Dean Martin Brinkley, Professor Erika Wilson, Professor Elizabeth Gibson, Professor Mark Weidemaier. Photo by Tom Fuldner.

UNC School of Law presented three awards to distinguished faculty on Thursday, April 21, in a ceremony at the Paul J. Rizzo Conference Center.

The awards presented include:

The Robert G. Byrd Award for Excellence and Creativity in Teaching, awarded to Richard S. Saver , Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor of Law. The Byrd Award is named for Robert G. Byrd, an alumnus of the school who served as a member of the faculty from 1963 until 2004, and as dean from 1974-1979.

The James H. Chadbourn Award for Excellence in Scholarship, awarded to W. Mark C. Weidemaier , Ralph M. Stockton Jr. Distinguished Scholar and Associate Professor of Law. The Chadbourn Award is named for James H. Chadbourn, editor-in-chief of the North Carolina Law Review in 1930-1931, a member of the UNC Law faculty from 1931-1936, and a co-author of leading texts in civil procedure, federal court and evidence. In 1933, while at UNC, Chadbourn bravely authored a controversial work titled "Lynching and the Law." This award honors a faculty member's distinguished law journal article.

The Charles E. Daye Award for Excellence in Service, awarded to Erika K. Wilson , Assistant Professor of Law. This award is conferred annually on the basis of service performed within the two years prior to the year in which the award is given. A faculty member is honored for exemplary public service, measured by the time, effort and creativity devoted to service, as well as the impact on the community.

At Thursday's ceremony, S. Elizabeth Gibson '76, Burton Craige Professor of Law, was also recognized for her 33 years of service to the law school. Gibson retires in May.

Associate Dean Jeff Hirsch and Professor Richard Saver. Photo by Tom Fuldner.

-April 27, 2016

This article originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2016 issue of Carolina Law. Gibson is pictured here with Rosy Aleman and other 1L students from her Fall 2015 Civil Procedure course. Second row, from left: Emon Northe, Kristin Hendrickson, Jessica Stone-Erdman, Alex Murphy. Back row: Chris Deck, Natalia Zbonack.

Elizabeth Gibson ’76 shrugs off her career trajectory that sped from clerkships in a federal circuit court and the U.S. Supreme Court, and on to partnership in a Washington, D.C., litigation firm, before shifting toward time as a multi-award-winning professor and nationally known expert on bankruptcy, and culminating in an appointment by the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court as the lawyer who researches and drafts federal bankruptcy rules.

“Like many things in life, it was happenstance, not carefully thought out in a five-year plan,” Gibson said. Then, as she is wont to do, she turned her attention to what that insight might teach lawyers-in-training.

“Students feel so much pressure to know what they want to do exactly and how they’re going to get there. My view is: Do the best you can at each stage, and try to keep as many doors open as possible, because you don’t know what opportunities you might be presented with.”

At the end of spring semester this year, Elizabeth Gibson, the Burton Craige Professor of Law, will retire from teaching, capping 33 years in the classroom. She developed her specialization in bankruptcy through one of those unexpected opportunities because Carolina’s law faculty needed someone with that expertise at the time, and she’d gained some experience when a co-defendant of one of her firm’s clients filed for bankruptcy.

Many students regard her as a harbor of humanity in the storm of their first year in law school. Since fall 1983, when she joined the faculty at Carolina Law, she has typically led a “small section” in Civil Procedure, setting nascent lawyers on the right track to succeed throughout their careers.

Alice Richey ’86, who was in Gibson’s very first small section, recalled walking to her Civil Procedure class, discouraged after reading a very complex case.

“I couldn’t imagine ever understanding it,” Richey said. “I thought I’d have to quit law school.”

But when she got to class, Gibson acknowledged the case was hard and walked the first-years through it.

“She could have grilled us,” Richey said. Instead, “she helped us manage the material and understand it.

“She was approachable, and she helped make the material approachable.”

Richey stayed in law school and now practices civil litigation, which has its foundation in Civil Procedure. Often in her practice she returns to that complex case that almost bested her, and every time, she tries to channel her former professor.

Gibson, who over the years has been an enthusiastic supporter of small sections, said they can be resource-intensive because three professors are assigned to teach the number of students that would otherwise be taught by one. Because of this, some questions have been raised from time to time about whether or not these resources should be allocated elsewhere. “I’ve always supported keeping them because I think they do a good job of assisting with the transition to law school,” said Gibson.

According to Carolina Law Dean Martin H. Brinkley ’92, Gibson connects with her students on a personal level that influences them for decades into their careers. He was a student in Gibson’s Civil Procedure small section nearly a decade into her teaching role, and he attested to the impact she had on his career. Gibson encouraged him to apply for a clerkship under Judge Sam J. Ervin III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and wrote his
recommendation.

“The clerkship was probably the most formative experience of my professional life,” Brinkley said.

As for having her former student come back as her dean, Gibson quipped: “Lesson to faculty: Be nice to your students; you never know when they will become your boss.”

Gibson’s sense of humor comes as a surprise to people until they get to know her. Quiet by nature, she uses humor in context, a light retort to take the edge off tension in a contentious meeting or as a nicely turned response to an inflammatory remark.

Her husband, Bob Mosteller, the J. Dickson Phillips Distinguished Professor of Law at UNC since 2008, said he appreciated her sense of humor since the time they met. (She succeeded him as clerk for Judge J. Braxton Craven Jr. of the Fourth Circuit.) Gibson, in turn, liked that he thought she was funny. When she reads her students’ teaching evaluations of her, she warms when someone writes, “She was really funny.” Because, she said, “sometimes it takes people a while to figure out I do have a sense of humor.”

People tend to notice first her keen intelligence, said J. Rich Leonard, dean of Campbell University’s law school and former judge in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of North Carolina. He has known Gibson for decades. He remembered feeling smug that he had won a clerkship with Judge Frank Dupree in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina, but then he learned he was the judge’s second choice. The post had been offered first to Gibson, who turned it down to accept the clerkship with Judge Craven.

“I knew there was this formidable person named Elizabeth Gibson out there,” Leonard said. Then he found out that she was the romantic interest of a friend he’d gone through UNC undergrad and Yale Law School with, Bob Mosteller. Later, Leonard hosted their wedding party in the backyard of his home in Raleigh’s Oakwood neighborhood.

Gibson and Leonard crossed paths professionally. For 15 years they starred in the video orientation for all new bankruptcy judges, and at one point they taught an upper-level corporate reorganization course together at Carolina.

“Elizabeth is one of the two or three most effective and respected people in the country when it comes to any issue of bankruptcy law,” Leonard said. “She is almost always the smartest person in the room, but she pretends not to notice.”

A former classmate, Carolyn McAllaster ’76, said Gibson was not one to wave her hand in class and ache to show off her knowledge, but when she was called on, she always was prepared. Gibson worked hard and exuded a quiet confidence.

“She’s not one to call attention to herself,” McAllaster said. “For a lawyer, that’s quite remarkable.”

Alice Richey also commented on Gibson’s lack of pretension.

“It doesn’t take long in a conversation with her to figure out how smart she is,” Richey said. “[But] she always seems honored when someone talks with her. Some really smart people assume you want to be in their orbit. She doesn’t have an orbit.”

In fact, when Richey was her student, Gibson showed humility, “a recognition that she was learning along with us, how to be a professor as we were learning how to be students.”

“There was a lot of grace and love that went back and forth,” Richey continued. “That was unexpected for all of us because you don’t consider law school to be a place with a lot of grace and love.”

