While I was working into the evening on the third floor of Eckstein Hall, a friend stopped to catch up. On the table in front of me were piles of handwritten notes, highlighted cases, outlined arguments, and cheat-sheets, organized by Petitioner or Respondent. Color-coded flashcards were stacked in the corner. I was surrounded by seven-and-a-half weeks worth of sticky notes. I was a few days away from my moot court competition, and reviewing every single note card’s scribbled phrase, ensuring I was ready for any and all arguments from opposing counsel and questions from the judges. She gave me a sympathetic look. “Moot court,” I said.
She asked if I felt it was all worth it, for “just a resume booster.”
I looked at everything in front of me. Seven-and-a-half weeks of color-coded chaos. The disorganization reflected my anxiety. But all of it also reflected an extraordinary amount of work and number of hours mastering an area of the law that just seven weeks ago I found foreign and intimidating. I smiled. Was it all worth it? Continue reading “Resume Booster”
Congratulations to 3Ls Olivia Garman and Samuel Simpson for placing in the Octofinals in the National Criminal Procedure Tournament in San Diego. The team’s advisors are Professors Susan Bay and Thomas Hammer, and the team coaches are Attorneys Brittany Kachingwe, Sarah McNutt, and Mary Youssi. All three coaches are former Marquette moot court competitors.
Marquette hosted the Region VIII round of the NMCC on November 17-18, 2018.
Please congratulate team members Jessica Delgado, Emily Gaertner, and Sarita Olson, who received the highest brief score in the competition and award for best Petitioner’s brief. The team advanced to the quarterfinals. Professor Rebecca Blemberg advised the team, and attorneys Bryn Baker, Veronica Corcoran, and Chal Little coached the team.
Please congratulate Claudia Ayala Tabares, Katie Bakunowicz, and Kelsey Stefka for placing in the semifinal round. I had the privilege of working with this team, and the team was coached by Attorneys Jason Luczak, Brianna Meyer, and Max Stephenson.
We are happy to have two guests submitting blog posts during November.
Our Student Blogger of the Month is Emily Gaertner. Emily is a 3L at Marquette University Law School. She is Chief Justice of the Marquette Moot Court Association and Vice President of the Legal Writing Society. During her time at Marquette Law School, Emily has competed in the Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition, and will represent Marquette Law at the National Moot Court Competition. Emily has also interned for Judge Paul Reilly at the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District II, and currently interns for Judge Diane Sykes at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Emily serves as a Student Ambassador and tour guide, and volunteers her time at the Domestic Violence Injunction Clinic. Prior to coming to law school, Emily graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2015 and earned a dual baccalaureate in philosophy/pre-law and criminology.
Our Alumni Blogger of the Month is Alen Lagazo. Ioua Alen Marcyn Lagazo (“Alen”) serves as Compliance Counsel to CNH Industrial, a leading global manufacturing company for industrial equipment. In addition, he is a board member and co-Director of Social Media and Marketing for BYU Alumni Association – Chicago Chapter.
He is a 2018 graduate of Marquette University Law School, where he completed internships at SoftwareONE, BloodCenter of Wisconsin, BP Peterman Law Group, and CNH Industrial. He is a 2014 graduate of Brigham Young University, where he focused on international studies and business management. For 26 months between 2009 and 2011, Alen served a full-time voluntary assignment as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Prior to that, in 2007, he received his Eagle Rank from the Boy Scouts of America.
Ioua Alen Marcyn has been married to Glenna for 6 years and together they have a daughter, Hermione, born just before entering law school. He enjoys spending time with his family, coaching his daughter’s soccer team, entertaining guests and networking. He also volunteers as an adult leader for the youth program for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Congratulations to the Marquette Law Mock Trial Team who competed at the ABA Section of Labor and Employment Trial Advocacy Competition on November 3, 2018.
The team advanced to the Semi-final round of the competition, placing within the top four teams. Team members include Cole Altman, Katie Dvorak, Dan McCrackin, and Rohit Rangarajan. The team was coached by Katie Halopka-Ivery and Emil Ovbiagele.
Congratulations, Team! We are proud of your hard work and success.
The bald eagle symbolizes the strength of the United States, not least when the country uses its military power. The eagle on the cover of the Marquette Lawyer magazine, Fall 2018 issue, shows the determination, even the fierceness, of the eagle during times of war.
But the process involved in deciding where and how that eagle flies is more complex than many people may realize. In the cover story in the new Marquette Law School magazine, David J. Barron, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and formerly a Harvard Law School professor, insightfully examines three chapters in American history when a president and leaders of Congress had differing positions on use of power. Barron focuses on three of the nation’s most revered presidents: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The article is an edited and expanded version of the E. Harold Hallows Lecture that Barron delivered at the Law School in April 2018. To read the article, click here.
