Category Archives: U.Miami

His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be speaking here, Wednesday, September 22 on “A Human Approach to World Peace.” He'll be speaking at several events around town, but tickets for the UM speech on will be restricted to students, faculty and staff. No word yet on how to get a ticket…

Larry Solum's list of new hires reminds me that I failed to blog the fact that we've hired one new tenure-track faculty member for next year. He wowed us with his faculty presentation, and with the paper he has ready for publication, and I think he's going to be great.

Mario L. Barnes, Associate Professor of Law. A graduate of the University of California Law School at Berkeley, where he was the Co-editor-in-Chief for the law review, African-American Law & Policy Report, Professor Barnes is a twelve year veteran of the U.S. Navy. Prior to receiving his honorable discharge in 2002, he served as Admiralty Counsel in the Office of the Judge Advocate General where he was involved in the investigations of the 2001 sinking of the Japanese vessel Ehime Maru by a U.S. submarine and the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole. Currently a Hastie Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School, he is in the process of completing his thesis, The Stories They Did Not Tell: Race, Family Silence and the Legal Recreation of Inequality. He will join the faculty this fall. He will teach Substantive Criminal Law and Constitutional Law I. In future years he will teach an additional course, most likely in the areas of military operations law, race and the law, or national security law.

Despite this great hire we still have a large number of openings. Next year's appointment committee will be busy, although we also have some specific subject area needs which may narrow our search. I don't know which ones the Dean will choose to make a priority next year, but if I had to guess I would say Health Law, Commercial Law, maybe Family Law, and general business subjects, especially international business transactions. And of course even though we have some strength in the subject already, we have a perennial interest in persons who are interested in Latin American private law, ideally people familiar both with the US legal system and at least one South (or maybe Central) American legal system.

It's always possible that some of these openings might be filled by lateral as well as entry level appointments. But that's next year's problem…

If any law students from UM are reading this, I need a research assistant for the summer. Contact me by e-mail, or drop off a copy of your transcript (unofficial copy is fine), a c.v. and a short writing sample (non-legal is fine). Ideally I'd want 10-20 hours of your time per week (the exact amount is negotiable). If you need more hours, I might be able to put a package together with another professor.

The miserly wage rate is set by the University, but some of the tasks, primarily research, may be interesting; there's also some blue booking, but not too much. If you have computer skills, that's a plus but not a requirement. You could probably do a fair amount of the work from home, but you should expect to be on campus at least once a week.

If it works out, we might continue the arrangement into next year. First year students are especially encouraged to apply.

(If students from elsewhere are reading this, I'm sorry but our RA money is earmarked for our own students.)

It seems we now have two, count them two, student bloggers at UM, both first year students. Welcome Barsk to the aether! (His first substantive post, on Mel Gibson's movie and the UM shuttle bus is certainly true to life. (Except maybe for the part where the grocery store is not out of matzah.)