Professor Nachman Gutowski Publishes Article and Is Set to Speak at Multiple Events

Nachman N. Gutowski, Director of Academic Success Program, Assistant Professor-in-Residence recently published an article in the Seattle Journal for Social Justice. STOP THE COUNT; The Historically Discriminatory Nature of the Bar Exam Requires Adjustments in How Bar Passage Rates are Reported offers a critical examination of the bar exam and its reporting practices, highlighting the need for adjustment to address the historically discriminatory nature of the exam and its impact on marginalized groups. He also recently published a research summary on how bar exam results are reported called How Are Bar Exam Results Reported?: Raising the Bar.

Professor Gutowski will be one of the Keynote Speakers for the symposium at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law in January 2024. This event will focus on risk-taking and reform in legal education. The basis for Professor Gutowski’s talk will be his forthcoming article entitled NextGen Licensure and Accreditation , which the University of New Hampshire Law Review is publishing in the Spring. This piece will examine the coming changes to the bar exam, particularly with the NextGen Bar Exam replacing the Uniform Bar Exam.

He will also present at the Association of Academic Support Educators’ Diversity Conference next month in Washington D.C. Professor Gutowski’s topic is “Leveraging Partnerships to Maximize Student Support.” Lastly, in November, he will speak at  AccessLex, LexCon in Chicago on “Measuring Success: Evolving Approaches to Data Collection and Reporting” and moderate a session on ChatGPT in the Classroom. The GPT session will support his current research into generative AI policies in law schools nationally for future scholarship agendas. 

Professor Michael Kagan Publishes Casebook on Legal Ethics and Article on Immigration Law Reform

Professor Kagan recently co-authored a first-edition casebook on legal ethics. With Michael P. Maslanka and Nancy Ann Dao, Experiencing Professional Responsibility is a traditional legal casebook that takes on new, modern ethical issues. Of his first casebook, Professor Kagan said he was glad to be a part of it “as students struggle more with legal ethics than one would expect.” He also states that even licensed attorneys and judges sometimes labor on the topic.

“We think of legal ethics coming from bad intentions—although most times, it is from good intentions—and as a result, both students and lawyers forget some of the rules and obligations.” Professor Kagan points to the inclusion of newer issues like marketing and social media influencers in the casebook that did not exist when he was in law school. “Legal ethics is covered by the news media daily, and we selected colorful, although not the most well-known cases for the casebook for an updated approach.”

He is also publishing a new UC Irvine Law Journal article entitled Mass Surrender in Immigration Court. “This work was a study of something that has puzzled and bothered me ever since I was a law student in the late 1990s.” After going to immigration court in Detroit, Professor Kagan questioned why attorneys defending people against deportation typically concede to the government and deport people. This prompted research and study, to which Professor Kagan concludes, “ The standard of practice should change where lawyers by default should make the prosecution prove its case.”

 

Professor Ann McGinley Leverages Employment Law Background in Recent Scholarship Activities

 

Ann C. McGinley, Co-Director of the UNLV Workplace Law Program and William S. Boyd Professor of Law, has three scholarship initiatives in the works, beginning with a new casebook. Co-authored by Laura Rothstein and D’Andra Millsap Shu, the upcoming seventh edition of  Disability Law: Cases, Materials, Problems is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the major laws relating to discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Professor McGinley says, “Disability law has gotten more attention lately; students are becoming more interested in studying disability law because it affects many of them personally. Most interesting to me are the changes since the last edition because Covid has had many effects on the law.”

Professor McGinley has recently completed Religious Accommodations in the Dobbs Era for a symposium to be published this year about how the 2022 Supreme Court decision on abortion has affected the workplace. Her research deals with how the anti-discrimination rights—including an employee’s right to religious accommodations—in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees’ anti-abortion speech at work and their refusal to do portions of their jobs that they consider objectionable. She cites, for example, recent cases at CVS’s Minute Clinics and Southwest Airlines. At CVS, nurse practitioners have been fired for refusing to counsel patients about contraceptives that are contrary to the employees’ religious beliefs, while a flight attendant at Southwest was fired for harassing another employee for her pro-abortion political activity. Professor McGinley’s research offers insights into the difficult balance that employers and courts must achieve to protect employers’ and their customers’ interests while respecting employees’ rights.

Her third project is entitled Intersectionality on The Ground, The “Neutral Norm” and Remedying The Gap In Success of Intersectional Claims. This multi-year project analyzes how the law creates barriers to protection against employment discrimination for the most vulnerable individuals who belong to two or more protected classes, and/or whose disfavored working identities are related to protected traits. She plans to suggest changes to how Title VII is interpreted as well as amendments to the statute that would create greater protection for workers who currently suffer from intersectional discrimination.

Boyd Law School Alumnus Wins National Legal Writing Award

Alumnus Travis Studdard (’22) won a Law360 Legal Writing Award from the Burton Awards for his article, Riling Up As Recommendation: How Commission-Free Brokerages Recommend Active Investing to the Public. Travis is the first student from the William S. Boyd School of Law to be awarded this honor. 

Travis wrote the article in a directed research course under the guidance of Professor Benjamin Edwards. Travis submitted it in the 2021 James E. Beckley National Competition by the Public Investors Advocate Bar Association (PIABA) and won first place.

After Travis won the competition, Professor Edwards decided to recommend him for the Burton Awards.

“After he brought home that national win, it was an easy decision to nominate him to our legal writing faculty as the person we should put forward for a shot at a Burton award,” Professor Ben Edwards said. “Travis worked incredibly hard on a complex topic that is still on the SEC's (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) rulemaking agenda.”

Professor Kathryn Stanchi was Travis’s first-year legal writing professor in 2019 and was thrilled when she found out about his award.

“I remember Travis as a hard-working, smart, and good-natured evening student,” Professor Stanchi said. “I'm always amazed by evening students who work full time and then come to law school. I remember particularly that Travis took feedback very well. This award is a confirmation that Boyd, and its writing faculty, are producing some of the best student legal writers in the nation.”

This prestigious recognition is granted in association with the Library of Congress, presented by lead sponsor Law360, and co-sponsored by the American Bar Association. Since 1999, the Burton Awards have been praising excellence in the legal profession, including writing, reform, public service and interest, regulatory innovation, and lifetime achievements.

According to William Burton, the founder and chair of the awards program, "The winners are truly exemplary, technically skilled, and effective writers. The authors have set a new and even higher standard of excellence."

Only 25 writers were selected from nominations submitted by the nation's top law schools. The committee responsible for the selection process included judges and law school professors from esteemed institutions such as Harvard Law School, Georgetown Law Center and UC Berkeley Law School.

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ABOUT UNLV WILLIAM S. BOYD SCHOOL OF LAW
Established in 1998, the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has nearly 400 students and offers three juris doctor degree programs: a full-time day program, a part-time day program, and a part-time evening program. The school also offers a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Gaming Law and Regulation and three dual degree programs: the J.D./MBA, J.D./M.S.W., and J.D./Ph.D. It is fully accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. For more information about UNLV Law, please visit law.unlv.edu and stay connected on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.