News Center

This Week's Experts – May 1, 2007

Overview

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

World

  • Turkish Presidential Vote Annulment
  • Israeli War Report / Olmert Under Fire
  • Iraqi Security Plan
  • Iran / Nuclear Enrichment / Iran-Russia Relations
  • North Korean Nuclear Disarmament
  • Zimbabwe Crisis
  • Darfur

Nation

  • War Spending Bill Veto
  • Immigration Protests / Reform
  • Paul Wolfowitz / World Bank
  • Office of Special Counsel to Investigate Karl Rove
  • U.S. Business
    • Human Rights Watch Report on Wal-Mart Labor Tactics
    • Google Challenge to Viacom Lawsuit
    • Vonage-Verizon Patent Infringement
    • Stock Option Backdating / Apple
    • Hedge Fund Manager Salaries Increase
    • Risks to Hedge Fund Managers Who Seek Access to Public Markets
    • Watters v. Wachovia Bank Decision
    • Sub-Prime Loan Market
  • Supreme Court
    • Microsoft v. AT&T
    • KSR International v. Teleflex
    • Ruling on Partial Birth Abortion Ban
    • High-Speed Police Chase / Timothy Scott v. Victor Harris
  • Prosecutor Dismissals / Gonzales
  • Guantanamo Detainees / Jose Padilla
  • Climate Change

California

  • Bay Area Freeway Collapse / Liability
  • Marine Protected Areas
  • State Prisons & Criminal Sentencing Reform
    • Prison Funding Bill
    • Assembly Appropriations Report
    • Proposed Sentencing Commission, Little Hoover Commission Report
    • Prison Overcrowding

World

Turkish Presidential Vote Annulment

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

Israeli War Report / Olmert Under Fire

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

Iran / Nuclear Enrichment / Iran-Russia Relations

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

Zimbabwe Crisis

Helen Stacy
Senior Lecturer in Law
650 724.9608
Expertise: International Human Rights, InternationalJurisprudence, International Law, Legal and Social Theory

Darfur

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

Nation

War Spending Bill Veto

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

Immigration Protests / Reform

Jayashri Srikantiah
Associate Professor of Law (Teaching)
650 724.2442
Expertise: Civil Rights, Immigration Law

Paul Wolfowitz / World Bank

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

Office of Special Counsel to Investigate Karl Rove

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

U.S. Business: Human Rights Watch Report on Wal-Mart Labor Tactics

William B. Gould IV
Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law, Emeritus
650 723.2111
Expertise: Labor Law, former head of the National Labor Relations Board under Clinton

U.S. Business: Google Challenge to Viacom Lawsuit

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: Vonage-Verizon Patent Infringement

Mark A. Lemley
William H. Neukom Professor of Law
650 723.4605
Expertise: Antitrust, Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks, Copyright), Technology and the Law

U.S. Business: Stock Option Backdating / Apple

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: Hedge Fund Manager Salaries Increase

Robert Daines
Pritzker Professor of Law & Business, Co-director of the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance
650 736.2684
Expertise: Business & Corporate Law, Corporate Governance, Law & Economics, Mergers & Acquisitions, Executive Compensation

U.S. Business: Risks to Hedge Fund Managers Who Seek Access to Public Markets

David Mills
Senior Lecturer in Law
650 723.3842
Expertise: Investment and Finance, Taxation, Business Crimes
Robert Weisberg
Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law
650 723.0612
Expertise: Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Criminal Procedure

U.S. Business: Watters v. Wachovia Bank Decision

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: 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

Supreme Court: Microsoft v. AT&T

Mark A. Lemley
William H. Neukom Professor of Law
650 723.4605
Expertise: Antitrust, Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks, Copyright), Technology and the Law

Supreme Court: KSR International v. Teleflex

Mark A. Lemley
William H. Neukom Professor of Law
650 723.4605
Expertise: Antitrust, Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks, Copyright), Technology and the Law

Supreme Court: Ruling on Partial Birth Abortion Ban

Jane Schacter
Professor of Law
650 724.9492
Expertise: Constitutional Law, Statutory Interpretation and Legislative Process

Supreme Court: High-Speed Police Chase / Timothy Scott v. Victor Harris

Robert Weisberg
Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law
650 723.0612
Expertise: Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Criminal Procedure

Prosecutor Dismissals / Gonzales

Deborah L. Rhode
Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law
650 723.0319
Expertise: Antidiscrimination Law, Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Sex and the Law
Norman W. Spaulding
Professor of Law and John A. Wilson Distinguished Faculty Scholar
650 736.1854
Expertise: Civil Procedure and Litigation, Complex Litigation, Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Federal Courts, Legal History, Remedies

Guantanamo Detainees / Jose Padilla Trial

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

Climate Change

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
David Victor
Professor of Law
650 724.1712
Expertise: Energy Law & Regulation, Environmental & Natural Resources Law, International Environment, International Law & Economy

