Vol 46. No. 1 Fall 2021 | School of Law | SIU

Vol 46. No. 1 Fall 2021

ARTICLES

Teaching Courtroom Advocacy Principles and Skills across Systems and Cultures

Christopher W. Behan................................................................................................... 1

Increasing global interconnectedness in legal education makes it possible for instructors from different countries and legal systems to collaborate in teaching courtroom advocacy skills courses. This article points out some of the potential pitfalls of teaching across systems and cultures. These include legal ethnocentrism and ignorance of practices and procedures that are culturally appropriate in foreign jurisdictions. The article identifies a set of universal baseline skills and practices that can be adapted for local conditions when developing collaborative advocacy skills training courses.

The Silver Lining of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Building Effective—and Enduring—International Legal Education Opportunities

Diane Penneys Edelman ............................................................................................. 35

“Pandemic!”
Naturally, this word—and event—has had a great effect on the minds of those who love to teach law and study abroad, and who relish meeting with colleagues abroad. What would we do? How could we continue to teach and learn from one another, to share the latest teaching and learning techniques, if international travel had come to a standstill?
Fortunately, constraints of all sorts breed creativity, and the constraints of this pandemic are no exception. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced law schools to alter the ways that students interact, attend class, and study, and has compelled professors to find new ways to collaborate, speak at conferences, and teach students at home and abroad.
We have learned so much during this turbulent time that we can use after the pandemic ends. By developing virtual conferences, distance-based international collaboration among professors and students, and projects that we can work on together in spite of the pandemic, we have also discovered “silver linings” during this difficult time—that is, we have discovered and created new ways of teaching, learning, and collaborating—both domestically and internationally, that we should continue to develop and utilize beyond the pandemic.
This article explores those hidden benefits of getting through difficult times and using new means to connect that will live beyond the pandemic.

Pandemic Pedagogy and its Applications for International Legal Education and the Hyflex Classroom of the Future

Colleen P. Graffy ..................................................................................................... 45

As Academic Director of Pepperdine Caruso’s London Law Program for over twenty years, the author saw the early development of technologies linking law schools with their overseas campuses. Now back in Malibu, California, Pepperdine Caruso’s home campus, she sees the potential of Zoom generation technology and its application for study abroad programs. The pandemic and the enforced online learning resulting from it advanced not only classroom technology, but the attitudes toward it. This offers hope for better interaction between study abroad programs and their home campuses—a hope for which many in international legal education have long been awaiting. This article looks at the many benefits of international legal education and the impediments to attending, which include lack of required courses, concerns about participating in law review, journals, trial team, moot court, and other co-curricular activities as well as on-campus interviews and employment concerns. The article looks at how pandemic-induced technologies might enhance overseas programs and make them accessible to more law students. The author also identifies the pandemic pedagogy that is enriching legal education as we go back to in-person classroom learning and the opening it has created for an interactive HyFlex Classroom that combines in-person and online legal education to the advantage of both campuses, at home and abroad.

ESSAYS

The Ubiquity of Transnational Practice and the Corresponding Critical Importance of International Education for U.S. Law Students

William P. Johnson ..................................................................................................... 73

Prior to becoming a law professor, the author was engaged in a rewarding international business law practice—a practice that was possible in part because of opportunities the author had while still in law school. As a law professor and law school dean, he now focuses on finding or creating opportunities for others to have interesting and worthwhile international experiences and to receive meaningful international education while still in law school. Often challenging under ordinary circumstances, the pandemic has made it even more challenging by seriously hampering the law school’s ability to (i) place students in international internships, (ii) operate the law school’s summer law program abroad, and (iii) bring to campus international lawyers and law professors, whether as speakers, researchers, or visiting professors. Yet, ensuring that U.S. law students can obtain meaningful international education and experience is important even in a pandemic.

