One for the Home Team
Professor receives Public Service Award
by Natashia Gregoire

For years the UM Law School has honored outstanding Mississippi attorneys, public servants and legal advocates with its Public Service Award. This year, for the first time, the law school is honoring one of its own.

The law faculty unanimously selected professor Debbie Bell as the recipient of the 2004 Public Service Award.

“Professor Bell is universally admired by faculty and students for her commitment to justice for all,” said law professor Michael Hoffheimer. “She is a devoted teacher, a valued colleague and person who exemplifies all that is good about lawyers. She believes lawyers can help make the world a better place.”

Bell is also Dean Samuel Davis’s choice for the law school’s Star Professor of the year.

“Professor Bell is truly one of the stars of our faculty,” Davis said. “She is a highly productive scholar; she is greatly respected by members of the Mississippi Bar, especially those who have taken her Family Law Continuing Legal Education course.”

In 24 years of teaching law, Bell has seen her students go on to become supreme court judges, high-powered attorneys and influential politicians.

“It’s exciting to track the careers of students whose first day in law school was in my property class,” said Bell, whose dedication and outstanding teaching ability have made her one of the law school’s most admired professors.

Through her work with students in the Civil Legal Clinic, Bell has garnered a reputation as a tireless advocate for the underprivileged.

“She feels lawyers owe a special duty to the least fortunate members of the community,” Hoffheimer said. “And she quietly put her beliefs into practice. She is a role model for all of us.”

Bell said the combination of traditional classroom and clinical teaching is an ideal mix that allows her to concentrate on a few areas of law and at the same time be part of an active law practice with a wide range of cases.

“I work closely with, and get to know, about 40 students a year in a setting where the students are active participants in the class,” Bell said. “It’s an exciting and fluid classroom setting because, like law practice, it’s unpredictable. You don’t know at the beginning of the semester what cases may come into the clinic or what ethical issues they will raise.”

Bell’s colleagues and students alike laud her teaching ability.

“She instills a strong sense of public service among our students,” Davis said. “She has the respect and admiration of all of our faculty, including me.”

Previous recipients of the law school’s Public Service Award are UM law alumni Evelyn Gaudy, former Mississippi lieutenant governor; Catherine V. “Ginny” Kilgore of Oxford, an attorney with North Mississippi Rural Legal Services; Forest attorney Constance Slaughter-Harvey; Luther Ott, former director of Stewpot Community Services in Jackson; and Bobby DeLaughter, the former district attorney who spearheaded the prosecution of Byron De La Beckwith for the assassination of Medgar Evers.

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Answering the Call
Southerner happy to leave ‘charms’ of NYC behind for UM faculty spot
by Jennifer Russell

Moving from a vibrant city like New York to Oxford might bring culture shock to many, but assistant professor Kyle Duncan and his wife, Martha, say they have found a calm and restful place in Oxford.
“Martha and I are so happy to be in Oxford,” Duncan said. “We spent the last two years in New York City, and what Oxford lacks in terms of noise, trash and abrasiveness, it makes up for in tranquility, community and charm.”

A Baton Rouge native, Duncan joined The University of Mississippi Law School faculty in 2004 after spending two years as an associate-in-law at Columbia Law School in New York. Duncan received his undergraduate and law degrees from Louisiana State University.

“I must admit that I went into law because I had undergraduate degrees in English and Italian, which qualified me for nothing salaried,” Duncan said. “I went to law school because an aptitude test told me I would be a good lawyer.”

While in law school at LSU, Duncan was a member of Order of the Coif, an Alvin Rubin Scholar and executive senior editor of the Louisiana Law Review.

“I would say that I was most influenced in my legal career by Judge John M. Duhé Jr., a federal judge on the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, for whom I clerked right after law school,” Duncan said.

“Judge Duhé, who recently retired, is as exemplary a human being as he was a judge. He taught me that law is a principled, honorable profession that should be kept as distinct as possible from the messy business of politics.”

