Professor Atiba Ellis to Join Marquette Law in Fall 2018

Prof Atiba Ellis Many in our community will recall Professor Atiba Ellis, who served as Boden Visiting Professor at the Law School during the fall 2017 semester.  He will return to the Law School for the fall 2018 semester—this time as professor of law and a member of the permanent faculty.  We are delighted that he will be joining us.

During his semester as the Boden visitor, Professor Ellis taught a course entitled Contemporary Issues in Civil Rights.  He also participated broadly and enthusiastically in the Law School community, including by delivering a faculty workshop, serving as a featured guest for one of Mike Gousha’s “On the Issues” sessions, and being consistently present in the common areas of Eckstein Hall for engagement with students and colleagues.

Professor Ellis joins Marquette Law School from the law school at West Virginia University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 2009.  In 2017, in addition to his semester at the Law School, he served as a Visiting Scholar at Duke University Law School.  Professor Ellis has taught courses in the areas of Election Law, Civil Rights Law, Race and the Law, Property, and Trusts and Estates.  His research and scholarship has focused on voting rights law and theory, critical legal theory, and legal history.  He is a well-established and highly regarded scholar whose work relates directly to matters of great present concern within Milwaukee and Wisconsin more generally.

Please join me in welcoming Professor Ellis (back) to Marquette University Law School.

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Learned Hand: You’re Reading Him Wrong

Learned Hand: You’re Reading Him Wrong

Photo of Judge Learned HandPossibly no judge had a greater influence on copyright law in the twentieth century than Learned Hand. Nichols v. Universal Pictures and Peter Pan Fabrics are foundational cases in most textbooks; Sheldon v. MGM and Fred Fisher v. Dillingham used to be. And although he did not write the opinion, Hand was on the panel that decided Arnstein v. Porter.

Part of the reason for Hand’s enduring popularity is that he was a brilliant writer, and his aphorisms about copyright law continue to appeal to a skeptical age. In Nichols, he famously declared with respect to the distinction between uncopyrightable idea and copyrightable expression, “Nobody has ever been able to fix that boundary, and nobody ever can.” In Shipman v. RKO Pictures: “The test is necessarily vague and nothing more definite can be said about it.” In Dellar v. Samuel Goldwyn, Inc., decided per curiam but attributed to Hand: “[T]he issue of fair use … is the most troublesome in the whole law of copyright.” In Peter Pan Fabrics v. Martin Weiner Corp.: “The test for infringement of a copyright is of necessity vague…. In the case of designs, which are addressed to the aesthetic sensibilities of an observer, the test is, if possible, even more intangible.”

To modern ears, these sound like (and are often quoted as) criticisms of copyright law. A vague, ineffable test is an unworkable test, one that offers no guidance to lower courts or juries and is therefore hardly better than no test at all. But to read Hand in this way to read him anachronistically.

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A Simple Wardrobe for a Complex Profession

man in a business suitThis semester in Professor Lisa Mazzie’s Advanced Legal Writing: Writing for Law Practice seminar, students are required to write one blog post on a law- or law school-related topic of their choice. Writing blog posts as a lawyer is a great way to practice writing skills, and to do so in a way that allows the writer a little more freedom to showcase his or her own voice, and—eventually for these students—a great way to maintain visibility as a legal professional. Here is one of those blog posts, this one written by 3L Corey Westfall.

A lawyer wears—what does a lawyer wear? I ask you that question after my roommate professed that “we are going to be lawyers soon, so we should dress like lawyers.”

If the 2017 American Bar Association (“ABA”) annual conference provided an entire session focused solely on fashion, fashion must be a real legal issue! ABA paid for a Brooks Brothers session that provided modeling, lectures, and a pamphlet.

And while Brooks Brothers used that session to advertise their “relatively affordable pieces” (do not be duped; there are more affordable options), Brooks Brothers also provided some useful tips: (1) stick to dark grey and dark blue suits/skirts; and (2) limit shirts to solid blue and solid white, and lightly patterned versions of blue and white. (Number (2) for women may have some slight variations in color, but not much.) Conservative tips, but safe nonetheless.

We law students are joining a profession older than we are, with fashion norms out-aging our already-outdated law school wardrobe!

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