This essay explains why that is so. It argues that transnational law practice is ubiquitous and describes how transnational law is relevant across practice areas, sometimes in unexpected ways; it describes some of the ways a U.S. law school can better prepare students for the transnational practice of law, in part by drawing on the author’s own experience as a law student and practicing lawyer; and it describes the mobilization of resources that the author and his colleagues undertook in the pandemic to create meaningful international opportunities even when international travel was not possible, as they recognized the critical importance of law students being able to obtain or deepen understanding of international law and the world outside U.S. national borders. The essay also acknowledges inequities that have been highlighted and exacerbated by the pandemic. And the essay identifies a silver lining of the pandemic: those innovations and the increased commitment to equity that can continue long after the pandemic is finally behind us. 

Teaching Abroad Independently: An Essay

Christopher R. Kelley ................................................................................................ 105

As the pandemic wanes, in-person international teaching will resume. This short essay offers lessons learned by a U.S. law professor who has taught in-person internationally for over sixteen years. He mostly teaches independently, self-arranging and self-funding his teaching. The essay seeks to inspire and help you to teach abroad independently or any other way that works for you.

Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Privacy Law: Reflections after a Franco-American Virtual Education- Collaborative Online International Learning Experience

Maximiliano Marzetti, Ph.D .............................................................................................. 113

Virtual Education-Collaborative Online International Learning (“VE-COIL”) is an innovative pedagogical tool for international experiential education. VE-COIL programs are different from most other online learning activities due to their emphasis on inter-cultural components.
This essay discusses a VE-COIL between U.S.and French students on cross-cultural perspectives on privacy. This essay also presents survey results that demonstrate how the VE-COIL program helped students expand their cultural knowledge and awareness.

NOTES

Business Interruption Insurance: The Future of Pandemic Exclusions

Micaylee R. Uhls ........................................................................................................ 131

The COVID-19 pandemic presented many challenges and businesses were not immune. Corporations and small businesses alike faced closures due to the pandemic and related governmental shutdowns which left them desperate for the lifeboat that is insurance coverage. However, the majority of these businesses were excluded from this coverage. Business Interruption Insurance is the “ark” that keeps business afloat when they are faced with temporary closures. However, when insurers were looking for their lifeboat, they found nothing but a quickly deflating raft.

Insurance, in its most simple terms, is a contract for balancing of risks. Insurance policy exclusions are the primary tool insurers have to limit potential coverage obligations. The SARs outbreak of 2003 gave a glimpse of a potential global pandemic and the insurance industry responded by creating specific exclusions for these types of events. These exclusions are found in the vast majority of Business Interruption polices. Several States and the U.S. Federal Government all proposed legislation to either nullify these exclusions or require insurers with Business Interruption polices to offer coverage for pandemics in the future. This note analyzes these various proposals and offers a solution that seeks to balance the needs to insureds and the insurance industry going forward.

In The Absence of a Uniform Biometric Law: A Proposal Comparing Current Biometric Laws, Issues, and Future Solutions

Loraina Trujilo ....................................................................................................... 161

Advancements in technology are always progressing, often without pause for necessary restrictions and limitations to protect against harm. Biometric information technology has quickly left the United States trailing behind without a federal statute to regulate and limit violations of privacy. This note discusses the advantages and disadvantages of biometric information technology and provides a brief overview of current biometric laws at the State level. It also argues a federal statute is necessary by providing a contrasting example of unregulated biometric information technology in China. After analyzing current proposed bills in Congress, this note offers an outline for a comprehensive federal statute addressing public and private use of biometric technology.

Permission Not Granted: A Domestic and Global Comparative Analysis on Social Media Policies, Privacy Laws and a Proposal for the United States

Simran Saini ....................................................................................................... 189

Social media’s presence in people’s lives is more present today than it has ever been. While social media has many benefits to it, this specific means of communication has significant legal consequences associated with it as well, specifically users’ privacy concerns.

This note comparatively analyzes current data privacy laws within and outside the United States, while focusing on implications of these legislations on the popular social media platform, TikTok, by focusing on the recent class action: In Re TikTok. This note ends with a proposal for implementing a comprehensive federal data privacy regulation inspired by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation followed by the effects of this type of legislation in the United States.