At 10 a.m. on commencement day, all 8,000 Class of 2013 graduates were honored at the university’s traditional full convocation held at the Patriot Center on the Fairfax Campus. At 12:30 p.m., members of the law school's Class of 2013 assembled for a panoramic class photo, afterward filing into the university's Concert Hall for the start of the School of Law's convocation at 2 p.m.

The law school convocation featured a guest address by The Honorable William T. Newman, Jr., Presiding Judge and Chief Judge for the Arlington Circuit Court, 17^th Judicial Circuit of Virginia. Eric Claeys, Professor of Law, was selected as faculty speaker, while graduating students Abby Vexler Uzupis and Lora Barnhart Driscoll were day and evening class speakers, respectively. Dean Polsby awarded Cory Maggio the Law School Service Award during the ceremony for his contributions to the law school. Graduating students Muhammad Elsayed, Tyson Alynn Johnson, and Wesley E. Weeks had the distinction of graduating summa cum laude.

Music for the law school convocation was provided by the George Mason University Jazz Ensemble, and presentation of colors was by members of the George Mason University United States Army ROTC.

2013 commencement activities were ushered in on Friday evening, May 17, with the traditional graduation reception held in the Levy Atrium, Hazel Hall, for graduates, their families, faculty, and staff. The reception is sponsored each year by the Student Bar Association and provides a festive atmosphere for a final class get-together prior to graduation day.

The 2013 graduation program is available online.

On May 16, the program host leads a debate on the role of the Supreme Court in Modern America in which Somin is joined by Georgia State Constitutional Law professor Eric Segall for a vigorous discussion. 

On the second program on May 20, Somin and host Dominick discuss Somin's forthcoming book Democracy and Political Ignorance, to be released this fall by Stanford University Press.

Listen to the May 16 program

Professor Adam Mossoff, Co-Director of Academic Programs and Senior Scholar for CPIP, helped organize the event, which took place at the National Press Club before a maximum-capacity crowd and was presented to viewers over a live webcast.

Entitled "Is the Patent System Working or Broken? A Discussion with Four Distinguished Federal Judges," the program considered conflicting perspectives on whether today's patent system promotes or hampers innovation. Panelists were The Honorable Arthur J. Gajarsa, former Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit; The Honorable Paul R. Michel, former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit; The Honorable Richard Posner, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit; and The Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg, Senior Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, and Professor of Law at George Mason, who acted as moderator of the panel.

Watch the webcast 

"Where an ISP action is anticompetitive, such acts already are illegal under antitrust law," he points out. "Hence, net-neutrality regulations are superfluous. They impose a blanket prohibition on a large class of business models that are highly efficient."

"Allowing ISPs to operate without burdensome regulations does not deter the development of the Internet," Hazlett says. "It unleashes dynamic economic forces that continually discover new and better ways to compete. Mind-boggling innovation is the product of truly open markets—an unregulated, 'non-neutral' space of incredible scope and promise. That is what we have had. New regulations do not protect that model, but abandon it." 

Arguing in favor of net-neutrality rules in the article is Gigi Sohn, president and chief executive of Public Knowledge, a open-Internet advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

Should Congress Overturn the Net Neutrality Rules? The Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2013. 

Excerpt:
"Internet service providers have produced rich innovations. AOL, for example, created much original content for subscribers within its 'walled garden' of the mid-1990s. When abundant rival sources of news and entertainment appeared, the walls melted away. Both of AOL's approaches were efficient adaptations to its environment at the time. The lack of regulation prevented lock-in, allowing AOL to adjust to customer preferences.

In "Debate on the Treaty Power," Somin joins Nick Rosenkranz, Eugene Kontorovich, and Rick Pildes in a series of blog posts designed as an online debate as to whether a treaty can increase the legislative power of Congress (The Volokh Conspiracy, Jan. 13-Feb. 3, 2013).

In "Asian-Americans, Affirmative Action, and Fisher v. Texas," Somin discusses the University of Texas’ affirmative action program, challenged in Fisher v. Texas, an important affirmative action case before the Supreme Court (The Volokh Conspiracy, May 31, 2012).

The Journal of Law: A Periodical Laboratory of Legal Scholarship is a publication of the Green Bag.

