lsulawcover story: lsu law center a most uncommon law school challenges of providing a bijural legal...

A MostUNCOMMON

Law SchoolChallenges of Providing a

Bijural Legal Education

LSULAWA CENTURY OF B IJURAL LEGAL EDUCAT IONSPRING / 2007

WHERE THEORY, PRACTICE AND SYSTEMS INTERSECT

Louisiana’s Children andOur Efforts to ProtectThem

A FEDERAL OR STATE RESPONSIBILITY?

Law Professors Analyze Response to Hurricane Katrina—Who’s to Blame?

PEPPERCORNS AND POETRY

A Conversation with LSU Law Center Icon, Professor Saúl Litvinoff

WHERE THEORY, PRACTICE AND SYSTEMS INTERSECT

Louisiana’s Children andOur Efforts to ProtectThem

A FEDERAL OR STATE RESPONSIBILITY?

Law Professors Analyze Response to Hurricane Katrina—Who’s to Blame?

PEPPERCORNS AND POETRY

A Conversation with LSU Law Center Icon, Professor Saúl Litvinoff

LSULawMagVol1ForWEB 5/3/07 8:38 AM

On the front of the

1936 LSU Law Building

above the frieze, are three

sculpted life-sized figures:

a laborer symbolizing the

role of the masses in

support of the law, a

lawyer, and a soldier

representing those who

have fought to safeguard

rule by law.

LSULawMagVol1ForWEB 5/3/07 8:38 AM

A CENTURY OF BIJURAL LEGAL EDUCATION

Louisiana State UniversityPaul M. Hebert Law CenterBaton Rouge, Louisiana

The Paul M. Hebert Law Center is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a memberof the Association of American Law Schools. The Center is accredited by the Commission onColleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

LSULawMagVol1ForWEB 5/3/07 8:38 AM Page 1

S P R I N G 2 0 0 7

2 L S U L A W

C O N T E NT SV o l u m e O n e / N u m b e r O n e

6

www.law.lsu.edu

11

24

32

FEATURES

6 WHERE THEORY, PRACTICE AND SYSTEMS INTERSECTLouisiana’s Children and Our Efforts to Protect Them

By Professor Lucy McGough

11 PREPARING MINISTERS OF JUSTICE AND THE REPUBLICLSU Law Center Marks Centennial Year

20 A FEDERAL OR STATE RESPONSIBILITY?Law Professors Analyze Response to Hurricane Katrina—Who’s to Blame?

24 PEPPERCORNS AND POETRYA Conversation with LSU Law Center Icon, Professor Saúl Litvinoff

By Julie Baxter

28 COVER STORY: LSU LAW CENTERA MOST UNCOMMON LAW SCHOOLChallenges of Providing a Bijural Legal Education

By Chancellor John J. Costonis

32 LSU LAW: POISED FOR GREATNESSAchieving National Flagship Status

SECTIONS36 ACADEMIC CIRCLES / Professor Olivier Moréteau says “Louisiana is a civil law island in a

common law ocean.”

Professor Darlene Goring discusses Parallels of Freedom to Marry

40 ALUMNI PROFILES/ Patrick Juneau in the ‘Catbird Seat’

Scotland’s Hugh Vass Harmonizing Two Cultures

46 CLASS ACTION/ Student News

51 WITHIN THE COLUMNS/ Faculty News and Activities

55 DULY NOTED/ Steering a Flagship into the New Century

ChancellorJOHN J. COSTONIS

Office of Communications and External Relations

KAREN SONIATDirector

Office of PublicationsLINDA RIGELL

Director and Editor

CHERYL GRIFFINGraphic Designer

ContributorsJULIE BAXTER

LESLIE COLEJOHN COSTONISLUCY MCGOUGH

KAREN SONIAT

PhotographersDARLENE AGUILLARDMARIE CONSTANTINiSTOCKPHOTO.COM

LSU OFFICE OF PUBLICAFFAIRS

EDWARD P. RICHARDSDAVID WOOD

Send letters and comments to:

EditorLSU Law Magazine

Suite 400, Law CenterBaton Rouge, LA 70803

Fax 225/[email protected]

LSU Law, the magazine of theLSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center,

is published annually by theOffice of Communications and

External Relations. The views andopinions expressed in LSU Laware not necessarily those of the

LSU Law Center.© 2007


T NOON on

September 25, 2006,

students, faculty, and

staff of the LSU Law Center

gathered on the steps of

the 1936 building to join in

a toast to the first day of

the second 100 years of

scholarship, teaching,

and service.

1 0 0 Y E A R S O F L S U L A W

L S U L A W 3

A


HE APPEARANCE of this inaugural issue

of LSU Law chronicles three significant

events: the Law Center’s Centennial Year,

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the

changing of the guard as I prepare to return

to full-time teaching in July 2007.

Planning an issue that catches the sweep of these events

has called upon us to ask fundamental questions about

the Law Center’s past, present, and future.

The Law Center’s September 2006 Centennial

milestone is featured in a photographic essay and

commentary. [The first 100 years of the Law Cen-

ter’s history is available to all alumni in DVD for-

mat.] Featured as well is a portrait of Professor Saúl4 L S U L A W

Litvinoff, a Law Center icon whose intellectual

roguery and professional lifetime span eight decades.

Katrina and Rita make their appearance in Professor

Edward Richards’ photographic essay as well as in

commentary offered by Richards and Professors John

Baker and Kenneth Murchison on the federal and

state response to these epic disasters.

The Law Center’s present is framed largely through

the lens of faculty and alumni achievement. Chron-

icled is Professor Lucy McGough’s shaping of reforms

in state and national juvenile justice programs in

an account that stresses her remarkable ability to

meld scholarship and social action. The melding of

the two reappears in an interview with Professor

TB Y J O H N J . C O S T O N I S

F O R E W O R D


L S U L A W 5

Darlene Goring who discusses the gradual recogni-

tion extended to African American marriages in the

post-Reconstruction South. Alumni distinction is the

theme of the magazine’s portraits of Patrick Juneau,

’65, the 2006 Distinguished Law Center Alumnus,

and Hugh Vass, ’85, head of the oil and gas division

of Scotland’s largest law firm.

In a more programmatic vein, separate essays depict

“bijuralism,” the Law Center’s distinctive signature,

and milestones in the Center’s progress during my

term as Chancellor. Despite the unfamiliarity of the

term, bijuralism has defined the Law Center’s intel-

lectual core since its earliest days. LSU has been

unique among United States law schools because it

trains its students in two traditions—the Common

Law, the province of all United States law schools,

and the Civil Law of Louisiana and, more broadly,

Europe and South America.

Wherein lies the Law Center’s future?

Implicit in many of the following features, this

question receives express attention, first, in the mag-

azine’s introduction of Professor Olivier Moréteau,

newly arrived from the University of Lyon, France,

and, second, in its Duly Noted column. Professor

Moréteau speaks to the future as the Law Center’s

first chairholder and as Professor Saúl Litvinoff ’s

successor as Director of the Center of Civil Law

Studies, the crucible of the Law Center’s bijural ini-

tiatives. The Duly Noted column is likewise atten-

tive to the future in its account of the values that the

Law Center Alumni Board of Trustees has endorsed

as central to the school’s continued progress.

I hope that you will experience the same pride and

excitement in these cross-cutting accounts of the Law

Center’s past, present, and future as we have in pre-

senting them in this inaugural issue of LSU LAW.

Chancellor, LSU Law Center


Louisiana’s

Children

and Our

Efforts to

Protect

Them


L S U L A W 7

F E A T U R E

B Y P R O F E S S O R L U C Y M C G O U G H 1

HEN IT WAS CLEAR that Katrinawould make land-fall along theLouisiana coast, my first thought wasthat we would lose the MacArthurgrant. (Strange, but true.) Just weeks

earlier, juvenile advocates had learned thatLouisiana had been named one of four states to berecognized as “Models for Change” by the John D.and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation whichhad pledged $7.5 million over the next five years tounderwrite the continued reform of the Louisianajuvenile justice system. That’s a lot of money for apoor state that ranks near the bottom of every listof social well-being. The MacArthur grant resultedfrom a juvenile justice revolutionary movementthat began here in 2001, nearly a century afterthe first Louisiana juvenile court was authorizedfor Orleans Parish, and the LSU Law Centerplayed a part in the second century movement.

Although certainly the Law Center’s primarymission is to prepare its law students for the pro-fession of law, a less heralded but only slightly lessimportant role is to contribute to the improvementof law and legal systems here in the state, in thenation, or abroad. At the state level, several mem-bers of the LSU law faculty serve as members ofthe Council of the Louisiana State Law Institute, adecision-making arm of the state legislature, or asreporters (chairs) of the several permanent or adhoc committees of the Institute. It has been myhonor to serve as the Reporter for the Children’sCode Advisory Committee to the Institute for thepast 15 years. Our committee is responsible formaking recommendations for legislative changes tothe laws administered by the juvenile courts, fromadoption to delinquency proceedings. This hasbeen exciting work, especially in these times ofgreat social upheaval. Indeed, when we go on fac-ulty recruiting ventures, we always tout the

opportunities for applied as well as theoreticalscholarly endeavors to prospective colleagues.Some faculty prospects are eager to put theory towork. As an example, I get to teach the interrelatedareas of family law, juvenile law, and criminal jus-tice, pursue my own scholarly research, andsupervise students writing scholarly papers in theJuvenile Law Seminar (as well as students practicingbefore the East Baton Rouge Juvenile Court in theJuvenile Representation Workshop). At the sametime, I develop legislation to improve legal processesor most recently, rethinking the state’s entire juvenilejustice system. There is an undeniable synergy thatcomes from these disparate enterprises which, inturn, enables a teacher to engage students and beengaged by them in broadly ranging policy debate.

Although all law schools assume some degree ofcivic oversight for the machinery of local, state,national, or international law, the longstandingcollaboration of the LSU Law Center and the LawInstitute is rare if not unique. The Law Institutewas founded in 1938 and chartered to provideresearch and support for the improvement of thelaws of Louisiana. The Institute has maintained theCivil Code and added many important reformconcepts, including the Louisiana Trust Code, theEvidence Code and in 1991, the Children’s Code.Since then, thanks to the continuing oversight andimprimatur of the Institute, the legislature hasenacted Children’s Code legislation covering abroad spectrum of issues including heighteningdue process protections for fathers of nonmaritalchildren in adoption proceedings, authorizing earlymediative intervention in families with troubledchildren, and ensuring the safety and security ofabused and neglected children who have beenplaced in public foster care.

The challenge of 2001 arose from the ashes ofa bitter prison conditions lawsuit exposing the

“ “Although all law

schools assume

some degree of

civic oversight for

the machinery of

local, state,

national, or inter-

national law, the

longstanding

collaboration of

the LSU Law

Center and the

Law Institute is

rare if not unique.

W

1 A scholarly account of the reform movement briefly described in this piece can be found in an article by theauthor and Lauren Cangelosi, Lost Causes, 65 Louisiana Law Review 1125 (2005). Because of that publica-tion, citations have been omitted from this account. There are dozens of persons who should be credited with thesuccess of the reform movement, and my narration is simply that. www.law.lsu.edu


F E A T U R E

8 L S U L A W

more likely to be mentally disabled than had beenpreviously been documented. Using the constitu-tional test for competency, 30% of eleven- to thirteen-year olds, 19% of fourteen- to fifteen-year-olds and12% of sixteen- to seventeen-year-olds were foundto be incompetent to stand trial. Even moretroubling findings of juvenile mental illness andmental retardation were reported by Louisianaresearchers at the LSU Health Sciences Center,School of Public Health. One-third of all adjudi-cated juvenile offenders committed to the statefor placement in facilities like Tallulah werediagnosed with a serious mental illness and anadditional six percent were classified as sufferingfrom mental retardation.

How could this happen? How were these horrif-ically disabled children able to ghost through thejudicial system? Where were their lawyers? Part ofthe answer was disclosed by an investigative surveyof Louisiana juvenile cases conducted by the ABAJuvenile Justice Center: in an extraordinarily highpercentage of cases, no lawyer represented the childbecause the child and his family had waived coun-sel. Since the federal and state constitutions and theChildren’s Code require that a waiver of counsel beknowing and voluntary, this frequency of waiverstudy cast strong doubt on the adequacy of thecourts’ processes in many parts of the state. Thesedata were supported by the hundreds of familymembers who related their family’s stories ofignorance, uncertainty, official overreaching andfear to the Juvenile Justice Commission in itspublic hearings.

After 18 months’ work by the Commission, thecredibility of the Louisiana reform effort was estab-lished and reached the attention of national foun-dations. Among others, the Annie E. CaseyFoundation provided critical, strategic assistanceduring the formulation of the Commission’srecommendations. Significantly, the first executiveact of the new Governor Kathleen BabineauxBlanco was to separate administrative responsibilityfor juvenile prisons from those who administeredthe adult prison system, a pivotal recommendationarticulated by the Commission. Thereafter, theCommission and the Children’s Code AdvisoryCommittee to the Law Institute brought legislativereform proposals to the 2004 legislative session.The legislature endorsed many urgent reforms,including a completely revised process fordetermining the competency of accuseddelinquents facing trials in the juvenile courts andthe prohibition of the waiver of counsel in mostjuvenile delinquency cases.

brutality, violence and bleakness of the juvenilefacility at “Tallulah”, more formally known as theSwanson Correctional Center for Youth–MadisonParish. As the State entered into settlement negotia-tions in the federal litigation, Chief Justice PascalCalagero appealed in his State of the JudiciaryAddress for “all three branches to examine the issueof the current state of our juvenile justice systemand to take bold steps to improve it.” The legisla-ture responded by creating the Juvenile JusticeCommission to take public testimony and formu-late the measures necessary for systemic reform.An Advisory Committee of the Commission wascomposed of state planners, children’s advocates,district attorneys, judges, and academics. The LawCenter was represented by a designated memberof the Advisory Committee.

Part of the job of the juvenile specialists on theAdvisory Committee was to ensure that the Com-mission’s recommendations reflected significantempirical research as well as the best practicesdeveloped by other states. Among other data, whatcame to be known as The MacArthur Report, anationwide empirical study comparing the deci-sion-making of juvenile delinquents withuncharged juveniles and with accused adults,became an important point of discussion. Therichly detailed study documented the finding thatjuveniles who are charged with crimes are even

Professor Lucy McGough discusses details of the LSULaw Center's Juvenile Representation Workshop withco-teacher Stephen Dixon ('87), Assistant PublicDefender with the Office of the Public Defender inBaton Rouge and LSU Law adjunct professor.

The richly detailed

study documented

the finding that

juveniles who are

charged with

crimes are even

more likely to be

mentally disabled

than had been

previously

documented.

www.law.lsu.edu Continued on page 10


F E A T U R E

L S U L A W 9

Professor Lucy McGough is

the Vinson and Elkins Professor

at the LSU Law Center. Her

primary research focus centers

on legal issues involving

children. As Reporter of the

Louisiana Children’s Code Advi-

sory Committee since its

creation in 1991, Professor

McGough has presented several

major revisions of the delin-

quency title that were enacted,

and has written more than 40

different articles and books on

the issue. She and her husband,

Professor James W. Bowers,

joined the Law Center faculty in

1982. Born in Vincennes, Indi-

ana, Professor McGough earned her B.A. at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia in 1962. She went

on to earn her J.D. at Emory University in 1966 and her LL. M. from Harvard University in 1971. It was

during her time studying at Emory University that Professor McGough served as a social worker, and

later a casework supervisor at the Fulton County Department of Family and Children’s Services in

Atlanta, Georgia. There she counseled casework staff and went on to establish the first Court Services

Section. Later, as the Candler Professor of Law, Professor McGough became the first woman at Emory

University to hold a University Chair, teaching there on the faculty for ten years. Co-author of the

Louisiana Children’s Code Handbook, Professor McGough co-teaches the innovative Juvenile Repre-

sentation Workshop that admits third-year students to practice before the East Baton Rouge Parish

Juvenile Court, allowing them the opportunity to represent accused delinquents. A recent sabbatical

gave Professor McGough the time to research the evolution of the parens patriae doctrine—the fount

of the state’s responsibility to protect children.

