• Samantha Aylward
• Nicole Bayer
• Paydon Broeder
• Nicole Critelli
• Charles DelPapa
• Eric Fisher
• Benjamin Lichter
• Amy Limontes
• Matt Nemeroff
• Armando Nozzolillo
• Brandon Meadows
• Alexandra Michelini
• Ben Schott
• Suzanne Tzuanos
• Lauren Woodruff

Manuel Guerra, an activist for the DREAM Act and undocumented student, will share his personal struggles with immigration and residency.

A member of the Interfaith Alliance for Immigrant Justice will also be present to talk about current grassroots organizing for the DREAM Act.

There will be a 15-minute period for Q & A from the audience to Professor King, the Interfaith Alliance for Immigrant Justice and Manuel Guerra.

It is presented by the Black Law Students Association (BLSA), Caribbean Law Students Association, CHISPAS, Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, Immigration Law Association (ILA), and the Latino/a Law Student Association (LLSA).

Panel guests include Professor Kenneth Nunn, Professor George Dekle, Legal Skills Professor Seth E. Miller, Esq. – Innocence Project of Florida, and Executive Director Professor Seigel.

It will be moderated by Rachel Inman, associate dean for student affairs.

It is presented by the Criminal Justice Center, Criminal Law Association, John Marshall Bar Association, Association for Public Interest Law, American Constitution for Law and Policy, Caribbean Law Students Association and the Center for Career Development.

Light refreshments to follow.

Attend if you are interested in: your rights as an author; copyright; how to get financial assistance to publish in an open access journal; a potential campus-wide UF Open Access Faculty Policy (mandating that faculty submit copies of their journal articles to the Institutional Repository); and/or the the future of open access publishing.

For the full agenda, see: http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/oa/oaweek/.

If you have questions about the event, contact Jenny Wondracek, Instructional Services Reference Librarian at wondracekj@law.ufl.edu.

Benjamin Baird and Zachary Jellson represented the state, and Stephanie Koffler and Katie Thomason represented the defendant, who was played by new Trial Team member Andrick Lewis. The other witnesses for the trial were played by new members Josh Wertheim, Lauren Lewis and Brandon Meadows.

The sponsoring law firm of Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell rendered a verdict for the defense.

Based on the scores of the sponsoring law firm and the presiding judge, Judge Jonathan Gerber, the awards were determined: Katie Thomason and Stephanie Koffler were awarded Best Team and Katie Thomason was awarded Best Advocate.

Last week, the Trial Team sent 3Ls Alyssa Lunin, Gillian Sykes, Ashlie Tarpley and Tiana Beaudouin to the Peter James Johnson ’49 National Civil Rights Trial Competition at St. Johns University for a national trial competition.

Results were not available at time of publication.

Journal members made dinner for 40 residents of the house.

In conjunction with their visit, JLPP held a drive to collect household cleaning supplies and personal hygiene items.

After the drive, JLPP donated several boxes of supplies to St. Francis House.

With those donations and more from 2Ls and 3Ls, JMBA collected 379 cans to donate to Bread of the Mighty Food Bank. On Friday, Oct. 14, JMBA hosted a community service social at Tall Paul’s and accepted $5 donations.

By the end of the night, the group collected $667, which it will donate to the Light the Night Walk for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

To end the week, JMBA members participated in a community service project at Haven Hospice Attic, where volunteers helped clean and organize donated items.

JMBA would like to thank everyone for their donations during the week.

Judith Barzilay, a senior federal judge for the United States Court of International Trade, delved last week into the history and jurisprudence of the court and explained specific types of cases the court handles during an open lecture. (Photo by Marcela Suter)

Due to our increasingly globalized world, those in the international trade community are continually presented with new challenges in aligning international and domestic trade laws, a senior federal judge for the United States Court of International Trade told UF Law students last week.

Judith Barzilay delved into the history and jurisprudence of the court and explained specific types of cases the court handles during an open lecture, “X-men and Charming Betsy at the U.S. Court of International Trade: Otherworldly creatures and international law as part of U.S. law,” in Professor Berta Hernández-Truyol’s International Trade Law class Wednesday.

“As you know, any court’s role is a very limited one,” Barzilay said. “We have to interpret the laws that Congress enacts and we really can’t do much more than that. … However, as you know from studying international law, world conditions change and the conditions of international trade change, and they change far more quickly than the legislative process can keep up.”

Barzilay said the U.S. Court of International Trade basically handles three types of cases: customs, trade and trade adjustment.

“Some of the most interesting cases we hear involve the classification of imported merchandise,” she said.

The senior judge recounted a 2003 case in which the court had to determine whether X-Men action figures should be considered human replicas or “replicas of other-worldly, imaginary creatures.”

Although it may seem like a minor detail for a federal court to address, for both the importer of the toys and the U.S. government, it was worth taking time to examine because if the toys were considered non human they were eligible for duty-free treatment, which would save a substantial amount of money for the importer.

“My law clerks and I had 50 little toy figures all lined up and were scrutinizing them and trying to decide whether they were human or otherworldly.”

Ultimately, they decided the toys were otherworldly, which resulted in some backlash Barzilay didn’t expect.

The story made the front page of the Wall Street Journal and she got a call from her son who told her she was being “trashed all over the Internet.”

“Apparently people took this very, very personally because people really like the X-Men; they think of them as heroes and heroines,” Barzilay said.

Barzilay also discussed more intricate cases they deal with, which don’t usually receive as much attention in the mainstream media, including countervailing and antidumping duties. She said it is in these areas that the court’s jurisprudence most often conflicts with international trade adjudications.

Often because laws such as zeroing — a way of equalizing foreign competition and imposing antidumping duties — are in the best interest of the United States, these cases can be particularly challenging when taking into consideration international laws.

She cited a case where the plaintiff — a foreign company – sued under the Charming Betsy Doctrine saying that zeroing violates the World Trade Organization’s antidumping agreement, which the U.S. government signed. The doctrine from 1804 regarding a schooner called the Charming Betsy states that “an act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations, if any other possible construction remains.”

“I predict that these cases will continue to bedevil me and my colleagues and this kind of litigation, and especially litigation from our international agreements, will continue to be an ever-expanding caseload in our docket.”

President Bill Clinton appointed Barzilay to the U.S. Court of International Trade in 1998. She received senior status on the court in June.

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