California Western School of Law Faculty Activity - June

SAN DIEGO (July 2, 2024) -- Summer doesn’t slow down our faculty here at California Western School of Law (CWSL). Throughout June, CWSL professors have continued to actively publish their research and present their work across the country and the globe. Here is a round-up of the faculty’s recent activities.

Professor David Austin

Professor Austin was the Co-Chair of the 16th Annual Global Legal Skills Conference in Bari, Italy. He was also the co-chair of the Conference’s Program Committee. The Global Legal Skills Conference fosters the support and development of legal skills training for law students and advocates around the world. This year’s conference attracted more than 160 participants from over 24 countries. Professor Austin was a participant on the panel, “Summer Abroad Programs as a Platform for Developing Cultural Competency” and moderated two panels: “Negotiating Across Cultures: Teaching Language and Skills” and “Enriching the Experience of International LLM Students through Intensive Preparation in their Home Country: How an NGO Can Help.”

Professor Hannah Brenner Johnson

Professor Brenner Johnson spoke at the Law and Society Association’s Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. She presented “Defamation: A New Weapon in Campus Sexual Assault ,” in which she explored the impact of several recent cases brought by alleged perpetrators of sexual assault against the victims who leveraged accusations against them. Professor Brenner Johnson was also a non-presenting co-author of “Still Epidemic? Reflections on Twenty Years of the Prison Rape Elimination Act,” which was presented by Kathleen Darcy of University of Michigan.  some of PREA’s most significant successes and failures in light of the public health context in which Congress contextualized it. The professors query whether a human rights framework, layered together with a true public health response, might offer a way forward to address the rampant sexual violence in carceral settings.

Professor James Cooper

Professor Cooper delivered a guest lecture at Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso in Santiago, Chile. The presentation was entitled, “Inteligencia Artificial Para Abogados en un Mundo ‘Law 4.0’” (“Artificial Intelligence for Lawyers in a “Law 4.0” World”) and addressed the “massive disruption” that AI is creating in the practice of the law, and the “mixing of the old and the new in our attempts to regulate AI.” Professor Cooper also delivered a lecture to students and faculty in the LL.M. program on international law sponsored by the University of Heidelberg and Universidad de Chile. He also led a workshop on issues of AI and the law for the Instituto de Investigación en Derecho at Universidad Autónoma de Chile. 

Professor Erin Sheley

Professor Sheley was a featured speaker at the Law and Society Association’s Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. She presented her article, “Corporate Homicide on the Digital Stage,” in which she “explores the proliferating social costs of prosecutors continuing to let corporations evade prosecution in cases that would qualify as negligent homicide.” Among several solutions offered, Professor Sheley “urges state prosecutors and legislatures to pick up the moral mantle they have forgotten due to the increased ‘federalization’ of white collar crime over the past thirty years.”

Professor Kristin van de Biezenbos

Professor van de Biezenbos presented her work-in-progress, “Embracing the Utility Death Spiral,” at the Penn-Berkeley Energy Law Scholars Workshop, in Philadelphia, PA on June 6, 2024. The workshop is invitation only, bringing together tenured and junior energy scholars from around the country, and is co-sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.