Cover story: Ahmed White, Nicholas Rosenbaum Professor at the University of Colorado Law School, spent nearly a decade writing The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America. Published in 2016 by the University of California Press, White’s debut book tells the story of one of the most important labor disputes in American history: a 1937 strike in the steel industry known as the Little Steel Strike that involved more than 70,000 workers, claimed the lives of at least 16 union people, and helped reshape the New Deal and define its legacy in law and policy.

The author

White’s interest in labor rights stems from his upbringing in the small community of Plaisance, Louisiana. Raised in an extended family with many relatives subsisting as domestic workers or farmers, he developed a sense of empathy for working people and a commitment to the values of hard work, solidarity, and equality.

“My father, who grew up picking cotton, was one of the first black lawyers in the state,” White says. “He handled a great number of civil rights cases and also farmed soybeans and cattle. My mother, who is white, ended up as a college history instructor. But she struggled through most of my youth to get and hold a job. She was blacklisted because of her marriage to my father, his activism, and her own work in civil rights and on behalf of poor and working people.”

These circumstances were, as he recalls, hardly a recipe for prosperity and stability, but White’s upbringing gave him a lasting appreciation for what working people endure.

“Our family endured more than its fair share of hard times. But, like most people, we managed. Every lesson I learned about the inherent dignity of work was matched by another about the indignities of low wages, capricious workplace rules, and tyrannical bosses.”

The book

Fast-forward to 2007, when White’s book begins to take shape. He is a recently tenured professor at Colorado Law. After seeing mentions of the Little Steel Strike in articles and books about labor and the New Deal, he notices the lack of in-depth research available about the conflict. The story was crucial but incomplete, White thinks. He decides to tell it himself and takes a chance on an unfamiliar format—a book.

“I had never written a book and had only a very basic idea of how to write one,” he recalled. “Somehow I just started researching and writing, and then editing, and then more writing and more editing, and by 2013 I had a manuscript I was confident enough in to send around.”

The book format allowed White to do what all good writers know is fundamental to their job: tell a compelling story. White was able to tell the stories of the men (and some women) who literally laid their lives on the line for better working conditions for all Americans in a fuller and more nuanced way than he could have done in a law review article. The format also allowed the story to reach a broader audience that included professional historians and the general public, not exclusively legal scholars.

Writing a book of this kind was “considerably more challenging than writing 20 law review articles,” he says with a smile. White based The Last Great Strike on extensive archival research that necessitated extensive travel. During one trip in the summer of 2009, he drove from Colorado to Pennsylvania and back, visiting archives and the places where key events in the strike occurred. Because many of the archives were open only one or two days a week—a result of the Great Recession—he had to stay out East for weeks at a time, shuttling from one location to another.

White’s research involved digging through tens of thousands of pages of old correspondence, government documents, oral histories, and photographs, but the sense of place often had the greatest impact. “Seeing firsthand where people were shot down in the street, where riots unfolded . . . I didn’t think I could honestly write the book without visiting those places,” he says.

The book that emerged from all this work tells a remarkable tale. It describes how workers in the steel industry endured extremely difficult working conditions and relentless, often very violent, repression for decades before finally, in the mid-1930s, mounting an effective campaign to organize a union and challenge these conditions. This effort was part of a broad uprising by industrial workers that was a foundation of the New Deal and eventually formed the basis for the rise of the American middle class. This all unfolded in the face of extraordinary resistance by employers who, working through organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, resorted to political intrigue, propaganda, and organized violence in an effort to blunt this push for unionism and derail the New Deal.

“The Little Steel Strike was the culmination of this conflict between powerful capitalists and ambitious, reform-minded workers,” White says. “It was a test of workers’ resolve, of the New Deal, and of its most important legislation, the National Labor Relations Act, which had just been enacted in 1935, and which employers were intent on reducing to a dead letter.”