And for years, law school wasn’t a place with a lot of women, either. Gibson’s class of ’76 (they celebrate their 40-year reunion this year) was the first law school class that had a noticeable number of women. Almost 1 in 5 students was female, a big jump from prior years. Gibson had one class with a female law professor, but female law school deans were unheard of then.

“I didn’t have a lot of female role models,” Gibson said, “but I was part of that generation of ‘We can do things differently.’ We had a duty to do things differently.”

Gibson grew up in Raleigh, expecting to be a teacher, though when her ninth-grade class explored careers, she chose lawyer, because other girls weren’t picking it. “I wanted something different,” she said.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree from Duke, she spent a year at the Justice Department in Washington as a research analyst working with lawyers in the civil rights division. She liked the work and thought, “With training, I could do what they’re doing.” She applied to law school and discovered she enjoyed law and was good at it.

After law school, she clerked first for Judge Craven, then for Justice Byron White of the U.S. Supreme Court, his first female law clerk. “I never got over the excitement that whole year of walking into the Supreme Court to go to work,” she said.

The following year, she joined a private law firm in D.C., where she was known by later associates as “Saint Elizabeth” because of the glowing comments partners made about her work. She made partner in a short time, a feat even more remarkable considering the recent birth of her first child.

When their son was 2, Gibson and Mosteller decided it was time to choose whether to settle in Washington, where Mosteller was chief trial lawyer in the Public Defender’s Office, or return home to North Carolina (Mosteller had grown up on a farm northwest of Charlotte) to academic posts that would be more compatible with raising a family. They applied to only two law schools — UNC and Duke. Carolina snapped up Gibson, and Duke hired Mosteller.

Almost at once Gibson began to garner respect and admiration, first from her students, then from her peers and top administrators. When she became pregnant with her second son, in 1986, she facilitated a new policy of stopping the tenure-track clock for a six-month unpaid maternity leave. She took her responsibilities as a mother as seriously as she did her career. She is surprised that, 30 years later, balancing family with a law career isn’t easier, that raising children is still considered a women’s issue. But from a practical standpoint, she understands why changes aren’t likely to happen soon.

“The nature of the law profession is one of being available and doing work for your clients quickly,” she said. With lawyers marrying lawyers, everybody would have an interest in accommodating families. “On the other hand, law firms are under pressure.

Clients don’t want to pay as much for lawyers and are looking for ways to reduce legal costs. It doesn’t lend itself to a time for figuring out how to make life better for associates.”

Gibson has been recognized with multiple teaching awards.

Students honored her twice with the McCall Award for Teaching Excellence, and in 2012, her colleagues selected her for the Robert G. Byrd Award for Excellence and Creativity in Teaching. At the university level, she received the Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2010, and professionally, she received the Excellence in Education Award from the Endowment for Education of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. Because of the respect she has earned, Gibson has served on dozens of selection committees, including the major selection committees for two chancellors and four law school deans. She has served as adviser to the Craven Moot Court Competition for nearly 30 years, which honors the memory of the distinguished judge for whom she clerked.

First-year Alex Murphy, who was in Gibson’s final small section last fall, said her teaching had even more authenticity because “she’d been involved in several of the cases we were reading in the course book, which was pretty cool to have that inside perspective.”

Gibson said the most satisfying part of her career has been her relationships with students, watching them grow not only over their three years in law school but also as they develop in their careers and make a difference in the world. Murphy was pleasantly surprised that after all these years, she still wanted to stay in touch with her students.

“She seemed invested in all of us and our futures,” he said.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton nominated Gibson to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but he left office soon after, and the Senate adjourned without acting on the nomination.

Longtime faculty colleague Lissa Broome, director of the Center for Banking and Finance, called the nomination “the highest honor any attorney can have, for the president of the United States to nominate you for a judicial position at that level.”

In 2008, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Gibson reporter for the Bankruptcy Rules Advisory Committee; she’ll continue that work after she retires from teaching. In that role, she drafts the rules the committee wants to propose. She does the research and advises the committee on
issues that come up.

Gibson’s colleagues on the faculty consider her achievements well-deserved. Broome described her as “rock-solid, dependable.”

“Anytime I need to talk through an issue, Elizabeth is the first person I turn to, outside of my husband,” Broome said. “If you think about setting up a personal board of directors for your life, you’d want Elizabeth on it.”

Over a decade ago, Gibson was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The degenerative disease has presented many challenges with diminished mobility and unavoidable fatigue; she likely would not be retiring from teaching if it weren’t for its toll. The grace, dignity and humor with which she has handled her illness have been enormously inspiring to those who know her.

“Like a great athlete,” Mosteller said, “she’s retiring at the top of her game.”

Gibson will retain an office at the law school, where she’ll continue her research for the Bankruptcy Rules committee and be available to colleagues and the dean. Brinkley said that the only condition under which he would accept her resignation was that “she would still be here to give me advice.”

She’ll continue to work hard and keep doors open, ready for the next opportunity to present itself. And maybe she’ll one day return to the excitement of walking into the Supreme Court to go to work.

-April 29, 2016

Civil rights scholars in the United States never lack new, wide-ranging social justice issues and cases to study.

UNC School of Law Assistant Professor Catherine Kim focuses on the role that administrative agencies and courts have in social justice reform, especially for communities of immigrants and people of color.

For her scholarly achievements, Kim has received the Eric K. Yamamoto Emerging Scholar Award, given annually to junior scholars by the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty (CAPALF). She was presented the award at CAPALF’s national conference, held in April at the University of California-Davis. CAPALF members nominate award recipients.

Yamamoto, who teaches at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, is known for his work in civil rights, civil procedure and social justice reform. He was on the legal team that worked to overturn the conviction of Fred Korematsu, who challenged the constitutionality of the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.

At UNC, Kim teaches Immigration & Citizenship Law, Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, and Civil Rights Law. Previously, she litigated civil rights cases with the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation’s National Legal Department, focusing on racial justice and education cases.

“My scholarship has examined doctrinal shifts diminishing the ability of federal courts to remedy systemic civil rights violations. More recently, I have focused on the potential for executive-branch actors to address these issues,” Kim says. “For example, I have analyzed the role of administrative agencies in protecting immigrant interests, as well as the role of the president in combating anti-discrimination.

“Through my scholarship, I seek to identify the potential for new and emerging mechanisms of civil rights reform.”

-May 3, 2016

Some analysts expect the recent drop in oil prices to double the number of bankruptcies in the oil and gas industry.

3L Kate Ortbahn’s award-winning paper about issues in such bankruptcies is not only timely but advances her professional goals.

Ortbahn’s paper, “Interests Get Interesting: Overriding Royalty Interests Characterization in Oil & Gas Bankruptcies,” won third place in the American Bankruptcy Institute’s (ABI) annual Bankruptcy Law Student Writing Competition. She received a $750 prize and a one-year ABI membership.

She will work with Judge Kevin Carey of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware to prepare her paper for publication in an ABI committee newsletter.

“Oil and gas law is a complicated area of the law, involving many unique types of property and production interests. When an oil and gas company enters bankruptcy, the two layers of law have to work together,” Ortbahn says. “My paper discusses interests unique to oil and gas, overriding royalty interests, and how their characterization in a particular case, ATP Oil & Gas Corporation, provides transactional lessons to practitioners to protect their clients’ interests.”

Ortbahn’s knowledge is particularly relevant in oil-rich Texas, where she will join the real estate section of the Haynes and Boone law firm in Dallas after graduation.

“As a practitioner, I hope to continue publishing pieces that condense a highly complex area of the law into a product that is more accessible for legal readers or even clients,” she says.