ProfessorLucyMcGough

“ “The course ahead

is by no means

clear, and juvenile

justice reform will

now compete

more desperately

with other state

priorities in the

years ahead.

www.law.lsu.edu


F E A T U R E

1 0 L S U L A W

And what of Katrina and the MacArthurgrant? In mid-December 2005, the MacArthurFoundation officially notified us that it wouldstand by its commitment to the continuedimprovement of the Louisiana juvenile justice sys-tem. Reform will necessarily be retooled becauseamong other broken pieces of infrastructure, chil-dren once safe in foster care in sea coast commu-nities are now scattered over many other states.So, too, the indigent defender system is so starvedfor funding that it has been sued for inadequacyof representation. The course ahead is by nomeans clear, and juvenile justice reform will nowcompete more desperately with other pressing

state priorities in the years ahead. The state’s pre-mier law school should be a part of helping thestate thread through natural as well as man-madedisasters.

A Georgia Supreme Court justice rather indig-nantly once said to me in a different reform context,“Of course, we’ll endorse that change. My fathertranslated that “seed corn” was that portion that awise farmer held back and protected against all pre-dations because with it he could sew future cropsand ensure his family’s survival. Without it, theywould last the winter and no longer. Helping torestore the rights and dignity of children and fami-lies who pass through the juvenile courts is hus-banding the seed corn for Louisiana.” �

“Whatever you

learn with a

chuckle stays with

you the rest of

your life, but what

you learn with a

yawn you forget

the next day.”

600

500

400

300

200

100

0’80 ’83 ’86 ’89 ’92 ’95 ’98 ’01

Juvenile arrest rates for violent crime index offenses, 1980-20011

Arrests per 100,000 juveniles ages 10-17

The juvenile violent crime index arrest rate in 2001 was at its lowest level since 1983–44% below the peak year of 1994. Allof the growth in the juvenile violent crime index arrest rate that began in the latter part of the 1980s was erased by 2001.

Violent crime index arrests per 100,000 population2

900

800

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

0

In 2000, the violent crime arrest rate for juveniles was nearly as low as it had been in 1980.Under 18 18-24 25-29 30-49 50-64

1980 1994 2000

1,2 National statistics provided by MacArthur Newsletter/Fall ’05

Continued from page 8


L S U L A W 1 1

OR ONE HUNDRED YEARS,

LSU’s legal education has

combined the finest of the

French and Spanish civilian legal

traditions with the breadth of the

Anglo-American common law.

The result is a unique bijural

legal heritage that fuses the best

of both worlds. It is an education

as unique as Louisiana itself.

As the Law Center closed its

historic 2006 Centennial Year,

bijural education still permeates

the LSU Law curriculum. At its

educational core is the knowl-

edge that learning both legal

systems ensures access to

national and international

markets for our graduates.

As the state’s leading law school,

the Law Center’s history reflects

the extraordinary talents of the

faculty, administrators, staff,

and students who have graced

the campus since its beginnings.

More than 8,000 alumni are

distinguished in their accom-

plishments and successful in the

practice of law as judges,

politicians, and entrepreneurs.

It is a 100-year history steeped in

a tradition of scholarship,

teaching, and service.

F


1 2 L S U L A W

1906

100 Years of Scholarship,

Teaching, and Service

LSU Law School opens with 19 full-time law students and one faculty member, Joseph Kelly, who

also served as dean. Classes were heldin Hill Memorial Library on

what is the present site of the statecapitol grounds.

1911Requirement of three years of study forthe Bachelor of Law degree put into

place.

1916The first woman admitted to LSU

Law, Clift Martin, graduates.

1926The Law School moves to the

University’s present campus and ishoused in Thomas D. Boyd Hall.Harriet “Ma” Daggett, the first

woman in the country to become afull professor at an accredited law

school, joins the faculty.

1930Law School faculty consists of fourprofessors, plus one associate and one adjunct. Student enrollment is 86. The law library contains

10,000 volumes.

1936Master of Civil Law program

established.

1937The Law School moves into its

own building on Highland Road,modeled after the U.S. Supreme

Court building.

▲

▲

▲

▲

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Mission of a Louisiana Law School “. . . BEGIN THEN, TO INSTRUCT . . . YOUR SCHOLARS IN THE SCIENCE OF

THE LAW, AND GUIDE THEM IN THE WAY WE HAVE OPENED, TO THE END THAT THEY

MAY BE MADE WORTHY MINISTERS OF JUSTICE AND OF THE REPUBLIC.”

Justinian, as excerpted from

“The Mission of a Louisiana Law School”

by Dean Robert L. Tullis,

TThhee AAlluummnnuuss, October 1908

C elebrating �eFuture

H P onoring

ast�e▲

C E N T E N N I A L


L S U L A W 1 3

C E N T E N N I A L

Student enrollment is 150 and thereare nine full-time regular faculty and

four part-time special lecturers. The library contains 35,000 volumes.

1938Louisiana State Law Institute

established and the Louisiana LawReview begins publication.

1941–42Large numbers of students and faculty

enter armed forces including DeanPaul M. Hebert.

Law School obtains a chapter of theOrder of the Coif.

Law School switches to a trimesterschedule.

1945–46Veterans comprise 47 percent of

returning student body.

1947–48Dean Paul M. Hebert serves as judge

at Nuremberg Trials.

1950Roy S. Wilson is first African

American to enroll in LSU Law.

1951LSU Law Alumni Association

organized.

1954Ernest N. Morial becomes first

African American to graduate fromLSU Law.

1956Law School celebrates

50th anniversary.

1960Applicants take the Law School

Admission Test as a requirement foradmission.

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▲

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Class of 1908, first LSU Law Graduates

Dr. Joseph I. Kelly, first dean of the LSU Law School

▲

▲

1913 Moot Court Competition

▲

Clift Martin, Class of 1916, first womanadmitted to LSU Law School

▲

Class of 1914 ▲

1937


C E N T E N N I A L

1 4 L S U L A W

1963Colonel John M. Tucker of Shreveport,1920 LSU Law graduate, donates his

Civil Law Collection.

1965Institute of Civil Law Studies is

established, later known as the Centerof Civil Law Studies.

1967LSU Law begins awarding the Juris

Doctor as the first degree in law,rather than the L.L.B.

1969The school expands into a new

building.

1970sStudent body and faculty double

in size.

The Black American Law StudentsAssociation (BALSA) and Women in

Law established.

1976The LSU Law School becomes theLSU Law Center, an independent

campus with a chancellor at the helm;diversity in faculty and student body

increases.

1977The LSU Law Center is named the

Paul M. Hebert Law Center.

1983LSU Law Center Fellows program established, creating first LSU Law

endowment fund.

1986Louisiana Law Review included in

the first group of law journals published by Lexis.

199150th Anniversary of the Law Review.

▲

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▲

▲

HE LSU LAW LIBRARY is proud to hold unique files from the

Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals.

In all, 12 trials were held before U.S. military courts and took

place in the same rooms as the International Military Tribunal of the

major criminals of World War II.

Trial six, USA v. Carl Krauch et al, also known as the I.G. Farben

Trial, is of particular significance for LSU Law as it was presided

over by Paul M. Hebert, dean of the law school from 1937-1977.

Hebert took a break from his LSU Law responsibilities when he served as one of three judges for

the trial. The year-long Farben trial was related to the conduct of German industrialists under the

Nazi regime. The Farben defendants were directors of a chemical conglomerate whose subsidiary

manufactured Zyklon B., the poison used in the gas chambers of concentration camps.

The Law Center’s holdings include transcripts of the proceedings, prosecution and defense

exhibits, and photographs. The materials consist of papers collected by Hebert, his notes from

the trial, particularly those on points of law raised during the proceedings, and many documents

involving the day-to-day activities of the tribunal. Much of the

information is only available through the LSU Law Center.

Paul M. Hebert (1907–1977) was the longest serving Dean of

the LSU Law School, as it was called before becoming an

autonomous campus with its own chancellor 30 years ago.

A Milestone for Paul M. Hebert—Nuremberg Military Trials

T


C E N T E N N I A L

L S U L A W 1 5

1998John J. Costonis named Chancellor;

Chancellor establishes 14 point Operational Plan for renewal of LSU

Law Center.

1999Louisiana Governor pledges continu-

ing support for Law Center’s transformation into a national leader.

Louisiana Legislature authorizesincrease in the Law Center tuitionand adds substantial supplemental

appropriations to operational budget.

2002The Law Center becomes the sole U.S.

law school to award both the JurisDoctor and Bachelor of Civil Law

degrees to its graduates. The summerprogram in France becomes the secondlargest of law school summer programsabroad. Law Center moves to second

tier in rankings among ABA lawschools.

2003The $16 million renovation to theLaw Center’s physical plant is dedi-cated. The Program in Law, Science,and Public Health is established. Pro-

gram in Hemispheric Trade is inaugurated.

2004The Law Center’s graduate program is

rated as second best in the nationamong public law schools and 14th

among all law schools.

LSU Law Center rededication marks completion of renovations and

improvements to physical plant andinfrastructure.

2006LSU Law Center hosts Hemispheric

Trade Conference.

LSU Law marks its 100th year.

Centennial Plaza and Russell B. LongMemorial Fountain dedicated.

Enrollment at 575 students with 38 full-time faculty.

▲

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▲

▲

▲

“The Lions of Jurisprudence” in 1951

Ernest N. Morial,first African American

LSU Law School graduate

▲

Cadets in front of the LSU LawSchool in 1942

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The Law School expands into anew building in 1969

▲

In 2003, the LSU Law Center underwent a $16 million renovation ▲


HE LAW CENTER marked its CentennialYear with a celebration in keeping with theinstitution's core mission and values of teach-ing, scholarship, and public service. The activi-ties reflected the Center's sense of moral and

civic responsibility to a state still reeling from theepic hurricanes and floods of 2005. While 2006was a year to celebrate the hundred-year milestone,our faculty, staff, and students are keenly aware ofthe daunting rebuilding process that still lies aheadfor Louisiana.

Surrounding the debate over rebuilding are criti-cal questions: Are levees that are designed to a stan-dard of “once in a hundred years” enough to protectour citizens and cities? Should flood prone areas berebuilt? What is role of the federal government indisasters of this magnitude? Should the state allowfederalization of its national guard?

The Centennial Luncheon and afternoon Stan-ford Centennial Speakers’ Series directly addressedthe issues surrounding Louisiana's long-term recov-ery efforts. Luncheon speaker John Barry described

Hurricane Katrina as, “the perfect storm of bad pol-icy and engineering. The design of the New Orleansflood walls is probably the single worse design flawin the history of civilization,” said Barry. “Govern-ment . . . has a moral responsibility to rebuild NewOrleans . . . It's in the national interest to protectNew Orleans at Category 5 level.”

While Barry looked at historical parallels, otherspeakers focused on today's efforts to rebuildLouisiana. Sean Reilly, Chair of the LouisianaRecovery Authority, discussed the state's RoadHome program, while Ann Mathias and GregoryValliere of the Stanford Washington ResearchGroup, led discussions on the political and econom-ic outlook for the state.

As we move forward with recovery, we feel it isimportant to keep the August 2005 images in ourminds. The photo spread in the following pagescaptures the overwhelming devastation wrought bythe storms and flooding, while essays on the Federaland State Response bring political and legal issues tothe forefront of the disaster response dialogue.

Nature AgainstMan: History,

Politics, and Katrina

JOHN M. BARRY, prize-winning and

New York Times best-selling author, provided

the keynote address at the LSU Law Center

Centennial Luncheon on Friday, September

15, 2006. Addressing a sold-out crowd,

Barry drew parallels between the great Mis-

sissippi River flood of 1927 and the devas-

tation wrought through Hurricanes Katrina

and Rita.

The author is a recognized expert in rivers,

crisis management, infectious disease, and

the media. His books have won more than 20

awards. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi

Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America,

won the 1998 Francis Parkman Prize given

by the Society of American Historians for the

year’s outstanding book of American history.

In 2004, GQ Magazine named Rising Tide

one of nine pieces of writing essential to

understanding America.

Barry frequently advises federal, state,

and World Health Organization officials, and

is in demand as a speaker in the university

and scientific communities. He is the

recipient of the Center for Biodefense and

Emerging Pathogens 2005 “September

Eleventh Award.”

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the

Louisiana Congressional delegation asked

him to chair a bipartisan working group on

flood control. He is co-originator of

Riversphere, a $125 million center being

developed by Tulane University which will

be the first facility in the world dedicated

to comprehensive river research.

He is currently Distinguished Visiting

Scholar at the Center for Bioenvironmental

Research at Tulane and Xavier Universities. Chancellor John J. Costonis welcomed dignitaries, alumni, faculty, staff, students, and sponsors to the day-long series of eventsheld September 2006. Noted guests at the Centennial Gala included left to right, LSU Board of Supervisors member and2002 LSU Law Distinguished Alumnus Charles Weems (’69 LSU Law graduate), The Honorable John Breaux (’67 LSU

Law graduate), political consultant and author James Carville (’73 LSU Law graduate), and Chancellor Costonis.

T

1 6 L S U L A W


Edward P. Richards is the Harvey A. Peltier Professor ofLaw and Director of the Program in Law, Science, and PublicHealth at the LSU Law Center. Professor Richards hasspecialized in health and public health law for more than 25years. He has acted as a consultant to the Centers forDisease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies,and has authored more than 100 articles and books onmedical and public health law.

L S U L A W 1 7

K A T R I N A

Photographs by Edward P. Richards ““HESE IMAGES represent the fusion

of my hobby of large format fine art

photography with my academic

research in public health and disaster

management. I have tried to capture the

power of the storm and the complete

devastation left in its wake. Understanding

the power of these storms is critical for

the sound rebuilding of New Orleans and

the Gulf Coast.

T

Mar

ie C

onst

antin

To view Professor Richards’ complete collection of Images of Destruction, visit www.epr-art.com

Fallen statue in the park by the destroyed Highway 90 bridge in Biloxi, Mississippi.


The refrigerator is more than 12 feet off the ground, showing the level of the floodwater in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.

1 8 L S U L A W

These bicycles are part of the debris of life in the Ninth Ward inNew Orleans, Louisiana.

This house in east Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, was floated from its foundation and caught in the tree before it could be swept to the top of the river levee.

K A T R I N A


K A T R I N A

L S U L A W 1 9

The granite grave markers in this Biloxi, Mississippi churchyardwere scattered like dominos by the storm surge.

This Gulfport, Mississippi miniature golf course is only a few hundred yards from the Gulf and took the full force of the storm surge.

Dozens of small churches in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, Louisiana were flooded to the roof andfilled with mud when the Industrial Canal levee broke.


P R E P A R I N G F O R D I S A S T E R S

A Federal or StateResponsibility?

T 3 A.M. ON MONDAY, August 29, 2005, the dark fury swirling at the mouth of the

Mississippi was a stranger to Louisiana. But by 9 a.m., the jagged hole in the roof of

the mighty Superdome signaled Hurricane Katrina was hell-bent on her historic visit to

New Orleans. Water was already covering eight feet of the lower Ninth Ward, and it was

becoming clear that the greatest of nightmares for any true New Orleanian—the breaching

of the levees—had come to pass.

A


L S U L A W 2 1

Soon the water would be 12 feet high—risinga foot an hour. Forty-eight hours later, the floodinghad reached 20 feet in some neighborhoods. TheCity that Care Forgot would be in chaos—itselfforgotten. Mayor Ray Nagin would yell in frustra-tion during a radio interview as tens of thousandsof people sat stranded in suffocating heat on theirown rooftops and in the city’s downtown Con-vention Center.

It would be six days before television screensacross America would show live images ofcamouflaged armored vehicles and military-escorted buses rolling up in front of theConvention Center where at least 19,000people were stranded for days. But it wouldbe months later that television pundits andlegal scholars would still be debating whowas to blame for the abysmal response toKatrina, and asking which level of govern-ment—the beleaguered city, the over-whelmed state, or the seemingly

uncoordinated federal government—was responsi-ble to make sure it never happened again.

That question goes back to the legal constitu-tional debate over when the federal governmentcan step in and take care of what are traditionallythe responsibilities of the state.

John Baker is the Dale E. Bennett Professor atthe Law Center. He teaches a Constitutional Lawseminar and has team-taught a course on “Separa-tion of Powers” with U.S. Supreme Court Justice

“ “The imagery is the

old ‘cowboy and

Indian’ scene:

when you’re

under attack, yes,

you’re waiting for

the cavalry, but

you can’t give up

before it gets

there.

Professors KennethMurchison, EdwardRichards, and John Baker



2 2 L S U L A W

“What blocks a complete federal takeover is thePosse Comitatus Act.”

The Posse Comitatus Act was passed after theCivil War in 1878 to try to keep the Army fromenforcing domestic laws. Believing the Army wasbecoming politicized as it enforced politically con-troversial Reconstruction laws in the South, Con-gress passed the Posse Comitatus Act to ensure thatthe Army kept to its role of defending the bordersof the United States.

