Accelerated J.D. for Foreign Trained Lawyers Program Now Accepting Applications

Applications are now being accepted for admission to the 2014 Accelerated J.D. program. Visit us on the web for more information.

The University of Arkansas School of Law ranks second in the U.S. in The National Jurist’s annual ranking of “Best Value Law Schools.” This marks the third straight year the School of Law has been named a top 20 “Best Value.” The law school moved up 12 places from 14th last year.
“We are particularly pleased to be recognized for delivering excellent results at an extraordinary value,” said Stacy Leeds, dean of the School of Law. “Our graduates pass the bar exam, find employment, and enter the job market with significantly less debt than students at most other law schools.”
According to The National Jurist the ranking is determined by a formula that uses “the percent of graduates who pass the bar exam, employment rate, tuition, cost of living, and average indebtedness upon graduation.”

For a detailed report of the law school’s bar passage, placement rates, and tuition and fees, please visit law.uark.edu/509.

UA Law Professor returns to Vilnius to teach Negotiation

Christopher Kelley taught negotiation during the week of December 9, 2013, at the European Humanities University, a Belarusian university "in exile" in Vilnius, Lithuania. http://www.ehu.lt/en/  This was the third time he has taught negotiation at EHU. Maryna Kavaleuskaya taught the course with him. Ms. Kavaleuskaya was named the Best Attorney at Law of 2011 by the Alliance of Human Rights Organizations of Belarus and earned an LL.M. from the Harvard Law School in 2013.

Visiting Ph.D. Candidates from Kazakhstan

This fall, we welcomed Aigerim Ozenbayeva and Daniya Nurmukhankyzy to the Law School. Aigerim and Daniya are Ph.D. in Law Candidates at Zhetysu State University named after I. Zhansugurov in Taldykorgan, Kazakhstan.

Daniya and Aigerim have been awarded a government scholarship to do research for their dissertations in the U.S., for a little over one month. Professor Christopher Kelley serves as their foreign adviser. They are researching topics in Agricultural and Environmental Law. Professor Kelley first met Daniya and Aigerim last summer during a teaching trip to Zhetysu State University where both women are pursuing their Ph.D. in Law. Professor Kelley lead three courses in Negotiation, Legal Writing in English, and Agriculture & the Environment over a two week period. He writes about his trip in a previously published post, "A Letter from Kazakhstan".

Our guests arrived to a noisy but festive atmosphere, as their arrival coincided with the annual Bikes Blues and BBQ festival, an event that reports an attendance of nearly 400,000. They spent their first  days exploring the campus, with the kind assistance of Professor Kelley, who treated our guests to lunch and a shopping excursion. They have already seen much of the U.S. during their brief stay, visiting NYC and joining Professor Kelley in Washington D.C., to tour the Nations Capital.

Both Daniya and Aigerim wish to extend their thanks to Professor Kelley, and to the School of Law.

A Fond Farewell

Last month, we said farewell to our visitors from Yeungnam University Law School in Gyeongsan, Republic of Korea. Mr. Shin and Mr. Lee spent much of their summer with us observing courses, and immersing themselves in the U.S. legal system. Their focus and dedication was impressive. Equally impressive was their adventurous spirit. In the short time they were here, Mr. Lee and Mr. Shin toured much of Arkansas and Missouri. When they had exhausted their local options, they ventured further, embarking upon a whirlwind tour that spanned Illinois, New York, Arizona, Nevada, and California. We share with you a few snapshots from their travels.





Navajo Bridge, Arizona

Chicago River, Chicago



Hollywood, California

Beverly Hills, California

Cloud Gate, Chicago

Millennium Park, Chicago

Lake Michigan at night, Chicago

Grand Canyon, North Rim
















 

 

 

World Justice Forum IV

On July 8-11, the World Justice Project held the World Justice Forum IV in The Hague, Netherlands. The invitation-only WJF was created to be "a global gathering designed to engage nearly 600 leaders, dignitaries, and innovators from more than 120 countries to address critical rule of law issues related to economic development, technology, supply chains, women’s rights, freedom of expression, and more."

Participants joined in formal plenaries and active breakout sessions, designed innovative ground-level rule of law programs, engaged with researchers and scholars during “workshop” hours, and networked with other leaders in the rule of law movement. Professor Christopher Kelley was invited to participate in the WJF IV, having previously attended the WJFs I and II in Vienna. Kelley teaches a Rule of Law Colloquium each Spring to J.D. and LL.M. Candidates at the University of Arkansas School of Law. He also has taught the Rule of Law at the Vytautas Magnus University Law Faculty in Kaunas, Lithuania.

UA Law Professor to teach part-time at Kyiv Taras Schevchenko National University

Professor Christopher Kelley has been honored by an appointment as a part-time, non-resident Professor at Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, Ukraine.  He will assist the Law Faculty's new LL.M. program in Land and Agricultural Law. 

Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University is one of Ukraine's best universities. Professor Kelley has been teaching Legal Writing in English to students there by distance each semester for the past three years. He has also taught negotiation at Shevchenko, and, this fall, he will take his Transnational Negotiation class to Kyiv to negotiate with Shevchenko law students.

Visitors from Yeungnam University Law School

This summer, the School of Law is pleased to welcome three visitors from Yeungnam University Law School in Gyeongsan, Republic of Korea.