Ortbahn wrote the paper for professor Melissa Jacoby’s advanced bankruptcy seminar.

-May 5, 2016

This article originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2016 issue of Carolina Law.

It’s not every day that a UNC School of Law faculty member gets a call from White House Counsel Neil Eggleston, but that’s exactly what happened one day in August when Dana Remus’ phone rang.

Eggleston invited Remus to interview for the position of senior ethics counsel. Because of the timing, she was hesitant but agreed to an interview.

Remus, who joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2013 and has taught courses on property law, professional responsibility and judicial clerkship writing, received the call just five days before she was headed to Cornell Law School as a visiting professor. Torn between the excitement of working in the White House and the desire to make a change in the lives of the Cornell students, Remus was able to compromise. Eggleston held the position at the White House for her through the fall, and Cornell allowed her to teach a condensed version of her professional responsibility course.

Now at the White House, Remus leads the ethics and compliance team. She, along with six additional lawyers, advises White House staff on all aspects of government ethics and compliance. Several areas fall under this umbrella, including conflicts of interest, political activity by administration officials, records management — which includes transfer of records to the National Archives — and public/private partnerships.

“Everyone gets involved with public/private partnerships — from initiatives to lower the cost of diapers for low-income families to efforts to make broadband accessible to all communities,” Remus says. “It’s an exciting time to help this administration achieve its goals.”

Remus’ areas of expertise are legal and judicial ethics. At Carolina Law, her research focused on government lawyering and the intersection of law and policy, so she had some idea of what to expect. She also benefited from the advice she received from colleague William Marshall, William Rand Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law. Marshall served as deputy White House counsel and deputy assistant to the president during the Clinton administration.
According to Remus, her days are unpredictable. There are some days she barely makes it to her desk. She meets with her ethics team on Tuesdays, with Eggleston on Thursdays, and the full White House counsel team on Fridays. “My days are spent thinking through problems at a quick pace surrounded by smart people,” Remus says.

One aspect of Remus’ job that is constantly on her mind is making sure she and her team have a good relationship with all of their clients. Remus says, “It is important for clients to think of us as people they want to call at the beginning of a project. We figure out how to get to yes whenever we can and say no only when we have to.”

Remus, whose appointment began in November, will remain at the White House until the end of the administration before returning to Carolina Law. Her goal is to make sure the final year of the president’s administration is productive but without any ethical slip-ups.

“This administration is so committed to the highest ethical standards. I get a wave of inspiration coming to work every day,” Remus says.

Although she’s enjoying her time in Washington, Remus has missed her close connections with colleagues and students. She says she is looking forward to returning to UNC with a renewed energy and a commitment to serve students.

“There are few resources for students to learn about lawyering in government. I’m excited to return now that I have seen government lawyering from the inside,” Remus says. “I have new courses and seminars I want to propose and new areas of research to pursue which will ultimately inform my teaching.”

-May 5, 2016

This article originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2016 issue of Carolina Law.

For criminal defense attorney Jerry Buting ’81, being prepared for the unexpected turns of a trial is part of his day-to-day life. But no amount of research and planning could prepare him for the turn his life would take when he was featured in the popular Netflix 10-part documentary, “Making a Murderer,” in December.

The documentary chronicles the story of a Wisconsin man, Steven Avery, who served 18 years in prison for sexual assault and attempted murder before being exonerated in 2003. In 2005, Avery was arrested for the murder of a local photographer, Teresa Halbach. The series covers Avery’s arrest, prosecution and conviction in 2007. Buting and fellow defense attorney, Dean Strang, have been thrust into the limelight based on their work featured in the series.

“It has surprised me. As I look back on the series, we didn’t do anything any other good criminal defense attorney wouldn’t do,” says Buting, who receives thousands of emails from around the world and says he can’t walk half a block in New York without getting stopped.

Buting was interested in criminal law long before attending UNC School of Law. He was a forensic studies major at Indiana University but was interested in the substantive aspect of criminal law and procedure. “I knew I wanted to work with individual people as my clients and criminal law would allow me to do that,” says Buting.

While he didn’t know anyone in North Carolina, he had an affinity for the state where his mother was born. Buting visited law schools at Duke and Wake Forest before ultimately deciding on UNC. He was elected class president during his first year and was involved with the North Carolina Journal of International Law for a year. To actively support gender equality, Buting was also one of the only male members of the student organization Women in Law.

It was his experience with the law school’s clinical program that had the biggest impact on him personally and professionally. “I was able to work with real clients on a string of cases in several counties—Orange, Wake and Durham,” says Buting. “It was great exposure.”

His time in the clinics also introduced him to the prisons in North Carolina, an experience that would serve him well in his chosen career. He remembers the stark contrast between the bullet-riddled glass of Central Prison and the long halls of the Butner Federal Correctional Complex — both sending the psychological message that he was entering a different kind of world.

His first summer job during law school was a study on whether the death penalty was applied fairly in homicide cases. Buting and other students studied every homicide case in North Carolina for a one-year period to determine what made a case a capital offense. The study ultimately showed that the designation was dependent on the prosecutor and the county.

After law school, Buting had hoped to stay in North Carolina working as a public defender, but at that time staffed public defender programs were in the infancy stage with five offices in the state and no open positions. Buting still applied for a position and studied for the bar in North Carolina but ultimately was recruited to join the public defender program in Wisconsin. He met his future wife, another public defender, on his first day on the job. Since then he has called Brookfield, Wisc., home and opened Buting, Williams & Stillings, S.C., a criminal defense firm specializing in difficult or challenging cases.

The Steven Avery case featured in the documentary has propelled Buting and the overall criminal justice system into the spotlight. The series raises a number of questions Buting hopes will lead to discussions within the law community about the legality of interrogating a juvenile without the parents’ knowledge and whether or not prosecutors should be allowed to hold press conferences prior to jury selection. He also hopes the series will educate people on the importance of jury duty and the fact that it shouldn’t be seen as an inconvenience.

“By not providing an education process on serving or a reasonable wage for people to serve, decisions will be made by people who don’t necessarily represent the cross section of a community,” Buting says.

With so many television shows and movies depicting defense lawyers as villains, Buting is pleased the documentary is presenting a different view. “There aren’t really any defense lawyer role models,” says Buting. “I hope people will see that you can do your job ethically, honestly, with integrity and represent your client. I am humbled by it.”

Buting has been married for 26 years and has two children in their 20s. He says he is grounded in his Catholic faith and
his calling to defend his clients in an honest way – his driving motivator.

His advice to other alumni or students embarking on their law careers: “Follow your heart. Try to make a difference in whatever way you can, whether that is through law, church or community work.”

-May 5, 2016

This article originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2016 issue of Carolina Law.

Deborah R. Gerhardt is an associate professor at UNC School of Law, specializing in the intersection of law and creativity,
and has written leading articles in trademarks, copyrights, art law, false advertising and plagiarism. Gerhardt’s research assistant, Carolyn Detmer 3L (Class of 2016), sat down with her for a conversation about intellectual property in the legal field.

CAROLYN DETMER: What role do you see intellectual property currently playing in the legal field? Is it changing?

