Monday, February 13, 2012

2012 Schedule announced!

You can get all the details on the 2012 Religiously Affiliated Law School conference, hosted by Touro, here.

Here's the schedule:

Wednesday evening, May 2:
Evening Panel: University Presidents - The Place of Religion and Religiously Affiliated Law Schools in the University

Thursday, May 3:
Morning Panel: Law and Religion Institutes

Lunch

Afternoon Panel: Religion in the Work and Lives of Judges, Government Lawyers, and Public Interest Lawyers

Gala Dinner at the Alfonse M. D’Amato United States Courthouse for the Eastern District of New York

Friday, May 4:
Morning Panel (CLE credit available): Bringing Religion into the Classroom, in the Law School and the University

Lunch



Confirmed Speakers Include:
(as of February 9, 2012)

Dr. Robert John Araujo, S.J., John Courtney Murray, S.J. University Professor, Loyola University Chicago Law School

Adrienne Asch – Director of the Center for Ethics and the Edward and Robin Milstein Professor of Bioethics, Yeshiva University

Michael Broyde - Professor of Law and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University School of Law

Dr. Carlos Campo - President, Regent University

Elizabeth Clark - Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School

Robert F. Cochran Jr. - Director, The Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics and Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law, Pepperdine University School of Law

Ana Renata Dias – Director of the Institute on Religion, Law and Lawyer's Work, Fordham University School of Law

Marie Failinger – Professor of Law and Editor, Journal of Law and Religion, Hamline Law School

Timothy Floyd – Director of the Law & Public Service Program and Professor of Law, Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law

Steven K. Green – Director of the Center for Religion, Law & Democracy and the Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law, Willamette University College of Law

Sister Elizabeth Hill - President, St. Joseph's College

Charles J. Hynes - District Attorney, Brooklyn, New York

Richard M. Joel - President and Bravmann Family University Professor, Yeshiva University

Dr. Alan Kadish - President, Touro College

Greg Randall Lee - Professor of Law, Widener University School of Law

Dr. Frank Macchiarola – Chancellor and Professor, St. Francis College

Graham McAleer - Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University Maryland

Mark Movsesian - Director of the Center for Law and Religion and the Frederick A. Whitney Professor of Contract Law, St. John's Law School

Michael Tzvi Novick - Jordan Kapson Chair in Jewish Studies and Assistant Professor, University of Notre Dame

Lucia Ann Silecchia - Professor of Law, Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law

Come meet us in New York!

Monday, September 20, 2010

Touro in 2012!


After considering an excellent set of proposals, the RALS Executive Committee has selected Touro Law School in Central Islip, New York to host the 2012 Conference. It will be the first RALS conference to be held at a Jewish-affiliated school.

The conference will be coordinated by Professor Samuel J. Levine, who serves as Professor of Law and Director of the Jewish Law Institute.

Details about the theme of the conference, the date, and ways you can participate will be announced in the upcoming months.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

RALS 2010 at BYU

Here is the info, with even more at this link.

2010 Conference of Religiously Affilliated Law Schools

J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University

Room 472

Thursday, March 18, 2010

9:00-9:15 am Introduction
Associate Dean Kif Augustine-Adams, BYU

9:15-10:15 am Plenary Session
H. Reese Hansen, President, Association of American Law Schools and Howard W. Hunter Professor Law, BYU

10:15-10:30 am Break

10:30 am-12:00 pm Panel: The Role of Ministering As Well As Administering in the Law School Community

Scott Cameron, BYU (Chair)
Lindsay P. Watkins, Project Manager, Law School Survey of Student Engagement
Wendy C. Archibald, BYU

12:15-1:30 pm Lunch: Hinckley Alumni Building
Welcome: Dean James Rasband, BYU Law School

1:45-3:15 pm Panel: Sacred Texts Part I: The Role of Sacred Texts and Traditions in Informing Our Understanding and Engagement of Jurisprudence

David Dominguez, BYU (Chair)
John Welch, BYU
Steven Goldberg, Georgetown U.
[Other speaker invited]

3:30-3:45 pm Break

3:45-5:15 pm Panel: Judges, Kings, Prophets, and Lawyers in Biblical and American Perspectives

Samuel Levine, Pepperdine U. (Chair)
Zach Calo, Valparaiso U.: Catholic/Anglican Perspective
David Vlatto, Penn. State U.: Jewish Perspective
Robert Cochran, Pepperdine U.
Mark Graber, U. of Maryland

