Category: Law School News

Nationally known legal scholars, attorneys and government leaders gathered Sept. 7, at Drake University Law School for a conference on risk and responsibility convened by former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a visiting distinguished professor of law at Drake.

Mark Kende, the James Madison chair in constitutional law and director of the Drake Constitutional Law Center, and Peter Yu, the Kern family chair in intellectual property law and director of the Drake Intellectual Property Law Center, participated in the 2007 Annual Meetings of the Law and Society Association and the Research Committee on Sociology of Law at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, from July 25-28.

The award-winning Drake Jazz Band provided a colorful backdrop for the Law School Reunion this summer. Law grads reconnected with old friends on June 8-9 in Des Moines. On Saturday, alumni met for breakfast and toured the Law School and Legal Clinic with David Walker, dean of the Law School.

David S. Walker, dean of Drake University Law School and the Dwight D. Opperman distinguished professor of law, has notified the University and the Law School that he will resign as dean at the end of the 2007-08 academic year and return to the faculty.

Drake Law School left a visible impact on the estimated 30,000 festival-goers who attended CelebrAsian, the fifth annual Asian Heritage Festival that recently took place in Des Moines.

A dozen Drake law students recently trekked around southern Iowa via tour bus with former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, Drake visiting distinguished professor of law, and Neil Hamilton, the Dwight D. Opperman distinguished professor of law.

Professor Neil Hamilton, the Opperman chair and director of the Agricultural Law Center, spent five days in India in early May as part of a U.S. delegation taking part in a bilateral Indo-U.S. Workshop on Contract Farming: Methods and Experiences.

Cathy Lesser Mansfield, Drake professor of law, has been accepted as one of 20 law professors nationwide to participate in the 2007 Silberman Seminar, which is funded and conducted by the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

The Drake Law Review teamed up with the American Judicature Society once again this year to publish their fourth annual collaborative issue.

The U.S. Constitution is often treated as if it is a nearly sacred and flawless document. But on April 7, the Drake Constitutional Law Center held a symposium on the topic of whether the U.S. Constitution actually hinders democracy.