Notes and Renderings – NYU Law Magazine

Toying with Innovation

tuckerb — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:41:36 +0000

Nathan Sawaya ’98 didn’t just hit the books when he was a law student—he also built a replica of Greenwich Village out of ordinary Lego sets. Now the former Big Law associate has a burgeoning second career as a Lego artist, with exhibits currently touring in North America and Australia. So what can corporate lawyers learn from building with Legos? “Brick by brick, you must have a solid foundation, otherwise your whole project will fall apart,” said Sawaya.

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Supreme Court Cite-Seeing

tuckerb — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:13:13 +0000

In a year when the nation was closely watching the Supreme Court, Professor Bryan Stevenson argued and won a pair of cases that will put an end to mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles convicted of murder (see story on page 42). And the NYU Law faculty, clinics, and centers, in addition to filing more than a dozen amicus briefs, were cited in the following five cases:

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How People Who Don’t Yet Exist Matter More to Us Than People Who Do

tuckerb — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:11:59 +0000

University Professor Samuel Scheffler delivered the prestigious, three-day Tanner Lectures on Human Values in March at the University of California, Berkeley. At the lectures, a multi-university series across nine institutions recognizing the lecturers’ remarkable achievements in the field of human values, Scheffler spoke about the idea of a “collective afterlife”—the survival of other people after one’s death. He expounded on this theme in two separate talks, titled “How People Who Don’t Yet Exist Matter More to Us Than People Who Do” and “How the Present Depends on the Future.”

Past philosophers who have given the Tanner Lectures include NYU Law’s Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, and Jeremy Waldron.

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Green on Top

tuckerb — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:09:02 +0000

Wilf Hall, home to many NYU Law centers and institutes, has earned a platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. One of only six new buildings in New York City to receive the council’s highest certification, Wilf Hall, which opened in 2010, features energy-saving innovations such as a green roof and planted terraces that insulate the building and filter pollutants out of rainwater. On the first floor, bicycle storage and showers encourage modes of commuting that promote health and don’t use fuel.

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Advocating for the Weak

tuckerb — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:07:34 +0000

After a report by a U.N.-appointed panel concluded that a group of U.N. peacekeepers brought cholera to Haiti and transmitted it through a leaky camp latrine, Bea Lindstrom ’10, Ellie Happel ’11, and Greger Calhan ’12 worked with the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti last November to file a petition seeking compensation on behalf of the nearly 7,000 who have died from the disease and half a million others who have been sickened. “The cholera outbreak is directly attributable to the negligence, gross negligence, recklessness, and deliberate indifference for the health and lives of Haiti’s citizens by the United Nations,” the petition says. The filing has drawn substantial media attention. “We are advocating for justice for Haiti’s cholera victims, but we are also pushing a larger question of accountability, which is such a central principle of human rights law,” says Lindstrom.

Also concerning Haiti, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice released a report in January confirming what women’s groups have found on the ground: in an alarming 14 percent of households in tent camps set up for those still displaced by the 2010 earthquake, at least one person had been a victim of rape or sexual assault. “Humanitarian best practices for preventing and responding to sexual violence need to be implemented immediately” in Haiti’s tent camps, said Professor Margaret Satterthwaite ’99, a faculty director at CHRGJ and the principal investigator for the study. “Simple measures like installing lighting in camps and locks in latrines must be coupled with long-term strategies for women’s economic empowerment.”

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The Mind of Richard Epstein

tuckerb — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:05:08 +0000

A few subjects Richard Epstein has been speaking, blogging, writing, and thinking about over the last year.

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Victory for Ma

tuckerb — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:03:57 +0000

In January, Taiwan reelected President Ma Ying-jeou (LL.M. ’76). Ma, who heads the Kuomintang Party, won with 51.6 percent of the vote, beating opponent Tsai Ingwen of the Democratic Progressive Party. As he had during his first campaign, Ma ran on a platform of pursuing closer ties to Mainland China.

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9/11 Fund Special Master Faces New Challenge

tuckerb — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:01:51 +0000

In June, a federal health official’s ruling cleared the way for 50 different types of cancer to be added to the list of sicknesses covered by a $4.3 billion fund set up to compensate people exposed to toxic smoke, dust, and fumes in the months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

While this was a win—Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York told the New York Times it was “an important statement that the country’s going to take care of the workers and people who are there to save the lives of the people of the city”—it undoubtedly complicates the picture for all of the people who hope to receive funds, and for the administrator in charge of the process.

“We cannot add any more money to the fund,” Sheila Birnbaum ’65, special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, said in the Times shortly before the ruling. “So we would have to prorate what we’re giving to people depending on the amount of people that apply, the seriousness of their injuries, the economic loss that they’ve sustained.” Birnbaum was the cover profile of the 2011 Law School magazine.

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A Blue-Chip Change Agent

tuckerb — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:00:41 +0000

It’s hard to imagine a better choice than Evan Chesler ’75 to head a special strategy committee of the Law School’s board of trustees that has been charged with ensuring that NYU Law graduates adapt to the changing legal environment and remain at the forefront of the legal profession. Presiding partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore for six years (he will become the firm’s chairman in January), Chesler maintains an active litigation practice and is intimately familiar with issues in corporate firms—the largest segment of the legal field. Also, he’s not afraid to defy convention: Chesler has been a proponent of moving away from hourly billing, asserting it often fails to align lawyer and client interests.

Since the spring of 2011, Chesler and other members of the strategy committee—all law firm leaders and general counsels of major corporations—have been examining how the NYU Law course of study might be repositioned to be the best legal education for the 21st century. This fall, Chesler and Dean Richard Revesz will announce a series of enhancements to the curriculum based on the committee’s recommendations.

“In recent years a variety of factors—technology, globalization, the economic crisis—have transformed legal practice,” says Chesler. “I believe the initiatives that we are working on will cement NYU School of Law’s reputation as innovative, enterprising, and a leader in legal education.”

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