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Save the Date - 2007 Alumni Weekend is scheduled for October 19-21

2007 LL.M. Class Meets Distinguished DSL Alum and Hears American-Style High Court Banter

Penn State's Dickinson School of Law LL.M. Class of 2007 recently visited Washington, D.C., with Professor Louis Del Duca and International Programs Director Janet Murphy. The twelve lawyers, representing nine different countries, are at Penn State Dickinson to study comparative and international law, and the visit gave them a first-hand view of a uniquely American institution, the U.S. Supreme Court.

Under Professor Del Duca's direction, the students prepared presentations comparing the court systems of their home countries with the U.S. court system. The students met the evening before the trip for a discussion of the relative merits of the various systems, which concluded with a lively debate on the role of politics in the judicial selection process.

During a recent trip to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., members of Penn State Dickinson's 2007 LL.M. class, along with Professor Louis F. Del Duca and International Programs Director Janet Murphy, had the opportunity to visit with alumnus Frank Wagner '70, who has been the U.S. Supreme Court's reporter of decisions for twenty years.


One of the highlights of visiting the Supreme Court during oral arguments was hearing a humorous exchange between what Associated Press writer Mark Sherman called two "outsized personalities" at the Court, namely Harvard Law School Professor Arthur Miller and famously conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Miller is a prolific scholar as well as a media personality and former television host. The two jurists attended law school together in the late fifties.

Miller, who also is rumored to be the model for the fear-inspiring 1L professor in a popular fictional account of life at Harvard, was representing plaintiffs-respondents in a case of alleged securities fraud. At one point during an exchange between the two former schoolmates, Miller blurted "[i]s that because you never met a plaintiff you really liked?" When there were "oohs" from the spectators and laughter from the other justices, Miller quickly followed up with "I took a liberty there with the Justice." Later in the argument, when Miller asked another justice not to take him literally, Scalia quipped: "[l]et me write that down. We should not take you literally." To which Chief Justice John Roberts responded, "OK, you two are even now."

In a day with many high points, everyone's favorite part was having the opportunity to meet with DSL alumnus Frank Wagner '70 who has for twenty years served as the U.S. Supreme Court's Reporter of Decisions. Wagner met with the students after the oral arguments and answered questions on a range of topics from judicial selection to the statutory officers of the Supreme Court. Without violating his own meticulous standards of confidentiality, Wagner conveyed through stories of his own career his genuine affection and deep respect for the Court. He gave the students a unique perspective on America's highest Court and the story of a singular career in public service.

Wagner's job at the Court is to publish all of the Court's opinions and orders in the United States Reports. He began his law career at a Pennsylvania law firm but the former Cornell University English major was drawn to a career in writing and editing and joined a then-prominent publishing house, the Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company, which was later subsumed by West Publishing. By late 1986, when he was selected to fill the Reporter's job at the Supreme Court, he had risen to the post of managing editor in the law publishing company's subsidiary, the Research Institute of America.

Prompted by student questions, Wagner recounted some memorable cases. When the students asked which cases had been the most difficult, Wagner talked about McConnell v. FEC, the case challenging the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002, which involved twenty-four parties, twenty amicus briefs and a need for expedited review during the Court's summer vacation because of an impending election; there were an extraordinary four hours of oral arguments, and the case ultimately yielded the second longest opinion in history, exceeded only by the Dred Scott case. Another decision Wagner recalled as difficult was Bush v. Gore, because of the need for extreme expedition, the importance of the question to the country and the intensity of public interest.

Towards the end of our time together, one student asked Wagner with which case in Supreme Court history he would most like to have been associated. Without hesitating for a moment, Wagner replied, "Brown v. Board of Education." He recalled with enthusiasm the time, while attending an international conference of reporters of decisions in Kansas City, he had the privilege of meeting the sister of the named plaintiff in the Brown case.

Wagner has enjoyed a unique and fascinating career and has met many famous and skilled jurists and attorneys in the course of his work. He recalled his days at The Dickinson School of Law also, and when he first saw his former Bills and Notes professor after several years, he commented, "I know at this point I should be able to call him Lou, but I can't call him anything but Professor Del Duca."

In addition to learning first-hand how our highest court operates, the LL.M. students also had the chance to visit some of America's most important national monuments and were treated to a surprise early look at some blossoming cherry trees, which were impressive even in half bloom on an unseasonably warm March day.

Law School Shows its Support for Virginia Tech

In response to the tragic events that occurred April 16th on the campus of Virginia Tech, Penn State's Dickinson School of Law Blue and White Society and Women's Law Caucus hosted a social to raise money for the Virginia Tech Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund.

The social took place on Monday, April 23rd at Alibis in downtown Carlisle. Students were asked to make a donation as they entered the social and were given the opportunity to buy raffle tickets for a 50/50 drawing and prizes donated by the Penn State University Bookstore. By the end of the social, the Blue and White Society had collected $327 for the memorial fund.

The event's coordinators, Andrea Miller and Melissa Tanguay, were initially worried that it would be difficult to attract students to the social on the last day of classes with an upcoming exam session on everyone's minds. The two even considered the fact they may have to pay out of their own pockets to finance the event if the turnout was not good.

The event's coordinators Andrea Miller and Melissa Tanguay

So, to help raise money to host the social, Andrea and Melissa decided to go door-to-door in the Advantica Building to sell 50/50 raffle tickets to the faculty and administrators at the Carlisle campus.

Andrea happily commented on the response the two received when they began soliciting for the raffle: "Much to our surprise, they were so willing to donate to the fund… often without wanting any raffle tickets. Because of their outpouring of support, we raised enough money from the 50/50 to pay for the cost of the event." The faculty and administration donations allowed the rest of the money that came in during the event to go directly toward the charity fund.

