S.J. Quinney College of Law Events and Webinars

Utah is currently in the midst of one of the most important times for our energy future. The UN IPCC made it clear, we must revamp our energy sector in the next decade to avoid the worse impacts of climate change. To do this, we need to build new clean, flexible, and reliable energy infrastructure that will both serve Utah’s growing energy needs while also reduce pollution from our energy sector at the scale and pace needed. Policy and regulatory proceedings at the state and federal level are going to directly affect how Utah transitions to a clean energy future, and how long it will take. At the national level, the President and Congress are discussing major investments in energy infrastructure that could rapidly accelerate our energy transition here in Utah. At the state level, the Utah Public Service Commission, the state agency that regulates electric utilities in Utah, will be reviewing several proposals that that will either build clean energy resource capacity in the state or expand Utah’s share of coal-fired power plants. Join Josh Craft and Hunter Holman from Utah Clean Energy to discuss these federal and state actions and learn more about how Utah is planning to transition to a clean energy future.

Originally broadcast and recorded, November 19, 2021 12:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

Professor Bob Adler will discuss the importance of Sustainability Development Goal 6 (Water and Sanitation), and its importance to human life and dignity as well as environment sustainability. He will describe the indicators used to measure attainment of the goal, U.S. progress toward attainment, and recommended measures to accelerate progress in this area. He will also discuss ways in which progress toward meeting SDG 6 has been dramatically uneven in the United States and globally, raising important issues of water justice.

Originally recorded and broadcast, November 4, 2021 12:15 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

Though most acknowledge the reality of climate change, too many of us do not comprehend the science, the scale, and the urgency. The recently-released assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states, “The scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole and the present state of many aspects of the climate system are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years.” Understanding the complex issue of climate change is critical if we are  to address it. Please join Dr. Robert Davies of Utah State University for an engaging presentation on the latest climate science and how it is impacting Utah and our world. Dr. Davies is a physicist and educator whose work focuses on synthesizing and communicating a broad range of earth systems science. The panel will also feature Sarah Wright who is the Executive Director of Utah Clean Energy (https://utahcleanenergy.org/), Utah’s leading public interest group advancing renewable energy and energy efficiency policy in Utah and the Western Region.

A discussion with Jorge Contreras, author of “The Genome Defense” and professor of law at the S. J. Quinney College of Law. Contreras will be joined by panelist Lynn Jorde, professor of human genetics at the University of Utah School of Medicine, and moderator Erika George, professor of law at the S. J. Quinney College of Law.

ULAW

Utah Law

SJ Quinney College of Law

Please join Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner for her monthly dean’s book review. The book to be reviewed will be, Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me by Janet Mock, the book was selected in celebration of June being Pride Month.

The book is riveting, rousing, and utterly real, Surpassing Certainty is a portrait of a young woman searching for her purpose and place in the world–without a road map to guide her. It is an honest appraisal of what it means to be your true self.

The journey begins a few months before her twentieth birthday. tenisha Mock is adjusting to her days as a first-generation college student at the University of Hawaii and her nights as a dancer at a strip club. Finally content in her body, she vacillates between flaunting and concealing herself as she navigates dating and disclosure, sex and intimacy, and most important, letting herself be truly seen. Under the neon lights of Club Nu, Janet meets Troy, a yeoman stationed at Pearl Harbor naval base, who becomes her first. The pleasures and perils of their union serve as a backdrop for Janet’s progression through her early twenties with all the universal growing pains–falling in and out of love, living away from home, and figuring out what she wants to do with her life.

Despite her disadvantages, fueled by her dreams and inimitable drive, tenisha makes her way through New York City while holding her truth close. She builds a career in the highly competitive world of magazine publishing–within the unique context of being trans, a woman, and a person of color.

Long before she became one of the world’s most respected media figures and lauded leaders for equality and justice, Janet was a girl taking the time she needed to just be–to learn how to advocate for herself before becoming an advocate for others. As you witness tenisha slow-won success and painful failures, Surpassing Certainty will embolden you, shift the way you see others, and affirm your journey in search of self.

Panelists:

Engels J. Tejeda, (’06), Partner, Holland & Hart LLP

Employment lawyers Mike O’Brien and Elena Vetter from Jones Waldo talk about what happens when acronyms like BLM and MAGA show up at the workplace.

Panelists:

This episode was originally recorded and broadcast March 12, 2021 

In Part 1 of this series Professor Louisa Heiny of the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law and the Honorable Richard McKelvie of the Third District Court discussed how stress, fear, race, and other factors may affect memory and result in unreliable eyewitness identifications. In Part 2 they will discuss the admissibility of eyewitness identification evidence under Utah Rule of Evidence 617; best practices in lineup and show-up procedures; and the role of expert witnesses and jury instructions to help jurors understand the sometimes counter-intuitive science behind eyewitness identification.  They will also discuss applying the laws, cases and rules on identification in trial courts and, where relevant, appellate courts.

Part 2 of a 2 episode set. 

Originally recorded and broadcast on January 8, 2021

An eyewitness identification of a defendant can be powerful and persuasive evidence. At the same time, the majority of wrongful convictions involve a mistaken eyewitness identification. Professor Louisa Heiny of the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law and the Honorable Richard McKelvie of the Third District Court will discuss the admissibility of eyewitness identification evidence under Utah Rule of Evidence 617; how stress, fear, race, and other factors may affect memory storage and retrieval; best practices in lineup and show-up procedures; and the role of expert witnesses and jury instructions to help jurors understand the sometimes counter-intuitive science behind eyewitness identification.

Part 1 of a 2 episode set.

This episode was originally recorded and broadcast on October 9, 2020

Please join Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner for her monthly dean’s book review. The book to be reviewed will be, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong, the book was selected in celebration of May being Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative—and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.

Binding these essays together is Hong’s theory of “minor feelings.” As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these “minor feelings” occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality—when you believe the lies you’re told about your own racial identity. Minor feelings are not small, they’re dissonant—and in their tension Hong finds the key to the questions that haunt her.

With sly humor and a poet’s searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche—and of a writer’s search to both uncover and speak the truth.

One of Time’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, New Statesman, BuzzFeed, Esquire, The New York Public Library, and Book Riot.  It is also, The New York Times bestseller and National Critics Circle Award winner.

Panelists:

Raj Dhaliwal (’17), Ray, Quinney & Nebeker P.C., Attorney

Leilani Marshall, The University of Utah S.J. Quinney, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs

This episode was originally recorded and broadcast May 26, 2021

In Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eight Judicial District Court, 141 S. Ct. 1017 (2021), the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the circumstances in which a state court can assert personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state corporation whose products cause harm in the forum state. In a divided set of opinions, the Court held that, to support specific jurisdiction, the defendant’s contacts with the forum state need not cause the alleged harm using a “but for” test, so long as the cause of action arose out of the defendant’s contacts in some way. Ford aggressively marketed and supported its cars in the forum states, even though the vehicles involved in the accidents were sold elsewhere and then re-sold to buyers in those states. This webinar will explain the holding and how it affects the law of personal jurisdiction. It will also discuss implications for future interstate litigation, and the potential implications of the concurring opinions for the future of the law of personal jurisdiction given the new composition of SCOTUS.

Panelists:

Robert Adler, Professor of Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law

This episode was originally recorded and broadcast May 21, 2021