PHOTOS: DAVID LEIFER

Seeking Civil Justice

ABA President Taps David Hall for Special Task Force

Professor David Hall, a national leader in the struggle for social justice, has been appointed by the president of the American Bar Association to a Presidential Task Force on Access to Civil Justice.

“It has been a special honor to serve on the Access to Civil Justice Task Force. If our recommendations are embraced by the ABA House of Delegates, and subsequently by various states, it will make a major difference in this nation’s quest for equal justice,” said Hall, who serves on the 11-member board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation, to which he was appointed in 2003 by President Bush.

According to the task force, reliable studies have documented that between 70 and 80 percent of the legal needs of poor people in the United States go unaddressed year after year. Despite the best efforts of the organized bar and advocates committed to equal justice for all, significant strides have not been made in serving the legal needs of those whom poverty drags down and keeps down.

The ABA task force is working to support and expand the existing network of state access to justice commissions. It is also considering the issue of a defined right to counsel in certain serious civil matters, including those that threaten the integrity of family, shelter or health. It is reviewing existing ABA policies and programs to determine what new initiatives, policies and resources may be necessary, and will make policy recommendations to the ABA House of Delegates.

Woo and Subrin Team Up to Publish New Book

Litigating in America: Civil Procedure in Context

In 2000, Professors Steve Subrin and Margaret Woo journeyed together to China on a Ford Foundation grant to teach civil procedure to two dozen young law professors at People’s University in Beijing. They were greeted by pupils eager to learn the doctrine of American civil procedure, and equally interested in how and why that doctrine developed, its underlying values and how it actually works in practice. Subrin and Woo developed course materials and practice assignments for the group, which eventually turned into a book, published in China in 2002.

It dawned on the law pro-fessors that a similar text, published in English, would be valuable to “foreign law students, lawyers and judges, who want to understand more about American civil litigation and procedure, as well as American college and first-year law students who need the same context and background,” explains Subrin.

Four years later, the result is Litigating in America: Civil Procedure in Context (Aspen Publishers, 2006), a succinct paperback that explains the institutional bases and legal meaning of the American procedural system, and captures US civil process at a time of change at the beginning of the 21st century.

“We think the book will fill a niche, as civil procedure is technically difficult,” notes Woo. “First-year students often struggle with what seem to be arcane requirements. Understanding the context of these rules will clarify the how’s and why’s. We believe good lawyers should not only use the rules, but should understand the broader purposes they serve in our legal system.”

Summer 2006 | Faculty News

Faculty Notes

Richardson Professor Roger I. Abrams continues to write and comment on local and national sports business issues. He spoke about Major League Baseball’s steroid controversy to the Miami Herald and on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.” Gordon Edes of The Boston Globe interviewed Abrams for his Sunday column in April, and Boston television’s Channel 4 interviewed him on Minor League Baseball. He spoke on salary arbitration issues in January at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and on the Terrell Owens case before the School of Law’s Sports and Entertainment Law Society. In February, he moder-ated a program on sports facilities construction issues sponsored by Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program. He published a chapter, “Partnership Bargaining in Baseball,” in Legal Issues in Professional Baseball (Lew Kurlantzick, ed., Academica Press, 2006). The Japanese edition of Abrams’ first book, Legal Bases: Baseball and the Law, was published in April. In non-sports matters, Abrams was named permanent arbitrator for grievance disputes between Actors Equity and Walt Disney World in cases involving all singers, dancers and actors at Disney’s properties in Orlando. The Bureau of National Affairs also published two of Abrams’ arbitration decisions, “Luzenac and Boilermaker,” and “P.F. Laboratories, Inc. and ICWU.”

Professor Brook K. Baker ’76 continues to speak and consult locally, nationally and internationally on global HIV/AIDS policy issues. He gave a talk, “Dismantling Barriers to Access: Intellectual Property Regimes, Free Trade Agreements and Health Sector Structural Adjustments,” on Feb. 16 at Harvard University’s AIDS Tank, on Feb. 28 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and on March 14 at the Massachusetts chapter of the National Lawyers Guild’s annual meeting. Baker addressed HIV, women and violence issues on a panel, “Structures of Militarization and War for Women’s Rights and Health,” at the March 18 Northeastern University conference, “Women, War and Violence.” He addressed similar issues during an NU panel on “Human Trafficking Awareness” on April 10. Out of town, Baker attended a workshop on “Intellectual Property, Free Trade Agreements and Sustainable Development” at American University Washington College of Law on Feb. 27, and spoke on “Globally Engaged Activism on HIV/AIDS in South Africa” to the South Africa Reading Group at New York Law School on Feb. 17. He also attended the WHO consultation, “Strategy and Business Plan for a Global Health Workforce Alliance,” in Oslo, Norway, in March. In June and July, Baker spent six weeks in South Africa consulting with colleagues at the University of KwaZulu Natal on his new Global AIDS Policy Seminar and attended several HIV/AIDS consultations.

