Since his arrival in 2005, Professor Vivek S. Sankaran, ’01, has been working to change Michigan’s one-parent doctrine. It states that the court gets jurisdiction over a child based on the finding that one parent is unfit. “My initial reaction was that this is insane, this idea that you can take children away from both parents based solely on findings against one,” he says.
The Future Law Professors Workshop, now in its third year, allows attendees to meet up with Michigan Law faculty and fellow alumni who are interested in teaching. “The Future Law Professors Workshop provided an invaluable opportunity to reconnect,” says Amna Akbar, ’04.
Changing people’s perceptions of Detroit is part of the mission of JDs in the D, a volunteer group of law students. Through visits to the city, events at the Law School, and partnerships with Detroit-based organizations, JDs in the D shows law students that there are good reasons to consider living and working in Detroit after graduation.
“There is no requirement that a bankruptcy judge has to listen to individuals who are represented by (lawyers),” says former bankruptcy Judge Ray Reynolds Graves, who worked with Judge Steven Rhodes for 17 years. “Steve put that to one side and had the retirees come into court and address him personally. Listening to people who could be adversely affected by having their pensions cut—that tells you something about the man’s sensitivities.”
Detroit is a gutted city, a cautionary tale, a tapestry of ruin. Or Detroit is the comeback kid, a wise investment, a city that will return to greatness. What happens next in the country’s onetime industrial capital is a story that cannot yet be written; no crystal ball can accurately predict the future of the largest U.S. city ever to seek bankruptcy protection.
The Law School’s Human Trafficking Clinic (HTC) has been awarded a $500,000, three-year grant from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to fund a partnership between the clinic and domestic violence and sexual assault services.
Victor Caminata, the Michigan Innocence Clinic client whose arson case was featured in the fall 2013 issue of the Law Quadrangle, was exonerated in January.
The American Law Institute (ALI) elected a new group of members in the fall that included Margaret Jane Radin, the Henry King Ransom Professor of Law at Michigan, and Bridget Mary McCormack, a lecturer at Michigan Law and a justice of the state Supreme Court.
Judith E. Levy, ’96, a Michigan Law faculty member, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 12 to serve as a federal judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. She was sworn in by Chief Judge Gerald Rosen during a ceremony in Detroit held March 18.
The excitement was palpable as alumni returned to Ann Arbor for the inaugural Michigan Law African American Alumni Reunion, March 21–23, 2014.
