News Center

This Week's Experts – January 15, 2008

Overview

Stanford Law School experts are available to comment on the following news topics this week.

World

  • Iraq Security Plan
  • Iran Nuclear Program
  • Kenya
  • Pakistan
  • China and Internet Censorship
  • Darfur

Nation

  • Supreme Court
    • Securities Lawsuits/Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta
    • Fourth Amendment/Virginia v. Moore
    • Voter ID Law
  • Subprime Crisis/Fed Mortgage Plan
  • US Business
    • EU Microsoft Probe
    • Shareholder Lawsuits
    • Securities Fraud/ Stock Option Backdating/ Insider Trading
    • Sovereign Wealth Funds
    • Product Liability Suits
    • Consumer Product Safety Legislation
    • Writers' Strike
  • Congress
    • CIA Tapes Probe
    • Patent Reform
  • Guantanamo

California

  • Challenge To EPA Emissions Decision
  • State Prisons & Criminal Sentencing Reform
    • Calif. Sentencing Legislation
    • Prison Funding
    • Assembly Appropriations Report
    • Proposed Sentencing Commission, Little Hoover Commission Report
    • Prison Overcrowding
    • Victims' Rights

World

Iraq Security Plan

Allen S. Weiner
Senior Lecturer in Law 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 Program

Allen S. Weiner
Senior Lecturer in Law 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

Kenya

Allen S. Weiner
Senior Lecturer in Law 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

Pakistan

Allen S. Weiner
Senior Lecturer in Law 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

China and Internet Censorship

Allen S. Weiner
Senior Lecturer in Law 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

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

Nation

Supreme Court: Securities Lawsuits/ Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta

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

Supreme Court: Fourth Amendment/ Virginia v. Moore

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

Supreme Court: Voter ID Law

Pamela S. Karlan
Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law
650 725.4851
Expertise: Constitutional Law, Antidiscrimination Law, Civil Procedure and Litigation, Criminal Procedure, Employment Discrimination, Race and the Law

Subprime Crisis/Fed Mortgage Plan

G. Marcus Cole
Wm. Benjamin Scott and Luna M. Scott Professor of Law
650 723.9216
Expertise: Bankruptcy, Commercial Law, Contracts, Venture Capital

US Business: EU Microsoft Probe

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

US Business: Shareholder Lawsuits

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

US Business: Securities Fraud/ Stock Option Backdating/ Insider Trading

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

US Business: Sovereign Wealth Funds

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

US Business: Product Liability Suits

Alan O. Sykes
James and Patricia Kowal Professor of Law
650 723.0178
Expertise: Antitrust, Contracts, Insurance, International Law, International Trade, Law and Economics, Torts

US Business: Consumer Product Safety Legislation

Alan O. Sykes
James and Patricia Kowal Professor of Law
650 723.0178
Expertise: Antitrust, Contracts, Insurance, International Law, International Trade, Law and Economics, Torts

US Business: Writers' Strike

William B. Gould IV
Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law, Emeritus
650 723.2111
Expertise: Comparative Law, Labor and Employment Law, Sports and Entertainment Law (Bonds’ Legacy, Upcoming Mitchell Report)

Congress: CIA Tapes Probe

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
Professor of Law and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar
650 723.9216
Expertise: International Criminal Law, International Security, Separation of Powers
Jenny S. Martinez
Associate Professor of Law and Justin M. Roach, Jr. Faculty Scholar
650 725.2749
Expertise: Separation of Powers, Civil Procedure and Litigation, Comparative Law, Constitutional Law, Human Rights, International Law, Detention related to Terrorism/GTMO

Congress: Patent Reform

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

Guantanamo

Mariano-Florentino Cuellar
Professor of Law and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar
650 723.9216
Expertise: International Criminal Law, International Security, Separation of Powers (Enemy Combatants)
Jenny S. Martinez
Associate Professor of Law and Justin M. Roach, Jr. Faculty Scholar
650 725.2749
Expertise: Separation of Powers, Civil Procedure and Litigation, Comparative Law, Constitutional Law, Human Rights, International Law, Detention related to Terrorism/GTMO
Barbara Olshansky
Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights
650 736.2312
Expertise: International Human Rights Law, International Humanitarian Law, Detention related to Terrorism/GTMO, Immigrants' Rights, Prisoners' Rights, Native American Rights, Environmental Law, Public Health, Race Discrimination in Employment and Education

California

Challenge To EPA Emissions Decision

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 (fuel economy standards)
Barton H. "Buzz" Thompson, Jr.
Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law and Co-Director, Woods Institute for the Environment
650 723.2518
Expertise: Natural Resources Law, Water Law, Environmental Law, Property Woods Institute Farm Bill website

State Prisons & Criminal Sentencing Reform: Calif. Sentencing Legislation

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 Funding

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

State Prisons & Criminal Sentencing Reform: Victims' Rights

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. In November 2006, Cole was part of a group of regulatory experts, who, represented by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, filed an 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.

William B. Gould IV

A prolific scholar of labor and discrimination law, William B. Gould IV has been an influential voice on worker-management relations for over forty years and recently served as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. Professor Gould has been a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators since 1970 and 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. Professor Gould is the recipient of five honorary doctorates for his significant contributions in the fields of labor law and labor relations.

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.

Pamela S. Karlan

A frequent litigator in the federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, Karlan is a widely recognized commentator on legal issues on the Lehrer News Hour and other public programs. She launched a clinic in which Stanford law students help brief actual cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. She is one of the nationŐs leading experts on voting rights and election law, including the regulation of the political process and redistricting. Formerly a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, she is currently a member of the California Fair Political Practices Commission. She is a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun.

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.

Barbara Olshansky

Known for her groundbreaking work on the 2004 Rasul v. Bush case, in which the Supreme Court of the United States overruled a lower court ruling and found that American courts have jurisdiction over claims brought by Guantanamo detainees who are foreign nationals, Olshansky is a leading voice in international human rights and humanitarian law. Prior to her appointment at Stanford Law, she led the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights and served as CCR's deputy legal director litigating civil and human rights cases and supervising new lawyers. She has also served as a union-side labor and plaintiff's employment discrimination lawyer and argued cases for the Environmental Defense Fund.

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.

Alan O. Sykes

A leading expert on the application of economics to legal problems, Sykes has focused his research on international economic relations. His writing and teaching have encompassed international trade, torts, contracts, insurance, antitrust, and economic analysis of law. He has been a member of the executive committee and the board of the American Law and Economics Association, and currently serves as reporter for the American Law Institute Project on Principles of Trade Law: The World Trade Organization. Sykes is associate editor of the Journal of International Economic Law, and a member of the board of editors of the World Trade Review.

Barton H. "Buzz" Thompson, Jr.

Barton H. "Buzz" Thompson has contributed a large body of scholarship on environmental issues ranging from the future of endangered species and fisheries to the use of economic techniques for regulating the environment. He is the founding director of the law school's Environmental and Natural Resources Program, director of and a senior scholar at the Woods Institute for the Environment, and a senior scholar at the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies. Thompson is chairman of the Natural Heritage Institute and a board member of the the Nature Conservancy of California, the American Farmland Trust, the Resources Legacy Fund, and the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation.

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.