F A C U L T Y
F O R U M
University of Tennessee
College of Law
Volume Six ◊ May 2021
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Professor Ben Barton was recently quoted in an article on Business Insider entitled "Big Law Partners Made Millions in a Struggling Economy, Even While Firms Cut Staff." |
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In May, Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs published a report, "Religious Soft Power in Russian Foreign Policy," authored by Professor Robert Blitt. The report explores the burgeoning role of the Russian Orthodox Church in advancing Kremlin foreign policy interests following the constitutional amendments of 2020. As part of the report launch, Professor Blitt discussed his research and findings during an hour-long webinar hosted by the Center. |
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In April, Professor Blitt co-organized and co-moderated a panel discussion at the American Society of International Law’s 2021 annual meeting. The panel, entitled “Winning Likes and Minds: Creative responses to the international struggle over information,” brought together academics and activists to engage the question of what role international law can play in combatting the challenge of misinformation and disinformation. |
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Also in April, Professor Blitt presented his current research on the foreign policy impacts of Russia’s 2020 constitutional amendments at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association. Professor Blitt’s remarks were part of a panel discussion entitled “Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power: Theories and Cases,“ which brought together experts to discuss a range of state experiences, including China, Russia, and the United States. Professor Blitt’s research will appear as a chapter in The Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power: How States Use Religion in Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). |
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On April 16, Professor Zack Buck (virtually) presented his paper, " When Hospitals Sue Patients," at a University of Missouri faculty colloquium as part of the College of Law's faculty exchange with Mizzou. |
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Professor Buck also participated in a multi-day digital symposium, Recommendations for a Biden/Harris Health Policy Agenda, hosted by the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School on its blog. His piece, "Biden’s Early Focus: Durable and Attainable Private Insurance,+ was published on May 13. In it, he argues that, while an undeniably positive development for access to health insurance, the generous subsidies within the American Rescue Plan that stabilize the Affordable Care Act demonstrate President Biden’s priorities of protecting and building private insurance, which may put bolder and more ameliorative financing reform, like a public option or universal health care plan, further out of reach. |
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Professor Judy Cornett's article, “The Rulification of General Personal Jurisdiction and the Search for the Exceptional Case” will appear in the Spring 2022 issue of the Tennessee Law Review. |
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Professor Joan Heminway presented her paper “Federalized Corporate Governance: The Dream of William O. Douglas as Sarbanes-Oxley Turns 20” at Brooklyn Law School’s recent symposium honoring Professor Roberta Karmel. The symposium, "A Life Navigating the Securities Markets: A Celebration of Professor Roberta Karmel’s Work, Teaching, and Mentorship," was sponsored by the Center for the Study of Business Law and Regulation, the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law, and the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law (which is publishing scholarship from the symposium, including Professor Heminway’s paper, in a future volume). |
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Also, a recent issue of the Faculty VOLume (the newsletter of Teaching and Learning Innovation, a campus unit within the Division of Faculty Affairs that focuses on supporting faculty in their teaching) includes a faculty spotlight featuring Professor Heminway. |
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Finally, Professor Heminway was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the UT Federal Credit Union, a nonprofit financial institution headquartered in Knoxville that was chosen as 2019 Credit Union of the Year by the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions. |
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Professor Joan Heminway was recently interviewed for the “Future Law Podcast.” |
Professor Heminway also organized and moderated a panel for this year’s Business Law Forum sponsored by the Tennessee Bar Association. The 2021 Business Law Forum (convened on May 20 & 21) covered Valuation Considerations for the Tennessee Business Lawyer. Prof. Heminway’s panel, “Athlon and the Death of the Delaware Block Method,” focused on business valuation in the context of mergers and acquisitions. |
In addition, Professor Heminway participated in two programs at the Law and Society Association annual conference. She was a participant in a roundtable discussion addressing current scholarship, policy, and thinking about corporate board diversity entitled “Diversity and the U.S. Public Company Board: California and Beyond,” and she chaired and moderated an Author Meets Reader session on Prof. Jennifer Taub’s book Big Dirty Money: The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime. |
On May 26, 2021, Professor Amy Morris Hess spoke at an ALI-ACTEC national webinar entitled “Representing Clients with Declining or Diminished Capacity: Ethical Dilemmas for Estate Planners.” She was joined on the webinar by three other ACTEC Fellows who are working on updating the ACTEC Commentaries on Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.14. MRPC 1.14 sets out a lawyer’s responsibilities in dealing with clients with diminished capacity. The subcommittee will submit its update for approval by the ACTEC Committee on Professional Responsibility at its summer meeting in June. |
Professor Nathan Preuss's article, "A Proposal for the Adoption of Research-Based Interventions by Instructors for Law School Research Classes in American Law Schools," has been accepted for publication in the Fall 2021 Law Library Journal. |