Read the blog entries 

Greve examines such popular concepts as tax "neutrality" and the "origin principle," noting that "Our existing Internet sales tax regime honors neither tax neutrality nor the origin principle" and fails to please any of the involved parties. 

In a twist on suggestions by pro-tax states that sellers could use sophisticated software to calculate, collect and remit local taxes, Greve suggests the same could be done by consumers.

"I don't mean to give state governments any ideas, but if we need snazzy computer programs anyhow, why not deploy technology to collect the tax from the people who actually owe it—the local citizens? Put the software online, and make taxpayers report and remit the use tax for all interstate purchases of, say, more than $100 (unless the seller already has collected the tax). The chore is inconvenient, but that is true of all tax reporting. And what price is too high for marketplace fairness?

The Internet Sales Tax Reveals Its Foolish Head Yet Again, Forbes, April 25, 2013. By Michael Greve.

Excerpt:
"Bricks-and-mortar operations obviously like the idea, as do most state governments. Some Internet sellers are prepared to go along, provided state and local governments simplify and facilitate compliance with their nightmarishly complex tax regimes. There are nearly 10,000 U.S. taxing jurisdictions, all with their own tax rates, tax bases, tax holidays, etc. Other Internet sellers, such as eBay, oppose the Senate's proposal, as do the states that have no sales tax.

"The debate long predates the Internet—we had the same debate over catalogue sales. Good, bad and idiotic arguments on both sides have been rehearsed time and again. But the Senate's impending consideration of the Marketplace Fairness Act provides occasions for a few reminders."

Read the article  

In his lecture, Greve examined aspects of the public debt and the Constitution, concluding that, "We will have to re-think the wisdom of an Executive Government that operates effectively without judicial or legislative constraint, purely by dealmaking. We will argue about a nominally independent central bank that fine-tunes not only the currency but also the stock markets, and which bankrolls a dissolute government and in the process expropriates fixed-income investors. And we will re-examine and hopefully reform a federal system that fosters fiscal illusions and excess spending at all levels of government."

"In a sentence: our debts problems will become constitutional problems. They always have been," Greve noted.

The BB&T lecture series is part of a Pamplin College teaching program to explore the foundations of capitalism and freedom. The program’s courses, undergraduate and graduate, examine alternative economic systems, including socialism and communism, and compare them with the economic solutions offered by free markets. Previous BB&T speakers include retired BB&T chairman and CEO John A. Allison, veteran financial journalist John Berry, Greg Ip of The Economist, Nobel Laureate James M. Buchanan, and Pamplin alumnus and Forbes newsletter editor Vahan Janjigian.

Read the text of Greve's remarks

The Court had granted certiorari in Boyer to decide “[w]hether a state’s failure to fund counsel for an indigent defendant for five years, particularly where failure was the direct result of the prosecution’s choice to seek the death penalty, should be weighed against the state for speedy trial purposes.” After reviewing the parties’ merits briefs and holding oral argument, however, the Court decided that it had mistakenly granted review and dismissed the petition. Justice Alito, in a concurrence joined by Justices Scalia and Thomas, explained that although the “premise” of the question presented was “that a breakdown in Louisiana’s system for paying the attorneys representing petitioner, an indigent defendant who was charged with a capital offense, caused most of the lengthy delay between his arrest and trial,” that premise was incorrect. Because the record instead showed “that the single largest share of the delay in this case was the direct result of defense requests for continuances, that other defense motions caused substantial additional delay, and that much of the rest of the delay was caused by events beyond anyone’s control,” the Court had “taken up this case on the basis of a mistaken factual premise.” Four Justices, in an opinion authored by Justice Sotomayor, dissented from the Court’s decision to dismiss the case and would have resolved the matter in Boyer’s favor. The dissent faulted Justice Alito for “largely adopt[ing] Louisiana’s arguments.” 

Calcasieu Parish Assistant District Attorney Carla S. Sigler, who argued the case on behalf of the State, praised the work of the Clinic in helping to convince the Court that it had mistakenly taken this case, explaining that the “George Mason University School of Law Supreme Court Clinic … thoroughly researched the issues involved, prepared and filed a comprehensive and exemplary brief, and helped prepare the State’s prosecutor for the daunting challenge of oral argument.” Ms. Sigler added that, “without [the Clinic’s] assistance, the State would not have been able to prevail in this difficult case.” 