DEBORAH GERHARDT: Intellectual property was once a niche practice. Now it is unavoidable. To serve a huge array of clients — low-wealth entrepreneurs, high-tech businesses, artists or anyone with a website — a basic understanding of the different types of intellectual property is essential. My students and I discuss this subject all the time. They start to see that IP is everywhere — often in places they did not expect. Every organization lives and dies by its trademark: the symbol of its reputation and core values. Protecting the distinctive story of the mark is everything. If your brand loses its ability to inspire customer loyalty, the business dies. And every business has a website with copyrighted content so it must learn how to protect and share its own creative works while respecting the creative rights of others. Patented technology is also everywhere from machines to software to pharmaceuticals. Design patents are also increasingly used to protect a wider variety of products including luxury shoes and handbags. Computer and internet technology has also changed so much. IP is easier to create and also much easier to copy. The law is fascinating and evolving quickly as well, which is great, because it creates more work for my future students.

CD: I know you have done research regarding some specific areas of trademark and copyright law. Can you tell me about these areas of interest and how they have influenced your teaching?

DG: The process is organic. Teaching inspires research questions, and my research informs my teaching. Teaching more and more trademark students every year inspired me to question whether it made sense for clients to hire trademark lawyers. After all, business owners can prosecute their own applications before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Did it matter to have a lawyer? Was I training my students for unnecessary work? These questions are important to ask because we want to make sure we are training our students for skills that are needed — not those that are redundant. In other areas of law, political scientists have proven that having a lawyer did not correlate with a better outcome. The question “do trademark lawyers matter?” was scary but important. I recruited my data guru [Associate Dean for Administration, Assistant Dean for Academic Excellence and Clinical Associate Professor of Law] Jon P. McClanahan ’08 to mine the massive USPTO trademark data set for answers. Luckily we found that having an experienced lawyer especially when the USPTO issues an office action, did correlate with successful outcomes. In doing this research, I also discovered so many examples and interesting patterns in the data to share with my class.

CD: Tell me more about the IP program at the law school. I know it has been expanding over the last few years. Where do you ideally see it headed?

DG: For years, I have been pushing UNC to launch a startup garage! I want my students to be able to use what they learn in class to help low-wealth entrepreneurs get their businesses launched. I began working with interested students on these projects as independent studies until we formally launched our IP clinic with two students in 2014. This year we have six students in the clinic, and I understand next year 26 want to participate! I hope UNC will find the resources to grow this program so more of my students can see the law in their textbooks come alive. Every new business has a trademark for their products or service. Choosing a mark without counsel is risky because precious seed money may be lost if the mark is confusingly similar to another player in their commercial space. So for low-wealth entrepreneurs, this advice is critical from a defensive perspective, but it is also critical from an offensive perspective so we can help our clients choose names that add commercially distinctive value. One of my students last year had a “stop the presses” moment with a client who was about to go to the New York food show with a name that had been registered by a huge consumer products company. Because of my student’s advice, the client dodged a near certain lawsuit, and now has a registered mark that is commercially distinct.

CD: How is the school, and the program specifically, preparing students to meet the evolving needs of the field after graduation?

DG: My goal is to support my students as they become practice-ready lawyers for the industry they want to serve. For example, a student who follows our trademark track will have taken the basic course and the practical seminar in the second year so that she will know how to file applications, respond to office actions and draft trademark opinion letters by the time she leaves for her 2L summer job. During the third year, if she participates in the IP clinic, she will use what she learned to assist real clients, learning about how trademark clients often have advertising, copyright and contract issues. Through this work, she will deepen her substantive knowledge while she gains client development and experience advising real clients. Ideally, the student will also participate in the IP moot court competition, art law or a journal to provide more opportunities for growth and in-depth study. I love this track because it is win-win along so many dimensions! It gives our students a meaningful educational experience, an understanding of how gratifying practice is, and the practical skills give them a big advantage when looking for jobs. Our IP clinic gives low-wealth entrepreneurs access to excellent pro bono legal services. The program also helps law firms, nonprofits, businesses and the USPTO who have the good fortune to hire my fabulous IP students.

-May 5, 2016

This article originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2016 issue of Carolina Law.

Frank and Lisa Emory believe in the transformative power of education, and they’re committed to putting their beliefs into action.

In 2015 they committed $120,000 to the UNC School of Law to create The Frank E. and Lisa L. Emory Family Scholarship. This award supports law students who have demonstrated academic achievement and are residents of Eastern North Carolina — Frank is originally from Wilson — or Mecklenburg County, where the Emorys live.

A 1982 graduate of Carolina Law, Frank attended the school on a Morehead Law Fellowship after graduating from Duke University as an Angier B. Duke Scholar — Duke’s most prestigious academic scholarship.

For Frank and Lisa, this gift is a way to share their love of education. “Education was a really big deal in both of our families, something that we also instilled in our children,” Frank says. Their sons, Frank III and Ross Alexander, work as a mechanical engineer and an investment banker, respectively.

“Education is what propelled my parents from their start to a pretty good life,” Frank says.

With the scholarship, the Emorys want to help replicate the opportunities they have had for deserving students.

“Many times [Carolina Law] loses students with great potential — who would put roots down in our great state — because they don’t have the funds to attend,” Frank says. “This scholarship will give talented students the opportunity to go to our great law school.”

Frank credits Carolina Law for the career opportunities he has enjoyed. “Charles Becton, who served on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, was my trial advocacy professor at UNC,” he says. “I was lucky enough that he offered me a job as his law clerk coming out of law school.” Frank then went to work alongside Julius Chambers ’62 at the firm of Ferguson, Stein, and Chambers before heading to Hunton & Williams LLP, a national law firm with over 800 lawyers, where he is a partner and co-head of the litigation, intellectual property, competition and labor groups.

Frank says that he knew from a young age that he wanted to be a trial lawyer. “Being a good courtroom advocate is one of the highest callings one can have,” he says. “A sophisticated society needs a good and reliable way for people to resolve their disputes. When it works well, with good ethical people on both sides, it’s a beautiful thing. You might not always like the results, but the process works.”

Frank and Lisa, who is a real estate broker in Charlotte, give back to the community in a wide range of ways. Frank’s community involvement includes serving eight years on the North Carolina Board of Transportation, chairing the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, and presiding over the Mecklenburg County Bar — which honored him as Pro Bono Attorney of the Year in 2008 — among many other activities.

In fact, he received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina’s highest civilian honor, in recognition of his long career as a public servant. Humble about his contributions, he says, “Public service is the tithe you owe when you have been blessed to do well; I owe that to my community and my state to contribute where I can.”

Lisa’s passion for education is evidenced in the time that she gives to her community. She tutors elementary, middle and high school students. She helped raise money to start a Freedom School Partners program, which provides quality summer programming for students in grades K-8, at the church the family attends.

“Lisa believes that it’s important that someone reaches out to kids, particularly those who come from stressed backgrounds, to say, ‘You’re important to me.’”

Lisa was the impetus behind the gift to the law school as well as the Emory Family Scholarship, which Frank and Lisa created for Duke undergraduates.

“Lisa and I decided that what we wanted to do with our lives now is to support financially our undergraduate and professional schools,” Frank says. “And with her time, she helps kids who are coming along in elementary, middle and high school. She feels strongly, and I agree, that providing educational opportunities to all students, and particularly those from at-risk communities, is something where it’s hard to have too many hands helping.”

-May 6, 2016

This article originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2016 issue of Carolina Law.

When a court finds a government has violated a constitutional right, how soon should a remedy be implemented? Right away, conventional thinking holds — instead of giving the government an extended period to address the problem.

But research by Carolina Law professor Holning Lau suggests the best time frame may depend on the particular case. His paper “Remedial Grace Periods as Judicial Strategy” focuses on a 2005 ruling by South Africa’s highest court that depriving same-sex couples of marriage violated constitutional rights. Instead of implementing same-sex marriage immediately, the court delayed it a year. Parliament passed legislation to comply with the ruling in 2006, and South Africa became the world’s fifth country to legalize same-sex marriage.

