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Festival
February 2 @ 9:00 am - 7:00 pm
On February 2, 2024, the UNC Law Alumni Association will present Festival, a boutique offering of CLE exclusively for Carolina Law alumni. Join us at the Carolina Club for a full day of interesting CLE taught by beloved professors, including Dean Martin H. Brinkley.
This curated Festival offering will satisfy six hours of CLE, including professional responsibility and substance abuse/mental health.
This premier program is $180 and includes six hours of CLE credit (pending approval), continental breakfast, lunch, and a reception with members of the Carolina Law community including faculty, students, alumni, and staff.
Festival 2024 Schedule:
8:00 – 9:00 AM Check-in and continental breakfast
9:00 AM Opening Remarks
9:20 – 10:20 AM “Professionalism” Standards and the First Amendment (PR)
Mary-Rose Papandrea, Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law, UNC School of Law
Soon after students at Stanford Law School disrupted Judge Kyle Duncan’s speech at a Federalist Society event in March 2023, Dean Jenny Martinez issued an eloquent statement explaining why robust protections for the free of expression are essential for the mission of legal education. Curiously, however, her memo included an argument that “[l]ively, candid, civil, and evidence-based discourse in disagreement is not just positive for our community, constituted as it is in difference, it is a professional duty.” (emphasis added) As it turns out, when Dean Martinez wrote this statement, the California Bar was considering the adoption of an enforceable civility standard for admitted lawyers. Such standards are common throughout the country, although most are unenforceable. Relatedly, lower courts have rejected First Amendment challenges to university decisions to regulate student speech that is inconsistent with the professionalism standards of the relevant discipline. This session will focus on the First Amendment concerns that civility and professionalism standards would raise for both the bar and for law schools.
Session Materials: Endorsed Petition re Civility Rules, Greenberg v. Lehocky, Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L. by and through Levy, Next Steps on Protests and Free Speech, Speech First, Inc. v. Sands, Tatro v. University of Minnesota
10:20 – 10:30 AM Break
10:30 – 11:30 AM The Law of Presidential Accountability
Michael J. Gerhardt, Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, UNC School of Law
Professor Gerhardt will discuss what we know, and do not know, about the constitutional mechanisms for holding presidents accountable for their misconduct. These questions still dominate the news, not just because Donald Trump is running again for president but also because the House has begun three impeachment inquiries against President Biden. He will discuss the basic law governing presidential accountability, including impeachment, the scope of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment as a mechanism for rendering ineligible anyone running for president who has incited insurrection in violation of their constitutional oaths, how the 25th amendment’s procedures for temporarily suspending presidents, whether censure is constitutional, the procedures required in impeachment trials, and whether there are any precedents that will help to guide the nation as it moves increasingly closer to election day and beyond.
Session Materials: The Trump Impeachments: Lessons for the Constitution, Presidents, Congress, Justice, Lawyers, and the Public, How Impeachment Works
11:30 – 12:30 PM Lunch
12:40 – 1:40 PM Hot Topics at the U.S. Supreme Court
David S. Ardia, Reef C. Ivey II Excellence Fund Term Professor of Law, UNC School of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Media Law and Policy; Osamudia James, Professor of Law, UNC School of Law; Elizabeth Fisher, Adjunct Professor, UNC School of Law with moderator and panelist: Mary-Rose Papandrea, Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law, UNC School of Law
This panel will discuss some of the hot topics before the U.S. Supreme Court, including several First Amendment and social media cases, the future of the Chevron doctrine, and a double jeopardy case featuring Carolina Law’s Supreme Court program.
Session Materials: McElrath Brief for the Petitioner, McElrath v. State of Georgia Petition for Writ of Certiorari
1:40 – 2:40 PM Attorney Mental Health: General concepts, individual experience (SA/MH)
David Kouba ‘02, Arnold & Porter
This engaging session will focus on attorney mental health, including issues that frequently impact attorneys and strategies for recognizing and responding to those issues. Informed by ethical considerations and legal obligations, the presentation will draw from David’s education, experience, and observations as an attorney and trained mental health counselor and attempt to make mental health issues clearer and more relatable.
Session Materials: Attorney Mental Health: General Concepts… Individual Experiences (PPT)
2:40 – 2:50 PM Break
2:50 – 3:50 PM Generative AI in Legal Education & Law Practice
Nicole M. Downing, Clinical Associate Professor of Law and the Assistant Director for Public Services, Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, UNC School of Law and Pete Nemerovski, Clinical Associate Professor, UNC School of Law
Professors Downing and Nemerovski have spent much of 2023 studying the impact of Generative AI on legal education and law practice, and both have incorporated GenAI into their courses. In this presentation, they will share their experiences with GenAI and their thoughts on how lawyers and law students will engage with this technology in the years to come. The topics covered will include teaching students about prompt engineering, differences between legal and non-legal GenAI programs, and the potential for GenAI to help lawyers better serve their clients.
Session Materials: Generative AI in Legal Education & Practice (PPT), Generative Artificial Intelligence in Legal Education and Law Practice- Nemerovski Slides (PPT), Generative AI Exercise Handout
3:50 – 4:00 PM Break
4:00 – 5:00 PM UNC Law School: The First Century, 1843-1939
Martin H. Brinkley, Dean and William Rand Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Law and Director, UNC Law Institute for Innovation
This session will chart the history of UNC Law School from its inception as an experiment in blending private and university legal education in the 1840s, through its emergence as a “modern” law school at the opening of World War II. He will cover public resistance to Carolina’s halting efforts to adopt the reforms in legal education fostered by Harvard Law School Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell, through the eventual triumph of the Langdellian “case method” under Dean Merton Leroy Ferson and President Harry Woodburn Chase in the early 1920s.
Session Materials: A New Model Law School
5:00 – 6:00 PM Reception with law students
Space is limited and will be based on a first come basis.
