BLS Library Blog

On October 18, 2013, from 9:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. at Brooklyn Law School’s Subotnick Center, 250 Joralemon Street Brooklyn, New York, the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law and the Brooklyn Journal of International Law will host a symposium, What Law Governs International Commercial Contracts? Divergent Doctrines and the New Hague Principles. The event should be of interest to private international lawyers and the international arbitration community. The agenda and participants of the symposium are available here.

Given the continued dramatic growth of international commerce, the Symposium will address the increasingly critical question: What law governs the contracts behind the commerce? Key issues include:

• In much of the world, courts accept the choice of the parties to a contract as to what law will govern it – but this principle is not accepted everywhere. Even in nations where it is accepted, differences abound.
• Should the ability of parties to select the law governing their contract be approached differently in the increasingly prevalent world of international commercial arbitration?
• In many arbitral systems, parties may select not only the law of a sovereign state, but also “rules of law” emanating from non-state sources, such as “principles” promulgated by international organizations. Should courts show the same deference to the parties’ choice of non-state law?

The Hague Principles on Choice of Law in International Contracts, prepared by the Hague Conference on Private International Law and now nearing completion, are expected to be quite influential, both in establishing the principle of party autonomy to select the law governing commercial contracts and in developing the principle and its limits. This symposium addresses the important issues described above – from the perspectives of both current law and the “best practices” represented by the draft Hague Principles.

BLS Library Director and Blue Book expert Janet Sinder will again hold a series of workshops on using the Blue Book this fall.  These workshops are geared to first year students, but open to all.  No reservations are needed.

The workshops will be held on Thursday, October 31, 2013, from 4:00pm to 5:00pm in Room 401 and on Monday, November 4, 2013 from 5:00pm to 6:00pm in Room 601.

Hope to see you there!

An article in the New York Law Journal reports that US District Judge Shira Scheindlin for the Southern District of New York has appointed a panel of law professors to assist a court-appointed facilitator in developing remedies in the case of Floyd v. City of New York, the stop-and-frisk litigation. Brooklyn Law School Professor of Law I. Bennett Capers will serve as chair of the Academic Advisory Council to assist facilitator Nicholas Turner of the VERA Institute of Justice. Turner will work with the NYPD and the Academic Advisory Council in a mediation process to develop  reforms. Longer-term changes include a trial run of body-worn cameras in the precinct in each borough that saw the highest number of stops.

The second part of Judge Scheindlin’s opinion in last month’s ruling lays out her remedies. Those include “immediate changes” to the NYPD’s implementation of stop-and-frisk, such as revisions to NYPD training materials, more thorough documentation of stops through a new form and better and more thorough activity log records, as well as a better standard for the NYPD’s supervising officers to assess the constitutionality of the stops their subordinates are making.

Other members of the panel are retired Brooklyn Law Professor William Hellerstein, Ian Ayres of Yale Law School, Alafair Burke of the School of Law at Hofstra University, Miriam Gohara, visiting assistant professor at Columbia Law School, Taja-Nia Henderson of Rutgers School of Law-Newark, Tanya Hernandez of Fordham University School of Law, Conrad Johnson of Columbia Law School, K. Babe Howell of CUNY Law School, Olatunde Johnson of Columbia Law School, Tracey Meares of Yale Law School, Janice Tudy-Jackson of Columbia Law School and Steve Zeidman of CUNY School of Law.

The appointment of the Council comes one day after the Judge’s Order denying New York City’s request for a stay pending appeal of her appointment of a police department monitor to help develop and implement reforms of stop-and-frisk practices. The city has moved for an expedited appeal in the case the case and is expected to ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for a stay.

For background information on the issue of stop and frisk, see SARA, the BLS Library Catalog, for the 27 page internet report Stop-and-Frisk 2011 NYCLU Briefing.

The Brooklyn Law School Library has released its New Books List – September 12, 2013. The list is accessible on the SARA Library Catalog at this link. Among the 67 titles are these seven with particular interest to law students as they prepare for the practice of law:

• Humor in the Salt Mines: A Master Lawyer’s Guide to Associate Success by Asa Rountree (Call #KF300 .R683 2013)
• Learning to Lead: What Really Works for Women in Law by Gindi Eckel Vincent (Call #KF299.W6 V56 2013)
• Legal Writing in Plain English: A Text with Exercises by Bryan A. Garner (Call #KF250 .G373 2013)
• Lessons in Leadership: Essential Skills for Lawyers by Thomas C. Grella (Call #KF300.G744 2013)
• Pass the Bar Exam: A Practical Guide to Achieving Academic & Professional Goals by Sara J. Berman (Call #KF303.B45 2013)
• The Art of Advocacy: Briefs, Motions, and Writing Strategies of America’s Best Lawyers by Noah A. Messing (Call #KF250.M49 2013)
• Think Like a Lawyer: Legal Reasoning for Law Students and Business Professionals

Earlier this week, Brooklyn Law School’s Dean and Professor of Law Nicholas W. Allard hosted a Panel discussion called New Realities in Law: A Response to President Obama’s “Two-Year J.D.” Suggestion. The session took place after comments at a town hall-style meeting last week by President Obama who said, “I believe that law schools would probably be wise to think about being two years instead of three years.”  BLS has begun an important conversation about the new world of law, emphasizing new changes underway; the response from law schools, including “Brooklyn 2-3-4” and other innovations to enhance educational value; the most pressing needs among employers; and new opportunities for students entering the legal marketplace. Among the panelists were American Bar Association President James Silkenat, New York Law School Dean and President and Professor of Law Anthony C. Crowell, New York City Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo, and Presiding Justice Randall Eng of New York’s  Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department. Brooklyn Law School created the first two year J.D. program in the NY metropolitan area in May 2013 when its Board of Trustees approved the start of the program in 2014.

A search of Hein Online shows that the idea of a two-year law school program dates back more than 40 year ago when the late Preble Stolz, a Law Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, wrote an article The Two-Year Law School: The Day the Music Died, 25 J. Legal Educ. 37 (1972-1973). The article notes that the proposal of a two-year law school goes back to 1972 in New Orleans when a proposal to authorize some law schools to grant the first degree in law after two years of study was killed. The idea was contained in a revision of the standards for accreditation of law schools by the ABA. Years later, an article called The Happy Charade: An Empirical Examination of the Third Year of Law School, 51 J. Legal Educ. 235 (2001), began with the ancient law school proverb “In the first year of law school, they scare you to death. In the second year, they work you to death. In the third year, they bore you to death.” There is more at a recent post on Balkanization titled The Proposal for a 2 Year Law Degree: Deja Vu All Over Again?