2021

The North-West University in South Africa held its Biennial Alumni Excellence Awards last month, honoring Professor Johan van der Vyer with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

The new center will enhance the law school’s already rich focus on issues of civil rights, human rights, and social justice.

Wednesday, November 17, Dean Mary Anne Bobinski welcomed members of the class of 2021 back to Tull Auditorium for the first in-person swearing-in ceremony held in Tull Auditorium since 2019.

We are honored by the many veterans who choose to earn their law degree at Emory. On Veteran’s Day, we honor the commitment, valor, and sacrifices made by military personnel and their families that safeguard both our democracy and the rule of law. 

90.9% of Emory Law’s first-time test takers have passed the Georgia July Bar Exam.

Latest Sisk ratings rank most-cited law faculty

The casebook’s third edition will incorporate transformations caused by coronavirus.

Emory Law students will be a critical part of commercializing NNSA lab technology

CSLR has received a $1.8M charitable gift from the MirYam Institute to fund a new program called The MirYam Project in International Ethics & Leadership: Law, Religion, Health & Security.

Emory Lecturer Sarah Geraghty has been nominated by President Biden to fill a seat on Georgia’s U.S. District Court, Northern District.

The Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic and partners prevailed in a 2019 court case that sought to provide special education services to disabled youths in the DeKalb County Jail, one of the largest in the country.

I learned over this past Friday of a planned student walkout and protest scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 21, at 3 p.m., to stand in solidarity with Black and LGBTQ+ communities and to protest against the use of slurs in the classroom. There may be additional planned student actions.

I am writing today to provide an important update about the law school’s efforts to promote an inclusive learning environment.

This week, President Joseph Biden nominated both an Emory Law professor and an alumna for important financial and regulatory posts within the administration. Also, Emory Law’s associate dean of enrollment management and student services recently joined the U.S. State Department as a deputy assistant secretary, where he will focus on international education initiatives including the Fulbright Program.

Morehouse School of Medicine has established a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP) Fellowship, in which Emory's Barton Center will play an important part. Barton Center’s Melissa Carter and Randee Waldman hold adjunct faculty appointments that serve to formalize and institutionalize the programmatic partnership between the Barton Center and the Morehouse CAP Fellowship.

Professor Nicole Morris, director of the TI:GER (Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results) program, will serve as principal advisor for the inaugural HBCU IP Futures Collaborative, a program that will connect leading faculty at HBCUs to foster best practices for teaching IP to non-law students.

Rhani Lott Choi 10L was selected to direct a new student program for Academic Advising and Bar Success.

The Supreme Court of the United States recently rendered a landmark decision in the antitrust case National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston. On June 21, the court ruled on the legality of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s restrictions on student-athlete compensation and benefits.

Emory Law’s Hugh F. MacMillan Library recently received a Be Well Mini-Grant from Emory’s Office of Health Promotion.

The Supreme Court has reiterated several times over the past sixty years that “students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” In 1969, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the court upheld the constitutional right of students to wear black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. Though it acknowledged that public school students’ speech rights were not as robust as they would be in the village square, the court articulated a relatively rigorous standard that requires school administrators to demonstrate a genuine prospect of a “substantial disruption” to the educational environment in order to restrict student speech.

For decades, many Americans have been seeking a reversal of the Supreme Court’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), where the court held that laws burdening religious practice are subject to only rational basis review so long that they are neutral, generally applicable, and do not discriminate against or target religiously motivated conduct. Smith reversed the court’s prior First Amendment jurisprudence that subjected all laws burdening religious practice to strict scrutiny.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court decided California v. Texas, the fifth Affordable Care Act (ACA) case to reach the court since the Act’s passage in 2010. California v. Texas asserted that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 rendered the ACA unconstitutional by amending it. The Supreme Court rejected the case on standing grounds.

The class action is a procedural device that allows many claimants to aggregate their claims in a single case. It is an important tool for private enforcement of the law, particularly in cases involving “negative value” claims: claims so small that no one would assert them individually. Many consumer claims fall into this category. As Judge Posner famously said, “only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.” Without the class action, such claims would not be asserted, which would thwart both the compensatory and deterrent goals of consumer protection laws.

