July 2008 

Two Michigan Law alums win Supreme Court clerkships

July 29, 2008
Contact: John Masson, 734.647.7352, jpmasson@umich.edu

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A distinct Ann Arbor flavor will be coming to the United States Supreme Court in time for 2009’s October Term, thanks to two Michigan Law graduates who recently secured coveted high court clerkships.

Hyland Hunt, a 2008 graduate, will be clerking for Justice John Paul Stevens. Josh Deahl, who graduated in 2006, will clerk for retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; Deahl's duties will include assisting the retired Justice when she sits, by designation, on the U.S. Courts of Appeal. The remainder of his time will be spent assisting with the work of one of the sitting Justices.

Both clerkships highlight Michigan’s longstanding position at the forefront of public law schools in the number of Supreme Court clerkships secured by alumni.

Hunt, a former book review editor for the Michigan Law Review who also won the Bates Award, the Law School’s highest honor for graduating seniors, is clerking this year for Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Deahl, who was an article editor and published a note for the Michigan Law Review, clerked for Judge Fortunato Benavides of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2006-07. He also won the 2006 Burton Award for Legal Achievement, a national legal writing award.

Michigan Law faculty and students recall both alumni as creative, hard-working thinkers and down-to-earth classmates. Prof. Eve Brensike Primus, who wrote one of Deahl’s recommendations, remembers an incident that nicely encapsulated how Deahl was viewed by fellow students.

“I asked one student how law school was going,” Brensike Primus said. “In his answer, the student talked about the quality of his fellow students, and he noted, ‘We can’t all be as smart as Josh Deahl, but we can all learn from him.’ That pretty much sums it up.”

Hunt, an Air Force intelligence officer who served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, also earned the respect of both faculty and students, Prof. James J. White said. “She has a mind of her own, and I think that fact earned her recognition.”

“Hyland is just a terrific student and a lovely person,” echoed Prof. Jill Horwitz. “She is one of those rare students whose answers to questions in class not only help clarify legal issues for her classmates, but also highlight their complexities.”

Prof. Gil Seinfeld, who taught both students, said Deahl had a rare combination of “raw smarts and a complete lack of pretension” that classmates and faculty found particularly endearing. Similarly, he added, Hunt was “just staggeringly impressive … she wrote an exam in my federal courts class that was so good, I almost fell off my chair.”

“Josh and Hyland are both extremely easy to root for, and I couldn’t be happier for them,” Seinfeld said.

The clerkships are scheduled for October Term 2009.

overseas faculty member Christopher McCrudden elected to British Academy

July 23, 2008
Contact John Masson, 734.647.7352, jpmasson@umich.edu

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Prof. Christopher McCrudden, a Michigan Law affiliated overseas faculty member who teaches human rights law at Oxford, was elected this month as a Fellow in the British Academy.

The honor places McCrudden among Great Britain’s elite scholars in the humanities and social sciences. He joins 11 other Michigan Law faculty members who have been similarly honored by a U.S. equivalent of the British Academy – the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. They are Phoebe Ellsworth, Bruce W. Frier, Douglas Laycock, Richard O. Lempert, Catharine A. MacKinnon, Margaret Jane Radin, Donald Regan, Rebecca Scott, A.W. Brian Simpson, Joseph Vining, and James Boyd White.

“This distinction undoubtedly elevates Chris in the eyes of the academic world,” said Michigan Law Dean Evan Caminker. “But those of us who are fortunate enough to know him personally also know that, besides being a brilliant scholar, he’s a delightful colleague and friend. This honor is richly deserved.”

Prof. McCrudden holds an LL.B. from Queen’s University, Belfast; an LL.M. from Yale; and a D. Phil. from Oxford. Like the Law School’s other Affiliated Overseas Faculty members, Prof. McCrudden maintains an ongoing academic relationship with Michigan Law and teaches at least one course here every year. He specializes in human rights law and currently concentrates on issues of equality and discrimination, and the relationship between international economic law and human rights. He also has studied the use of government procurement for social purposes.

New law faculty arriving for fall term 

July 8, 2008
Contact John Masson, 734.647.7352, jpmasson@umich.edu

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – The University of Michigan Law School continues its leadership in legal education this fall by welcoming to its faculty four new scholars with wide-ranging interests in time for the coming academic year.  

Law School Dean Evan Caminker said the new professors will help bolster the law school’s already formidable clinical offerings as well as continuing its tradition of scholarly strength.

“We’re delighted to welcome such a distinguished group of intellectuals to what is already a remarkable community of scholars at Michigan Law,” Caminker said. 

The new faculty members include: 

• Clinical Assistant Professor Deborah Burand, who brings years of experience in microfinance, international finance and bank regulation to the Law School’s new International Transactions Clinic. Burand will work in the ITC with Prof. Michael Barr and Business Law Faculty Fellow Timothy L. Dickinson. Burand, a former Treasury Department official, is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
• Professor of Law Susan Crawford, an internet and telecommunications law expert whose addition to the faculty further enhances the Law School’s position as a bastion of information law. Crawford was a visiting professor at Michigan Law in fall 2007, and now augments intellectual property/information law experts Rebecca Eisenberg, Jessica Litman, and Margaret Jane Radin, putting Michigan Law at the forefront of legal education in this field.
• Assistant Professor Monica Hakimi, whose interests in the areas of public international law, international human rights law, the law of armed conflict, and U.S. foreign relations law will strengthen the Law School’s existing leadership in international affairs. Hakimi comes to Michigan from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and also brings experience from the U.S. Department of State, where she advised policymakers on matters as diverse as international civil aviation and Iraqi reconstruction.
• Clinical Professor David A. Moran comes to Michigan from Wayne State University Law School, where he served as Associate Dean. Moran, a 1991 Michigan Law grad who has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court five times in the past five years, will co-teach the Law School’s new Innocence Clinic with Bridget McCormack, the Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs. Innocence projects around the country concentrate on reversing convictions using virtually irrefutable DNA evidence, but Michigan Law’s new clinic will be the first to specialize in more difficult cases where such evidence doesn’t exist.