FACULTY FOCUS

At a virtual symposium on Teaching Critical Approaches to Legal Research hosted by the Northern Illinois University Law Review, Professor Courtney Selby presented on incorporating critical perspectives into legal research pedagogy. Her presentation offered a reflection on the evolution of her advanced legal research course to include both principles of critical information literacy and methods for critical legal research. Her paper, “Integration & Transformation: Incorporating Critical Information Literacy and Critical Legal Research into Advanced Legal Research Instruction,” will accompany papers from other academic law librarians and scholars in a forthcoming issue of the NIU Law Review

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Professor Jeremy Sheff’s latest article, “Reverse Confusion and the Justification for Trademark Protection,” was published in the George Mason Law Review. He presented the paper at the Thirteenth Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop at NYU Law and at the Inaugural Trademark and Unfair Competition Scholarship Roundtable at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Sheff published a revised and updated version of his Canada Trademarks Dataset, an openaccess, comprehensive data resource originally published with an accompanying paper in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. He presented “Knowledge as a Resource,” a chapter in his forthcoming book Valuing Progress, at the Works-in-Progress in Intellectual Property Conference at Suffolk Law School and at a session of the New York City Intellectual Property Law and Philosophy Workshop, a scholarly workshop series he founded through St. John’s Intellectual Property Law Center. He presented a separate chapter from Valuing Progress, “Reciprocity,” at the 22nd Annual Intellectual Property Scholars Conference at Stanford Law School. Professor Sheff also launched the Lawprofs Mastodon Instance as an online forum for legal academics and continues to serve as the site’s administrator.

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The third edition of Professor Rachel H. Smith’s co-authored book, The Handbook for the New Legal Writer, has just been published, with sidebars throughout addressing issues of mindfulness, wellness, equity, and inclusion. Professor Smith also designed and co-taught this year’s Dean’s Travel Studies Program. Participants in the course, Comparative Legal Systems: Law & Literature London, traveled to the city that serves as a setting for Dickens’ Bleak House, Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes collection, and Rawling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to gain an understanding of the theory, tools, and interpretative methods of law and literature. While sampling some of the cultural and legal highlights of London, students considered themes of justice, corruption, individual responsibility, and institutional failure in the written works and saw how literature is uniquely able to cultivate empathy for others— particularly those accused of, and the victims of, crimes.

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“Not-So-Smartphone Disclosures,” an article that Professor Jeff Sovern wrote with Nahal Heydari, will appear in the Arkansas Law Review. The co-authors reported on their findings in the American Banker essay “For Many Borrowers, Truth in Lending Disclosures Aren’t Enough.” Professor Sovern’s op-ed, “Banks Fight for the Right to Discriminate,” appeared in the New York Daily News. He was also a commenter on a paper at the Berkeley Consumer Law Scholars Conference.

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Professor Eva Subotnik’s newest article, “Copyright’s Capacity Gap,” has been accepted for publication in the UC Davis Law Review. Co-authored with Willamette University College of Law Professor Andrew Gilden, the paper considers the broader copyright law implications of the Britney Spears conservatorship and ways the law might better protect vulnerable creators. Professor Subotnik was also an invited commentator at the Thirteenth Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop at NYU Law. She discussed a controversial artist’s rights issue that was recently argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

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Professor Cheryl Wade was a visiting scholar at Oxford University’s Merton College; presented on an American Bar Association panel addressing Fairness in Real Estate Appraisals: Valuation, Subjectivity, and Bias; and was part of a plenary session on Climate Change, Risk, and Racism at the International Insolvency Institute’s Annual Conference. In an interview for Audible’s Fiasco podcast, Professor Wade discussed the history of anti-Black racism in America. She was also interviewed by Liam Adams, the religion reporter for The Tennessean, about the relevance of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby to corporate governance decisions.

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INSOL International, the global insolvency organization, has appointed Professor G. Ray Warner to a four-year term as chair of its Academic Group. In his role as head of the organization’s Academic Steering Committee, among other projects, he will organize an annual scholarly colloquium of leading international academics that will convene in Tokyo.

Renee Nicole Allen joined the St. John’s Law faculty in 2019. She teaches Legal Writing and The Music & The Movement: Race, Rhythm, and Social Justice, a course she designed. She has also taught Public Interest Drafting, Comparative Social Justice, and Race and the Law. In Fall 2022, she launched the Law School’s Center for Race and Law as its founding faculty director. Here, Director of Strategic Communications Lori Herz sits down with Professor Allen to discuss her career path and innovative work at St. John’s.

LH: Your online bio notes that you’re “a proud first-generation attorney and an accidental law professor.” Can you share more about your path to teaching at St. John’s?

RNA: I actually stumbled into teaching after a few years of practice. I was looking for jobs that combined my love for learning and mentorship. As the first attorney in my family and extended circle of friends, I was often asked to advise and mentor prospective law students, and I loved engaging with high school and college students who were interested in attending law school. I left private practice for a document review job that provided more schedule flexibility and applied for jobs in academia thinking I would be doing coaching and mentoring, mostly administrative work. I ended up teaching and fell in love with the learning process, especially for first-year law students. There is something really special about guiding new law students from law school orientation to the end of the first year. I spent eight years doing academic success and bar preparation work before joining the faculty at St. Johns.

LH: What do you enjoy most about teaching and innovating in the classroom?

