Richmond Guest Speakers
Employment Law Section Speaker
David Nagle, Partner in Jackson Lewis LLP, will address “Changes in Employment Law Arbitration since Circuit City Stores v. Adams(Nagle represented Circuit City before the Supreme Court in this case).
Environmental and Sustainability Section Speaker
Joel Eisen, a widely published expert on Environmental Law and Policy, will speak about his experiences in China and Hong Kong, especially in relation to climate change and China's Renewable Energy Law. He is an authority on China’s efforts to address climate change, and gave presentations on this issue at universities throughout China during his time there in 2009. Professor Eisen also has interest and expertise in “brownfields” (reuse of abandoned or underutilized sites where contamination is feared), electricity restructuring, global warming regulation, and laws favoring alternative energy sources. Professor Eisen teaches at the University of Richmond School of Law. http://law.richmond.edu/people/faculty/eisen_joel.html
Professor Joel Eisen teaches environmental law courses at the University of Richmond School of Law, including Environmental Law, Energy Law, and Law of Global Warming, and the first-year Property course. He also teaches Environmental Law and Policy to undergraduate students in the University's Environmental Studies program. In recognition of his contributions to teaching, scholarship and service, he has been named the University's Distinguished Educator for 2010-2011. In spring 2009, Professor Eisen was a Fulbright Professor of Law at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, China. He has become an authority on China's efforts to address climate change, and gave presentations on this issue at universities throughout China during his time there. Professor Eisen has published extensively in law periodicals, periodicals for general consumption, and books and treatises. He is a co-author of the leading law and business school text on energy law, Energy, Economics and the Environment, with its third edition to be published in fall 2010. Three of his articles on renewable energy (including two on China's energy programs) will be published in 2010 in journals at Notre Dame, William and Mary, and Chicago-Kent's law schools. Professor Eisen is a graduate of the Stanford Law School (J.D. 1985) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1981). His primary avocation is constructing crossword puzzles; he has had numerous puzzles published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal.
Ethics Section Speaker
Richard Cohen, President of the Southern Poverty Law Center, will be our speaker for the Ethics Section luncheon. Richard has devoted his professional life to fighting for justice in America and protecting the rights of the disempowered. For decades, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been at the forefront of promoting social justice and a more tolerant society. During the past year, the Southern Poverty Law Center won a $2.5 million verdict against the Imperial Klan of America (IKA) on behalf of Jordon Gruver, a Latino teenager who was brutally beaten by IKA members at a county fair in Kentucky. The verdict has had a devastating impact on the IKA. Once one of the country's largest Klan groups--with 16 chapters in eight states, the IKA has dwindled to just six chapters. In a recent newsletter, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote about hate groups exploiting the bitterness felt by Americans during tough economic times by stoking anger against minorities and recent immigrants. Richard will speak at the ALSB conference on "The State of Hate and Extremism in America."
International Section Speaker
Daniel C. Hurley, Jr., Director, Critical Infrastructure Protection, in the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration. He will be speaking on the International Aspects of Cybersecurity.
Technology Law Section Speaker
Berin Szoka, Senior Fellow and the Director of the Center for Internet Freedom at The Progress & Freedom Foundation in Washington, DC, will be the speaker at the Technology Law Section Lunch. Previously, he was an Associate in the Communications Practice Group at Latham and Watkins LLP, where he advised clients on regulations affecting the Internet and telecommunications industries. Before joining Latham's Communications Practice Group, Szoka practiced at Lawler Metzger Milkman & Keeney, LLC, a boutique telecommunications law firm in Washington, and clerked for the Hon. H. Dale Cook, Senior U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Szoka received his Bachelor's degree in economics from Duke University and his juris doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as Submissions Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Technology. Szoka has chaired, and currently serves on, the Board of Directors of the Space Frontier Foundation, a non-profit citizens' advocacy group founded in 1988 and dedicated to advancing commercial opportunity and expansion of human civilization in space.