The Court’s per curiam order dismissing the case, along with the concurring and dissenting opinions, can be found here (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-9953_4h25.pdf).  A copy of Louisiana’s merits brief can be found here (http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v2/11-9953_resp.authcheckdam.pdf).

For more information about the case or Mason Law's Supreme Court Clinic, please contact Thomas R. McCarthy at 202.719.7476 or tmccarthy@wileyrein.com and William S. Consovoy at 202.719.7434 or wconsovoy@wileyrein.com.

The panel discussion was anchored by host Ray Suarez and included Malcolm, former New York Times foreign correspondent and editor Craig Whitney, and Fordham University history professor Saul Cornell. 

Panelists examined the history of the Second Amendment and how it shapes discussion today, considering such questions as what the public really knows about it, who was behind it, what the authors were trying to achieve, and how it applies today in an age when muskets have been replaced by semi-automatic weapons.

Watch the program or read a transcript

In an April article in The Economist, Law School Dean Daniel Polsby points out that criminals may be less willing than law-abiding citizens to turn in guns for the amounts offered at buy-back events. 

"There are good reasons to believe mischief-makers value guns more than people who want to buy them for self-defence," Polsby says, "So it's utterly silly."

Others add that gun buy-backs fail to cut gun violence because they remove only a relatively small number of weapons, many of them old and unused, from the communities promoting the events.

Gun control: Money talks, The Economist, April 27, 2013.

Excerpt:
"America's smallest state held a gun buy-back day on April 6th that netted 186 firearms--97 shotguns and rifles and 89 handguns--collected anonymously from owners who were compensated with gift cards valued at $50 to $200, depending on the make and condition of their guns. Several companies, including SIMS Metal Management, a recycler, paid for the event, and the guns were to be melted down. Angel Taveras, the mayor of Providence, said such events were "one way for local governments to remove unwanted firearms from our streets." 

Read the article (subscription required)

In 1938 Franklin D. Roosevelt's Supreme Court handed down back-to-back decisions that in the first case declared any federal economic legislation constitutional, and in the second case allowed a significant expansion of state power over U.S. commerce. Discussion participants considered ramifications of the cases and whether the questions should be revisited three-quarters of a century later.

Greve moderated a luncheon debate between Professor Jack Balkin of Yale Law School and Professor Richard Epstein of New York University Law School. Following the debate, Rabkin took part in a discussion that included Professor Randy Barnett of Georgetown University Law Center, Professsor Barry Cushman of Notre Dame Law School, and Professor Suzanna Sherry of Vanderbilt University. Henry Olsen, director of the National Research Initiative at AEI, acted as moderated for the panel discussion.

View a video of the event   

"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may not be an enemy soldier, but he's not a common criminal, either," Sales explains. "The proper place for him is a civilian court, but authorities should have interrogated him more fully to help thwart future atrocities." 

Rejecting the argument that Tsarnaev should have been held by the military as an enemy combatant, Sales concedes that military interrogation is an effective way to determine intelligence that could help prevent a future terrorist attact. 

"But based on what we know today, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shouldn't be held by the military. There's no evidence he's affiliated with al-Qaida or any other foreign terrorist groups," Sales says.

Boston bomber should have been interrogated more thoroughly, U.S. News Debate Club, U.S. News & World Report, April 24, 2013. By Nathan Sales.

Excerpt:
"Military interrogation is an effective way to get answers to these questions. And the Supreme Court has held that the military can detain those who fight for the enemy—even if, like Dzhokhar, they're citizens who were arrested in this country.

"In World War II, the Court unanimously blessed Franklin Roosevelt's decision to transfer eight nazi saboteurs, including an American, to military custody after they were captured by the FBI. Federal cours likewise upheld the miliary detention of two citizens suspected of being al Qaeda operatives, including one arrested in Chicago."

Read the article

In an April 23 op-ed co-written with James K. Glassman for Bloomberg, Verret explains how Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. (ISS) and Glass Lewis & Company have become "the most powerful arbiters of corporate governance in the U.S. today" through their roles as advisers, with the effect of outsourcing proxy decisions for the institutions that hire them.

"Meanwhile, the SEC gave the proxy advisers protective treatment not granted to similar financial gatekeepers, such as auditing firms," Verret explains.