From 1999 to 2002, Duncan served as an assistant solicitor general under then-Texas Attorney General (now U.S. Sen.) John Cornyn, and Texas Solicitors General Gregory S. Coleman and Julie C. Parsley.

Duncan’s teaching and research focuses on the relationship between law and religion. Duncan said he likes helping students think clearly and critically about judicial opinions they are reading. He said it is as challenging to him as it is to them, given the “usual quality of the judicial opinions.”

“I want my students to remember that I modeled for them some degree of intellectual and personal integrity in the way I approached the subject matter of my courses,” Duncan said. “To paraphrase Woody Allen, practicing law is not primarily about showing up; it is about being diligent, careful, committed and honest.”

Last fall Duncan taught constitutional law and sales. This spring he is teaching law and economics, and legal profession. Duncan teaches in areas that fill a great need in the law school’s curriculum, said Dean Samuel Davis.

“Law and economics is not a course that we have offered regularly, so he fills a need there,” Davis said. “Legal profession, which covers professional ethics, is an important course, but finding people to teach it is often difficult. Kyle meets an important need in that area as well.”

Duncan, 32, has developed a comfortable rapport and great connection with his students, Davis said.

“He connects well with students of today because he is a young professor and his teaching style is informative and dynamic, yet demanding. He is able to get more from his students because he commands their respect.”

Outside his law career, Duncan said he enjoys a little “light reading” in theology and watching replays of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

“Both my wife and I like to play music, she the viola, me the piano, which we’re trying to do more of these days,” Duncan said.

To Duncan, his greatest accomplishments are not directly a product of his career.

“My greatest accomplishment is that my wife recently gave birth to our first child, Joseph,” Duncan said. “My second greatest accomplishment is that my wife consented to marry me three years ago. Martha had known me since we were 9 years old, and it was not until I was 29 that I was able to persuade her to marry me. You can see why I consider this an accomplishment.”

“He’s right,” Martha said, laughing. She said her husband’s ability to calm the crying of their newborn baby has been one of his greatest assets around the house.

“I’d also say that our greatest accomplishment together is the birth of our son.”

Jennifer Russell is a (Year, Major??) from (Hometown)

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A Perfect Fit
Faculty position just right for Duke law grad looking to make an impact
by Clare Smith

Professor Kali N. Murray joined the UM Law School faculty last fall, bringing with her an impressive list of academic and professional accomplishments.

Murray, a former Washington, D.C., attorney, teaches two courses: Property Law, a required first-year course, and Intellectual Property Law.

“Ole Miss employs a broad range of professors from different places, bringing different perspectives,” Murray said. “I feel like I can make an impact here, and have people impact me. This is a great place for me to learn how to be a law professor.”

Murray received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from John Hopkins University. In 1997, she received her master’s in history with a concentration in African Americans in Baltimore from 1790-1820. Her research focused on how African Americans used religious imagery to organize their political communities.

Murray was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, graduated summa cum laude, and received the Belle and Herman Hammerman Award for Outstanding Academic and Leadership Excellence.

“Professor Murray has made her presence known already,” said Dean Samuel Davis. “Many first-year students have told me how much they are enjoying her property class and how much they appreciate her energy and enthusiasm for teaching. She has found time to experience the Grove; she really seems to feel at home.”

In 1999, Murray received her Juris Doctorate from Duke University School of Law, where she was a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council, a student group selected by the faculty on the basis of leadership and academic performance. At Duke, Murray was the Spring Symposium editor of the Duke Environmenta. In 2001, she was appointed to the Future Forum, Duke Young Alumni Board.

“I really valued the smallness of Duke and getting to know my professors and colleagues,” Murray says. “I enjoyed how people treated one another and the emphasis on moral leadership. I came to Ole Miss for many of the reasons I went to Duke.”

In 1938, Murray’s grandfather, Donald Gaines Murray, integrated the University of Maryland Law School. She said she admires his incredible courage and the sacrifice he made for her family.

