News Center

This Week's Experts – March 27, 2007

Overview

Stanford Law School faculty are available to offer legal analysis/commentary on the following news topics this week:

World

  • David Hicks/Guantanamo Detainees
  • British Sailors Detained in Iran
  • Egyptian Constitutional Amendments
  • Iran/Russia/China - Nuclear Program Dispute
  • North Korean Nuclear Disarmament
  • Egyptian Constitutional Amendments
  • Iraqi Security Plan
  • Darfur War Crimes Case

Nation

  • Federal Prosecutor Dismissals
  • War Spending Bill
  • U.S. Business
    • VIOXX Trial Decision
    • Sub-Prime Loan Market
    • Enron Investors' Suit
    • Stock Option Backdating
    • Viacom $1 Billion Suit vs. Google, Youtube
    • Pet Owner Class-Action Suits Against Menu Foods
  • FBI Spy Powers/Judiciary Committee Hearing
  • Climate Change/Congressional Hearings

California

  • State Prisons & Criminal Sentencing Reform
    • Assembly Appropriations Report
    • Proposed Sentencing Commission, Little Hoover Commission Report
    • Prison Overcrowding

World

David Hicks/Guantanamo Detainees

Jenny S. Martinez
Associate Professor of Law
650 725.2749
Expertise: Separation of Powers, Civil Procedure and Litigation, Comparative Law, Constitutional Law, Human Rights, International Law, Detention related to Terrorism / GITMO

British Sailors Detained in Iran

Allen S. Weiner
Associate Professor of Law (Teaching), Warren Christopher Professor of the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, and Co-director of the Center on International Conflict and Resolution
650 724.5892 or 650 724.4818
Expertise: Contemporary Security Threats, International Security, Nuclear Proliferation, International Law, Laws of War, Human Rights

Iran/Russia/China - Nuclear Program Dispute

Allen S. Weiner
Associate Professor of Law (Teaching), Warren Christopher Professor of the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, and Co-director of the Center on International Conflict and Resolution
650 724.5892 or 650 724.4818
Expertise: Contemporary Security Threats, International Security, Nuclear Proliferation, International Law, Laws of War, Human Rights

North Korean Nuclear Disarmament

Allen S. Weiner
Associate Professor of Law (Teaching), Warren Christopher Professor of the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, and Co-director of the Center on International Conflict and Resolution
650 724.5892 or 650 724.4818
Expertise: Contemporary Security Threats, International Security, Nuclear Proliferation, International Law, Laws of War, Human Rights

Egyptian Constitutional Amendments

Allen S. Weiner
Associate Professor of Law (Teaching), Warren Christopher Professor of the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, and Co-director of the Center on International Conflict and Resolution
650 724.5892 or 650 724.4818
Expertise: Contemporary Security Threats, International Security, Nuclear Proliferation, International Law, Laws of War, Human Rights

Iraqi Security Plan

Allen S. Weiner
Associate Professor of Law (Teaching), Warren Christopher Professor of the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, and Co-director of the Center on International Conflict and Resolution
650 724.5892 or 650 724.4818
Expertise: Contemporary Security Threats, International Security, Nuclear Proliferation, International Law, Laws of War, Human Rights

Darfur War Crimes Case

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
Associate Professor of Law and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar
650 723.9216
Expertise: International Law and the Economy, Separation of Powers

Nation

Federal Prosecutor Dismissals

Deborah L. Rhode
Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law
650 723.0319
Expertise: Antidiscrimination Law, Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Sex and the Law

War Spending Bill

Mariano-Florentio Cuéllar
Associate Professor of Law and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar
650 723.9216
Expertise: International Criminal Law, International Security, Separation of Powers

U.S. Business: VIOXX Trial Decision

Robert L. Rabin
A. Calder Mackay Professor of Law
650 723.3073
Expertise: Torts, Regulation of Health and Safety

U.S. Business: Sub-Prime Loan Market

G. Marcus Cole
Professor of Law, The Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, and Associate Dean for Curriculum
650 723.9216
Expertise: Bankruptcy, Commercial Law, Contracts, Venture Capital