Andrea and Melissa were further pleased when students began showing up to the social later that evening, and, before the night had concluded, there was over three hundred dollars in the girls' orange and maroon donation box.

In addition to hosting the fund raising social, students in Carlisle and University Park signed a large Penn State Dickinson School of Law flag to show their support for the Virginia Tech community. The flag will then be delivered to Virginia Tech's campus in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Jonathan Phillips, a second year Penn State Dickinson law student and alumnus from the Virginia Tech's 2003 graduating class was very impressed with the Law School community's response. "No matter how many times you hear condolences for what happened at Virginia Tech, every single person's expression of sympathy is appreciated. But witnessing this kind of support from my own law school is indescribable," Phillips said.

The Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund was established by Virginia Tech to cover expenses including, but not limited to, grief counseling, memorials, communication expenses, comfort expenses, and incidental needs of those affected by the tragedy.

Students Spend Spring Break Rebuilding Homes and Lives in New Orleans Rebuilding Homes and Rebuilding Lives in New Orleans, LA An Alternative Spring Break
By Melissa Tanguay, Class of 2009

Team Penn State Dickinson Law. Front (L to R): Jen Prizeman, Alex Smith, Matt Allen, Andrew Tuozzolo. Back (L to R): Melissa Tanguay, Andrea Miller, Phil Taw. (t-shirts donated by the PSU-DSL Bookstore)

From March 11 to 17, 2007, I led a group of seven Penn State Dickinson law students to New Orleans, Louisiana, to volunteer over spring break rebuilding the homes and lives of Hurricane Katrina victims. We spent the week in St. Bernard Parish, a community in metropolitan New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 when the storm sent a 25-foot surge over the levees and completely flooded the entire parish.

Before the hurricane, the parish was home to approximately 67,000 lower/middle class residents; today, only a fraction of those people have returned home.While nearly all of the houses in the parish have been gutted or demolished over the past 18 months, the rebuilding phase has only just begun with sky-high construction costs and limited resources. Many parish residents are living in FEMA trailers right next to their destroyed houses, waiting for construction on their homes to begin or finish or just waiting for help. Some can afford to rebuild their homes, but so many other elderly and poor residents lack the funds and manpower to get the job done.

“Team Penn State Dickinson Law” stayed the week at Camp Hope, a gutted elementary school turned volunteer base camp run by Habitat for Humanity in the heart of St. Bernard Parish. The school was home to 650 spring breakers from colleges across the U.S. working on various rebuilding projects in the parish that week. We volunteered for two different projects during the five days of our spring break. The first two days we worked for the St. Bernard Parish Government organizing and moving supplies – including 1,099 shovels, 32,000 face masks, 200 cleaning kits and too many “portable restroom kits” to count. It was tedious work, but invaluable to the parish employees whom we helped. Our site supervisors even rewarded us with a famous New Orleans “King Cake” to thank us after our work was complete!

The rest of our week we really got our hands dirty as we worked for the St. Bernard Project, a new non-profit organization that rehabs gutted homes in the parish.

The Project was started last fall by four Washington, D.C., professionals (including a lawyer) looking for a way to help get New Orleans back on its feet. Our team was split between two houses, where we expanded our marketable skills by learning how to install insulation and drywall, as well as the true test of operating power tools from a ladder! When I arrived at my assigned house on Wednesday morning, I could look straight through from the front to the back of the “shotgun” style house as it was only a bare frame with siding.

By the time my team left on Friday afternoon, the frame of the house was covered and each of the five rooms was separated by real walls. The greatest accomplishment was the realization that you could no longer hear the radio blasting country music in the bathroom from one room to the next. After we left, the St. Bernard Project would complete the rehabbing process by installing flooring and appliances and painting the interior and exterior of the house before the owners move home in April.

In addition to lending our “blood, sweat and tears” during the week, we had the opportunity to tour the most devastated areas of New Orleans, including St. Bernard Parish and the Ninth Ward. My most memorable impressions were of a community gym where the basketball hoop had rotted off when the floodwater settled near the ceiling, a house that was totally washed away except for its foundation (you could still differentiate among the rooms due to the various ceramic tile designs) and a shed that had been lifted up and was lodged on the roof of a house. We also spent some of our free time in the French Quarter in downtown New Orleans, which is alive and well despite the damage in surrounding areas.

By the time we departed New Orleans at the end of our spring break, we were exhausted, but satisfied with our contribution to rebuilding homes – and, in turn, rebuilding lives. No picture or article can describe the loss the people of New Orleans have experienced, but the most important thing we walked away knowing is that New Orleans still needs help to get back on its feet and will need help for many years to come.

There are dozens of great volunteer organizations to assist hurricane victims, such as Habitat for Humanity and the St. Bernard Project, and unskilled workers are always welcomed. No one in our group had ever done construction work before spring break, but by the end of the week we were using terms such as: “take the sheetrock to the left,” “hand me the dremel so I can cut out this outlet” and “who took my T-square?”

In addition to construction work, hurricane victims in New Orleans need legal help, too. During our trip, I met other law students in St. Bernard Parish working for the Student Hurricane Network, an organization started by students at Tulane Law in response to Hurricane Katrina that facilitates law students helping hurricane victims in New Orleans deal with legal issues such as fair housing and insurance claims.

I am already looking forward to returning to New Orleans, hopefully bringing other Penn State Dickinson law students, faculty and administration with me to rebuild more homes and lives destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Stay tuned for more information about our next Penn State Dickinson School of Law field trip down to the Bayou!  

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