“The grace period ultimately enhanced the perceived legitimacy of the court and same-sex marriage, thereby mitigating backlash against the court’s decision,” says Lau, who presented his paper at the Association of American Law Schools’ annual meeting in January.

The paper was showcased at the plenary panel of the American Society of Comparative Law’s annual meeting in October 2015. His article was selected by an advisory group of the society’s Younger Comparativists Committee.

In South Africa, Lau talked with human rights activists initially opposed to the grace period as an unnecessary delay of justice. They eventually changed their minds.

“Activists had an opportunity to bring their case to the people and humanize the issue of same-sex marriage by sharing their stories. Prior to the grace period, many activists found it difficult to gain access to the media, so they pursued their causes quietly in courts. The grace period gave activists access to new public forums,” Lau says.

Still, he believes in most cases, delaying remedies for constitutional problems is unwarranted.

“More research and scholarly conversations are necessary to understand how to identify the rare cases in which remedial grace periods are likely to produce favorable results like those in South Africa,” Lau says.

-May 6, 2016

Eight students of the Class of 2016 were selected to become members of one of the most prestigious societies at UNC School of Law. The James E. and Carolyn B. Davis Society recognizes eight third-year students possessing both academic and personal excellence and a willingness to serve for the betterment of the School of Law and its faculty and students. In making its selections, the Davis Society selection committee considers the qualities of leadership ability, integrity, dedication, and character as exemplified by extracurricular activities and academic achievement.

This year’s inductees, pictured with Dean Martin Brinkley '92, from left: Joseph Kim, Jesse Ramos, Travis Hinman, Hillary Dawe, Jared Smith, Nana Asante, Jamie Rudd, Joseph Bishop. Sylvia K. Novinsky, former assistant dean for public service, was also inducted as an honorary member of the Davis Society.

Joseph Kim, Dean Martin Brinkley '92, Jesse Ramos, Travis Hinman, Hillary Dawe, Jared Smith, Nana Asante, Jamie Rudd, Joseph Bishop.

-May 6, 2016

S. Elizabeth Gibson '76 receives the Jefferson Award from Chancellor Carol L. Folt. Photo by Jon Gardiner.

In April, S. Elizabeth Gibson ’76, Burton Craige Professor of Law, received one of the highest honors that can be given to a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—the Thomas Jefferson Award.

Established in 1961 by the Robert Earll McConnell Foundation, the award is presented annually to “that member of the academic community who through personal influence and performance of duty in teaching, writing, and scholarship has best exemplified the ideals and objectives of Thomas Jefferson.”

Capping off a 33-year career at Carolina Law, Gibson, who retires this year, joins an illustrious list of law school faculty to be honored for their teaching including Maurice Van Hecke (1962), Henry Brandis (1964), William B. Aycock '48 (1967), J. Dickson Phillips '48 (1977), Daniel H. Pollitt (1982), Charles Daye (2004) and Gene Nichol (2013).

“As a former student of Elizabeth’s and as the dean of the law school, I can honestly say that her service to her students, Carolina Law and the University is unmatched,” says Dean Martin H. Brinkley ‘92. “I’m delighted Elizabeth was recognized for her contributions. There is no other educator more deserving of this award.”

In addition to receiving the Thomas Jefferson Award, Gibson also received the Frederick B. McCall Award for Teaching Excellence at the UNC School of Law commencement ceremony on May 7.

Dean Martin Brinkley '92 presents the Order of the Long Leaf Pine Award to Elizabeth Gibson '76. Photo by Donn Young.

The award is named for Frederick B. McCall, who served on the Carolina Law faculty for more than 40 years. He was an outstanding scholar of property and estates law, a tireless contributor to the North Carolina General Statutes Commission, and a celebrated teacher. Upon his retirement in 1967, students established the McCall Award to be selected annually by members of the third-year class.

Gibson also was recognized at commencement with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine. This is one of the most prestigious awards conferred by the governor of North Carolina. It is awarded to persons for exemplary service to the state of North Carolina and their communities that is above and beyond the call of duty which has made a significant impact and strengthened North Carolina.

-May 13, 2016

This article originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2016 issue of Carolina Law.

A tree-lined street in Raleigh, now flanked by restaurants and stores, was originally a quiet road built by a father to honor his daughter. He called it Memory Lane.

Today it is called Memory Road, and its namesake just turned 92 years old.

Fannie Memory Farmer Mitchell is a woman who walks two miles a day and hasn’t slowed down very much since graduating from UNC School of Law in 1946.

For Mitchell, education has been a constant in her life. It was modeled for her from a very early age: Her mother received a bachelor’s degree in 1907 from what is now Meredith College. Following graduation, she taught students in elementary and high schools as well as in the preparatory department of Meredith College. In 1911, Mitchell’s mother moved to Japan, continuing her passion for teaching classes in English and cooking while doing missionary work. She later was a trustee of Shaw University and Meredith College.

But her mother wasn’t the only strong influence in her life. Her father served as the business manager and the editor of the Biblical Recorder. “I’ve been very blessed,” says Mitchell. “I had parents who were literate and saw to it that I had a good education.”

At 16, Mitchell graduated from high school and went to Meredith College, where she studied history and minored in English.

Having spent her life in North Carolina, Mitchell longed to experience life in another part of the country. Before graduation from Meredith College, she heard that she had been accepted by the University of Pennsylvania Law School to enter its summer session. At the last minute she received a telegram informing her that there would be no summer school, but the dean hoped she would enter the fall term in October. Having considered several other schools, she wired three of them. The dean of Cornell Law School replied and asked that she send the transcript by air mail. The next telegram notified her she had been accepted.

Mitchell graduated from Meredith in May 1944 and started law school at Cornell in June.

She actually attended her first torts class before she formally applied to Cornell. Mitchell rented a room in the home of the law librarian and quickly forged friendships with members of her small study group.

“I was extremely homesick. It was such a complete change. The case method of studying was different from anything I had known,” Mitchell says.

In her agency class, Mitchell found she was called on every day. After noticing that her fellow students weren’t called on as often, she asked why. “They told me to watch the professor’s expression when he called on me because he liked to hear my southern accent,” says Mitchell.

But because she missed her home in the South and found she didn’t care for the cold northern weather, Mitchell decided to transfer to UNC School of Law in 1945. She took her last Cornell exam early in order to make it to Chapel Hill for summer school.

Mitchell attended Carolina Law during World War II. Parts of the school were used by the military, so classroom space was limited. As more men returned home from war, they resumed their studies at the law school.

“Part of the time, I was the only woman in the entire law school,” Mitchell says. She recalls that Professor Frederick B. McCall would often begin his classes with, “Welcome, lady and gentlemen.”

Toward the end of her time at UNC, Mitchell and two other students needed the Conflict of Laws course in order to graduate — but it wasn’t offered. Upon hearing this, Professor Herbert R. Baer invited the three students to his office once a week for three hours and taught the course so they could graduate on time.

Mitchell was the only woman in her 1946 graduating class and was admitted to the North Carolina State Bar in 1947. Mitchell was recruited by Albert Coates, the founder of the Institute of Government and a former Carolina Law professor, to do research for $125 a month. He wanted her to pursue a library science degree or take a secretarial course so as to be either the law librarian or legal secretary for the Institute of Government. Neither option was appealing to her so she decided to return to UNC for a master’s in history. She stopped to accept an offer to work in a Raleigh lawyer’s office, doing secretarial and legal work but soon realized the former had priority over the latter, so she returned and completed her degree in 1949.