Three different times during the pandemic the United States Supreme Court stayed enforcement of limits on worship services. The last one was Tandon v. Newson, when the United States Supreme Court stayed the enforcement of yet another of California’s limits on worship services during the pandemic. In many ways, the Supreme Court’s decision was not surprising as it had done the same in a New York case nearly five months earlier and a different California case only two months prior.

Congratulations to 2021 John Paul Stevens Fellows Mary Katherine "MK" Karcher 23L, Naomi-Beth McCall 23L, Teddy Randel 22L, and Megan Toomer 23L who received grants to work at public interest organizations across the country.

In June, the State Bar of Georgia recognized two Emory Law professors for professionalism, distinguished practice, and service to others. Associate Dean A. James Elliott 63C 66L received the 2020 Chief Justice Thomas O. Marshall Professionalism Award. Professor of Law Emeritus Charles A. Shanor was honored with the 2019 Marshall-Tuttle Award.

Emory’s Center for Transactional Law and Practice has named George W. Kuney and Carol Morgan the 2021 winners of the Tina L. Stark Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Transactional Law and Skills.

In a welcome return to in-person celebrations, Emory University School of Law graduates either donned masks to cross a socially distanced stage or watched the ceremony live from their devices and home computers as more than 360 students earned master of laws, juris master, doctor of juridical science, or juris doctor degrees.

Suman Malempati left his career as a pediatric oncologist, researcher and associate professor of pediatrics to train as a social justice lawyer because he could “no longer be an observer.”

When a ValuJet DC-9 crashed in the Everglades 25 years ago on May 11, 1996, hundreds of lives were changed forever. But as a result of a lawsuit brought by the family and friends of Kathleen Kessler 72L, nearly 50 female Emory Law students have received scholarships to help them become the formidable trial lawyer she was.

Representatives’ Committee on Financial Services at the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions entitled, “Banking Innovation or Regulatory Evasion? Exploring Modern Trends in Financial Institution Charters.”

Acclaimed legal scholar and social justice advocate Darren Lenard Hutchinson has been named the Emory University School of Law inaugural John Lewis Chair for Civil Rights and Social Justice. He will join the faculty July 1, 2021.

The ultimate impact of Ford, then, is unclear. Despite unanimity on the result, the Court did not speak with one voice.

Vanya Starr did not set out to be a human resources specialist, and quickly learned that her favorite seminars all dealt with employment law. When she started considering pursuing a degree in HR, she naturally leaned toward a degree steeped in the law and decided to attend Emory Law's JM program, where she could take classes specialized in employment law.

Mary Dudziak has been elected a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher.

Today, the US News and World Report’s 2022 ranking of "America’s Best Graduate Schools" was released, showing Emory Law ranked 29 among ABA-accredited law schools. Specialty rankings demonstrate Emory’s unique strengths in business – corporate law (22), constitutional law (24), contracts – commercial law (22), and health care law (23).  

Congratulations to the teams competing in the Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition and The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.

Kirsten Schaetzel is the English Language Specialist at Emory University School of Law. She helps multilingual and international students navigate American culture and the English language while they learn about US law.

Applicants to Emory Law's JM program often have similar questions. Anthony Spatola answers some of the most common questions we receive about the degree and admission process.

As a Robert W. Woodruff fellow, Daniel is pursuing his juris doctor from Emory University School of Law at 30 years old.

The membership of Emory’s American Inn of Court has voted to rename itself as The Judge Clarence Cooper American Inn of Court, after a 1967 Emory Law graduate and history maker within the judiciary.

Today, 157 Law School Deans from schools across the country published a statement addressing the 2020 election and the events that took place in the United States Capitol last week.

Yesterday, the world witnessed an appalling assault on democracy and the rule of law. This was an assault on the peaceful transfer of power, a tradition which is a hallmark of American democracy.