When Reda Taleb (McLean Class, 2015) talks about “giving back,” she isn’t just reciting a slogan — she’s living by example. The daughter of immigrants from Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, Taleb’s parents, along with her six older siblings, laid roots in Dearborn’s south end, an area known for its pollution-emitting factory smoke stacks and community of Arab Americans seeking the “American Dream.”
Read More
Following the April 4 shooting death of 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya by a Grand Rapids police officer, many have expressed frustration over the use of deadly force, questioning police policy on de-escalation, as well as frustration over length of time to conduct and release information from the investigation.
In the middle of their study of Contract law, students encounter a cluster of cases dealing with when courts should grant some form of relief to parties who unknowingly enter into contracts beset by misunderstanding, mistake, or ignorance. I call this cluster “the Law of Confusion.” Reading the cases, students are at least as confused as were the parties to the lawsuits that they are being asked to study.
I retired in December, 2021, and I had the honor of being asked to present a lecture on what I learned from my career. In that lecture, I discussed five "lessons" I have learned that made my career more productive and more enjoyable. You can watch the 30-minute lecture in the video, or if you want the “Cliff Notes” version, here are the 5 lessons below - Cooley Professor Emeritus Kimberly E. O'Leary
THE PAST The "Looking Back: 1930s" article in the January 2022 Michigan Bar Journal concludes by briefly noting "a failed constitutional amendment which would have moved Michigan away from an elected judiciary." The ballot measure would have instituted non-partisan appointment of Michigan’s Supreme Court justices. Since that 1938 defeat, the State Bar has initiated or supported petition drives to put the question of non-partisan judicial selection back on the ballot three more times.
Many people helped make the modern Civil Rights Movement, which aimed to get equal treatment of all Americans regardless of race, gender, and sexual identity, successful. Like many aspects of history, though, only a handful of people emerged as the "leaders" or "figureheads" of the movement, for example, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Fraud is the deliberate misrepresentation of a material fact, made with the intention of inducing reliance in another person, which causes a loss of money or property. It can have both criminal and civil consequences.
I have previously blogged about the unfortunate case of Peevyhouse v. Garland Coal. In a poll of law professors, Willie and Lucille Peevyhouse were voted “The Most Screwed Victims in Case-law History.”
Following the not-guilty verdict of Kyle Rittenhouse on November 19, 2021, Cooley Law School Criminal Law Professors Jeffrey Swartz and Anthony Flores were interviewed by media in Michigan and Florida.
“I am sympathetic to the prosecutor’s cause for gun safety reform, but at this point, the ends do not justify the means.” - Former Judge and Cooley Law School Criminal Law Professor Jeffrey Swartz.