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Professor Glenn Reynolds authored a section on career paths in UT Journalism & Electronic Media Prof. Barbara Kaye's new textbook, "Now Media: The Evolution of Electronic Communication." |
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Professor Greg Stein has been invited to give a presentation on “The Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act and Its Importance for Tennessee.” The presentation is part of a Forum sponsored by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and is designed to brief the Tennessee Affordable Housing Coalition about the Act. Professor Stein, along with two representatives of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, will describe the Act, which is aimed at preventing land loss by African-American farmers and other under-represented groups. Tennessee is one of only three remaining southern states not to have adopted the Act. The online program will take place June 24, 2021. |
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Professor Maurice Stucke recently participated today in a seminar by the World Bank on "Competition Policy Challenges Posed by Data-Driven Businesses." The other panelists were Sara Nyman, Senior Economist of the World Bank, James Hodge, Chief Economist of the Competition Commission of South Africa, and Georgiana Pop, Global Lead for the World Bank’s Competition Policy, Markets and Technology Unit. Moderating the panel were Vivien Foster, Chief Economist and Infrastructure Vice-Presidency of the World Bank, and Caroline Freund, Global Director of the World Bank’s Trade, Investment and Competitiveness. |
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Professor Valorie Vojdik participated as a panelist at a forum sponsored by the Open Society Foundations on May 10, 2021. The forum, "Recovery with Equity: Our Collective Responsibilities for a Future with Social Justice," convened scholars, activists, and fellows with OSF’s Civil Society Leadership Awards Programs. The program considered how to move forward from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has laid bare societal inequities, and to imagine a new and more equitable world order. Participants joined from Afghanistan, Sudan, South Sudan, DRC, Ethiopia, Belarus, Vietnam and other countries. Professor Vojdik’s presentation was entitled, "The Pandemic as a Lens for Change." She also facilitated a small group discussion. Professor Vojdik focused on the gendered impact of the pandemic and the need for reimagining caretaking as part of the global economic infrastructure. |
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Professor Vojdik also recently published a chapter in the book, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Employment Discrimination Opinions (Cambridge U. Press, Ann McGinley & Nicole Porter eds., 2020). Professor Vojdik’s chapter rewrote the opinion of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in City of Philadelphia v. Webb, a Title VII case brought by female Muslim police officer after the city refused her request to wear a headscarf with her police uniform. The Third Circuit held, inter alia, that the refusal did not violate the city's obligation to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious practice. Professor Vojdik rewrote the opinion from a feminist intersectional perspective, arguing that the city discriminated against the plaintiff because of her religion as well as her sex. |
On June 4-6, Professor White will be a featured speaker at the 2021 Joint Louisiana State Bar Association – Louisiana Judicial Conference Summer School, along with former Dean (LSU President) Tom Galligan, always a special treat to reunite. Professor White will teach three sessions, two plenaries for the bench and the bar and one judicial ethics course for judges alone. The plenaries will include a session that blends ethics and evidence entitled, “May I? Should I? Other Act Evidence in a #MeToo World” and an ethics presentation, “Real Ethics Issues in Reel Time: Exploring Ethics Issues From the Portrayal of Lawyers, Judges, and Justice in the 1958 Novel and 1959 Film, ANATOMY OF A MURDER.” In the judges-only session, White will lead the state-court judges in a discussion about legal, ethical, and practical challenges facing the 21st century jurist. “On Legal and Ethical Challenges and Silver Linings” will engage judges in a discussion of how courts across the country have faced the challenges of the virus and “going viral;” cyberattacks and “deepfakes.” |
On Wednesday, May 26, 2021, Professor White participated as a panelist for The Tennessee Bar Association Litigation Section’s program entitled, “In the Shadow of History: Separation of Powers and Tennessee Courts” roundtable. The other panelists were Justice William Koch, now Dean of the Nashville School of Law, and Professor Steve Mulroy, University of Memphis School of Law. Todd Presnell, Chair of the Section and Partner at Bradley Arent Boult Cummings, served as moderator. |
On April 30, May 7, and May 14, Professor White and Judge Scott McDonald (Alabama Court of Appeals) and Judge Ned Wahl (Hennepin County, Minnesota District Court Judge) presented a three-day, multi-hour program on Advanced Evidence to trial and appellate judges in Alaska. Professor White’s contribution to the program included all of the sessions on hearsay and confrontation. |
On May 4, Professor White appeared as a guest columnist in the TENNESSEAN, publishing an editorial critical of a bill that proposed the creation of a “super chancery court” with special jurisdiction to hear cases challenging the constitutionality of state legislation. |
Professor White served as the moderator for the Knoxville Bar Association’s program held on April 30 in celebration of Law Day 2021, entitled “Advancing the Rule of Law, Now.” The panelists included Judge Alberto Gonzales, now Dean of the Belmont College of Law; Andre Johnson, public defender at the Knox County Community Law Office; Phyllis Nichols, CEO and President of Knoxville Urban League; and Judge Steve Sword, Knox County Criminal Court. |
On Monday, April 12, Professor White spoke via Zoom at Yale Law School on the issue of “Judges and Capital Punishment in Light of Declining Public Support.” The discussion included a review of the US Supreme Court due process-fair tribunal jurisprudence, which is also the topic of an article that White co-authored with Professor Reynolds entitled, “The New Due Process: Fairness in a Fee-Driven State.” |
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