Department News Briefs
What’s New at the College of Law
Tulane Law Review Calls Symeonides’ Book ’Superb‘ Dean Symeon Symeonides’ book The American Choice-of-Law Revolution: Past, Present and Future (2006) continues to receive laudatory reviews, both in the United States and abroad. The latest review, published in 82 Tulane Law Review 2181 (2008), characterized Symeonides’ book a “superb piece of work.” That is not surprising, wrote the reviewer, Professor William M. Richman, because “veteran conflicts aficionados are accustomed to seeing fine work from Symeonides, including . . . [his] invaluable annual surveys of American choice-of-law decisions . . . and innovative work codifying the conflicts law of Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and Oregon. “Often when I read a worthwhile piece of scholarship, I’ll think, ‘I wish I had written that,’” wrote Richman. “With Symeonides’ book the reaction was, ‘I wish I could have written that.’ In reality, however, no one but Symeonides was in a position to complete this volume. He alone … has compiled 20 years of annual case law reviews taking the pulse of American state and federal courts on choice-of-law issues.” Revolution is Symeonides’ 19th book. American Private International Law, his 20th book, was published by Kluwer International in March 2008.
Eisenberg Provides Expert Commentary Professor Meyer Eisenberg authored a LexisNexis Expert Commentary on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta Inc. for the March 2008 issue of Research Solutions (128 S. Ct. 761, 2008 U.S., LEXIS 1091). Eisenberg had filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in the case on behalf of former SEC Chairmen Arthur Levitt Jr. and William Donaldson and former SEC Commissioner and General Counsel Professor Harvey Goldschmid. “We lost, but our brief was cited by the Court — unfortunately only by the minority,” said Eisenberg, who was interviewed by the Bureau of National Affairs about the decision. “The Court’s decision bars class action investor plaintiffs from alleging securities fraud under Sec. 10(b) of the Exchange Act, where the actors were ‘secondary actors,’ rather than officers or employees of the issuer, even though these defendants were suppliers who actively participated in a fraud designed to make the issuer’s financials look much better than was really the case.” Eisenberg discussed the case at the Annual Northwest Securities Regulators’ Conference in Seattle and at the 14th Annual Institute for Law and Economic Policy Conference in Naples, Fla.
Conference Examines Intersection of Medical Science and Law Last semester, the Willamette Law Review and Center for Dispute Resolution co-sponsored a one-day symposium at the College of Law to examine the implications of medical science on legal decision making and disputes related to the science of the body and brain. Discussion topics included the Oregon Death with Dignity Act and physician-assisted death, taxation of body parts donations, stem cell research, the use of emotions and facial recognition in law enforcement, and the impact of neural design on the human experience. Professor David J. Linden of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine gave the keynote address. Linden explored how brain evolution has molded certain aspects of the human experience, including why humans are predisposed to love and long-term bonding and why we have a cultural impulse to develop religious and scientific explanations. For information on upcoming Center for Dispute Resolution conferences, visit www.willamette.edu/wucl/cdr/index.php.
16 | Willamette Lawyer