That system is not working, says Verret, citing the two firms' lack of resources to examine questions in depth, incentives that do not align with those of investors, and the potential for conflict of interest as evidence of this. 

The system can be fixed, Verret finds, through three steps.

First, Verret says mutual funds and other institutions should themselves decide when it makes sense to spend resources analyzing and voting on a proxy question. Second, he believes there should be an end to the preferential regulatory treatment that proxy advisers currently enjoy. Finally, he says, end extraneous proxy requirements, such as say-on-pay votes. 

Fixing the Broken Proxy System, Bloomberg, April 23, 2013. By James K. Glassman and J.W. Verret.

Excerpt:
"In a classic case of unintended consequences, the 2003 SEC rule led to a result that was almost precisely the opposite of what many of its supporters, including Chairman Harvy Pitt, had wanted. Instead of eliminating conflicts of interest, the rule simply shifted them to the advisory firms. Instead of providing informed, sensitive voting on proxies, the incentive has been to outsource decision-making to two small organizations that most investors have never heard of."

Read the article 

"I think it’s not inherently illegal to target American citizens so long as American citizens are also combatants in a relevant war," said Somin. "Sometimes U.S. citizens can be classified as enemy combatants."

"It’s not important [what technology we’re using], what matters is we’re choosing the right target," Somin advised. "If we’re choosing the right target then we should use the appropriate weapons, we’d be wrong to ban specific technology."

In his testimony, Somin stressed that constitutional problems would arise in the event the government failed to ensure the use of drones was strictly limited to legitimate terrorist targets, paricularly in the case of American citizens.

"I would urge the Subcommittee and Congress generally to consider adopting procedural safeguards that would minimize the likelihood of erroneous or illegal drone strikes," Somin cautioned. "One proposal that deserves serious consideration is the establishment of an independent court that would oversee drone strikes in advance."

Boston Bombing Changes Lawmakers’ Views on Drone Killings of Americans on U.S. Soil, U.S. News & World Report, April 23, 2013. By Jason Koebler.
Read related article

Read more about the hearing, read testimony, or view a webcast of the hearing

Merlau currently serves as Notes Editor for the George Mason Law Review. She is a graduate of Duke University, where she received an AB in Philosophy. Merlau was selected to receive the Burton Award for her comment "The State Giveth and the State Taketh: Constitutional Pension Protections and the Retroactive Removal of Public Pension Tax Exemptions.”  

As a Burton Award winner, Merlau has been invited to attend the organization's 14th annual black-tie presentation of the Burton Awards at a reception and dinner in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on June 3, 2013. Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. Supreme Court will be presented with the Contemporary Book of the Year in Law Award at the event, which will also feature a performance by Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award nominee Vanessa Williams.

Founded in 1999, the Burton Awards program is run in association with the Library of Congress and its Law Library. Nominations for the award are made by law school deans and managing partners of the 1000 largest U.S. law firms. Fifteen Burton Award law school winners are selected annually from law schools across the nation to receive the award, which honors partners in law firms and law students who set a high standard for clarity and effectiveness in legal writing. 

The awards are selected, generally, by law professors from selected universities. Judge Richard Posner (7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals); Chief Judge Alex Kozinski (9th Cirucit U.S. Court of Appeals); U.S. Senator John Cornyn; U.S. Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr.; Congressman Spencer Bachus; Judge Judith S. Kaye (Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals) (retired); and Supreme Court Justice Carol Corrigan of California are among the honorary members of the Board of Trustees.

Read more about the Burton Awards

The symposium topic was Defending Against Cyber-Intrusions from State-Sponsored and Civilian Hackers. A crowd of approximately 130 attendees were present for the event.

Joining Hayden were Suzanne Spaulding, Deputy Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and Ronald Lee, a partner at Arnold & Porter. Dr. Mark Troutman, Associate Director of the Center for Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security at George Mason University School of Law, served as moderator for the symposium.

Photos are available online.

The National Security Law Journal, most recent of Mason's student-run journal publications, has been listed by both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble in the top ten titles for national security law.

Writing in the Harvard Health Policy Review, Somin suggests that Chief Justice Roberts' Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper reasoning might put constraints on Congress' power to impose other mandates.