The strike

For six weeks in the summer of 1937, the conflict was front-page news nationwide. The 16 to 18 workers who died (the causes of death in two cases remain unclear) were cut down in a series of clashes with heavily armed police, National Guardsmen, and company guards with more than 2,000 firearms in their possession. In one especially notorious episode known as the Memorial Day Massacre, the Chicago police killed or mortally wounded 10 union people when they fired, unprovoked, into a crowd of strikers and strike supporters. Over the course of the strike, more than 300 strikers and strike supporters were seriously injured.

Although the union people sometimes used sabotage and mass picketing to try to keep the steel plants closed, they were responsible for very little serious violence; they were the victims. Nevertheless, the strikers were blamed for the unrest, a charge that justified still more repression, which in turn sealed the fate of the walkout. When the strike ended, the companies fired around 8,000 strikers. This halted the push to organize industrial workers, and not only in steel.

“It was World War II that finally allowed the unions to resume their great advance in organizing American workers,” White observes, noting how the war dramatically altered the country’s political and economic situation. “There would be no more big, sensational strikes like this one aimed at organizing workers, and none so tragic as this one. This is what makes this the ‘Last Great Strike.’”

In the meantime, the steel companies, which had provoked the walkout by their flagrant violations of the labor law, paid little price at all for what had happened. No one from the companies’ side was prosecuted for the deaths and injuries. The steel companies had to rehire most of the fired strikers and issue them back pay as dictated by the labor law. After waiting five years for this process to play out, the average worker who was fired received only a couple hundred dollars. In fact, the war had made the companies much richer, which made these penalties and the companies’ eventual concessions to unionism very easy for them to bear.

In all these ways, White says, the strike revealed the limits of the New Deal’s commitment to reform and the shortcomings of the movement for industrial unionism that lay behind it, as well as the limits of the new labor law. The strike’s legacy can be seen today in a working class that is debased, a labor law that remains ineffective, and a union movement that never really gained a solid footing in American society.

"To understand why barely 10 percent of workers today are union members, why wages for most categories of American workers have not increased in decades, and why so many employers view the workplace as their private fiefdoms—to understand any of this, you can start by looking at what happened in Little Steel," White suggests.

The future

Although White began writing The Last Great Strike with some trepidation, today he can be found working on his next book project, this one about the widespread enforcement of sedition laws against radicals. He is especially interested in using this project to show how this campaign affected everyday activists and workers in the early 20th century. He has already visited a dozen archives, all over the country, some of them multiple times.

"This is what you have to do to tell a story worth telling,” he says, “and to tell it the right way."

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“Food law? What’s that?”

This is a common refrain heard by students, professors, and practitioners working in this emerging field. The answer is not simple, as the practice of food law spans a number of existing legal practice areas and some new areas not previously covered in the traditional practice of law, making a definition difficult to pinpoint.

The Food Law Student Network defines food law as “the study of the basis and impact of the laws and regulations . . . that govern the food and beverages we produce, transport, buy, sell, distribute, share, cook, eat, and drink. Food law and policy encompasses several different areas of law, including agricultural law, administrative law, animal law, environmental law, labor law, and health law.” The field continues to evolve as we see advancements in food science, agricultural practices, international trade, and the global food industry.

Though food law is still in its infancy—only emerging as a recognized field in 2004—law schools have seen an explosion of food law courses, clinics, internship opportunities, and journals over the past decade and a half. In a published in the Journal of Food Law & Policy, Professors Emily Broad Leib and Baylen Linnekin note the developing field of food law and policy and its growing presence in law schools around the nation. The article highlights Colorado Law as one of the top 34 law schools offering courses in food law and policy.

Much of the success of Colorado Law’s budding food law program is owed to the passion and energy of Associate Professor Alexia Brunet Marks, who joined the faculty in 2009. With an MS and PhD in agricultural economics, her research focuses on regulating risks in the global food supply. She has published articles on food safety and foodborne illness liability in legal journals across the nation, including the Harvard Journal on Legislation and the Vermont Law Review.

