advocacy

Georgia Law LL.M. students win top honors at 10th International Commercial and Investment Arbitration Moot

Members of the University of Georgia School of Law LL.M. Class of 2023 won top honors at last weekend’s 10th International Commercial & Investment Arbitration Moot Competition.

Forming the champion team at the competition were the three students pictured above, from left: Tatiana Popovkina, Alexandra F. Lampe, and John A. Omotunde, The competition’s best oralist, meanwhile, was Olha Kaliuzhna, pictured above right; Lampe was the third runner-up. Kaliuzhna, along with Oleksandra Iordanova and Vladyslav Rudzinskyi, formed the second Georgia Law team, which also competed in advance rounds.

Coaching the teams were another LL.M. student, Gloria María Correa, as well as Georgia Law’s Dean, Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge, whose specialty is international arbitration.

The competition took place at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. (prior post)

Georgia Law’s Master of Laws (LL.M.) curriculum offers U.S. legal education to lawyers trained overseas. The participants and coach in the D.C. competition, for instance, were trained in Germany, Nigeria, Panama, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

For more information about the curriculum, which is administered by the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center, is available here.

Georgia Law LL.M. teams headed to Washington for International Commercial and Investment Arbitration Moot

Six members of the LL.M. Class of 2023 at the University of Georgia School of Law will travel to Washington, D.C., this weekend to take part in the 10th International Commercial & Investment Arbitration Moot Competition.

The students, who comprise two teams, earned their initial training as lawyers in 4 different countries. They are, left to right above: John Omotunde, Nigeria; Oleksandra Iordanova, Ukraine; Vladyslav Rudzinskyi, Ukraine; Tatyana Popovkina, Uzbekistan; Olha Kaliuzhna, Ukraine; and Alexandra Lampe, Germany. Their coach is Georgia Law Dean, Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge, an expert in international arbitration law.

The competition – which will take place March 24 and 25 at American University Washington College of Law – involves a commercial dispute to be resolved under the rules of the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association.

Georgia Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center administers the Master of Laws (LL.M.) curriculum. Details here.

Scholarly achievements, vibrant initiatives highlighted in newsletter of Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law

For a recap of the year’s research and global practice accomplishments, have a look at the newly published newsletter of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law. Features include:

► Scholarly achievements of our Center Director, Melissa J. Durkee, and our many other globally minded faculty, including Diane Marie Amann and Harlan G. Cohen, our Center’s Faculty Co-Directors, as well as Zohra Ahmed, Christopher Bruner, Jason Cade, Nathan Chapman, Walter Hellerstein, Thomas Kadri, Jonathan Peters, Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge, Tim Samples, and Laura Phillips-Sawyer.

► The exceptional performance of the Georgia Law students who competed in the 2022 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, placing second in the United States, competing through octofinals internationally, and tying for best overall oralist through the International Advanced Rounds.

► Our International Law Colloquium in Spring 2022, a course featuring works-in-progress conversations with international law scholars based in Latin America and Europe as well as the United States.

► Recent events, including our day-long conference on “The Law of Global Economic Statecraft” cosponsored with the Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law and other University of Georgia entities, our Consular Series of talks with diplomats, presentations by distinguished lawyers on issues including the Ukraine-Russia war, and participation in panels at meetings of the American Branch of the International Law Association, the American Society of International Law, and other global entities.

► Initiatives aimed at preparing our J.D. and LL.M. students for global legal practice, including our NATO Externship, our Global Externships, and the Global Governance Summer School we host in partnership with the Leuven Centre for Global Governance at Belgium’s University of Leuven (plus additional partnerships with O.P. Jindal University in India and Bar Ilan University in Israel).

The full newsletter is here.

In court and in Congress, Georgia Law clinics continue efforts on behalf of immigrant women alleging abuse, retaliation while in ICE detention

University of Georgia School of Law clinics’ faculty and students have continued to press forward– both in court and in Congress – in challenges they have brought on behalf of women clients who are challenging the abuses they endured while in U.S. immigration detention.

