Professor Johnson states that “these outrages in the criminal justice system highlight biases that can distort fundamental American principles: ‘Whose life has value? Whose life does not have value? Who has credibility and who doesn’t? Who is prone to criminality, who is prone to victimization?’”
Professor Roy Gutterman comments to Reuters on the Sarah Palin – New York Times defamation case: “This is a lawsuit over an editorial, essentially an opinion. This is a potentially dangerous area.”
Commercial and bankruptcy law expert Professor Gregory Germain provides insight into low APR credit cards, noting “I think the Motown group The Miracles gave the best answer to this question: “My mama told me, you better shop around (shop, shop). Oh yeah, you better shop around.” This applies not just to credit card interest rates but all credit card terms, including cash back offers, annual fees and other charges and credit limits.” Read his full answer to What can people do to increase their odds of getting lower APRs on their credit cards?
Germain also answers the question, What are the possible advantages and disadvantages of adding authorized users to a primary credit card with regards to earning rewards? “When I teach commercial law, I tell my students that we have another name for someone who guarantees a debt for a friend or relative. We call the guarantor ‘a fool with a pen.’” Read his entire answer here.
In the article, Professor Nina Kohn, Faculty Director of Online Education, says, “COVID-19 has shown us that there are many ways to deliver legal education. It does not have to be one size fits all.”
Syracuse University College of Law has announced that College of Law alumnus and Fixt Founder and corporate executive Luke Cooper L’01 will serve as its Commencement Speaker on May 6, 2022. Cooper is presently CEO of Latimer Ventures, a Partner at San Francisco-based Preface Ventures, and 2022 Visiting Scholar at the University of Maryland Baltimore, which encompasses Maryland’s Law School, Medical School, and other graduate programs.
“Luke has been a strategic planner, technology innovator, and product developer for more than 20 years,” says Dean Craig M. Boise. “We are honored to welcome him back to Syracuse University and look forward to hearing about his entrepreneurial successes and how his law degree from the College of Law and personal life experiences have shaped his leadership style and professional pursuits.”
In a 2020 Stories Book article, Cooper credits Syracuse Law with developing skills in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and advocacy that have fueled his successes. Importantly, Cooper is passionate about building diverse and inclusive work cultures and lifting up Black entrepreneurs.
Cooper, who built and sold his first cyber startup to CACI in 2011, founded the device support platform Fixt, which he sold to Assurant in 2020. He is only the second Black tech entrepreneur to see a company through to a successful exit in Baltimore, MD. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation and has been appointed by Gov. Larry Hogan to serve on the Board of Directors of Maryland’s TEDCO.
Cooper’s upcoming memoir—Mud to Magic: A Black Tech Entrepreneur’s Inspiring Journey (2022)—will tell his life story and share his powerful message, that showing up as your most authentic self will drive the best outcomes.
Professor Shubha Ghosh, Director of the Syracuse Intellectual Property Law Institute, will participate in the workshop, “Research on Standard-Essential Patents and Patent Exhaustion”, being held January 31-February 1 by the Japan Patent Office. Ghosh will provide legal insight and perspectives on these timely patent issues.
In the Standard-Essential Patents (SEP) workshop, the program will include a report on the latest global trends in SEPs and a panel discussion on standard essential patents from various perspectives, in addition to the interim report of the results.
In the Patent Exhaustion workshop, the program will include a lecture on the state of Patent Exhaustion in the age of IoT and a panel discussion on the utilization of method patents in the change in industrial structure from “things” to “services”, in addition to the interim report of the results.
National Public Radio recently interviewed Renci “Mercy” Xie LL.M. ‘20 and currently a doctoral candidate in the S.J.D. program for the story, “China excels at the Paralympics, but its disabled citizens are fighting for access.” Xie, who is focusing her degree on disability law, recounts the hurdles she faced growing up with a disability in China.
In the New York Law Journal story, “Big Law Firms Join Nursing Homes, Hospitals in Fight Over Liability for COVID-19 Deaths”, Professor Nina Kohn notes that the introduction of more high-powered attorneys signals that providers—which are often large, chain entities that own facilities across multiple jurisdictions—might be stepping up efforts to secure appellate victories.
Prolonging—and winning—the battle over where these cases are heard also benefits providers because it increases the expense for plaintiffs’ counsel and potentially discourages other individuals from bringing suits, Kohn said.
“This isn’t just defeating a claim in a particular facility or even in a particular jurisdiction but looking out for the interests of a large organization that may span many different states,” Kohn said. “If you can take care of a bunch of states in one fell swoop, that’s efficient. … As plaintiffs’ attorneys are trying to figure out what is viable under COVID and what is not, a few key wins at the federal level could have a desired chilling effect from the industry’s point of view.”
The College of Law’s first cohort of Doctor of Juridical Science in Law (S.J.D.) students and their academic pursuits are profiled in the Syracuse University story, “Elevating Law Research”.
Learn how Renci “Mercy” Xie LL.M. ’20, Ricardo Pereira LL.M. ’18, Jawad Salman LL.M. ’18, and Yohannes Zewale LL.M. ’19 have come from around the world to the College of Law to complete their Doctor of Juridical Science in Law degrees, focusing on employment discrimination class actions, tax law, and disability law.
Professor Emeritus William C. Banks is quoted by the New York Times in the article, “Facing Subpoenas, Trump Allies Try to Run Out the Clock on Democrats.” Professor Banks notes that for those facing subpoenas in the January 6 inquiry, “The law is not on their side at all, so the only thing they can do is what often happens in litigation, which is to drag it out and seek to delay because the elections are coming.”
