Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

A New Year, New Guest Bloggers!

Post author:Edward A. Fallone
Post published:August 30, 2017
Post category:Marquette Law School Public Uncategorized

We have two guest bloggers for the month of September to help us get the new academic year off to a good start.

Our Alumni Blogger of the Month is Albert (“A.J.”) Bianchi, Jr. A.J. is an attorney at Michael Best and Friedrich LLP where he focuses his litigation practice on intellectual property and federal court matters, including cases involving patent, trademark and copyright infringement, contract disputes, and class actions. He also litigates cases in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota state courts, and has experience with jury trials in both Wisconsin and Minnesota. Before joining Michael Best, A.J. served as a law clerk in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin for the Honorable William M. Conley, the Honorable Barbara B. Crabb, and the Honorable John C. Shabaz. He is a 2007 graduate of the Marquette University Law School.

Our Student Blogger of the month is Matt Sowden. Matt is a Second Year law student who is quick to give credit to his “wonderful, supportive wife and two amazing daughters.” He was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa and served six years in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear electrician on submarines. After his enlistment, Matt attended Drake University where he graduated with a double major in economics and politics. He then worked various jobs for a few years, from warehouse manager to table games supervisor at a casino. During his first year at Marquette University Law School, Matt volunteered at Milwaukee Justice Center’s Family Forms Clinic and at the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinic. As for his future career in law, Matt says: “I am still searching for my preferred area of practice.”

Welcome A.J. and Matt. We look forward to reading your posts this month.

Revisiting recent posts on Great Lakes law and policy

Post author:David Strifling
Post published:August 16, 2017
Post category:Environmental Law Public Water Law

I have recently written in this space about several legal and policy matters of current importance to the Great Lakes, including the city of Waukesha, Wisconsin’s application for a diversion of Great Lakes water pursuant to the Great Lakes Compact; the potential invasion of the Great Lakes by a voracious non-native species of fish, the Asian carp; and President Trump’s budget proposal to completely defund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), a federal program that enjoys strong bipartisan support and supports approximately $300 million in Great Lakes projects annually. There have been important developments on all three fronts over the past few weeks.

Waukesha diversion. The last remaining major barrier to Waukesha’s diversion of Great Lakes water for its public supply has fallen.

Crime and Stigma: New Research Explores the Connections

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:August 14, 2017
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Public

The colonial Americans famously had their “scarlet letter” punishments, which marked and shamed the criminal. Today, the stigma of a conviction may be less vividly displayed, but it is no less real. Two interesting new criminological articles present research on the impact of this stigma.

First, an article by Jeff Bouffard and LaQuana Askew considers potential crime-reducing benefits of stigma, specifically in relation to sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws. Such laws, adopted across the United States in the 1990s, require certain convicted sex offenders to register their residence and other information with state authorities on an ongoing basis, sometimes for the rest of their lives. The information is then made publicly available, which can greatly magnify the duration and intensity of the stigma of the conviction.

It was thought that SORN laws might reduce sexual offending in two ways: by deterring prospective offenders from committing crimes that might land them on a registry, and by alerting potential victims to the proximity of individuals who were already registered and hence possibly dangerous. However, several studies thus far have found little or no reduction in offending in the wake of the adoption of SORN legislation.