Greetings from Bloomington

Spring has finally arrived here, and the campus is simply beautiful. The weather matches our mood and the bullish excitement about the school's future. While the national sentiment on lawyers and law schools seems mixed, here no doubt exists about our momentum.

In this issue of ergo, we celebrate student accomplishments and show, in a small way, the impact and difference our faculty and alumni are making in the world. Our school is a place for people who want to make a difference, who are fascinated about learning, and who know the benefits and rewards of hard work. That's so clear right now as our students dig in and gear up for the end of the semester and as we extend offers of admission to next year's entering class.  

The school continues to attract some of the most talented in the nation. Admissions for this fall's entering class (the class of 2017) are holding steady, even as the number of LSAT takers nationally has fallen by as much as 11% over last year. While we have been inoculated this year from the challenges faced by some schools, we're not resting on our laurels. We have implemented an aggressive new admissions strategy that involves developing deep relationships with select institutions. The Rose-Hulman scholarship program (see below) is just one example of this.  

We also are making gains with our unwavering commitment to ensuring our students get jobs.The last few years have been tough as the recession and changes in the large firm law market have meant that fewer entry-level positions exist.  But the investment in our students and programs is paying off. We remain one of the leading examples of a school that prepares students for what law firms, corporations, and public service organizations want, by focusing on professionalism and hands-on learning. It begins in the first year with our nationally recognized legal profession course and continues throughout the upper division in our projects, externships, and clinical programs. This year, we increased the nine-month employment number in the all-important U.S. News and World Report categories by almost 15 percentage points over the class of 2012. We have more to do, but we're moving quickly in the right direction.

In this issue, you'll also get a taste for how our faculty contribute to a first-rate learning environment. We've long been able to boast having some of the most talented professors in the nation -- they are skilled educators and eminent scholars who make a difference in the classroom by drawing on their passion for teaching and the insights gained from their research. Our faculty's work keeps us connected to novel issues of legal practice. Their books and articles influence the laws legislatures write, the decisions judges make, and the way law schools teach students. You can read below about five of our faculty who have excelled in the classroom and see what our faculty are working on in the Faculty News section.

Lastly, I wanted to thank you. I am grateful for your generosity and your support. Your gifts to the Fund for Excellence, our unrestricted annual fund, are at $882,000. You will be hearing from your class agent as we move into the home stretch of the fund's annual goal of $1.1 million by June 30. Your support is essential because it enables us to reduce the cost of education. This year, only because of alumni support, were we able to provide a median scholarship grant of $20,000 to 91% of our students. These opportunities allow our graduates to do great things. The four distinguished alumni whom we profile below, the most recent inductees into the school's Academy of Law Alumni Fellows, are the best illustration of that.

Since I arrived at the university in January, I have been given such a warm welcome. I have had the privilege of visiting with many of you at receptions and in individual meetings in Chicago, Florida, Indianapolis, New York, Washington, DC, and of course here in Bloomington. I have met with more than 300 alumni in receptions and more than 100 of you personally. The future of the school is tied closely to our alumni, and I look forward to meeting more of you in the months ahead.

Austen L. Parrish
Dean and James H. Rudy Professor of Law

 

Academy of Law Alumni fellows inducted  

Four distinguished alumni were named to the Academy of Law Alumni Fellows on April 11.

This year's laureates are:
  • Lowell E. Baier, LLB'64, entrepreneur, conservationist, and president, founder, and owner of Baier Properties, Inc., a Bethesda, Md., developer of warehouses, residential properties, office buildings and shopping centers;  
  • Sara Yang Bosco, JD'83, president of Emerson Asia Pacific, a $25 billion, 132,000-employee diversified global manufacturing and technology company specializing in network power, process management, industrial automation, climate technologies, and commercial and residential solutions;  
  • Donald P. Dorfman, JD'57, a distinguished Sacramento, Calif. criminal defense lawyer with a longstanding record of philanthropy and support for the university and the Law School; and  
  • Patricia A. McNagny, JD'51, a lawyer and judge in Whitley County, Ind. who introduced new initiatives to the county court system to support rehabilitation of violent offenders and drug and alcohol abusers.
Established in 1985, the ALAF is highest award the Law School can bestow. It recognizes alumni who have distinguished themselves in their careers through personal achievements and dedication to the highest standards of the profession.
rh
Indiana Law, Rose-Hulman establish IP scholarship program

The Maurer School of Law and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology have entered into a memorandum of understanding establishing a scholarship program for engineering students interested in studying intellectual property law.

