James Romano’s interests are out of this world. The 2L at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law is intrigued by the futuristic sounding concept of space law, but is quick to note that there’s nothing futuristic about it.

“More private companies are rapidly entering space,” Romano said, “and I’m deeply interested in the question of ‘What does the future of space look like?’”

While Romano’s focus may be directed upward, his trajectory on Earth is quickly ascending.

Romano is one of 14 scholars selected as a Rumsfeld Foundation Graduate Fellow for 2023-24. The fellowships, named in honor of the late former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald W. Rumsfeld, are awarded to students and scholars who aspire to careers in public service.

For Romano, a Columbia City, Ind. native, earning the fellowship is evidence he’s on the right track.

“I came to IU specifically because of the Direct Admit program Maurer has with undergraduate programs,” he said. “I knew I’d always wanted to study law, so I joined the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies for its International Law and Institutions program.”

That background in international law intersects perfectly with Romano’s interest in space law.

“I wrote my undergraduate thesis on private liability in outer space,” he said. “I analyzed what other countries do—looking at the national laws of places like China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa and did a comparative study of their regulations. My research suggested there should be a more international focus to how we regulate space law.”

Romano also used his 1L year to serve as a research assistant with the newly formed Space Governance Lab, part of the prestigious Ostrom Workshop. The lab hosts a variety of research projects and events and offers courses on space law and governance, and additional support to students interested in space law. Romano also founded the Law School’s Space Law Society, one of the school’s newest student organizations.

“James has been a key part of the team investigating cutting-edge issues of space cybersecurity in the war in Ukraine, and otherwise,” said Scott Shackelford, Provost Professor of Business Law and Ethics at the IU Kelley School of Business and executive director of the Ostrom Workshop. “I couldn’t be more excited about his selection as a Rumsfeld Fellow, or more appreciative of his outstanding work with the Ostrom Workshop’s Space Governance Policy Lab.”

Over 75 percent of alumni of the Graduate Fellowship Program are currently serving in public service or policy fields, including in a wide variety of capacities in the Departments of Defense, State and Treasury, the U.S. military, U.S. Congress, state and local government, policy and research centers, academia and more.

Nearly a year to the day since it was published, a book from incoming Indiana University Maurer School of Law faculty member has earned an Independent Publisher Book Award (“IPPY.”)

Professor Valena Beety’s Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights won the Gold Medal in Women’s Issues. Since 1997, the Independent Publisher Book Awards have been recognizing the best independently published books each year.

Released on May 30, 2022, Beety’s book has already won two other prestigious awards—the Montaigne Medal and the Sarton Nonfiction Award—this spring.

“Professor Beety is a tremendous teacher and scholar, and we’re proud to see her important work recognized with a number of awards this spring,” said Indiana Law Dean Christiana Ochoa.

Manifesting Justice focuses on the shocking story of Beety’s client Leigh Stubbs—a young, queer woman in Mississippi, convicted of a horrific crime she did not commit because of her sexual orientation. Beety weaves Stubbs’s harrowing narrative through the broader story of a broken criminal justice system where defendants—including disproportionate numbers of women of color and LGBTQ+ individuals—are convicted due to racism, prejudice, coerced confessions, and false identifications.

Drawing on interviews with both innocence advocates and wrongfully convicted women, along with Beety’s own experiences as an expert litigator and a queer woman, the book provides a unique outsider/insider perspective. Beety expands our notion of justice to include not just people who are factually innocent, but those who are over-charged, pressured into bad plea deals, and over-sentenced. The result is a riveting and timely book that not only advocates for reforming the conviction process—it will transform our very ideas of crime and punishment, what innocence is, and who should be free.

Beety joined the Maurer School of Law in May, bringing her expertise in criminal justice, wrongful convictions, and equality to Bloomington.

Her scholarship is published widely, most notably in the Northwestern Law Review, the North Carolina Law Review, the Ohio State Law Journal, the Florida Law Review and the online companions to the NYU Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, and the Emory Law Journal.

Beety will be discussing Manifesting Justice, the first book to address wrongful convictions of LGBTQ+ people, at Indianapolis bookstore Indy Reads on June 11 at 2 p.m. Beety and fellow Maurer Professor Jennifer Oliva will examine the connections between the recent rise in hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people, legislation against gender-affirming healthcare, and how queer people are vulnerable to being wrongly arrested and wrongly convicted because of their identities.