In January, Associate Professor Dan Danielsen was part of an eight-member international delegation hosted by the National Library of Congress of Chile, where he trained library staff and members of the Chilean Congress on comparative law methodologies for analyzing foreign statutes and regulations. At a conference held in the Senate Chamber in Santiago, Danielsen delivered a paper, “The Foreign Investor as Regulator.” He served on the organizing committee of an international workshop hosted by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Columbia Law School on strat-egies for transnational union cooperation held in February at Columbia. At the Harvard International Law Journal symposium, “Diffusion of Law in the 21st Century, Interaction and Influence,” held on March 4, Danielsen gave a paper, “Foreign Direct Investment and Conflict in Developing States,” for the “Commercial Law” panel. On March 31, he delivered a lecture, “New Governance Techniques for War and Poverty: Regulating Foreign Direct Investment and Conflict in Developing Countries or Regulating Developing Countries through Foreign Direct Investment and Conflict,” to the Heller School Program on Sustainable International Development. Danielsen was also a panelist and commentator on the opening panel at “Rethinking the Private in Private International Law: New Methods,” a conference held at Cornell Law School in April. He co-organized another conference with the SEIU on “Corporate Governance Strategies for Labor in Europe,” held May 15 in London, and delivered a version of his paper, “New Governance Techniques for War and Poverty,” at Birkbeck Law School’s “Third Workshop on Critical Approaches to International Law: The Force of International Law.” At the end of May, Danielsen delivered a paper on foreign investment and conflict at the American University in Cairo’s Department of Law conference, “Law and Devel-opment Today.” Finally, in June, Danielsen delivered a lecture, “Law and Development: What Labor Lawyers Need to Know,” at the annual INTELL (International Network on Transformative Employment and Labor Law) conference in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Professor Martha F. Davis spoke in March on “Human Rights in the United States: Trickling Up?” at the Heller School Program on Sustainable International Development at Brandeis University. In April, she presented on human rights in the United States at a symposium on domestic and international values sponsored by the New England School of Law. Later that month, she spoke to the Bringing Human Rights Home Lawyers Network at Columbia Law School on state courts and human rights. In May, she went to Washington, DC, to address the National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education, where she presented on the human rights implications of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Her article, “The Spirit of Our Times: State Constitutions and International Human Rights,” was published in 30 New York University Review of Law & Social Change 359 (2006). She also wrote an essay, “Sexual Harassment,” in a new encyclopedia, Social Issues in America (M.E. Sharpe, 2006).

In February, Associate Dean Richard A. Daynard attended the first conference of the Parties of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Geneva as a board member of the Framework Convention Alliance, the organization of NGOs worldwide that was largely responsible for negotiating this strong tobacco control treaty. Later that month, he participated in the evaluation task force for the California Tobacco Control Program, a national model. In March, he represented Northeastern at the Association of American Law School’s “Bricks & Bytes” conference, seeking pointers on how to build a new facility. In April, he spoke to the NU community on “Trimming the Fat: Legal Strategies and Public Health Policies for Fighting the Obesity Epidemic.” In May, he participated in a panel of recipients of the Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor Award at the annual symposium of the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute in Cambridge. Also in May, he attended a dinner of former clerks of Judge Henry Friendly; the dinner was held in Washington, DC, to accommodate Chief Justice John Roberts. In June, he spoke on obesity litigation at a Federalist Society event in Boston.

Professor Stacey L. Dogan, with coauthor Mark Lemley, published “What the Right of Publicity Can Learn from Trademark Law” in 58 Stanford Law Review 1161 (2006). Dogan presented a talk, “Trademarks and Consumer Information,” at the McGill University Meredith Memorial Lectures 2006 on March 17, and at the William & Mary faculty workshop on April 7. She participated in a panel on antitrust and technology standards at a Boston College Law School conference, “Owning Standards,” on March 31. Dogan spoke on the panel, “By Any Other Name: Intellectual Property as ‘Property,’” at the Federalist Society’s “Intellectual Property: Back to Basics” conference on May 17 in Washington, DC. At the invitation of the host committee, she commented on a copyright/antitrust paper at the Association of American Law Schools’ mid-year meeting in Vancouver.

Associate Professor Rashmi Dyal-Chand ‘94 participated in an invitation-only seminar on “Governance Feminism” at Harvard Law School in March. Two of her articles were published this spring: “Reflection in a Distant Mirror: Why the West has Misperceived the Grameen Bank’s Vision of Micro-credit,” in 41 Stanford Journal of International Law 1 (2005), and “From Status to Contract: Evolving Paradigms for Regulating Consumer Credit,” in the Tennessee Law Review. She also published an op-ed, “The Pitfalls of Microlending,” in the Nov. 13, 2005, issue of The Boston Sunday Globe; the piece was subsequently reprinted in the International Herald Tribune.

In addition to his argument before the Supreme Court (see page 14), Professor Peter D. Enrich was invited to testify in March before a subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee, concerning possible federal legislation that would respond to the Cuno case by authorizing states to enact some types of tax incentives for economic development, even if they discriminated against interstate commerce. Enrich was also a featured speaker at the annual meeting of the New Mexico Tax Research Institute.

