News

A Letter from Dean Van Zandt:

"Welcome Back to Northwestern Law"

August 2001

Dear Students:

I hope you are enjoying your summer. We've had a very hot summer in Chicago. We've also had the chance to watch the Cubs tantalize us by staying in first place for most of the summer. Let's hope that history doesn't catch up to them.

We ended our academic year on a very high note, inspired by the graduation address by Cheryl Mills, senior vice president for corporate policy and public programming at Oxygen Media and former White House deputy counsel. Ms. Mills challenged all of us to create civil leadership by bringing "civility back to the discourse of change in our communities." She urged graduates to value humility, invest in the community, and embrace diversity as they head into their careers.

As I do each summer, I write to bring you up to date on the changes that have occurred and the developments that await you on your return. We are increasingly active on a year-round basis. This summer, we have hosted our regular Short Courses for prosecutors and defense attorneys, the Summer Mock Trial Institute, and the Summer Institute in Law and Business, a joint program with Kellogg that provides international and U.S. lawyers and executives with increased knowledge of U.S. law and business. New international students in the LLM/Kellogg Program in Law and Business and students in the three-year JD/MBA program are already hard at work taking Business Associations and Kellogg courses. We also cosponsored the Law and Society Association's Summer Institute, which several of our faculty members participated in as instructors.

Since we made the transition from paper to e-mail a few years ago, developed the Notebook program, and created Esqwire Central, electronic communication has become the norm here at the Law School. Consistent with our strategic initiatives to improve the technology infrastructure, we have added networking stations and study tables along the Rubloff second floor Teigler Bridge and installed wireless technology to Law School common areas including the Atrium, Harry's Café, the Library, and the Bluhm Legal Clinic.

This summer Esqwire Central, the Law School's innovative Intranet, has undergone a major redesign, which should be implemented by the time you return in September. I think you will be pleased with its sleek, new look. I hope you will use the new networking stations and wireless technology to make checking Esqwire Central part of your daily routine.

As you will see throughout this letter, we are continuing to enhance the Northwestern Law Difference, implementing our Strategic Plan to "build the great law school for the changing world." During this year's ABA Annual Meeting, which took place in Chicago August 2-8, I visited with alumni from around the country. I also have spent a great deal of time with law firm hiring partners and recruiting coordinators. They continue to be very positive and excited about our plans and progress and believe that we are headed in the right direction. This year we are publishing an update to our Strategic Plan that will highlight the results of all our efforts to date and outline our plans to move ahead. Our competitors are impressed with our boldness and vision, and some are following our lead, developing their own strategic plans.

This year, like last year, classes do not begin until the day after Labor Day, September 4 (see the academic calendar). For those of you who are interested, the first football game for the defending Big Ten co-champion Northwestern Wildcats is September 7, in Las Vegas against UNLV. The game will be televised on ESPN at 7 p.m. CT.

Orientation for the first year class, which has been planned by students led by co-chairs Gant McCloud, Julie Setren, and Andrea Kim with the Student Affairs team, begins the week of August 27. Professor Larry Marshall, legal director of our Center on Wrongful Convictions, will speak on Wednesday, August 29, at 6 p.m. in Lincoln Hall. You are, of course, welcome to attend. Each year Larry litigates cases, delivers testimony, and speaks to numerous public and academic groups on death penalty and wrongful conviction issues.

I hope you are enjoying your summer. We look forward to welcoming you back soon. Please enjoy all that you are doing and return ready to go for an exciting year.

Sincerely,

David E. Van Zandt

 

Faculty Developments

Rising Scholars Join Faculty

We continue to actively recruit new faculty as we seek to carry out our strategic initiative to develop and retain an internationally renowned research and teaching faculty. This year, we focused our efforts on attracting rising scholars whom we expect to build their careers and reputations here at Northwestern Law. Thanks to the members of the Faculty Appointments Committee (chaired by Steve Presser) and to all the students and faculty, we have had significant success in attracting the following new research scholars:

Tracey George visited Northwestern in the fall of 2000 to teach Contracts. We are pleased that she will join the Northwestern faculty this fall as a professor of law. She comes to us from the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she taught Contracts, Law and Social Science, Modern Payment Systems, and Trial Practice as an associate professor of law and adjunct professor of political science. Tracey received her BA in Political Science and BS in Economics from Southern Methodist University and her JD from Stanford University. Before joining the University of Missouri faculty she practiced law in Washington, DC with the litigation firm Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin and clerked for the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Albert Yoon recently completed the prestigious Robert Johnson Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of California-Berkeley. He will join the faculty as an assistant professor of law and will teach a section of Torts in the fall. His research focus is in the area of public law and litigation. Albert received his BA in English and Political Science from Yale and his MA, JD, and PhD in Philosophy from Stanford University. Albert has clerked for the Hon. R. Guy Cole, Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and interned at the U.S. Attorney's Office.