Last spring, Brunet Marks hosted an interdisciplinary workshop that brought together food law attorneys, professors, and professionals from related fields to discuss such topics as food justice, sustainability, and labeling issues. Participants also learned about food law issues specific to Colorado, such as the regulation of marijuana edibles and the tax on sugar-sweetened beverages that �鶹ӰԺ voters authorized in 2016.

Brunet Marks’s research projects involve exploring the role of certifications in promoting sustainable and regenerative agricultural systems and examining comparative legal approaches to regulating foods high in sugar, salt, and fat. In October 2017, Brunet Marks received the University of Colorado Provost’s Achievement Award for her article “,” which appeared in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. This fall, she is serving as a fellow at the University of Copenhagen at iCourts, the Danish National Research Foundation’s Center of Excellence for International Courts, to further her research in comparative food law.

Thanks to the efforts of Brunet Marks and a few motivated students, Colorado Law has made a name for itself in the field of food law. In addition to coursework, Colorado Law students can work on real-world food law projects through the Sustainable Community Development Clinic, intern or extern with a variety of food-focused organizations around Colorado and the U.S., and take advantage of food law lectures and volunteer and research opportunities through the student-led Food Law Society. With such a robust array of opportunities, students are able to leave Colorado Law with the experience necessary to enter the exciting new practice of food law.

Last spring, Colorado Law offered Food Law and Practice, a unique course co-taught by Brunet Marks and Nicole Nice of Mars Foods. The course combined doctrinal law with practical application and provided a survey of food law, covering such topics as federal food safety regulation, the federal farm bill, food labeling, biotechnology, public health, and trade. Students from CU’s Masters of the Environment Graduate Program with a focus on sustainable food systems joined law students, providing an even more diverse learning experience. Brunet Marks also teaches a Food Law and Policy seminar that allows interested students to take a deep dive into a particular topic within food law, and many of the students submit their research for publication in a variety of periodicals.

The Clinical Education Program offers more opportunities for students to get involved in food law, particularly through the Sustainable Community Development Clinic (SCDC), taught by Professor Deborah Cantrell. The clinic has taken on several food- and agriculture-related projects in �鶹ӰԺ, including assisting an agricultural cooperative with business formation, developing a toolkit to assist new farmers in accessing land in �鶹ӰԺ County, and working with food insecurity organizations to navigate Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program regulations. In addition to community-based projects, students in the clinic are responsible for leading the class in a weeklong immersion in a legal topic of their choice. This year’s students led classes on food waste, hydroponic farming, urban agriculture, and insects as food.

Outside of the classroom, Colorado Law students have taken advantage of food law and policy-related internship and externship opportunities with �鶹ӰԺ County Public Health, Ardent Mills, White Wave Foods, the National Young Farmers Coalition, California Certified Organic Farmers, the Vermont Law School Center for Agriculture and Food Systems, and the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, among others. Food law students interning at law firms bring a unique perspective and knowledge of food issues, which is advantageous as more firms develop practice groups specific to this area.

Students who want to participate less formally in food law, or just want to learn about the field in general, can participate in activities planned by the Food Law Society throughout the year. Founded in fall 2016 by Jennifer Benson (’18) and Meredith Kaufman (’18), the student-led organization hosts speakers on a variety of food law topics, organizes volunteer opportunities with food organizations in the community, and provides opportunities for students to learn more about the field of food law. The group has hosted panels of food law practitioners, a lecture by prominent Seattle-based food safety litigator Bill Marler, volunteer days with Growing Gardens, a nonprofit that aims to enrich the lives of the community through sustainable urban agriculture, and more. Food Law Society members have attended the annual Food Law Student Leadership Summit (FLSLS), hosted by the national Food Law Student Network and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, where they have had the opportunity to learn from and network with like-minded law students, professors, and practitioners from across the country. From the FLSLS, students have gotten to be involved with national projects, including working with the Farm Bill Law Enterprise to make recommendations for the 2018 Farm Bill and researching food workers’ rights for the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United.

