Professor Michael Lewis recently presented a draft article on the Definition of Torture in the post-9/11 World to the Oxford Roundtable at Pembroke College, Oxford University in the UK. In the months of March and April Professor Lewis also participated in seven presentations on the laws of war. These included debates on the Hamdan opinion (with the attorney for Hamdan), the limits of executive power during wartime, and detainee treatment issues in the war on terror. Professor Lewis traveled to numerous other law schools to participate in these debates, including the University of Florida, Drake University, William and Mary, and Duquesne University.
Professor Scott Gerber has been appointed to the Ohio Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Commission has 51 State Advisory Committees -- one for each state and the District of Columbia. As a member of the Ohio Advisory Committee, Professor Gerber will assist the Commission with its fact-finding, investigative, and information dissemination functions. His 2 year appointment was approved by the Commissioners in April.
Professor Joanne Brant will be speaking at two campus events in March. She will give a presentation for a program titled "Enemy Combatants and the Supreme Court: A Conversation on Boumediene and Al Odah" sponsored by the ONU Federalist Society, and will participate in a debate sponsored by the ONU Christian Legal Society. This past fall, Professor Brant spoke about Morse v. Frederick (popularly known as the "Bong Hits for Jesus" case) at the university's Constitution Day program. She also presented a program on church-state separation to a local service organization. Professor Brant is the coach of the Constitutional Law Moot Court team and was the winner of the law college's Excellence in Teaching Award in 2006.
Professor Scott Gerber recently presented a lecture on "The Declaration and the Constitution: A Libertarian's Perspective" to the law schools at the University of California at Berkeley, Hastings, University of San Francisco, and Golden Gate University. He also presented the lecture to the San Francisco lawyers' chapter of the Federalist Society. Professor Gerber has published three books on the subject.
Professor John Martin’s article “New Estate Planning Techniques” has recently been published in 18 Probate Law Journal of Ohio 108 (2007). The article is based on a presentation Professor Martin gave last fall at the Marvin R. Pliskin Advanced Probate & Estate Planning Seminar sponsored by the Ohio State Bar Association. His presentation was on the topic “Securing Tax Benefits from New Uses of General Powers of Appointment and Other Powers Granted and Retained.” In November, Professor Martin was also a co-presenter at a continuing education seminar entitled, “Charitable Planning in a Changing World,” sponsored by Ohio Northern University. He spoke about “General Rules for Deduction, Valuation, and Substantiation of Charitable Contributions.” Professor Martin received the 2007 Excellence in Teaching Award at ONU and the 2007 Daniel S. Guy Award for Excellence in Legal Journalism, presented by the ONU Law Review.
Professor Michael Lewis's new article, “International Myopia: Hamdan’s Shortcut to ‘Victory’” will appear in the January 2008 issue of the University of Richmond Law Review (42 U. Rich. L.R. 687 (2008)). Professor Lewis, an expert in the law of armed conflict, has also participated in debates and panels at a number of law schools. He was invited to participate as a panelist at Duke Law School's LENS Conference on issues surrounding domestic surveillance. Professor Lewis debated the Military Commissions Act with John Hutson, Dean of the Franklin Pierce School of Law, at Boston College and debated the separation of powers during wartime at the William & Mary School of Law. He also delivered a lecture on the Hamdan opinion at the University of Notre Dame Law School. Professor Lewis flew F-14 fighter jets for the United States Navy, was a Topgun graduate in 1992, and writes in the areas of International Humanitarian Law and national security.
Professor Victor Streib’s research on women and the death penalty was recognized 
in a new ABA death penalty assessment report for Ohio. This report, “Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems: The Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Report,” was released in September 2007, after a 30-month review of Ohio’s death penalty system. It cites to Streib’s new book “The Fairer Death: Executing Women in Ohio” (Ohio University Press, 2006). Professor Streib has also just signed a contract with Thomson West to write a third edition of his book “Death Penalty in a Nutshell.” This book was originally published in 2003, with a second edition in 2005. The third edition will be published in the 2008. Professor Streib was also interviewed and quoted in the news media this summer in connection with two death penalty cases. One article included Streib’s accurate prediction that a then on-going federal death penalty trial of a woman would not result in the death penalty (“Two women wait on federal death row,” Youngstown Vindicator, 7/15/2007), while another provided a very positive review of his book “The Fairer Death” (“Executioner sure to skip lone woman on death row,” Columbus Dispatch, 5/3/2007).
Professor Howard Fenton recently contributed two chapters to the 2007 publication 
Administrative Justice in Ukraine: Problems, Theory and Practice, A Resource Manual for Judges published by the Administrative High Court of Ukraine, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development. Professor Fenton wrote Chapter Two “The establishment and development of administrative justice. Main models of administrative justice.” and Chapter 8, “Decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on issues of administrative justice. The procedure for execution of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.” Professor Fenton was also invited to participate in the conference “The Participation of the Government in the Legislative Process” held in Warsaw, Poland in September 2007. It was sponsored by the Legislative Council of the Polish Cabinet and the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. Professor Fenton moderated the opening session, which included the presentation and discussion of the paper “The Model of the Executive in Poland” by Professor Boguslaw Banaszak, Chairman of the Legislative Council.
Professor Stephen Veltri has recently concluded his 3-year term as Chair of the ABA Section of Business Law's UCC Subcommittee on Payments. The work of this committee has been especially important to the practicing bar due to major changes in the law of Payments. New initiatives such as the “Check 21 Act" were made easier to understand through the programming of this committee. Professor Veltri has written widely in the field of payments and serves as the editor of the Annual Survey of Development in Commercial Law published each August in The Business Lawyer.
Professor Scott Douglas Gerber has published his sixth book, a legal thriller entitled The Law Clerk: A Novel (Ohio Northern University Press/Kent State University Press, 2007). A review of the book is available online at here.