“I look at where I am now vs. my grandfather’s experience, and I see how much America has changed,” Murray said. “This makes me very positive about the future. I think we must always consider moral leadership and the lawyer’s role in reconciliation.”

After graduating from Duke, Murray spent a year as a clerk for Judge Catherine Curtis Blake of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Maryland Court of Appeals.

She has received bar admissions from the District of Columbia, Maryland, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

Murray worked for the Venable firm in Washington, focusing her legal practice in the intellectual property litigation section of Venable’s Technology Division. She has experience with pharmaceutical patent litigation and with trends in cyberspace law. Murray also has experience with the impact of administrative law on patent litigation and copyright law, including the intersection of government contracts law and copyrights.

“Mississippi has welcomed me with open arms,” Murray said. “I am really enjoying my time here. I wanted to come to a university and state where I was needed and where I can help shape the future of the legal community.”

Clare Smith is a first-year law student from Jackson, Miss.

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For the Record
For the Record highlights faculty interviews with the media.
Not all interviews are represented here.

At 150 years old, Ole Miss Law School survives, prospers
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Oct. 31, 2004
OXFORD—From seven students and one professor to a burgeoning center of law research and study, the University of Mississippi School of Law has seen both decline and prosperity.

“The law school has certainly changed a great deal since its beginning in 1854,” said Sam Davis, dean of the school. “It is larger in terms of students and faculty. Its influence has expanded much beyond the state of Mississippi.”

Funds pile up in court races
The Clarion Ledger, Oct. 9, 2004
High-court incumbents outpace their opponents’ funds by up to 10-to-1. Unless a controversy or scandal is brewing, “incumbents always have a big upper hand,” said Ron Rychlak, professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law. “They’re a known quantity. People see their name in the paper or on TV. People figure unless they’ve heard something bad about the judge, he or she is OK.”

Chief justice to speak Wednesday
The Daily Mississippian, Nov. 9, 2004
“The National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law has a lecture series and invites guests to speak on many subjects,” said Phillip Broadhead, clinical professor and director of criminal appeals at the National Center for Justice and Rule of Law.

“Appellate training has become a highly specialized area of law,” Broadhead said. “Many lawyers who do not have some specialized training in it are probably not qualified.”

SEC targets abuses in stock lending
Reuters/Economic Times of India, Oct. 17, 2004
“It is clear that the SEC has found evidence that funds’ securities lending business is being directed to particular entities based on whether they provide a kickback to the fund managers,” said Mercer Bullard, a professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law and a former SEC official.

Citigroup admits it crippled a fund
Minneapolis Star Tribune, Oct. 31, 2004
The performance lag appears to be the cost of allowing improper trades in a small fund. “This seems to be proof that investors endured significant harm from what fund companies were doing,” said Mercer Bullard, founder of Fund Democracy, a shareholder advocates organization. “It was clear that there had to be a fund—most likely a very small one—where investors lost 5 to 10 percent per year over a three-year period. ... And it looks like this is the kind of small international fund that was mispriced to where it caused those losses for long-term shareholders.”

Reno talk to open cyber crime conference
The Daily Mississippian, Sept. 20, 2004
The conference is supported by the National Association of Attorneys General and will train attendees in the area of cyber crimes, which are crimes facilitated through the Internet, such as child pornography, Internet fraud and identification theft, according to Thomas Clancy, the director of the NCJRL.

“The Internet has allowed perpetrators of these crimes more access than they’ve ever had,” he said.

“These crimes are unbelievably prevalent.”

The rules of the universe, who should own space
National Public Radio, Sept. 12, 2004
Guest: Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz
“When we talk about space we’re talking about an area that’s governed by international law. … The Outer Space Treaty does state that nations cannot appropriate space. The Outer Space Treaty does recognize that the private sector can operate in space but they must do so under government supervision.”

Writing the rules to govern the cosmos
Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 4, 2004
“Space law became what it did because Sputnik went up and all of a sudden there were no rules for the game we found ourselves in,” says Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz, professor of space law at the University of Mississippi and director of the National Remote Sensing and Space Law Center. “For a long time there were no credible activities that forced the issue of space law forward.”