As the field of food law continues to grow, we are likely to see more law schools developing food law programs of their own. With the expertise and guidance of Brunet Marks, the innovative Sustainable Community Development Clinic, and the active Food Law Society, Colorado Law is sure to continue to be a leader in this exciting legal field.

Jennifer Benson, a 2018 graduate of the University of Colorado Law School, is the Western regional policy director for the National Young Farmers Coalition. During law school, she interned at the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, worked for the Farm Bill Law Enterprise, and was managing editor of the University of Colorado Law Review, where her research focused on the 2018 Farm Bill and racial diversity in farming.

Pictured: Colorado Law’s Food Law Society volunteers at Growing Gardens, a �鶹ӰԺ nonprofit that brings gardening, nutrition education, and produce donations to more than 136,000 �鶹ӰԺ County residents.

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Casebooks and textbooks written by Colorado Law faculty are relied on and referenced in classrooms, courtrooms, and practitioner’s offices at the local, national, and international levels. The casebooks and textbooks featured below exemplify the important and constructive influence of Colorado Law faculty on the legal profession through educating the next generation of legal practitioners.

International Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples (Aspen Publ./Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 2009)

The first and only book of its kind, this casebook served as the first published compilation of materials and commentary intended for use in courses focusing on the subject of indigenous peoples within the international human rights system. Dean S. James Anaya draws on his experience as U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and uses carefully edited material from varied sources to illustrate the major issues facing indigenous peoples today.

International Human Rights: Problems of Law, Policy and Process (with Hurst Hannum and Dinah Shelton) (Wolters/Kluwer, 6th ed. 2011)

This pioneering casebook, in its sixth edition, takes a problem-oriented approach to covering global and regional human rights systems along with a discussion of the theoretical foundations of human rights, U.S. foreign policy and human rights, and key current issues.

Evidence Under the Rules (with Laird C. Kirkpatrick and Liesa L. Richter) (Wolters Kluwer 9th edition, 2018)

Evidence (with Laird C. Kirkpatrick, Liesa L. Richter) (Wolters Kluwer, 5th ed. 2018)

Twenty-First Century Procedure (Wolters Kluwer, 2d ed. 2017)

Federal Evidence (with Laird C. Kirkpatrick) (Thompson Reuters/Westlaw 4th ed. 2013)

Professor Christopher Mueller’s five-volume treatise, Federal Evidence, among the most cited references in judicial opinions, is cited, on average, twice a week by appellate courts across the nation. It has been cited 17 times by the U.S. Supreme Court. Mueller’s coursebook, Evidence Under the Rules, is in its ninth edition and is used in more than 100 law schools today. Together with Professor Laird Kirkpatrick, Mueller also completed Modern Evidence, a one-volume source for judges and lawyers, and the student hornbook Evidence, which sells thousands of copies annually and shapes how evidence is taught in law schools across the nation.

Cases and Materials on the Law of Natural Resources (Arno Press, 1951)

In 1951, Professor Clyde Martz published the first natural resources law casebook, setting the stage for the next half century of academic writing on the subject. As the first text attempt to consolidate natural resources law into one course of legal study, the casebook combined the previously discrete subjects of water law, mining law, and oil and gas law. Martz faced the challenge of organizing a growing area of law that had emerged as a separate subject of legal study only in the second half of the 20th century, and encompassed such diverse topics as water and water rights, mining, timber, oil and gas, energy, agriculture, recreation, resource preservation, and general land-use planning. While the field has evolved and newer generations of casebooks cover a broader range of materials, approaches, and perspectives, Martz’s casebook is still regarded as the pioneering casebook in the field.

Harold Bruff, Professor Emeritus

Separation of Powers Law: Cases and Materials (Carolina Academic Press, 3rd ed. 2011)

Professor Emeritus Harold “Hal” Bruff regards his classic casebook as both an explanation of separation of powers and an exploration of his views on the subject. His expertise on issues of separation of powers stems from his experience as senior attorney and advisor to the executive branch in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel. Written for interested observers of the legal scene, law professors, students, judges, and people who work in one of the three federal branches, the book takes a deep dive into dramatic issues of presidential power and executive-congressional relations.