Law Professor Sae Jin Kim and law students Doo Hee Lee and Sang Chul Shin arrived bleary eyed and exhausted after a sixteen hour trip that began with a train ride from Daegu to Seoul and ended when they landed at XNA international airport in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Professor Kim served as a high ranking Judge for twenty-plus years before accepting a teaching position at Yeungnam University. YU is in a rural area of Korea, a sharp contrast from the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Seoul, and Professor Kim has found that he prefers the quiet of the country. Both Lee and Shin just completed their first year as law students at YU, having already completed their undergraduate degrees. They will have two more years of law school before obtaining their LL.B. This is their first trip to the United States, but they have already discovered many of NW Arkansas' gems, including Beaver Lake, Devils Den State Park, Wilson Park, Dickson Street, and the Fayetteville Farmers Market.

The first week of any new international experience is always the hardest. English is taught in the Korean system from the time students enter primary school and continues through secondary school, but because the focus is on reading, and because English is not widely spoken in Korea, adjusting to a world of English speakers can be challenging and exhausting. Then there are the practical issues such as parking, navigating the UA bus system, and getting to the grocery store. Contrasting the U.S. legal system with the Korean legal system and adjusting to the U.S. classroom and it's unique culture are the educational tasks going forward. I am happy to report that our guests are up for the many challenges.

Our visitors toured the campus with the kind assistance of the UA admissions office and the invaluable interpreting skills of Dr. Geeboo Song, a Professor in the Political Science department, who came on short notice to assist. Dean Don Judges, Associate Dean of Graduate and Experiential Learning and E.J. Ball Professor of Law delivered guest welcome baskets to our visitor's hotel and took them to lunch. With the kind permission of our faculty, our visitors have been able to observe a number of courses including Professional Responsibility taught by Professor Howard Brill, Vincent Foster University Professor of Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility, and Constitutional Law taught by Professor Mark Killenbeck, Wylie H. Davis Distinguished Professor of Law.

Our guests will be with us for much of the rest of the summer before returning to Korea. Professor Kim will be returning to the School of Law in 2014 to spend his sabbatical year with us researching Civil Litigation Discovery, a concept that is unfamiliar in the Korean legal system. He will bring with him his wife and thirteen year old daughter to join in the experience.

It has been a pleasure getting to know our guests. Their quick laughter and easy going attitude, coupled with their sincere and earnest focus on making the most of their time at the Law School have endeared them to our community. We hope that they will enjoy their time with us as much as we have enjoyed their presence and look forward to getting to know them better as the summer progresses.

Immigration Overhaul and Higher Education

 

Today the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article discussing immigration reform and it's anticipated impact on higher education, specifically to foreign-born graduate students. This article is reposted below. The original article can be viewed here.

 

June 28, 2013 

By Cory Weinberg

Washington

The U.S. Senate passed a monumental bill to overhaul immigration law on Thursday that higher-education leaders hailed as giving foreign-born graduate students unprecedented access to green cards, a provision that research universities said would help them compete for top talent by giving the students greater certainty of landing jobs after they graduate.

The bipartisan bill, which passed, 68 to 32, with 14 Republicans voting in favor, also would provide a gateway to college for 650,000 young people, known as "dreamers," who were brought to the United States illegally as children. Under the bill, they would be eligible to receive federal student aid and to petition for citizenship five years after graduating from high school and completing some college or military service.

Although the bill, S 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, is viewed as unlikely to pass in the House of Representatives, it is widely considered a win for higher education.

Foreigners who earned Ph.D.'s at American universities would be eligible for green cards, while foreign students who completed master's degrees or Ph.D.'s in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (the STEM fields) could petition for a card.

"The real game changer in the bill for universities is in the green-card section, where advanced-degree graduates for STEM fields have green cards stapled to their diplomas," said Craig Lindwarm, assistant director for international issues and Congressional and governmental affairs at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.


Through an amendment passed on the Senate floor, the bill would also keep colleges exempt from the national cap on H-1B visas, allowing them to temporarily employ researchers who are not citizens. It also would cut and limit student-visa fees.

In a letter on Wednesday urging the Senate to pass the bill, the heads of 14 higher-education associations heralded the legislation's benefits for "dreamer" students, writing that it would serve "our long-term economic growth by providing these young people a way out of the shadows and into our work force."

Steven M. Bloom, director of federal relations at the American Council on Education, lauded the bipartisan nature of the bill—which was crafted by four Republicans and four Democrats, known as the Gang of Eight—and said major research universities and community colleges especially had reasons to applaud.

"To tell you the truth, there was never huge things we were really concerned about, whether it was H-1B or green cards or Dream Act. These weren't incredibly difficult things to push across the finish line," Mr. Bloom said.

Higher-education lobbyists drew support from businesses in Silicon Valley as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which pushed to expand citizenship eligibility for high-skilled workers.

Though the House is expected to draft its own bill instead of taking up the Senate's, Mr. Bloom said the higher-education provisions were mostly uncontroversial in that chamber as well. The Senate bill also would strengthen border security and provide a 13-year pathway to citizenship for most immigrants in the United States illegally. Republicans in the House have resisted the latter provision.