U.S. Business: Enron Investors' Suit

Joseph A. Grundfest
W. A. Franke Professor of Law and Business, Co-director of the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance
650 723.0458
Expertise: Corporate Law, Securities Regulation, Mergers and Acquisitions, Venture Capital

U.S. Business: Stock Option Backdating

Joseph A. Grundfest
W. A. Franke Professor of Law and Business, Co-director of the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance
650 723.0458
Expertise: Corporate Law, Securities Regulation, Mergers and Acquisitions, Venture Capital

U.S. Business: Viacom $1 Billion Suit vs. Google, YouTube

Anthony Falzone
Executive Director, Stanford Law School's Fair Use Project
650 736.9050
Expertise: Copyright, Trademark, Rights of Publicity, Intellectual Property

U.S. Business: Pet Owner Class-Action Suits Against Menu Foods

Deborah R. Hensler
Judge John W. Ford Professor of Dispute Resolution and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies
650 723.0146
Expertise: Civil Procedure and Litigation, Law and Society, Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, Public Policy and Empirical Studies

FBI Powers/Judiciary Committee Hearing/Patriot Act

Derek Shaffer
Executive Director of Stanford Law School's Constitutional Law Center
202 441.2910
Expertise: Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Class Actions, Complex Commercial Litigation

Climate Change/Congressional Hearings

Deborah A. "Debbie" Sivas
Director, Environmental Law Clinic and Lecturer in Law
650 723.0325
Expertise: Environmental Law, Climate Change/Global Warming, litigates environmental protection cases in federal courts

California

Study on State of California Schools/"Getting Down to Facts"

William Koski
Eric and Nancy Wright Professor of Clinical Education
650 724.3718
Expertise: Children and the Law, Education Law, Educational Politics, Policy Analysis

State Prisons & Criminal Sentencing Reform: Assembly Appropriations Report

Kara Dansky
Executive Director, Stanford Criminal Justice Center
650 724.5786
Expertise: Criminal Law, Criminal Sentencing Policy, Member of California's Little Hoover Commission
Robert Weisberg
Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law
650 723.0612
Expertise: Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Criminal Procedure

State Prisons & Criminal Sentencing Reform: Proposed Sentencing Commission, Little Hoover Commission Report

Kara Dansky
Executive Director, Stanford Criminal Justice Center
650 724.5786
Expertise: Criminal Law, Criminal Sentencing Policy, Member of California's Little Hoover Commission
Robert Weisberg
Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law
650 723.0612
Expertise: Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Criminal Procedure

State Prisons & Criminal Sentencing Reform: Prison Overcrowding

Kara Dansky
Executive Director, Stanford Criminal Justice Center
650 724.5786
Expertise: Criminal Law, Criminal Sentencing Policy, Member of California's Little Hoover Commission
Robert Weisberg
Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law
650 723.0612
Expertise: Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Criminal Procedure

Bios

G. Marcus Cole

Cole takes an empirical law and economics approach to research questions such as why corporate bankruptcies increasingly are adjudicated in Delaware, and what drives the financial structure of companies backed by venture capital. He has been a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, and has scholarly interests that range from classical liberal political theory to natural law and the history of commercial law. He serves on the board of directors for the Central Pacific Region of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, and on the editorial board of the Cato Supreme Court Review. In November 2006, Cole joined a group of distinguished economists and law professors in a amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold federal preemption in Watters v. Wachovia Bank.

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar

Cuéllar is an affiliated faculty member with the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation and served as senior advisor to the U.S. Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Enforcement. He has published the leading academic paper on the operation of federal money laundering laws. Recent projects address the role of criminal enforcement in managing transnational threats, the physical safety of refugee communities in the developing world, legislative and budgetary dynamics affecting the federal Department of Homeland Security, and the impact of bureaucratic structure on how institutions implement legal mandates.

Kara Dansky

Dansky is an expert on California sentencing policy and a member of the Little Hoover Commission Advisory Committee on Sentencing Reform. Previously, she was a staff attorney, with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and a staff attorney for the Society of Counsel Representing Accused Persons.

