The Podvocate

n this episode, Neha Alety sits down with Hannah Sweeney, associate attorney at Pavich Law Group and former Loyola Chicago School of Law graduate. Hannah shares her experiences as a female litigator in a male-dominated field. We begin our discussion with her career path and background and her experiences in law school. She then discusses the gender-based challenges she’s faced in her career and how she’s navigated the male-dominated area of litigation. Though challenging, Ms. Sweeney also talks about how being a woman in law has given her a unique approach to her practice. Lastly, she gives some advice to future female attorneys on what she wished she had known before entering the field of law.

Research & Sources:

Maureen Mulligan, Continuing Our Conversations on Gender Equity, American Bar Association, April 7, 2021, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/diversity/women/publications/perspectives/2021/april/continuing-our-conversations-gender-equity/

Sarah Thomas, Creating Space at the Table: Succeeding as a Felae in the Still Male-Dominated Field of Law, ABA Journal, June 29, 2023, https://www.abajournal.com/voice/article/lowering-the-ladder-succeeding-as-a-female-in-the-still-male-dominated-field-of-law

International Women’s Day: What Does the Legal Profession Look Like for Women in 2021?, Law Careers, March 8, 2021, https://www.lawcareers.net/Explore/Features/08032021-International-Womens-Day-what-does-the-legal-profession-look-like-for

Jaline S. Fenwick, See Her; Hear Her: The Historical Evolution of Women in Law and Advocacy for the Path Ahead, American Bar Association, November 15, 2023, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/business-law-today/2023-november/see-her-hear-her-historical-evolution-women-in-law/

Resources:

ABA Women in the Profession

Includes online toolkits and literature

This is the first episode in a new series called Access to Justice, which explores the growing gap of access to legal resources in different areas of the United States.

Legal deserts – defined by the American Bar Association as a county with fewer than one lawyer per 1000 people – are spreading across rural areas of the country. Indiana is facing a statewide attorney shortage and has seen rural legal deserts increase significantly in recent years. In 2024, the Indiana Supreme Court convened the Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future to address the state’s growing attorney shortage.

Associate Editor Mary Bandstra sits down with Judge Melissa May from the Court of Appeals of Indiana to discuss the legal desert issue and Judge May’s work as a member of the Commission’s Incentivizing Rural Practice working group.

Research & Sources:

Hon, Melissa S. May & Michael Moore, Indiana Legal Deserts: Where We Are, How We Got Here, and What We Can Do, Res Gestae Vol. 67 No. 4 Nov 2023. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.inbar.org/resource/resmgr/pdfs/November_2023_RG.pdf

Alexa Shrake, High Court Approves Recommendations to Address Attorney Shortage, Inside Indiana Business, October 4, 2024. https://www.insideindianabusiness.com/articles/high-court-approves-recommendations-from-commission-on-indianas-legal-future

Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future (includes links to interim report): https://www.in.gov/courts/admin/legal-future/

Resources for Hoosiers seeking legal assistance:

Indiana Legal Help: https://indianalegalhelp.org/

Indiana Legal Services: https://www.indianalegalservices.org/

Indianapolis Legal Aid Society (https://www.indylas.org/)

Please enjoy this recording of an event held on campus on November 21!

"Three years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan has led to the “striking” erasure of women from public life. Join Najia Mahmodi and Juliet Sorensen for a conversation on gender persecution in Afghanistan today and the path forward."

We often hear the term “law of the land,” where a legal framework is based on common or civil law. But what laws apply once we venture off dry land and out to sea? That’s where maritime law (or admiralty law) comes into play. Sometimes called the Law of the Sea, maritime law consists of laws, conventions, and treaties governing business, crime, and international disputes on open waters. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is considered the constitution of the ocean; it provides a foundation for international cooperation and collaboration in protecting marine life, establishing trade routes, preventing trafficking and crime, ensuring fair and reasonable sovereignty of the use and protection of coastal waters, and more. This episode is a brief introduction into the history of UNCLOS, the U.S.’s influence on the enforcement of UNCLOS, and current issues in in maritime law. In future episodes, we’ll dive deeper into modern maritime issues affecting global trade, the environment, and national security.

