Law School to host leading national scholars to teach special January term

Beginning on January 11, the William S. Richardson School of Law will hold its annual January Term (J-Term) program that offers law students the unique opportunity to take specialized mini-courses taught by leading scholars from around the country. This year, professors from the law schools of Harvard, La Trobe University (Aust.), Seattle, Berkeley and NYU will offer courses on comparative corporate and securities laws of Australia and New Zealand, constitutional law, civil liberties in American History, property rights during rapid social change, and American law under President Obama’s leadership.

 

“We are particularly grateful to these great scholars who come to the Law School and help us continue our longstanding tradition of excellence throughout our curriculum,” said Dean Avi Soifer.  “In its sixth year, the program continues to offer a tremendous opportunity for students and for everyone at the Law School and throughout the community to get to know and to learn directly from world-renowned scholars who are also wonderfully accessible.”

 

Mr. Frank Boas, a generous supporter of the Law School, sponsors one visiting Harvard professor each J-Term. This year, Professor Charles Ogletree is the 2010 Frank Boas Harvard Visiting Professor. The Wallace S. Fujiyama Distinguished Visiting Professor Fund supports many of our other J-Term professors. 

 

Professor Ogletree will teach a seminar on “President Obama’s Impact on America and Beyond: How Will He Help Shape the Legal Landscape?” His course will examine President’ Barack Obama’s life from his childhood through his election as the first African American President of the United States, with an emphasis on the impact of his leadership on America and the world. Professor Ogletree is a prominent legal theorist and prolific writer with an international reputation as an expert on race and justice and serves as Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. 

 

Tayyab Mahmud is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Global Justice at the Seattle University School of Law, and he is the former Associate Dean for Research and Faculty. He will teach a seminar on “Comparative Constitutional Law: Coup d’Etat & Common Law.” This course will compare how courts of common law jurisdictions address the validity of government coup d’etat. His primary research areas are critical legal theory, colonial legal regimes, international law, and post-colonial legal systems.

  

Harry N. Scheiber is the Stefan A. Riesenfeld Professor of Law and History at Boalt Hall, University of California at Berkeley. Professor Scheiber will teach a seminar on “Emergency Powers and Civil Liberties in American Constitutional History,” focusing on a selected set of episodes in American History when government exercised emergency powers, with particular emphasis on Japanese-American internment, martial law in Hawai‘i, and the current ‘war on terror’ policies. He also serves as the Director of the Institute for Legal Research, Director of the Sho Sato Program in Japanese and U.S. Law, and Co-director of the Law of the Sea Institute at Boalt Hall, and he has served as Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Society. 

 

Frank K. Upham is the Wilf Family Professor of Property Law, New York University School of Law. He will teach a seminar on “Property Rights in Economic and Social Development,” which will analyze the impact upon property rights and entitlements when societies undergo rapid change for political, economic, or technological reasons.  Upham was also a Japan Foundation fellow, a visiting scholar at Doshisha University, a research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science at Sophia University, and a visiting professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing.  His scholarship has focused primarily on Japan, and his book Law and Social Change in Postwar Japan received the Thomas J. Wilson Prize from Harvard University Press.

  

Gordon Walker is Professor and Chair of Commercial Law at La Trobe University School of Law in Melbourne, Australia. This is his second time teaching in the J-Term Program. He will teach a seminar on “Public Listing Down Under – Australia and New Zealand Company and Securities Law,” focusing on transactional planning issues involving corporate and securities laws of Australia and New Zealand that share a legal heritage with other British enclaves including Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Professor Walker is also Director of the LLM in Global Business Law and the LLM for International Students programs at La Trobe.  

 

For more information and schedule of public events, see our website at www.law.hawaii.edu.