Welcome to all of our new J.D. and LLM students, and welcome back to our returning 2L and 3L students!
Aside from all of our first-year J.D. and LLM students, we have some other new faces around the building. New to the faculty are Professor Gus Hurwitz and Adjunct Clinical Professor Ryan Sullivan.
Professor Gus Hurwitz is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. He has been a visiting professor at the George Mason Law School, and recently was a fellow at the Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. After law school, Professor Hurwitz worked for three years for the U.S. Department of Justice in the Telecommunications and Media Section of the Antitrust division. Professor Hurwitz has a background in computer science and prior to attending law school, worked at Los Alamos National Labs and the Naval Research Laboratory. Professor Hurwitz will be teaching Cyberlaw, Domestic Telecommunications, Law & Economics, and related classes.
Professor Ryan Sullivan is a 2010 graduate of the law college. In law school, he was an editor on the law review, chair of the Moot Court Board, and a member of the trial team. Since graduating, Professor Sullivan has been practicing as an associate attorney and litigator at Kinsey, Rowe, Becker and Kistler in Lincoln, where he was involved in a wide variety of matters. Professor Sullivan will teach full time in the Civil Clinic.
In addition to our new faculty, we had one new member of the staff join us in the past few weeks. Sandy Janssen is the new assistant in the Civil Clinic, working with Deanna Lubken.
There will be many speakers coming to the Law College this year, and I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity, usually over the noon hour, to learn something new and expand your horizons by attending their presentations. The Career Services Office has many employers coming to the Law College to make presentations and meet you, so I hope you will take advantage of those opportunities as well as you prepare for your careers.
We are continuing a new program from last year that we call S.T.I.R. Talks. This acronym stands for Share, Think, Inspire, Relax. A few times each semester, a faculty member will do a short and entertaining presentation in the late afternoon in the student lounge about his or her research interests. These presentations will be 15 minutes long (modeled on the TED talks that are now the rage), and will be followed by a social hour with refreshments. This is a fun and entertaining way for the faculty to discuss with students some really interesting issues in the law, and provide an opportunity to socialize in a relaxed setting.
Another way to get to know the faculty is to participate in our TYPO program. TYPO stands for Take Your Professor Out. If you want to take one of your professors or a dean or director out to lunch, the Dean's Office would be pleased to reimburse you for up to $25. This should be enough to cover all of the cost for two students and a professor (given Lincoln's generally reasonable lunch prices) and most of the cost for larger groups. In general, there are only two requirements: 1) each lunch must include at least one professor and at least two students and 2) each student is eligible for only one free lunch. Just pick up a reimbursement form from Patty Cavanagh, the receptionist in the Dean’s office, before you go to lunch, and then return the completed form and an itemized receipt to Patty.
Again, welcome, and welcome back! This year, I will hold weekly office hours but the times will move around so that there are no permanent class conflicts. So keep your eye on the video boards for the times, and please stop by with your questions, ideas, or concerns, or just to say hello.
I wish you all the best for a wonderful year at Nebraska Law!
Susan