Professor talks on free speech in Paris
The Daily Mississippian, June 24, 2004
UM Law Professor Ron Rychlak spoke against censorship of hate speech on the Internet on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice at a conference in Paris.

“The American position is with our First Amendment—the Supreme Court has held that hate speech is protected speech, unless it crosses the line,” Rychlak said. “The United States recognizes the line that the Europeans did not.”

Court tosses Ayers appeal
The Daily Mississippian, Oct. 19, 2004
“(The plaintiffs) said there had been a systematic historical practice of funding predominantly white schools more than historical black colleges and universities,”said Paul Secunda, an Ole Miss educational law professor and Ayers specialist.

“Past discrimination has present manifestations,” he said. “When you separate different groups, you leave somebody behind.”

Alabama port now home to cruise ship, questions about pollution
The Associated Press, Oct. 14, 2004
Stephanie Showalter, an attorney who is director of the National Sea Grant Law Center at the University of Mississippi, said if a state lacks a law covering cruise ships, federal officials can designate a “no-discharge” zone within state waters to protect marine life.

“While the problem of cruise ship wastewater discharges is often blown out of proportion, it is something that Alabama should have on its radar,” Showalter said. “Although the cruise industry has been working to improve waste management because they want to be seen as environmental stewards, dumping does happen and can have serious local impacts,” she said.

Polls hint at dreaded sequel to 2000 election nightmare
The Clarion Ledger, Nov. 2, 2004
The way the United States conducted elections went largely ignored before the 2000 election, said Michael Waterstone, professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Congress responded afterward by passing the Help America Vote Act that infused federal money into the system, but problems still exist, he said.

“I think there are a lot of lawyers lining up on both sides, ready to fire things off,” said Waterstone, who has provided some advice to the Kerry campaign. “I don’t think either side was mobilized in the beginning in 2000. Nobody wants to be caught with their pants down again.”

Even on NFL playing field, disability bias an unbeaten foe
The Commercial Appeal, May 10, 2004 by Michael Waterstone
“As a society, we have the unfortunate tendency to judge people with disabilities on the basis of their disabilities, not their true abilities. When we do so, we are acting in a prejudiced manner, just as if we had evaluated someone on the basis of race or sex.”

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Faculty Notes

Professor John R. Bradley had his article “The Twisted Arm of Scheduled Member Injuries” published in The Mississippi Lawyer (April 2004).

Croft Associate Professor of International Law Charles H. Brower II was awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor. In October, he delivered remarks on investor-state arbitration at symposia in Montreal and New York, sponsored respectively by the London Court of International Arbitration and the American Branch of the International Law Association. In November, the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law published Brower’s essay “The Lives of Animals, the Lives of Prisoners, and the Revelations of Abu Ghraib.”

Professor Thomas Clancy, director of the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law, had his article “The Fourth Amendment’s Concept of Reasonableness” published in the Utah Law Review (fall 2004). In October, he spoke at the Conference on the Fourth Amendment for Trial Judges, and, in November, he was a presenter at the Conference on Selected Issues in Search and Seizure for Appellate Judges, both held in Reno, Nev.

Dean Samuel M. Davis, the Jamie L. Whitten Chair of Law and Government, continued his service on the Mississippi Bar’s Professionalism Committee. His essay “A Journey of Conscience” will appear in a forthcoming book by professors Richard Bonnie and Mildred Robinson of the University of Virginia Law School. The book, Voices of the Brown Generation, consists of essays of remembrance by law professors who were in school at the time of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The new edition of his casebook, Children in the Legal System, was recently published.

Professor Tim Hall continues his work in the Lyceum as associate provost while teaching a course in the fall at the law school. During the summer, he gave a talk to the Oxford Rotary Club titled “Two Myths about Church-State Separation.” He has been invited by the New York publisher Facts on File to write a book titled Religion in America: An Eyewitness History, which he will complete next September and which is set to be published in 2006. Over the past several months, Hall has served as a contributing editor for two reference volumes to be published by Salem Press in 2005: Criminal Justice in America and The 70’s in America.

