Year: 2007

Stephen Rapp, LW'74, prosecutor of the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), will return to Drake Law School April 9-10 to meet with students and faculty and deliver a lecture titled "The Compact Model in International Criminal Justice: The Special Court for Sierra Leone."

Professor Mary Dudziak recently gave a talk titled "Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey" as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series sponsored by the Drake Constitutional Law Center.

At the Feb. 1 dedication of the transfer of National Bar Association archives to the Opperman Law Library, William S. Morris, the grandson of NBA co-founder James B. Morris, described the racial tensions in Des Moines during the 1920s. He cited appalling examples, such as when the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross at the foot of the Iowa State Capitol building in 1925.

The Drake Law School National Moot Court team finished among the top 8 teams out of the 28 teams that competed in the final rounds of the National Moot Court Competition in New York City.

From attending an orientation at the Iowa State Capitol to witnessing a second-degree murder trial, first-year law students' educations are enhanced by law-in-action experiences.

This spring, the annual Drake Law School Constitutional Law Symposium will tackle a bold topic for debate: Does the U.S. Constitution thwart democracy? The event, titled "Our 'Undemocratic' American Constitution," is set for Saturday, April 7.

Third-year law student Jess Phelps sits in a unique position. After all, his office lies just down the hall from Iowa Supreme Court Justice Mark Cady, LA'75, LW'78, on the fourth floor of the Iowa Judicial Branch Building.

Law school students and faculty at Drake are trying to improve children's rights in Iowa by trying out a novel idea -- asking foster children themselves what laws need to be changed to better protect them, and then enlisting those foster children to lobby lawmakers to pass that legislation.