Faculty Focus

Read all about the latest activities and achievements of the outstanding St. John’s Law faculty.

{BARRETT}

Professor John Q. Barrett’s tribute essay, “Charles Reich, New Dealer,” appears in a Touro Law Review symposium on the late Yale constitutional law professor and best-selling author. Professor Barrett’s essay, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Litigating Against Gender Discrimination . . . and Remembering One Such New York Case,” appears in Judicial Notice, a publication of the Historical Society of the New York Courts. His recent virtual activities include delivering the Second Thomas J. Romig Lecture, Principled Legal Practice by Justice Robert H. Jackson at Nuremberg, to the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, VA; lecturing to the Project Nuremberg Emerging Attorneys cohort at Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, FL; lecturing on the Nuremberg Trials to the Illinois Holocaust Museum’s Summer Institute for Educators; and introducing and conversing with NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray for Chautauqua Institution’s Robert H. Jackson Lecture on the Supreme Court of the United States.

{BOYLE}

Professor Robin Boyle presented recently at three virtual conferences. At the International Cultic Studies Annual Conference, she discussed legal developments in the United States. For the Association of Legal Writing Directors’ Biennial Conference, she spoke on the topic of scaffolding course exercises. Writing outside the legal writing discipline was the focus of Professor Boyle’s presentation at the Empire State Legal Writing Biennial Conference. She also organized and led the scholars’ forum at that event. The online formative assessment companion to Professor Boyle’s workbook, Becoming a Legal Writer (Carolina Academic Press), will be available this fall, and she is currently producing teaching modules on legal writing topics for West Academic Publishing.

{CALABRESE}

Professor Gina Calabrese co-presented before a drafting committee of the Uniform Law Commission on its model statute to reform consumer debt litigation, which has proliferated in state courts. As a Consumer Observer to the Debt Collection Default Judgment Act Drafting Committee, Professor Calabrese presented on behalf of all Consumer Observers. Drawing from her clinical teaching, her presentation described the due process issues implicated by collection cases and included recommendations to the Committee regarding the scope of the model law.

{CASTELLO}

“Is it Socially Acceptable? Using Social Media in the Law School Classroom to Facilitate Learning,” an article by Professor Rosa Castello, will appear in the Southern Illinois University Law Journal. Her essay, “Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowdsourcing Activity,” will be published in Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing.

{CHIU}

Professor Elaine Chiu worked with the Asian American Bar Association of New York’s Anti-Asian Violence Task Force to research two important issues: (1) how New York City counts hate incidents and hate crimes; and (2) how hate crimes are processed through the criminal justice system, from charging and bail decisions to their final resolutions. She led a research team that analyzed incidents in the New York metropolitan area, as reported by news sources, social media, and official government agencies. Professor Chiu also co-presented a virtual webinar on the criminal implications of using force in self-defense or in defending others in New York.

{DEGIROLAMI}

“The End of the Affair,” a review essay by Professor Marc O. DeGirolami, is forthcoming in the American Journal of Jurisprudence. It discusses Joel Harrison’s book, Post-Liberal Religious Liberty: Forming Communities of Charity (Columbia University Press 2020). Professor DeGirolami is now writing about the public/private distinction in the tort of nuisance, as well as the concept of traditionalist disestablishments in First Amendment law.

{GREENBERG}

Professor Elayne Greenberg’s book chapter, “ADR’s Place at the Justice Table,” appears in Discussions in Dispute Resolutions: The Foundational Articles (Oxford University Press 2021). She also wrote “Meeting the Parties Separately,” a chapter on confidentiality and the ethical parameters of caucusing published in Mediation Ethics: A Practitioner’s Guide (ABA 2021). Professor Greenberg’s paper, “When Public Defenders and Prosecutors Plea Bargain Race—A More Truthful Narrative,” was the focus of her presentation at an ONU Law Review symposium. For a conference sponsored by the United National Association of Italian Mediators, she shared her paper “Hey Big Spender: Ethical Guidelines for Mediators When Parties are Backed by Third-Party Funders.” Most recently, Professor Greenberg presented her paper on “Remote Justice Still Justice? Shifting Dispute Resolution Online” to the Southeastern Association of Law Schools.

