Faculty News

John Burkoff on Possible Tainting of Jury Pool for Orie Re-trial

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - 8:26pm

Professor John Burkoff commented on a mailing sent by State Senator Jane Orie to some number of her constituents on the eve of her re-trial on political corruption charges. In the letter, Orie asks that those who know "what I represent and what I stand for" to come forward as character witnesses for her. Prosecutors contend the mailing is designed to taint the jury pool in Orie's favor. Professor Burkoff told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that a defendant in a criminal case would always have the right to solicit character witnesses, but that a mass mailing of a form letter could present very real concerns. "If it's not a mass mailing, it doesn't seem like it would be very hard to deal with any potential taint. If it's 25, I don't see anything wrong with it," he said. "If it's 2,500, oh my. That's a different story entirely."

See the Post-Gazette article here.

Arthur Hellman On How Lawyers Prepare for Supreme Court Arguments

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - 2:45pm

Pitt Law Professor Arthur Hellman talks to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the upcoming arguments that former solicitor general Paul D. Clement and current solicitor general Donald B. Verrilli will soon deliver on the constitutionality of the 2010 Affordable Care Act before the U.S. Supreme Court. Just how much time could be put into preparing for this debate?

"Would hundreds of hours be an exaggeration? Probably not," said Hellman. "This is possibly the most important constitutional case of our generation; you want to anticipate everything."

Preparing includes the use of murder boards, moot courts comprised of the best attorneys across the U.S.

"The lawyers recruited for practice arguments are the most eminent and sought-after in the legal profession," Hellman said. "They're very top lawyers who try to do what they think the justices might do, and come up with every possible question -- and the hardest possible question -- they can."

Read the full Post-Gazette article here.

Professor Charles Jalloh Joins JURIST as a Columnist

Monday, January 23, 2012 - 10:50am

JURIST announced the addition of two new columnists, including Professor Charles Jalloh of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Edsel Tupaz, the founder and managing partner of Tupaz & Associates, a public-interest law firm. The addition of Professor Jalloh and Mr. Tupaz represents JURIST's first foray into presenting columns that will appear on regular basis. Columns will appear in JURIST's Commentary section.

Charles Jalloh is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He also holds affiliate faculty appointments at the Ford Institute for Human Security in Pitt's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs as well as the African Studies Program. Professor Jalloh's recent scholarship centers on questions of jurisdiction and selectivity in international criminal law, including in particular, the tense relationship between Africa and the International Criminal Court. Professor Jalloh's initial column focuses on issues of international criminal justice, especially as they pertain to Africa. Professor Jalloh's column will be featured in JURIST on a monthly basis.

"We are very excited that Professor Jalloh and Edsel Tupaz have agreed to write for JURIST on a regular basis," said Matthew Shames, JURIST's Executive Director. "Over the past two years, JURIST has greatly increased the depth of its commentary pieces from law professors, legal professionals and other legal experts. The move to include regularly appearing columns is a natural extension of this growth. The fact that our first two columnists are so accomplished and recognized, both domestically and internationally, underscores the continued recognition of JURIST as a unique media outlet and further demonstrates our commitment to empower our audience by eliminating traditional barriers to expert legal analysis."

For more information about JURIST, please visit JURIST.org.

Mirit Eyal-Cohen Speaks at the Israeli Law & Society Association Annual Conference

Sunday, January 22, 2012 - 8:14pm

Professor Mirit Eyal-Cohen participated in the 2011 Israeli Law & Society Association Annual Conference held at Bar-Ilan University in December. The theme of this year’s conference was “Laws of Their Own: Community, Identities, and Boundaries.” For a panel called “Minority Groups, Labor and Welfare,” Professor Eyal-Cohen presented a paper entitled “The Advancement of National Minorities through Small Business Regulation." Here is an abstract:

It is no secret that minorities find it harder to move up the economic ladder and achieve economic independence. They are often refused work and have difficulties obtaining loans from traditional lenders because they are considered to have a greater risk of failure. An important mechanism the government can utilize to promote minority groups is through small business regulation. Lately, supporters of "reverse discrimination" and race-neutrality ideology in the U.S. succeeded in convincing several local and state governments to eliminate their affirmative action programs. This paper aims to present a unique federal reaction to contemporary post-racialism trends that sought to end the need for laws and policies that deal with race issues. The federal government responded to these developments by increasing small business federal assistance programs, providing grants, education prospects, and job opportunities to help minorities and women through small business regulation. Accordingly, government agencies altered their approach to small businesses, shifting from a neutral stance to fostering minority business ownership. They founded the Women's Speaker's Bureau and the Office of Minority Business Enterprise to help blacks, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans and others become businesspersons and offered incentives for corporations to locate plants in urban slums. Boosting minority hiring within government agencies, investigating racial discrimination and developing minority programs are some of the paths taken to promote those disadvantaged groups in society. Small business regulation became a government tool to counter the effect of local race-neutrality developments and to improve minority’s economic rights and participation in the community.

