Sharing a Wealth of Learning: inaugural event brings faculty research to the bench

As both a justice of the state Court of Appeals and a UB Law alumnus, Eugene F. Pigott Jr. '73 has a foot in two worlds. He wanted those worlds to meet – and the result went beyond all expectations.

Justice of the State Court of Appeals Eugene F. Pigott Jr. '73 addresses faculty and judges.

"We had sat in the 4th Department in the Letro Courtroom there at the Law School," Pigott says. "But we are really limited as to what we could and couldn't do there. So I thought, maybe we want to get the faculty to come to the mountain. We started talking about it, and once the dean got into it, it just seemed to click."

What followed was billed as "A Briefing for the Judiciary on Recent Law Faculty Scholarship." Held March 5 in the majestic wood-paneled Ceremonial Courtroom of Erie County Hall in downtown Buffalo, the gathering brought jurists of all levels together to hear brief presentations by six UB Law School faculty on their research. About 35 were in the audience, and following the presentation they enjoyed a reception hosted by Francis M. Letro '79.

"They knocked our socks off," Pigott says of the faculty presenters. "I have gotten so many responses from judges saying what an incredible thing it was to do this."

In welcoming remarks, Dean Makau W. Mutua noted that judges are "the guardians of the rule of law and the guardians of our democracy. You stand at the center of our mission, because our Law School is dedicated to educating and producing those lawyers who stand to defend those values and the rule of law."

"Although we are fully committed to great legal scholarship, we are also, in a very fundamental way, a trade school. We cannot forget that our job is to produce excellent attorneys. I think of the bench and bar and the Law School as two faces of the same coin. We are joined together."

Professor Errol E. Meidinger, vice dean for research and faculty development, spoke of the importance of research to the school's mission. "We are a university-based Law School, and the mission of the university is to advance knowledge," Meidinger said. "I firmly believe that research also advances teaching. The more I grapple with trying to get insights into something, the better I am as a teacher, the less formulaic, the more I can push students to see where the soft spots are and where the hard spots are. A strong research program is absolutely essential to respect in the world of law schools."

Meidinger also noted that the Law School has hired 11 faculty members in the past four years. "This is a very opportune time to reconnect with the bench," he said, "because the Law School is in a process of reconstructing itself in a way that hasn't happened in my 27 years here."

In the main body of the event, six members of the faculty spoke briefly about their research, much of which has immediate applicability to the work of the judicial system.

SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Charles Patrick Ewing discussed his work on New York State mental hygiene law and the process by which some sex offenders are locked up indefinitely and others are released to the community under supervision. The costs of indefinite lockup are "staggering," he said. Ewing is writing a book that asks whether indefinite detention is worth the burdens it places on the judiciary and the taxpayers.

Professor Susan V. Mangold discussed her research into the effect of federal, state and local fiscal strategies on policy-making. "When there's law reform, we all get heated up and involved in changing the policy," she said. "But if the money that flows from the law does so in a way that's contradictory, or even creates obstacles to the goals of those policies, what's the result?"

Professor Robert S. Berger spoke of his work on issues surrounding offshore windmills in New York State, especially in Lakes Erie and Ontario. "My research addresses some questions of how to develop a comprehensive strategy for siting, environmental review and public acceptance, especially given that we propose placing these wind turbines in such important water resources," he said.

Joseph W. Belluck and Laura L. Aswad Professor of Civil Justice James A. Gardner, who also serves as vice dean for academic affairs, described his research on state constitutional law. "State constitutions are very odd documents," he said. "For example, New York's Constitution has a provision that grants a right of New Yorkers to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. But of course we also have a federal right that's granted by the Fourth Amendment. The New York provision is word for word identical to the federal one. In fact, it was plagiarized from the U.S. Constitution. So what is it doing there? What work is it doing, and how should we interpret it?"

Associate Professor Ruqaiijah Yearby, whose specialty is health law, spoke of her review of public health law with an eye to protecting vulnerable populations. "How can we fix the laws and change the policies to ensure that vulnerable populations are protected from exploitation and discrimination?" she asked. She also works in bioethics, reviewing laws governing human subject research to determine whether they are applied fairly to women, children and people of color. A current article focuses on the outsourcing of drug trials, about which she asked, "Can you require poor people to bear a burden for which they receive no benefit because we in a rich nation want to know if a drug is safe?"

Professor James Wooten, a self-described "pension geek," discussed his research into qualified domestic relations orders. "The more research I did on this, the more fascinating I found the case law on dividing pension assets in New York," he said. He detailed some permutations of the fact patterns among divorcing couples, assessing each scenario on the basis of equitable distribution of the couple's assets – a matter that comes before the courts every day.

"What we have done here today is a down payment for what we will do in the future," Dean Mutua said to the assembled jurists. "Today we kind of talked at you. In the future, we want to create opportunities for dialogue between you and us."