An excellent school must always work hard to keep its best faculty. The academic market for the best scholars is very competitive today. Once again this year, we were fortunate to have lost none of our research faculty. This summer, associate professors Henry E. Smith and Annelise Riles were promoted to the position of full tenured professor. Henry and Annelise will both visit Yale Law School for the 2001-2002 academic year.

Visiting Faculty and Scholars

As always, our research faculty will be enriched by a number of visiting faculty and scholars. This coming year, five visitors will join us from other universities:

Gordon S. Wood, the Alva O. Way University Professor of History at Brown University, has accepted an offer to be the Jack N. Pritzker Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law for the fall 2001 semester. He will teach a course on the American Revolution and Constitutionalism. One of the country's leading historians of Colonial America, Gordon is the author of The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787, which was nominated for the National Book Award and received the Bancroft and John H. Dunning prizes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his recent work The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Gordon has taught at the College of William and Mary, Cambridge University, Harvard University, and the University of Michigan. He received his AB from Tufts University and his PhD from Harvard.

G. Marcus Cole, an associate professor of law at Stanford University, will be here for the entire academic year, teaching a section of Contracts in the fall and a course on Bankruptcy and a seminar in the spring. Marcus earned his BS in Applied Economics from Cornell University and his JD from Northwestern. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Marcus clerked for the Hon. Morris Sheppard Arnold, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and was an associate in commercial litigation at Mayer, Brown & Platt. He also was the John M. Olin Fellow at the University of Southern California Law Center and the Political Economy Research Center Junior Faculty Fellow at Montana State University.

International Visitor

Guy Mundlak, who has a joint appointment at Tel Aviv University Law School and its Department of Labor Studies in Social Sciences, will visit Northwestern Law for six weeks in the fall. Guy received his PhD from Harvard University, and his research focuses on the impact of law on the labor market and the welfare state. He teaches courses on Labor Law, Law and Poverty, Welfare Law, Contracts, Employment Discrimination, and Commodification at Tel Aviv University and is the author of several publications including his forthcoming "Power-Breaking or Power- Entrenching Law: When Labor Crosses the Border" in the Comparative Labour Law and Policy Journal. He is also the author of several Hebrew publications including Social Rights in the New Israeli Constitutional Discourse.

Spring 2000

John Oldham McGinnis, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law, will teach sections of Constitutional Law and International Trade in the spring. John earned his BA and JD from Harvard University and his MA from Oxford University. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. Prior to that, he was an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell and law clerk to Judge Kenneth W. Starr, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

David L. Cameron, a professor at Willamette University College of Law, will teach courses in taxation. He earned his BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his JD from Northwestern. Following graduation from M.I.T., David was a research associate with Temple, Barker & Sloane, a management-consulting firm in Lexington, Massachusetts. He also was a law clerk for the Honorable Edward F. Hennessey, chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and was an associate with Goodwin, Procter and Hoar in Boston, Massachusetts.

In addition to these visitors from other schools, we will also have three Visiting Assistant Professors in the coming year in residence at the Law School. Our Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP) Program brings to the Law School excellent young scholars who are just beginning their academic careers and boosts their chances to obtain tenure-track positions in the future. F. Scott Kieff and Christopher Bracey, our visiting professors for the past two years, have both taken positions as associate professors of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Joseph S. Miller who has focused on intellectual property law issues since graduating from Northwestern Law in 1994, will teach Patent Law in the fall and Copyright Law in the spring. His research interests include the antitrust constraints on the exploitation of patent rights, the antitrust analysis of complex patent pooling arrangements, and other questions at the intersection of patent and antitrust law. He is visiting the Law School after a one-year stint in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Kimberly A. Yuracko earned her BA and PhD in Political Science and JD from Stanford University. Her primary research interest is in contemporary feminist theory. She will teach Family Law in the fall and Employment Law in the spring. Her book manuscript Perfectionism and Contemporary Feminist Values is being published by Indiana University Press. Kimberly was a lecturer at the University of California-Irvine, where she taught "Sexual Justice: Theories of Gender Equality." She also has clerked for the Hon. Stanley Marcus, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and for the Hon. Gary L. Taylor, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Adam Mossoff will visit the Law School as this year's Olin Fellow and will teach a seminar in the spring. He earned his BA in Philosophy from the University of Michigan; his MA in Philosophy from Columbia University; and his JD with honors from the University of Chicago this June. His research interests include Property, Intellectual Property, and Civil Procedure. His article "Rethinking the Development of Patents: An Intellectual History, 1550-1800," will be published this summer in Hastings Law Journal. He is set to clerk for the Hon. Jacques L. Wiener Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in the 2002-2003 term.