Professor Michael H. Hoffheimer is publishing the results of his study of lesser included offenses in two articles: “Lesser Included Offenses in Mississippi,” which will appear in the next issue of the Mississippi Law Journal, and “The Rise and Fall of Lesser Included Offenses,” which will appear in the spring issue of Rutgers Law Journal.

Hoffheimer has prepared an extensively revised new (6th) edition of his Directory of Law Reviews. His “Brown Goes North,” an autobiographical account of the impact of the Brown decision in Cincinnati, is slated for publication in a collection titled Voices of the Brown Generation.

In September, the Mississippi Writing Center hosted the first Mississippi Bollywood Film Festival. Hoffheimer selected five films and introduced the four-day festival. He is writing a bar exam question for an undisclosed state this fall. And he and his son, Joseph, have been invited to submit a chapter on the philosophy of George Harrison to a forthcoming book on the Beatles.

Assistant Professor Jack Nowlin had his book chapter “Judicial Moral Expertise and Real-World Constraints on Judicial Moral Reasoning” published in That Eminent Tribunal: Judicial Supremacy and the Constitution, edited by Christopher Wolfe and published by Princeton University Press (August 2004). Nowlin’s article “Constitutional Violations by the Supreme Court: Analytical Foundations” was accepted for publication in the University of Illinois Law Review and will appear in mid-2005. In April, Nowlin published a short journalistic piece titled “The Courts: End Run Around the People” in The World & I.

In October, Nowlin participated in teaching trial judges Fourth Amendment law as part of the training program “The Fourth Amendment: Comprehensive Search & Seizure Training for Trial Judges,” sponsored by the National Judicial College and the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law and held at the University of Nevada, Reno. Nowlin will present on the topic “The Strategic Role of Natural Law vis-a-vis International Law in Constitutional Interpretation” as part of a professional conference on international law and the U.S. Constitution sponsored by the Alliance Defense Fund and the National Litigation Academy, Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Nowlin is coaching the law school’s First Amendment moot court team, slated to participate in the National First Amendment Moot Court competition, which will be held in February at Vanderbilt University Law School and the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center.

Assistant Professor Farish Percy’s article “Checking up on the Medical Malpractice Liability Insurance Crisis in Mississippi: Are Additional Tort Reforms the Cure?” appeared in the Mississippi Law Journal.

Assistant Professor Lisa Roy’s article “Inculcation, Bias and Viewpoint Discrimination in Public Schools” is slated for publication in the Pepperdine Law Review (spring 2005). A professional responsibility question that Roy submitted to a state bar examiner was tested on the July 2004 bar exam of that state.

Associate Dean and Professor Ron Rychlak, the Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association Distinguished Lecturer, in June was named by the White House to be a member of the U.S. delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, meeting on the relationship between hate crimes and racism on the Internet. He addressed delegates from more than 60 nations who met in Paris and set forth the American position on free speech and the dangers of governmental regulation. That same month, Rychlak presented a paper on “Abortion, ‘Thinking Americans,’ and Law” at the University Faculty for Life meeting hosted at St. Thomas University School of Law in Minneapolis. In July, he presented a paper on “From the Classroom to the Courtroom, How Legalized Gambling is Affecting the Practice of Law,” at the SEALS Conference on Kiawah Island, S.C. The paper on which the talk was based will be published in the Mississippi Law Journal. His publications include two book reviews: “Hitler and the Vatican: Inside the Secret Archives That Reveal the Complete Stories of the Nazis and the Church” in First Things (May 2004), and “New Anti-Pius XII Book by an Old Critic,” reviewing Robert Katz’s “The Battle for Rome,” in Catalyst (May 2004). He also completed a chapter for the forthcoming book The Pius Wars (Lexington Books, 2004).

