Innovation in International Studies Grant Recipients

Stanford Law School faculty Thomas Heller, Joshua Cohen, and Jenny S. Martinez, along with lecturer Erik Jensen, are among the recipients of grants totaling nearly $1 million from the Stanford Presidential Fund for Innovation in International Studies. Heller and Jensen received funding, with economics department assistant professors Nicholas Bloom and Aprajit Mahajan (BA ’95), for their project titled “Why Are Indian Firms Poorly Managed? A Survey and Randomized Field Intervention.” Cohen and Martinez received funding with Department of Political Science Professor Terry Karl for their project titled “Courts, Politics and Human Rights.” Stanford President John Hennessy commented, “These projects have great potential to advance academic knowledge, social capital, and human development around the world and to create a healthier, more promising future for hundreds of millions of people.” Stanford Law faculty are involved in two of the four projects selected to receive grant money in this third installment of the $3 million Presidential Fund.

Sivas Named a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year

California Lawyer magazine named Deborah A. “Debbie” Sivas ’87, lecturer in law and director of the Environmental Law Clinic, one of its 34 “Attorneys of the Year.” The CLAY awards recognize “attorneys across the state whose achievements have made a profound impact on the law.” Sivas was cited for her work “convincing the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reject the federal fuel economy standards for light trucks and sport utility vehicles as incomplete and inadequate”—as co-counsel in Center for Biological Diversity v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The awards were presented in March and the full list of honorees was published in the March issue of the magazine.

Lemley on Lawdragon’s Top 500

Mark A. Lemley (BA ’88), William H. Neukom Professor of Law and director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science & Technology, appears on Lawdragon’s list of 500 lawyers who are “having the biggest impact on our world.” The publication refers to Lemley as “equally adept in the classroom and the courtroom” and well regarded by clients Genentech, Google, Intel, and Netflix, among others. Lemley is of counsel at Keker & Van Nest LLP.

Grundfest on Directorship’s “Top 100” List

Joseph A. Grundfest ’78 appeared on “The Directorship 100,” Directorship magazine’s list of “the 100 most influential players in corporate governance,” published last September. The list honors “directors, professors, regulators, politicians, advisors, and others who have made a lasting impact.” Grundfest, a former SEC commissioner and founder of the Stanford Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, was nominated by a 12-member panel of experts, along with reader input, and ultimately selected by a finalist committee and Directorship editors.

Kessler Named to ASLH Committee, Editorship

Amalia Kessler (MA ’96, PhD ’01), associate professor of law and Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, was appointed to the American Society for Legal History (ASLH) Nominating Committee last October. Kessler, one of five on the committee, is expected to serve until her term expires in 2010. The committee is responsible for nominating the secretarytreasurer, designating members to the Surrency and Sutherland prize committees, and supplying nominations for directors and officers as vacancies occur. In addition, Kessler was also named associate editor of ASLH’s publication, Law and History Review. In this role Kessler will edit book reviews and be responsible for reviewing select manuscripts. Kessler was awarded ASLH’s 2005 Surrency Prize for her article, “Enforcing Virtue: Social Norms and Self-Interest in an Eighteenth-Century Merchant Court.”

Mills Appointed Co-Chair of NAACP Board

Senior lecturer David W. Mills was appointed co-chair of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund board of directors last November. The LDF pursues racial justice by targeting issues of education, voter protection, and economic and criminal justice through advocacy and litigation efforts. The organization is currently involved in several capital punishment cases (it recently succeeded in overturning a death penalty for a client in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Raymond Whitney), school desegregation and integration cases, and election protection cases.

Morantz Awarded Surrency Prize

For the second time in three years, the American Society for Legal History awarded its Surrency Prize to a Stanford Law faculty member. Alison D. Morantz, associate professor of law and John A. Wilson Distinguished Faculty Scholar, won the 2007 Surrency Prize. Morantz’s winning article, “There’s No Place Like Home: Homestead Exemption and Judicial Constructions of Family in Nineteenth-Century America,” addresses state regulation, ownership, and homestead exemption in nineteenth-century law. The award is presented to the author(s) of the best article published in the Law and History Review during the previous year. Amalia Kessler won the prize in 2005.

Rabin Presented with AALS Torts Award

Robert L. Rabin, A. Calder Mackay Professor of Law, is the recipient of the Association of American Law Schools’ William L. Prosser award. The annual award honors a law professor “who has made outstanding contributions to torts scholarship, teaching, and service,” according to the AALS Torts and Compensation Systems section newsletter. Rabin accepted the award in January.

Sullivan Stays on Top of Daily Journal List

Kathleen M. Sullivan, Stanley Morrison Professor of Law and former dean, was included in the Daily Journal’s “Ten for 10: Lasting Influence” list, published last September. The list, a special supplement to its annual “Top 100: California’s Leading Lawyers” publication, honors 10 lawyers “who have managed to stay on the Daily Journal’s Top 100 list every year since it began in 1998.” Sullivan is noted by the journal as “one of the nation’s preeminent appellate lawyers” and in past issues has been praised for her “sterling career” and courtroom performances. Sullivan is the founding director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center and a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP.

Caldwell Named Interim Director of Ocean Center

Margaret “Meg” Caldwell ’85 was appointed interim director of the new Center for Ocean Solutions (COS), a collaboration between Stanford University, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute focused on developing strategies to address environmental and economic problems facing the world’s oceans. Established in January with a $25 million grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, COS will be located in Monterey and managed by Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. Caldwell praised COS for its “commitment to applying our collective knowledge, experience, and capacity for innovation to addressing the greatest challenges facing our oceans.”

Heller Among Stanford Researchers Recognized as Lead IPCC Contributors

Thomas C. Heller, Lewis Talbot and Nadine Hearn Shelton Professor of International Legal Studies, has been recognized as one of the lead contributors to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former vice president Al Gore. Gore and the IPCC were awarded the prize “for efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” Along with Heller, Stanford researchers Chris Field (PhD ’81), Michael Mastrandrea (BS ’00, PhD ’04, PD ’06), Terry Root, Stephen Schneider, and John Weyant contributed to reports produced by the IPCC.