Communication and Legal Reasoning Program

As you may know, Susan Alexander, Amy Berger, and Lisa Greenfield Pearl have left the Law School. We have, however, recruited a talented group of attorneys to add to the faculty of the Communication and Legal Reasoning program.

Susan Provenzano has substantial litigation experience, coming most recently from the Chicago firm Franczek Sullivan. She also has worked as an associate in the labor and employment group at Mayer, Brown & Platt and as an associate in the litigation department at Kirkland & Ellis. Susan earned her BA in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her JD from the University of Wisconsin. She also has clerked for Northwestern Law adjunct professor Hon. Ruben Castillo, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois.

Suzanne Ehrenberg has spent the past 13 years as a professor and associate director of legal writing at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. Prior to that, she worked as a staff attorney for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and as an associate at Mayer, Brown & Platt. Suzanne received her AB in American History and Literature from Williams College in Massachusetts and her JD from the University of Chicago. Suzanne is currently working on a publication titled Written Words Remain: The Revered Role of Writing in the American Legal System.

Lauren Hines will join the CLR faculty this fall to teach Legal Analysis in the LLM program. In addition to teaching legal writing at DePaul University College of Law, she has worked as a staff attorney for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and as an associate at Sonnenschein, Carlin, Nath & Rosenthal. Most recently, she worked for Gardiner Koch & Hines in Chicago. Lauren received her BA from Lawrence University in Wisconsin and her JD from Northwestern.

Director Judy Rosenbaum and the CLR faculty continue to teach fundamental skills in legal research, reasoning, writing, and oral argument. They also have introduced a wide range of initiatives that encourage teamwork and collaboration and expose students to Chicago's legal community. They plan to continue to fine tune the program to prepare students for the work experiences they are likely to encounter in summer and full-time jobs.

Curriculum Developments

We continue to revise and expand our curriculum to meet the needs of the changing world. With the help of excellent adjunct faculty and visiting professors in addition to our residential faculty, we are able to offer as broad and diverse a curriculum as substantially larger law schools. The following changes will take place in the curriculum this year:

• New courses to be taught by visiting professors include:

The American Revolution - Political Theory will be taught by Professor Gordon Wood and will deal with the origins, nature, and consequences of the American Revolution from the middle of the eighteenth century to the making of the federal Constitution in 1787 and its aftermath, arguably the most creative period of constitutionalism in modern history.

Law, Economics, Morality: Commodification will be taught in a special six-week session at the beginning of the fall term by our international visitor, Professor Guy Mundlak. As markets expand into all realms of daily life, it is assumed that everything is a commodity that can be priced and traded. The seminar explores whether some values are lost in putting everything up for sale. The seminar will assess and critique the impact of law on the commodification of all values.

• New seminars to be taught by Northwestern Law research and adjunct faculty include:

International Legal Theories , an examination of classical and modern international law theory, focusing on legal positivism, natural law, and the emerging theory of human rights, which Professor Tony D'Amato will teach in the fall.

Public Housing Redevelopment, an examination of law, policy, practice, and consequence of public and private initiatives designed to redevelop and revitalize neighborhoods and communities, which Professor Len Rubinowitz will teach in the fall.

Advanced Problems in Criminal Procedure and Evidence, an in-depth examination of a selection of current criminal procedure and evidentiary areas, which Professor Ron Allen will teach in the spring.

• New interdisciplinary seminars include:

Empirical Study: Judicial System, an empirical and theoretical political science study of the judicial process, which will consider, among other things, studies of the policy-making role and impact of federal appellate and trial courts; the politics of judicial selection; and the dynamics and determinants of judicial decision-making, will be taught by Professor Tracey George in the spring.

Transformation of the Legal Profession, a seminar to be taught by Professor Jack Heinz in the spring.