Research & Sources:

Youtube.com, The A, B, and Seas of UNCLOS: What is UNCLOS,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore, .

Youtube.com, “President Obama Speaks to West Point Graduates,” The Obama White House, May 28, 2014, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_hX_XM4Ks>.

Youtube.com, “The Science of UNCLOS,” Fisheries and Oceans Canada. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCttmsixQpc/

U.S. Navy Jag Corps, “The Convention on the Law of the Sea,” Navy Jag Corps website, https://www.jag.navy.mil/national-security/law-of-the-sea/.

Center for Preventive Action, “Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea,” Council on Foreign Relations, Global Conflict Tracker, September 17, 2024, https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/territorial-disputes-south-china-sea.

Resources:

United Nations, “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 Overview and full text,” Ocean & Law of the Seas, Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, last updated June 24, 2024, https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/convention_overview_convention.htm.

International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, https://www.itlos.org/en/main/the-tribunal/the-tribunal/.

Congressional Research Service, “United Nations: Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS): Living Resources Provisions,” Summary No. R47744, Updated July 15, 2024, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47744.

Distinguished Professor in Residence Dean Strang sits down with Associate Editor Katie Dorsey to discuss the 1924 Leopold and Loeb trial, Clarence Darrow’s career, and how this “Trial of the Century” created a lasting legacy that is still relevant 100 years later.

Research & Sources:

To learn more about the Leopold and Loeb crimes and trial, check out The Leopold and Loeb Files: An Intimate Look at One of America's Most Infamous Crimes by Nina Barrett, https://www.bookendsandbeginnings.com/book/9781572842403

A 21st-Century Reconsideration of Leopold and Loeb: Clarence Darrow, Adolescent Development, and the Criminal Legal System Today, Video recording of live event: https://www.newberry.org/calendar/leopold-and-loeb

Worse than the Devil: Anarchists, Clarence Darrow, and Justice in a Time of Terror by Dean Strang, https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/5608.htm

Resources:

People of the State of Illinois vs. Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb (1924) transcripts: https://archives.newberry.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/19625

Author Nina Barrett (The Leopold and Loeb Files) and Associate Editor Katie Dorsey tell the story of the Leopold and Loeb murder and trial, which changed the field of criminal defense in America with ramifications that echo even today and the circumstances that make this horrifying crime still shocking and relevant a century later.

Research & Sources:  

To learn more about the Leopold and Loeb crimes and trial, check out The Leopold and Loeb Files: An Intimate Look at One of America's Most Infamous Crimes by Nina Barrett, https://www.bookendsandbeginnings.com/book/9781572842403

A 21st-Century Reconsideration of Leopold and Loeb: Clarence Darrow, Adolescent Development, and the Criminal Legal System Today, Video recording of live event: https://www.newberry.org/calendar/leopold-and-loeb

Resources: 

People of the State of Illinois vs. Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb (1924) transcripts: https://archives.newberry.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/19625

Visit Nina Barrett’s bookstore, Bookends and Beginnings, in Evanston, Illinois. https://www.bookendsandbeginnings.com/

Until the supreme court case Alton v NCAA in 2021, collegiate athletes could not monetize their athletic ability while in college. This episode explores the history and creation of the NCAA, the regulatory body of college sports. It will cover the early issues the NCAA faced. It then turns to the advent of amateurism and the term “student-athlete” the legal framework the NCAA used to protect itself from wages and workmen’s compensation claims by athletes. Then the episode will finish with a discussion of the current NIL landscape of college athletics post the Alston decision in 2021.

Research & Sources:

Judgments

National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston, 594 U.S. ____ (2021)

O'Bannon v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 802 F.3d 1049 (2015)

Waldrep v. Texas Employers Insurance Association, 21 S.W.3d 602 (2000)

State Compensation Ins. Fund. V Industrial Com’n., 314 P.2d 288 (1957)

Books

Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes by Walter Byers (1995)

The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA by Taylor Branch (2011)

Online Sources

NCAA Punishes Missouri in Blatant Academic Fraud Case

Kent Waldrep, Athlete Whose Injury Led to Advocacy, Dies at 67

The NCAA coined the term ‘student-athlete’ in the 1950s. Its time might be up.

