Faculty Roundup: The latest highlights from UCI Law’s faculty
Law and Society Association 2024 Annual Meeting
UC Irvine School of Law faculty spoke at the Law and Society Association’s Annual Meeting in Denver from June 6–8, including (in order of appearance):
June 6
Stephen Lee, Reader, “Engage and Evade: How Latino Immigrant Families Manage Surveillance in Everyday Life,” Author Meets Reader Session for Asad Asad (Stanford University)
Omri Marian, Presenter, “Taxing Justices’ Gift Receipts”
Emily Taylor Poppe, Chair/Discussant, “Access to Justice, Inequality, Class, and Difference,” Paper Session
Emily Taylor Poppe, Presenter, “Legal Actuation”
Bryant Garth, Author, “The Making of Lawyers' Careers: Inequality and Opportunity in the American Legal Profession,” by Nelson, Dinovitzer, Garth, Sterling, Wilkins, Dawe, and Michelson. U Chicago Press, 2023, Author Meets Reader Session
Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Chair and Reader, “The Making of Lawyers' Careers: Inequality and Opportunity in the American Legal Profession,” Author Meets Reader Session for Nelson, Dinovitzer, Garth, Sterling, Wilkins, Dawe, and Michelson
Sameer Ashar, Discussant, “Racial Equality Scholarship Panel,” Paper Session
June 7
Mario Barnes, Chair, “The Black Ceiling: How Race Still Matters in the Elite Workplace,” Author Meets Reader Session for Kevin Woodson (University of Richmond School of Law)
Stephen Lee, Co-Author, “Legal Phantoms: Executive Action and the Haunting Failures of Immigration Law,” CRN03 Ethnography, Law & Society New Books in the Field Session
Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Presenter (Co-Author), “Diverse Disconnectedness: Homophily, Social Capital Inequality and Student Experiences in Law School”
Ann Southworth, Author, “Big Money Unleashed: The Campaign to Deregulate Election Spending,” Author Meets Reader Session
Shauhin Talesh, Participant, “Publishing in Socio-Legal Friendly Journals: Meet the Editors and Get Advice on Publishing,” Professional Development Panel
June 8
Ari Waldman, Presenter, “Legibility Dilemmas and State Collection of Gender Data”
Ann Southworth, Chair, “Navigating the Shifting Landscape of the Legal Profession,” Paper Session
Ji Li, Presenter, “Thriving on the Margin? Immigrant Lawyers in the US”
Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Reader, “Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi's Courts,” Author Meets Reader Session for Mayur Suresh (SOAS – University of London)
Ari Waldman, Reader, “The Privacy Fallacy: Harm and Power in the Information Economy” Author Meets Reader Session for Ignacio Cofone (McGill University)
Ji Seon Song, Presenter, “Patient or Prisoner”
Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Reader, “Expert Ignorance: The Law and Politics of Rule of Law Reform,” Author Meets Reader Session for Deval Desai (University of Edinburgh)
Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Presenter, “Dosti Deliberations The Evolution of Heterosocial Friendships in Popular Indian Media”
Global Legal Skills Conference XVI
UC Irvine School of Law faculty also spoke at the 16th annual Global Legal Skills Conference in Bari, Italy on June 5 and June 6, including (in order of appearance):
June 5
Cindy Thomas Archer and Alison Mikkor, co-presenters, “Do We Know What We Are Talking About When We Talk About Professionalism?”
Michael Robinson-Dorn, Moderator, "Training Law Students to Use Data for Social Change: Key Takeaways from 2 Year-Long Projects with First-Year Law Students"; "Organizing Online International Exchanges: Doing the Little Things Well"; and "Bridging Legal Cultures: Internationalization in Legal English Classes"
June 6
Rachel Croskery-Roberts, Presenter, “Putting a Human Face on Legal Injustice: Bringing Haitian Voices, Stories and Art to Students to Make Abstract Legal Issues More Concrete and Advocacy More Effective”
Ezra Ross, Moderator, "Diversifying the Classroom for Diverse Learners"; "Making Legal English Accessible: Ukraine, Afghanistan & the US Bar Exam"; and "Legal Professions: Same Words, Different Meanings"
Michael Robinson-Dorn, Presenter, “Climate Justice: Meeting Students Where They Are and Joining Them on the Journey to Where They Demand to Be”
Ezra Ross, Presenter, “Skills Instruction and the Myth of Neutrality”
Khary Hornsby, Assistant Dean, Chief Global and Executive Programs Officer, Presenter, “Exploring Authentic Connection Through Cultural Intelligence (CQ)”
Additional Faculty Updates
Sameer Ashar
Professor Sameer Ashar's recent speaking engagements include: "Race, Law, Extraction: Toward Movement Legal Imaginaries," Faculty Workshop, Fordham Law School (February 7, 2024); Panelist, "How to Set Up and Run a Law Clinic: Principles and Practice," Book Event, University of Miami School of Law (February 6, 2024).
