By Professor John T. Nockleby

For the past eight years, Loyola has partnered with leading Bar organizations to host the Journalist Law School (JLS). The program is an intense four-day "boot camp" in law for professional journalists. It exposes them to core concepts within our legal system, such as the structure of the courts, judicial independence and the relationships among the three branches of government. JLS also covers substantive courses including Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Procedure and Torts. Other sessions feature panels which address "hot" topics in the legal world. This year's hot topics focused on firearms control, immigration, arbitration, mass torts and the crisis in the courts.

Journalists who participate are offered Fellowships to cover the expenses of attending. This year, the JLS committee selected 38 journalists from a pool of 240 applicants. These highly regarded journalists hailed from 22 cities throughout the United States and reported for a variety of major national and regional newspapers, television news, radio, magazines and new media.

JLS features a packed schedule, including breakout sessions that often run simultaneously to provide more individualized attention. This year, more than 50 speakers, comprised of Loyola faculty and legal experts, presented on a wide range of topics from legal ethics to drone strikes to voting rights.

By Associate Professor Justin Levitt

This commentary was cross-posted to Election Law @ Moritz.

June arrived with two election law cases at the Supreme Court. One is still pending: a highly anticipated decision on section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The other, more frequently overlooked, was decided yesterday. And there are some quirks of the opinion that seem to depart from the swiftly congealing conventional wisdom that the states might actually have "won," and now need only run out the clock.

The case is called Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., but it has bounced through the courts under various names for seven years. In 2004, Arizona voters passed Prop 200, increasing identification requirements at the polls (one valid photo ID or two non-photo documents with name and current address) and requiring new voters to submit documentary proof of citizenship with a voter registration form.

There are policy reasons to question the merits of laws like these, whose costs can be larger than their benefits. Americans do not emerge from the womb with paperwork stamped on their skin, and as our Medicaid experience demonstrates, there are real individuals born in the country who do not have documentation of their citizenship readily available; the burdens on those people have to be assessed against the minimal fraud that such requirements incrementally deter, over and above prosecution and deportation. (Incidentally, it's not unusual for popular initiatives to disproportionately burden a minority of residents; that's a problem I've called to the Court's attention in the also-still-pending Prop 8 case.) But today's decision had little to do with those policy questions, or on the constitutional limits of that cost-benefit assessment.

Professor Jeffery Atik, a Sayre Macneil Fellow at Loyola Law School, launched the new blog Attraverso as an online discussion about hotly contested issues in the world of international finance, as well as a depository of his reviews of important books on related topics. From Attraverso's introductory post:

Attraverso means "through" or "across" in Italian; it has both a spatial sense (as crossing a mountain range, or a border) and a temporal sense (as across the centuries). It seemed fitting for a new online journal designed to scratch beneath the surface of global financial issues. More than ever, public debate centers around international economic topics: the financial crisis and the great recession, bank reform, pressure on the Euro, austerity and the future of hope.

Attraverso covers the roots of these issues -- and the ongoing institutional innovations proposed to address them. Attraverso is a journal devoted to commentary and reviews of books on international finance and economics. Formerly published as a series within Loyola's Summary Judgments faculty blog, Attraverso's content proved vast and rich enough to fill its own space.

International finance is an arena for ideas; it is a cultural practice. Attraverso will be the first online resource dedicated to covering books in this space. The blog is designed to be a dialogue; comments are encouraged.

The blog is edited by Jeffery Atik, a widely published lawyer and economist with deep experience in Europe and North America. He teaches International Banking & Finance and related courses at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles.

By Professor Jeffrey Atik

This review was originally posted on Jeffrey Atik's Blog Attraverso.

There is nothing ambivalent about Mark Blyth's view of austerity: he is against it. Blyth's Austerity is more than a brief against today's accepted form of treatment for all that ails a slumping economy - it is an intellectual history of a powerfully attractive idea, though in Blyth's view, a dangerous one. Austerity fails for a number of reasons: it is unfair (it hurts the poor), it cannot be pursued simultaneously by all (someone must spend to ignite economic expansion), and (most damning) history shows it doesn't work.

Blyth admits to being a Keynesian. There is no shame in that: many neo-Keynesians are calling for an end to austerity. Blyth states, however, that he need not prove Keynes right ("for what it's worth, he was right, but that's in another book"); his goal here is simply to prove austerity wrong.

While austerity figures in contemporary U.S. politics, it is predominantly a European fix and fixation, famously imposed on Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal as a condition for European and IMF support in response to the Euro Crisis. Blyth begins the book by correcting the dominant narrative: Greece aside, the Euro Crisis did not originate by reckless government spending, but in private irresponsibility. Excessive private sector lending (provoked by cheap borrowing costs associated with the adoption of the Euro) sank the banks in Ireland and Spain (and their respective economies); the states became indebted in attempting to clean up the mess. Setting this history right is important -- as part of the moral authority for the imposition of austerity is a judgment of state fault. Austerity is not merely an economic prescription -- it is a punitive response.

