University of Georgia School of Law

Welcoming the newest class of Master of Laws (LL.M.) students to UGA Law

With the Fall 2023 semester in full swing, we at the Dean Rusk International Law Center are proud to welcome another class of talented lawyers, now studying for our University of Georgia School of Law Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree.

The group of 18 hails from 14 different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, including Nigeria, Ethiopia, India, Germany, Argentina, Romania, Brazil, Russia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ukraine, Ghana, China, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. Among them are lawyers and other professionals specializing in a wide range of fields including corporate law, alternative commercial dispute resolution, immigration law, bankruptcy law, family law, corporate sports law, international trade, business law, cybersecurity and digital fraud, refugee and asylum law, technology law, tax law, and criminal law.

They are pictured above, standing on the steps of Dean Rusk Hall. From the left to right – top row: Daniel Danca, Bohdan Krivuts, Savelii Elizarov, Cornelius Bulanov, N’guessan Clément Kouame, Jonas Römer; middle row: Md Mushfiqur Rahman, Eman Abdella Ali, Quraisha Sherzad, Raissa dos Santos Bastos Rolim, Gracia Varinia Rojas Mina Bogliotti, Agostina Calamari; bottom row: Victoria Agbakwuru, Xinyi Nie, Shivani Ravi Prakash, Naina Bishnoi, Amanda Pinto, and Lydia Lartey.

This Class of 2024 joins a tradition that began at the University of Georgia School of Law in the early 1970s, when a Belgian lawyer became the first foreign-trained practitioner to earn a UGA Law LL.M. degree. In the ensuing four decades, the law school and its Dean Rusk International Law Center have produced nearly 600 LL.M. graduates, with ties to nearly 100 countries and every continent in the world.

Side by side with J.D. candidates, LL.M.s follow a flexible curriculum tailored to their own career goals – goals that may include preparation to sit for a U.S. bar examination, or pursuit of a concentration affording advancement in their home country’s legal profession or academic institutions.

The application for the LL.M. Class of 2025 is now open; for information or to apply for LL.M. studies, see here.

First Legal Spanish Course Offered at UGA Law This Fall

This fall, UGA Law students have the opportunity to enroll in a new Legal Spanish course taught by Professor Kristen Shepherd, Community Health Law Partnership Clinic Staff Attorney & Adjunct Instructor.

Professor Shepherd conceptualized and proposed the course as two consecutive courses, Legal Spanish I and Legal Spanish II, both offered for one credit. Each course teaches students Spanish language skills used in legal settings with a focus on listening and speaking comprehension. They also provide students with a broad overview of the basics of the legal systems in Spanish-speaking countries to enable students to communicate legal concepts more accurately and efficiently.

The opportunity for students to learn Spanish for use in legal careers has taken several forms over the past decade at UGA Law. It began as a club led by Pedro Dorado (J.D. ‘17, LL.M. ‘15) before moving to a lunchtime study session led by two students who had completed Global Externships, one in a Spanish-speaking country. During the pandemic, Legal Spanish once again became a club that met regularly on Zoom.

Across changes in instructors and format, the ability to hone Spanish language skills specific to the legal profession has continued to be a goal that students felt strongly about institutionalizing. Third-year student Patricia Fors was a driving force behind turning this club into a for-credit course. Since Spring 2022, Ms. Fors has worked with Center faculty and staff to communicate the student demand for the course and to provide a student perspective on the course proposals.

“There is a high demand for attorneys able to effectively communicate with Spanish-speaking clients,” Ms. Fors communicated to us in an email. “I’m incredibly proud to attend a law school committed to breaking down one of the barriers that Hispanic communities face accessing the legal system.”

Professor Shepherd agreed with Ms. Fors’ sentiment, stating: “I am inspired by the student movement that led to this course—it is a reflection of our students’ dedication to providing first rate legal representation to a traditionally underserved population with diligence and sensitivity. I am confident that this will lead to better legal outcomes and client relationships.”

The inaugural course enrolled 17 students, all of whom speak conversational Spanish. Not only will they benefit from this new course, but so will the clients and communities they work with across their careers.

For more information about Legal Spanish, please contact Professor Shepherd.

UGA Law Professor Bruner presents “Managing Fraud Risk in the Age of AI” at the National University of Singapore (NUS)

Professor Christopher Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law and a newly appointed Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, presented “Managing Fraud Risk in the Age of AI” at the National University of Singapore (NUS) in June.

Bruner’s talk was part of a conference titled Fraud and Risk in Commercial Law, organized by Professors Paul Davies (University College London) and Hans Tjio (NUS) and hosted by the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business at the NUS Faculty of Law.

Below is Bruner’s presentation abstract:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications are widely expected to revolutionize every dimension of business. This paper explores current and potential impacts of AI on corporate management of fraud risk in both operational and compliance contexts. Much attention has been paid to the operational efficiencies that AI applications could enable in numerous industry settings, and such systems have already become central to a range of services in certain industries – notably finance. Heavy reliance on algorithmic processes can be expected to give rise, however, to a range of risks, including fraud risks. New forms of internal fraud risk, emanating from intra-corporate actors, as well as external fraud risk, emanating from extra-corporate actors, are already placing greater demands on the compliance function and requiring greater corporate investment in responsive AI capacity to keep pace with the evolving risk management environment. At the same time, these developments have already begun to prompt reevaluation of conventional legal theories of fraud that took shape, in commercial and financial contexts alike, by reference to human actors, as opposed to algorithmic processes.

The paper begins with an overview of growing operational reliance upon increasingly sophisticated AI applications across various industry settings, reflecting the increasingly data-intensive nature of modern business. It then explores forms of internal and external fraud risk that may arise from efforts to exploit weaknesses in operational AI, which efforts may themselves involve sophisticated deployment of malicious extra-corporate AI applications – ‘offensive AI’, as the cyber security industry describes it. This can in turn be expected to require responsive corporate efforts in the form of ‘defensive AI’, and the paper describes burgeoning efforts along these lines, as well as the increasing pressure to devote substantial resources and managerial attention to these dynamics that may arise from both corporate law and commercial realities. Finally, the paper analyzes shortcomings of conventional legal theories of fraud in this context. Here the paper assesses the difficulty of applying concepts such as deception, scienter, reliance, and loss causation to algorithmic processes lacking conventional capacity for intentionality and defying conventional explanation as to how inputs and outputs logically relate – a reflection of the AI ‘black box’ problem. The paper concludes with proposals to reform corporate oversight duties to incentivize managerial attention to these issues, and to reform conventional legal theories of fraud to disincentivize malicious AI applications.

UGA Law professor Diane Marie Amann and UCL Professor Martins Paparinskis

UGA Law Professor Amann presents “Child-Taking and the International Criminal Arrest Warrant” at University College London Faculty of Laws

University of Georgia School of Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, an expert on child and human rights, international criminal law, and the laws of war, presented a lecture entitled “Child-Taking and the International Criminal Arrest Warrant” at University College London Faculty of Laws in June.

News that the International Criminal Court is seeking the arrest of Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, and Child Rights Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, drew attention to the war crimes charged: “unlawful deportation of population (children)” and “unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas.” Professor Amann’s lecture examined these and similar crimes, which she labels “child-taking.” International child-taking trials date to the Nuremberg tribunals, and have continued in modern forums like the ICC. Court records demonstrate that child-taking is no minor crime. Its present gravity and future consequences are heavy; so too, the prosecutorial burdens of securing indictments, conviction, and redress.

This presentation was chaired by UCL Professor of Public International Law, Martins Paparinskis.

Amann is the Regents’ Professor of International Law, the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and a Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.