“I think that one might look again at the PosseComitatus Act,” Professor Ken Murchison suggests.Murchison is the James E. and Betty M. PhillipsProfessor at the Law Center, teaching both Consti-tutional History and Constitutional Law. Heserved four years as a judge advocate in the UnitedStates Air Force, and has been a visiting professor atthe United States Military Academy. “That statutewas passed to guarantee that the army would neveragain enforce civil law on behalf of the federal gov-ernment. It seems to me we don’t necessarily havethose conditions [in Katrina}. It’s a good concept toallow the army to respond quickly.” But the PosseComitatus Act applies only to the U.S. Army,Navy, Air Force, and Marines—not to the NationalGuard—whether it is the National Guard Bureauoverseeing National Guard troops under federalcontrol, or each state’s National Guard.

During the days following Katrina, PresidentGeorge Bush asked Louisiana Governor KathleenBlanco for permission to take over command ofLouisiana’s National Guard in order to mobilizemore effectively. Federalizing a state’s NationalGuard puts that National Guard under the com-mand of the United States, making it a componentof the U.S. Army. In Katrina’s case, that wouldhave effectively rendered control of the rescue andrecovery efforts away from the state and into thehands of the feds. After mulling it over for 24hours, Governor Blanco declined to hand off herauthority. Legal scholars and even rival politicianshave praised Blanco for that decision. “There arecircumstances where the president can federalize

Antonin Scalia. “In our country, the first response,not only constitutionally, but practically, has to bethe local government,” he says. “The imagery is theold ‘cowboy and Indian’ scene: when you’re underattack, yes, you’re waiting for the cavalry, but youcan’t give up before it gets there.” Baker points tothe U.S. Constitution, Article 4, Section 4: wherethe federal government is tasked with protectingagainst invasion. The federal government will pro-tect against domestic violence in a state only ifasked by the state’s legislature or executive. InLouisiana’s case, Governor Kathleen Blanco. Thatsection of the Constitution, along with Title 10 ofthe United States Code, is generally interpreted tomean that the federal government and its militaryhas the power to enforce federal law, protectagainst outside invasions, and quell political insur-rections—an important distinction, Baker says,from domestic violence like the looting the worldsaw in New Orleans.

“There has always been a distinction betweenlaw enforcement and relief assistance,” Baker says.

pos•se co•mi•ta•tus /pósiy kòmetéytes/ n.from Latin for “possible force,” the powerof the sheriff to call upon any able-bodiedadult men (and presumably women) inthe county to assist him in apprehendinga criminal. The assembled group is calleda posse for short.

pos•se co•mi•ta•tus /pósiy kòmetéytes/ n.from Latin for “possible force,” the powerof the sheriff to call upon any able-bodiedadult men (and presumably women) inthe county to assist him in apprehendinga criminal. The assembled group is calleda posse for short.

“ “

The mistake was

not making an

initial request for

the National

Guard even before

the levees broke.

It would have

been difficult for

the New Orleans

Police Department

and the Sheriff’s

Office to maintain

order, even if the

levees had never

broken.

Kenneth Murchison



L S U L A W 2 3

the National Guard,” Murchison says, explainingthat calling for help from the federal military isvery different from turning over the relief effort tothe military. “But I do think the state needed tomake the decision about whether or not this wasan emergency that exceeded our capabilities. Thestate should be responsible for calling on federalassets. The mistake was not making an initialrequest for the National Guard even before thelevees broke. It would have been difficult for theNew Orleans Police Department and the Sheriff ’sOffice to maintain order, even if the levees hadnever broken.”

Professor Ed Richards, too, lays much of theblame for the inept response to Katrina at the feetof the state. “It’s the primary responsibility of thestate government to prevent 20,000 people fromsheltering in the Superdome.” Richards is the LawCenter’s Harvey A. Peltier Professor, and directsthe Law Center’s Program in Law, Science, andPublic Health. “Federalism needs permission,” heexplains. “You have to invite in the federal troops.The feds can’t be everywhere. Disasters grow out oflong-term political problems. FEMA can’t respondin a matter of days in a way that makes up for 40or 50 years of poor planning.”

Referring to FEMA, Professor Baker points outthat some of the confusion in people’s evaluationof the response to Katrina comes from a funda-mental confusion about the difference between themilitary and a federal agency. “People say the mili-tary was effective—why can’t FEMA be that way?Because the military is organized in a way that wecan’t and don’t want to organize federal agencies.”Baker argues that members of the military give upa lot of their rights, and the military, by nature ofexisting to fight wars, has an austere disci-pline because it simply cannot fail. Thoseare the kinds of things, he explains, that arenot found in a bureaucracy.

Pointing to the comparison between theMississippi and Louisiana response to Kat-rina, Baker suggests that each state was freeto organize as it wanted and that Louisiana’splans—like its Hurricane Pam exercise car-ried out just a year before Katrina—simplywere not real plans.

Both Richards and Murchison agree that theanswer for the next disaster—be it another naturaldisaster or the terrorist attack to which so manyfear Katrina has exposed vulnerability—is not morefederalization. “It doesn’t make sense for the federalgovernment to make a plan for every major city,”Murchison insists. “Because for the first 24 hours,

regardless of how many military forces you bringin, you’re going to have to use local assets becausethose are the only people who can get there.”

Nor is the answer more laws, Richards pointsout. “There are too many emergency preparationlaws. The law is almost irrelevant in an emergency.We have more than enough laws—we have nopolitical implementation.”

The professors agree there is the practical andpolitical challenge of locally enforcing repeatedevacuations as part of sufficient emergency pre-paredness, when three or four such evacuationswhere an unpredictable storm does no damagecould begin to frighten homeowners, and makebusinesses question their location.

Murchison argues the lessons learned after Kat-rina include the state’s responsibility to specificallyrequest the assets in its hurricane preparednessplan. Beyond that, finding ways to mitigate flooddamage on the front end is the state’s responsibili-ty. He argues that not relocating in flood-proneareas, building better-constructed levees, andfocusing on coastal restoration are critical.

For Baker, the biggest lesson learned from Kat-rina is the need for interoperable communicationsamong all branches and levels of government. “Weare too centralized,” he warns, “ in the face of ter-rorist threats and natural disasters. We need a com-munications system based on the internet whereno one blow can defeat the entire system.” Theseare questions that when looked at in light of Katri-na appear to be Louisiana’s questions. Yet, whenviewed in light of a test case for a devastatingattack on one of America’s most important cities,they indeed become America’s questions.�

“ “Disasters grow

out of long-term

political problems.

FEMA can’t

respond in a

matter of days in

a way that makes

up for 40 or 50

years of poor

planning.

Edward Richards

www.law.lsu.edu


Peppercorns

B Y J U L I E B A X T E R

nd the beginning of this class is no differentthan the beginning of the first class ProfessorLitvinoff teaches the first day of each semester.As the story goes, by that opening day of the

semester, he already knows his students’ names,and likely he’s either written the textbook or knowsthe book by heart before that first lecture. That,and that he speaks six languages. Or was it seven?

Sitting before his students in a light sky bluedress shirt and grey and white striped tie, framedin an impeccable steel grey blazer, Litvinoff ges-tures easily with one hand, pounding out the Pep-percorn theory of consideration with shortquestions, punctuated with his own staccato Latinlilt, often lingering over the last syllable of aword.

“You see, a little suede sack of 40 peppercornsis of great historic value because that was whatwas given in exchange by the Dutch settlers forthe island of Manhattan.” As his students’ eye-brows raise interested in this new bit of Americana,Litvinoff smiles, hand raised. Freshmen are hisfavorite students, he tells me later. “You see,peppercorns must have had value at that time,”he phrases slowly to his students, going on toexplain in his characteristic dry humor thatNative Americans didn’t care about condiments

then, but that preserving their meat, as a singlepeppercorn would, was extremely important totheir survival.

As the legal concept of consideration begins todawn on these students, Litvinoff can only bereliving what it is that took him out of the shinyhalls of private practice in Argentina years earlier,and into the classroom for what would be morethan 40 years.

itvinoff ’s life is clearly people-centered. He and his wife Anna of 30 years, whom he says he

gave up trying to replace, had one daughter togeth-er. That daughter, Anna, still lives in Baton Rougenear her father, where he claims he lives in themost beautiful subdivision in the city. Walnut Hillsis dotted with centenary oaks. The Litvinoffsadopted two American sons, one of whom lives inNew Orleans, the other in Lake Charles,Louisiana. All three children are attorneys.

On March 15, 1925 in the sprawling Argentinecapital of Buenos Aires, a city of 12 million, SaúlLitvinoff was born to a Ukrainian father and aRomanian mother. Raising Saúl, and his onlybrother David, Saúl’s parents communicated inGerman. “To this day, I think in German,” Litvinoff

2 4 L S U L A W

Poetry

LAPTOPS SNAP UPRIGHT like the old flashcubes rising from vintage cameras as sec-

ond-semester first-year students file into their 8 a.m. Contracts class on the first floor of

the LSU Law Center. Just before 8 a.m., Professor Saúl Litvinoff walks noiselessly

through the doorway, but his first steps into the classroom hush conversation. He sits

down, in no hurry—no book, and no notes with him. “Turn to page 33 in your books,”

he says, skimming his eyes across the faces of his students, some of them hoping the

nearby paper mug of Community Coffee® will wake them up before the Socratic lottery

that could pull their name this morning. “Mr. Palmer? Tell me, Gene. . . ”

��LProfessor Litvinoff, 1984

A Conversation with Professor Saúl Litvinoff& :

A

F E A T U R E


tells me. But a French governess for Saúl and anEnglish governess for David helped Saúl assimilateyet two more languages. Today he has added Italianand Portuguese to the repertoire of languages hespeaks fluently, along with the ability to read Latinand Greek. But he admits to having developed apreference for English. “English is a straight lan-guage. You can express things directly without hav-ing to go around things.”

Saúl’s father was an exporter, one his sondescribes as making several fortunes and “spendingthem merrily” on educations for his sons. Hisbrother David would become an engineer, a pro-fessor of mathematics and a historian. “Papaalways taught me that it doesn’t matter how longyou live. The only thing that matters is how youlive.” His father lived until diabetes stole him awayat the age of 64. But Saúl had already begun inearnest his own personal quest to find how this‘living’ should work.

In 1949, Litvinoff started as an associate ingeneral commercial practice in the large firm ofIbero Berenguer and Associates in downtownBuenos Aires. Like many big firm successfullawyers, this is not the way he advises studentstoday to begin life as a lawyer.

“Today,” he says, “I tell them: find yourself ahick town. Go there. Hang a shingle. You’ll starvethe first year. By the fifth year, you’ll make enoughmoney to spend three months in Europe,” hesmiles. “So many times, the good ones become asmall screw or a nut in huge machines. That’s frustrating to them, and painful for me. In orderto help people, you have to start by understandingthem. In a large firm, all you get is a memo, noteven a photo of a client.”

Back in 1954 though, a 29-year-old Litvinoffmade partner at Ibero Berenguer, specializing inadministrative and corporate law. It would be five years before he would strike out on his ownto become the senior partner in the firm of Litvinoff, Merlino, and Rodriguez. He was an

“

“

Human beings are precious jewels, each one,” he says.

Whatever I can do for a human being to contribute a few strokes

to that work of art, I do.

I love to sculpt in human souls.

y


P E P P E R C O R N S & P O E T R Y

2 6 L S U L A W

oft-called-upon resource for the ArgentineSupreme Court in cases involving foreign invest-ments and international transactions ‘with a con-stitutional tinge,’ as he describes them.

But by 1962, he says the 6 a.m. drive everymorning to the subway station to take a 40-minutesubway ride into the city’s center had turned twohours of every day into commuting time, and itwas beginning to wear on his health. Litvinoff saysa family doctor expressed concerns about his phys-ical well-being to his wife Anna. “And she decidedwe should accept an invitation from the Yale LawSchool,” he says. And with that, the Litvinoffswere coming to America.

ack on the first floor of the Law Center, a first-year student stammers as she struggles with

her question on consideration. Litvinoff lets herfinish, then smiles. “Yes, my dear,” he says, his eyestwinkling. “Even though you do not know how toword your question, I fully understand. I readminds.” A ripple of laughter rolls through the class-room. His students are beginning to think they willsurvive this semester after all.

Turning to the next case, one decided in 1951,the professor—hands clasped, holding his coatlapels together—takes his students back to that erawith talk of how large the cars were back then. It’snot always obvious in the classroom that Litvinofffeels so innately connected to his students. But hetells me that he stopped traveling during the semes-ter when he realized it complicated students’ livestoo much to have to reschedule classes.

“My best friends are my students, especially for-mer students,” he emphasizes, saying that he triesnot to bestow personal favors to any of his stu-dents. But yes, he admits he remembers many ofthe nearly 5,000 students he has taught over theyears. How does he want his students to rememberhim? “I hope,” he tells me later, “that they say hehad a good sense of humor and that he made uslove the law.” He pauses before pointing out,

“Whatever you learn with a chuckle stays with youthe rest of your life. But, what you learn with ayawn, you forget the next day.” It’s a lesson likelylearned over a teaching career that began evenbefore Saúl Litvinoff left his birthplace of BuenosAires to study at Yale that summer of 1963.

o the four degrees he earned at the University of Buenos Aires, in 1964 Litvinoff added an

LL.M. from Yale Law School, teaching while hewas earning that degree as a Visiting Professor ofLaw at the University of Puerto Rico.

It was in Chicago at a law professors’ conven-tion that Litvinoff remembers meeting for the firsttime LSU’s Dean Paul M. Hebert, the namesake ofthe LSU Law Center. “He was looking for some-one who could teach at least Introduction to CivilLaw—the required freshman class now titled LegalTraditions,” Litvinoff remembers. “The school waslooking to add a section of freshmen.” At that timethere was only one freshman section. By the 1970s,LSU Law would have as many as five freshman sec-tions, cutting back with stricter admissions stan-dards to its current three sections.

And the Civil Code would be Litvinoff ’s chiefendeavor in the years that would follow at LSU.He would become the reporter for the Revision ofTitles III and IV of Book III of the Louisiana CivilCode, seeing that enacted as Louisiana’s new Lawof Obligations in 1984. He would further benamed the reporter for revising titles of Louisiana’sLaw of Sales, and Transaction and Compromise,and go on to advise the committees in charge ofrevising the titles of Louisiana’s Law on Depositand Sequestration, and Quasi-Contract andEnrichment Without Cause.

When he speaks of those devoted to preservingthe vitality of the civil code, Litvinoff talks of being‘of the blood.’ He points to his civilian predeces-sors at LSU Law as being Canadian professorJoseph Dainow, and the world-renowned civil lawprofessor Thanassi Yiannopoulos. But there were

��B

��T“ “Whatever you

learn with a

chuckle stays with

you the rest of

your life. But,

what you learn

with a yawn,

you forget the

next day.”

Professor Saúl Litvinoff


P E P P E R C O R N S & P O E T R Y

L S U L A W 2 7

not many ‘of the blood,’ as he puts it—and hemeans raised under a civilian regime—back in1965 when the Litvinoffs were moving to BatonRouge “There was no doctrine, no treatise,” Litvi-noff remembers. “And without doctrine, it’s diffi-cult to teach and learn a subject.”

So in 1970, just as he was asked to be only thesecond professor to teach Obligations at LSU,Litvinoff not only began writing a treatise on obli-gations, but he would also begin revising theLouisiana Civil Code’s section on Obligations.That process took him 15 years. Those new articleswere enacted into law in Louisiana in 1984. As forhis Obligations treatise, in 2005, he was still in themidst of writing his fifth volume of that treatise.In 1985, he would be appointed reporter to revisethe civil code title of Sales—a task he completed 10years later. By 1986, he had already published thefirst edition of his textbook: Sales and Lease inLouisiana Jurisprudence.

By the end of 2005, Litvinoff had published atleast 17 books, covering everything fromLouisiana’s civil law on Obligations and Sales, tothe banking laws of Honduras, El Salvador,Nicaragua and Mexico. He has published morethan 22 articles in law reviews from Canada toLouisiana and Puerto Rico.

Admitted to the Argentine, Costa Rican andHonduran Bars, for 20 years Litvinoff was theDean of the Central American Banking School,operating under the auspices of LSU. He serves as aconsultant to the United States State Department,the Louisiana Department of State and the CentralBank of Honduras. He still reads every Louisianadecision in the Southern Reporter. He hopes to fin-ish the fifth volume of his treatise on the Louisianalaw of obligations before he dies.