Theory of the Firm and the Law, an exploration of the seminal literature on the theory of the firm, with particular emphasis on agency theory, then moves on to explore the application of these theories to legal issues, will be taught by Professor Rob Sitkoff in the spring. (Business Associations or Corporations are prerequisites for this couse.)

Policing in America, a look at the means through which police officers and their employers can be held accountable for their actions including criminal prosecution, civil litigation, and departmental disciplinary proceedings, will be taught in the fall by adjunct professor Mark Iris, Executive Director of the Chicago Police Board and long-time adjunct faculty member at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

• Several courses that have not been taught for some time will be taught this year by our talented adjunct faculty as well as full-time faculty:

Admiralty Law will be taught in the fall by adjunct professor William Theis.

Banking Law and Regulation will be taught in the fall by adjunct professor John Freechak, an attorney at Barack, Ferrazzano, Kirschbaum, Perlman & Nagelberg.

Tax Policy and Procedure will be taught by Professor Charlotte Crane in the spring.

Domestic Violence will be taught by Professor Cynthia Bowman in the spring.

Federal Criminal Evidence will be taught by adjunct professor Marvin E. Aspen, Chief Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

• And we have created a second course emphasizing Appellate Advocacy:

Supreme Court Simulation Practice will be taught in the spring by Professor Larry Marshall in a format designed to provide the participants with a deeper understanding of the dynamics of appellate decision-making and the role that advocacy plays in that process and to help improve oral advocacy and legal writing skills. The participants in this seminar will argue before a "Court" (made of the instructors and other class members), will participate in the Court's conferences, and will write opinions in cases that are either currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, have been there in the past, or are expected to be there soon.

Student Affairs

As I announced earlier this month, Monique A. Brown, a graduate of the class of 2000, will be returning to the Law School to serve as Director of Minority Affairs, reporting to Theresa Cropper. As many of you know, Monique was an active member of our community, serving as co-chair of the DREAM Committee, as Treasurer of BLSA, as a member of the Student Admissions Committee, and as a participant in the Cabrini Green Youth Project, Saturday Dreams Program. She has most recently been serving as an assistant to Mayor Daley, advising on various issues of policy and assisting in a variety of education-related programs.

Stefan Griffin, a 1997 graduate of the Law School, who has done such a fine job as Interim Director, will assist in the transition of the position to Monique and will then work with us on a part-time basis on a variety of special projects. He also plans to continue to work on his PhD dissertation.

I am also pleased to announce that Sandra Moffett, who worked tirelessly with students, faculty, and staff to organize graduation and who also received this year's Sarah B. Morgan award for the best new idea for planning the First Annual Law School Halloween Party, has been promoted to assistant director of Student Affairs.

In an effort to further integrate international students into the Law School community, the International Programs Office is now an integral part of Student Affairs. This year, for the first time, LLM students will attend orientation in the fall with JD students. I hope you will take this opportunity to get to know them and make personal and professional international contacts that will serve you throughout your legal career. Adi Altshuler, Director of International Programs, will now become part of the Student Affairs team.

International Program

Our International Program continues to grow. As I mentioned above, 29 international students from 11 countries in our LLM/Kellogg Program are already hard at work on campus taking Business Associations with Rick Brooks and Mathematical Methods for Management Decisions and Accounting for Decision-Making at Kellogg. In addition, we expect to enroll a record number of international LLM students this fall, with more than 60 students from 27 countries.

I encourage those of you who are interested in international law or business to consider spending a semester abroad in one of our exchange programs. We currently maintain exchange relationships with law schools in Amsterdam and Brussels, where the courses are conducted in English; in Australia; in Israel, where students must be fluent in Hebrew; and in Argentina where students must be fluent in Spanish.

Our International Team Projects course also continues to grow. Students have traveled to Ghana, Singapore, South Africa, Tanzania, Vietnam, Cuba, and Australia/New Zealand since the program began in 1998, and almost twice as many students participated last year as did in the first year. If you are interested in ITP, consider becoming a Team Leader. Identify a country that interests you and that you believe will generate interest among other law students. Find a faculty member with experience and/or interest in your chosen country to supervise the course. Course proposals are due in early fall, so start thinking now about where you want to go and what you want to study.

Student Computing and Library

We continue to improve and upgrade our computing capabilities. Our strategy in this area is to have all students use notebooks and to upgrade our internal resources to facilitate computer use both inside and outside the classroom. The core of this is our Notebook Program.