"The threat of such mandates is far from purely theoretical," says Somin. "Many industries could potentially lobby for laws requiring people to purchase their products, and Congress has a long history of enacting special interest legislation. The political process cannot be relied on to consistently prevent the enactment of future mandates that benefit narrow interest groups at the expense of the general public."

Potential benefits of Roberts' reasoning upholding the Act's insurance mandate under the Tax Clause are partially undercut, Somin says, by the reality that almost any purchase mandate could potentially be restructured to fit his definition of a tax.

"To qualify, the mandate would have to be enforced only by a monetary fine that is collected by the IRS, is not too high, and levied without regard to criminal intent," Somin explains. "At the very least, however, such future mandates could not be enforced by threats of imprisonment or by extremely high monetary penalties."

In addition, Somin says the Court's invalidation of the Medicaid condition makes it possible many states will refuse to expand Medicaid coverage. "What is not clear is whether any other federal conditional grant programs may be invalidated as coercive," he says.

Somin concludes that the political and legal struggle over federalism will continue, absent consensus on the constitutional limits of federal power, within the Court and without.

Assessing the Health Care Decision, Harvard Health Policy Review, Fall 2012, Volume 13, Number 2. By Ilya Somin.

Excerpt:
"Some defenders of the mandate have advanced the argument that the Constitution gives Congress the power to address "national problems," especially those that states supposedly cannot address on their own. But nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given a blank check to solve any and all alledged national problems. If Congress were intended to have such a sweeping power, there would be no need for the detailed enumeration of numerious specific congressional powers in Article 1. The Framers could instead have replaced the eighteen clauses of Article with a single catch-all National Problems Clause. Moreover, to the extent that this argument relies on the idea that states cannot adopt an individual mandate on their own, it runs into the reality that they are entirely capable of doing so, as Massachusetts did in 2006."

Read the article 

The event took place on April 18 at The American University's Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., and featured Sales, former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy Development, along with Stephen Vladeck, professor of law and associate dean for scholarship at AU WCL; Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, member of the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law, and co-founder and editor-in-chief of lawfareblog.com; and Joshua Frost, writer in international affairs (theatlantic.com, Registan.net, and PBS "Need to Know"), former research fellow at the American Security Project, and former senior intelligence analyst for the U.S. military.

The paper in question, Informing Consent: Voter Ignorance, Political Parties, and Election Law, was co-written with Professor Christopher Elmendorf of the University of California at Davis in 2012. In it the authors observe that voters in cities such as New York with partisan elections for local officials vote for the party they support in the national elections, despite the fact that local issues tend to be dramatically different from those occurring at the national level.

Can our mayoral candidates tackle the most urgent city issues? Reuters, April 15, 2013. By Reihan Salam.

Excerpt:
"One might be a 'liberal' on abortion rights and federal higher education funding but a 'conservative' on fixing potholes and controlling crime. In an ideal world, we might have local political parties - say, the Free Subways Party, the Stop-and-Friskers, and the Anti-Tax Free Love Alliance - organized around specifically local issues. But national political parties have the First Amendment right to take part in local races, and they take advantage of it." 

Read the article

As is customary, 2013 commencement activities will be ushered in on Friday evening, May 17, from 6:00 until 8:30 p.m., with the Annual Graduation Reception held in the Levy Atrium, Hazel Hall, for graduates, their families, faculty, and staff. The reception is sponsored each year by the Student Bar Association and provides an opportunity for a final class get-together prior to graduation day.

This year’s Convocation will feature a guest address by Judge William T. Newman, Jr., Presiding Judge and Chief Judge of the Arlington Circuit Court, 17^th Judicial Circuit of Virginia.

In 1993 Judge Newman was appointed to  the Commonwealth of Virginia’s 17^th Judicial Circuit covering Arlington County and the City of Falls Church. In 2003 he was named Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Arlington County. 

Prior to his appointment to the bench, Judge Newman was a partner at the law firm of Carpenter, Newman, Martin, Berkowitz and Garnes. He also was involved in local politics. In 1987 he was elected to the Arlington County Board  and served as its chairman in 1991, when he was re-elected to a second term. During his tenure in local government, he was elected president of the Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments.

A lifelong resident of Arlington, Judge Newman is founder and president emeritus of the Arlington Community Foundation, which awards the William T. Newman, Jr. Spirit of Community Award annually in his honor to recognize and honor individuals who have demonstrated tireless and unselfish commitment to improving the quality of life in Arlington.

