The Second Annual Pierce Law Student Symposium will be held on Thursday, April 17, 2008, starting at 4:45 pm in the Rich Room at Pierce Law.

The student finalists and paper topics are as follows:

Jonathan Raymond: Is Kelo a Pandora's Box for Patent Law? The Supreme Court's New Take on "Takings"

Austin Padgett: The Rhetoric of Predictability: Reclaiming the Lay Ear in Music Copyright Infringement Litigation

Krum Chuchev: Are the Mini Mental State Examination forms under enforceable copyright protection, and if so, what are the physician's options?

The papers and presentations will be judged by an esteemed panel of New Hampshire attorneys and judges.  We are thrilled to have the following judges on our panel:

Judge Paul Barbadoro, United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire
Judge Carol Ann Conboy, New Hampshire Superior Court
Justice James Duggan, New Hampshire Supreme Court
Mark Sisti, Sisti Law Offices
Dan Will, Devine, Millimet & Branch, P.A.

Students and faculty are encouraged to attend the finalists' presentations, and to join our distinguished panel of judges in a dialogue with the finalists following each presentation. A wine, cheese and sandwich reception will be held after the competition.

We're just a few days away from the start of the Spring semester, and we thought it would be helpful to remind you about important imminent dates on the academic calendar.

• Monday, Jan. 14: Classes begin
• Monday, Jan 21: Martin Luther King Jr. Day - No Classes
• Wednesday, Jan 23: Last Day To Add/Drop Courses
  
• Friday, Jan. 25: Last Day To Elect An S/U Grade
  

And don't forget the week-long Winter break, which starts Saturday, Feb. 23!

You can find the academic calendar, by the way, on the Registrar's pages in the eCampus area of the web site.

Pierce Law will be hosting a program on "Habeas Corpus in a Post 9/11 World" featuring Robert C. Kirsch, Esq.

Mr. Kirsch has been a partner at WilmerHale in Boston, MA since 1983.  He is a member of the team that represents six detainees pro bono at Guantanamo and makes visits to them regularly in Cuba.  He recently returned from Washington, DC, where the detainee-habeas case was argued before the US Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.

Please join Mr. Kirsch on Friday December 14 at 5:00pm for this informative and apropos discussion. 

This program is co-sponsored by the NH World Affairs Council and the International Law Section of the NH Bar

Dahlia Lithwick, Slate.com senior editor and U.S. Supreme Court correspondent, will be giving this year's Bownes Forum address at Franklin Pierce Law Center on Thursday, November 15.

The correct pronunciation of her name was a great mystery among the Pierce Law community until recently, with intense speculation about the possibility that the "w" is silent, which may be more common in Canada, where Lithwick was born. Even Professor Megan De Vorsey, the contact person for individuals interested in learning more, was unable to answer questions about the pronunciation of Ms. Lithwick's name. Fortunately, due to Lithwick's participation on National Public Radio's Day to Day, the mystery has been solved. The name is pronounced juts like it looks.

The topic of Lithwick's remarks was never a mystery. She will be speaking about how Supreme Court coverage has changed in the last few years. Lithwick has previously complained about the tediousness of the first Monday (the opening day of the Court's term), and that the "excitement" on first Mondays usually centers around which justice got new glasses, which one asked the first question of the term, or how long it takes Justices Breyer and Thomas to start whispering to each other.

This year, the opening day was more exciting because of revelations made by and about the Justices over the summer, such as Chief Justice John Roberts' seizures, or that Justice David Souter cried about the outcome of Bush v. Gore. Major books published on the Court during the recess were Clarence Thomas's My Grandfather's Son and Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.

However, according to Lithwick, First Monday in 2007 was still marked by oral argument about a case the Supreme Court probably should not have bothered with (Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican party, which the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit decided in a way the justices expressed little disagreement with). It also lacked "Supreme Court Dancers in shiny black leotards with three gold bands around their upper arms", one of the things Lithwick predicted would have made the first Monday exciting in 2002.