Originally written by two Colorado Law legends—Professor Emeritus Charles Wilkinson and former Dean David Getches—the book laid the foundation for how American Indian law is analyzed today by grounding Indian law and policy in American history, forming the basis of all casebooks and treatises that followed. For 30 years following the first edition’s publication in 1979, this book was one of only two federal Indian law casebooks on the market. In 2016, Professor Kristen Carpenter joined the distinguished group of authors for its seventh edition. It remains the leading federal Indian law casebook in the field and has been cited in more than 700 law review articles, cases, and briefs—more than twice the amount of any other Indian law casebook.

J. Dennis Hynes, Professor Emeritus, and Mark Loewenstein, Monfort Professor of Commercial Law

Agency, Partnership and the LLC: The Law of Unincorporated Business Enterprises, Cases, Materials, Problems (Lexis/Nexis, 9th ed. 2015)

This casebook originated with Professor Emeritus J. Dennis Hynes (’60), who began his esteemed teaching career at Colorado Law in 1964. Hynes published the first edition of this casebook in 1974. In 2003, he passed the torch to Professor Mark Loewenstein, who wrote editions six through nine and is working on the 10th, which will be published by Carolina Academic Press for use in fall 2019. Hynes and Loewenstein’s writing record also includes their “Nutshell” series, which succinctly summarizes the topics covered in the casebook and is consulted by law students, lawyers, judges, and laypeople. Hynes wrote the first two editions before Loewenstein picked up editions three through six, with a seventh edition soon to be in the works.

* deceased

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From immigration law to government speech, Colorado Law faculty are helping to shape the narrative around important issues through their books in progress. Of those several faculty books in progress, the following are already under contract for publication.

Immigration Law and Policy: Ming H. Chen

Constructing Citizenship for Noncitizens (forthcoming, Stanford University Press)

Abstract: For the past decade, U.S. immigration policy has taken a laissez-faire approach toward immigrant integration and focused nearly exclusively on enforcement: stopping unlawful entry, stopping criminal aliens, and stopping foreign terrorists. The book argues that this is a mistake and that immigration lawyers, scholars, and policymakers concede too much when they focus all their energies on responding to immigration enforcement. Chen promotes an alternative vision for immigration policy that is premised on stronger state-sponsored pathways to full citizenship and prescribes affirmative integration for noncitizens seeking to adjust their status at each stage of the journey to full membership, from newcomer to resident to citizen.

Feminism and Criminal Law: Aya Gruber

The Feminist War on Crime (forthcoming, University of California Press)

Abstract: Today’s young feminists are preoccupied with men’s sexual misbehavior and call for swift reform and punishment. But they also object to racialized mass incarceration and recognize that the U.S. has the ignoble distinction of the most punitive nation on Earth. The many #MeToo devotees who believe criminal law is racially fraught and know that inequality is caused by larger social forces, not just individual bad actors, are well positioned to end the feminism-criminal law alliance. Gruber speaks to this cohort, explaining how feminists, in their past efforts to secure women’s protection from domestic violence and rape, became soldiers in the late-20th-century war on crime and complicit in the rise of mass incarceration. She demonstrates through a granular analysis of feminist criminal reform over several decades that policing and punishment are dangerous weapons to be used only as a last resort and sketches a way forward.

International Law and Decisionmaking: Anna Spain Bradley

The Impact of One: How Individual Choice Shapes International Law (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press)

Associate Professor Anna Spain Bradley specializes in international law and neuroscience. She also serves as assistant vice provost for faculty development and diversity for the CU �鶹ӰԺ campus.

