Category Archives: U.Miami

Research Assistant Wanted (2011-12)

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

I would like to hire a 2L or 3L to be my research assistant for the coming school year. You should expect to work 10-15 hours/week.

The work primarily involves assisting me with legal research relating to papers I am writing on privacy and on Internet regulation.

I need someone who can write clearly and is well-organized. If you happen to have some web or programming skills (some or all of WordPress, HTML, MySQL, Perl, Debian), that would be a plus but it is not in any way a requirement.

The pay of $13 / hr is set by the university, and is not as high as you deserve, but the work is sometimes interesting.

If this sounds attractive, please e-mail me the following with the subject line RESEARCH ASSISTANT 2011 (in all caps), followed by your name:

  1. A note telling me
    • How many hours you’d ideally like to work per week
    • When you are free to start.
    • Your phone number and email address.
  2. A copy of your resume (c.v.).
  3. A transcript of your grades (need not be an official copy).
  4. If you have one handy, also attach a short NON-legal writing sample. If you have none, I’ll accept a legal writing sample (whatever you do, though, please don’t send your L-Comm/LRW memo).
Posted in U.Miami | 1 Comment

Extreme Makeover: Law School Edition

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

That’s the title of the the Daily Business Review article on plans for our new addition to the law school, and a makeover of much of the existing structure.

It’s a long article, including a lot of history of various rejected proposals, one of which was a brand new building on a prime site near the Metrorail that would have cost well over $100 million which we don’t have to spend. (But if you’d like to spend it for us, I suspect they’d name the law school after you.)

Here’s what the article says about plans for the next phase:

[Dean] White is planning a major overhaul of the current building, including adding more communal space for students, adding and redoing classrooms and outfitting them with state-of-the-art technology, adding a brand new courtroom for mock trials and opening a new cafe to cater to the whole school. White does not yet have a cost estimate for the remodel but has already hired top New York architectural firm Kohn Pederson Fox Associate to draw up plans. She plans to show the designs to the university’s board of trustees in September when she presents the proposal for a vote.

If approved by the board, which is expected, White estimates the renovations would take 18 months to complete, Current facilities would remain open during construction.

“We are deeply engaged in the preliminary stages of working with architects and will be making a proposal to the trustees in September,” White said. “The plans are fairly far along. The building will be an addition to a major renovation to the site of our current building.”

We’re certainly tight for space, and key parts of the physical plant are getting long in the tooth, so extension and renovation are good things — or will be when they’re over. As I’m currently experiencing remodeling of my floor of the law school (and repainting and re-carpeting of my office) — which means I can’t work there this summer — I suspect the process of getting to the finish line will be fraught.

Current facilities would remain open during construction. Sounds noisy.

Posted in Law School, U.Miami | 2 Comments

Transformers

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Our Dean, Patricia White, is on Brian Leiter’s list of Nine Transformative Deans in the Last Decade — a list with the intriguing URL of “ten-transformative-deans-in-the-last-decade”. Gotta wonder who the tenth was and what happened to him/her.

Fortunately for us here at U. Miami, in addition to being lauded for her transformation of ASU, Dean White also appears on Leiter’s list of six “Deans to watch in the coming years”.

Posted in Law School, U.Miami | 1 Comment

Minding the Mindfulness

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

UM’s Jha lab (in the Psychology Department) has secured a $920K grant to “track the structural and functional brain changes that may accompany participation in short-form mindfulness training courses”.

Scott Rogers, Director of the Mindfulness in Law Program at the University of Miami Law School will be collaborating in the research.

I wonder if law students will be getting their brains scanned?
Image Copyright © XKCD, licensed via Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License

Posted in Science/Medicine, U.Miami | Comments Off on Minding the Mindfulness

Unexpected Consequences of Living Near a University Campus

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Our A/C is busted again, and the nice man from the A/C company showed up today after only 48 hours of phone calls and two broken appointments to do a leak test on the lines, an expensive process that they tell me takes two days (with no A/C) to establish which of several candidate expensive parts will need to be ordered in (while we have no A/C) and then installed at yet more cost. The scenarios vary from expensive to amazing.

I explain all this not to complain, for such is the joy of home ownership in South Florida, but rather to explain why it is I have my study window open and thus have been hearing a loud buzzing engine noise for a couple of hours. I finally went outside to see if I could figure out what it might be — who would be running a generator when the neighborhood power has been steady for almost a week now? — only to see a blimp circling a bit south of here, with a giant airborne lighted news ticker advertising the 2011 Billboard Latin Music Awards, which I’ve just learned are indeed happening at the Convocation Center right now.

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Congratulations to Kele Stewart

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Kele Stewart, an Associate Professor of Clinical Legal Education here at U.M., has been named a Fulbright Scholar.

Kele will spend a year in Trinidad, based at Hugh Wooding Law School where she will study the implementation of the child welfare system in Trinidad and establish a child advocacy clinic at Hugh Wooding.

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