This coming Tuesday, October 30th, The New Hampshire Technical Institute’s Recycling Club will be sponsoring an Electronics Recycling Day from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

This will be a great (and inexpensive!) opportunity to safely and responsibly dispose of your old electronics -- computers, monitors, TVs, stereos, MP3 players, etc. A truck will be stationed in Parking Lot B of NHTI’s Concord campus to collect your equipment.

All electronics will be disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner. Parts that are reclaimable -- chips, wires, glass, etc -- will be reused in their component forms. Monitors are 100 percent recycled in an environmentally safe manner. Hard drives are shredded to eliminate security concerns. None of the electronics are shipped to foreign countries, where waste is often uncontrolled or poorly regulated.

Cost will be determined by the type of electronic. For example, $7.00 will be charged for monitors, $5.00 for portable stereos, and TVs will range from $6.00 to $18.00 depending on the size of the screen.
For any questions concerning this event, please contact Ruth Heath at rheath@ccsnh.edu or 271-7722.

Dean Hutson is in Washington, D.C. today as an invited panelist at the hearings on the nomination of Judge Michael B. Mukasey to be the next Attorney General of the United States. The dean is in rare company as one of just six invited panelists, including former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and former U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White. 

He provided us with a copy of his written testimony, in which he says,

Law isn’t practiced in a vacuum, it is practiced in real life and while good lawyers know the law, great lawyers know about life. That’s a quality we need in our next Attorney General. The job description should call for a wise counselor, not just a clever lawyer.

...

The next Attorney General must be capable of recognizing a legal problem, step back from it and analyze it in the context of real life and understand the non-legal consequences of his advice. One might think, “What a clever lawyer. He defined “torture” so narrowly and the defenses to torture so broadly that we can never be found guilty. He has done a great service to the Nation.” One would be dead wrong. We have seen the consequences of that sort of twisted legal analysis and we must never repeat it.

You can read Dean Hutson's complete prepared testimony on our web site, and tune in to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing through the live web cast available on its web site. We expect Dean Hutson's testimony will occur this afternoon.

    It's December and classes are winding down.  The reality of finals has finally hit like a Pedro Martinez fastball from 1999.  So you study, outline, meticulously prepare, and what have you.  You go to bed the night before the exam feeling a bit queasier than normal, you're freaking out about the test and you may have just spent $200 on some infomercial product (perhaps the Magic Bullet or Ron Popeil's latest invention) but you're not sure what you're doing from all the stress.  You wake up the morning of the test and feel sick to your stomache.  Your head's pounding and you start to sneeze, covering your precious outline in thick nose mucous. 

    No, you're not hungover, sick from stress, or suffering from side affects caused from a coffee overdose.

    You've got the flu.

    How could this happen?  How could this have been prevented?

    From 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm on October 30, 2007 in Room 102 of the Franklin Pierce Law Center, you and any relative aged four or older can get your very own flu shot for the small fee of $25.00.  Contact the Bursar, Sue Ahern, in the Business Office for more details and to RSVP so a count can be taken to ensure enough flu shots for all.

Last Thursday, over 50 Pierce Law students took a break from studying to see the Boston Red Sox take on the Minnesota Twins at historic Fenway Park.  The trip was organized by Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Fran Canning as an opportunity for students to hangout with each other outside of school.  "The reponse has been great," Canning said, "The bus is completely full.  This is the most students we've had for a Red Sox game."  Although the Sox lost, everyone enjoyed the evening.  "When Ortiz hit that home run, I thought the place was going to explode," recalled 1L David Connaughton.  Thank you to Dean Canning for setting up this trip, and to everyone who came out to support the AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST CHAMPION BOSTON RED SOX!

Stay tuned -- Pierce Law is renowned for attracting students from across the country.  Unfortunately, this means there is bound to be some Yankee fans among us.  With the playoffs starting this week, the Reporter will seek out these lost souls and try to answer the question: "Why?"  Hopefully, we will get them to leave the dark side and join Red Sox Nation!