Abstract: Told through the lens of historical accounts and original interviews, the book charts groundbreaking decision moments in international law—from the bombing of Hiroshima, to the Rwandan genocide, to the intervention into Libya—and reveals how certain people, and their emotions, biases, and beliefs, shaped global outcomes in powerful yet unexamined ways. Drawing upon insights from neuroscience, Spain offers a theory of how individual choice—involving emotion, empathy, and bias—has affected the development of international law and introduces a novel approach for understanding the role of human cognition and choice in global decisionmaking.

Free Speech and Expression: Helen Norton

The Government’s Speech and the Constitution (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press)

Professor Helen Norton holds the Ira C. Rothgerber Jr. Chair in Constitutional Law and is a former deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Abstract: Governments have been speaking for as long as there have been governments, and new expressive technologies now empower government to speak in new ways through Twitter and other social media postings, webcasts, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds, and more. This raises important and interesting questions about the constitutional value and harms posed by the government’s speech. Norton’s book explores how the government’s speech sometimes performs constitutionally valuable functions, as well as examines the dark side of the government’s speech by posing questions such as, “Under what circumstances does the government’s speech threaten equality or liberty such that it offends the Equal Protection or Due Process clauses?” and, “Under what circumstances, if any, does the Constitution prohibit our government from lying to us?"

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University of Colorado Law School Professor Melissa Hart was appointed to the Colorado Supreme Court on December 14, 2017, and took the bench for the first time to hear oral arguments on January 9, 2018. In addition to her distinguished work teaching students, Hart led the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law for eight years. She is an expert in employment discrimination, access to justice, and constitutional law.

We sat down with Justice Hart to hear her reflections on her first few months on the bench.

Where were you when you received the news that you were appointed the next justice of the Colorado Supreme Court?

I was at my son’s school, where I had just dropped him off for the day. The governor called me and said he had “three follow-up questions.” We talked for about 45 (very stressful and uncertain) minutes, at the end of which he said, “Well, you are my pick.” I ran right into the school gym, where my son was playing basketball, and he gave me the hugest hug.

Who are your judicial role models?

My strongest role model, as a judge, a lawyer, and a human being, is Justice John Paul Stevens, with whom I clerked in 1996–97.

What are the top five books that have most influenced you and your career?

I don’t think I can identify THE top five, but here are five books that have influenced me significantly:

• Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
• Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–1963
• William Fisher et al., American Legal Realism
• Nancy Levit and Douglas Linder, The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law
• Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire

You have dedicated your career to improving access to justice. How will you continue to address access to justice from the Colorado Supreme Court?

I will serve as the court’s liaison to access-to-justice efforts around the state and will remain a member of the Colorado Access to Justice Commission (ATJC). A coalition of stakeholders, including the ATJC, the court, and the Colorado Bar Association, has received a grant from the National Center for State Courts to implement pilot projects in two judicial districts—one rural and one more urban—focused on filling gaps in access to justice efforts. I will be working with other project managers on that effort, with the hope that we will be able to take lessons from those pilot projects into other districts around the state in the coming years. I am also very excited to be the court’s representative on an organizing committee for a new affordable law practice incubator that Colorado Law is supporting and that we hope to launch in 2019. Helping lawyers learn how to run their practices so that they can charge rates that real people can afford to pay is an essential piece of addressing the justice gap.

Can you describe a defining moment or experience that has stuck with you from your first several months on the court?

There have been so many! I imagine people would expect me to select an experience on the bench or in the drafting of an opinion, but I think I’d like to focus instead on an experience I recently had as part of the administrative work of the court. The associate justices are responsible for serving as ex officio chairs for the nominating commissions that select district and county court judges. The first nominating commission I chaired was for a vacancy on the 12th Judicial District in Alamosa. I went down to the San Luis Valley the day before and had the opportunity to meet members of the bar association there. I was so impressed with the attorneys I met—many of whom were Colorado Law alumni. I was especially pleased to see that the public defenders and district attorneys were very collegial. The visit was a wonderful reminder that there are great legal communities all over the state, and not just on the Front Range.