Congressmen propose bill that would legally protect NCAA

IN THE KINGDOM OF THE SOLITARY MAN

Explosion: 1951 scandals threaten college hoops

History of NCAA

Antitrust Standards of Review: The Per Se, Rule of Reason, and Quick Look Tests

NCAA antitrust settlement effort challenged by lawyer from Ed O'Bannon case

COLLEGES ADOPT THE 'SANITY CODE' TO GOVERN SPORTS; N.C.A.A. Bans Scholarships in Which Athletic Ability Is the Major Factor

Resources:

Schooled: The Price of College Sports

What is NIL in college sports? How do athlete deals work?

Check out the prior NIL episodes by former editors, which came out right after the Alston decision.

Survivors of domestic violence and intimate partner violence are particularly vulnerable to conviction and incarceration for the crimes of their abusive partners. Our criminal legal system’s refusal to understand and present the full context of a survivor-defendant's experience and abuse when assessing criminal culpability. In this episode, I will give a broad overview of accomplice liability, coercion and duress, using the story of Nancy Rish. Nancy was sentenced to natural life imprisonment for a first-degree murder she was not aware of under the theory of accomplice liability.

Pleadings (By Margaret Bryne):

People v. Rish, No. 87 CF 321, Petition for Relief from Judgment

2021 Petition for Executive Clemency for Nancy Rish

2014 Post-Conviction Petition Based on Actual Innocence

2016 Petition Based on Mitigating Evidence of Domestic Violence

Judgments:

People v. Rish, 566 N.E.2d 919 (Ill.App.3d, 1991).

People v. Rish, 2017 IL App. (3d) 160091-U.

People v. Rish, 2021 IL App. (3d) 190446.

Sources:

John F. Decker, The Mental State Requirement for Accomplice Liability in American Criminal Law, 60 S. C. L. Rev. 237 (2008).

Shannon Heffernan, Serving Time for Their Abusers’ Crimes, The Marshall Project, Jun. 13, 2024, at 6:00am. Last accessed Nov. 07, 2024.

Nothing says Halloween like scary stories about your 1L year! Students from Loyola share stories about their 1L nightmares – the scary, crazy, embarrassing, or super stressful things they experienced during 1L that STILL haunt them to this day. From final exam blunders to real-life crime scenes, hear about some of the crazy scenarios that law students dealt with during their first year of law school, and how they managed to bounce back from those situations to succeed in law school. Additionally, we’re including a list of resources available to law students from Loyola and beyond to assist in dealing with any of their own personal nightmares they may experience during law school.

 Resources:

Loyola University Chicago Wellness Center 

Provides medical, mental, and health promotion services. Most services are included in the Student Activity Fee and thus are free-of-charge to students, regardless of health insurance coverage. Check out some of the mental health resources for law students.

 National Alliance on Mental Illness – Chicago

Several resources for mental health needs, housing, LGBTQIA+, Sexual and Domestic Violence, and more.

In this episode, I talked to Professor Crepelle about some of the fundamentals of Federal Indian Law. We discussed the federal and state government’s relationship with tribes, jurisdictional limitations tribes face when attempting to prosecute non-Indians, restorative justice within the courts, as well as Professor Crepelle’s personal experience which led him to this field. To explain these issues, we look at the problematic history of Federal Indian Law and how case law has shaped the laws tribes face today. We further discussed the Violence Against Women Act and how Supplemental Jurisdiction could be used to expand the jurisdictional limitations placed on tribes.

Research & Sources:  

 https://socialchangenyu.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Adam-Crepelle_RLSC_44.4.pdf

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2459&context=mlr

Resources: 

What Native Land am I on: https://native-land.ca/

Learn more about the Houma Nation: https://unitedhoumanation.org/