{JACKSON SOW}

Professor Marissa Jackson Sow’s latest paper, “Protect and Serve,” will be published in the California Law Review. It asserts that, despite provisions of constitutional and statutory law, the mandate that police “protect and serve” doesn’t apply to Black people in the United States because they are the objects of racial contracting rather than participants therein. Professor Sow’s work on the role of contracts in sustaining racial capitalism and other systems of oppression is forthcoming, or has appeared, in the NYU Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Washington & Lee Law Review.

{ROBERTS}

“Victims, Right?” an article by Professor Anna Roberts, appears in the Cardozo Law Review. Professor Roberts accepted an invitation to present at a conference on The Role of the Victim in the Criminal Justice System. She also created two events for the Association of American Law Schools’ annual meeting: a panel entitled Rethinking Criminal Law Language and a discussion group on Critical Evidence Reform: How Do We Change Prior Conviction Impeachment in the U.S.? Professor Roberts presented on conviction-based impeachment and jury exclusion at a recent FedCap Group event, and delivered a paper on “Prior Conviction Impeachment of Prosecution Witnesses” at the Evidence Summer Workshop. She has accepted an invitation to join the Pedagogy Subcommittee of the Law School Anti-Racist Consortium.

{SALOMONE}

Professor Rosemary Salomone presented her paper, “In Search of Transformative Justice: The South African Constitutional Court and the Right to Education in the Language of One’s Choice,” as part of an international seminar series organized by Leiden University in the Netherlands and at the conference on Inequality in a Time of Global Crisis sponsored by the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law and the University of Cape Town. She also presented a paper, “The Ties That Bind: Is English Reshaping Identity and Belonging in Europe?” at the 27th International Conference of Europeanists hosted by the Council for European Studies. Both papers draw from her forthcoming book, The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language (Oxford University Press 2021).

{SOVERN}

The American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers (ACCFSL) elected Professor Jeff Sovern a Fellow of the College. ACCFSL Fellows include many lions of the consumer finance bar and leading consumer law professors. Professor Sovern was also quoted in two articles published in American Banker.

{SUBOTNIK}

Professor Eva Subotnik presented her forthcoming book chapter, “DeadHand Guidance: A Preferable Testamentary Approach for Artists,” at the Art Law Works-in-Progress Colloquium and the IP Scholars Conference. The book chapter is a contribution to Posthumous Art, Law and the Art Market (Routledge 2022), a forthcoming volume co-edited by Professor Peter J. Karol and art historian and curator Sharon Hecker, Ph.D.

{WARNER}

“Enterprise Group Restructuring: Dutch Options and United States Enforcement,” an article that Professor Ray Warner co-authored with Dutch Professor Dr. P.M. (Michael) Veder, has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed European Insolvency & Restructuring Journal. The article explores whether corporate groups comprised of multiple affiliates that are located in different jurisdictions can use the newly enacted Dutch scheme legislation to restructure the jointly owed debt of multiple enterprise group members.

Professor Rosemary Salomone Examines the Rise of English

With 1.5 billion of the Earth’s population claiming English proficiency, today there are far more non-native speakers of English in the world than native speakers. In her latest book, The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language, Kenneth Wang Professor of Law Rosemary Salomone charts English’s meteoric rise as the 21st century’s lingua franca, along with its far-reaching effects on global and local politics, economics, media, business, and rights to education; the pushback from countries, especially France, interested in curbing its spread; and the consequences for other languages and identities. From the inner workings of the European Union to China’s use of language as “soft power” in Africa and drawn-out legal conflicts in India, Italy, and South Africa, the book builds on a wealth of research to tell the complex story of English—and, ultimately, to argue for English not as a force for domination but as a core component of multilingualism and the transcendence of linguistic and cultural borders.