A committee chaired by an Indiana University Maurer School of Law professor will complete next week its five-year charge to review the analysis performed by a team investigating how best to treat and dispose of low-level waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington.

John S. Applegate, the James L. Calamaras Professor of Law, has served as chair of the 13-member National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee since 2018. The committee will conclude its work with a public meeting in Richland, Washington, on June 6. Applegate had previously chaired a prior review of the waste disposal issue from 2017-2020.

The committee’s formation and work stems from the storage of radioactive and other hazardous wastes at the Hanford site, where approximately two-thirds of the nation’s plutonium stockpile for nuclear weapons was produced from 1944 to 1987.

With roughly 56 million gallons of waste stored in 177 underground tanks, the treatment and disposal of that waste is expected to take up to 50 years at a cost of more than $50 billion.

To best determine a cleanup plan, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management was required by Congress to produce a framework that would evaluate different treatment options. The DOE contracted with FFRDCs to conduct that analysis with the National Academies committee serving as an independent reviewer of that analysis.

“Our role is to evaluate the quality and completeness of the Federally Funded Research and Development Center report, which will then inform the decision-making process of the U.S. Department of Energy and Congress on how to treat supplemental low-activity waste,” Applegate said.

The committee has produced three reports analyzing the FFRDC report, and will conclude its work with a fourth and final report summarizing public comments and whether the committee believes any of those comments merits a change in their findings.

Applegate, a nationally recognized environmental law scholar, has been widely cited for his work in environmental risk assessment and policy analysis.

He is a co-author of a leading books on the subject: The Regulation of Toxic Substances and Hazardous Wastes, and Environmental Law: RCRA, CERCLA, and the Management of Hazardous Waste.

He has served on previous NASEM committees related to radioactive waste, especially from nuclear weapons production, over the course of his career.

The Indiana University Maurer School of Law announced today (May 24) that 14 of its faculty members—including three new additions to the school’s faculty—have been awarded new chairs, professorships, and fellowships beginning this summer.

“Endowed chairs, professorships, and fellowships are vital to the Law School’s mission to recruit and retain a world-class faculty,” said Dean Christiana Ochoa. “Appointment to one of these positions is both an honor to the faculty member and also an enduring tribute to the donor who establishes it. We are grateful to have such a talented faculty and a supportive community that helps make their work possible.”

Support provided through an endowed position enhances the resources available to our faculty to further legal education by continuing their path-breaking research, Ochoa said.

Named chairs and professorships have been awarded to:

• Valena Beety (Robert H. McKinney Professorship)
• David Gamage (William W. Oliver Chair in Tax Law)
• Jody Madeira (Richard S. Melvin Professor of Law)
• Aviva Orenstein (Karen L. & Donald W. Buttrey Chair)
• Timothy Waters (Richard S. Melvin Professor of Law)
• Deborah Widiss (John F. “Jack” Kimberling Chair)
• Cynthia Williams (Roscoe C. O’Byrne Chair)

Fellowships have been awarded to:

• Amy Applegate (Ralph F. Fuchs Faculty Fellow)
• Michael Mattioli and Ryan Scott (Louis F. Niezer Faculty Fellows)
• Jenn Oliva, Victor Quintanilla, and Steve Sanders (Val Nolan Faculty Fellows)
• India Thusi (Charles L. Whistler Faculty Fellow)

The chairs, professorships, and fellowships are each named in honor of Indiana Law faculty and alumni who have left indelible legacies at the Law School and with the legal profession.

During her sophomore year of college, Alexa Rojas was an intake intern with a children’s advocacy center outside of Joliet, Illinois. It sparked the realization that she knew she wanted to make a difference in the lives of kids who have endured abuse and trauma. In her position, Rojas served as the first point of contact for families scheduling forensic interviews with law enforcement and prosecutors. In order to lessen the impact on the victim, substantial logistical work went on behind the scenes to ensure that the child only had to tell their story once—to someone they trusted.

“I was sitting in a waiting room with a teenage girl,” Rojas recalled, “and all of the toys and other comforts in the room were for much younger kids. So, we were talking about her track team, her math class. And that’s when this girl said the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever heard about her abuser.”

The comment, which Rojas protects to this day out of confidence and respect for her client, had such a deep and resounding impact on Rojas that she knew she wanted to earn a law degree.

On Saturday (May 6), Rojas and 176 of her peers will earn JDs from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, ready to begin the next chapter of their lives. For the Class of 2023, this weekend’s graduation ceremony will end a law school experience unlike any other—they are the class that began their legal education during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For Rojas, that meant not even having the opportunity to visit Bloomington before first-year orientation started.