It is a topic that at the age of 82 he brings upoften and with no trepidation—death. “Death is afascinating part of life,” he says with deep convic-tion. “It is perhaps the greatest education Provi-dence allows to everybody.” The professor’s motherlived a long life, so Providence seems to haveimplanted the ingredients for a long prelude to thateducation for the professor. But this quiet gentle-man is not afraid to look frankly forward or backupon a life in which he learned to steer his energyalways outward—whether it be to his belovedAnna, remembered at LSU, he reminds me, for hercreation of the Rare Book Room—or into his stu-dents’ lives and futures.

When asked what he is most proud of in hislong, legendary legal career, he doesn’t rush, but hedoesn’t waver in answering: “I’m proud of being a

kind person,” he says. “If I had a coat of arms, thescript in the coat of arms would read ‘Comprehen-sion, Compassion, Cooperation.’” Although he is aman who has devoted many years to expoundingthe minutia of the law in successive volumes ofacademic and legislative work, he will not forcescholarship on you.

I ask him whether he believes that law is thebest profession. “No,” he says firmly. He explainsthat he appreciates many professions, as he appre-ciates many subjects. Telling me that he watchesonly two hours of television a week (one on Thurs-day, one on Sunday, both on public television), hesays he devotes the rest of his spare time to readingpsychology, medicine, and listening to music. “Iwrite poetry, you know.”

“Are you a romantic?” I ask, curious. Quickly,earnestly, he leans forward. “By all means!” Thenhe talks wistfully about how in conversation withtoday’s students, he has come to regret that theirgeneral education and even their entertainment, isbecoming more one-sided to him. He believes theyare more business-oriented and seek immediategratification, rather than experiencing the joy ofdiscovering one another and the world unfoldingaround them.

“Law is a good profession, though,” he stressesto me, coming back to the topic of his livelihood.“Physicians deal with health. Attorneys deal withambition, greed, creation, love. If you understandthese things you can be very happy practicing.”

few minutes before the end of the hour, Litvinoff has just heard a student answer the

last question he posed. “C-ertainly!” he answers quickly—a favorite

response of his, stopping to elongate the ‘C’ as heframes the word. With a quick look toward theback wall at a clock signaling class is nearly over,Litvinoff winds up his explanation and explainstomorrow’s assignment. As he dismisses his stu-dents, two or three make their way to the front,tentatively trying to clear up those remaining bitsof confusion over the concept of consideration.The professor is in no hurry to leave. These con-versations, like the running Socratic dialogue heholds during his lectures, are the work of his life.

“Human beings are precious jewels, each one,”he says. “Whatever I can do for a human being tocontribute a few strokes to that work of art, I do.I love to sculpt in human souls.” And this sculptorclearly is not done with his work.

� � �

��A


L S U L A W 2 9

B Y J O H N J . C O S T O N I S

HIRTY YEARS OF SERVICE as a professor and dean at various American law schools persuaded me that the similarities in their programs were far greater than their differences.

Some schools emphasize certain dimensions oftheir programs over others, of course, typicallythrough such vehicles as specialized institutes,degrees, or pedagogical style. Some focus on locallaw issues more prominently than others that stresstheir national orientation. Overall, however, I cameto believe that law schools differ principally on thebasis of the breadth, depth, and quality of theirpursuit of essentially a common mission.

Then I came to the LSU Law Center in 1998.And, I have been puzzling over the accuracy of thisperception ever since.

W H A T I S D I F F E R E N T A T T H E L S U L A W C E N T E R ?

From its founding a century ago, the Law Cen-ter has faced the challenge of teaching its studentsto become effective practitioners under two of theworld’s dominant legal systems, the Civil and theCommon Law. Meeting the challenge of bijural(Civil and Common Law) education presentsissues that shape many of the key components ofthe Law Center’s program in ways that set it apartfrom the programs of other United States lawschools.

Perhaps the best way to detail this point is toput the readers of this article in the chair of theLSU Law Center Chancellor, and ask how theywould respond to the following questions, all ofwhich bear on the school’s distinctive character. Invarying ways the questions below confronted theLaw Center in 1906, confront it in 2007, and,absent a basic restructuring of Louisiana’s dual sys-tem, will confront it into the indefinite future.

How should faculty positions be allocated asbetween the school’s Civil and Common Law cur-riculums?

How should the school address the problem ofgenerating the additional resources required tofunction bijurally (Civil and Common Law), par-

ticularly in light of American Bar Association andAmerican Association of Law School accreditationstandards, which are premised on a monojural(Common Law) program? To accommodate itsbijural program, the Law Center requires a consid-erably larger faculty than those of monojural lawschools with similarly sized student bodies.

How should the school’s faculty recruiting pro-gram for its many Louisiana and Civil Law slotsbe conducted? Should it basically hire its owngraduates or Civilian-trained instructors fromother Louisiana law schools? Should it lookinstead to foreign (Civilian) jurisdictions or per-haps to Comparative Law generalists from otherUnited States law schools? Should it pursue somemix of these approaches?

How should the school’s library/electronicresources program be designed in an environmentin which foreign legal materials costs sharplyexceed the ever-increasing bill for domestic legalmaterials? All ABA-approved law schools mustprovide for some foreign materials in their librarycollections, of course. But this challenge is decid-edly more complex in Louisiana’s bijural contextwhich requires comprehensive coverage of a vari-ety of foreign Civilian jurisdictions.

How should faculty research be divided asbetween conventional domestic topics and theCivil Law of Louisiana and of foreign Civilianjurisdictions generally?

Should teaching and research in the Civil andCommon Law fields be compartmentalized? Or,should they instead be linked on the basis of whathas been termed a “trans-systemic” approach thatidentifies and evaluates the two legal systems onthe basis of efficiency or cultural criteria that areextrinsic to both?

How should the Law Center respond to theopportunities the increasingly global character ofeconomic and, hence, legal relationships create fora school whose bijuralism engages two of theglobe’s dominant legal systems?

Should the school offer a bijural program forstudents who will remain in-state, and a monojuralprogram for nonresident students or for Louisiana

T “ “The Law Center

occupies the

unusual position

of being well

known locally and

internationally

while being largely

opaque to a

national audience

for whom Civil Law

and bijuralism are

quite literally

foreign concerns.

C O V E R S T O R Y


A M O S T U N C O M M O N L A W S C H O O L

3 0 L S U L A W

residents who intend to practice elsewhere in theUnited States, even if the second two groups aremore likely to enjoy greater opportunities for glob-al legal practice?

How should the Law Center’s bijural environ-ment impact the school’s obligations for publicservice to the Louisiana legal community and toCivil Law jurisdictions generally? What, for exam-ple, should be the scope of the Law Center’s con-tributions to the legislatively established LouisianaLaw Institute that, among other functions, draftslegislation introducing Common Law conceptsand institutions into the state’s Civil Law Code?

To what extent should the demands ofLouisiana’s unique bar examination—nine ofwhose 12 essay sections are devoted to Civil Lawsubjects—govern both the content of the LawCenter’s curriculum and the number and characterof its mandatory offerings?

How should the Law Center’s bijural orientationbe linked to the various international componentsof its program? Among the latter are a Center ofCivil Law Studies, a graduate program for foreignpostgraduate students, a summer program abroadfor its J. D. students, and a Distinguished GlobalVisitors program that annually engages six to eightdistinguished academics, judges, and practitionersfrom foreign Civilian jurisdictions. Many otherUnited States law schools offer a home for one ormore of these components, of course. Unlike theselaw schools, however, the Law Center and its stu-dents share a well-grounded awareness of the CivilLaw tradition with students, law schools, and visi-tors from foreign Civilian jurisdictions.

How should the LSU Law Center present itselfto the nation’s other law schools as well as to anational audience of judges, employers, and otherobservers? The Law Center occupies the unusualposition of being well known locally and interna-tionally while being largely opaque to a nationalaudience for whom Civil Law and bijuralism arequite literally foreign concerns. Little is knownelsewhere about Louisiana’s bijuralism beyondStanley Kowalski’s less-than-accurate commentconcerning the Napoleonic Code1 in A StreetcarNamed Desire, or the comment often heard inAmerican law school classrooms that 49 states do itone way but Louisiana does it another.

My purpose in posing these questions is not torespond to them in an article of this brief compass.Nothing less than a review of the Law Center’sentire program or various recent Annual Reports tothe LSU System President would be sufficient todescribe how they are being addressed as we moveinto the school’s second century. My purposeinstead is to stress the infrequency with which thesequestions have arisen in exchanges I have had withfellow deans over the last two decades. With theexception, perhaps, of Louisiana’s other lawschools, it is fair to note that most have not arisenat all.

W H A T I S T H E S A M E A T T H E L S U L A W C E N T E R ?

Certainly then, Louisiana’s bijural law school isunique.

But it would be a mistake to slight the manyrespects in which the Law Center also shares theculture of its sister law schools throughout thenation. Ignoring this reality, in fact, threatens toconvert the window of the world offered by theschool’s bijuralism into a wall sealing the schoolwithin a space both isolated and parochial.

Like these schools, the Law Center must satisfydetailed accreditation standards of the AmericanAssociation of Law Schools and the American BarAssociation, which govern matters as varied as pro-grams of study, legal skills instruction, finances and

1Stanley’s statement, as immortalized by MarlonBrando in the movie of the same name, was that“[i]n the state of Louisiana we have the NapoleonicCode according to what belongs to the wife belongs tothe husband and vice versa.” The Louisiana’s CivilCode not only differs in material respects from itsFrench predecessor, but the Code’s origins reflect dis-tinctive Spanish influences as well. www.law.lsu.edu

“ “Perhaps the

greatest link

between the Law

Center and the

national legal

academy is the

Law Center’s

devotion of the

lion’s share of its

program to the

Common Law.


L S U L A W 3 1

student/faculty ratios, library administration andcollections, faculty governance, faculty and studentbody diversity, and physical facilities.

Similarly, the Law Center must impart the intel-lectual, ethical and craft tools its students requirefor a lifetime of engagement as respected lawyers orlaw-related professionals, whether in Louisiana orelsewhere.

It must also compete with its law school peers inthe demanding competition for outstanding stu-dents, faculty, and administrators, as well as for stu-dent placement opportunities with local andnational law firms and in state and federal judicialclerkships.

Despite or perhaps even because of its privilegedposition astride both the Common and the CivilLaw, the Law Center must encourage faculty schol-arship in both systems that measures up to thescope and quality expected of an outstanding lawschool.

Perhaps the greatest link between the Law Cen-ter and the national legal academy is the Law Center’s devotion of the lion’s share of its programto the Common Law. The latter phrase encompassesfederal constitutional, statute, regulatory and caselaw as well as many private law subjects that,although state-based, have been substantially meld-ed to facilitate interstate economic and socialexchanges. Also qualifying for the Common Lawlabel is the entire corpus of Louisiana’s public lawincluding its civil and criminal procedure. Whetherthe topic is federal taxation, federal constitutionallaw, civil or criminal procedure or torts, therefore,what occurs in the Law Center’s classrooms, libraryor research program differs little, if at all, from whattakes place at the nation’s other law schools.

N A T I O N A L F L A G S H I P S T A T U S : B A L A N C I N GT H E L A W C E N T E R ’ S C I V I L A N D C O M M O N L A WD I M E N S I O N S

Change, it has often been noted, is the onlyconstant in the life of an organization.

Change comes to law schools as the law andlegal systems change around them, compellingthem to restructure courses, teaching formats, andresearch perspectives.

But change for the Law Center has also beentriggered by the LSU Board of Supervisors’ currentcharge that it, along with the LSU A&M and LSUAgriculture Center campuses, achieve nationalflagship status.

For monojural law schools, developing a strate-gy to achieve this status is straightforward. They

largely agree both on the benchmarks that measurenational excellence and on the compatibility ofthese benchmarks with their essentially commonmission.

For the Law Center, however, a strategy for andperhaps even the desirability of achieving nationalflagship status is a more complex question. Doesthe school’s unique mission and identity evademeasurement by these same national benchmarks?Is there a danger that mission and identity mayeven be compromised by their pursuit?

A proper basis for responding to these ques-tions, I believe, is to remain alert to the preciseways in which the Law Center’s program is boththe same as and different from the programs ofmonojural law schools.

The simpler side of the issue relates to thoseaspects and values of the program that the LawCenter shares with these schools. Most salient, ofcourse, is the two-thirds of the Law Center’s cur-riculum that is largely identical to the curriculumsof law schools nationally. The Law Center mustaddress the same challenges as these schools, there-fore, in securing excellence in the teaching of andrecruitment of outstanding faculty for this compo-nent of its curriculum.

The more problematic side arises with respectto the bijural dimensions of the Law Center’s pro-gram, which clearly are unique. These dimensionsspeak to core Law Center values that merit contin-ued support and development in the Law Center’seffort to meet its obligations to address bothLouisiana law and the latter’s linkage to the Civil-ian tradition generally. But national benchmarkstailored to their unique character do not exist.Nor does transposing benchmarks associated withthe practices of Civilian law schools abroad afforda promising alternative.

The sound course, I believe, is to celebrate theLaw Center’s bijural dimensions precisely becausethey afford it a comparative advantage in address-ing the local and international facets of its overallprogram in ways denied to American law schoolsgenerally. With its century-long experience inbijuralism, the Law Center is in an enviable posi-tion to formulate its own criteria of excellencerather than deriving them from the practices of anacademic community that lacks this experience.Its challenges instead are to define these criteriaand to demonstrate to the larger legal communitywhy a program satisfying them merits a cherishedplace both in American and foreign teaching andscholarship.

“ “With its century-

long experience in

bijuralism, the Law

Center is in an

enviable position

to formulate its

own criteria of

excellence . . .

www.law.lsu.edu� � �

A M O S T U N C O M M O N L A W S C H O O L


CREDIT GOES HERE


L S U L A W 3 3

HE VERY FIRST THING John Joseph Costonisdid as the Chancellor at the LSU Law Center was to install a window in his office’s then solid panel wall. “That’s perhaps the most prophetic I could

have been as the new Chancellor,” Costonis says.“I wanted to open the school up.”

Today, the view from the windows of his relo-cated office looks out over the LSU Lakes to theeast, and toward the Honors College and themain LSU campus Student Union to the west. A$17 million physical plant remodeling is realitynow. For Costonis, the last nine years havecapped a century of preparation for attainingNational Flagship status. The Paul M. HebertLaw Center is facing the future now, truly poisedfor greatness.

Dr. Joseph Kelly inaugurated the LSU LawSchool before 19 eager young law students

on September 24, 1906 in the basement of theHill Memorial Library where the Louisiana’s StateCapitol stands today. He could hardly haveknown that 100 years later, LSU’s Paul M. HebertLaw Center would stand not as a college, but asits own separate Law Center—its architecturalsignature façade a stately replica of the UnitedStates Supreme Court, proudly facing LouisianaState University’s parade grounds.

In 1997, more than 90 years into its history,John Costonis, formerly dean of the VanderbiltLaw School, was pondering an offer to becomethe Law Center’s fourth chancellor. The institu-tion’s fortunes were floundering. With the pool ofapplicants to the school once at 1,500 and thendown to 900, an undemanding admissions policyhad led to two out of three applicants admitted tothe Law Center. That resulted in the Law Center’slaying claim to one of the most severe attritionrates in the country at nearly 40 percent, as com-pared to the American Bar Association lawschools’ norm of approximately 10 percent. Withthat near-Darwinian atmosphere pervading thecampus, even though some 7,000 Law Centeralumni were practicing law around the world,

Costonis soon realized that alumni relations weredeeply troubled in the late 90s.

The Law Center was also facing a severe budg-et challenge. In 1997, while the Southern Region-al Education Board average law school tuition was$5,330 a year, the LSU Law Center was charging$4,000 a year. That same year, despite a 97-credit-hour requirement to graduate, as opposed to theABA standard 81 hours, the Law Center’s expen-diture per full-time student was $11,922. Com-pared even to its closest neighbors, with SouthernUniversity right across town spending $18,792per full-time student, Tulane spending $17,234and Loyola $15,130, the LSU Law Center ranked inthe bottom eighth—at 145 among 180 Americanlaw schools—in expenditure per full-time student.

Beyond that, with dwindling support from thestate legislature and only a $3 million capitalbudget, the school’s physical facilities were quick-ly deteriorating. A 1994 ABA accreditation reporthad gone beyond noting the threat of a studentbody so large in relation to faculty size that ade-quate legal instruction could not be sustained.The report found the Law Center in violation ofABA minimum standards for adequate physicalfacilities. The ABA also found that the Law Cen-ter failed to meet the minimum fiscal resourcesrequired for an adequate legal education and,most prominently, lacked adequate libraryresources, practices, and staffing. Subscriptions tosome 3,000 serials had been cut from the lawlibrary. Only 2,415 serial titles were active, andspending on electronic databases stood at$57,924.