As previously posted, Georgia Law’s Community HeLP Clinic and First Amendment Clinic have pursued administrative, judicial, and advocacy paths in support of women who had been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Irwin Detention Center, a privately run facility in south Georgia. While there, the women were subjected to nonconsensual, gynecological and other medical procedures; those who spoke out were met with retaliatory acts, including attempted or actual removal from the United States.

For more than two years, the Georgia Law clinics have represented some of these women in judicial and administrative proceedings. Associate Dean Jason A. Cade, Director of the Community HeLP Clinic, and Professor Clare R. Norins, Director of the First Amendment Clinic, are among co-counsel in Oldaker v. Giles, a class action complaint pending before Judge W. Louis Sands, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. Assisting them have been Staff Attorney Kristen Shepherd, Legal Fellow Lindsey Floyd, and many law students.

The Oldaker litigation took a new turn last Monday, when Judge Sands granted a contested motion and thus added two new named plaintiffs, both of them represented by the Georgia Law clinics.

Congressional action occurred earlier last month, when the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing on “Medical Mistreatment of Women in Ice Detention,” on November 15 at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C.

That same day, the subcommittee – led by its Chairman, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia), and Ranking Member, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), simultaneously released a 103-page Staff Report (pictured above) based on its 18-month investigation of the issue. The report recounted many incidents on which the Oldaker suit is based, and further incorporated information provided by six plaintiffs, one of them represented by the Georgia Law clinics. Among other key findings, the report stated that:

  • The women detainees “appear to have been subjected to excessive, invasive, and often unnecessary gynecological procedures” by one of the center’s physicians; and
  • ICE “did not employ a thorough vetting process,” and, before hiring the physician in question, “was not aware of publicly available information regarding medical malpractice suits” and other complaints against him.

Georgia Law Appellate Clinic team briefs, argues, wins Convention Against Torture case before Second Circuit in New York

One week after oral arguments put forward by students in the University of Georgia School of Law Appellate Litigation Clinic, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today ruled on behalf of a Clinic client, whose immigration case involved the 1984 Convention Against Torture, an international treaty that the United States joined in 1994.

The client, a gay transgender rights advocate from the state of Guerrero, Mexico, and the petitioner in Case No. 20-1693, Santiaguez v. Garland, seeks deferral of removal pursuant to the treaty’s provisions respecting non-refoulement, or non-return. Specifically, the client asks not to be sent back to his home country, where his brother, also gay, recently was killed due to sexual orientation.

Georgia Law 3L Noah Nix (pictured above) argued on behalf of the client last week at the Second Circuit’s New York courthouse. He challenged prior rulings in the case, in which both the Immigration Judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals had agreed that no Mexican public official would likely acquiesce to the Clinic’s client being tortured if he returned. The Board of Immigration Appeals also had found that the Immigration Judge did not violate the client’s due process rights when refusing to allow a country conditions expert to testify at the client’s merits hearing.

Today the Second Circuit panel, composed of Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston, Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr., and Judge Eunice C. Lee, ruled on behalf of the Clinic’s client. Specifically, reasoning that the agency had not properly considered the client’s evidence, the panel issued an order vacating the agency’s decision and remanding the case for further proceedings.

Assisting in brief-writing in the case were two Georgia Law students who have since graduated, Jared Allen and Olivia Hunter. The team worked under the supervision of Thomas V. Burch, the Clinic’s Director.

Georgia Law students named top oralists, and team finishes in world’s top 16, at Jessup International Law Moot Court

Our exceptionally talented team of University of Georgia School of Law students – 2Ls Millie Price, Courtney Robinson, Caleb Grant, James Stewart, and Alex Krupp – competed last week through to the Octofinals of one of the world’s most prestigious law tournaments, the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.