Anthony Falzone

Falzone, an intellectual property litigator with more than eight years of experience, has represented technology and media clients in a wide array of intellectual property disputes including copyright, trademark, rights of publicity, and patent matters. Prior to joining Stanford Law School, he was a partner in the San Francisco office of Bingham McCutchen LLP.

Joseph A. Grundfest

Grundfest, a former SEC Commissioner, is a nationally prominent expert on capital markets, corporate governance, and securities litigation. He has served on the staff of the President's Council of Economic Advisors as counsel and senior economist for legal and regulatory matters. Grundfest heads the award-winning Securities Class Action Clearinghouse and co-directs the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford Law School.

Deborah R. Hensler

A political scientist who was the director of the RAND Institute for Civil Justice before joining the Stanford faculty, Deborah Hensler's empirical research on dispute resolution, complex litigation, and mass tort liability has won national recognition. She has testified before state and federal legislatures on issues ranging from alternative dispute resolution to asbestos litigation and mass torts, and consulted with judges and lawyers outside of the United States on the design of class action regimes. Professor Hensler is a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and serves on the board of overseers for the RAND Institute for Civil Justice.

Jenny S. Martinez

Martinez argued the 2004 case of Rumsfeld v. Padilla in the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to clarify the constitutional protections available to post-9/11 "enemy combatants" who are U.S. citizens. Martinez performed the rare feat of a clerkship triple crown, clerking on a federal appellate court, the United States Supreme Court (with Justice Stephen Breyer), and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (with Judge Patricia Wald). Martinez's scholarship makes the first major attempt to synthesize and analyze the important new phenomenon of an increasing number of international tribunals operating in a globalized environment, but without any supervening sovereign authority to which they are all bound.

Robert L. Rabin

An expert on torts and legislative compensation schemes, Robert Rabin is highly regarded for his extensive knowledge of the history and institutional dynamics of accident law. He is a prolific author on issues relating to the functions of the tort system and alternative regulatory schemes, and is the coeditor of a classic casebook on tort law. Professor Rabin is currently an advisor to the ongoing American Law Institute Restatement of Torts Third project, and has served as a reporter for the American Law Institute Project on Compensation and Liability for Product and Process Injuries and the American Bar Association Action Commission to Improve the Tort Liability System.

Deborah L. Rhode

Rhode, one of the nation's leading scholars in the fields of legal ethics and professional responsibility, is a prolific author of articles and books on the regulation and reform of the legal profession. She is the founding director of Stanford University's Center on Ethics and she has headed Stanford Law School's Keck Center on Legal Ethics and the Legal Profession. A former president of the Association of American Law Schools, Professor Rhode is also a regular columnist for the National Law Journal.

Derek Shaffer

Shaffer specializes in complex litigation matters, particularly those involving governmental bodies and unsettled constitutional and statutory questions. He has variously served as lead counsel and lead associate in several high-profile trial and appellate matters, with clients that have included six states, and in tribunals that have included the United States Supreme Court, numerous United States Courts of Appeals and District Courts, state supreme courts, and the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Deborah A. "Debbie" Sivas

Sivas has been the Director of the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic since 1997. She is a 1987 Stanford Law School graduate, clerked for a federal court, serves as president of the board for two NGOs, and has litigated many significant environmental cases in federal court on behalf of nonprofit organizations.

Allen S. Weiner

Weiner is the co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Resolution. For more than a decade, he served at the United States Department of State, first as Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser, and then as Attaché and Counselor for Legal Affairs in the United States Embassy in The Hague. He is an expert on international law and the response to the contemporary security threats of international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including in North Korea and Iran.

Robert Weisberg

Weisberg is director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. A frequent commentator and expert on white-collar crime, criminal law and procedure, sentencing, and criminal justice reform, he has served as a consulting attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the California Appellate Project, working on death penalty litigation in the federal courts. He is also versed in commercial law and secured transactions.