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In front of a packed house at the �鶹ӰԺ Theater, New Venture Challenge (NVC) finalists had only 5 minutes to convince a panel of �鶹ӰԺ’s most successful entrepreneurs that their business concept deserved venture funding over the other 100 participating teams. This may seem like a daunting task, but this year’s 10 NVC finalists spent countless hours over the preceding nine months preparing for this moment.

The NVC is an annual entrepreneurial competition where CU �鶹ӰԺ students, faculty, and staff form teams, develop innovative ideas for a product or service, iterate and refine their products, and ultimately present their pitches. In April, the celebrated its 10th year of fostering innovation and bridging the gap between entrepreneurs and funding sources by providing $75,000 to the most fundable company at the finals.

This year’s winner, Specdrums, won the judges over with its creativity, determination, and a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. Specdrums’ flagship product is an app-connected ring that allows users to create music at their fingertips. Shortly after the NVC 10 finals, Specdrums was acquired by Sphero, a �鶹ӰԺ-based interactive toy and robot maker.

“NVC was a very exciting experience for us,” said Specdrums co-founder and CEO Steven Dourmashkin. “Since not making it past the finals last year, we've been working hard to improve our product and build our community. The momentum we've achieved since then put us in a great spot to participate in NVC 10, and the countless hours polishing and practicing our pitch paid off!”

The Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship co-founded and cultivated the NVC and ran the program for nine years before handing it over to the new CU �鶹ӰԺ Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative last fall. Like Silicon Flatirons’ own Entrepreneurship Initiative, the NVC is centered around three goals: encourage participants to explore entrepreneurship, no matter what discipline or department they are from; unite the campus with the resources and mentorship available in the �鶹ӰԺ community; and inspire participants to enjoy and engage in entrepreneurial experiences. From September to April each year, the NVC hosts a variety of workshops, mentorship events, and networking opportunities, and attracts rising stars to compete.

Before the kickoff of this year’s NVC, Specdrums sought the assistance of Colorado Law’s Entrepreneurial Law Clinic (ELC), which gives law students a unique opportunity to provide legal representation for Colorado’s most promising startup and small business clients. Tyler Hayden (’18) and Jack Vihstadt (’18), one of the ELC’s 2017–18 student attorney teams, worked closely with Specdrums on interesting legal challenges facing the young company, including issues related to data privacy and products liability. The student team also drafted the company’s terms of service and privacy policy, both of which can be found on the company’s website and mobile app.

“Representing Specdrums stressed the importance of managing client expectations, setting appropriate deadlines, and delivering a quality work-product under time constraints,” Hayden said.

A common thread between these innovation-focused, collaborative programs is the work of Associate Professor Brad Bernthal (’01). As the co-founder and point person for the NVC during the past decade, Bernthal has fueled his passion for providing Colorado Law students with immersive opportunities to engage with �鶹ӰԺ’s world-class startup scene. Bernthal also serves as the director of the ELC and the Silicon Flatirons Center’s Entrepreneurship Initiative. Under his leadership, the NVC has expanded dramatically, and the ELC has grown to include 20 student attorneys who assist more than 30 companies each year. The NVC and ELC continue to have an inspiring impact on the University of Colorado campus and the �鶹ӰԺ startup ecosystem.

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Colorado Law joins first-of-its-kind program to investigate wrongful convictions

The Korey Wise Innocence Project at Colorado Law has partnered with the �鶹ӰԺ District Attorney’s Office, Public Defender’s Office, and private defense bar on a new conviction integrity unit, as announced by �鶹ӰԺ District Attorney Michael Dougherty in March. The �鶹ӰԺ Conviction Integrity Unit, the first such program within a district attorney’s office in Colorado, will provide a sound, transparent, and collaborative review mechanism for claims of wrongful conviction and will establish protocols for reviewing claims of innocence. Colorado Law students will be assigned to participate in case reviews and discussions on investigative steps to determine whether a person was wrongly convicted and work with the district attorney’s staff to create case analysis reports that will be shared with the other partners in this innovative and important effort.

Pictured: Kristy Martinez, director, Korey Wise Innocence Project

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