A pioneer in the field of language rights, Cristina Rodríguez joins the faculty as assistant professor of law after spending the last year here as an Alexander Fellow. She is currently working on “Language Rights: Four Fundamental Questions,” a four-article progression exploring the principal theoretical questions that she believes should direct the creation of language law and policy worldwide. Rodríguez hopes to use this piece and her other work-in-progress, a comparative study of American and Canadian legal approaches to language diversity, as the heart of a future book.

Rodríguez’s academic work concerns how the law and public policy should approach a linguistically diverse society. She suggests that “one way to deal with the demands made by linguistic minorities is through the creation of ‘language rights,’ or rights to use one’s mother tongue in certain contexts and under certain circumstances,” offering examples from around the world, like the right for Anglophones and Francophones in Canada to have laws enacted in their language.

Rodríguez, who grew up in a bilingual family in largely bilingual South Texas, began her work in the area of language rights as a Reginald F. Lewis Fellow at Harvard Law School during the 2001-2002 academic year. She pursued a range of writing projects on U.S. language law and policy while auditing classes at Harvard Law School. Last spring, as an Alexander Fellow at NYU, she taught a seminar on Language and Cultural Rights.

Rodríguez earned her B.A. in history magna cum laude from Yale, then went on to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. She finished at Oxford with a Master of Letters in Modern History, writing her thesis on the role of trans-Atlantic female abolitionists in the development of antislavery beliefs in the United States.

After Oxford, Rodríguez returned to Yale for her J.D., where she served as articles editor of the Yale Law Journal and lent her time to the Yale Law School Workers’ Rights Project. Rodríguez worked as a professor’s research assistant for two years, investigating the history of desegregation and civil rights law and helping to revise portions of a constitutional law casebook.

Before coming to the Law School, Rodríguez was a law clerk for the Honorable David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, for the District of Columbia Circuit, and the Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rodríguez says she has always had an interest “in the effects of immigration on society and culture and on the strategies different societies adopt to absorb immigrant populations—hence the interest in how to manage linguistic diversity.” Because of this long-standing interest and her personal upbringing, she says, “I have always believed in the possibility of a bilingual public sphere and a non-monolingual conception of national, political, and cultural identity, and I’ve always been attuned to the ways in which people use language to identify social and economic status, as well as to establish effective ties.” At the Law School, Rodríguez hopes to continue her work in language rights while expanding her repertoire to include issues related to religious accommodation, international human rights, and immigration law.

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Return to “Café Society”

A widely published writer on issues relating to nonprofits, contracts and commercial law, and law and development, Kevin Davis joins the NYU School of Law as professor of law. He was formerly a tenured member of the faculty at the University of Toronto.

Davis received his B.A. in Economics from McGill University in 1990. After graduating with an LL.B. from the University of Toronto in 1993, he served as Law Clerk to Justice John Sopinka of the Supreme Court of Canada and later as an associate in the corporate department of Torys, a well-known Canadian law firm.

Since receiving his LL.M. from Columbia University in 1996, Davis has traveled widely in pursuit of intellectual and educational goals. He began in familiar territory as an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, but soon journeyed to the University of Southern California Law School, where he was a visiting assistant professor and John M. Olin research fellow. After being tenured at the University of Toronto, Davis spent time as a visiting fellow at Cambridge University’s Clare Hall and as a visiting lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He came to the NYU School of Law as a visiting professor in 2003, and says he is delighted to spend more time in an educational environment that “has such a buzz about it.”

“A big part of the draw to NYU is the city,” he said. “The global dimension of the Law School is also very attractive. It’s just a really vibrant intellectual community.”

Davis is currently working on a book with University of Toronto colleague Michael Trebilcock, tentatively titled Law, Institutions and Development Reconsidered, which will top off the ten articles, five manuscripts, six essays, and five government agency and industry group reports he has already authored or coauthored since 1996. While he plans to continue this focus on law and development by looking at the English-speaking Caribbean and the theoretical aspects between law and social welfare, his interests do not stop there.

