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.”
(Just Security | Oct. 20) When can the president deploy the federal military on American soil? What are the legal and regulatory restraints in doing so? Throughout the current administration, these fundamental questions of civil-military relations and democratic governance have only grown in importance. This is due, in large part, to the rupture of longstanding norms. Salient examples include the significantly expanded deployment of military troops to the U.S.-Mexican border as well as the use or threatened use of state and federal military forces (many unidentified) in response to protests this summer in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.
The violent clearing of peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square Park on June 1 by both non-military and military forces brought the issue of domestic military operations to American living rooms—as did the President threatening minutes earlier to invoke the Insurrection Act and send active duty military forces into American cities.
The governance stakes are simply too high to rely upon now-violated norms. Congress should reinvigorate its constitutional role in governing domestic military operations and provide bright legal lines addressing the president’s authority to deploy the military domestically.
In this essay and the one to follow, I highlight four legal authorities governing domestic use of military force that are ripe for clarification and congressional action. This essay concerns the Insurrection Act, and my second essay will address the Posse Comitatus Act, Section 502(f) of Title 32 of the U.S. Code, and military operations in the nation’s capital …
In a national first, Syracuse University College of Law has partnered with legal education nonprofit AccessLex Institute to offer AccessLex’s interactive Helix Bar Review prep course free of charge to all Syracuse Law students.
Helix Bar Review is a state-of-the-art, comprehensive bar review program that offers students full access to the program during their third year of law school, up to 20 weeks before the bar exam. Early access is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Helix Bar Review, and it ensures that students with multiple responsibilities in law school, at work, or at home, can start their review early and complete the entire course on the schedule they choose. Other bar preparation programs are not fully open to students until much later.
Helix Bar Review’s online, adaptive learning platform uses an integrated content approach, an active learning interface, personalized pathways, and flexible access options designed to adapt to individual learning styles and to help students efficiently use study time to confidently prepare for the bar exam. While Helix Bar Review uses all the traditional components of a bar review course—such as substantive law outlines, practice questions, and flashcards—the program employs active learning and other methods that are based on the most up-to-date learning science and support long-term retention of knowledge.
Learning methods include short videos, illustrations, checklists, and performance tests. In addition, Helix Bar Review uses gamification to provide supplemental practice opportunities, live “Ask the Experts” webinars that target frequently missed questions and misunderstood concepts, and intensive day-long workshops called “Pass Classes.”
“Continuing our track record of innovation in legal education, I am thrilled that Syracuse Law is the first school to partner with AccessLex as they launch their new Helix Bar Review program. This groundbreaking program offers the tools and preparation our graduates need to efficiently and effectively prepare for the bar exam,” says Craig M. Boise, Dean and Professor of Law. “At Syracuse Law, we are laser-focused on student success at every step of the law school journey. This partnership will give our students a distinct edge in studying for the bar exam—setting them squarely on the path to career success—while reducing their debt by eliminating the need to finance a commercial bar prep course.”
“We are grateful, honored, and excited to be partnering with Syracuse Law in bringing Helix Bar Review to its students. At AccessLex, we have long said it is an accident of history that the bar exam preparation industry exists as it currently does, which makes this, potentially, a seminal moment in legal education,” says AccessLex President and Chief Executive Officer Christopher P. Chapman. “As the leader of a law school whose reputation for innovation and progressive action is well known, Dean Boise recognizes that the Helix approach to bar prep tracks with his strategic vision for student success. It is why we feel Syracuse Law is a perfect partner for the public launch of this game-changing endeavor.”
Currently, Helix Bar Review offers study materials for the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), Multistate Essay Exam (MEE), Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), Multistate Performance Test (MPT), and Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE). The non-profit company is currently developing non-UBE state-specific courses and anticipates it will release materials for non-UBE states, such as Florida and California, in 2023. In the meantime, the College of Law is making similar no-cost bar preparation arrangements for third-year students who plan to take the bar exam in those states.
“We know there are law students who do not purchase a commercial bar prep program because of the cost implications,” says Kelly Curtis, Teaching Professor and Director of Academic and Bar Support at the College of Law. “The additional cost of bar prep should never be a barrier to a graduate’s success on the bar exam. With this partnership, we remove that barrier.”
