Associate Professor of Law Linda Beale presented a paper at the annual Law and Society conference, May 29, in Montreal, called "Tax Practitioners as First Interpreters." The paper considers statutory construction in the context of tax rules and asks how text should be approached by practitioners in order to ensure a coherent analysis and push practitioners away from aggressive, loophole-exploiting interpretations.
Her paper entitled, "Tax Patents: At the Crossroads of Tax and Patent Law" was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for SEIN Subject Matter Journals and Social & Environmental Impact Network.
Professor of Law Kingsley Browne was a guest on "Kresta in the Afternoon" (Ave Maria Radio) on May 24 discussing his book, "Co-ed Combat."
He spoke at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society in Kyoto, Japan, on June 8. His talk was titled "Trust and Cohesion: Integration of Women into Military Combat Units."
Professor of Law Stephen Calkins presented "Consumer Law or Consumer Protection?" at the University of Houston Center for Consumer Law program on Teaching Consumer Law in Houston on May 23, 2008.
He gave a keynote address, "Do You Know Who I am?", at the 4th Annual In-House Counsel Forum on Pharmaceutical Antitrust in National Harbor, Maryland on May 20, 2008.
He participated in "One Year Later: The Antitrust Modernization Commission's Report and the Challenges That Await Antitrust," at New York University Law School on April 11, 2008.
He presented "Hot Topics," at the ABA Antitrust Section Spring Meeting in Washington on March 27, 2008.
He served as program chair in "What Does It Take? Challenging Mergers that Involve Differentiated Products?", at the ABA Antitrust Section Spring Meeting in Washington on March 26, 2008.
He served as panelist in a Brownbag Program, "An Update on IP & the Agencies: N-Data and Rambus," sponsored by the ABA Section of Antitrust Law Computer & Internet and Federal Civil Enforcement committees in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 29, 2008.
Professor of Law Gregory Fox served as moderator in a panel discussion on Corporate Responsibility for Human Rights on May 20. The event was held at Ford World Headquarters by the Committee on International Human Rights of the State Bar of Michigan, of which Fox serves as chair.
On June 14-15, he attended a meeting in Stockholm, Sweden of authors for a book entitled "Exit Strategies and Peace Consolidation." He is the author of the chapter on military occupation. The meeting was sponsored by Oxford University and the Folke Bernadotte Institute in Stockholm.
Assistant Professor of Law Noah Hall was the featured speaker at the Great Lakes Legislative Caucus Annual Meeting (Chicago, June 13, 2008) and led a discussion on "Federal and State Opportunities for Great Lakes Protection."
Assistant Professor (Clinical) Dana Roach Thompson was the featured presenter at the Open City Meeting on April 15, 2008 discussing the Small Business Clinic and the free legal resources it provides to entrepreneurs. Open City is a forum for aspiring and current business owners to exchange ideas and information about doing business in Detroit.
She was the convener of the 7th Annual Transactional Law Clinic Faculty Conference. The Conference was held on April 25 at the McGregor Conference Center at Wayne State University. There were 35 Clinical Law Professors from around the country who teach Small Business and Transactional Clinics who attended the Conference.
She was a co-facilitator of a Working Group Session pertaining to Community Lawyering at the AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education which took place from May 4-7 in Tucson, Arizona.
She was the featured presenter at the Governor's Emerging Small Business Leaders Council Dialogue which took place May 14, 2008.
She will be giving a presentation at the Great Lakes Symposium on Clinical Scholarship & Best Practices which will be held at Michigan State University College of Law on Thursday, July 24 and Friday, July 25, 2008. She will be discussing Community Outreach and how to market a clinic.
Professor of Law Alan Schenk is currently teaching at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. He is teaching as part of the Africa Tax Institute and is teaching tax administrators from about 14 African countries about Value Added Tax. He will also serve as Technical Advisor for the International Monetary Fund, assisting the tax services in South Africa and Botswana with the drafting of a new tax act -- the Tax Administration Act.
Distinguished Professor of Law Robert Sedler met with a delegation of 10 visitors from the Krygyz Republic on April 28, visiting the United States under the State Department's International Visitor Program. The Krygyz Republic, commonly referred to as Kyrgyzstan is a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia. The Krygyz people are Turkic and Moslem, and the Krygyz Republic is a secular state, with a Constitution that provides for separation of government and religion and religious freedom. The purpose of the delegation's visit to the United States is to study Religion in a Secular Society, and Professor Sedler met with the delegation for 90 minutes, discussing the constitutional protection of religious freedom in the United States.
On Monday, April 28, Professor Sedler did an interview with Steven Clark on WXYZ-TV (Ch. 7) 7 p.m. news on the impact of the situation involving Reverend Jeremiah Wright on Sen. Barack Obama and the Democratic Party primary process. This was the evening after Reverend Wright spoke in Detroit at the annual NAACP Fight for Freedom Dinner at Cobo Hall.
On Saturday, April 26, Professor Sedler did an interview on the Lou Perry Radio Show, WLBY-AM in Ann Arbor on Sen. John McCain's opposition in the Senate to amending the Equal Pay Act to provide that the time for bringing suit runs only after the pay inequality has been discovered, and so to overturn the United State's Supreme Court's 5-4 2007decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.
He, along with Attorney Godfrey Dillard is representing the City of Detroit in a suit in regard to the forfeiture proceedings initiated by the Detroit City Council against Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Professor Sedler has been interviewed extensively by the Detroit media in regard to this case and has appeared on a large number of radio and television newscasts.