California

Bay Area Freeway Collapse / Liability

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

Marine Protected Areas

Margaret "Meg" Caldwell
Director, Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy Program; Senior Lecturer, Stanford Institute for the Environment
650 723.4057
Expertise: Costal Law, Science, and Policy, Environmental and Natural Resources Law

State Prisons & Criminal Sentencing Reform: Prison Funding Bill

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: 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

Margaret "Meg" Caldwell

Caldwell is a member of California Marine Life Protection Act Blue Ribbon Task Force. She is an expert on the environmental effects of local land use decisions, the use of science in environmental and marine resource policy development and implementation, and developing private and public incentives for natural resource conservation, as well as implications of rising sea levels. Caldwell holds a joint appointment as a Senior Lecturer with the Woods Institute for the Environment.

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.

Robert Daines

An internationally recognized corporate law scholar, Daines is widely known for his rigorous statistical analysis of empirical data on the relationship between economic theory and corporate governance and contracting in practice. His recent work has focused on issues in corporate governance, such as CEO pay, mandatory disclosure regulations, and the use of classified boards of directors. He co-directs the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance.

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.

William B. Gould IV

Gould served as Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board under the Clinton Administration, has been a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators since 1970. He has arbitrated and mediated more than 200 labor disputes, including the 1992 and 1993 salary disputes between the Major League Baseball Players Association and the Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee.

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.

Mark A. Lemley

Widely recognized as a preeminent scholar of intellectual property law, Mark Lemley is a prolific writer, having published over 70 articles and six books, and an accomplished litigator, having tried cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and federal district courts. His major contributions to legal scholarship focus on how the economics and technology of the Internet affect patent law, copyright law, and trademark law. Professor Lemley has testified numerous times before Congress and the California legislature on patent, trade secret, antitrust, and constitutional law matters and currently serves as of counsel at Keker & Van Nest in their intellectual property and antitrust divisions.

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.

David Mills

As former senior tax partner and current managing partner for Harbourton Enterprises, a private investment firm, David Mills has extensive experience in investment and finance, including the defense of those charged with business crimes. A leading architect of contemporary partnership and enterprise tax law, he has taught a variety of tax courses at Stanford Law School, as well as a class on white-collar crime.

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.

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.

Jane Schacter

Jane Schacter is a leading expert on statutory interpretation and legislative process, constitutional law, and sexual orientation and the law. Her research focuses on the concepts of democratic theory that shape legal analysis and the constitutional dimensions of judicial and legislative legitimacy. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2006, Professor Schacter was professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, as well as the University of Michigan Law School. Early in her career she was an assistant attorney general in Massachusetts, an associate at Hill & Barlow in Boston, and a law clerk to Judge Raymond J. Pettine of the U.S. District Court in Providence, Rhode Island.

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.

Norman W. Spaulding

A nationally recognized scholar in the area of professional responsibility and the legal profession, Norman Spaulding has focused much of his work on when lawyers go wrong, probing the causes of professional failure and malaise from a historical perspective. In 2004 the Association of American Law Schools presented him with its Outstanding Scholarly Paper Prize for "Constitution as Counter-Monument: Federalism, Reconstruction and the Problem of Collective Memory," which was published in the Columbia Law Review. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2005, he was a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

Jayashri Srikantiah

Jayashri Srikantiah is the director of the law school’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, in which students represent individual immigrants and immigrants’ rights organizations and also engage in community outreach, public education, and policy advocacy. She has litigated extensively on behalf of immigrants, and her experience includes challenges to mandatory and indefinite detention policies in the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and representation of human trafficking survivors. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2004, Professor Srikantiah was the associate legal director of the ACLU of Northern California and a staff attorney at the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

Helen Stacy

Helen Stacy has produced works analyzing the efficacy of regional courts in promoting human rights, differences in the legal systems of neighboring countries, and the impact of postmodernism on legal thinking. Her recent scholarship has focused on the efforts of Romania, Mexico, and Thailand to improve their court systems and their policing. In addition to her role at the law school, Professor Stacy is a senior research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. She is also a researcher with the European Forum at the Freeman Spogli Institute, a member of the Committee in Charge of the Program in Modern Thought and Literature, and is associated with the Center for African Studies.

David Victor

David Victor, an expert in the areas of regulation, energy law, and environmental policy, came to Stanford University in 2001 to start the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). The Program focuses on the economic and environmental consequences of energy consumption, and much of Professor Victor's work involves extensive field research in emerging markets (notably China and India) and in some of the world's poorest regions, including in Africa. Professor Victor teaches regulation at the Law School and continues his work at FSI through a joint appointment. Previously, he directed the Science and Technology program at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where his research focused on the sources of technological innovation and the impact of innovation on economic growth; global forest policy, global warming, and genetic engineering of food crops. Professor Victor is a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Woods Institute for the Environment.

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.