2022 Georgia Law Jessup team: clockwise from upper left, Caleb Grant, James Stewart, Alex Krupp, Millie Price, Courtney Robinson

Making their achievement even sweeter, team member Robinson tied as the best overall oralist through the Advanced Rounds, while teammate Stewart was named fifth best. They and they teammates prepared written memorials and gave oral arguments as if they were appearing before the International Court of Justice, the judicial arm of the United Nations which adjudicates international law disputes.

In reaching the Octofinals, the Georgia Law team bested many other competitors, in a tournament that attracted nearly 3,500 students from about 700 law schools in 100 countries and jurisdictions. They lost in that International Round to a team from Canada’s University of Western Ontario. Winning the entire tournament was Harvard, against whom Georgia had competed last month in Jessup’s U.S. championship round.

Leading the team were 3L coach Courtney Hogan and faculty advisor/coach Anna White Howard, both themselves former Jessup advocates.

The team benefited from moots and other assistance by many members of the Georgia Law community, including: Professor Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, Associate Dean for International Programs and Director of the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center, and Professors Diane Marie Amann and Harlan Grant Cohen, the Center’s Faculty Co-Directors; Georgia Law Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge; Kellie Casey, Director of Advocacy; Anne Burnett, Foreign and International Law Librarian; Professors Nathan S. Chapman, Rob McNiff, and Lori A. Ringhand; and alums, Judge Ben Cheesbro, Ellen Clarke, Erik Chambers Myra Creighton, Amy Helmick, and Roger Grantham..

The Washington, D.C.-based International Law Students Association is Jessup’s primary host, with the law firm of White & Case sponsoring the International Rounds as well as some national competitions.

Georgia Law team places 2d in US championship, preparing for upcoming international rounds in Jessup Moot

Proud to announce that a team of talented University of Georgia School of Law students competed Sunday in the US National Championship of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. Although it lost to Harvard after having defeated many others among the 84 American teams that competed, the team’s success earned it an invitation to compete in the International Rounds set to begin in late March.

The team members are 2Ls Millie Price, Courtney Robinson, Caleb Grant, James Stewart, and Alex Krupp (pictured above, clockwise from lower right). Robinson won recognition as the 4th best overall oralist, and Stewart as the 14th best, in the US tournament. Leading the team were 3L coach Courtney Hogan and faculty advisor/coach Anna White Howard, both themselves former Jessup advocates.

The team benefited from moots and other assistance by many members of the Georgia Law community, including: Professor Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, Associate Dean for International Programs and Director of the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center, and Professors Diane Marie Amann and Harlan Grant Cohen, the Center’s Faculty Co-Directors; Georgia Law Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge; Kellie Casey, Director of Advocacy; Anne Burnett, Foreign and International Law Librarian; Professors Nathan S. Chapman, Rob McNiff, and Lori A. Ringhand; and alums, Judge Ben Cheesbro, Ellen Clarke, and Erik Chambers.

The Jessup is the world’s largest moot court competition, with upwards of 3,500 students, from more than a hundred countries, competing. Their teams prepare briefs and give oral arguments as if they were appearing before the International Court of Justice, the judicial arm of the United Nations which adjudicates international law disputes between sovereign nation-states. The Washington, D.C.-based International Law Students Association is the primary host, with the law firm of White & Case sponsoring the International Rounds as well as some national competitions.

Georgia Law clinic joins in publishing advisory for immigrant detainees

The Community Health Law Partnership Clinic at the University of Georgia School of Law and four other law school clinics have published a lengthy practice advisory intended to assist immigrants currently or previously held at Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.

The practice advisory is designed to help them in seeking damages, stays of removal, and long-term immigration relief based on the abuse they suffered at the detention center (prior posts). It thus provides detailed instructions on how to: file claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act; request stays of removal from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); file complaints with the U.S Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties; and apply for U Visas.  