“I’ve typically been interested in topics on the boundary between commercial law and criminal law,” he said. “For example, the limits of commercial morality, and what should count as immorality or fraud in the commercial world.”

A passionate teacher, Davis tries to show his students not only “how to think like a lawyer and understand how to engage in legal reasoning,” but, beyond that, “to recognize that they don’t always have to take legal rules as given. Some rules vary across time and place; they’re malleable. I want my students to see that there’s room for debate around the margins, while still recognizing the boundaries.”

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Return to “Café Society”

Each year, the NYU School of Law admits a small number of academically outstanding students to candidacy for the J.S.D. degree, enabling them to produce a dissertation that will represent a significant and valuable contribution to legal scholarship in their chosen field. There are currently 25 students in the program, which is the legal equivalent to the Ph.D. in the arts and sciences. The research being undertaken by J.S.D. candidates is extremely diverse, ranging from international law, jurisprudence and constitutional law to taxation and law and economics.

At the “Turn to Scholarship” conference, 12 doctoral candidates presented their recent legal research in four panels, encompassing the areas of International Law, Law and Economics, Law and Gender, and Law and Social Change. Each panel provided the opportunity for comments and critiques from Law School professors and professors from other graduate schools both at NYU and beyond.

“This has been a tremendous opportunity for J.S.D. candidates entering the academic market to make connections and present their research,” said Christine Bateup, one of the conference organizers and a candidate in the J.S.D. program. Bateup said she hoped the conference would be an “important step toward the J.S.D. program playing a more integral role in the Law School.”

Dean Richard Revesz echoed Bateup’s hopes for the continued growth and vitality of the J.S.D. program. He also announced that students in the J.S.D. program would be taking over the old offices of the lawyering professors at 135 MacDougal Street. The dedicated office space, he said, was part of a commitment to the mission of the J.S.D. program.

“We’re very proud of our J.S.D. program,” the dean said. “Its focus is on producing good scholarship that will get people academic jobs as quickly as possible.”

Professor of Law and Director of the J.S.D. Program Mattias Kumm highlighted three key components of the students’ work: globalization of perspective and relevance, interdisciplinary research, and the intellectualization of legal work.

Among the papers related to international law was Roy Schöndorf’s “A Theory of International Criminal Law as International Legislation.” Schöndorf (J.S.D. ’03) said there is a need for a “contextual application” of international criminal law that takes into account national criminal-law systems.

In her paper, “Authority, Legitimacy and Participation in International Legal Institutions: The Case of the Milosevic Trial,” Maya Steinitz (J.S.D. ’03) made the case that international law gains more authority through the “performance” of a trial that internationalizes the process of understanding and digesting a terrible event. In his comments on her paper, Benedict Kingsbury, Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law and director of the Institute for International Law and Justice, noted the presence in the room of Professor Richard Goldstone, now a global professor at the Law School and the former prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal of Yugoslavia.

Among the presenters studying law and economics was Michal Tsur (J.S.D. ’03). In his paper, entitled “Anti-Takeover Defenses in Light of the Peacock’s Tail (Evolutionary Insights into the Widespread Use of Anti- Takeover Defenses),” he argued that much like the peacock’s tail that attracts the peahen but serves little other purpose, anti-takeover defenses prevalent in today’s corporate culture have survived simply because of their ability to propagate, not because of their inherent efficiency.

A particular highlight of the conference was Harvard Law School Professor Janet Halley’s presentation, “Split Decisions: Theories of Sex and Power in Legal Thought and Action.” The keynote speaker drew a large crowd and provoked a lively debate regarding the contemporary position of feminist theory within the legal academy.

In introducing the conference, Dean Richard Revesz pointed out that many faculty members of the NYU School of Law, including Ronald Dworkin, the Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law; Liam Murphy, Professor of Law and Philosophy; Thomas Nagel, University Professor; and Stephen Perry, the Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Law, as well as the conference organizer, have made legal philosophy a core strength of the Law School. The probing insights and thoughtful critiques flowing during each conference segment exemplified how this distinguished group has contributed to the intellectual life of the Law School. “The conference provided a clear indication that analytical legal philosophy is a flourishing discipline,” said Associate Professor of Law Mattias Kumm.

