Back To The Future – Revisiting “Milwaukee 2015: Water, Jobs, and the Way Forward”

During a time-travel scene in the 1989 film “Back to the Future II,” director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale attempted to predict the world of Banner logo - Earth in a dropOctober 2015.  They got some things right and others wrong.   Zemeckis and Gale aren’t the only ones who made predictions about 2015, however.  Six years ago, in November 2009, Marquette Law School’s Public Policy Initiative convened a conference entitled “Milwaukee 2015: Water, Jobs, and the Way Forward.”  The speakers included Wisconsin’s then-Governor Jim Doyle, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett; and Badger Meter’s Rich Meeusen, co-chair of what was then called the Milwaukee 7 Water Council (and now is simply The Water Council).  The conference’s key theme was making southeast Wisconsin the hub of freshwater-related business in North America.

Meeusen delivered one of the gathering’s most memorable lines: “My dream is, by 2015, when people think water, they think Milwaukee.”  Another speaker, Anselmo Teixeira of Siemens, noted that as of 2009 no water technology hub had been established in North America.  Teixeira recognized Milwaukee’s advantages in seeking to become such a center, but cited the need for government, university, and business leaders to do “the right things.”    Six years later, in the conference’s title year, we can begin to evaluate whether Meeusen’s dream has become a reality.

Continue ReadingBack To The Future – Revisiting “Milwaukee 2015: Water, Jobs, and the Way Forward”

Kasey Parks, 3L, Receives Milwaukee Bar Association Pro Bono Publico Award

Kasey Parks has received the Milwaukee Bar Association’s (MBA) Pro Bono Publico Award in the category of law student. Kasey accepted her award at the MBA’s annual State of the Court Luncheon on Thursday, October 15th.
 
The award is given to an individual attorney, an organization, and a law student based on the following criteria: developing innovative ways to deliver volunteer legal services or improve access to justice; participating in activities that improve legal services to the poor or increase access to justice; and working on legislation that increases access to justice.
 
Kasey has completed over 150-hours to date. Most of her time has been given to the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinics (MVLC). Kasey gives her time each and every week, doing what all practitioners should by making pro bono a habit in her busy schedule (Kasey is also completing her Master’s in Business Administration, is the Article and Research Editor for the Marquette Sports Law Review, and has been a volunteer and research assistant for the National Sports Law Institute for the past 3 years.).
As a member of the MVLC’s student advisory board, Kasey is a leader among her peers. She reaches out to incoming students and explains how the life of a busy law student has room for incorporate pro bono. She is an important part of our legal community’s desire to give back.  As a law student and future attorney, her service ethic and actions are key to the culture of pro bono among the legal community. Thank you Kasey. You are worthy of this recognition.  (In the photo above, Kasey is pictured with Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler and Milwaukee County Chief Judge Maxine White).  
Continue ReadingKasey Parks, 3L, Receives Milwaukee Bar Association Pro Bono Publico Award

Jekyll, Hyde, and Criminal Law

I am looking forward to Professor Nicola Lacey’s public lecture at Marquette Law School tomorrow. Lacey’s presentation, the annual George and Margaret Barrock Lecture on Criminal Law, is entitled, “Socializing the Subject of Criminal Law? Criminal Responsibility and the Purposes of Criminalization.”  More information and registration are available here.

For an engaging and succinct introduction to Lacey’s important writing on criminal responsibility, I would recommend “Psychologizing Jekyll, Demonizing Hyde: The Strange Case of Criminal Responsibility,” 4 Crim. L. & Philosophy 109 (2010). In this article, Lacey uses the classic Robert Louis Stevenson story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to illustrate some fundamental tensions in thinking about criminal responsibility.

First published in 1886, Stevenson’s novella concerns a distinguished Victorian doctor, Jekyll, who despairs over his urges to indulge in vice. Jekyll devises a potion that splits the good and evil sides of his personality into distinct identities.   The animalistic Hyde may gratify his lusts without any risk to Jekyll’s reputation, or so it seems. The plan unravels, however, as Jekyll loses the ability to control the transformations, and the Hyde identity becomes dominant. Along the way, Hyde commits a murder and eventually kills himself (and thus Jekyll, too) in order to avoid arrest.

Continue ReadingJekyll, Hyde, and Criminal Law