Chancellor Costonis remembers he first seri-ously considered tackling these challenges out ofrespect for a cherished mentor, Bill Hawkland,who had served as the Law Center’s first fullchancellor from 1979–1989. Hawkland taught atthe University of Illinois in the 1970s, during thetime Costonis himself taught there. In 1978,Hawkland left Illinois to come to Baton Rouge,his wife Rosemary’s hometown. Although Costonishad grown up in Boston, he too, had a personalconnection to Louisiana: his first wife and in-lawshad been residents of New Orleans’ Garden Dis-

F E A T U R E

Achieving NationalFlagship Status

T

��

www.law.lsu.edu

The willingness

of key state and

university leaders

to endorse the plan

and its strategies

convinced Costonis

that Baton Rouge

should be his

home.


P O I S E D F O R G R E A T N E S S

3 4 L S U L A W

trict, and his three children enjoyed many a MardiGras parading along St. Charles Avenue. A nation-ally distinguished historic preservation scholar,Costonis had involved himself in the Vieux CarreCommission’s efforts to preserve the city’s FrenchQuarter. Upon completing his studies at HarvardUniversity and the Columbia Law School, Costonispracticed law in Washington D.C. and Chicago,and taught on the faculties of the law schools of theUniversity of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Berkeley, andNew York University. When the LSU challenge waspresented to him, he had just completed theeleventh year of what by national standards was anextraordinarily long deanship at the Vanderbilt LawSchool.

Drawing from those years and more, Costonisremembers building a matrix of criteria, based onthe exemplary law schools where he had taught,that would achieve two goals. The first was to pre-serve the extraordinarily proud tradition of academ-ic performance the Law Center had exhibited. Thesecond, to overcome the physical and budgetarydeficiencies impeding the Law Center’s efforts toexcel on a national front. While interviewing forthe chancellor post, Costonis penned a back-of-the-envelope Operational Plan for the school’stransformation. His plan demanded an unprece-dented financial and indeed political commitmenton the part of then-Governor Mike Foster’s officeand the state legislature for the Law Center toimplement the concerted strategies called for in theplan to hurdle the budget gap. The willingness ofkey state and university leaders to endorse the planand its strategies convinced Costonis that BatonRouge should be his home.

From Governor Foster’s Chief of Staff StevePerry came the impetus for an extra $2 million inannual state funding, and the selling of the visionthat the legislature aggressively fund LSU’s rise instatus to that of a nationally-recognized university.From Foster’s Commissioner of AdministrationMark Drennen came the commitment of an even-tual total of $17 million in capital improvementsover the next several years. From LSU Board ofSupervisors’ members Charles Weems and RogerOgden came assurances that the Foster administra-tion would stand behind its word. The task aheadwould take the combined efforts of LSU’s Presidentand Board of Supervisors, the Foster Administra-tion, the state legislature, Louisiana’s Board ofRegents, the Louisiana congressional delegation,and the Law Center’s students and alumni. But asthe new millennium arrived, it became clear thatwith the Law Center’s Centennial celebration,there would indeed be much to celebrate.

Chancellor Costonis is proud of the effortsthat have come together through the gener-

ous commitment of a growing number of alumniwith newfound pride in their school, the devotionof a respected faculty now increasingly recognizedfor outstanding scholarship and research, and theenthusiasm of a more diverse, more selectivelychosen student body.

In 2003, the Law Center became only one oftwo law schools in the Western Hemisphere toaward its graduates the joint degree of Juris Doctorand Bachelor of Civil Law to honor the school’srigorous 97-credit-hour program of training inboth the Common and Civil Law. With eight newfaculty positions added since Costonis’ arrival, 38faculty members now teach full-time at the LawCenter, which today offers 90 different coursetitles. The Legal Writing program added six newfaculty positions, now titled Professor of the Prac-tice of Law, that were selected from a national field.Compared to 33 part-time professors in 1995, 61adjunct professors now teach at the Law Center—28 of those professors teaching legal skills courses,and 33 teaching academic classes. Seven newinstructors teach common law or internationalcourses. Four new faculty members are women. Acommitted faculty has reinvigorated importantcenters, including the Center of Civil Law Studies,the George W. and Jean H. Pugh Institute for Jus-tice, with its focus on criminal law studies, and theMineral Law Institute.

Strong faculty research support programs arein place, annually distributing over $390,000 sup-porting not only routine stipends for summerresearch but awarding premiums for articles andbooks published by the top national and interna-tional law reviews and university presses. Evidenceof the program’s impact appears in the followingtotals from its inception; during the period1999–2000 through 2000–2005, the Law Centerfaculty published 111 books or book supplements,195 articles and reported serving on the editorialboards of 20 publications.

On the information technology front, the LawCenter moved from lacking a single computernetwork in 1997, to investing millions of dollars toprovide staff and equipment appropriate for a greatresearch institution. The Law Center’s library,where the ABA focused its sharpest criticisms in1994, benefited greatly from this development.From less than $58,000 spent on electronic data-bases in 1998, the library now spends nearly fivetimes as much—$289,633 in 2005—on electronic

��

www.law.lsu.edu


P O I S E D F O R G R E A T N E S S

L S U L A W 3 5

resources for students. Serial titles have beenrestored to more than four times their 1998amount—up to 11,438 active serial titles. Thelibrary now holds more than 448,000 volumes inits physical plant, spending nearly double what itdid in 1998 on library materials, at nearly $1.1million a year.

As a result, the Law Center’s student body bene-fits from an increased focus on quality graduatesexpected to meet and succeed in the challengespresented by a mixed tradition global legal society.

From 362 freshman students admitted in Cos-tonis’ first year as Chancellor, the incoming classhas been reduced to approximately 210 students,while the size of the applicant pool is up to anaverage of 1,600. The Law Center no longer man-ages an admissions program on the basis of a sterileGPA-LSAT formula. Today, the Admissions staff—up from one to a five-person team—works with afive-person Faculty Admissions Committee toconsider an array of academic and work experienceindicators, including letters of recommendation todecide which students will be accepted into anincreasingly diverse law school.

“We did something that never happens in lawschools: we decreased the class size, yet doubled thebudget,” Costonis says. We went from just under$12,000 spent per student each year, to more than$20,000 a year on each full-time or equivalent stu-dent this year. Despite a lower attrition rate, theLSU Law Center’s proudest tradition—leading thestate in passage rates on the Louisiana Bar Exam—continues. In the July 2006 Bar Exam, the LSULaw Center posted a 91% bar passage rate, as 183of its 201 applicants passed the bar exam, toppingTulane’s 84% and Loyola’s 77% passage rate. Only6% of the 2003 entering students failed to reachtheir second year.

With five new faculty members teaching civil-ian courses, former University of Lyon (France)Professor Olivier Moréteau holds the LSU LawCenter’s Russell B. Long Eminent Scholars Acade-mic Chair. The Law Center’s international studentgraduate program was selected in 2004–2005 as

the second best among American public lawschools, and fourteenth best among all ABAapproved law schools.

This progress allied with Costonis’ outreach toalumni to inspire them to give back to what somehave termed the “best priced legal education inAmerica.” With six new staff members devoted toAlumni Relations and Communications, the LSULaw Center’s Annual Fund participation increasedfrom 3% to 11% over the last seven years. Unre-stricted annual giving is up by more than ten timesits 1998 total giving.

Four floors below the Chancellor’s office win-dows, stretches a brand new courtyard, graced

by landscaped flower beds and umbrella-shadedtables, where students congregate near a seatedstatue of Louisiana’s beloved Senator RussellLong. Perhaps they are collaborating over thatnext assignment, or anticipating the excitement ofSaturday’s upcoming game in Tiger Stadium.Chancellor Costonis cherishes the truly spectacu-lar Centennial Gala that lit up the night in thePete Maravich Assembly Center in September2006. James Carville and former U.S. SenatorJohn Breaux, both LSU Law Center graduates,led over 650 Law Center alumni and friends—including the most prominent lawyers in thestate—in a celebration of a law school that beganso inauspiciously on the banks of the Mississippia century ago.

“Life has its cycles,” Costonis points out. “Nowis the time for someone else to carry on.” Buildingon a century of commitment from those whopassed through the Law Center, the near decadeinvestment Costonis has made in Baton Rouge hasbeen rewarding. As he moves on, there sits underthe oaks on Highland Road, in the middle of thethriving LSU campus, a Law Center uniquelypoised between tradition and the future, quietlyeducating graduates fully prepared to take the leadaround the world in the next century of globallegal challenges. �

In the July 2006 Bar

Exam, the LSU Law

Center posted a 91%

bar passage rate, as

183 of its 201 appli-

cants passed the

bar exam, topping

Tulane’s 84% and

Loyola’s 77% pas-

sage rate. Only 6%

of the 2003 entering

students failed to

reach their second

year.

��

www.law.lsu.edu


A C A D E M I C C I R C L E S

Legal Traditions?What’s the Point?

B Y J U L I E B A X T E R

3 6 L S U L A W

HAT IS THE QUESTION Professor Olivier Moréteau says he was most frequently asked by the students hetaught during his first semester at theLSU Law Center? “Legal Traditions?What’s the point?”

According to Moréteau, his mission is toincrease LSU Law’s standing worldwide as a bea-con of bijural legal training. “Louisiana is a civillaw island in a common law ocean,” he says. ButMoréteau is quick to point out that the commonlaw ocean, otherwise known as the United States,is surrounded by continents that operate largelyunder civil law legal systems. That leaves Louisianapoised to make its unique mark on global legaltraining in the twenty-first century.

Moréteau barely beat Hurricane Katrina toLouisiana the summer of 2005. The container car-rying his family’s belongings and much of his pre-cious research across the Atlantic from Lyon,France, was sitting in New Orleans when Katrinadevastated the city. It was flooded, Moréteau tellsme, pointing to the half empty shelves lining hisnew office at LSU, where he directs the Center ofCivil Law Studies. Most of his old collection ofbooks and research are gone. But Moréteau is sur-prisingly good-natured about his uncommon land-ing here in Louisiana. Perhaps that’s because he isvery clear about the mission that brought him tothe LSU Law Center. “I’m here to continue tokeep the unique Louisiana tradition alive,” he says,“but at the same time, that tradition has to beknown elsewhere. It can be useful to the rest of theworld and we should exchange.”

Born and educated in France, before Moréteauturned 30, he was appointed Associate Director ofthe Institute for Comparative Law at the Univer-sité Jean Moulin Lyon 3. In 2004, the World Bankissued a report criticizing the civil law tradition,saying it was not as favorable to business as thecommon law. Moréteau says the report’s analysisfrom a scientific point of view was dubious, mostly

concentrating in African and Caribbean countries.But nevertheless, France began to search for waysto prove the advantages of its civil law system, andthe European Union financed many research pro-grams. That’s when the Université in Lyon lookedto Moréteau to initiate comparative programs thatwould attract pupils and professors from abroadand send Lyon’s students abroad for the fourth oftheir five-year master’s program. Moréteau devel-oped an exchange student network that includedsome 15 countries across Europe and the rest of theworld—one of those contacts was the LSU LawCenter and its summer abroad program that sendsLSU students to Lyon for a semester of study.

Through all of this, Moréteau says he realizedthat Louisiana was uniquely suited to answer oneof Europe’s civil law system’s greatest challenges. Asthe European Union tries to harmonize vast sectorsof law, working perhaps eventually towards a syn-thesized European civil code, an inherent languagebarrier constantly arises.

“A French company and an American companymay be discussing the terms of a contract, and mayboth be speaking English, but they may not use thesame meaning of words,” Moréteau says. “How dowe convey purely civil law in English? Even in atransnational transaction in Europe, Europeans areunable to do that because English is inherently acommon law language to them. But in Louisiana,that is done.”

And so arises the unique Louisiana advantage inthe legal ‘global village’ that Moréteau believesmany here in Louisiana still don’t recognize. “Doyou realize the advantages in the global worldexchange everywhere?” he asks, excited. “You’regetting educated to be lawyers in a global world.To advise as a lawyer, you must understand the sys-tems of other people. That puts a bijurally-trainedLSU Law Center graduate in the position to adviseoperations in import/export trade and between theU.S. and other states in Latin America, Asia, andEurope.”

W

Professor Olivier Moréteau

“ “Louisiana is

a civil law

island in a

common law

ocean.Olivier Moréteau



L S U L A W 3 7

In 2006, Moréteau began his revitalization ofthe LSU Law graduate program. Beginning withnine international graduate students, he hoped toattract students from Europe, Latin America, andAsia, and increase enrollment to 15 within a fewyears. Meanwhile, he hopes that LSU will achievethe same success he found at the Université ofLyon by creating a one-year exchange program thatwill send LSU students abroad for a year, andreceive international students at LSU Law. A Dis-tinguished Global Visitors Program also brings invisiting international professors to the Law Center.In 2006, eight visiting professors taught at the LawCenter—all prominent names from countriesincluding France, Belgium, Italy, Canada, andColombia.

The exchange of ideas and people bringschallenges to both continents, Moréteau admits.In Europe, he explains, law firms recommend thatstudents study in America and England to discover‘the common law’. “It’s difficult for people tounderstand the advantages of being in a place whereyou naturally develop the comparative approach,and the ability to master the terminology of bothlegal systems,” he says. However, in Louisiana,Moréteau has found a strong civilian tradition fear-ful of a global dimension robbing it of its heritage.“My task is to show that the comparative settingallows you to be very local and inventive—to helpmy colleagues feel confident that in introducing theglobal connection, nothing civil is being taken awayfrom Louisiana. Change doesn’t necessarily destroywhat you are—you may benefit from it, flourishand become better at what you are.”

Besides building the graduate program,Moréteau is working on the creation of a civil lawjournal to document the benefits of the LSU LawCenter experience. He has initiated civil law work-shops that will introduce papers on the comparativelegal challenges arising from current social issues.Issues such as how the basic ‘person vs. thing’distinction in civil law plays out in the biomedicalworld of embryos, he suggests. Moréteau hopes tohave one paper presented each month. He envisionsforming a scientific committee with members fromLouisiana and abroad that will oversee the publica-tion of the papers in a civil law journal to bereleased twice a year. Meanwhile, Moréteau wantsto revive translation work on a treatise of Frenchcivil law, already underway by research associates inpartnership with the Louisiana Law Institutehoused in the Law Center. As a result, Moréteau isin need of multilingual LL.M. students.

It was the excitement of facing these challengesthat drew him to south Louisiana after appoint-ments in Cambridge, Melbourne, Boston, andMinnesota. “A place like this has an immenseadvantage,” he insists. “Apart from places like Scot-land, Canada, and South Africa, there are notmany places with this rich heritage in both tradi-tions.” And, it seems that Moréteau’s enthusiasm isrubbing off on his students after all.

What’s the point? These same students filinginto Moréteau's second semester Obligations classsay, “Now we understand the points you made inthe first semester. It’s starting to make sense.” Hisface lights up, “I think this place could attractmany more talented students like them.”�

Professor Olivier MoréteauProfessor Moréteau is the former Director of the Edouard Lambert Institute of

Comparative Law at the Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, France, where he has

been Assistant Professor (1982–1990), Associate Professor (1990–1998) and then

Professeur Agrégé. He also served as Director and Vice President for international

relations (1993–1999). He earned his Ph.D. summa cum laude (also winning pres-

tigious prizes), at the Université Jean Moulin, 1990, after research conducted in

Cambridge with a British Council scholarship. He has been visiting professor at the

University of Minnesota (1992), Boston University (1993–1997 and 1999–2000,

and 2002–2004) and the University of Melbourne (2002, 2004). He has published

books in French on English business law and the structure of legal systems as well

as a number of articles in French and in English in international periodicals or

books on English law, comparative law, law and languages, tort law, and the law of

obligations. He is a member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, the

European Group on Tort Law, the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law and

the Société de Législation Comparée. Professor Moréteau was named the first

holder of the Russell Long Chair of Excellence in the summer of 2005. He is the

Director of the Center of Civil Law Studies and teaches Legal Traditions and the

Law of Obligations.



PAINTING "JUMPING THE BROOM" IS USED COURTESY OFTHE ARTIST, JOHNICE I. PARKER

Jumping the Broom:

ITTING IN DARLENE GORING’s office that day, it was clear that this professor is loved by her students. It is her birthday, and between one student popping in to see if an

appointment was still scheduled, and two students bringing flowers, balloons, and a smallcake, one didn’t have to guess what it is that keepsProfessor Goring in teaching.

