International Media & Conflict Resolution Conference

Last weekend, we hosted a truly special gathering of scholars and practitioners in the areas of media, journalism, international relations, communications, psychology, law, and dispute resolution. I will be blogging a few more times about the conference, abstracts, and upcoming issue of the Marquette Law Review on the symposium, but wanted, for now, to post a couple responses to the conference that I received from attendees.

One of our alums who attended, Evelyn Ang, sent me this clip in light of what we had talked about regarding the impact of changing media. Truly an amazing video! Another alum, Amy Koltz, noted, “I found the speakers engaging and the presentations thought-provoking — I’m amazed at the group of presenters you were able to pull together and bring to Marquette.”  She also provided a link to this article from Haaretz on media coverage of Israel and noted that it could have been a presentation in the conference. Our own program manager and conference planner, Natalie Fleury, heard this story on NPR Monday morning about Al Qaida’s training manual on the Internet, directly linking to Gabriel Weimann’s talk on Saturday.

And, from 2L part-time law student (and full-time veterinarian) Marty Greer, came this summary of the conference for those who missed it:

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Wisconsin Supreme Court Accepts Three New Cases, Including a Case That Will Determine Whether a Crime with No Sexual Component May Trigger Sex Offender Registration Requirements

 

Supreme Court sealToday the Wisconsin Supreme Court accepted three new cases for review, two criminal cases and one civil case.

One of the criminal cases, State v. Smith, 2008AP1011, asks the court to determine whether the sex offender registration statute, Wisconsin Statute section 301.45, is unconstitutional in its application to a defendant whose crime, false imprisonment of a minor, concededly had no sexual component whatsoever.  The Defendant Smith was convicted of falsely imprisoning a minor in connection with a drug crime.  That conviction triggered application of the sex offender registration requirements in section 301.45.  Smith did not register, and was charged with failing to register as required.  He argues that the sex offender registration requirement violates his due process and equal protection rights because his crime had no sexual component.

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Hot Potato Conflicts

I recently taught about successive conflicts in my ethics class, and there could be no better timing than the Fish & Richardson case to explain the hot potato scenario.  The “hot potato doctrine” means that firms are generally prohibited from dropping smaller clients (like hot potatoes) in order to pick up more lucrative clients.

Apparently, Fish & Richardson represented, until recently, headset maker Aliph in its regulatory work out of Fish’s D.C. office.  Aliph is now suing to have Fish & Richardson disqualified from representing a direct competitor against it in a patent case.  As the Recorder explained:

Aliph Inc. moved to disqualify Fish from representing Bluetooth rival Plantronics in the patent case two weeks ago, arguing that the firm shouldn’t be allowed to sue its own client or get out of the mess by suddenly disowning Aliph at 8:30 p.m. the night before . . . .

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