What They Did on Their Summer Vacation: Faculty Globetrot to Teach and Present the Law

About a dozen University of Virginia School of Law faculty members dedicated time this summer to teaching and speaking at locations around the world.

Five professors taught in Germany, a popular spot for Law School academics.

As part of an annual faculty exchange program between the University of Virginia and the University of Münster in Germany, professors Quinn Curtis and Michael Gilbert taught a short course providing an introduction to the economic analysis of law with a focus on American corporate law.

“Teaching in Germany was a delightful challenge,” Gilbert said. “The students asked good, unpredictable questions, and I had to connect my ideas to their legal system.”

Professor Margo Bagley taught two short courses — Pharmaceuticals and Intellectual Property and Protection of Biotechnological Inventions — at the Max Planck Munich Intellectual Property Law Center in Germany. This is Bagley's third summer teaching there.

Professor Steven Walt taught a short course on International Sales Transactions at Bochum University Ruhr Law School.

And at Hamburg University in Germany, Associate Professor Mila Versteeg gave a lecture on law and economics and taught the subject to Ph.D. students.

The United Kingdom was another popular destination for UVA Law academics. Professors Kerry Abrams and Brandon Garrett spent their summer as visiting fellows.

Abrams was a visiting fellow at Oxford at the Centre for Criminology, where she presented two papers, "The Challenge of Multiple Parenthood" at a Knowledge Exchange Seminar and "The Status of State Citizenship" at an Academic Visitors in Law workshop.

"Working abroad was very useful for putting my own research in context,” Abrams said. “Many of the challenges the U.S. experiences in my areas, immigration law and family law, are also being experienced by other countries, who are dealing with them in different ways.”

Garrett served as a visiting fellow at All Souls College in Oxford. During his fellowship, Garrett gave four talks in the U.K., all of which centered on his research on the lenient deals prosecutors make with corporate criminals and the resulting book, "Too Big To Jail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations."

In addition, Professor A.E. Dick Howard visited England for a series of lectures marking the anniversary of Magna Carta.

Two professors also went to Geneva, Switzerland, to give talks and attend high-profile meetings.

Professor Paul Stephan spoke at an international conference in Geneva on foreign affairs law. He is currently involved in an around-the-world teaching tour that continues in August in Melbourne and Sydney, and in Paris later in the fall.

And Professor Bagley was in Geneva for the World Intellectual Property Organization's annual meeting (as well as at a special WIPO drafting session in New Zealand). Bagley has been providing expert assistance to the government of Mozambique and other African countries on intellectual property matters.

Other international locations professors visited included:

Turkey: Professor Frederick Schauer presented the keynote on his recent book, "The Force of Law," at a symposium on coercion in law at Bilkent University in Ankara. Versteeg also gave a talk in the country at Koc University.

Italy: Shauer gave a lecture series on legal reasoning at the European University in Florence.

Australia: Professor Ethan Yale taught U.S. International Tax at the University of Sydney.

South Korea: Professor Albert Choi taught an Introduction to U.S. Contract Law short course at Seoul National University Law School.

Israel: Versteeg taught a comparative constitutional law short course at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and gave talks at Tel Aviv University and Haifa University.

France: Garrett spent time at the University of Lille, which organized a conference on the topic of his latest book.