And perhaps it is that affinity for personalinteraction that sparked this Northwestern andmagna cum laude Howard University alumna tobegin researching how the American legal systemlegalized marriages and relationships betweenslaves in the 1800s. It’s a topic that had never beenfully addressed before and one that has sincereceived five offers to publish.

“I went to Howard University with a girl whowrote a book called Jumping the Broom, talkingabout Afrocentric marriage ceremonies, and Istarted thinking about the origin of “jumping thebroom.” So that got me thinking: why did slaveshave to get married that way? Why couldn’t theyjust get married the traditional way like everyoneelse?”

Her curiosity led her to the heart of the Middle-ton Library on LSU’s campus, where she scrutinizedmicrofiche records of old slave codes and slave

statutes from the 1800s for hours on end. “Somuch that I got locked in the library one Fridayafternoon,” she laughs. Through those pictorialrecords, and picking up dusty books on slaverythat are otherwise seldom read, Goring managed topiece together a picture of slaves’ slow ride towardspersonhood in the law.

“Historically, slaves were considered propertyand not persons,” Goring explains. “So a piece ofchattel—a piece of property—couldn’t marry. Theycould have relationships, but that could be dissolvedat the will of the master at any time. People andchildren would be sold or transferred so that con-cept of the family unit didn’t really exist.”

Consequently, for many years there was nofunctional way to legitimize slave relationships, orto legally recognize slave children. However, in herresearch, Goring says she found surprisingly goodrecords of the lineage of slaves in places like slavefamily Bibles, or even property records of the slaveowners themselves. As owners would keep a listingof their property, so slave owners would include intheir inventory the names of their slaves and theiroffspring.

After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865,various states, especially the northern states, gaveslaves the right to marry—some by statute, someby common law. “In my article, I looked at someof the southern states and how the southern statestreated the African American slave experience.”

In pursuing her article, Goring saw the closeparallel between African Americans’ fight for civilrights and the gay community’s fight for recogni-tion of same sex marriage.

“Both groups are fighting for civil rights, butthe rights are different and the history is different,”Goring explains. “As human beings—notwith-standing your sexuality—you have a right tomarry. Traditionally, African Americans as slaveshad no human rights whatsoever, so from a funda-mental standpoint the two fights come from different places. But in terms of seeking legitimacyand status as complete members of society, onemay draw a legitimate parallel. I tried to trace howAfrican Americans obtained the right to marry

S

3 8 L S U L A W

Professor Goring , James Brooks, and Laura Davenportat the Law Center’s annual Hats ’n Canes event.

Parallels of Freedom to Marry



L S U L A W 3 9

through the court system, through common law,and through legislation. I tried to make parallels interms of the way gay and lesbian couples are tryingto obtain the right to marry.”

Just as the next student comes in to wish her ahappy birthday, I learn that the professor is a first-generation American, her father having emigratedhere from Cuba. Her interest in the slave experi-ence, she says, comes from the intrigue of history.“I like doing historic research. I like tracing theorigin of statutes. It’s like a puzzle—how did itstart? How do the pieces get together?” These arequestions Goring hopes to try to answer both inher writing and for those students with whom she’sgrown so close. �

om:

Professor Darlene Goring is a first-generation American who was born and raised in Miami, Florida. She

graduated from Howard University in 1983, where she earned her B.B.A, magna cum laude in Business

Management. Professor Goring went on to complete her J.D. and LL.M. at

Northwestern University School of Law. While there, she served as

the Note and Comments Editor of the Journal of Criminal Law and

Criminology. After eight years teaching at the University of Kentucky

College of Law in Lexington, Kentucky, Goring joined the LSU Law

Center faculty in 2002 as the Sam D’Amico Endowed Associate

Professor of Law. She teaches Legal Methods, Common Law Property,

Real Estate Transactions, and Immigration Law. With a heart for

community service, Goring worked as Administrative

Director of the Dr. Leo S. Butler Legal Clinic to

develop partnerships between the clinic and the

Law Center, the Baton Rouge Bar Association

Pro Bono Committee, and Capital Area Legal

Services Corporation. Those partnerships

are helping to provide free legal assistance

to residents of Old South Baton Rouge.

Goring has also coached the Frederick

Douglass Moot Court Team sponsored by

the Black Law Students Association—and

accompanied the team to its regional

competition in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Serving as advisor to the Legal Association of

Women, Goring also provides mentoring, academic

support, and exam preparation workshops to

many first-year students. Currently, she volun-

teers at the Lakewood Quarters Retirement

Community. Most of all, she loves spending time

with her two children, Trey and Morgan.

It is not just about academics and research. It’s alsoabout community. Professor Goring shares herpersonal time with her children and their friends byvolunteering at Trinity Episcopal Day School inBaton Rouge.

Professor Darlene Goring


A L U M N I P R O F I L E S

Sitting in the

‘Catbird Seat’

4 0 L S U L A W

Sitting in the noisy LSU Law Center studentlounge, against the familiar stained glass wall, thesilver-haired 68-year-old trial lawyer laughs, as hedrinks a latte, and remembers what it felt like to beadmitted to the LSU Law Center.

“You knew if you could make it through thatlaw school, you had really put forth the maximumeffort. It was like going to the Marine Corps,” hesays. “People who graduate from West Point feelthe same thing.”

And Juneau knows a little something about themilitary. Recently named the 2006 DistinguishedAlumnus of the LSU Law Center, it was 41 yearsearlier that he drove onto the LSU campus freshout of serving active duty during the Berlin crisis.As a child in the 1940s, Juneau grew up helping inhis father’s campaign for state senator. “I’ve been toevery grocery store,” he laughs, “hung signs, doneit all. I remember Earl Long calling the house,asking for my father—they were personal friends.”

Juneau knew LSU Law was tough. “Whenyou’re young, you feel like you’re bullet proof.”Out of 165 admitted in his freshman law schoolclass, Juneau says 37 graduated with him. Nine ofthose went on to become judges.

In 1965, Juneau graduated and went to workright away as a trial lawyer. Many years later, that’swhat he is still doing. “I’m proud to be a triallawyer,” he says quickly. “The one great thing thiscountry has had is the right for the rich person orpoor person to assert his/her rights. I’ll defend any-body: rich or poor, doesn’t matter to me.” Juneauhas tried more than 100 civil jury cases, and medi-ated more than 2,000 cases. For the past 15 years,

he has been appointed and served as Special Masterin federal court cases all across the country. Manyof these major class action cases sometimes includ-ing hundreds of thousands of people. “I guess I’vedone as much of that as just about anybody fromall over the country, and I’m just a boy fromLafayette, Louisiana—an LSU grad,” he smiles.That unique scope of experience has given Juneauwhat he calls ‘the catbird seat’ when it comes tocomparing the LSU Law Center’s quality of educa-tion with the best in the country. “The talent levelof the LSU lawyer is incredible. What I’ve found isthat LSU puts out people who are in the trenchespracticing law.”

Juneau says he’s never considered leavingLouisiana to practice elsewhere. He believes thatwhile some of Louisiana’s leaders have been short-sighted in using this state’s rich resources, stillLouisiana’s professional community works againstthe odds to produce some remarkable achievements.“Louisiana has been burdened through history bythe plight of poverty and you have to pull thatwagon when you’re pulling government organiza-tions. It’s easy for some other state that doesn’t havethat dynamic to say, ‘Y’all aren’t doing that well,’”he points out. “But I say: how many wagons are youpulling? It’s a real challenge to pull that wagon, takeadvantage of what you can take advantage of andmake government work.”

And Juneau has not shied away from leadershipin Louisiana. In 1973, he ran and won election asone of the 132 delegates in the 1973 LouisianaConstitutional Convention. For a year and a half,he took part in those heated sessions at the State

AT JUNEAU has come a long way since he pulled up to the married students’

apartments, just inside the gates of LSU, at the end of a Louisiana summer. His

wife and two sons were with him in his two-door, stick shift Dodge that had no

air conditioning. P

www.law.lsu.edu

““For the past 15

years, he has been

appointed and

served as Special

Master in federal

court cases all

across the country.

Many of these

major class action

cases included

hundreds of

thousands of

people.


“ “LSU Law graduates

should recognize

that they are

uniquely situated

due to their civilian

background.

You can get an

outstanding law

degree for a lot

less money than

you could achieve

anywhere else in

this country.

Patrick Juneau



4 2 L S U L A W

Capitol, steered under the leadershipof legendary Louisiana GovernorEdwin Edwards. Juneau voted onevery line of the proposed new con-stitution, and then joined anothercolleague to travel the state andexplain the new constitution to thevoters. “Passing that was extremelydifficult,” he remembers. “You’retalking about voting on everything—homestead exemption, taxes, legisla-ture or no legislature, secretary ofstate, or no secretary of state.”

As past president of the LouisianaAssociation of Defense Counsel,Juneau was inducted into the LSULaw Center Hall of Fame in 1987.He’s been recognized in all theeditions of the ‘Best Lawyers inAmerica,’ published by Woodwardand White. As a member of theLSU Law Center’s Alumni Board ofTrustees, Juneau sees the alumni asbearing responsibility to give backto the school.

“LSU Law graduates should rec-ognize that they are uniquely situateddue to their civilian background. Youcan get an outstanding law degree fora lot less money than you couldachieve anywhere else in this coun-try.”

Juneau agrees with the recentmove to substantially increase admis-sion requirements to the LSU LawCenter. “You don’t have that bigweed-out period,” he says. But he admits the 37people who graduated from his class have contin-ued to maintain a close bond, like so many LSULaw Center graduates. Even so, Juneau’s not readyto lay down his law books.

“I love what I’m doing,” he bursts out. Hisenthusiasm for his craft is infectious. “I’m meetingnew people and challenges every day. The electricitythat I get from handling huge state and nationaland complex problems charges my battery.” Juneaubelieves that being a lawyer gives him a longevityfactor. With his three sons all practicing inLafayette where he lives—two as attorneys in thefamily practice, one as a neurosurgeon—Juneausays that he’s optimistic for Louisiana’s opportunitiesafter Katrina and Rita. “The jury’s out right now onhow we’ll react to those challenges. Will we reactconstructively or will we squander that opportunity?”

If it were up to Juneau, there would be no questionwhich way Louisiana would answer that call. “It’s agood challenge. It’s a good place to live.”

Juneau says his test of success comes every nightwhen he lays his head down on the pillow. “Have Ireally tried my best? Have I stayed true to myword? Am I content with how I’ve treated otherpeople? If I can feel good about all three of thosequestions, my personal feeling is that I have gaineda high degree of success.”

As much as Juneau believes in the LSU Law Cen-ter, he also believes in living life to the brim. As hefinishes up his coffee in the student lounge, Juneausmiles as he quotes Robert Frost: “The woods arelovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keepand miles and miles to go before I sleep.”

� � �www.law.lsu.edu



Growing up around traditional Celtic musicand strong beer in a crafting township high in thehills of northern Scotland, Uisdean Vass says hisname is really “north Highland for Hugh.” He asksthat we call him simply “Hugh.” And simple is cer-tainly where Hugh’s story begins. When his mothercame home from teaching school each evening,Hugh doesn’t recall the family talking much aboutlaw. But they did talk about something else. “Myfather talked a lot about the United States,” Hughremembers. “He was there during World War II.”And those stories made a deep impression on the18-year-old who would head into classes at theUniversity of Innsboro School of Law. “They

Harmonizing Two Cultures

AGPIPES AND ZYDECO

probably go together about as well

as oil and water. But one of the

LSU Law Center’s 1985 graduates

seems to have harmonized those two

cultures into a score that for him has

played out as a fascinating career on the

international stage. Today, as advisor to

the LSU Law Center’s Hemispheric Trade

program, Uisdean Vass is playing a key

role in mentoring tomorrow’s bijurally-

trained international lawyers.



4 4 L S U L A W

inspired me to visit the U.S. myself—and I figuredthe best way to do that was to get a graduatedegree.”

And that’s where LSU enters this young Scot’sstory—a story that winds from northern Scotlandto the French Quarter to Caracas, Venezuela, andto the top of the oil and gas division of the largestfirm in Scotland today. Pretty impressive for ayoung man who said his interest in oil and gassparked when he watched one of those iconicAmerican television shows with proven interna-tional appeal: “Dallas.” Hugh Vass applied to 15different law schools because he needed the schol-arship support. Accepted at almost all the schoolswhere he applied, Hugh says it was the scholarshipand LSU’s civilian tradition that drew him here.

Louisiana, Scotland, Quebec and South Africaare noted as the world’s principal mixed jurisdic-tions—jurisdictions with a Civil Law base thatincorporate major exposure to the Common Law.But that is not all that links Louisiana and Scot-land. Scotland is a country with a rich culturaltradition that even has a “people apart,” as Hughfondly compares “the Highlanders” to Cajuns.Beyond the cultural tie, there is the bijural tradi-tion combining a richly developed civil law withthe sea of common law surrounding the smallstates of both Scotland and Louisiana. And thenthere is the critical maritime oil and gas traditionso integrally bound to states like Louisiana andScotland where commercial waters and the open

seas lap trade upon the doorstep of theseeconomies.

But Hugh’s journey to becoming a top interna-tional oil and gas lawyer would first pluck this 23-year-old young man from his beloved Scottishmountains and put him on a flight from Londonto Amsterdam to New York—a New York that waspretty uncomfortable at the end of July when youwere wearing a heavy wool kilt. “There I stood,drenched in the sun at JFK,” Hugh laughs.

Following the heat south, during the course of hisLL.M. studies in Baton Rouge in the mid-1980s,Hugh would come to write his thesis on oil leasingin the United States and the United Kingdom dur-ing the Reagan and Thatcher administrations. Heremembers those classes that shaped what wouldbecome a global career for him: Mineral Rights,Corporations, International Law, Advanced Miner-al Law, Oil and Gas Law, Marine Resources Law.“The courses were massively intellectual,” Hughsays. “The program was challenging. My five yearsin law helped me deal with it. The Edinburghcourse was challenging. But I actually learned theBritish oil and gas law system here at LSU.”

Those long nights in the library and burningthe midnight oil in Kirby Smith Hall—a familiarLSU residence hall--would pay off. Hugh’s thesison oil leasing would win the National Energy LawPolicy Institute award that year, and it was pub-lished in the University of Tulsa Law Review. Fromthere, it was off to New Orleans for Hugh, wherehe would spend his formative years in the practiceof law at Stone Pigman. Then he would head southonce again—this time to Caracas, Venezuela for theCanadian-based international law firm of MacleodDixon.

“It was 1997,” Hugh remembers, “and we werethe first Canadian law firm to go into Latin Ameri-ca. Today, that Canadian firm has 144 lawyers. Andthere are 40 lawyers in Caracas. It was LSU thatmade that happen,” Hugh insists. “I really felt thatbeing in Baton Rouge was better than being inNew York or Washington. It was the real America,”Hugh says. “But it’s the America Europeans are notseeing.”

In South America, Hugh would learn Spanish,spending eight years in Venezuela, four months inArgentina, and two years in Brazil. Ultimately, hewould open Macleod Dixon’s second South Ameri-can office in Rio de Janeiro. But it would be 20years after that hot summer when Hugh began atLSU before he would finally return home to Scot-land. As he tells it, he was going to ‘a colder formof Lafayette, Louisiana’—Aberdeen.

“ “

And it’s that kind

of global intimacy

sparked in the fires

of bijural learning

from international

professors and

noted civil law

experts on LSU’s

faculty that puts

LSU in a unique

vantage point in

an international

economy.

Hugh Vass



“Aberdeen is Europe’s oil capitol,” Hugh says.Maclay, Murray & Spens is Scotland’s largest firm.Founded in 1871, the firm is internationallystrong in corporate finance, commercial litigation,intellectual property, and competition law. But itwould be Hugh Vass, chosen by the Maclay,Murray & Spens CEO who had been a classmateof Hugh’s back in Edinburgh, who would growMaclay’s oil-and-gas-centered Aberdeen officefrom the ground up.

It’s a long way from Professor Martin’sAdvanced Mineral Law class back in the earlyeighties, but Hugh Vass is quick to point out thathis first impression stepping back onto the remod-eled LSU Law Center’s campus is nevertheless afeeling of homecoming. “When you meet qualitypeople,” he says, “when you’ve been through aquality institution, you never really leave the institution.” And it’s that kind of global intimacysparked in the fires of bijural learning from inter-national professors and noted civil law experts onLSU’s faculty that puts LSU in a unique vantagepoint in an international economy. “I’m impressedwith Chancellor Costonis—with his strength andenergy,” Hugh points out. “LSU is acting as medi-ator between North America and Latin America,situated at a unique geographic location, with theport city of New Orleans nearby, and a rich mar-itime tradition.