Taking part in this effort at the Georgia Law were Jason A. Cade, Associate Dean for Clinical Programs & Experiential Learning, J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law, and Director of the Community HeLP Clinic, Staff Attorney Kristen Shepherd, and 3L Frederick King.

Joining them were the Boston University School of Law Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Program, Columbia Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School Immigration & Refugee Clinical Program, Texas A&M School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, and National Immigration Project of the National Lawyer’s Guild. These and other entities have been collaborating on behalf of the Irwin detainees, including in ongoing litigation in Oldaker v. Giles, a consolidated habeas petition and class action complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. 

Georgia Law clinics’ advocacy helps client secure U.S. citizenship

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Years of advocacy by two clinics at the University of Georgia School of Law recently helped secure U.S. citizenship for a longtime immigrant client.

The earliest work with the client was undertaken by the Jane W. Wilson Family Justice Clinic, as at that time the client was facing severe domestic abuse. Working under the supervision of Clinical Assistant Professor Christine M. Scartz, then-student Eric Abney, a member of the Georgia Law Class of 2020, secured a 12-month family violence protective order and successfully negotiated a resolution that gave the client exclusive possession of the marital residence and a vehicle, sole child custody, and child support.

After the client had gained this measure of safety and stability, the client then was referred to Georgia Law’s Community Health Law Partnership Clinic for further advocacy. Working under the supervision of Jason A. Cade, Associate Dean for Clinical Programs & Experiential Learning, Amy Buice and Carter A. Thomas, members of the Classes of 2019 and 2020, respectively, used the Violence Against Women Act to ensure the client retained permanent residency without having to rely on her abusive former-partner. Subsequently, 3L Ansley Whiten helped the client file an application for naturalization, while 2L Luis Gomez prepared her for the naturalization interview; both were supervised primarily by Kristen Shepherd, the Community HeLP Clinic’s Staff Attorney.

The client became a U.S. citizen in April 2021, on her birthday.

Georgia Law clinics share in national CLEA Award for work on behalf of immigrant women who endured abuse, retaliation while in ICE detention

Efforts on behalf of immigrant women detained in a U.S. immigration center have earned national recognition for the Community HeLP Clinic and First Amendment Clinic here at the University of Georgia School of Law.

The Georgia Law clinics will share that recognition – the 2021 Clinical Legal Education Association Award for Excellence in a Public Interest Project – with law clinics at Harvard, Columbia, Texas A&M, and Boston universities.

The CLEA Award will be presented online 12 noon-1 pm Eastern Friday, April 30, as part of the annual Conference on Clinical Education of the Association of American Law Schools.

The clinics’ project confronted abuse of immigrant women while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Irwin Detention Center, a privately run facility in south Georgia. As previously posted, the women there were subjected to nonconsensual, medically unindicated, or invasive gynecological procedures. Those who spoke out about abuses faced accelerated deportation proceedings, solitary confinement, and other acts of retaliation. The project has pursued several administrative, judicial, and advocacy avenues, including ongoing litigation of Oldaker v. Giles, a consolidated habeas petition and class action complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

The Project’s efforts have resulted in the release of nearly all 80 women in ICDC, as well as over 200 men, and stays of deportation for most of the Oldaker plaintiffs.

Leading the project on behalf of Georgia Law were Jason Cade (above right), Associate Dean for Clinical Programs & Experiential Learning, J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law, and Director of the Community HeLP Clinic, and Clare Norins (above left), Clinical Assistant Professor and Director of the First Amendment Clinic. Also taking part in this team effort were 3L students Raneem Ashrawi, Frederick King, Julia Griffis, and Anish Patel, 2L students Thomas Evans, Paige Medley, and Davis Wright, First Amendment Clinic Legal Fellow Samantha Hamilton, Community HeLP Clinic Staff Attorney Kristen Shepherd, and administrative associate Sarah Ehlers.

Other collaborators included non-profits, private firms, legislative advocates, and community organizers.