2019 UND Law Homecoming CLE
The UND School of Law Homecoming CLE will be held on Friday, October 4, 2019 at the School of Law Baker Courtroom.
There will be a morning session beginning at 10:30 a.m. and an afternoon session beginning
at 1:30 p.m. There is no cost to attend either session and lunch is included as well.
You are also welcome to attend the law school awards program and luncheon that will be held between the two CLE sessions from noon to 1:30 p.m. We will award the Order of the Coif, Order of Barristers and scholarships in the courtroom and then will hold a luncheon in the Central Commons.
We have arranged free parking available on campus in the lot east of the parking ramp for the CLE participants. For a map of the available parking, click the link below.
Map for parking 10/4/19: 8:00 am - 4:30 pm (east of parking ramp)
Approvals
North Dakota CLE - has been approved for 0.5 ND CLE credit plus 2.0 ND Ethics credits, for a total of 2.5 ND CLE credits. Minnesota CLE - application submitted.
Program Details
Win hockey tickets - One lucky attendee of the CLE will win 2 club level seats for the UND vs. Manitoba hockey game on Saturday, October 5.
Morning Session
10:30 - 11:00 a.m.
"Tribal Environmental Self-Determination: Beneficiary or Casualty of Trump’s Return to Local Environmental Management" presentation by Professor James Grijalva
Halfway into President Trump’s term, shifting goals at the EPA have thrown the practice
of environmental law into flux. Trump’s EPA seeks a return to its “core mission”
by restoring power to the states “through cooperative federalism.” Yet, cooperative
federalism was always premised on state implementation of environmental programs,
subject to EPA’s original role ensuring its state partners complied with strong federal
statutes protecting human health and the environment. Not dissimilarly, the nation’s
tribal self-determination policy has sought less federal control and increased tribal
governmental authority over Indian country. Unlike states, however, tribes face serious
practical, political and legal hurdles that hinder a successful transition from federal
to tribal governance of the environment. Trump’s push for national energy independence
has raised the stakes for all: inadequately managed air and water pollution that transgresses
state and tribal boundaries threatens all.
These topics will be discussed through the presentation by Professor James Grijalva, whose paper on this topic was recognized as Best Paper at the 48th Spring Conference of the ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources, which was held in March 2019.
These topics will be discussed through the presentation by Professor James Grijalva, whose paper on this topic was recognized as Best Paper at the 48th Spring Conference of the ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources, which was held in March 2019.
11:00 a.m. - Noon
Lawyers in Negotiation: Meeting Ethical Challenges and Maintaining Professional Integrity featuring Michael McGinniss
This one-hour ethics CLE program presented by UND Law Dean Michael McGinniss will provide attendees with perspectives on ethical issues relating to lawyer negotiation, based on his 2015 North Dakota Law Review article Breaking Faith: Machiavelli and Moral Risks in Lawyer Negotiation. That article examines the ethics of lawyer negotiation through the viciously scratched lens of Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, in which he advises political rulers about what he considers realistic principles for decision making and action. For background, Dean McGinniss will introduce some core elements of Machiavelli’s moral philosophy and its often subtle but nevertheless persisting influence on the American legal profession and the practice of negotiation. After reviewing the most important aspects of the law of lawyer negotiation, including ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct 4.1 and 4.3, several ABA Ethics Opinions, he will then consider concepts of risk in the negotiation process, including informational and moral risks.
Awards & Lunch
Noon - 1:30 p.m.
Afternoon Session
1:30 - 2:30 p.m.
The Ethics of Conscience: Saint Thomas More and First Freedoms in the Legal Profession featuring Michael McGinniss
This one-hour ethics CLE program presented by UND Law Dean Michael McGinniss will provide attendees with perspectives on the ethics of conscience, based on his recent 2019 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy article Expressing Conscience with Candor: Saint Thomas More and First Freedoms in the Legal Profession. That article explores recent challenges to lawyers’ “first freedoms” under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, especially freedom of speech, with particular attention to the ABA’s 2016 adoption of Rule 8.4(g) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. In his presentation, Dean McGinniss will open with a brief reflection on sixteenth-century England’s Thomas More, patron saint of lawyers, and the meaning that his life and example may offer for lawyers today.
Speakers
Professor James Grijalva - Professor James Grijalva is the Lloyd & Ruth Friedman Professor of Law and the Director of the Tribal Environmental Law Project at the University of North Dakota School of Law. Professor Grijalva earned his J.D., cum laude, with a Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, from the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Professor Grijalva writes and lectures on subjects related to the environmental management and protection of Indian country and the development of tribal natural resources.