By Associate Dean Michael Waterstone

This week, along with some colleagues, I filed an amicus brief in the case of Authors Guild v. HathiTrust et. al. The case involves the cooperative efforts of Google and several universities to digitize their collections. Digital books are accessible to people with print disabilities, which is how I became involved in the case. The Authors Guild and other plaintiffs sued the Universities challenging this digitization under the Copyright Act. The National Federation of the Blind intervened in the case.

The HathiTrust is the name that those universities who received back from Google digital copies of their print libraries gave themselves. The University of Michigan maintains the HathiTrust Digital Library for those 50+ schools, including its own digital collection of about 10 million titles. In the District Court, Judge Baer ruled that (1) the Americans with Disabilities Act imposes on a University to provide equal access to its library program when an accessible digital copy of its print library exists; (2) under the Chafee Amendment to the Copyright Act, the University of Michigan is an authorized entity that can distribute library copies of its print collection to persons with print disabilities in the United States because the ADA imposes on the University, a governmental or nonprofit entity, "a primary mission to provide specialized services relating to . . . education . . . or information access needs of blind and other persons with disabilities" and digital copies are a "specialized format" and (3) the creation and distribution of digital books without the permission of the copyright holder for use by those with print disabilities is a fair use under the Copyright Act.

By Patrick Kelly, Guest Alumni Blogger

This speech was originally delivered at Loyola Law School's 92nd-annual Commencement Ceremony held on Sunday, May 19, 2013 on the campus of Loyola Marymount University.

I want to start by giving two additional and very important acknowledgments:

First, I would like to recognize the parents and loved ones of today's graduates who have supported the graduates through this rigorous process. Indeed the honor they receive today belongs as much to you as it does the graduates of the class of 2013.

Second, I would like to recognize all of the professors who worked so hard to bestow on the graduating class, the learning and benefit of their skill and experience that made today possible.

I ask the graduates to now stand, turn around and recognize by your applause the members of your family, your friends, your significant others and your professors, who have played such an integral part in reaching this significant milestone in your career.

Today is a very exciting and up beat day. You have completed one of the most rigorous courses of instruction of any professional undertaking. You have sacrificed much to get here and may sometimes ask "Why did I do it". I would like to suggest an answer to that question.

We all come from different backgrounds and have different life experiences. In my case as Professor Poehls indicated, I was a professional musician and played with the Beach Boys and many other musical groups. I am often asked why I gave that career up to go to law school. I know some of you have asked yourself the same question.

I suggest the answer is the same for all of us. - we wanted to help others and make our society a better place. Thus we are all unified in our commitment to help others find a better life. Indeed our main calling as lawyers is to help others - clients, family, friends and our community.

By Professor Jeffery Atik

On April 16, the European Parliament approved the packet of legislation known as CRD IV, which largely implements the Basel III banking reforms. This completes the political phase of the European legislative process -- formal adoption of CRD IV by the Council of Ministers is expected to occur in June. Assuming the schedule is met, CRD IV will become law effective January 1, 2014. Consultations on the form of detailed regulations ('technical standards') have now been launched.

CRD IV implements Basel III -- and does more. The term 'CRD IV' signals that this is the fourth generation of the EU's Capital Requirements Directive. The name is no longer precise: CRD IV is comprised of a Regulation (law that is uniformly applied throughout Europe) and a Directive (which requires national implementation and admits a certain degree of variation).

CRD IV increases the quantity and quality of regulatory capital a financial institution must hold. In most cases, transitioning to CRD IV requirements will place pressure on European banks to retain earnings, raise additional equity capital, dispose of assets or change their respective asset mixes. Under the existing version of the Capital Requirements Directive (which were adopted immediately prior to the onset of the 2007/2008 financial crisis), many European banks reduced their capital to extremely low levels. Reportedly some European banks had leverage ratios of over 40 to 1 -- that is, maintaining less than 2 percent of effective capital. Many of these same banks remain in crisis now -- a problem that in turn has infected the balance sheets of several EU Member States. CRD IV acknowledges the insufficiency of bank capital during the financial crisis. The new requirements are complex -- and involve a stack of charges and buffers. A minimum of 8 percent capital will now be mandated, computed with regard to a bank's risk-adjusted assets. Left undetermined for the time being is the overall leverage cap -- it is this simple metric that may prove to be the most meaningful limit on a bank's level of debt.

By Associate Dean Sean Scott

This column first appeared in the Daily Journal's "New Lawyer" supplement on May 21, 2013.