“If you take away the weather and the cooking,Scotland looks a lot like Louisiana,” he says. Thenhe laughs. “Our cooking is not very rich, but whatwe put in the glass is.” It’s something LSU fanscan relate to.

In Scotland, Hugh returns home from theoffice now to his country home, surrounded by

woods and an orchard he says he’s trying to culti-vate, just as he is his outside interest in politicsand history. “Just hardy fruits,” he cautions, “someraspberries, black currants—nothing that needswarmth.” And he urges young people looking tosucceed in the often-cold legal world to soak up asmuch of the kind of substance he learned at LSUas possible. “Be challenged,” he urges. “Seek outgood training. Look for your own niche. Andremember, success is not only measured in cash.”It’s a philosophy Hugh Vass will help impart tothe young minds under his tutelage as he helpsbolster the LSU Law Center’s graduate programthat sent him on his way, and helps to build upother intermediate programs for LSU allied withuniversities in countries around the world.

In reality, Hugh doesn’t have to go far to conjureup the good memories of his days at LSU. Hesmiles warmly when he tells the story of how hisneighbor in Scotland—an American who marriedan Argentine, sprinted across the way to the Vasshome, gleefully calling out, “Hey! We won thenational football championship!”

And from the love affair with the LSU Tigers,to the Capitol-City-yet-friendly air about BatonRouge that distinguishes it from its bawdier sistercity of New Orleans, Hugh Vass says he’s neverlost his taste for a visit to LSU. “My mother hasalways preferred Baton Rouge to New Orleans,”he grins. And she seems to have passed that loveonto her son. A long way from his boyhood villagein the northern mountains of Scotland, and thestrains of the bagpipes curling around the quietstreets where he grew up, Hugh Vass doesn’t denyBaton Rouge has found a permanent place in hisheart as well. �

L S U L A W 4 5

“ “When you meet

quality people,

when you’ve been

through a quality

institution, you

never really leave

the institution.

Hugh Vass

The LSU Law Center’s Hemi-spheric Trade Conference focusedon the differences between commonlaw and civil law approaches tocommercial law and the impact on hemispheric trade. The 2006conference engaged dignitaries fromthroughout the United States andLatin America.

www.law.lsu.edu


“ “

4 6 L S U L A W

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: LSU LAW GIVES BACK TO THE COMMUNITY

“It’s a calling,” according to Liza Ortego,president of the LSU Law Center’s Public InterestLaw Society, or PILS, for short. “A degree in law isnot just about earning a living. It’s about answeringthe call and using our legal skills to serve the publicinterest.” Ortego is one of several dozen studentsactively engaged in the newly organized publicinterest organization, and she’s recruiting others tojoin her.

It’s this renewed grass roots effort by the studentsthat has the Law Center administration especiallypleased. PILS was formed in the 2005-2006 schoolyear, and the organization is already making itsmark on the Law Center.

New initiatives have offered more opportunitiesfor students to engage with the community, whilealso honing their legal skills. “PILS helps LSU Lawto advance public interest through one-timeprojects, semester-long efforts, and public interestcareers while increasing the number of publicinterest opportunities available to law students inthe Baton Rouge community and nationwide,”according to Annie LeBlanc, a 2002 LSU Lawgraduate now working at the Law Center. LeBlancserves as an advisor to PILS.

One such initiative is the new Equal JusticeWorks—Katrina Initiative. Susan Saba and co-worker Kathleen McNelis, a 2006 LSU Lawgraduate, were hired to direct the Equal JusticeWorks non-profit grant program administered incollaboration with the Louisiana Bar Foundation.Saba is a member of the 2005–2006 Pro BonoLegal Corps, an AmeriCorps-funded project pro-vided to the Foundation. They are two of 35attorneys working throughout the United Statesto address legal problems of the underserved byengaging law students in pro bono work. Theirwork involves both the LSU Law Center andSouthern University Law Center. The Louisianagrant provides for direct legal services to GulfCoast residents.

Beyond meeting immediate, hurricane-relatedlegal needs, Saba says the Equal Justice Works—Katrina Initiative fosters the development of long-term pro bono and legal aid infrastructures. Inaddition to doing intake work, students work theLouisiana State Bar Association Disaster LegalHotline and volunteer with such organizations asthe Capital Area Legal Services and Court-Appointed Special Advocates Program.

A visit to Renaissance Village—one of thelargest FEMA trailer parks in the Baton Rougearea—has also brought stark realities into focus forLSU Law student volunteers and faculty advisors.“Renaissance Village is a community of approxi-mately 1,600 residents,” according to ElizabethMurrill, Assistant Professor of Professional Practice.Murrill accompanied five LSU Law students on arecent outing to the village.

PILS has also encouraged student involvementwith another Baton Rouge Bar Association collabo-

C L A S S A CS T U D E N T N E W S

LSU Law students volunteer their time and energy in the Thirst for Justice Program designed to help

residents in blighted neighborhoods.

Members of PILS volunteer at the St. Vincent

dePaul soup kitchen.

A degree in law is

not just about

earning a living.

It’s about answering

the call and using

our legal skills to

serve the public

interest.

Liza Ortego

www.law.lsu.edu


L S U L A W 4 7

rative — a Social Security Assistance Program. Underthe supervision of local attorney Eric Miller (’90),students assist in handling social security appeals,gaining firsthand experience in tasks like filing theappeal, handling the pre-hearing brief, and appear-ing at an administrative hearing.

And then, there’s The Thirst for Justice Program,a pro bono program that was started several yearsago to help residents in blighted neighborhoodsclose to the LSU campus. In addition to helpingthose in need, students get to see up-close thecommon legal issues facing the poor in thecommunity.

Regardless of the service venue, whetherbuilding houses, handling social security appeals,serving in the soup line at the St. Vincent de Paulshelter, or reading to students in the Volunteers inPublic Schools initiative, LSU Law students arecreating change.

CREATING A CULTURE OF SUCCESS: LSU LAW CLAIMSSTATE’S HIGHEST BARPASSAGE RATE;ATTRITION RATE ATHISTORIC LOW

How does one measureinstitutional success?

When it comes to law school, many would suggestthat simple bar passage rates are the measure by whichwe should judge legal education. For all but two ofthe last forty or more years, LSU Law Center studentshave achieved the highest passage rate among allexaminees on the bar exam. And, the results releasedin September 2006 by the Committee on Bar Admis-sions for the Supreme Court of Louisiana confirmedthat LSU Law retained still again its usual first-placeranking among all public and private law schools inthe July 2006 examination.

But, reducing the educational experience to anumber, i.e. passing rate on the bar exam, negatesthe importance of the professional school environ-

ment overall and its impact on individual studentsand the institution. The real story behind the sim-ple metric of the recent 91% passage rate is thatstudents achieved this success at the same time thatthe attrition rate for first-year students was at anall-time low. Only 6% of the freshman class failedto progress, an historic low, especially compared tothe 40% to 50% attrition rate that was experiencedin earlier years. Of the 201 LSU Law Centerstudents who took the exam in July 2006, 183students, or 91%, successfully passed the bar.

Creating a culture of success requires an envi-ronment in which students may thrive in personaland academic pursuits. While bar passage is viewedas essential, it’s certainly not the “end all, do all,” asone student said. Having access to faculty memberswho excel in scholarship, personal relationshipswith faculty members, and meaningful experiencesthrough clubs, organizations, and social groups areall expected in today’s competitive educationalenvironment. As LSU Law and other law schoolscompete nationally and internationally for toprecruits, it’s more important than ever that lawschool be a “total package,” not simply an exercisein passing the bar.

A C T I O N

www.law.lsu.edu

The real story

behind the simple

metric of the recent

91% passage rate

is that students

achieved this

success at the

same time that

the attrition rate

for first-year

students was at an

all-time low.


C L A S S A C T I O N

4 8 L S U L A W

LSU Law International Criminal Court Team—left to right: Professor Alberto Zuppi, faculty advisor; students John Adcock and KathrynSheely, and Professor Todd Bruno, faculty advisor. (Kelly Polk not pictured).

Team award: Best Brief for the Defense Award; Individual awards: Ms.Polk–Best Oralist; Mr. Adcock–Best Oralist First; Runner-Up; and Ms. Sheely–

Best Oralist Honorable Mention, Ms. Polk–Final Round Top Oralist.

LSU Law Center ABA Law Student Tax Challenge Champions—students Tonita Northington and Teri Ellison took first place in a nation-al tax planning competition of 44 teams conducted by the Young Lawyers

Forum of the Section of Taxation for the American Bar Association;Professors Susan Kalinka and Chris Pietruszkiewicz, faculty advisors.

LEARNING BY DOING: A LOOK AT LSU LAW’S TRIAL ADVOCACY PROGRAM

Each year, LSU Lawstudents have anopportunity to prac-tice their trial advoca-cy skills during aunique programinvolving mentorsfrom throughout thenation. From cross-examination to voir

dire jury selection, third-year students role-playand receive critiques from some of the nation’sleading experts in courtroom practices.

2005-2006 MOOT COURT TEAMSWIN THREE NATIONAL

CHAMPIONSHIPSFor the first time in its history, three LSU Law moot

court teams emerged as National Champions in 2005–2006competitions that tested students’ knowledge and legal skills.

Taking first place honors in diverse competitions through-out the year were the International Criminal Court Team,the National Environmental Law Team, and the AmericanBar Association Law Student Tax Challenge Team. In win-ning, LSU defeated teams from more than 100 law schools,including those from traditional top-tier schools throughoutthe country.

The LSU Law Center salutes its national championshipteams, its faculty, alumni, and friends who generously givetime and expertise in coaching and mentoring our students.“Success for LSU Law Center is success for Louisiana,” saidthe Chancellor.

LSU Law Center National Environmental Law Team Champions—left to right:R. Charles Ellis of Breazeale Sachse & Wilson, LLP, advisor and adjunct professor;Karen Blakemore, Chancellor John Costonis, Margaret Grace, Micah Gautreaux,and Professor Ken Murchison, faculty advisor. Individual awards: Team Captain

Micah Gautreaux, Best Oral Advocate, preliminary round. The team beat 73 otherlaw schools and over 200 individual competitors to claim the national title.


L S U L A W 4 9


Teams Placed in National Competitions—left to right: theNational Moot Court team of Angela Joyce, Billy Davis, and

Laranda Moffett. Professors John Devlin and Todd Bruno, faculty advisors.

National Tax Moot Court Team—left to right: Ryan Richmond,Laura Balhoff, and Jonathan McCartney. Assisting the team wereProfessors Susan Kalinka, Chris Pietruszkiewicz, faculty advisors,

and attorneys Todd Rossi and Mark Marionneaux, advisors.

Second and Third Place in 2006 National Moot Court Com-petitions—from left: Professor John Devlin, faculty advisor, withLaranda Moffett, David Geerken, and Wyndi Guillory who wonthird place at the National Moot Court Region VII competition.

The team also placed second in the Best Brief category.

International Criminal Court Moot Competition—from left:Leila Parvizian, Clarence Cooper, and Emily Couvillon won sec-

ond place at the competition. Clarence Cooper won first place in theBest Individual Advocate category. Emily Couvillon was also recog-nized as one of the top six advocates in the preliminary rounds. Pro-fessors Alberto Zuppi, Catherine Rogers, and Todd Bruno served as

faculty advisors.

This year, more than 180 third-year lawstudents participated in the program. “Few lawschools in the United States include this type ofprogram in their curriculum, and probably nonehave presented a program with such outstandingtrial advocacy teachers,” said Chancellor JohnCostonis. Dominic J. Gianna, a nationallyacclaimed trial lawyer and National Institute forTrial Advocacy (NITA) team leader, founded theLSU Law program in 1992 and serves as the pro-gram director. Gianna is regarded as one of thebest advocacy teachers in America.

And it’s not just Gianna that makes the expe-rience so valuable. The seminar faculty includesmore than 70 of the best trial lawyers, trialjudges, and advocacy teachers in the UnitedStates and Canada. “The LSU Trial Ad Program

is one of only six of its kind in the U.S. Havingtaught NITA programs throughout the world, Ican say that the LSU program ranks at the top,”according to Gianna.

The Trial Advocacy Program involves threedays of intensive “learning by doing.” Partici-pants act as trial counsel and simulate actualtrial skills while under the experienced eyes ofthe select seminar faculty. The program followsthe methods pioneered by the National Institutefor Trial Advocacy and includes role-playing,critique, videotaping of performances, videotapecritique, lectures, and demonstrations by thefaculty.

The program is made possible in part by agrant from the Houston Law firm of Vinson &Elkins. www.law.lsu.edu



5 0 L S U L A W

PRO BONO FELLOWS GRAPPLE WITH ISSUES OFPUBLIC POLICY

“I’m beginning to see the real value my lawschool education provides as it seeks to make me abetter citizen,” said William Sentell III, a recipientof one of seven LSU Law Center Public Policy Fel-lowships during summer 2006. Sentell, a second-year law student, spent the summer working withthe Center for Planning Excellence, a Baton Rougenon-profit. The agency works with residents of theOld South Baton Rouge neighborhood to achieveits goal to implement a broad, grassroots urbanrenewal. The fellowship provided Sentell with arare opportunity to glimpse the challenges of thelegal system and public policy issues.

The summer stipends, funded by the LawCenter administration, allow students to gainfirsthand experiences in legal aid services, publicdefenders offices, and with advocacy lawyers. Students work within non-profit organizations and government agencies in summer jobs.

The Pro Bono Fellows have put the pursuit ofpro bono activities and public service at centerstage in their educational experiences—and it’s notjust a “feel good thing.” The American Bar Associ-ation has recently amended its standards to includea similar focus as a condition of accreditation oflaw schools.

As one of the pro bono fellows, Kim Guillotspent her summer at the Mental Health AdvocacyService providing legal services to those sufferingfrom mental illness. “I did things ranging from legalresearch on forced medication to research on whohas the authority to have someone involuntarilycommitted,” says Guillot. “I was also able to helpmany foster children scattered by Katrina by writinga grant and creating a website.”

Some recipients, like current third-year studentAdia Moore, pursued non-profit work in otherstates. As a worker in the Community Legal Servicesin Philadelphia, she helped to represent parents

whose children are in the welfare system. Moorewas actually certified by the State of Pennsylvaniato represent clients in court. “This has been a veryrewarding experience in which I have received a lotof hands-on learning.”

Trisha Ward was able to work with the GulfRegion Advocacy Center (GRACE) in Houston,Texas as her summer fellowship. GRACE is a non-profit organization that represents both capitallycharged indigent clients and individuals who havealready received death sentences and are in thepost-conviction stage of proceedings. “It was aremarkable experience,” says Ward.

Pascal Belizare, another third-year student whoworked as a Court Appointed Special Advocate(CASA) in Toledo, Ohio, echoed that sentiment.“My role in the hearings was to let the parentsknow that CASA is charged with doing an inde-pendent investigation of the case and that we arethere to represent the best interests of thechild/children.

Fellow classmate Clarence Cooper recalled hisexperiences at the EEOC in Washington, D.C. “Iwrote appellate decisions for the Office of FederalOperations in the Appellate Division.” He had theopportunity to experience first-hand the volumi-nous discrimination claims filed each monthagainst employers.

Working in the Texas Civil Rights Project(TCRP), Betsy Franke was able to experienceeverything from police and border patrol miscon-duct to sex discrimination, disability rights,infringements on civil liberties, Title IX cases,and issues related to voting rights.

“These are important experiences,” saidChancellor Costonis. “Through the pro bonofellowships, we are uniquely positioned to helpour students and our community. We all have acommon goal—finding new ways of fulfilling thepromise of justice and working together for thecommon good.”

Professor William Corbett

www.law.lsu.edu


F A C U L T Y N E W S A N D A C T I V I T I E S

L S U L A W 5 1

CORBETT CO-AUTHORS FIRST OF ITS KIND CASEBOOK

Professor William R. Corbett, the Frank L.Maraist Professor of Law and member of the LSULaw faculty since 1991, has co-authored the firstEnglish-language international and comparativeemployment law casebook, The Global Workplace:International and Comparative Employment Law—Cases and Materials.