Presenters from abroad included Dr. Grant Lamond of Balliol College at Oxford University, who evaluated how precedent cases influence decision-making by courts, and Professor Wil Waluchow of Canada’s McMaster University, who argued that charters (or bills) of rights should grow and change along with the times and circumstances.

American participants also tackled some tough topics. Professor Jeremy Waldron of Columbia delved into the “discomfort” between jurisprudence and democracy. Professor Michael Moore of the University of Illinois College of Law explored the nature of causal relationships, positing that they are events rather than facts, and that omissions, or failures to act, cannot be causes. Reaching back to ancient times, Professor Susan Wolf of the University of North Carolina tackled the Greek idea of the unity of virtue. Wolf argued that the meaning of “virtue as one,” typically thought of as the idea that one cannot have a virtue without having all others, has been misunderstood. She proposed instead that virtue is unified based on knowledge. Possessing one virtue, Wolf said, requires the knowledge that is needed for possession of all the virtues, and in that way, the virtues are unified.

All in all it was a stimulating conference, with spirited exchanges between participants. Though each presentation may have generated more questions than it answered, the attendees left happy. After all, now they had even more to ponder.

Dean Richard Revesz expressed his gratitude to the Fuchsberg family—four generations of which are Law School alumni, including Law School Trustee Alan Fuchsberg (’79)—for their generosity. “A chaired professorship is one of the most meaningful gifts that a donor can make,” the dean said, noting that such professorships play an important role in building the NYU School of Law’s extraordinary faculty.

Speakers at the inaugural lecture of the Jacob K. Javits Distinguished Scholar In- Residence Program paid tribute to the New York Senator’s 24-year career as a champion of social security, civil rights, health-care reform, education, and the arts.

Javits’s appeal was recalled by his wife, Marian, and his son Joshua, who help direct the Jacob K. Javits Foundation. They told the story of an encyclopedia salesman who never received a bachelor’s degree but saved enough money to attend the NYU School of Law as a night student, graduating in 1926. While earning his two-year degree, Javits worked during the day collecting debts for businesses, attended classes in the evening, called his debtors again after class, and then finally began studying at 10 p.m. His son noted how much Javits valued his education at the Law School, where he learned the powerful skills of lucid explanation and structured thinking from his professors.

To honor the Javits legacy, Professor Geoffrey Stone chose to discuss the McCarthy era’s threat to free speech and its parallels to present-day concerns about civil liberties in a lecture titled “The End of Free Speech: A Cautionary Tale.” Stone is visiting from the University of Chicago Law School, where he is the Harry Kalven Jr. Distinguished Service Professor of Law and a former dean and provost.

In his remarks to inaugurate the George T. Lowy Professorship of Corporate Law, Dean Revesz posited that the modern history of the Law School began with the class of 1955, of which Law School Trustee George Lowy was a member. “When a school’s graduates do well, like the class of 1955 did, it makes people stop and take notice,” the dean said.

The night’s lecture, “Variety in Organizational Law,” was given by Professor Henry Hansmann, a leader in the field of law and economics who has returned to Yale after a year at the NYU School of Law.

An eclectic crowd—lawyers, academics, doctors and a few well-behaved grandchildren— gathered in Greenberg Lounge in Vanderbilt Hall to celebrate the establishment of the Norma Z. Paige Professorship of Law.

“Not many professorships have been established by women,” Dean Revesz said. “And not many of those have had a woman as their first honoree. Tonight, we celebrate both, as we honor Jennifer Arlen (’86), our first Norma Z. Paige Professor of Law.” The chair is named for NYU School of Law alumna and Law School Trustee Paige (’46), who upon graduation established the law firm Paige & Paige in Manhattan with her husband, Samuel (LL.M. ’52). In 1958, she was elected president of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York. She then co-founded the Astronautics Corporation of America in Wisconsin, where she served as chairwoman for seventeen years and executive vice president and board member for forty-one years.