The law, whether in its study or its practice, is a social institution. As such, it influences and is influenced by other social forces such as politics, economics and social-policy movements. The force that has been the subject of commentary the past few years is the national economic recession and its impact on law practice and on legal education. Much of the commentary has been pessimistic and negative. The pessimism is not unwarranted. The job market for law graduates is weak and tuition at most law schools tops $40,000, resulting in students graduating with debt often in excess of $100,000. The poor job market makes repaying this amount of debt daunting. Rather than pointing fingers at who or what is to blame for these conditions, I encourage law schools and the profession generally to view this period as a time to reflect and then adapt. The revolution brought on by economic retrenchment, technology and globalization provides the academy with the opportunity, perhaps even the obligation, to innovate. Law schools should be open to innovations in the way they teach critical-thinking skills and provide experiential offerings.

It is the obligation of law schools to best prepare their students to adapt to the shifting landscape in which the law operates. I teach Contracts and Commercial Law. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, there was no coherent, cohesive body of commercial law. However, industrialization created a greater need for standard rules to govern commercial transactions. Legal practice and academia had to respond to this new need. Just as the growth of mechanization created a revolution, so too have technology and globalization created a revolution.

There are some skills that law schools must teach regardless of the era in which they find themselves: They must teach students analytical and critical-thinking skills. The law changes and evolves because law schools give lawyers the tools to assess the policies underlying current rules and to analyze the validity of those underlying policies and concerns. Legal educators teach students to assess with a critical eye, and to question and reveal underlying assumptions. Without these skills, and the ability to move the law forward, there is no justice.

This post by Associate Clinical Professor Jessica Levinson originally appeared on KCET's website.

Here we go again. Yet another tale of the legal challenges that frequently follow the passage of ballot initiatives in California.

In a unanimous decision last week, the California Supreme Court ruled that cities and counties can prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries.. The state's highest court found that two state laws, the Compassionate Use Act and the Medical Marijuana Program, do not preempt the ability of localities to use zoning laws to ban pot shops. The Compassionate Use Act was enacted via the ballot initiative process in 1996. The Medical Marijuana Program is a companion piece of legislation passed by the legislature in 2003.

The court ruled that the California Constitution gives localities so-called "police powers" under which they can legislate for the health, safety, and welfare of their jurisdictions. The court found that under those powers, localities have the authority to prohibit pot shops because the state statutes did not explicitly or implicitly prevent localities from imposing those prohibitions.

If the instead Compassionate Use Act had included a specific statement providing that localities cannot use their police powers to ban marijuana dispensaries then the court's decision likely would have come out the other way. But, of course, the initiative did not include such language. Any such language would have been a gift to opponents of the initiative. Thus the court was able to read the state laws narrowly.

Now, the question seems to be, what's next? There is, of course, the possibility of a new law on the state level, either through the legislative process or the ballot process. The state legislature could follow the lead of other states and legalize the recreational use of marijuana. The legislature could try to explicitly preempt this area of the law by state that localities cannot use their police powers to ban marijuana dispensaries. Another option is for the people to propose yet another ballot initiative to the same effect.

Yet another possibility is that on the local level people in localities that banned medical marijuana dispensaries could circulate initiatives which essentially overturn those bans.

And with all that said, this is happening in nation where the federal government lists marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance. Doctor's note or not, it's illegal in their eyes.

By Professor Jeffery Atik

Neil Irwin's The Alchemists delivers on its promise: the book is a central banker's view of the 2007/2008 Financial Crisis and the more recent (and related) Euro Crisis. Only the subtitle disappoints: The Alchemists isn't quite the story of the three central bankers depicted on its cover (Bernanke, Trichet and Mervyn King). Rather, The Alchemists offers a thorough treatment of Bernanke's crisis-plagued tenure at the Fed and insightful coverage of the ECB's Trichet - until Trichet morphs into Mario Draghi just in time for the worst of the Euro Crisis. Plus the odd bit of Bank of England's Mervyn King thrown in for comic relief. No doubt Irwin's project was inspired by Liaquat Ahamed's Lords of Finance, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, which treats four central bankers (their philosophies and their quirks) from the 1920s: the UK's Montague Norman, France's Emile Moreau, Germany's Hjalmar Schacht and the Fed's Benjamin Strong. Now these were central bankers: they dominated the monetary policies of their day.

Our contemporary central bankers lack some of the color of their predecessors (save Mervyn King, who is pretty darn colorful). Moreover, their field of action is much more circumscribed. They can be checked by other personalities within their respective institutions, by intimidating political leaders, and by uncooperative markets. These bankers do manage, at least in this account, to largely have their way in responding to the crises, through will and manipulation, and by playing on the palpable belief that no one else has any better idea of what to do.