Michael Tigar

"The enemy combatant doctrine and the scope of executive power"

Michael E. Tigar is a Research Professor of Law at Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, DC, where he teaches Federal Courts, International Human Rights, and Criminal Law.  Professor Tigar has been an advocate for social change around the world, including South Africa where he labored to end Apartheid and draft a new constitution with the African National Congress. He has also worked with former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet and holds a post as visiting professor at the Faculté de Droit et de Science Politique in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Professor Tigar has held full-time academic positions at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Texas. He has authored or coauthored ten books, three plays, and numerous articles and essays, including Law and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977) and Persuasion: The Litigator's Art (American Bar Association Press, 1999).

He has represented a multitude of high profile clients including Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, John Connally, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Washington Post, Fantasy Films, Terry Nichols, Allen Ginsberg, Leonard Peltier, Fernando Chavez and Lynne Stewart. The California Attorneys for Criminal Justice held a ballot in 1999 for “Lawyer of the Century.” Professor Tigar placed third among such notable figures as Clarence Darrow and Thurgood Marshall.

Professor Tigar’s lecture will focus on the antiterrorism case Jose Padilla v. Donald Rumsfeld, et al., and its implications for civil liberties and human rights in the United States.

Tim Casey

"Problem Solving Courts, the Perpetual Reform of the Justice System, and Possibilities for a Better Future"

Tim Casey is an Associate Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, OH, spoke on Monday, November 14, 2005, about recent developments in problem-solving courts nationally and considerations for the future of such courts.  

His teaching experience has included Criminal Practice, Crime, Communities and Courts, and Legal Methods. Most recently, Professor Casey authored “When Good Intentions Are Not Enough: Problem-Solving Courts and the Impending Crisis of Legitimacy” (2004), in the Southern Methodist University Law Review.  That article proposed necessary improvements to problem-solving courts, several of which are now being implemented in different courts around the country.

Professor Casey was one of the founders of the Criminal Practice Clinic at Columbia University Law School, where he held a position as Fellow in Public Policy and as Associate in Law. 

Before teaching, Casey was a Senior Attorney with the Legal Aid Society in New York City in both the Trial Division and the Criminal Appeals Bureau. While with the Legal Aid Society, Casey developed a nationally significant Coram Nobis practice. Casey has lectured for the American Association of Law Schools, the CATO Institute, and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

Professor Casey received his B.A. from Boston College, his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings, and his L.L.M. from Columbia University.  

"Predatory Lending: Who's to blame?"

Patricia A. McCoy is a Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law in Hartford, CT, teaching financial services regulation, corporate governance, and consumer finance law. She also sits on the board of directors of the Insurance Marketplace Standards Association and the Research Advisory Council of the Center for Responsible Lending and was recently re-elected as the chair-elect for 2006 of the Section on Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services of the Association of American Law Schools. Her lecture will include details about securitization and predatory lending.

Prior to joining the University of Connecticut School of Law faculty, Professor McCoy taught at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University. Before beginning her teaching career, she served as clerk for the late Judge Robert S. Vance of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and was partner at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw in Washington, D.C.

Professor McCoy is involved with the research of systemic risk, market failure, and consumer protection in the banking, securities, and insurance industries. She has published articles on a variety of subjects including: predatory lending, bank director liability, post-socialist business law reforms, corporate governance, and global convergence in banking. She is the author of a book entitled Banking Law Manual: Federal Regulation of Financial Holding Companies, Banks and Thrifts (2d ed. 2000 & cum. supp.) and was a contributor and editor for Financial Modernization After Gramm-Leach-Bliley (2002). Professor McCoy has done extensive lecturing in Russia, Eastern Europe, and China.

Zygmunt J. B. Plater

"Law, Media, and Environmental Policy: A Fundamental Linkage in Sustainable Democratic Governance."

Professor Zygmunt J. B. Plater of Boston College Law School has been an advocate for environmental protection and land use regulation for more than 25 years. He has served as petitioner and lead counsel in the extended endangered species litigation over the Tennessee Valley Authority's Tellico Dam, representing the endangered snail darter, farmers, members of the Cherokee nation, and environmentalists in the Supreme Court of the United States, and before federal agencies and congressional hearings. For two years, he was chairman of the State of Alaska Oil Spill Commission’s Legal Task Force following the wreck of the M/V Exxon-Valdez. He was a consultant to plaintiffs in the Woburn toxic litigation, Anderson et al. v. W.R. Grace et al., the subject of the book and movie A Civil Action.

Professor Plater’s lecture will explore some of the interrelationships between law, media, and environmental analysis at the macro level of national and international concern. It will address issues such as global warming, endocrine disruptors in food supplies, and the micro level of on-the-ground daily lawyering in litigation and local governance and how attorneys can play a greater role in improving such matters.

Prior to joining Boston College, Professor Plater taught at seven law schools. While teaching at the National University of Ethiopia, he redrafted the laws protecting parks and refuges, assisted in publication of the Consolidated Laws of Ethiopia, and helped to organize the first United Nations Conference on Individual Rights in Africa.

A prolific author on environmental law and related issues, Professor Plater has had several of his articles cited in Supreme Court decisions. He is lead author of Environmental Law and Policy: Nature, Law, and Society, (Aspen Publishers, 2004). He was voted the recipient of the Emil Slizewski Faculty Excellence Award by the BCLS Class of 2000.

Professor Plater earned his A.B. from Princeton University, J.D. from Yale University, and  LL.M. and  S.J.D. from University of Michigan.