The Rose-Hulman Intellectual Property Law Scholars Program will offer at least two Rose-Hulman graduates admitted to the law school a scholarship amounting to 50 percent of annual tuition, along with access to a formal mentoring program and a research assistant position in the law school's Center for Intellectual Property Research. The scholarship will reduce the cost of law school tuition over three years by approximately $45,000 to $75,000, depending on the student's residency and other factors.

"We have one of the strongest intellectual property law programs in the nation and are delighted to join forces with one of the country's leading engineering schools in finding pathways for talented students to advance their professional interests," said Dean Parrish. "I hope this is the first of many similar alliances with other top-flight schools."

Rose-Hulman will nominate current students or alumni for the program beginning with the fall 2014 entering class.

Maurer faculty presented with teaching awards

Four Indiana University Maurer School of Law faculty members and one adjunct professor were honored Apr. 14 with prestigious teaching awards from the Law School. They are:
  • Dawn Johnsen, Walter W. Foskett Professor of Law
  • Brian J. Broughman, associate professor of law
  • Lisa Farnsworth, JD'82, senior lecturer in law
  • Julie Head, adjunct professor of law
  • Ryan W. Scott, associate professor of law
"Excellent teaching is a core commitment of our educational mission, and our faculty takes that commitment very seriously. There are many wonderful teachers at the Maurer School of Law, and it is an honor to celebrate their achievements," said Dean Parrish, who presented the awards.

Trustees' Teaching Awards were presented to Broughman, Farnsworth, and Scott. Head, a professor at the IU Kelley School of Business, was presented with the Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award. Johnsen received the Leon H. Wallace Teaching Award. Named for the school's former dean, it is the highest teaching honor given to IU Maurer School of Law faculty.

A special committee of students presented teaching award recommendations to Dean Parrish, who made the final selections.
Students excel in competitions, projects

Several teams of Maurer students have excelled in recent competitions and practice-related projects throughout the country in a variety of fields. (Unless noted otherwise, all students are members of the class of 2014.)
  • David Frazee, Alaina Hobbs, and Jonathon Hitz placed among the top four in the American Bar Association Moot Court Competition and participated in the finals in Chicago earlier this month.
  • Brandon Callahan, Josh Kurtzman, and 2L Michael Deschenes made the semi-finals and were named best oralists in the Pace Moot Court Competition, the prestigious environmental law tournament held in White Plains, NY in February (the second time in four years for semi-final honors).
  • Roy Braatz, John Paul Coonrod, and Adam Doerr took the award for best brief and won second place in the final round of the Natural Cultural Heritage Law Moot Court Competition in Chicago in February.
  • Mahja Zeon was recognized as best oral advocate at the Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Competition at the University of Baltimore School of Law.
  • Second-year students Steve Briles, Brandon King, Miranda Patton, and Matt Showalter participated in the Williams Institute Moot Court Competition at UCLA, the premier national moot court competition on sexual orientation and gender identity. The competition is designed to promote and recognize the finest oral and written advocacy on a significant problem in sexual orientation and gender identity law.
  • 3Ls Parag Bhayani and Chris Fyall, and 2Ls Alyssa Degner-Lopez, Margot Newman, and Chas Traylor (working as part of the school's federal appellate and post-conviction relief project), helped Michael Ausbrook, JD'93, obtain a writ of habeas corpus vacating the 2002 murder conviction of his client Torray Stitts. In the face of the county prosecutor's claim here that the original file had been "destroyed," the students helped track down decade-old police, cell phone, and forensic testing records; located missing witnesses; served subpoenas; and otherwise helped Ausbrook establish that trial counsel inadequately investigated the alibi, and that in fact Stitts could not have been at the scene of the crime. 
fn
Faculty news 

Fred H. Cate, Distinguished Professor and C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law, was named one of the IU Five by the Indiana University Foundation. His work in leading the university's fight for online security was cited as one of five ways IU is changing the world. Read more about Cate's work in the current issue of Imagine, the Foundation's newsletter.