Judge Newman was named by Washingtonian magazine as one of the Best Trial Judges in metropolitan Washington, D.C. He is also an accomplished actor and a member of Actor’s Equity.

Eric Claeys, Professor of Law, was chosen faculty speaker, while graduating students Abby Vexler Uzupis and Lora Barnhart Driscoll were selected as day and evening class speakers, respectively, for the Convocation.

Graduating students should plan to arrive at the Concert Hall shortly after noon, with parking available in the adjacent parking garage. At 12:30 p.m., members of the law school's Class of 2013 will assemble for a panoramic class photo, afterward filing into the university's Concert Hall for the start of the School of Law's Convocation at 2 p.m. The Concert Hall opens to guests at 1:15 p.m.

At 10 a.m. on May 18, all Class of 2013 graduates will be honored at the University’s traditional full Commencement program to be held at the Patriot Center on the Fairfax Campus. Law graduates are welcome to attend this ceremony, as well, if they wish. Tickets are required for guests, with a maximum of four tickets per graduate. Details are available online. 

The event was convened to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, with a principal focus on the legacy of the Seventeenth Amendment and the impact of direct senatorial elections.

The panel in which Somin participated included Professor Wendy Schiller of Brown University and Professor Bruce Cain of Stanford University, Straus Fellow of the NYU Strauss Institute for the Advanced Study of Law and Justice. Professor Richard Pildes of NYU Law acted as moderator of the discussion. 

On the preceding day, Somin gave a talk at NYU on the topic, "Federalism and Political Ignorance: Why Decentralizing Government Helps Us Make Smarter Decisions." Somin discussed how federalism helps citizens overcome political ignorance by enabling people to "vote with their feet," which gives them better incentives to acquire information and use it well than ballot box voting does, often benefiting minorities and the poor. 

The event, "Cyber Threats & The Economy: New Strategies to Secure Our Economy from Cyber Depredation," featured a keynote address by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers focusing on "Information Sharing to Improve our Cyber Security."

Following Chairman Rogers' address, a panel discussion took place in which Rabkin discussed "Retaliating in Cyberspace: Lessons from the History of War at Sea." Accompanying Rabkin on the panel were Dr. Rachael Ehrenfeld, Director ACD/EWI; Michael Mukasey, former Attorney General; R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence; Stewart Baker, former Assistant Secretary for Policy, DHS; Mark Weatherford, Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity, DHS; Steven Chabinsky, former Deputy Assistant Director, FBI Cyber Division; Christina Ray, Senior Managing Director for Market Intelligence at Omnis; and Brian Bruh, former Director, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

The event was co-organized by the Federalist Society's Intellectual Property Practice Group and the law school's Center for Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP), for which Mossoff serves as Co-Director of Academic Programs and Senior Scholar. 

The teleforum, termed a digital "fireside chat," explored a variety of issues in an effort to assess whether the patent system is broken or whether it is fundamentally sound. 

Teleforum calls are 60-minute conference call discussions and debates featuring one or more experts on a topic of the moment, with a live call-in audience. Previously recorded Teleforum calls are posted for download as podcasts on the Federalist Society's Practice Groups Podcasts page. 

Read more about the teleforum

Of the nearly 300 teams competing in this year's moot, George Mason advanced, tying for ninth place overall in the competition for the second year in a row, and all of the team members eligible to receive individual recognition did so. Matt Brown (3L), Jonathan Rhodes (3L), and Daniel Rodriguez (3L) all received Honorable Mentions for Best Individual Oralist. More than 1,800 students from 67 countries competed in this year's competition, among whom only 71 students  (roughly 4%) received such a distinction. George Mason was one of only five schools to have all three of its eligible students achieve individual recognition.

Brown, Rhodes, and Rodriguez argued alongside fellow teammates Spencer Nelson (3L) and Mark Probasco (3L) in the general rounds. Due to the rules of the competition, Nelson and Probasco were not eligible to compete for individual recognition, yet remained essential to the team's ultimate success.

The Vis Moot is structured by having each team compete in four general rounds. After those rounds, the top 64 of the 290 participating teams are selected to advance into a single-elimination bracket system.