Mitchell went on to become the administrative assistant and eventually a hearing officer for the North Carolina State Board of Public Welfare in 1950. She heard cases for people who had been turned down for welfare or who were involved with a complaint that couldn’t be resolved.

After four years, she was referred by friends and colleagues to the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners and became the first female judge of a domestic relations court in North Carolina, where she served for two years.

Mitchell knew that being a young, female judge with little experience made her an outsider. She was paid a salary while other judges’ compensation was fee-based and their caseloads shifted.

She had her work cut out for her.

One of her first cases involved extraditing a man from Georgia for nonsupport. “I had no more idea how to extradite someone than my young grandson does, but I did it,” Mitchell says.

During her time on the bench, the domestic court was a success, but Mitchell eventually chose to leave. She became the state records center supervisor in 1956 and five years later was promoted as the head of the publications section at the North Carolina Office of Archives and History, where she spent 25 years. She is the author of Legal Aspects of Conscription and Exemption in North Carolina, 1861-1865 (UNC Press), and numerous articles in professional journals.

While at the Office of Archives and History, Mitchell worked with the office’s director, Christopher Crittenden, and his successor, H.G. Jones. Her friendship with Jones has extended into their 90s — they have sent each other the same birthday card, now well-worn and stained, for the past 50 years. Jones is also responsible for introducing Mitchell to her late husband, well-known records manager and archivist Thornton “Mitch” Mitchell, in 1959 at a Society of American Archivists conference. The two were married in 1963 and had twin boys in 1965. Her sons still live in North Carolina with her four grandchildren.

Mitchell is grateful for her time at Carolina Law. “It really served me well. It helped me in many ways in my later jobs,” says Mitchell. “In most everything I’ve done, I’ve used my legal background. It gave me a level of determination to do the best I could do.”

Mitchell is an active 92-year-old who lives independently at a retirement community in Raleigh. She is involved with her church and still accepts speaking engagement opportunities occasionally. Her advice to others: “Have a positive outlook and don’t worry about how things will turn out if you have done your best.”

After living a life driven by education, Mitchell has no intention of slowing down. “I only have a few little touches of old age,” she says.

-May 23, 2016

From left, Jones, Frost, Taylor, Mansour, Gardner, Chelsea Parish 2L, President of ELPS, and Everett.

The Pro Bono Board awarded the 2016 recipients of the Pro Bono Publico Awards at the annual Pro Bono Celebration Wednesday, April 13. In addition to the awards, graduating students with more than 75 pro bono hours were recognized. This year's award recipients included: 

• Sylvia K. Novinsky Award - Corey Frost 3L
• 3L Student of the Year - Nihad Mansour 3L
• 2L Student of the Year - Kirstin Gardner 2L
• 1L Student of the Year - Mark Taylor 1L
• Group Pro Bono Project of the Year - Education Law and Policy Society
• Faculty/Professor of the Year - Lewis Moore "Luke" Everett '08, Clinical Associate Professor of Law
• Alumna of the Year - Erika Jones '12

Learn more about the award winners. Award nominations may be submitted by alumni, legal organizations, or any member of the Carolina Law community.

-April 13, 2016

Erika K. Wilson

With many Southern school districts no longer supervised by federal courts regarding desegregation, some suburban districts are essentially re-segregating by withdrawing from county school systems and creating independent systems.

“The New School Segregation,” a paper on the issue by UNC School of Law assistant professor Erika Wilson, has received attention from two prestigious sources. The paper was among those chosen for discussion at the Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum at Yale Law School June 28-29. Papers are selected by a jury of scholars.

Wilson’s paper notes, “The secessions almost always result in the seceding municipality having a predominately white…and affluent school system, while the remaining county-based school district has a higher percentage of minority and poor students,” she says.

Her article will also be published in the Cornell Law Review.

“I hope the paper shines a light on the ways in which certain local government structures and policies, though facially race-neutral, exacerbate racial segregation in schools,” Wilson says. “I also hope the paper can be used to help change the way we think about the benefits and burdens of municipal control of schools, particularly in the South, given the South’s sordid history with racially segregated and unequal schools.”

Wilson’s areas of expertise include civil litigation, civil rights, education and school reform, public policy and race discrimination. Her research focuses on issues connected to education law and policy.

She has had additional recent publishing success.

“Reverse Passing,” an article she co-authored with professor Khaled Beydoun, now at the University of Detroit Mercy Law School, will be published in the UCLA Law Review. The article examines aspects of affirmative action.

Regarding Wilson’s invitation to the forum at Yale, Carolina Law professor and associate dean for faculty development Holning Lau says, “Being selected to participate is a highly prestigious honor… It’s also a great accomplishment for Erika to have two articles accepted for publication by top journals within a few weeks of each other this past semester.”

Lau notes, “Erika is part of a very strong cohort of junior faculty at Carolina Law. Many of our junior colleagues have recently been recognized for their scholarly achievements.”

-May 31, 2016

Kathleen Thomas

Applying the psychology of taxpayer behavior could increase compliance with tax laws, and U.S. Department of Treasury officials have more insight on strategies, thanks to research by UNC School of Law assistant professor Kathleen Thomas.

She was recently invited to present two of her published papers to economists at the Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis. The papers propose ways the government could improve compliance and decrease tax evasion through behavioral economics.

Thomas’s paper “Presumptive Collection: A Prospect Theory Approach to Increasing Small Business Tax Compliance,” published in Tax Law Review in 2013, focuses on self-employed taxpayers who don’t pay their taxes through withholding.

“The Psychic Cost of Tax Evasion,” published in Boston College Law Review in 2015, suggests ways the government could change the tax-filing process to encourage more honest reporting.

Some Office of Tax Analysis economists are conducting similar research about the connection between behavioral economics and taxpayer behavior.

“They asked incredibly insightful questions that gave me a new perspective on my own research and some insights to carry forward to future projects. I am usually presenting my work to other law professors, so it was an enlightening experience to share ideas with those directly involved in government,” Thomas says.

While at the Treasury, she also discussed her future research projects and learned more about some government research.

One of her new projects, with co-author Jay Soled of Rutgers University, will examine possible government regulation of tax-return preparation software.

“Because I am interested in how tax preparation software might play a role in improving taxpayer compliance, I was very interested to learn about some of the collaboration that already goes on between Treasury and the tax-software industry,” Thomas says.

Another new project focuses on low-income taxpayers who claim the earned-income tax credit and other government benefits.

“Improving the process for low-income taxpayers is another area where economists at the Treasury have dedicated attention, and I look forward to learning more about their ongoing research and relying upon it to inform my own work,” Thomas says.

Holning Lau, UNC School of Law professor and associate dean for faculty development, calls Thomas’s invitation to the Treasury “a great honor” and cites other recent faculty achievements. “We at Carolina Law are proud that our junior faculty members are garnering such well-deserved attention for their important research projects.”

-June 1, 2016

“Erin Brockovich,” the 2000 biographical movie about the woman who crusaded for a safe public water supply in her California city, fueled Kristin Brunn’s interest in the environment.

Later, as an Environmental Science and Policy major at Duke University, Brunn took an environmental law class taught by UNC School of Law professor Don Hornstein.

“I absolutely loved that class, and it further reinforced my plan to pursue environmental law,” says Brunn, now in Carolina Law’s class of 2019.

She was awarded the first full-tuition academic law scholarship in the country for a student to study the intersection of environmental and energy law, one focus of the UNC School of Law Center for Climate, Energy, Environment and Economics (CE³).

