer programmers. Computer programs enjoy protection as literary works, with protection extending to both source code and object code; copyright also protects the non-literal elements of computer programs under certain circumstances, such as an original structure of a computer program. Additionally, copyright protects original works of authorship that result from the execution of computer programs, which may be pictorial works, musical works, sound recordings, or audiovisual works.

Photo © 2015 Gary A. Trimble

To enhance her copyright students’ understanding of the impact that copyright law has not only on the software industry, but also on other industries that utilize computer programs, this semester Professor Marketa Trimble invited to her Copyright class two colleagues from the Department of Computer Science of the UNLV Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering. Dr. Andreas Stefik and Mr. Guymon Hall explained to the students some of the basic concepts of computer programming and discussed in detail the functioning of an API (application programming interface), an interface that plays a role in the ongoing high-profile dispute between Oracle and Google regarding Google’s Android operating system. Dr. Stefik also shared his experiences with the development and licensing of his Quorum programming language and discussed a number of existing licenses, such as the GNU General Public License v3, the MIT License, and the Apache License, that computer programmers consider when deciding the best ways to license their programs.

Photo © 2015 Gary A. Trimble

Dr. Stefik is a professor of computer science in the College of Engineering; his Ph.D. in computer science is from Washington State University. In 2011 Dr. Stefik received the JavaOne Duke’s Choice Award for his work on the NSF-funded Sodbeans programming environment for the visually impaired. Mr. Guymon Hall is an instructor of computer science in the College of Engineering where he is finishing his Ph.D. He teaches a variety of computer science courses, including Introduction to Computers, Computer Science I and II, Computing Languages, and Managing Big Data & Web Databases.

The cooperation leading to this session of Professor Trimble’s Copyright course makes available to Boyd students the richness of talent that is present throughout UNLV – talent on which Boyd draws and to which the Boyd faculty actively contributes.

Mindful Lawyering Important to Success

Attorney Ed Bernstein (left) and Boyd School of Law Dean
Dan Hamilton address attendees at a “Mindful Lawyering”
program sponsored by Bernstein at the law school Oct. 23.

Mindfulness is the key to building a successful law practice, according to attorney Ed Bernstein. It’s a belief he stands by and wisdom he was happy to share with law students and graduates at a recent workshop.

On Oct. 23, Ed Bernstein & Associates sponsored “Mindful Lawyering” at the William S. Boyd School of Law. The innovative, interactive program, lead by Executive Coach Keith Miller, taught participants how to establish connections with clients, colleagues, and even opposing counsel through empathy and positive communication.

Executive Coach Keith Miller instructs law
students on the art of “Mindful Lawyering.”

These tactics are what Bernstein attributes much of his success to, according to a press release. The release also said, “Ed knows that being in a great relationship with clients and staff and having an empowering ‘work culture’ leads to excellent client service, a natural referral source and financial success.”

One of the most recognizable lawyers in Nevada, Bernstein has more than 40 years of experience helping personal injury victims.

Keith Miller has worked with high-level professionals, including CEOs, managers and human resources directors, and has facilitated numerous individual, team and leadership training groups.

Nov. 5 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Nov. 5 issue of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Max Gakh, student Keivan Roebuck, and alumna Susan M. Pitz '02.

Professor Gakh wears many hats: he is an assistant professor in the School of Community Health Sciences, an adjunct professor at the Boyd School of Law, and the associate director of the UNLV Health Law Program.

Roebuck is a dual J.D./MBA student who is hoping to put his degrees to use by assisting businesses through transactional, litigation, and administrative work.

Pitz recently accepted the position of general counsel at University Medical Center of Southern Nevada. She also stays involved at the Boyd School of Law as a guest lecturer and a member of the Health Law Program Advisory Board.

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

Professor Stacey Tovino Talks Health Care and Research Ethics in St. Louis

Stacey Tovino is the Lehman Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law and Director of the UNLV Health Law Program.

Professor Tovino traveled to St. Louis to give two presentations on Oct. 30. She started her morning at the Bander Center for Medical Business Ethics at St. Louis University, where she spoke on the topic of “Giving Thanks: The Law and Ethics of Grateful Patient Fundraising.” In her lecture, Professor Tovino explored the proper balance between encouraging health care philanthropy and preserving the integrity of the physician-patient relationship and patient rights. Later that afternoon, Professor Tovino gave a talk at Washington University School of Medicine Center for Clinical Research Ethics.

Professor Tovino is a leading expert in health law, bioethics, and the medical humanities.