Leaffer Marshall A. Leaffer, Distinguished Scholar in Intellectual Property Law and University Fellow, has published the 9th edition of his casebook, Copyright Law, Cases and Materials, 9th ed. (with Craig Joyce, Peter Jaszi, Tyler Ochoa, and Michael Carroll). The book was published in August 2013 by Foundation Press.

Hughes Sarah Jane Hughes, University Scholar and Fellow in Commercial Law, has been named reporter of the Uniform Law Commission's Committee on Alternative and Mobile Payment Systems. The committee will consider the need for and feasibility of enacting state legislation on systems such as Bitcoin and other alternative payment systems.

Johnsen_Dawn Dawn Johnsen, Walter W. Foskett Professor of Law, co-authored an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the Guttmacher Institute and Professor Sarah Rosebaum in support of the U.S. government's position in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the contraception case under the Affordable Care Act currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
April 2014
Stay connected
Like us on FacebookFollow us on TwitterView our profile on LinkedInView our videos on YouTube
Nominations open for Distinguished Service Award
Nominations are being accepted for the Law School's Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes alumni who have distinguished themselves in service to their communities or the law school in ways that exceed expectations in their normal business, professional, or civic duties. Nominations are open until April 25 and may be submitted here.
Protective Order Project to celebrate 25 years with CLE program
On Friday, Apr. 25 at 3:00 p.m., the Law School's Protective Order Project will celebrate its 25th anniversary of serving clients seeking relief from family violence and sexual assault. Plan to join past and current POP volunteers as they recognize the work of students, alumni, community volunteers, and partners over the past quarter-century.

A special seminar, "Indiana Law Responds to Relationship Violence and Sexual Assault: The Past, Present, and Future," will be presented at 3:00 in the Law School's Moot Court Room, followed by a reception at 5:00 p.m. Indiana continuing legal education credit is pending.

RSVP to [email protected]. For more information, visit POP's website: law.indiana.edu/pop.
Law library offers free alumni access to journals, other resources
Add a description The Maurer School of Law Library is now offering exclusively to its alumni free remote access to HeinOnline's Law Journal Library.

"We realize the expectations and demands you are facing as alumni, said Linda Fariss, JD'88, director of the law library and senior lecturer in law. "We are excited to offer this new service to help you to continue your quest for information and resources after graduation."

HeinOnline's Law Journal Library contains more than 1,800 law and law-related periodicals -more than 26 million pages of articles, comments, notes, book reviews, cases, decisions, and legislation. Unlike other databases, the Law Journal Library is comprehensive, beginning with the first issue ever published.

For more information about remote access HeinOnline's Law Journal Library, please visit the Alumni Resources Guide (http://law.indiana.libguides.com/alumni) and complete the access request form online.  You may also contact Michelle Botek ([email protected]) to register and for any additional questions.
Coming events
Tribute to Colleen Pauwels
The late Colleen Kristl Pauwels, JD'86, will be honored in a ceremony on Tuesday, April 29, at 4:00 p.m. in the Law Library. The library's reference room will be renamed in honor of Pauwels, the school's outstanding longtime librarian, who both its physical expansion and transition into the digital age. RSVP to [email protected].

Welcome to the city events
We are planning welcome to the city events in Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, DC, New York, and San Francisco this summer. These are planned for the first two weeks in June. Watch for your invitation, or click here for further information.

Boston alumni reception
Are you planning to be in Boston for the ABA annual meeting, Aug. 8-10? If so, plan to stop by the law school's reception. Details to come.
Remember the Fund for Excellence
The Fund is Indiana Law's Give now 12 unrestricted account for scholarships and faculty and student support. Click the Give Now button to make your gift via the IU Foundation's secure website.