• Notebook Program: All incoming students are now required to won a laptop computer. We strongly advise you to purchase a computer through our Notebook Program with Dell Computer. (For more information contact the Law School Information Technology Department.) A new screen-saver and wallpaper will be installed on all computers newly purchased through the Notebook Program. (Students can also have the screen-saver and wallpaper installed on their current laptops.)

• Wireless technology has been installed in Law School common areas. Students purchasing computers through the Law School's Notebook Program will receive wireless network adapters and a second battery as part of the package.

• Networking stations and study tables have been installed along the Teigler Bridge.

• Enhanced high-speed T-1 access and connectivity to Westlaw and Lexis will be installed, and new PCs will be placed in the Electronic Reference area and the Westlaw lab. New Westlaw printers will be installed to help improve printing.

• We have moved to WildCARD printing for students in the Library and Career Strategy. The price of printing has been held constant at 5 cents/page with 200 free pages per year.

• Rubloff classrooms 140 and 150 are now equipped with smart podiums, including networked computer projection, video, electronic screens, and expanded audio capabilities.

• The Library staff is developing an interactive map of the Library to further aid students in finding materials.

Admissions and Financial Aid

Five years ago, we made a strategic decision to develop an interviewing program so that we could assess the judgment, maturity, and interpersonal skills of our applicants as well as evaluate their academic credentials. This personalized approach to admissions sends the positive message to our applicants that the Northwestern Law community is interested in them as individuals and not just their academic credentials.

In the current year, thanks to more than 400 alumni and 20 students, we interviewed more than 2,300 applicants in 41 states and 7 foreign countries. Moreover, we are beginning to interview our international LLM candidates to ensure that they have many of the same qualities as our JD students. And now, with all JD students having had the opportunity to participate and benefit from this program, I am pleased to say we have seen results -- our student body is stronger and more diverse than ever.

This year's entering class will match last year's record median LSAT score of 167, one of the highest of any law school, and the median GPA has risen to 3.6. Probably more impressive is that the overall quality of all our entering students has improved. Our real success over the past five years has been the rising middle range of LSAT scores -- the 25th to 75th percentiles -- from 159-167 in 1996 to 164-169 this year. The bottom quarter this year actually equals the 1996 median.

About half of the students in the entering class are women and 30 percent are minorities. Our focus on attracting a more national base is also showing results as more than two-thirds of the first-year students will come from outside the Midwest; the Class of 2004 will be perhaps the most regionally diverse of any law school. Additionally, 80 percent of entering students have some work experience and 60 percent have at least two years experience.

Our Admitted Students Weekend, where we describe the benefits and opportunities of attending Northwestern Law, is achieving its objective of encouraging admitted students to choose Northwestern over our competitors. This year we achieved a record attendance at Day at Northwestern Law, and more than half of those attending the weekend chose to enroll. In addition to the hard work of everyone in our Admissions Office, many of you deserve credit for our continued improvement in attracting the students we want. During their campus visits, the incoming students' interactions with many of you played an important role in their decisions to attend Northwestern.

The transition to the University's new People Soft administrative computer system has created significant challenges in the areas of financial aid, billing, and loan processing. We continue to work closely with the University in its implementation, and are confident that the system-related challenges are finally being resolved. Additionally, the central university administration is implementing a comprehensive study to improve and streamline student financial services. We expect increased financial aid efficiencies for students in the near future, and a number of new, web-based services will be offered during the coming year.

Also, although the Chicago campus financial aid office continues to provide all existing services to law students, Mary Beth Busby, Don Rebstock, Sarah Rewerts, and Johann Lee in our Admissions Office continue to serve as on-site financial aid counselors. Please help us improve service by making them your first contact for any financial aid-related issues you may have. General financial aid questions can also be addressed via e-mail to law-financial-aid@northwestern.edu.

Center for Career Strategy and Advancement

I am pleased to report that 96 percent of our graduates were employed at graduation, and geographic placement continues to be more widespread. The number of recruiters coming from outside the Midwest has substantially increased and more than half of the 2001 graduates chose to work outside the Midwest. This year, we have recruitment commitments from a number of companies and firms from all over the country, such as Sullivan & Cromwell based in New York with 11 offices worldwide.

As Don Rebstock, Associate Dean for Enrollment Management and Career Strategy, announced earlier this summer, Shonagh Aylsworth, who joined the Center as Senior Associate Director, has now taken over operations as Director. With her combination of law school career services experience here, MBA career services experience at the University of Chicago, and senior-level management experience in the banking industry, Shonagh is an ideal person to manage our Center for Career Strategy and Advancement.

I am pleased to announce that

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