Interspersed throughout the article are reactions by three individuals with different perspectives on the relationship between Congress and the commander-in-chief: Russ Feingold, former three-term U.S. senator from Wisconsin and currently distinguished visiting lecturer in international studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison; Julia R. Azari, associate professor of political science at Marquette University and a scholar of the American presidency; and Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of Lawfare and senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
I am pleased to report that my latest book, Prisons and Punishment in America: Examining the Facts, is now in print. Structured as a series of questions and answers, the book synthesizes the law and social science on sentencing, corrections, and prisoner reentry. Individual chapters cover:
Sentencing law and practice
Alternatives to incarceration
Experience and consequences of incarceration
Release and life after prison
Women, juveniles, and other special offender populations
Causes and significance of mass incarceration in the U.S.
Race, ethnicity, and punishment
Public opinion, politics, and reform
The book is intended to be accessible to readers who do not have training in law or social science, but I also hope that there are some aspects of the book that will be of interest even to those who are already quite familiar with the workings of the criminal justice system.
Taylor Brisco and Christa Seymour at the AWL Annual Luncheon.
Yesterday, September 25, 2018, the Milwaukee Association for Women Lawyers (AWL) Foundation honored two Marquette University Law School students with scholarships.
Christa M. Seymour, 2L, received the AWL Foundation scholarship. The AWL Foundation Scholarship is awarded to a woman who has exhibited service to others, diversity, compelling financial need, academic achievement, unique life experiences (such as overcoming obstacles to attend or continue law school), and advancement of women in the profession. As a child, Seymour moved from South Milwaukee to Rio, Wisconsin, a small town in the northern part of the state with just over 1,000 people (as 2010). She completed her undergraduate degree at UW Madison, and in the next 13 years, she worked in business and became a mother to four children. When she started law school—13 years after finishing her undergrad degree—Seymour’s children were between 2 and 8 years old. On top of a busy life with a family and law school, Seymour works with the Milwaukee Justice Center, volunteers with the Domestic Violence Injunction project, and is involved in student associations. Seymour said she wanted to be an example of where hard work and perseverance can take someone, and to be that example for her children and for others.
Taylor Brisco, 3L, received the AWL Foundation’s Virginia A. Pomeroy scholarship. This scholarship honors the late Virginia A. Pomeroy, a former deputy state public defender and a past president of AWL. In addition to meeting the same criteria as for the AWL Foundation scholarship, the winner of this scholarship must also exhibit what the AWL Foundation calls “a special emphasis, through experience, employment, class work or clinical programs” in one of several particular areas: appellate practice, civil rights law, public interest law, public policy, public service, or service to the vulnerable or disadvantaged. Brisco, a former sports journalist, is the first African American woman to serve as Editor-in-Chief of the Marquette Sports Law Review. Last spring, she received the Anne Wall “Ethics in Sports Law Writing Competition” Award for her essay about unethical practices of player re-entry in the National Football League and how to fix those practices. Brisco is currently the legal intern for the West Allis City Attorney’s Office and the legal intern for the Milwaukee Bucks. In addition to pursuing a sports law certificate here, she is also completing her master’s degree in dispute resolution from Pepperdine University. Somehow, Brisco still finds time to be a research assistant for Professor Mazzie, participate in mock trial, serve as a student ambassador for the law school Admissions Office, and volunteer for the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinic.
Congratulations to both women for outstanding service and for their representation of Marquette University Law School.
Please join me in welcoming Jose Lazaro, our Student Blogger of the Month for the month of September. Here is how Jose introduces himself:
I was born and raised in Puerto Rico where my entire family still resides. At age fourteen I was given the opportunity to play baseball at a boarding school in Philadelphia. I then moved to Florida, where I got drafted by the New York Yankees after my senior year of high school. Instead of pursuing professional baseball I chose to be a student-athlete and went on to play four years of college baseball. After battling injuries, my baseball career finally ended after shoulder surgery and an unsuccessful two-year long rehab attempt. I am now a second-year law-school student here at Marquette University pursuing a number of interests and focused on acquiring a set of skills that will allow me to have a positive impact on the lives of others and the community at large. This past summer I interned at Harley-Davidson, and I will be a summer associate at a Milwaukee law firm this upcoming summer 2019.
Professor Pablo Rueda-Saiz teaches Comparative Constitutional Law in Giessen, Germany
An Orientation Session about your study abroad opportunities during law school, with important deadlines, will take place Thursday September 6 at 12:15 pm in Room 257 of the Law School.
The shortest study abroad opportunity takes place over Spring Break 2019 and is a component of Professor Schneider’s International Conflict Resolution class. The class will travel to Israel and study the Israeli-Palestinian conflict first hand.
