Scholarship meets practice at Hodgson Russ gathering

The School of Law took to the road to give lawyers at Buffalo’s oldest law firm a taste of what interim Dean James A. Gardner called “an extremely rich intellectual environment.”

The June 2, 2015, event at the downtown offices of Hodgson Russ was the third in a series that exposes practicing attorneys to the cutting-edge scholarship of School of Law professors. About 25 people filled a conference room to hear Professors Meredith Kolsky Lewis and Matthew Dimick and Guyora Binder talk about their work, as well as to renew ties with the UB.               

In his introductory remarks, Gardner gave some statistics about the school’s intellectual ferment, saying that 41 percent of the faculty hold doctoral degrees in law or another discipline, a proportion surpassed by only three other U.S. law schools. They are, he said, “a hugely productive group of people,” having within the past five years produced 15 books, eight edited volumes, 79 chapters and 149 law review articles. In that same period, Gardner said, the faculty made over 400 academic presentations and workshops, and testified on six occasions before Congress and state legislatures. “Our faculty punches above its weight considerably,” he said.

Lewis, an expert in international trade law who also serves as vice dean for international and graduate programs, spoke about her research on free trade agreements, especially the Trans-Pacific Partnership. She is working on a book critiquing the assumptions underlying modern multilateral trade negotiations in the World Trade Organization. “The mindset is that all members have to buy into all aspects of all texts that are negotiated,” Lewis said. “If there’s one holdout, you have a problem.” That attitude, she said, has led the WTO to near-paralysis.

However, she said, “historically, trade agreements have not been subscribed to by all participants. Even the WTO agreements are full of special and differential treatment. The idea that everyone has to agree to everything is not borne out by the historical record, and it seems to be unhelpful.”

Dimick’s research focuses on the relationship between law and economic inequality. “This is a subject that is getting more and more attention in the news media, so it’s a fortuitous time to do research in this area,” he said. “There are lots of interesting questions. We need some inequality to motivate and incentivize people to innovate and create. But too much inequality can be unfair and corrosive to public institutions. So it’s about getting the right balance.”

Dimick outlined a couple of his current research projects. One, he said, looks at data from survey data with around 20,000 observations in seeking to understand when and why different individuals support more or less redistribution through taxation and government transfers. The other is examining whether there is a best way to reduce economic inequality at minimum cost to economic growth and efficiency.

Binder is the School of Law’s inaugural Hodgson Russ Scholar and also serves as vice dean for research and faculty development. He discussed his project examining “why people obey laws and whether they should.” It’s not just fear of punishment, he said; people often toe the line out of a sense of duty.  Yet many modern philosophers fear that this duty of obedience will silence the voice of conscience.  Binder contrasted their ideas with those of Socrates, who thought of law as an educative process of dialogue that forces us to listen to others and consider their views.

Hodgson Russ, founded in 1817, has more than 200 attorneys who counsel clients in the United States, Canada and worldwide.