Mission Week Expert Describes Progress and Problems on Global Water Issues

Great progress has been since 1990 in making clean water available to hundreds of millions of people, but there remains great need to extend that progress to hundreds of millions more, a leading figure in such efforts said Thursday at Marquette Law School.

As part of Mission Week at Marquette University, Vanessa Tobin spoke with Mike Gousha, the Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy, in an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program. Tobin is senior technical advisor for water supply, sanitation, and water resources for Catholic Relief Services. She worked for 24 years for UNICEF on dealing with these needs and others around the world before joining Catholic Relief Services in December, 2011.

Tobin said that for people in nations such as the United States or her native England, “we take our hygiene and sanitation for granted. . . . These are luxuries in many countries.” For about 750 million people, primarily low-income residents of  sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, unpolluted water is not available and poor sanitary conditions affect the health of millions of people, particularly children five and under.

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Barrett: Streetcar Plan Is a Bet on the City’s Future

“I’m betting on the future of this city, and I’m saying we have to invest.”

The specific investment Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was speaking of during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” event at Eckstein Hall on Tuesday is the proposed streetcar that would serve parts of downtown Milwaukee.

Barrett has been an energetic advocate for the streetcar plan, which has become a political controversy of a major order. The proposal appears to be coming to an important point (but not a final decision), with two votes scheduled for Wednesday by the Milwaukee Common Council that would create tax incremental districts in the area to be served. The districts would go far to make financing feasible. But supporters are saying that, even if the streetcar wins, there very likely will be a second round of voting in February, as well as other possible avenues of opposition to pursue.

Barrett told a full house in the Appellate Courtroom that downtown Milwaukee has seen a boom in development and that the streetcar would help continue that. He showed photos of major business projects underway and said 800 new residential units are being readied for the market. “I want that momentum to continue,” the mayor said.

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The Wisdom of King Theodoric

theodoricYesterday I was honored to speak at the mid-year graduation ceremony at Eckstein Hall.  Twenty three graduating students and hundreds of friends and family came together with Dean Kearney, faculty and administrators to celebrate the event.  What follows are my prepared remarks.

Dean, fellow faculty, invited guests, and most importantly, December graduates.  I am honored to be with you on such a momentous day.

Class of 2014, today is the day that you thought would never come.  Today is the day that you embark on your legal careers.  Even in normal times, the transition from law school to practice can be an anxiety-inducing event.  But these are not normal times.

The practice of law has been undergoing significant change in recent years.  Venerable old law firms, with names over a century old, are disappearing, through merger and bankruptcy.  It seems that lawyers are better known for their television commercials than for their legal arguments.  And the basic day to day legal work that law firms have traditionally relied upon to meet their overhead is now being outsourced offshore to cheaper lawyers in New Delhi and Manila.

I doubt that someone of my generation can even understand the challenges that you will face in your future careers, much less presume to offer you any advice on how to meet those challenges.

Let me give you some idea of how the practice of law has changed over the last quarter of a century.  When I graduated from law school in 1988, I went to work at a large law firm (at a job that I expected to have for my entire career).  I wrote briefs in longhand on yellow legal pads, and gave the sheets to a secretarial pool for typing.  And if I wanted to do any online legal research, I had to go to the firm’s sole designated Lexis terminal, which was located in the law firm library and which was hardwired via phone line straight into Lexis headquarters (because there was no such thing as the internet).

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