News 27 - College of Law

Illinois LawCast: Inclusive Excellence with Jolynn Caroline

In this episode we speak with Jolynn Caroline, who was recently named the College of Law’s senior director for inclusive excellence, career planning and professional development. We discussed her lifelong connections to the University of Illinois, her work in the careers office at the College of Law, and her goals working in inclusive excellence.

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If you have any comments or suggestions for the podcast, please email podcast@law.illinois.edu.

Ghiotto speaks to IPM about deputy who killed Sonya Massey

Sean Grayson, the former Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy charged with the murder of Sonya Massey, was discharged from the U.S. Army for serious misconduct, according to military records. Professor Anthony Ghiotto, a former Air Force prosecutor, spoke to Illinois Public Media about the case and the relevance of Grayson’s discharge. “A good way of looking at it is, if it would be a misdemeanor in the civilian world, it’s not going to be a ‘serious offense,’” he said.

Read the full article from Illinois Public Media.

Brubaker paper cracks SSRN’s Top Ten download list

Professor Ralph Brubaker’s article, “Mass Torts, The Bankruptcy Power, and Constitutional Limits on Mandatory No-Opt-Outs Settlements,” was recently added to SSRN’s Top Ten Download list. The article, published by the Florida State University Business Review, is an examination of “constitutional tensions produced by aggressive efforts to resolve mass-tort liability through federal bankruptcy proceedings, as illustrated by nonconsensual nondebtor (or third-party) releases and the so-called Texas Two-Step maneuver.”

Download and read the article on SSRN.

Right to Contraception is “valuable” legislation, Wilson says

Professor Robin Fretwell Wilson has spent significant time researching the Right to Contraception Act, put forward by Democratic leaders who want to preserve rights regarding matters of reproductive health care. Drawing upon her work in Utah and other states on laws associated with religious freedom, LGBTQ rights, and adoption, Wilson thinks this bill is a chance for effective bipartisan collaboration. “This is eminently doable,” Wilson said.

Read her full remarks on Deseret News.

Brubaker publishes new article on implications of Purdue Pharma ruling

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy, Professor Ralph Brubaker—who submitted an amicus brief in the case—published an article in the Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable on the implications of the ruling and issues that remain unsettled after the ruling. “Unless bankruptcy is to become a facile end-run around multiple constitutional protections for both individual tort claimants and state sovereignty,…the ‘subject of Bankruptcies’ (within the meaning of the Constitution’s Bankruptcy Clause) must be limited by a requirement of necessity for bankruptcy relief,” Brubaker writes.

Read full coverage from the Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable.

Dean Sharpe named a President’s Executive Leadership Program Fellow

Jamelle Sharpe, dean of the University of Illinois College of Law, has been named one of the 2024-25 President’s Executive Leadership Program (PELP) Fellows by University of Illinois System President Timothy Killeen. Out of 80 nominations, Sharpe is one of six individuals from the Urbana-Champaign campus and 20 overall chosen for this honor. PELP is a professional development program designed to broaden participants’ understanding of higher education issues and to strengthen their leadership skills; it consists of four multi-day seminars in Chicago, Urbana-Champaign, Springfield, and Washington, D.C.

Ghiotto joins Litigator Libations podcast

“It is foundational to our criminal justice system that the government has to prove mens rea,” Professor Tony Ghiotto said on a recent episode of the Litigator Libations podcast. The podcast, he discussed Diaz v. United States, in which the Supreme Court recently ruled on expert testimony and a defendant’s mental state. His segment examined how close an expert may come to providing an opinion on a ultimate issue (such as whether the accused held a specific intent).

Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts.

BioSpace quotes Sherkow on CRISPR patent dispute

Researchers work on lab projects with a syringe and vial.

The patent battle over CRISPR-Cas9 technology has gone on for longer than a decade, but continues to wind its way through the courts. The global CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing market size is expected to grow to $14.65 billion by 2032, and Professor Jacob Sherkow told BioSpace that companies seeking to license the technology may be content to wait and see how the patent battle settles rather than rushing to pay now. “If you get that wrong, that is a lot of money you set on fire,” Sherkow said.

Read the full article online.

Thomas presents at Employment Lawyers convention

Professor Suja Thomas presented on Court of Appeals cases decided this past year as part of “The Year in Review: Significant Developments in Employment Law” at the Annual National Employment Lawyers Association Convention in Philadelphia on June 29, 2024. The convention is designed to provide continuing legal education for the plaintiffs’ bar, including attorneys, paraprofessionals, law students, and other workers’ rights advocates.

Illinois News Bureau talks to Aronson about immigration executive order

After the Biden administration announced a new executive order aimed at protecting the undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens from deportation, the Illinois News Bureau spoke to Professor Lauren Aronson to clarify some of the legal details. “It’s not ‘mass amnesty’ because it benefits so few individuals, but it is sort of an amnesty in that it forgives people who entered the country without permission,” she explained.

Read the full interview from the Illinois News Bureau.