Category Archives: U.Miami

My regular research assistant has another gig this summer, so I need a summer substitute. If things work out, I could probably employ both of you next year.

The ideal candidate will, in addition to reading this blog, have some experience with unix and PERL, as I plan to do some computer stuff this summer and could use some hand-holding and script-writing. And of course an interest in Internet law and privacy, which are likely to be my main writing topics.

Interested UM law students (sorry, I can't pay others) should give me a copy of your c.v., transcript and a short writing sample, either by email or by dropping it off with my secretary. I welcome 1L applicants every bit as much as 2Ls.

Ideally I'd like 10-20 hours of your time per week, but the exact amount and the number of weeks is negotiable. The pay, however, is inflexibly set by the law school at $ 8/ hour.

The colleagues have been writing books recently, and this evening the Dean is throwing them a (very) small party to celebrate. Here are the descriptions sent out with the invite.

• Kenneth Casebeer, Work Law in American Society (Carolina Academic Press 2005). Written in the traditions of legal realism, law and society, and materials analysis, this casebook focuses on both individual and collective law and legal power in our society. Organized around the legal contests facing people who work within a democratically established market economy, it deals with contemporary conflicts within finance-driven and internationalized divisions of social labor in increasingly multi-cultural workforces. It is meant to facilitate student speculation on the many relationships of legal practices within, and to, democracy.
• D. Marvin Jones, Race, Sex Suspicion: The Myth of the Black Male (Praeger 2005). This book explores the basic conflict between the legal equality that black men possess as U.S. citizens and their social isolation stemming from white America’s perceptions of them as “culturally alien.” It challenges the negative images and stereotypes that indicate a fundamental defect in the mainframe of American culture.
• Martha Mahoney (with John O. Calmore and Stephanie Wildman), Social Justice: Professionals, Communities and Law, Cases and Materials (West 2003). This casebook provides materials enabling the study of law and lawyering for social justice. It will help students gain a richer view of the profession than they gain in most law school courses, and stimulate them to think broadly about the role of lawyers in working with contemporary movements for social change. Also reviews the strategies and activities of social justice lawyers in collaboration with community activists. These issues are explored systematically, allowing emphasis on different themes and substantive areas depending on the interests and focus of a particular course.
• William Twining (with Iain Hamphsher-Monk (Editors)), Evidence and Inference in History and Law: Interdisciplinary Dialogues (Northwestern 2003). The contributors to this book advance our understanding of how truth-seeking, proof-finding methods work, and of what it means to prove something in a range of contexts. The book reveals how particular concepts, lines of questioning, and techniques of reasoning and analysis developed in one context can be fruitfully applied in others. Among the questions that bring the contributors together: Was Edith Thompson, famously convicted in 1923 of murdering her husband, a victim of a serious miscarriage of justice? Did cuneiform languages really die out in the second or third century B.C.? Was Franz Schubert responsible for any of the guitar arrangements for some of his lieder?
• Bruce Winick:
  • Bruce Winick, Civil Commitment: A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Model (Carolina Academic Press 2005). Through an understanding of the civil commitment of people with mental illness, this book offers a new model of commitment which strikes an appropriate balance between the protection of legal rights and the achievement of clinical needs. The model uses therapeutic jurisprudence to examine a variety of issues relating to civil commitment and proposes how legal practices may be restructured to increase the efficacy of hospitalization. It analyzes the key issues in civil commitment and makes concrete proposals concerning how commitment laws and their application can be restructured to bring about better therapeutic outcomes.
  • Bruce J. Winick (with John Q. Lafond and John Q. LA Fond (Editors)), Protecting Society from Sexually Dangerous Offenders: Law, Justice, and Therapy (American Psychological Association 2003). This book analyzes controversial new legal strategies adopted over the past decades. It examines innovative measures, including sexual predator laws used to commit dangerous sex offenders to mental hospitals after they serve their sentences, registration laws, and programs.
  • Bruce J. Winick (with David B. Wexler), Judging in a Therapeutic Key: Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Courts (Carolina Academic Press 2003). This book describes the newly emerging problem-solving courts (such as drug treatment courts, domestic violence courts, mental health courts, etc.) and other related approaches to problem-solving judging and judging with an explicit ethic of care. It also covers emerging “principles” of therapeutic jurisprudence that seem to be at work in successful judicial approaches: how courts can encourage offender reform, how they can help offenders develop problem-solving and coping skills, how they can encourage offender compliance with release conditions, how they can serve as effective risk managers, and much more.

I'm very pleased to announce that Zanita E. Fenton, currently an Associate Professor at Wayne State Law School, will be joining our faculty next year as a full Professor. Zanita visited here last year, and I'm looking forward to having her back permanently.

[Update: I have no idea why Zanita's picture won't show up in some versions of IE.]

[Update 2: I have no idea why adding

img{position:relative;}

to my stylesheet fixed the problem. But it seems that it did. Here's hoping it doesn't also introduce new ones….]

Today's Miami Herald runs an article, Wireless web treads fine line on campus (reg. req.), discussing the increased use of wireless computers at UM Law. The reporter who interviewed and quoted me seemed primarily interested in whether students are using the new tools to goof off in class, although that isn't the most interesting thing about wireless. But that's what the bulk of the article is about.

I actually think my students are taking notes on those things, but maybe I'm naive…

[UPDATE: Below I've added the stuff the Herald quoted me as saying for the benefit of those put off by the Herald's registration requirement.]

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Welcome to new UM law student blogger Pura Vida! Here's hoping Constitutional Law reveals more of its beautiful mysteries during the coming semester.

Inspired by one of Pura Vida's first posts, here's my favorite unexpected ConLaw hint: Read the entire constitution to yourself out loud. I'm serious. We read too fast, usually. There's a tendency for the eye to skip over stuff. Reading out loud makes us slow down. Besides, the language is so elegant….

(PS If any readers know of any UM law student bloggers not listed in the left column, please let me know in the comments or via email. Thanks!)

Around the faculty, some of us call this new position the “technology evangalist”.

Assistant Director for Faculty Computing

Requisition Number: 002076 Location: CORAL GABLES, FL

The University of Miami is committed to educating and nurturing students, creating knowledge, and providing service to our community and beyond. We are leaders in the area of education, scholarship, intercollegiate athletics and service. Come join our team!

Master's JD or LLM Degree; five years professional experience in information technology user-support in a higher education environment, including two years experience in web site design and three years experience in the use of Lexis and Westlaw; and advanced knowledge of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, required. Ability to design websites and the ability to design and develop software and database resources, required. Duties include: collaborating with faculty in developing, testing and implementing strategies for integrating innovative uses of technology into the faculty's classroom and scholarly activities. Providing training to law reviews on student computing and web issues; participating in strategic planning for technology facilities and services for the Law School community; and managing selected projects that emerge from that planning. Designing or coordinating training materials and programs for faculty and staff. Coordinating communication by the Law School Information Technology department with the law school community. Excellent English skills, verbal and written, required.