NINE PENN STATE DICKINSON LAW SCHOLARS PRESENT AT 2024 AALS ANNUAL MEETING
January 2024 — The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) 2024 Annual Meeting featured nine Penn State Dickinson Law scholars who served as panelists, moderators, and speakers. The four-day meeting took place in Washington, D.C. under the theme of “Defending Democracy,” and featured 250 sessions, welcoming more than 2,300 law faculty, deans, administrators, and scholars.
“Law schools can play a critical role in the future of our country and our democracy,” 2023 AALS President Mark Alexander stressed. “Our work begins with three pillars that define every law school: curriculum, scholarship, and culture. When we raise our collective voice, people listen.”
Scholars from Penn State Dickinson Law who raised their voices at this year’s annual meeting included:
- Jeffrey A. Dodge, Assistant Professor of Law, Joseph H. Goldstein Faculty Scholar, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and chair of the AALS Student Services section, served on the panel “Post-COVID Professionalism: Confronting and Embracing the New Normal” where he discussed the importance of authenticity when modeling professionalism. Dean Dodge also moderated the panel “Teaching Reproductive Rights” which discussed the integration of reproductive justice teachings into the family and juvenile law curriculum, and was a speaker during the panel “The Pandemics Era’s Impact on Law Students, the Classroom, and the Legal Academy” which explored the emerging research surrounding the long-term impact of the pandemic on the mental health of young adults.
- Amy C. Gaudion, Associate Professor of Law and Chair of the AALS Section on National Security Law, moderated the “Defending Democracy: Re-focusing the National Security Lens to Examine Threats from Within” panel which explored national security threats including the use of artificial intelligence in psychological warfare, the rise in domestic violent extremism in the U.S., and cybersecurity threats. Professor Gaudion also moderated a works-in-progress program titled “New Perspectives on National Security Law” which involved a panel discussion designed to bring new perspectives to the ever-evolving field of national security law.
- Sara Gerke, Assistant Professor of Law, presented her recent paper “Decoding U.S. Tort Liability in Healthcare’s Black-Box Era: Lessons from the EU” with co-author Mindy Duffourc (forthcoming in the Stanford Technology Law Review) in the “New Voices in Law, Medicine, and Health Care” session at AALS. Her paper examines the ways in which the rapid development of sophisticated AI tools in healthcare offers possibilities for improving medical treatment while presenting unique challenges in the current liability framework.
- Alison F. Lintal, Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, spoke at the AALS annual program for the Section on Aging and the Law titled “Preparing for the Demands of an Aging Population.” Her presentation “Aging in Place through Shared Housing” delved into the housing affordability, accessibility, and care needs of older adults which lead to the search for innovative housing solutions, including shared housing. She examined the financial and social-emotional benefits of shared housing, legal barriers to residing with an unrelated “family of choice” and ideas for policy and regulatory reform.
- Medha D. Makhlouf, Elsie de R. and Samuel P. Orlando Distinguished Professor and Director of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic at Penn State Dickinson Law, organized and moderated “The End of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency: Lessons Learned and the Future of Pandemic Law & Policy” which addressed topics including telehealth regulation, global vaccine allocations, and emergency use authorizations. As the Vice Chair of the AALS Section on Law, Medicine & Health Care, Medha also organized the Section’s New Voices program and presented her paper, “The Legal Construction of Health Emergencies” during the Section on Poverty Law’s program, “Structural Barriers and Systemic Interventions for Economic and Social Mobility” alongside co-author, Jin K. Par.
- Samantha Prince, Assistant Professor of Law and Director of Legal Analysis and Writing, presented her work on retirement plan vesting schedule use (abuse) by high turnover businesses and the inequities resulting therefrom, during the “Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation” session. The presentation primarily consisted of research from her article, “Megacompany Employee Churn Meets 401(k) Vesting Schedules: A Sabotage on Workers’ Retirement Wealth,” which was published as the lead article in the Yale Law & Policy Review in November 2023.
- Robin Fulton Langhans, Director of Alumni Relations and co-chair of the AALS Institutional Advancement section, coordinated and moderated the panel “Fostering Diversity in Legal Education: From Recruitment to Graduation and Beyond.” The panel explored the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in all aspects of legal education and alumni engagement. Bekah Saidman-Krauss, Associate Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid, served on the panel and shared her holistic approach to admissions, along with the tools she utilizes to recruit a diverse incoming class and coordinate inclusive admitted student events.
- Sabrina Sondhi, Director of the Law Library and Professor of Legal Research, was one of seven scholars whose works in progress were selected from a call for papers of law librarians and discussed during the Law Libraries and Legal Information session. The paper she co-authored, “Safeguarding Legal Information for the Future: What Libraries (and Lawyers) Should be Doing,” explores the trend of legal information moving from print and trending towards digital leasing models, and who will preserve that information for the legal community in the future.
Dickinson Law’s Antiracist Development Institute also had a strong presence at AALS this year. ADI Program Manager TaWanda Hunter Stallworth met with more than 100 law school faculty members, administrators, and deans at the annual meeting to discuss the groundbreaking work of the ADI and the forthcoming publication of the Building an Antiracist Law School, Legal Academy, and Legal Profession nine-volume book series. “The AALS annual meeting was the perfect opportunity for us to interface with chapter contributors, editors, and systems designers from across the country and to witness their reaction to the news that the book series is ahead of schedule,” said Hunter Stallworth.