Michael S. McGinniss - Michael S. McGinniss is the Dean and Associate Professor of Law at the University of North Dakota School of Law, where he joined the faculty in 2010 and has taught courses on Professional Responsibility, Evidence, Conflict of Laws, Remedies, and Advanced Legal Ethics. He also served for three years as a founding co-coordinator for the UND School of Law’s innovative team-taught first-year course, Professional Foundations. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English (summa cum laude and first in his class) at Washington College. He received his legal education at the College of William & Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law, where he graduated third in his class and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. Upon graduation from law school, he served as the law clerk for Honorable Randy J. Holland of the Supreme Court of Delaware. He then was associated for four years with the Delaware law firm Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP, where his practice focused on intellectual property litigation in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.
In 1998, the Supreme Court of Delaware appointed Dean McGinniss to its Office of Disciplinary Counsel. During his twelve years of service as Disciplinary Counsel, he was responsible for the evaluation, investigation, and prosecution of lawyer disciplinary matters before the Court and its Board on Professional Responsibility. He was also responsible for evaluating, investigating and prosecuting matters involving the unauthorized practice of law by non-lawyers, and presenting hearings before the Board of Bar Examiners involving the character and fitness of applicants to the Delaware Bar. He is a member of the bars of Delaware, the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, and the United States Supreme Court.
At the UND School of Law, Dean McGinniss has been honored annually with the J. Philip Johnson Faculty Fellowship Award, given to promote professional responsibility, leadership and ethics, both in the legal profession and in the community. He is serving his third three-year term as a member of the North Dakota Joint Committee on Attorney Standards, and in January 2018 was appointed to serve a two-year term as Chair. He has served as President of the Randy H. Lee American Inn of Court, and he is a member of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies, including its Professional Responsibility & Legal Education, Religious Liberties, and Free Speech & Election Law practice groups. He authored and published A Tribute to Justice Antonin Scalia, 92 N.D. L. Rev. 1 (2016), based on remarks he presented at a Federalist Society event at the School of Law in April 2016.
Dean McGinniss’ research and scholarship interests have focused on questions concerning the professional, ethical, and moral responsibilities of lawyers. His most recent law review article, Expressing Conscience with Candor: Saint Thomas More and First Freedoms in the Legal Profession, was published in 2019 in Volume 42 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, which is Harvard Law’s top-ranked specialty journal. His invited book chapter Advice in the Lawyer-Client Relationship was published in 2018 by Oxford University Press in the Oxford Handbook of Advice. He also presented this research in the 2018 Mart Vogel Lecture on Professionalism and Legal Ethics at the SBAND Annual Meeting in Bismarck. He presented his article The Character of Codes: Preserving Spaces for Personal Integrity in Lawyer Regulation, 29 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 559 (2016) at the 2016 Symposium of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. His 2016 Mart Vogel Lecture on Professionalism and Legal Ethics, featured his lead article Breaking Faith: Machiavelli and Moral Risks in Lawyer Negotiation, 91 N.R. L. Rev. 247 (2015). His 2013 article Virtue and Advice: Socratic Perspectives on Lawyer Independence and Moral Counseling of Clients was selected to be the lead article in Volume 1, Issue 1 of the Texas A&M Law Review. His essay Apprenticing for a Flourishing Life in the Law: The Virtues of Judicial Clerkship appeared in the March/April 2015 issue of the American Inns of Court’s flagship publication, The Bencher.
Shortly after joining the UND School of Law faculty, Dean McGinniss presented the 2011 Vogel Lecture, entitled Virtue Ethics, Earnestness, and the Deciding Lawyer: Human Flourishing in a Legal Community. His article based on the Lecture was subsequently published in 87 N.D. L. Rev. 19 (2011). In 2013, his article entitled Sending the Message: Using Technology to Support Judicial Reporting of Lawyer Misconduct to State Disciplinary Agencies was published in the Journal of the Professional Lawyer, the peer-reviewed academic journal of the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. He has also published legal scholarship addressing the regulation of multi-jurisdictional practice and the unauthorized practice of law.
In 2013, Dean McGinniss received a UND Foundation North Dakota Spirit Faculty Achievement Award, and he has been nominated for the UND Outstanding Faculty Scholar Award (2013) and the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award (2014). He was initiated as an Honorary Member of Phi Delta Phi, Bruce Inn in March 2018, and he has been honored by our students selecting him as the Graduation Banquet speaker in 2012 and 2019 and as a Commencement Hooder each May 2012 through 2019.
Dean McGinniss and his wife Maureen are parishioners of St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Grand Forks, ND, where they reside.