Law School

Just as April showers bring May flowers, spring brings academic hires—especially at Columbia Law School, where four new professors have recently joined on as part of an ongoing initiative to broaden the faculty and course selection.

“How would you feel about a doctor who had never interacted with a patient?” asked Columbia Law School professor Barbara Schatz, chair of the Public Interest Law Initiative, about the opportunity students have to represent real-world clients. Yet while the technique promoted by PILI—known as clinical legal teaching—has existed since the 1960s in the United States, it is just starting up in Eastern Europe.

In light of increased focus on campus violence, experts from different disciplines convened at the Columbia Law School on Friday to discuss “Violence on Campus: Prediction, Prevention, and Response.” The conference called into question the effectiveness of current systems universities use to prevent and cope with violence.

Change was the theme of the hour in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria at the kickoff of Columbia Law School’s sesquicentennial Friday, with attendees lauding the school’s international student body and network of alumni.

Four legal experts discussed the growing number of local governments attempting to exert control over immigration policy, a hot issue in the ongoing presidential campaign in a panel discussion at the Law School Wednesday night.

Law school students have been putting their education to work outside of the classroom lately. Four students aided Ven Messam, a Jamaican homosexual fearing persecution, in securing asylum last Thursday.

In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, diplomats discussed the progress of the plan to destroy all chemical weapons at an event in Low Library yesterday.

Law schools at Columbia and the University of Colorado teamed up to launch the first public, comprehensive case law database at AltLaw.org three weeks ago.