The month long Summer Session in International and Comparative Law, scheduled to take place in Giessen, Germany Saturday July 20 through Thursday August 15, 2019, includes multi-day field trips to Berlin and Hamburg. In Hamburg this past summer, MU students danced until dawn and then had breakfast at the Fish Market as the sun rose. Apparently, its a thing.
MU Law regularly hosts exchange students visiting for an entire semester from the University of Comillas in Madrid, the University of Copenhagen, and the University of Poitiers in France. Oddly enough, these students find Milwaukee to be an exotic locale.
At the same time, MU Law students have the opportunity to spend one or more semesters of their legal education as a visiting law student in Madrid, Copenhagen, or Poitiers. We definitely get the better of that deal.
Professor Sorcha MacLeod, who teaches in the Summer Session in Giessen, Germany, is an expert in the law of armed mercenaries. And I thought I was cool because I teach Con Law.
You can explore the Study Abroad homepage on the Law School website, however updated information for 2019 will not be available online for a few weeks.
After teaching in Germany for 6 summers, I have come to the conclusion that the words “German” and “pizza” should never be used in the same sentence.
Things you learn teaching Comparative Constitutional Law: the first two words of the German Constitution are “human dignity,” while the U.S. Constitution did not originally mention human rights at all.
Did I mention that an Orientation Session will take place Thursday September 6 at 12:15 pm in Room 257 of the Law School?
To the left you can see a photo that seems to show a plate of spaghetti noodles topped by some sort of strawberry sauce. However, first looks can be deceiving. This is actually a photo of a popular type of gelato, called “spaghetti eis,” that is served at the Cafe San Marcos and at numerous other locations in Giessen, Germany.
Similarly, if you were to walk around the campus of Justus Liebig University for the next three weeks, you would undoubtedly see a large group of students laughing and talking as they make their way to and from classes. You might even assume that these are German law students attending a summer session. However, once again first looks can be deceiving.
These students currently enjoying the warm and sunny weather are actually over 40 law students who have gathered in Giessen from the United States and across the globe to participate in the Summer Session in International and Comparative Law co-hosted once again by the Marquette University Law School and our partners the University of Wisconsin and Justus Liebig University. There are 14 students attending from the United States and a variety of other countries represented including Brazil, Poland, Egypt, Portugal, Belgium, Macedonia, Italy and Vietnam, to name a few.
At this stage of the program, the students have finished a week of classes, and a whirlwind field trip to Berlin, and they are beginning to feel at home in Giessen. A Laser Tag outing has been planned. The best Karaoke Bar in town has been located. Continue reading “First Looks Can Be Deceiving in Giessen, Germany”
On May second, the Marquette community lost one of its most interesting, wonderfully eccentric, and beloved members, Professor Gordon Hylton, who died of complications from cancer. Academics by and large are an enthusiastic group of people with extraordinary jobs that give them a privileged opportunity to study and share their passions with colleagues and students. No one more thoroughly enjoyed and reveled in being part of that world than Gordon Hylton. He was a devoted teacher, a relentless, careful, and thorough scholar, and a cherished colleague.
I personally found Gordon to be one of the most interesting people of my acquaintance largely because he had so many interests, found so many things fascinating, and, aided by a legendary memory, pursued them with passion and rigor and a remarkable urge to synthesize, to explain everything. And he was generous. He enjoyed nothing so much as chatting with his students and his colleagues about baseball, country music, the odd personalities who sat on the Supreme Court, the reasonableness of property doctrines, the early history of Christianity, and always with great enthusiasm and courtesy, as if knowledge and insight were both important and the most fun.
Professor Hylton was a native of Pearisburg, a small town (population, 2,699 in 2016) in Giles County in the SW corner of Virginia near the border with West Virginia. He began his college and university career at Oberlin College in Ohio, where, he often explained, he enrolled because they let him play baseball. In the course of his four years at Oberlin, the student radio station also let him host a country music program in the late night, early early morning hours. Oberlin nurtured a pronounced competitive streak. His roommates recall Gordon organizing them to enter a team in every intramural sport including inner tube water polo despite the fact that Gordon did not know how to swim, something his teammates discovered only well into the water polo season.
While I was working into the evening on the third floor of Eckstein Hall, a friend stopped to catch up. On the table in front of me were piles of handwritten notes, highlighted cases, outlined arguments, and cheat-sheets, organized by Petitioner or Respondent. Color-coded flashcards were stacked in the corner. I was surrounded by seven-and-a-half weeks worth of sticky notes. I was a few days away from my moot court competition, and reviewing every single note card’s scribbled phrase, ensuring I was ready for any and all arguments from opposing counsel and questions from the judges. She gave me a sympathetic look. “Moot court,” I said.