The inaugural lecture, “Beyond Vicarious Liability: Holding Managed Care Organizations Accountable for Physicians’ Negligence,” was given by Professor Arlen, who received her J.D. (’86) and a Ph.D. in Economics (’92) from NYU. After examining the liability of managed care organizations (MCOs) for physicians’ negligence, Arlen said corporations are held liable only for their employees, not for independent contractors. As a result, MCOs hire physicians as independent contractors to avoid liability for their negligence. This is true even as MCOs put pressure on doctors to reduce treatment cost and quality. Arlen said litigation that puts MCOs under the umbrella of liability forces them “to be responsible for their own actions. If they influence medical care, they should pay for the consequences.”

The inaugural lecture of the Wayne Perry Professorship of Taxation was given by Professor Daniel Shaviro, who focused on “The Use and Abuse of Fiscal Language” in the Bush administration. Professor Shaviro argued that the Bush tax cuts have not decreased the size and impact of the government, but have increased America’s fiscal gap. The Bush tax cuts, Shaviro believes, “shift the burden of taxation from the old to the young” because Congress will be forced to raise taxes later. He closed by noting the lack of commitment by Congress to deal realistically with the consequences of decreasing taxes and rising entitlement costs.

Perry, a Law School Trustee, whose son is a student at the Law School, received his LL.M. in taxation in 1976 and went on to become a major figure in the cellular telephone industry. He joined the fledging McCaw Cellular as the primary legal officer in 1976 and rose to the position of Vice- Chairman by 1989, guiding McCaw through its merger with AT&TWireless in 1994. Perry continues as a chief executive in the cellular industry, while pursuing outside activities such as leadership roles with the Seattle Mariners professional baseball team (managing general partner) and the Boy Scouts of America (President, Western Region).

Then-Professor Michael Schill, now the dean of the UCLA School of Law, inaugurated the Leonard Wilf Professorship in Property Law, giving a speech on “Housing, Markets and Law” in which he discussed the interplay of forces that are vital to every community—developers, environmentalists, labor unions, municipalities and residents. Trustee Leonard Wilf (LL.M. ’77), is the president of Garden Homes Management Corp., one of the largest privately held companies in New Jersey.

In paying tribute to Gillers, Dean Richard Revesz said the vice dean “brought to his position a terrific determination to work with faculty, administrators and students to resolve academic and personal problems. Steve is a great leader and colleague, and I cannot imagine how I would have been able to manage my transition to the deanship without his guiding hand.”

The vice dean oversees the academic program at the Law School—determining the courses for the upcoming year, negotiating the teaching schedule with an extensive faculty, and filling in holes in the curriculum when faculty are on sabbatical. In addition to those gargantuan tasks, he plays a large role in advising students.

Oscar Chase, Russell D. Niles Professor of Law and co-director of the Institute of Judicial Administration, who served a term as vice dean before Gillers, listed his successor’s achievements: reducing the size of first-year classes, modernizing the first-year curriculum, and implementing a block schedule. “He played an extremely important role after September 11, 2001, holding the community together when everyone was paralyzed with shock and sorrow,” Chase said. “Steve really stepped up to the plate during those difficult days, weeks, and months.” Throughout his tenure, Gillers maintained a role as a public commentator on the important ethical issues of the day, while continuing to be an outstanding professor, scholar, and colleague.

Gillers said he was continually helped by his talented staff, whom he thanked for their dedication. “This is a nice place to be,” he said. “Much of what [former dean, now NYU president] John Sexton meant when he talked about community is this idea that despite the occasional slip, the place is full of good people who set an example for its students by being respectful. Community not only defines what we have, but what we are constantly trying to build—what we aspire to.”

Dean Revesz announced that two of the Law School’s most distinguished faculty would replace Gillers. Barry Adler, the Charles Seligson Professor of Law, will focus on information systems and technology, the law library, matters relating to student discipline, class scheduling, and any issues pertaining to the requirements of the American Bar Association, the New York Court of Appeals and the New York State Regents. Clayton Gillette, the Max E. Greenberg Professor of Contract Law, will assume responsibility for programs concerning the intellectual life of the Law School, relations with the University that affect Law School students and faculty, and guidance for some of the Law School’s publications.