A Duke Energy Foundation gift is funding the new scholarship and a range of projects aimed at expanding CE³’s mission. The scholarship is one of many innovative initiatives in progress.

CE³ director Victor Flatt, the Tom & Elizabeth Taft Distinguished Professor in Environmental Law, notes Brunn’s “stellar academic history and commitment to studying environmental issues in a real-world setting.”

A 2015 graduate, Brunn wrote policy briefs for Duke’s Marine Lab and worked one summer on environmental projects in South Africa.

While at Carolina Law, Brunn will explore career options.

“I hope to have a few diverse internships/externships that will help me determine exactly what kind of legal career suits me best,” Brunn says. “I expect it to involve the environment in some way.”

Meanwhile, in a new renewable-energy collaboration, CE³ and UNC Law’s Center for Banking and Finance held an April workshop on Law, Policy and the Future of Solar Financing, with the UNC School of Government’s Center for Environmental Finance.

Participants from academia, government, the finance industry, nonprofits and the renewable energy field discussed future demand for solar energy, financing options for solar projects, and ways to increase private-sector funding of North Carolina solar projects through law or policy changes.

“The financing of solar is growing, both as a need for the solar industry and as a way to make money for the finance industry,” Flatt says.

“There was general consensus that the role of Public Utilities Commissions in traditionally regulated states was important, and that there were possible ways to use community solar to help people at a small scale,” he says.

By July, Flatt expects the group to issue recommendations, which he hopes will result in more available solar financing and a good rate of return on investment.

In another initiative, CE³ has teamed with regional partners on a South Atlantic Sea Grant to assess potential damage to communities from problems associated with climate change. The project is funded by Sea Grant, a federal entity that awards grants to states with a completed coastal zone management plan.

The goal is “to understand how coastal communities are susceptible to sea-level rise and other hazards from climate change,” Flatt says. He is co-director of the North Carolina Coastal Resources Law, Planning and Policy Center with Carolina Law adjunct professor Lisa Schiavinato.

That center and CE³ will work with several universities to study legal and policy challenges to hazards-planning.

The initiative will “improve resilience in coastal communities through a participatory process of risk communication and data development to build local hazards-planning capacity,” Schiavinato says. “We’re proud that this project also will provide practical training to law students on the intersection of land-use planning and environmental law and policy.”

-June 1, 2016

“Erin Brockovich,” the 2000 biographical movie about the woman who crusaded for a safe public water supply in her California city, fueled Kristin Brunn’s interest in the environment.

Later, as an Environmental Science and Policy major at Duke University, Brunn took an environmental law class taught by UNC School of Law professor Don Hornstein.

“I absolutely loved that class, and it further reinforced my plan to pursue environmental law,” says Brunn, now in Carolina Law’s class of 2019.

She was awarded the first full-tuition academic law scholarship in the country for a student to study the intersection of environmental and energy law, one focus of the UNC School of Law Center for Climate, Energy, Environment and Economics (CE³).

A Duke Energy Foundation gift is funding the new scholarship and a range of projects aimed at expanding CE³’s mission. The scholarship is one of many innovative initiatives in progress.

CE³ director Victor Flatt, the Tom & Elizabeth Taft Distinguished Professor in Environmental Law, notes Brunn’s “stellar academic history and commitment to studying environmental issues in a real-world setting.”

A 2015 graduate, Brunn wrote policy briefs for Duke’s Marine Lab and worked one summer on environmental projects in South Africa.

While at Carolina Law, Brunn will explore career options.

“I hope to have a few diverse internships/externships that will help me determine exactly what kind of legal career suits me best,” Brunn says. “I expect it to involve the environment in some way.”

Meanwhile, in a new renewable-energy collaboration, CE³ and UNC Law’s Center for Banking and Finance held an April workshop on Law, Policy and the Future of Solar Financing, with the UNC School of Government’s Center for Environmental Finance.

Participants from academia, government, the finance industry, nonprofits and the renewable energy field discussed future demand for solar energy, financing options for solar projects, and ways to increase private-sector funding of North Carolina solar projects through law or policy changes.

“The financing of solar is growing, both as a need for the solar industry and as a way to make money for the finance industry,” Flatt says.

“There was general consensus that the role of Public Utilities Commissions in traditionally regulated states was important, and that there were possible ways to use community solar to help people at a small scale,” he says.

By July, Flatt expects the group to issue recommendations, which he hopes will result in more available solar financing and a good rate of return on investment.

In another initiative, CE³ has teamed with regional partners on a South Atlantic Sea Grant to assess potential damage to communities from problems associated with climate change. The project is funded by Sea Grant, a federal entity that awards grants to states with a completed coastal zone management plan.

The goal is “to understand how coastal communities are susceptible to sea-level rise and other hazards from climate change,” Flatt says. He is co-director of the North Carolina Coastal Resources Law, Planning and Policy Center with Carolina Law adjunct professor Lisa Schiavinato.

That center and CE³ will work with several universities to study legal and policy challenges to hazards-planning.

The initiative will “improve resilience in coastal communities through a participatory process of risk communication and data development to build local hazards-planning capacity,” Schiavinato says. “We’re proud that this project also will provide practical training to law students on the intersection of land-use planning and environmental law and policy.”

-June 1, 2016

This article originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2016 issue of Carolina Law.

For criminal defense attorney Jerry Buting ’81, being prepared for the unexpected turns of a trial is part of his day-to-day life. But no amount of research and planning could prepare him for the turn his life would take when he was featured in the popular Netflix 10-part documentary, “Making a Murderer,” in December.

The documentary chronicles the story of a Wisconsin man, Steven Avery, who served 18 years in prison for sexual assault and attempted murder before being exonerated in 2003. In 2005, Avery was arrested for the murder of a local photographer, Teresa Halbach. The series covers Avery’s arrest, prosecution and conviction in 2007. Buting and fellow defense attorney, Dean Strang, have been thrust into the limelight based on their work featured in the series.

“It has surprised me. As I look back on the series, we didn’t do anything any other good criminal defense attorney wouldn’t do,” says Buting, who receives thousands of emails from around the world and says he can’t walk half a block in New York without getting stopped.

Buting was interested in criminal law long before attending UNC School of Law. He was a forensic studies major at Indiana University but was interested in the substantive aspect of criminal law and procedure. “I knew I wanted to work with individual people as my clients and criminal law would allow me to do that,” says Buting.

While he didn’t know anyone in North Carolina, he had an affinity for the state where his mother was born. Buting visited law schools at Duke and Wake Forest before ultimately deciding on UNC. He was elected class president during his first year and was involved with the North Carolina Journal of International Law for a year. To actively support gender equality, Buting was also one of the only male members of the student organization Women in Law.

It was his experience with the law school’s clinical program that had the biggest impact on him personally and professionally. “I was able to work with real clients on a string of cases in several counties—Orange, Wake and Durham,” says Buting. “It was great exposure.”

His time in the clinics also introduced him to the prisons in North Carolina, an experience that would serve him well in his chosen career. He remembers the stark contrast between the bullet-riddled glass of Central Prison and the long halls of the Butner Federal Correctional Complex — both sending the psychological message that he was entering a different kind of world.

His first summer job during law school was a study on whether the death penalty was applied fairly in homicide cases. Buting and other students studied every homicide case in North Carolina for a one-year period to determine what made a case a capital offense. The study ultimately showed that the designation was dependent on the prosecutor and the county.

After law school, Buting had hoped to stay in North Carolina working as a public defender, but at that time staffed public defender programs were in the infancy stage with five offices in the state and no open positions. Buting still applied for a position and studied for the bar in North Carolina but ultimately was recruited to join the public defender program in Wisconsin. He met his future wife, another public defender, on his first day on the job. Since then he has called Brookfield, Wisc., home and opened Buting, Williams & Stillings, S.C., a criminal defense firm specializing in difficult or challenging cases.