As a team, George Mason repeated the success of its inaugural appearance at last year's competition. Once again, Mason advanced to the round of 64, where it defeated Jagiellonian University (Poland) to continue in the round of 32. The team then faced The University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), which it defeated by unanimous decision of the judges to again find itself in the round of 16. However, with several team members battling the onset of cold symptoms, George Mason was narrowly defeated in a 2-1 vote by Bucerius Law School (Germany).

In preparation for such a large competition, many schools compete and practice in “pre-moots” organized around the world. George Mason had the privilege to participate in the D.C. Pre-Moot held at DLA Piper's offices downtown, as well at the Central European Pre-Moot held in Budapest, Hungary. At the Budapest Pre-Moot, George Mason ranked second overall among the forty teams that participated, outranked only by the City University of Hong Kong.

City University of Hong Kong would go on to achieve success as the champions of the entire Vis Moot in Vienna, defeating Monash University (Australia) in the final round.

Through the course of arguments in the pre-moots and in the Vis Moot itself, the George Mason team competed against 14 different teams from 12 different countries: The United States, Lebanon, The Netherlands, France, Russia, Poland, Indonesia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Germany, Paraguay, and Argentina.

While the Alternative Dispute Resolution Society was able to send only five members overseas for the competition, students Tiago Bezerra (3L), Michelle Caton (2L), Anthony Kanakis (3L), Xin Nie (3L), Chenenye Okafor (2L), Michael Volz (2L) also participated as team members in the drafting of the two briefs for the event.

While the George Mason team traveled on its own to the competition in Budapest, it was accompanied in Vienna by its three dedicated coaches, adjunct professors Jack Tieder, Shelly Ewald, and Kathy Barnes, from the firm Watt, Tieder, Hoffar & Fitzgerald, L.L.P.

ABOUT THE JLR

In 1998 the Judicial and Legislative Reception began as an opportunity to recognize and honor those who serve the people of our region in their capacities on the bench or in an elected position.

The reception features food and wine from across the Commonwealth of Virginia. Each year the event continues to be a great success. This year’s JLR will be no different, showcasing several Virginia wineries and offering appetizers and desserts chosen to complement the wine selections.

The event has been characterized as “the premier legal event in Northern Virginia” with attorneys, judges, legislators and Mason Law alumni looking forward to this annual gathering. In each of the past several years, we have seen nearly 400 people honor us as guests.

Governors, members of Congress, state legislators, and federal and state court judges from Virginia and the District of Columbia have attended the JLR in past years.

We look forward to your joining us as a sponsor and a guest at this wonderful event.

Plan to join us on May 22! Doors will open at 5:45 p.m. for the 6:00 p.m. event, which will run until 8:30 in the evening. 

RSVP NOW FOR THE JLR

Click here to RSVP for the 16th Annual JLR on May 22, 2013. Single tickets are $40. Mason Law students and May 2013 graduates may purchase tickets at a reduced cost of $20. Please make checks payable to GMU Foundation and note "JLR" on the check. Mail to:

Alumni Association—JLR
George Mason University School of Law
3301 Fairfax Drive, Room 370
Arlington, VA 22201

Questions? Please contact Dana Fallon, Assistant Director of Alumni Services, at 703-993-9862 or dfallon@gmu.edu.

 
BECOME AN EVENT SPONSOR

Join 2013 Platinum Sponsor Charapp & Weiss at this great event. 

Sponsorships are available at the Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze levels, and specific benefits are extended to sponsors as outlined in the Sponsorship Opportunities brochure. In addition, all sponsors will also receive recognition via an advertisement in Virginia Lawyers Weekly and on the evening of the event. A portion of your sponsorship is tax deductible.

The sponsorship deadline to be included in the Virginia Lawyers Weekly full-page color ad is 5 p.m. on May 3.

A NOTE CONCERNING PARKING

General parking is available on a first-come, first-served basis for guest in the Founders Hall parking garage in the B2 and B3 levels. Reserved parking is available on the B1 level to invited guests who are provided parking passes that must be displayed in the car. The Founders Hall garage is accessible from the rear of the Arlington campus buildings via entrances on either Kirkwood Road or Washington Boulevard. (See map at page bottom.)

The JLR will be held this year on the ground floor of Founders Hall. Take the Founders Hall elevator from the garage to the ground floor and follow signs to the event.
(Note: Founders Hall and Hazel Hall are now connected.)