NACLE’S 2007 CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
NEW YORK CITY, APRIL 12 – 15, 2007

The 2007 edition of NACLE’S Annual Workshop for faculty and students, hosted by Fordham University Law School from April 12 to 15, brought 45 faculty and students to New York City for three days filled with keynote lectures, roundtable discussions, and student paper presentations. NACLE’s workshops are forums for stimulating discussions of comparative North American law that engage faculty and students, and this year’s edition was unusually rich in the variety of subjects explored – from comparative information law and privacy issues, to comparative criminal law enforcement and comparative family law.

NACLE’s 2007 Workshop was co-sponsored with Fordham’s Center for Law and Information Policy, and the Americas Society/Council of the Americas.

For more details, click on this link for the full 2007 workshop program: New York 2007

NACLE workshops are far from monastic encounters, however. In addition to academic discussions, NACLE workshops would be incomplete without non-academic (though not anti-academic) socialization and conviviality. New York City in April did not disappoint us in this regard, and we may have set a new NACLE record for stimulating sessions followed by intense conviviality (not to mention lack of sleep, especially by the students).

For images and comments on the all-important “social agenda” of NACLE, click here: Gallery

NACLE BUSINESS MEETING - a separate report on the NACLE annual business meeting, held in conjunction with the workshop, is available at Business Report

OPENING SESSIONS – FRIDAY, APRIL 13

Friday’s sessions were held at the stately Park Avenue headquarters of the New York-based Americas Society/Council of the Americas, a private, non-profit organization supported by businesses to stress Inter-American cooperation (see www.americas-society.org). Professor Joel Reidenberg, Director of Fordham’s Center for Law and Information Policy, welcomed the participants at the opening session, which began with a keynote address by Raymond Nimmer, Dean of the University of Houston Law Center and an internationally recognized expert in information law. Professor Stephen Zamora, on behalf of NACLE, thanked Joel Reidenberg for his support and efforts in bringing the workshop to fruition, and also thanked Fordham’s Toni Fine, Assistant Dean for International and Non-J.D. Programs, for her work in helping to organize the event.



In his keynote speech, entitled “The New Boundaries of North American Law in the Information Age,” Dean Nimmer addressed the need to re-examine traditional concepts regarding the reach and effects of legal norms, beyond the limits traditionally imposed by geographical distance.



Dean Nimmer’s provocative address was followed by a compelling panel discussion on “Protecting Borders in the Information Age – Balancing Data, Privacy and National Security in North America.” Professor Arthur Cockfield, of Canada’s Queen’s University, presented the findings of a study conducted by Canadian and U.S. legal and social science researchers. Thomas Halket, a member of Fordham Law School’s adjunct faculty and the name partner of a New York-based law firm, and Alexander Southwell, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York City who is also a member of Fordham’s adjunct faculty followed up on legal issues of privacy. And Prof. Joel Reidenberg, a leading expert in information law and privacy, rounded out the discussion.

The morning session concluded with a presentation by a member of the Americas Society staff, summarizing a report of the Americas Society Rule of Law Working Group. In a question-and-answer session following the presentation, several of the NACLE faculty questioned whether cultural biases influenced either the project’s design, its conclusions, or the policy recommendations that may emanate from any final report. There was general agreement, however, on the need to strengthen legal institutions in the hemisphere, while allowing flexibility for societal values and preferences.

Fordham Law School Dean William Treanor attended Friday’s Luncheon meeting to welcome the NACLE participants. Dean Treanor also gave a warm and gracious introduction of our Luncheon speaker, the Honorable Guido Calabresi, Judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and former Dean of the Yale Law School. Dean Treanor’s gracious introduction highlighted how Judge Calabresi’s writings influenced the development of both academic and judicial legal analysis in the United States, as an early advocate of economic analysis of rules of law.



The subject of Judge Calabresi’s luncheon talk was “The Importance of Comparative North American Legal Education.” He spoke eloquently of the need for comparative studies generally, and of the inherent value of looking at a legal system from without in order to gain insight in observations of how it operates. Judge Calabresi also discussed the value of NACLE, and spoke generously of the contributions of Professor Stephen Zamora, of the University of Houston, one of NACLE’s founders.

Friday afternoon’s sessions were taken up with presentations by NACLE student paper competition winners. Click here for a discussion of the student paper presentations: Student Competition

SATURDAY SESSIONS – APRIL 14

Saturday’s sessions convened at Fordham Law School’s Lincoln Center campus, in the shadow of the Metropolitan Opera in midtown Manhattan. The morning sessions offered three concurrent sessions with faculty from NACLE’s Canadian, Mexican and U.S. members.

NACLE’s Information Law Roundtable involving Professors Roberto Garza Barbosa (Monterrey Tec), Fabien Gelinas (McGill), Francisco Ibarra Palafox (UNAM-IIJ), Esteban Lara (Universidad Panamericana), Elizabeth Judge (Ottawa), Chidi Oguamanam (Dalhousie), and Joel Reidenberg (Fordham), discussed issues arising from the increasingly pervasive influence of information technology on society, including the effects of the internet on preserving an open society while protecting democratic values, and issues related to liability arising out of the use of information technology.

NACLE’s Family Law Roundtable, which included Professors Barbara Atwood (Arizona), Adriana Canales (CIDE), Graciela Jasa Silveira (Sonora), Nicole La Violette (Ottawa), Robert Leckey (McGill), Tom Oldham (Houston), and Catherine Ross (GWU) discussed the substantive and procedural issues involved in organizing a third “edition” of the Comparative Family Law Course last offered in 2004 by Family Law Professors at Ottawa, Houston, Arizona and Sonora.

The participants discussed combining forces to collect background reading materials for the course, which involves significant interaction among students from Canada, Mexico and the United States. With Mexican and Canadian professors and students, the course is expected to provide insights into differences of family law and procedure under the common law and civil law traditions. The Criminal Law Roundtable, with participation of Professors Bruce Archibald (Dalhousie), Susan Karamanian (GWU), Carlos Vilalta (CIDE) and Sandra Guerra Thompson (Houston), discussed comparisons of prosecutorial effectiveness in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Following the concurrent workshops, Daniel Auld, Fordham Law School’s Director of Technology, Communications and Academic Support, led a pedagogical workshop on the using technology to further NACLE’s goal of increasing the interaction among faculty and students in different countries, and of generating comparative perspectives on legal issues. Dan’s presentation, “Taking Advantage of Technology without It Taking All of Your Time,” demonstrated examples of existing technologies available to all our members could be harnessed to connect students and faculty, either formally in courses or informally in discussions groups or forums. He drew the group’s attention to an initiative of NACLE’s coordinator and webmaster, Jeremy Binkley, who created a website, www.nacleforums.org, for this purpose. He also demonstrated videoconference capabilities using affordable software and equipment. The presentation was extremely helpful, and NACLE is grateful to Dan for having expanded our knowledge with regard to using the internet to greater advantage.

Professor Graciela Jasa Silveira, of the Universidad de Sonora, who has cooperated with NACLE’s family law faculty in the teaching of a Comparative Family Law course via the internet, also discussed that group’s experience in using distance learning methods to connect our students.

Following the pedagogical session, the three groups of faculty – information law, family law, and criminal law – reconvened briefly to discuss specific ways in which each group could develop projects using the internet.

The final workshop sessions on Saturday involved student paper presentations, and these are summarized at Student Competition