The Steven Avery case featured in the documentary has propelled Buting and the overall criminal justice system into the spotlight. The series raises a number of questions Buting hopes will lead to discussions within the law community about the legality of interrogating a juvenile without the parents’ knowledge and whether or not prosecutors should be allowed to hold press conferences prior to jury selection. He also hopes the series will educate people on the importance of jury duty and the fact that it shouldn’t be seen as an inconvenience.

“By not providing an education process on serving or a reasonable wage for people to serve, decisions will be made by people who don’t necessarily represent the cross section of a community,” Buting says.

With so many television shows and movies depicting defense lawyers as villains, Buting is pleased the documentary is presenting a different view. “There aren’t really any defense lawyer role models,” says Buting. “I hope people will see that you can do your job ethically, honestly, with integrity and represent your client. I am humbled by it.”

Buting has been married for 26 years and has two children in their 20s. He says he is grounded in his Catholic faith and
his calling to defend his clients in an honest way – his driving motivator.

His advice to other alumni or students embarking on their law careers: “Follow your heart. Try to make a difference in whatever way you can, whether that is through law, church or community work.”

-May 5, 2016

The International Jurist magazine has included UNC School of Law’s LL.M. for International Lawyers degree program on its lists for best LL.M. programs for academics and law school experience for attorneys outside the United States.

That’s no surprise.

For a small program, UNC’s LL.M. degree offers a big package that includes personalized course advising and hands-on opportunities on the academic side, as well as assistance with housing options, a “Magic Room” of household items for loan and social events.

The program, which began five years ago, is for students who earned a law degree in another country. Most students finish in two semesters.

UNC’s is the smallest of the 11 LL.M. programs that the magazine cites for academics. Carolina Law students may take graduate classes for free and may pursue one of certain add-on graduate certificates at no extra charge in addition to their LL.M. degree.

LL.M. students are integrated with J.D. students in courses, conferences, presentations and trainings. Students may join the LL.M. moot court team and participate in the law journal’s symposium and conferences.

The program’s biggest strengths are “the caring for, and care of, students by the involved staff, faculty and administrators of Carolina Law, who work to ensure that the students’ LL.M. period of study and life is the best it can be. The potential for experience working in our pro-bono and externship law programs is another major draw,” says Beverly Sizemore, Director of International and LL.M. Programs.

UNC’s program is among 14 the magazine cites for overall law school experience.

The program “offers very individualized attention to students,” says Sizemore, whom the magazine interviewed.

That attention ranges from airport pickup at arrival and a thorough orientation process to help with looking for employment opportunities inside and outside the U.S. Most students come from other countries and return to their home country when they finish.

Carolina Law offered merit-based scholarships for the 2016-17 LL.M. class—which will have 10-15 students—and Sizemore expects to offer some scholarships for the 2017-18 cohort.

-June 8, 2016

This article originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2016 issue of Carolina Law.

Deborah R. Gerhardt is an associate professor at UNC School of Law, specializing in the intersection of law and creativity,
and has written leading articles in trademarks, copyrights, art law, false advertising and plagiarism. Gerhardt’s research assistant, Carolyn Detmer 3L (Class of 2016), sat down with her for a conversation about intellectual property in the legal field.

CAROLYN DETMER: What role do you see intellectual property currently playing in the legal field? Is it changing?

DEBORAH GERHARDT: Intellectual property was once a niche practice. Now it is unavoidable. To serve a huge array of clients — low-wealth entrepreneurs, high-tech businesses, artists or anyone with a website — a basic understanding of the different types of intellectual property is essential. My students and I discuss this subject all the time. They start to see that IP is everywhere — often in places they did not expect. Every organization lives and dies by its trademark: the symbol of its reputation and core values. Protecting the distinctive story of the mark is everything. If your brand loses its ability to inspire customer loyalty, the business dies. And every business has a website with copyrighted content so it must learn how to protect and share its own creative works while respecting the creative rights of others. Patented technology is also everywhere from machines to software to pharmaceuticals. Design patents are also increasingly used to protect a wider variety of products including luxury shoes and handbags. Computer and internet technology has also changed so much. IP is easier to create and also much easier to copy. The law is fascinating and evolving quickly as well, which is great, because it creates more work for my future students.

CD: I know you have done research regarding some specific areas of trademark and copyright law. Can you tell me about these areas of interest and how they have influenced your teaching?

DG: The process is organic. Teaching inspires research questions, and my research informs my teaching. Teaching more and more trademark students every year inspired me to question whether it made sense for clients to hire trademark lawyers. After all, business owners can prosecute their own applications before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Did it matter to have a lawyer? Was I training my students for unnecessary work? These questions are important to ask because we want to make sure we are training our students for skills that are needed — not those that are redundant. In other areas of law, political scientists have proven that having a lawyer did not correlate with a better outcome. The question “do trademark lawyers matter?” was scary but important. I recruited my data guru [Associate Dean for Administration, Assistant Dean for Academic Excellence and Clinical Associate Professor of Law] Jon P. McClanahan ’08 to mine the massive USPTO trademark data set for answers. Luckily we found that having an experienced lawyer especially when the USPTO issues an office action, did correlate with successful outcomes. In doing this research, I also discovered so many examples and interesting patterns in the data to share with my class.

CD: Tell me more about the IP program at the law school. I know it has been expanding over the last few years. Where do you ideally see it headed?

DG: For years, I have been pushing UNC to launch a startup garage! I want my students to be able to use what they learn in class to help low-wealth entrepreneurs get their businesses launched. I began working with interested students on these projects as independent studies until we formally launched our IP clinic with two students in 2014. This year we have six students in the clinic, and I understand next year 26 want to participate! I hope UNC will find the resources to grow this program so more of my students can see the law in their textbooks come alive. Every new business has a trademark for their products or service. Choosing a mark without counsel is risky because precious seed money may be lost if the mark is confusingly similar to another player in their commercial space. So for low-wealth entrepreneurs, this advice is critical from a defensive perspective, but it is also critical from an offensive perspective so we can help our clients choose names that add commercially distinctive value. One of my students last year had a “stop the presses” moment with a client who was about to go to the New York food show with a name that had been registered by a huge consumer products company. Because of my student’s advice, the client dodged a near certain lawsuit, and now has a registered mark that is commercially distinct.

CD: How is the school, and the program specifically, preparing students to meet the evolving needs of the field after graduation?

DG: My goal is to support my students as they become practice-ready lawyers for the industry they want to serve. For example, a student who follows our trademark track will have taken the basic course and the practical seminar in the second year so that she will know how to file applications, respond to office actions and draft trademark opinion letters by the time she leaves for her 2L summer job. During the third year, if she participates in the IP clinic, she will use what she learned to assist real clients, learning about how trademark clients often have advertising, copyright and contract issues. Through this work, she will deepen her substantive knowledge while she gains client development and experience advising real clients. Ideally, the student will also participate in the IP moot court competition, art law or a journal to provide more opportunities for growth and in-depth study. I love this track because it is win-win along so many dimensions! It gives our students a meaningful educational experience, an understanding of how gratifying practice is, and the practical skills give them a big advantage when looking for jobs. Our IP clinic gives low-wealth entrepreneurs access to excellent pro bono legal services. The program also helps law firms, nonprofits, businesses and the USPTO who have the good fortune to hire my fabulous IP students.

-May 5, 2016