Matthews Distinguished University Professor Karl E. Klare spoke at a symposium on “Reconstructing Employment Contracts” sponsored by the Modern Law Review at the London School of Economics in January. Publication of the proceedings is anticipated. In February, Klare moderated the Northeastern Law Forum’s program, “The Future of the Labor Movement: A View from the Trenches and Academy” (see page 5). Klare also lectured at the Harvard Trade Union Program in February on “International Trade and Labor Standards: What Does ‘International Labor Solidarity’ Mean in the Era of Globalization?” Klare continues as a coordinator of the International Network on Transformative Employment and Labor Law (INTELL), which held its eighth world meeting in Cuernavaca, Mexico, at the end of June. The conference focused on recent political and social transformation in Latin America.

Professor Hope Lewis organized the 13th annual Gordon Human Rights Lecture, sponsored by the law school’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE). In April, she delivered remarks at a PHRGE panel focused on the 12th anniversary of the Rwanda gen-ocide. In May, she participated in a digital video conference on women’s rights and the prevention of violence with Liberian women’s groups following the election of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female president of an African country. The conference was organized by Northeastern’s Women’s Studies Program and the US Embassy in Liberia. Also in May, she helped organize a reception and discussion for Massachusetts judges in honor of Chief Justice Pius Langa of South Africa and Justice Roderick Ireland of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. The discussion on campus was cosponsored by the PHRGE and the Massachusetts Black Judges Conference. Lewis authored an essay, “Global Female Genital Cutting,” in the Encyclopedia of Human Rights (David P. Forsythe, ed., Taylor and Francis, forthcoming, 2007). She recently returned to the law school community after a successful double transplant (kidney-pancreas) and remains an active supporter of organ donation and diabetes/kidney disease prevention and awareness.

Matthews Distinguished Univer-sity Professor Michael Meltsner delivered the keynote address at the Death Penalty Information Center’s annual Thurgood Marshall Journalism Awards luncheon in Washington, DC, in June. He also continues a schedule of readings from his new book, The Making of a Civil Rights Lawyer (University of Virginia Press, 2006). In May, Meltsner gave four lectures on American constitutional law at the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg, Germany.

Professor Mary E. O’Connell ’75 traveled to Atlanta in April to address the annual conference of the ABA Section on Dispute Resolution. With her coreporter, Professor J. Herbie DiFonzo of the Hofstra School of Law, she spoke about the Family Law Education Reform Project (FLER Project), a joint effort of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) and Hofstra’s Center on Children and the Courts. In June, she addressed the AFCC’s annual meeting in Tampa, where she and DiFonzo were corecipients of this year’s AFCC Outstanding Research Award for the preparation of the final report of the FLER Project. O’Connell continues her association with UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester, and in March, she conducted a session of the postdoctoral program in forensics. Working with Dr. Geri Fuhrmann, director of the Child and Family Forensics Center, O’Connell provided a group of psychiatrists and psychologists with a grounding in family law procedure and the use of expert witness evidence in family law cases.

In January, Matthews Distinguished University Professor Wendy E. Parmet delivered a paper, “Constitutional Law and Public Health: Defining the State’s Interest,” at a panel on “Public Health in Law,” that she organized for the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. In June, she gave a talk in Baltimore at the annual Health Law Teachers conference, “Unprepared: Why Health Law Leaves Us Unprepared for a Pandemic.” In June, Parmet was among a select group of plenary speakers at the CDC’s annual conference, “The Public’s Health and the Law in the 21st Century,” in Atlanta. She also participated in a workshop on due process law. In March, she assumed the presidency of the board of directors of Health Law Advocates, a Boston-based public interest law firm.

Associate Professor Daniel R. Williams published “Mitigation and the Capital Defendant Who Wants to Die: A Study in the Rhetoric of Autonomy and the Hidden Discourse of Collective Responsibility” in 57 Hastings Law Review 693 (2006), and “Roper v. Simmons and the Limits of the Adjudicatory Process” in 2005 Michigan State Law Review 1113 (2005).

Professor Lucy A. Williams edited International Poverty Law: An Emerging Discourse (Zed Books, 2006); this is part of the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty International Studies in Poverty Research Series. She also participated in the planning committee for the INTELL conference, “Does Globalization Make Labor Law Obsolete? Work-Law & Economic Transformation,” held in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in June.

Professor Margaret Y.K. Woo published “Civil Justice in China: An Empirical Study of Three Provinces” in 53 American Journal of Comparative Law 4 (forthcoming, 2006). Her talk, “Chinese Justice and the Rule of Law,” will be published in the Loyola University Chicago International Law Review symposium proceedings from a conference held in Chicago in February. She presented “Transnational Civil Procedure” at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, held in Washington, DC, in January. In April, she spoke again about Chinese justice at a Suffolk University Law School luncheon