For more information, please contact:
Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251
ADVISORY TO PRODUCERS, COLUMNISTS, AND ASSIGNMENT, LEGAL, BUSINESS, INTERNATIONAL, PLANNING, EDUCATION, CITY DESK, FEATURES AND DAYBOOK EDITORS
CHICAGO–October 8, 2007–Chicago-Kent College of Law and Stuart School of Business have experts available to discuss current issues. To reach any of our experts, call Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, at (312) 906-5251. Press releases and earlier advisories are available on our Web site: www.kentlaw.edu/news/advisory.
A tentative agreement has been reached, and the six-hour United Auto Workers strike against Chrysler LLC is over. The strike began Wednesday after Chrysler and the UAW failed to reach an agreement on a new four-year contract for hourly workers by the union’s 11 a.m. deadline. After contract talks broke off, workers walked off the job, and picketing began at all but five Chrysler plants. It was the first time in a decade the UAW went on strike against Chrysler. Negotiations resumed, and a tentative agreement was reached Wednesday afternoon. According to UAW leadership, the agreement protects wages, pensions and health care for UAW-represented Chrysler workers and retirees. Meanwhile, union members have ratified the agreement reached with General Motors last month. The UAW must still resolve contract issues with Ford. Professor Martin H. Malin, director of Chicago-Kent’s Institute for Law and the Workplace and the author of Individual Rights Within the Union, is available for interviews.
A Minnesota woman has been ordered to pay $220,000 to six record companies after being found guilty of illegally downloading copyrighted music. In the first Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) file-sharing case, Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay restitution to Sony BMG, Arista Records, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, and Warner Brothers Records for 24 copyrighted songs illegally downloaded on her computer. Thomas has announced she will appeal the decision. Professor Mickie A. Piatt, executive director of Chicago-Kent’s Program in Intellectual Property Law and president of the Chicago Intellectual Property Alliance, is available for interviews about the case.
The Chicago-based law firm Sidley Austin LLP has reached a settlement on an age discrimination lawsuit. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) accused the firm of discriminating against nearly three dozen former law partners who were over the age of 40. The suit, which was brought in 2005 under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, said Sidley Austin forced out three partners under an age-based retirement policy. Twenty-nine partners were removed under the terms of a firm reorganization plan. Under the terms of the settlement, the firm will pay $27.5 million to the 32 former partners. Professor Howard C. Eglit is available for interviews about the case and other issues related to law and aging. Professor Eglit is the author of the three-volume treatise Age Discrimination; a law review article titled The Age Discrimination in Employment Act at Thirty: Where It's Been, Where It Is Today, Where It's Going, and a book Elders on Trial: Age and Ageism in the American Legal System.
Free trade agreements. Results of a recent Wall Street Journal and NBC News poll find that six in 10 Republican voters believe that free trade has been bad for the U.S. economy. Speaking in support of the administration’s pending trade agreements with Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she is "concerned about maintaining a bipartisan consensus for free trade." Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton says current U.S. free trade agreements should be re-evaluated every three to five years. Chicago-Kent professor Sungjoon Cho teaches courses in international law, international trade law, international business transactions and comparative law. Professor Cho represented South Korea in negotiations with the World Trade Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He is available for interviews about KORUS FTA (Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement) and a November 8 program at Chicago-Kent which examines the agreement.
Downtown Campus Events:
October 12: Justice Sandile Ngcobo of the South African Constitutional Court will address the topic "Socioeconomic Rights in South Africa." Justice Ngcobo earned his undergraduate degree with distinctions in constitutional law, mercantile law and accounting from the University of Zululand in 1975. (He spent the year after earning his undergraduate degree in detention in South Africa.) He earned an LL.B. at the University of Natal, Durban, in 1985 and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School the following year. Justice Ngcobo spent a year as a law clerk and research associate for the late A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He has also served as a visiting foreign attorney specializing in labor law at the Philadelphia law firm of Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Natal, Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School. The program will begin at noon. It is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. For more information or to RSVP, please contact Laura Cederberg at (312) 906-5119 or lcederberg@kentlaw.edu.
October 17: "Racial Profiling: Policing, Terrorism and Equality" is the topic of a lecture by David Rudovsky of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Considered one of the nation’s most renowned civil rights and criminal defense attorneys, Professor Rudovsky has litigated major civil rights and police misconduct cases for more than three decades. A senior fellow at the law school since 1987, he teaches courses in criminal law, evidence and constitutional criminal procedure. At the same time, he has continued his public interest law practice with the firm of Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg LLP. He has also written widely in the areas of civil liberties and civil rights. The program, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 3 p.m. in the 10th floor event room on the Downtown Campus. A reception will follow Professor Rudovsky’s remarks. This program is co-sponsored by Chicago-Kent’s Institute for Law and the Humanities, American Constitution Society, Kent Justice Foundation, and Civil Rights Society. Reservations are requested. To RSVP or for more information, call (312) 906-5192.
October 19: Ralph M. Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, will deliver the opening plenary address, "The State of Public Agency Budgets and its Impact on the Public Sector Workplace," at Chicago-Kent’s 23rd annual conference on Illinois Public Sector Labor Relations Law. Martire was a key member of the research team that produced the groundbreaking "State of Working Illinois" report, which detailed industry, employment, wage and benefit trends in the state over the last 15 years. Conference workshops include "Ethical Issues in Negotiations," "Top Five Mistakes Parties Make or How to Love Your Case," "Garcetti: One Year Later," "Hot Issues in the Education Sector," and a forum on issues related to police and firefighters. This one-day program is the major conference on public sector labor law in the state, drawing upwards of 500 lawyers and labor relations professionals each year. For more information, please call (312) 906-5090.
October 30: Joseph T. Hansen, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, will deliver the 2007 Distinguished Labor Leader Lecture. Hansen has been active in efforts to confront the challenges of transnational corporations with global unionism. The lecture, which will begin at 1 p.m., is free and open to the public. It will be held in the Governor Richard B. Ogilvie Auditorium on IIT’s Downtown Campus. The Distinguished Labor Leader Lecture series is presented as a public service by Chicago-Kent’s Institute for Law and the Workplace and the Chicago Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. For more information, please contact (312) 906-5090 or visit www.kentlaw.edu/depts/cle.
October 31: Georgetown University Law Center professor Peter Edelman will address the topic "From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half." A member of the Georgetown faculty since 1982, Professor Edelman has served in all three branches of government. He has served in the Clinton administration in the Department of Health and Human Services, as a legislative assistant to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg and to Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Professor Edelman is chair of the District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission and currently is board president of the New Israel Fund. The program, which begins at 3 p.m., will be held in the Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Courtroom. It is co-sponsored by Chicago-Kent’s Institute for Law and Humanities and the student chapter of the American Constitution Society. For more information, call (312) 906-5192.
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