St. John's University Law Faculty Blog

Professor Eva Subotnik’s paper, Intent to Fair Use, was accepted for an Intellectual Property workshop to be held at NYU Law School in early January.  The Workshop brings together intellectual property law scholars from the tri-state region.  Approximately 5-10 papers are selected for presentation and feedback in advance of the spring 2014 law review submission cycle.  In her paper, Subotnik focuses on the degree to which recent fair use case law and scholarship that suggest that the evaluation of a challenged use of a copyrighted work be made principally from the perspective of a reasonable observer (rather than from the perspective of the defendant artist herself) advances the goals of copyright policy and provides predictability for those contemplating future uses of copyrighted works.  Information about the Workshop can be found here http://tristate.nyuengelberg.org/

The editors of the ABA Journal have named the Center for Law and Religion Forum, produced by St. John’s Center for Law and Religion, one of the top 100 best blogs for a legal audience. CLR Forum is one of 15 blogs selected for the “Niche” blog category.  The full list appears in the December issue of the magazine.

Regularly updated, the Center for Law and Religion Forum offers a comprehensive compilation of new law and religion scholarship, put together daily by the Center’s student fellows – the latest American law review scholarship as well as foreign and comparative pieces and new books in law and religion. It also provides engaging commentary by Center faculty on law and religion issues in the news and around the web, along with useful links to research centers, blogs, and news sites.  

Professor Mark Movsesian, Frederick A. Whitney Professor of Contract Law, produces and contributes to the blog as Director of the Center, together with its Associate Director, Professor Marc O. DeGirolami.

The New York Times published Professor Jeff Sovern‘s letter in its Sunday Dialogue feature titled “Academia’s Two Tracks.”  The letter addresses the validity of student evaluations in assessing the performance of tenured and tenure-track professors versus adjuncts.  Professor Sovern states:

Student evaluations are a better measure of popularity than competence. Adjuncts may in fact be better teachers, but studies not based on student evaluations are needed to prove it.

Gina Calabrese, Professor of Clinical Education, was recently named to the Board of Directors of Catholic Migration Services.  CMS provides legal representation and other services to immigrants living in Brooklyn and Queens.  St. John’s offers its Bread and Life Legal Clinic in partnership with CMS.  CMS also does impact litigation through its Immigrant Tenants Advocacy Project as well as assistance with the naturalization process.   It is a non-profit corporation affiliated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.

On Friday, November 8, Michael Perino, Dean George W. Matheson Professor of Law, was in Chicago to present a paper at the First Annual Corporate and Securities Litigation Workshop, sponsored by the University of Illinois College of Law. Professor Perino co-authored the paper, Private Ordering Versus Judicial Regulation of Attorneys’ Fees in Securities Class Actions: An Empirical Assessment, with University of Texas Law School professors Lynn Baker and Charles Silver.