“I signed up for Admitted Students Day in March (2020), but everything shut down before it took place,” she said. “I didn’t know what Bloomington was like or what law school life would be like. I had some second doubts, to be honest, but the administration made so much outreach that we all felt like we were a part of something.”

She credited the Law School’s administration with holding optional weekly informal sessions throughout the summer for 1Ls to get a head-start on what law school life would be like.

“My peers were very active, both in that class and in our GroupMe texts,” Rojas said. “That was really comforting, and ultimately why I continued at Maurer.”

In August 2020, the class of 2023 began their law school careers in a highly unusual way. Two-thirds of each class attended in person, while the remaining third participated online.

“We all knew it was such a strange situation, but it ended up being a bonding experience,” Rojas said. “We were all focused on getting through it together.”

The school deployed a block schedule, putting students in condensed four-week classes on a particular subject. Instead of taking Contracts or Torts over the course of a semester, 1Ls had to master the subjects—and other first-year curricular offerings—in month-long segments.

“I was worried about having to take my first final exam four weeks into law school,” Rojas said. “But there were some advantages. Being able to focus on one subject at a time had its benefits.”

Forging social connections was a challenge as well.

Rojas was elected the 1L representative for the Student Bar Association, giving her insight into how her peers were acclimating to the challenges of hybrid classes.

“The student organizations weren’t firing at 100 percent,” she said, “but groups found ways to hold safe events, both virtual or safely distanced outdoors, that embedded us into the community. The SBA gave me an opportunity to really connect with my classmates and hear their concerns.”

The SBA and other groups matched upper-division students through biweekly “Cocktail Chats” over Zoom to help 1Ls to help build connections that would’ve naturally occurred had everyone been in Baier Hall together.

As restrictions eased, a sense of normalcy started returning midway through the Class of 2023’s 2L year.

“I remember halfway through our second year, I looked up and realized we didn’t have restrictions anymore,” Rojas said. “After the mask mandate was lifted, I had brief moments of panic about forgetting my mask. But now, as a 3L, the pandemic still affects us, but has mainly leveled out.”

Rojas ended up serving as the SBA president during her third and final year at Indiana Law, allowing her to continue serving her peers and sharing her story with prospective students as an Admissions Fellow. The Admitted Student Days Rojas and others didn’t have a chance to attend in the spring of 2020? She spoke at both this year. In person.

After graduating Saturday, Rojas—who will become the first attorney in her family—will spend the summer studying for the bar exam and likely working with Indiana Department of Child Service’s Bloomington office. From there, she hopes to join the state agency full time, working to protect Indiana’s youth.

Graduation will mark a major milestone for her and her peers. They will have started and finished law school during one of the most challenging three-year stretches in recent history.

“It’s going to be so bittersweet,” Rojas said, “but I’m really proud of everything I’ve accomplished, and all that my friends have accomplished.”

For a musician, charting is generally perceived as a good thing. Whether it’s a national singles list like the Billboard Hot 100 or a local record store’s Top 10 of the Week, being listed among your peers can be rewarding.

Robert Meitus is now on a chart of a different kind—Billboard magazine has just named him one of America’s “Top Music Lawyers” for 2023.

Meitus, a 2000 Indiana University Maurer School of Law graduate, and adjunct faculty member since 2001, is managing partner at Bloomington-based Meitus Gelbert Rose, where three other Maurer graduates work—partner Tony Rose ’92, associate Keltie Haley ’20, and clerk and upcoming associate Megan Wheeler ’23.

Responsible for the entertainment legal matters for many national clients, including musical artists such as Cage the Elephant, Third Eye Blind, The Alan Parsons Project, Shawn Colvin, and the estate of John Prine, as well as numerous filmmakers, authors, record labels, and other creative business clients, Meitus’ practice ranges from negotiating all types of contracts to protection and sales of intellectual property rights to resolving entertainment-related legal disputes.

The Billboard Top Music Lawyers of 2023 were nominated by their firms and peers and chosen by the magazine’s editors. The magazine asked the class about some of the most important issues facing the music industry today and beyond.

“Working with artists such as Sufjan Stevens, Keb’ Mo’, and Nathan Johnson (composer for Glass Onion and Knives Out), Meitus says a pressing concern for the music business remains ‘gender and racial equity throughout the industry,’ including record production, airplay, the Grammys, and high-level employment opportunities in record labels, publishers, artist management, and other companies,” the magazine said.