In October, Rychlak, in conjunction with the Mississippi Law Journal, hosted the Second Annual Academic Meeting of the International Masters of Gaming Law. The proceedings will result in a symposium issue of the law journal.

Rychlak continues to serve as an adviser to the Holy See’s mission to the United Nations, and he was recently named a delegate to the General Assembly. He also continues to serve as a member of the committee charged with revising the Mississippi Criminal Code, and, in conjunction with Marc Harrold, senior research counsel at NCJRL, he is working on a Mississippi criminal law book for West Publishing.

Professor Paul Secunda presented “Lawrence’s Quintessential Millian Moment” at the law school’s Faculty Workshop Series in October. In August, he presented “The Propriety of Compelling Platonic Professors” at the Annual SEALS Conference on Kiawah Island, S.C.

He has published the following articles since August: “Lawrence’s Quintessential Millian Moment and Its Impact on the Doctrine of Unconstitutional Conditions,” Villanova Law Review; “Getting to the Nexus of the Matter: A Sliding Scale Approach to Faculty-Student Consensual Relationship Policies in Higher Education,” Syracuse Law Review; “A Mosquito in the Ointment: Adverse HIPAA Implications for Health-Related Remote Sensing Research and a ‘Reasonable’ Solution,” Journal of Space Law; and “Politics Not As Usual: Inherently Destructive Conduct, Institutional Collegiality, and the National Labor Relations Board,” Florida State Law Review. His article “At the Crossroads of Title IX and a New ‘IDEA’: Why Bullying Need Not Be a ‘Normal Part of Growing Up’ for Special Education Children” is to be published in March in the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy.

During school year 2004-05, Secunda is serving as the faculty liaison with the Law School Student Body. In September, he organized a labor and employment career panel for UM law students with the American Bar Association. In January 2005, he represented the law school as a delegate to the Association of American Law Schools Annual Conference in San Francisco, and he plans to travel to the University of Kobe in Japan in March to present a seminar on American Arbitration Law.

Professor Hans Sinha, director of NCJRL’s prosecutorial externship program, envisioned and organized the law school’s successful annual program Criminal Trial at the Law School, wherein a real criminal jury trial is tried at the school each spring. The experience enables students to observe a trial from jury selection through conclusion and participate in a post-trial symposium with the judge, the lawyers and other participants. One of only two such programs in the country, the program is made possible by the support of local judges, attorneys, court personnel, law enforcement and the legal community.

Sinha conducted a survey of all prosecution externship programs at law schools in the United States. He gave a presentation titled “The Special Responsibility of the Prosecutor—Ethics and Professionalism” at the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, New Orleans, La., in July. He served as co-chair of the AALS Committee on Externships for 2003-04 and 2004-05, and he coached the law school’s Steen, Reynolds & Dalehite National Trial Competition team for the 2004 competition in Birmingham, Ala.

He published a law review article titled “Criminal Jurisdiction on the International Space Station” in the Journal of Space Law (2004). He is organizing a symposium issue of the Mississippi Law Journal dedicated to law articles discussing and examining prosecution clinical and externship programs in depth. This issue, due in the spring of 2005, will be the first such collection of scholarly works on this particular field of clinical legal education.

Assistant Professor Michael Waterstone moderated a panel on “The Progress Toward A UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” at the International Law Weekend put on by the American Branch of the International Law Society in October in New York.

Waterstone published the following journal articles: “Civil Rights in the Administration Toward Secret Ballots and Polling Place Access” in the Journal of Gender, Race, & Justice (spring 2004); “Disability and Voting—The (As of Yet) Unfulfilled Potential of the ADA and Rehabilitation Act” in Information Technology and Disabilities (fall 2004); and “Lane, Fundamental Rights, and Voting” in the Alabama Law Review (spring 2005). He is scheduled to publish Disability Civil Rights Law & Policy—A Casebook (West Group, spring 2005).

He served as faculty sponsor for Just Democracy, a group of law students providing nonpartisan election monitoring in Oxford for the November 2004 election.

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