Program for the Annual Conference is here.

Michael Madison on Legal Dimensions of Open Innovation

Saturday, January 21, 2012 - 6:15pm

Professor Michael Madison offered a keynote presentation on "Overcoming Legal Barriers to Open Innovation" as part of the Second Annual Global R&D and Collaboration Symposium at the University of Pittsburgh on Friday, January 20, 2012.

The Symposium theme was "Accelerating R&D Excellence Through Open Innovation and Global Collaboration" and was co-sponsored by the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh and local consultancy Echo Strategies. Other keynoters included scholars from Harvard University, Ohio State University, the University of Kansas, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, and the global enterprise software firm SAP.

Justine Kasznica, Executive Director of Pitt Law's Innovation Practice Institute, attended the symposium and served as a commentator on Professor Madison's presentation.

Is Pittsburgh Hip? Mike Madison Thinks It May Be

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 11:38am

Is Pittsburgh the new haven for the hipster crowd? Pitt Law Professor Mike Madison offers his thoughts to the Post-Gazette.

Is there a sense that the Pittsburgh hipster species - to the degree that he exists -- might be more authentic than those found in some other cities? Or does Pittsburgh mark some kind of post-hipster lifestyle -- but with all the hipster amenities -- to those who come here to pursue it?

"Looking at Pittsburgh, it's some of both," said Madison, who broached the issue of local hipsterdom on his blog, Pittsblog. "In some neighborhoods, [there's] clearly been an in-migration over the last several years of people from higher-cost locales, like New York. ... Then there are people who have just been living in Pittsburgh, in that style, for some time -- it was just how they lived. It wasn't a particular clique."

Read the full article here.

Mike Madison Weighs in on Quietly Settled Lawsuit Involving Carnegie Mellon University

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 10:29am

Pitt Law Professor Michael Madison commented on the recent settlement involving a decade-old claim stating that Carnegie Mellon University misled an investor who sank $5 million into developing technology that didn't work.

Madison stated that lawsuits from unhappy investors rarely involve universities because schools stick to basic research and leave development to the private sector. However, the growing trend of universities seeking investors to fund research -- a trend Carnegie Mellon has led by building partnerships with private companies -- is changing the investment landscape.

Read the full article here.

Pitt Law Professor Madison Talks Velvet Underground, Warhol, and Banana Screen Prints with the Post-Gazette

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - 5:01pm

Michael Madison, Pitt Law Professor and expert in intellectual property Law, weighs in on a copyright infringement lawsuit that legendary rock band Velvet Underground recently brought against the Andy Warhol Foundation. The Velvet Underground filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan against The Andy Warhol Foundation, claiming it illegally licensed the famous banana image from the band's 1967 debut album for use on iPhone and iPad cases.

Says Madison, "Suppose VU is right and the image really is in the public domain for copyright purposes. If that's true, then anybody can sell copies of it. That's what 'public domain' means."

As far as VU having a trademark for the image, he said, the band would have an easier time preventing another band from using the banana than convincing a judge that an iPad cover manufacturer could not use it.

Read the full story here.

David Harris Compares Expert Affidavits in Jordan Miles Civil Rights Case

Thursday, January 12, 2012 - 9:21am

Professor David Harris compared the affidavits submitted by experts for plaintiff Jordan Miles and the Pittsburgh Police Bureau in the civil rights case stemming from a deadly encounter two years ago. Miles, then an honor student at Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts High School, was badly beaten during an arrest by three undercover Pittsburgh police officers who chased Miles because they thought he had a gun. In fact, no weapon was present. The expert for the Police Bureau said that the officers could not and would not have made the mistake of failing to identify themselves, as Miles contended; the expert for Miles disagreed. More important, Miles' expert factored into his opinion the testimony of the supervisor of the officers, something the Police Bureau's expert inexplicably left out. In the supervisor's testimony, she identified disciplinary problems with all three officers. In one of those disciplinary cases against one of the officers, the officer was found to have been untruthful. According to Professor Harris, lack of truthfulness is potentially devastating because "this case will turn on the credibility of the witnesses."

See the Pittsburgh City Paper article here.

John Burkoff Comments on Calls for Justice Orie Melvin to Resign

Thursday, January 12, 2012 - 9:10am

As calls mounted for Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin to resign, Professor John Burkoff urged caution. Justice Orie Melvin and her sisters, State Senator Jane Orie and Janine Orie, have been under investigation for political corruption; a trial of Jane and Janine Orie ended abruptly when forged documents were entered into evidence by defense counsel. Justice Orie Melvin, who has not yet been charged, received a grand jury subpoena and a target letter in the investigation in December. Professor Burkoff cautioned that while it was important for Justice Orie Melvin to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, "everyone is to be presumed innocent, and that applies to judges."

See the Tribune-Review article here.

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