In addition to his work as an attorney, Meitus is an entrepreneur. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, he co-founded and served as vice president for industry development and legal at Mandolin, an innovative broadcast and communications platform that helped pioneer high-quality concert livestreams and connections between artists and fans.  The company announced last week that after three years—and with live music audiences back in person—they were ceasing operations.

“I’m confident that Mandolin did much good in the world for music artists and fans and to push the development of livestream technology and fan engagement tools,” Meitus said. “Where this technology and the Mandolin family end up going in the future is a story yet to be written—but one that I look forward to.”

Meitus teaches Entertainment Law and the IP Practicum in Entertainment Law at the Maurer School of Law and serves as an adjunct professor with the school’s Center for Intellectual Property Law.

The American Constitution Society has selected nearly two-dozen young legal professionals—including a second-year Indiana University Maurer School of Law student—for its prestigious 2023 Next Generation Leaders Program.

Laura J. Rusk, an Evansville, Ind. native, is one of 23 law students from across the country selected for their exceptional leadership in work with their respective ACS chapters. The program offers various opportunities that empower the students to further develop their leadership skills and make a long-lasting impact on their communities.

“Being a student leader for the American Constitution Society has been a meaningful part of my law school experience and I look forward to remaining involved for many years to come,” Rusk said. “I am incredibly fortunate to be a part of this network of progressive legal professionals that care deeply about democracy, the rule of law, and the Constitution. It is an honor and a privilege to be recognized alongside these truly incredible law students from across the country.”

More than 400 law students have participated in the NGL program since its 2007 inception.

“I’m excited to introduce this accomplished and forward-thinking class of Next Generation Leaders,” said ACS President Russ Feingold. “We are confronting existential challenges to our democracy, and we need young leaders who are committed to promoting a vision of the law that is inclusive, equitable, and just. Our Next Generation Leaders program identifies and develops future progressive lawyers, judges, and policymakers who will work toward ensuring that the law is a force for vindicating our fundamental freedoms and securing the promise of a multiracial democracy. I look forward to working alongside all these dedicated and accomplished leaders who share ACS’s vision for an equitable society.”

Rusk was selected as part of a competitive application process, with the selection committee choosing students who demonstrate strong legal skills, a commitment to public service, and a track record of leadership and community engagement. She is one of only four students from Big Ten law schools that were selected.

Rusk is the 2022-23 president of the Maurer School of Law’s ACS chapter, director of advocacy for the school’s If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice organization, and a notes editor for the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies.

“We are incredibly proud of Laura’s selection to the ACS Next Generation Leaders program,” said Dean Christiana Ochoa. “She’s been a remarkable student and displayed outstanding leadership skills since she arrived in Bloomington, and we’re excited to watch her develop those skills even further in the coming year and beyond.”

An environmental law expert from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law served as an expert witness today (April 18) as part of a congressional hearing on the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Professor Rob Fischman participated in one of three panels convened by the U.S. House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries as lawmakers consider four Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions challenging the implementation of certain aspects of the ESA.

Two of the resolutions involve the conservation status designations of the northern long-eared bat and the lesser prairie chicken. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, citing a deterioration in the animal’s conditions, designated the bat as an endangered species under the ESA in November 2022. The lesser prairie chicken’s northern distinct population was deemed threatened, and the southern distinct population endangered, last fall.

The CRA is a rarely-used oversight tool Congress may use to overturn final rules issued by federal agencies. The CRA can be used anytime during a Congress but is most often used during a change in administration and when there is a shift in majority control.

Legislators calling for the delisting of the species from those respective lists said a commonsense habitat conservation plan that protects wildlife while safeguarding the nation’s economy is needed.

“The proponents of these bills are saying we need commonsense conservation plans—that these lists are going to shut down infrastructure projects, shut down other activities,” Fischman said. “But my research shows that’s not true. You often need something like a listing to prompt people to go to the table to collaborate on a solution.”

Fischman, the George P. Smith, II Distinguished Professor of Law, researches the relationship between law and conservation implementation as well as collaborative governance. He is the co-author of Federal Public Land and Resources Law, one leading casebooks on the subject.

In his testimony, he noted that the ESA is often used as a last-ditch effort to slow extinction efforts, when greater foresight–and funding–could have a much greater impact.