This new casebook covers employment laws ofthe United States, Canada, Mexico, the UnitedKingdom, Germany, France, China, Japan, andIndia and examines the variety of laws governingissues such as individual and collective employ-ment, antidiscrimination, privacy, and dispute res-olution systems. The laws of individual countriesare discussed against the backdrop of globalizationand how they relate to the principles of regionaltrade agreements such as the North American Free

Trade Agreement, the lawsof the EuropeanUnion and interna-tional labor standards

set forth by theInternational LaborOrganization.

Corbett first taught a course in internationaland comparative labor law at Aix en Provence,France (LSU Law’s Summer Study Abroad Pro-gram) and developed his initial set of materials atthat time. At present, the course is offered by onlya handful of schools, but Corbett believes that willchange as globalization continues to affect moreand more businesses and individuals. “We believeit will be taught, and taught a lot.” The GlobalWorkplace stands ready with instructor resourcesthat include an extensive teachers’ manual, a slidepresentation, and a website providing updates forthis important and fast-moving subject.

Published by Cambridge University Press, thegroundbreaking casebook is a joint effort ofCorbett; Roger Blanpain, University of Tilburg,the Netherlands and Katholieke UniversiteitLeuven, Belgium; Susan Sisom-Rapp, ThomasJefferson School of Law; Hilary K. Josephs,Syracuse University College of Law; and MichaelJ. Zimmer, Seton Hall University School of Law.

PIETRUSZKIEWICZ CLOSES OUT YEAR AS PRESIDENT OF SEALS

Tax law expert Christopher Pietruszkiewicz, theLaw Center’s J.Y. Sanders Associate Professor ofLaw, recently completed his term as President ofthe Southeastern Association of Law Schools(SEALS) and has the distinction of being the first

W I T H I N T H E

Professor William Corbett

Professor Christopher Pietruszkiewicz


Professor Patrick Martin


5 2 L S U L A W

untenured president of the association. Further,its annual meeting had the highest attendancesince SEALS inception in the 1950s, with morethan 350 law professors participating from 70 lawschools in the United States, Canada, and Aus-tralia. The event offered expanded coverage of theSupreme Court via panels on governmentalpowers, individual rights, and economic rights andregulations in addition to panels on internationallaw, law and economics, terrorism, the PatriotAct, eavesdropping and wiretaps, foreign prece-dent, judicial campaign speech, and corporatefiduciary responsibilities.

Under Pietruszkiewicz’s leadership, SEALSexpanded its ongoing commitment to new scholarsby adding several New Scholars Workshops andestablishing a mentor program. The workshopsand mentor program are designed to give newfaculty members an opportunity to make scholarlypresentations early in their academic career so thatthey may gain experience and receive feedbackfrom their peers.

Discarded Deference: Judicial Independence inInformal Agency Guidance is the most recent articlefrom Pietruszkiewicz and he is the co-author of atreatise on the Taxation of Corporation Reorganiza-tions. He has also participated on a number ofpanels in recent months, most recently, the ABASection of Taxation’s Mid-Year Meeting: The Effect

of Murphy on Section 104 Deductions (Ethical Con-siderations) and Fifth Amendment Claims in CivilLitigation. In addition, he was a panelist of theU.S. Supreme Court and Legislative Preview: Eco-nomic Rights and Regulations, a recap of SupremeCourt cases and discussion of tax legislationenacted by Congress, particularly the changing ofover 200 code provisions as part of Gulf Opportu-nity Zone Act. Pietruszkiewicz also participated asa panelist of It’s Not Easy Being Green: ConsumerTax Incentives from the 2005 Energy Policy Act atthe ABA Section of Taxation Annual Meeting.

Pietruszkiewicz received his B.S. in Accountingfrom the University of Scranton, his J.D. fromLoyola University in New Orleans, and his LL.M(with distinction) from the Georgetown LawCenter. He teaches Corporate Tax, Income Tax,Comparative Tax, Tax Practice and Procedure, andAccounting for Lawyers. He is Chair of the FacultyCommittee on Admissions, the Faculty ScholarshipCommittee, and an elected member of theExecutive Committee. He currently supervisesexternships with the United States Department ofJustice, the Internal Revenue Service, Office ofChief Counsel, and the Louisiana Department ofRevenue. Pietruszkiewicz is a former trial attorneyfor the United States Department of Justice, TaxDivision.

LSU Law, the Louisiana Law

Review, and the Center of Civil

Law Studies recently hosted a

two-day symposium, Law-Making

in a Global World. Local, national,

and international experts with

experience in comparative law

discussed global law-making top-

ics such as: How much does glob-

alization affect the way laws are

created? Is there a universal con-

cept of justice? What about the

legitimacy of lawmakers? Can the

diversity of cultures be ignored?

Can a pluralistic approach be used

in mass societies? Can new and

old models be reconciled?

These topic areas will be sum-

marized in the publication of

papers in a special issue of the

Louisiana Law Review.

Law-Makingin a Global

World



L S U L A W 5 3

MARTIN NAMED DIRECTOR OF LOUISIANA MINERAL LAW INSTITUTE

Patrick Martin, Campanile Professor of MineralLaw, was recently named director of the LawCenter’s Louisiana Mineral Law Institute. Createdin 1953, the Institute has provided leadership tothe state’s oil and gas attorneys and petroleumlandmen and its proceedings have served as thedefinitive resource on mineral law for the state. Anannual continuing legal education program, theInstitute is charged with promoting an under-standing of Louisiana mineral law and facilitatingits development through educational activities.

In addition to consideration of important devel-opments in the law of oil and gas at the annualprogram, the Mineral Law Institute sponsors othercontinuing education programs at the Law Centerand cooperates with energy related research andeducational programs at Louisiana State University.Projects of the Mineral Law Institute presentlybeing implemented include a collaborativeLouisiana Mineral Law Treatise, publication of aperiodic Louisiana Mineral Law newsletter, publi-cation of the proceedings of recent Mineral LawInstitute programs, and sponsorship of studentscholarships for mineral law studies.

Martin has taught at the Law Center since1977. From 1982–1984, he served as the Commis-sioner of Conservation for the State of Louisiana.

Prior to joining the Law Center faculty, Martintaught at the University of Tulsa Law School. Heholds B.A., M.A., and Ph. D. degrees fromLouisiana State University and obtained his J. D.from Duke University Law School.

Martin has co-authored several treatises andcasebooks, including Pooling and Unitization;Williams & Meyers Oil and Gas Law; Jurisprudence:Text and Readings on the Philosophy of Law; Oil andGas Cases and Materials and Economic Regulation:Energy, Transportation and Utilities, as well asnumerous articles on oil and gas law and energyregulation.

ZUPPI HONORED BY ARGENTINE MINISTRY

Professor Alberto Zuppi was honored by theArgentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an expertfor integrating the Argentine delegation partici-pating in the International Criminal Court’sAssembly of States Parties Special Working Groupon the Crime of Aggression. The ICC Assembly ofStates Parties recently met at the U.N. headquar-

ters in New York and will continue to meet twicea year until 2009 when its normative text ofCrime of Aggression will be presented to the ICC.

The International Criminal Court is an inde-pendent, permanent court that tries peopleaccused of the most serious crimes of internationalconcern. It is a court of last resort and is based ona treaty currently supported by 104 countries. TheAssembly of States Parties is the managementoversight and legislative body of the ICC anddecides on various items, including the adoptionof normative texts.

Zuppi is LSU Law’s Robert and Pamela MartinAssociate Professor of Law and an expert in inter-national criminal law, international human rights,international law, and international sale of goods.He received his J.D. from Universidad de BuenosAires, Argentina and his Ph.D., magna cum laude,from Universität des Saarlandes, Germany.

ROGERS TAPPED BY SMIT’S GUIDES AND OTHERS

Catherine Rogers, the Law Center’s Richard C. Cadwallader Professor of Law, has had excitingprofessional developments during the past year.She has two contracts for new books, one withOxford University Press, and another from theprestigious series, Smit’s Guides to InternationalArbitration (now Smit, Carbonneau and Mestilis’

Professor Alberto Zuppi

www.law.lsu.edu



5 4 L S U L A W

Guides to International Arbitration). The two proj-ects are scheduled for publication in 2008 andtitled, respectively, Global Ethics in InternationalArbitration and International Arbitrators: Ethics,Conduct and Challenges. Additionally, Jose Alvarez,Columbia Law professor and president of theAmerican Society of International Law (ASIL),invited Rogers to join its taskforce on professionalresponsibility for global legal practitioners. DelevVagts of Harvard Law School heads the ASIL task-force, which also includes several other nationallyacclaimed scholars and practitioners. As part ofher role on the Academic Council of the Instituteof Transnational Arbitration (ITA), Rogers is alsoco-chairing the 4th Annual ITA-ASIL Conferencein Washington D.C. titled The Future of Arbitra-tion Involving States, which will bring together topscholars and practitioners from all over the world.

Rogers also has several forthcoming scholarlyprojects in 2007: A casebook titled ComplexLitigation: Litigating for Social Change, which sheis co-authoring with U.C. Davis law professorKevin Johnson and fellow Law Center professor,John V. White; an article titled Contests for Control:Arbitrating Antitrust Claims in the United Statesand Europe, co-authored with Italian attorneyNiccolò Landi; and another article titled The Have-Not’s Arrival in International Arbitration, which waspresented at a symposium on arbitration in Januaryat the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and will bepublished in the UNLV Law Review.

GREEN RECEIVES PRAISE FOR BOOK ON WHITECOLLAR CRIME

Professor Stuart Green’s pioneering book, Lying,Cheating, and Stealing: A Moral Theory of WhiteCollar Crime is now available in a paperback versionfrom Oxford University Press.

Just a year old, the book is the first in-depthstudy of its kind and examines the moral founda-tions of white-collar criminal offenses such as fraud,insider trading, bribery, and tax evasion. Greenexposes the ambiguities and uncertainties thatencompass today’s white-collar crime and weavestogether disparate threads of the criminal code toreveal a complex and fascinating web of moralinsights about the nature of guilt and innocence.He argues that white-collar crime is best under-stood through a framework of everyday moralconcepts that include not only lying, cheating,and stealing, but also coercion, exploitation,disloyalty, promise breaking, disobedience, andother forms of deception. To give emphasis to histext, Green examines several high profile contem-porary cases. Green uses the book as part of thecurriculum in teaching a White Collar CrimeSeminar at LSU Law.

According to a review in the Wall StreetJournal, “Mr. Green’s book admirably clears awaymuch of the conceptual underbrush surroundingthe idea of white-collar crime.” The book was alsonominated for an award by Scribes, the AmericanSociety of Legal Writers and will soon be translat-ed into Italian.

Green’s current work in progress istentatively titled Property, Crime, andMorals: Theft Law in the Information Ageand is under contract with Harvard Uni-versity Press.

Green also co-edited with R.A. Duff,Defining Crimes: Essays on the SpecialPart of the Criminal Law, which grew outof the Law Center’s 2004 George W. andJean H. Pugh Institute for Justice Con-ference titled “Theory of the CriminalLaw’s Special Part.”

Stuart Green is the Law Center’s L.B.Porterie Professor of Law. A graduate ofYale Law, he has practiced law in Wash-ington, D.C., served as a Fulbright Dis-tinguished Scholar at the University ofGlasgow, as a Visiting Professor at theUniversity of Michigan Law School andhas lectured throughout the U.S. andEurope. �

Professor Stuart Green

An interactive seminar sponsored

by the George W. and Jean H.

Pugh Institute for Justice was

recently held at the Law Center.

Session topics included: Stem

Cells, Cloning and Reproductive

Technologies: What Do We Know,

What Should We Do and Who

Decides? Tomorrow’s Children:

Genetically Designed to Suit Our

Fancy? and Is Modern Genetics a

“New Eugenics” and Should We

Care? Co-presenters were Dr.

Jane Maienschein, director of the

Center for Biology and Society,

Arizona State University, and Dr.

Jason Robert, Arizona State

University, who publishes on

bioethics and the philosophical

aspects of developmental biology.

WhereBIOLOGY

MeetsSOCIETY


D U L Y N O T E D

L S U L A W 5 5

There has been much discussion about thepursuit of National Flagship Status by the LSUBoard of Supervisors and indeed, the LSU AlumniBoard of Trustees. So just what does that mean forthe LSU Law Center?

The flagship, according to Merriam-Webster, is:the ship that carries the commander of a fleet and flieshis flag. It is: the finest, the largest or the most impor-tant one of a series. Quite simply, achieving NationalFlagship Status means that the LSU Law Centerseeks to be the finest ship in the fleet. While seek-ing a new commander with the scheduled depar-ture of Chancellor John Costonis on June 30,

2007, the LSU System appointed a search commit-tee to identify a new leader. With this transition, itis important to note the accomplishments that willlaunch this ship into the new century, surely settingin some part the course of this new journey.

The LSU Law Alumni Board of Trustees recent-ly addressed this topic in one of its semi-annualmeetings. Beginning in 1999, the Law Centerinaugurated and implemented a Law CenterOperating and Capital Budget Plan, premised onincreased funding from state sources, studenttuition revenue, alumni donations, and Congres-sional appropriations. That plan, the Board of

PON READING LSU LAW for the first time, it would not be unusual to notice a theme

of definition arising from these pages. Defining the course of the LSU Law Center

over the next century—both for its native state and for the nation as a whole—is

not only the purpose of this magazine, but the mission of the Law Center’s leaders. That

definition will certainly be center stage as the Law Center embarks on a new course with

the pending appointment of the next chancellor.

U

www.law.lsu.edu


D U L Y N O T E D

5 6 L S U L A W

Trustees believes, afforded the capital and operat-ing funds to establish and strengthen some out-standing features at the Law Center.

Perhaps most tangible, the Law Center’s physi-cal plant has grown from a facility that did notmeet the American Bar Association minimumaccreditation standards to one of the finest lawfacilities in the country. Doubling its budget since2000, the Law Center continued to strengthen itsnationally accredited Common Law curriculum,while maintaining its bijural roots. With a vibrantinternational and Civil Law component, the LawCenter is one of only two Western Hemisphere lawschools to award its students both the Juris Doctorand the Bachelor of Civil Law degrees. Meanwhile,the Law Center continued to maintain the highestbar passage rate in Louisiana, still attracting 85percent of its student body from Louisiana andoffering the most comprehensive program ofinstruction in Louisiana substantive law and skillstraining in the Law Center’s history.

The Board of Trustees recognizes that this flag-ship school offers superior assistance to studentsthrough Library and Information Technology,Career Services, Legal Writing, and a vibrantAlumni Relations, Development, and Communi-cations Division. Looking to expand the M.C.Land LL.M. Graduate Program to 30 students withits approved tuition-waiver support program, theLaw Center is integrating those programs with itsCenter of Civil Law Studies. In addition, theDistinguished Global Visitors Program annuallybrings six to eight European and Latin Americanscholars, deans and practitioners to Baton Rouge

to offer 15-hour, one-credit courses in comparativeCivil Law/Common Law topics. Each year,students show great interest in the SummerProgram in Lyon, France, conducted in partnershipwith the Jean Moulin Law faculty there at theUniversity of Lyon. In 2005, it was the secondlargest United States law school program abroad.Also in 2005, the Law Center established theRussell B. Long Eminent Scholars AcademicChair, the Law Center’s first chair, and appointedthe former Director of the University of Lyon’sEduoard Lambert Institute of Comparative Law,Professor Olivier Moréteau.

Beginning in 2007, the Law Center will conducta summer program in Argentina at the School ofLaw in Austral University in Buenos Aires.

Also in 2007, Professor Patrick Martin wasnamed Director of the Mineral Law Institute,succeeding Professor-Emeritus Thomas Harrell inleading an array of programs addressing criticalissues in Louisiana, national, and internationalenergy law. The Board also praised the work of theGeorge W. and Jean H. Pugh Institute for Justice.

Setting sail with these accomplishments alreadybehind it, the LSU Law Center confidently facesits upcoming challenges. Chief among these is theneed to fill a high percentage of faculty vacanciesover the coming decade. But for the flagship insti-tution, that responsibility is just one of the manythat comes with the grandeur and the gravity ofleading her state’s legal education. Charting thecourse for the future of the Law Center presents anarray of possibilities that are as unlimited as thehopes and abilities of the school’s students.�

www.law.lsu.edu

Charting the

course for the

future of the Law

Center presents

an array of

possibilities that

are as unlimited

as the hopes

and abilities of

the school’s

students.

The Order of the Coif 2006


LSU Law Capital Campaign

For more information, contact Office of Alumni Relations

225/578-8645, [email protected]

LSU IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/ACCESS UNIVERSITY • LSU • 9.5M • 0307


A publication of the LSU Law Center

Baton Rouge, Louisianawww.law.lsu.edu


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