5:30 pm Box Dinner

5:30 pm Tabernacle Choir Rehearsal in Salt Lake City

6:15 pm Buses depart
8:00 pm Tabernacle Choir Rehearsal
9:45 pm Busses return to Provo

Friday, March 19, 2010

8:15-9:00 am Continental Breakfast, BYU Law School

9:00-10:30 am Plenary Session: Relevant and Reliable Rankings Criteria for Religiously Affiliated Law Schools
David Thomas, BYU

10:30-10:45 am Break

10:45 am-12:15 pm Sacred Texts Part II: Texts, Law and Life

Thomas Folsom, Regent U.: "Disintegrating Norms in Cyberspace: Future Law and the Relevance of Ancient Sacred Texts (Is There a Common Morality for a Global/Tech Era?)"
Collin Mangrum, Creighton: "Religious Text as Authoritative Sources for Legal Reasoning: The Israeli Experience"
Hank Chambers, Richmond: "Biblical Interpretation and Ignoring Text"

12:30-2:00 pm Lunch: Wilkinson Student Center

2:15-4:00 pm Practicing Religion in the Classroom, Court Room, and Marketplace

David Koelsch, U. of Detroit-Mercy: "Promoting Consolation Among Law Students and Attorneys: Incorporating the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola into the Law School Curriculum"
Sherman Cohn, Georgetown U.: "Teaching Jewish Law at Georgetown"
Kristin Gerdy, BYU: "Clients, Empathy, and Compassion: Introducing First-Year Law Students to the ‘Heart’ of Lawyering"
Bill Piatt, St. Mary’s U.: "Catholicism and Constitutional Law: More Than Privacy in the Penumbras"
Rodney Dale Chrisman, Liberty: "Seeking Filthy Lucre: The Historic Christian Teaching on the Goodness of Commercial Activity as the Overarching Purpose of the UCC"

4:00-4:15 pm Break

4:15-5:00 pm Closing Session/Idea Exchange for the Future

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Optional Activity Tour of LDS Humanitarian Services Center Exchange in Salt Lake City

Registration
The cost of the conference is $175.00 per person, which will cover the lunches, dinner and continental breakfast, and the Thursday excursion to Salt Lake City. Guests may attend and participate in the meal and excursion functions for a fee of $75.00. You may register online by clicking here, or you may download a printable PDF, and send it with your check (made out to Brigham Young University Law School) to:

Adrian Selle
Room 405
J. Reuben Clark Law School
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah 84602

Monday, October 5, 2009

RALS At The AALS!

The Religiously Affiliated Law Schools will be hosting a reception at the AALS Hiring Conference this year. The reception will be held from 7:30 09:00 in the Hoover room, on Thursday, Nov. 5. We hope to see you there!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

BYU Conference coming together

The 2010 Conference of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools will be at Brigham Young University March 18-19, which is a Thursday/Friday.

The theme will be “Blessing the Lives of Our Students,” and while several panels are still in the planning stages, there will be panels on the Law School Survey of Student Engagement and the role of sacred texts and traditions in our understanding of jurisprudence.

An announcement and a call for papers should be available soon.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Do Rankings Punish Religiously-Affiliated Schools?

It seems possible, given the reputational rankings given some religiously-affiliated schools. See the very good discussion here.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The Charge and Embrace of Discrimination

One thing that is distinctive about religiously-affiliated schools is that we very often discriminate in hiring. Specifically, in diverse ways, we favor members of our faith over those who are not a part of that faith. Within our group, we vary from schools that have almost no religious favoritism in hiring to those who hire only from members of the faith (or those willing to live under its strictures). My own school, Baylor, is probably more towards the restrictive end of this continuum-- our University demands a relatively close inspection of a candidate's faith, and our current law faculty contains no non-Christians.

Critics of this type of discrimination properly point out that it limits the viewpoints a student is exposed to, and may restrict the debate within the faculty.

However, those problems are costs which many institutions are willing to bear in order to retain their denominational identity, foster the views professed by the sponsoring faith, and provide diversity to the larger national discussion on legal issues from a place of moral certainty.

What I wonder at times is how intentional all this is-- that is, are we sure we are getting the benefits that would justify the costs?