“Most declining species in the United States are not on the brink of extinction,” he told the subcommittee. “A conservation program for sustaining these species could succeed with much greater flexibility than the ESA. The ESA often demands modification of commercial activities because we do not take reasonable measures until species are at a relatively high risk of extinction. If we had a set of programs to slow unsustainable practices before biodiversity reached the point of potential collapse, then we would avoid many of the train wrecks that have tarnished the image of the ESA.”

The third resolution would rescind a Biden administration move that stopped a Trump administration rule on designating critical habitats, while the fourth involves the protection of the North Atlantic right whale.

The subcommittee is responsible for matters concerning America’s water resources, federal irrigation projects, generation of electric power from federal water projects, interstate water issues and fisheries management.

Lowell Baier ’64, a prominent author, attorney, historian, and conservationist, was also in attendance to hear Fischman’s testimony. The Law Building, Baier Hall, is named in his honor.

Morgan York was in her third and final year at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law when she published an article in the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies.

Two years later, she’s being recognized as one of the country’s top law school writers.

York published “I Just Took a DNA Test—Turns Out, I’m 100% Breaching my Donor Anonymity Contract: Direct-to-Consumer DNA Testing and Parental Medical Decision-Making” in 2021. On June 12, she’ll be one of 25 recipients of a “Law360 Distinguished Legal Writing Award” at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The awards are run by Burton Awards in association with the Library of Congress, presented by Law360, and co-sponsored by the American Bar Association.

“The winners are truly exemplary, technically skilled and effective writers,” said William Burton, founder and chair of the awards program. “The authors have set a new and even higher standard of excellence.”

York, now an associate at Golan Christie Taglia in Chicago, is one of a select group of former law students recognized nationally. Ordinarily law students are recognized about a year after they graduate, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, nominations were accepted from students who graduated even earlier.

York’s winning work, “I Just Took a DNA Test…” offered a brief history of assisted reproductive technology and its increased use throughout the world, illustrating the growing number of donor-conceived children and the related importance of knowing genetic information. York also surveyed regulations concerning donor anonymity in the United States and the United Kingdom to illustrate different jurisdictions’ approaches to the regulation of donor anonymity, as well as an analysis of direct-to-consumer DNA testing.

Indiana Law Legal Research and Writing Program Director Sophia Goodman said the editors of each of the Law School’s journals selected their best published notes for nomination consideration. York’s stood out, she said, because of its clear, cogent, and concise writing focusing on a timely topic.

The Academic Board, which reviewed submissions, was led by Chair Virginia Wise, formerly of Harvard Law School; Kristen K. Tiscione, Georgetown Law Center; Lindsay Struges Saffouri, UC Berkeley School of Law; William C. Burton, Founder and Chair of the event; and William Ryan, former member of the Department of Homeland Security and Chair of the White House Plain Language Committee.

The Maurer School of Law’s Legal Research and Writing Program was ranked 31^st nationally by U.S. News & World Report in its Best Graduate Schools 2023 edition.

A 2L from Indianapolis has been awarded a prestigious graduate fellowship from The Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University.

Nick Clifford will begin a one-year Ostrom Fellowship in Fall 2023.

“Year after year we are excited to welcome extraordinary students into our fellowship program,” said Emily Castle, Ostrom Workshop Assistant Director and Librarian. “The program has broadened the involvement of schools, leading to more interdisciplinary student cohorts working together.”

With Clifford’s selection, one of those schools is now the Maurer School of Law.

Nominated by Professor Gabe Goodwin and encouraged to apply by Professor Dan Cole, Clifford will use the fellowship to study the political and legal theory of the Anti-Federalists.

“In my research I will explore what the Anti-Federalists had to say about complex governance, the rule of experts, the size of republics, and finally, the problem of perpetuating good institutions,” Clifford said.

Named after the late Nobel Laureate Elinor “Lin” Ostrom and her husband Vincent, their namesake workshop formally began as The Center in Political Theory and Policy Analysis a half-century ago. The Ostroms believed ideas and theories must be considered through the lens of experience—that the critical connection is between ideas and what gets done. The Workshop has become the epicenter of commons governance, with research affiliates from around the nation and the world, Castle said. Current research has expanded from studying water and forestry governance, to opera sustainability and space governance.

Ostrom Fellows participate in the Workshop’s fall semester seminar and a service-learning project as well as attend the year-long Colloquium and Research Series.

Clifford earned his undergraduate degree in Law and Public Policy from Indiana University in 2020 before enrolling in the Maurer School of Law.

Clifford is currently a judicial extern with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.