Prof. Ashar’s 2023 engagements include: Panelist, "Law, Regions, and Ports," Harvard Law School (December 8, 2023); "Pedagogy of Prefiguration," Georgetown Law and Social Movements Colloquium (November 7, 2023); "Radical Imagination," Maryland Law Clinical Program 50th Anniversary (October 27, 2023); Colloquium, "Contract Theory and Marginalized Workers," Berkeley, CA (October 20, 2023); and Respondent, Clinical Writers Workshop, NYU School of Law (October 14, 2023).
Mario Barnes
Professor Mario Barnes has been designated as National Secretary of the American Bar Foundation Fellows. The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation are governed by four elected National Officers and more than fifty State and International Chairs, comprised of distinguished leaders in the legal community.
Joshua Blank
Professor Joshua Blank presented his forthcoming book, “Automated Agencies: The Transformation of Government Guidance” (with Leigh Osofsky) (Cambridge University Press 2025) at the 9th International Conference on Taxpayer Rights in Antwerp, Belgium on June 5.
Anthony Reese
Professor Anthony Reese spoke at the American Law Institute, responding to comments on ALI’s Restatement of the Law, Copyright. Prof. Reese serves as an Associate Reporter for the ALI’s Restatement of the Law, Copyright project.
Kenneth Simons
Professor Kenneth Simons’ article, “Defamatory in Whose Eyes?,” 4 J. Free Speech L. 761 (2024) (peer-reviewed), was recently published in Volume 4, Issue 3 of the Journal of Free Speech Law. The article was noted in a post on Larry Solum’s Legal Theory Blog with the commendation, “Highly recommended. Download it while it’s hot!” Prof. Simons’ artcle, “The Role of Tort Theory in the Third Restatement of Torts: An Explanation and Defense,” 42 Sw. L. Rev. 428 (2024) (invited symposium) was recently published in the Vol. 52, No. 3 issue of the Southwestern Law Review.
Ann Southworth
Professor Ann Southworth participated in several recent speaking engagements related to her book, “Big Money Unleashed.” Most recently, she participated in an Author-Meets-Reader engagement on the book at the Law and Society Annual Meeting in Denver, which featured comments by Robin Stryker (Sociology, Purdue), Chuck Epp (Political Science, Kansas), and Eli Wald (Law, Denver). Her recent article, “$peech,” based on the themes of “Big Money Unleashed,” is the lead story in the May/June issue of The Practice Magazine, a publication of Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession. In addition, she presented findings from her book, and served as the discussant for Robert Post’s presentation of a chapter of his new book on the Taft Court, at an invited symposium, “Diversity, Discourse, and Democracy,” University of Wisconsin Law School, May 24-25. On April 15, she gave a book talk at Fordham Law School, co-sponsored by the Voting Rights and Democracy Forum and the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics. On March 7, reporters for The Lever interviewed Prof. Southworth for a forthcoming podcast, The Master Plan.
In addition, Prof. Southworth presented “Lawyers of the Right: 16 Years Later,” on a panel with Kim Lane Scheppele, at an invited workshop, “Between Autocratic Legalism and Right-Wing Legal Mobilization” at the European University Institute in Florence, on May 29. Her 2008 book, “Lawyers of the Right,” is cited in the second paragraph of the linked workshop announcement.
Christopher Whytock
Professor Christopher Whytock, along with co-authors William Dodge (UC Davis) and Maggie Gardner (Cornell Law), received the Best Publication Prize from Berkeley Law’s Civil Justice Research Initiative for their article, “The Many State Doctrines of Forum Non Conveniens,” published in the February 2023 issue of the Duke Law Journal. The award was presented at the Berkeley Law Reception of the Annual Meetings of the Law and Society Association.