RNA: I enjoy the creative process and watching a course come together. Teaching a new course is certainly stressful, as you never know how it will go, and preparing for a new course is a lot of work. But in each new course I’ve designed and taught at St. John’s Law—especially The Music & The Movement—students have added unanticipated depth to the prepared content. It’s been a joy to be a part of the learning process as the course has adapted to all the things I’ve learned from them. Enrolled and past students send me content—articles, songs, podcasts, documentary films—that I’ve included in the course, and it’s been wonderful to have that input.

LH: What inspired you to create the Center for Race and Law, and how does your faculty director role there align with your work as a legal scholar?

RNA: The Center is an organic fit with the direction my scholarship has taken since joining the faculty in 2019, and especially after the racial justice protests that occurred during the summer of 2020. As much as I enjoy writing about issues of race, particularly the Black experience, I find that law review articles are not digestible for the general public. My goal with the Center—and in my scholarship—is to make issues and information at the intersection of race and law accessible and digestible to law students, practitioners, and the general public. You shouldn’t have to be an attorney to understand the ways our legal system has perpetuated, and continues to perpetuate, racism.

LH: It’s clear that your plate is full professionally. What do you love to do outside of work?

RNA: I love to travel. In recent years, I’ve overcome my fear of flying and traveled much more internationally. I also love to cook and bake. So, when I travel, I enjoy exploring local food culture, especially desserts.

Center Piece

The Center For Labor And Employment Law Honors A Legacy And Starts A New Chapter

Students were always at the heart of the late David L. Gregory’s work at St. John’s, where he served as the Dorothy Day Professor of Law for 35 years. He established the Law School’s Center for Labor and Employment Law with a focus on the importance, and the sanctity, of doing good work in the world. “The Center strives to show students, by engagement and example, that they can be successful practitioners who also give back to their communities,” Professor Gregory said early on.

Under his leadership, the Center met its mission by expanding the Law School’s labor and employment law curriculum, presenting international conferences and symposia, and bringing distinguished speakers to campus. “Dave created an unrivaled learning environment, where students are exposed to the practice of labor and employment law, and where they engage in important and enlightening conversations with our alumni and other influencers in the field,” says Dean Michael A. Simons. “He then left the Center in the able hands of his colleague and friend, Professor David Marshall.”

Building on the work of his predecessor for almost six years, Professor Marshall has added to St. John’s suite of labor and employment offerings. There are now eight courses taught by professors with a broad range of experience in the field—from private practitioners and judges to attorneys from the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board. Students can also take related courses on alternative dispute resolution, negotiation, and client counseling through the Law School’s Hugh L. Carey Center for Dispute Resolution.

“Since starting as director, my priorities have been enhancing our students’ law school experience and improving their competitiveness for labor and employment jobs,” Professor Marshall explains. “I enjoy engaging with students in the classroom as I teach Employment Discrimination, Labor & Employment Arbitration, and Transnational Employment Relations Law. And, of course, it’s wonderful to see them succeed through their own hard work and with guidance from the Center and the Law School’s Career Development Office.”

Outside the classroom, Professor Marshall collaborates closely with students in the Center-affiliated Labor Relations and Employment Law Society. The group produces the St. John’s Labor and Employment Law Forum blog to showcase student scholarship. The students also organize and host an annual interview skills workshop, an ongoing mentorship program, a series on how to be a successful intern, and panel events on timely labor and employment topics. All those initiatives involve St. John’s Law alumni, who support students and the Center generously as speakers, mentors, employers, and donors.

With the Center strong in its student focus, in January, Professor Marshall joined the Law School community in welcoming Professor Miriam A. Cherry as faculty director. “I’m delighted to start this new chapter in the Center’s story,” he shares. “Miriam brings a reputation in the legal academy for innovative and prolific scholarship. Her skills, ideas, and personal example as a scholar are going to benefit the Center by motivating our students to deepen their own interests in scholarship and elevate their scholarly work product. Her contacts with other prominent scholars will permit the Center to resume the tradition David Gregory established of sponsoring important conferences and publications relating to labor and employment. Miriam will also deepen the Center’s connection with the St. John’s faculty, creating opportunities for collaboration.”

Professor Cherry is already engaging her experience and skills as an educator and a scholar to benefit the Center. This semester, she is teaching an upper-level course on the Future of Work using her book, Work in the Digital Age. “My students are writing papers on remote work, algorithmic management, social media influencers, and discrimination in Esports videogames,” she says. “My research and the work with the Center are directly connected to this seminar class.” In the coming months, collaborating with the Carey Center, Professors Cherry and Marshall will organize and present a symposium on arbitration in the gig economy. There will also be an alumni reception to bring practitioners and students together with the Center’s leadership.

“I’ve always thought that labor and employment law is a ‘hot’ area, and now everyone else seems to agree,” says Professor Cherry. “In just the past 10 to 15 years, we’ve seen the rise of gig platforms, the increasing use of remote work, and the development of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT. These changes, and others, will have an enormous impact on the way people work. We’re also seeing legal changes that promote equality in the workplace, like the ban against confidentiality/NDAs, mandatory arbitration of sexual assault and harassment claims, and pay transparency laws. So, it’s the perfect time for the Center to host conferences and symposia around hot topics in labor and employment law.”

As he and Professor Cherry team to lead the Center for Labor and Employment Law going forward, Professor Marshall reflects on Professor Gregory’s legacy. “Maintaining and expanding the Center, supporting the Labor Relations and Employment Law Society, and producing ethical, well-educated labor and employment lawyers are the best things we can do to honor Dave, whose true joy was watching St. John’s Law students succeed.”