Month: October 2024

2-Year LLM grad publishes law review article….and a winning romance novel!

Posted by Stephen Horowitz, Lecturer of Legal English

Eunkwang Ha (’24), Two-Year LLM Program alum, legal scholar, and romance writer.

Since graduating from Georgetown’s Two-Year LLM Program last May 2024, Eunkwang Ha has been busy. And not just burning the midnight oil in her government job at South Korea’s equivalent of the Federal Trade Commission.

Ha had one article published in the South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business titled “Have you been to Orlando? In relation to the Regulation of Self-Preferencing in Antitrust Law.”

Here’s the abstract:

As a mother of two and a South Korean professional studying abroad in the United States, one of my top priorities for our family’s time here was to visit Orlando. My children had endured quite a bit of disruption as I pursued my professional goals, and I felt visiting Disney World and Universal Studios would be a bit of recompense. Although I wanted to use a package deal from a Korean travel agency, it was not a good choice because I needed to stay at hotels
connected to Disney World and Universal Studios. Due to the self-preferencing of Disney World and Universal Studios, staying at affiliated hotels was more advantageous and convenient for enjoying the theme parks. Orlando hotel price
hikes cannot be solely attributed to market competition; they result from monopolistic dominance and abuse of power by Disney and Universal Studios. The situation appears to have worsened over time, but U.S. competition authorities show no inclination toward regulation.

This indifferent stance extends beyond Orlando, as these authorities tolerate self-preferencing on various platforms. We now live under the influence of dominant companies known as GAFA, a situation starkly highlighted in the 2013 Google case, where U.S. authorities gave a green light to self-preferencing practices that led to substantial fines and sanctions in Europe and South Korea, respectively. Amid growing concern about technology platforms’ power, competition authorities recently introduced five antitrust bills, aiming to strengthen the regulation of companies like Google and Amazon. However, judicial uncooperativeness and legislative failures hampered these efforts, and they continue to present challenges for the future. Addressing these challenges
will require a macroscopic perspective, emphasizing expert judgment over economic modeling. Comprehensive advocacy efforts should focus on common sense, historical experience, and ethical considerations. This is more crucial than refining economic models, as the notion that such models alone can prevail against large corporations in court is unrealistic. Agencies have limited resources for economic modeling, while business enterprises possess greater capabilities for not only modeling but also lobbying and legal expenses. Redirecting efforts from economic expertise to comprehensive public outreach is essential.

And then she also wrote a romance novel that won a competition in Korea which led to a Korean drama company purchasing the rights to the story which is now being made into a TV drama! She said the novel is pure romance and not law-related. But she was clearly honing her novel-writing skills while studying law at Georgetown, commenting in a recent email to me, “I remember how exciting it was as a novelist to write the hypothetical scenarios in your class.”

Ha additionally waxed nostalgically about her time at Georgetown Law and living in the US:

“It has been over four months since I left the U.S. and returned to Korea. I resumed my position as an Korean FTC official in September. These days, we are in the midst of the national audit, so there have been occasions where I have had to stay up all night working. But even though I have been back in Korea for a while, I still can not forget the beautiful natural landscapes of the U.S. and the relaxed, friendly people. I have many fond memories of my time there. I still remember how exciting it was as a novelist to write the hypothetical scenarios in your class.”

We have many fond memories of you and your Two-Year LLM classmates as well, Eunkwang. 🙂

Are you an alum of the Two-Year LLM Program who wants to share an update? Just email Stephen Horowitz at sh1643@georgetown.edu and share your update. We’re always glad to hear from you.

Law school, learning issues and LLM students

Posted by Stephen Horowitz, Lecturer of Legal English

Law schools in the US have become increasingly aware of and attuned to the range of cognitive learning issues that law students may deal with. I remember how counter-intuitive that seemed to me the first time I learned about this topic several years ago: “How could someone even get into law school if they have cognitive learning issues?” my brain naively wondered.

And the answer is that learning issues include things like ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder), neurodivergence (e.g., autism), and dyslexia. And perhaps it even overlaps with anxiety, which often can present in the form of various learning issues.

In the context of foreign-trained lawyers and law students in LLM, JD and MSL programs in the US, the topic of course can be particularly tricky. In part because of cultural differences in attitudes towards and awareness of learning issues. And in part because it’s much more difficult to identify or diagnose issues when someone is operating in a second or third or fourth language. Is a student’s struggle with reading a function of language or of a learning issue? It’s hard to know. And in the case of dyslexia, there’s even a case to be made (in this TikTok video clip by @etymologynerd) that the nature of written English may cause more problems for people with dyslexia than other written languages do. So it’s possible that a foreign-trained law student in the US could struggle with dyslexia studying in English when it was not an issue for them studying in their home language.

I’m not aware of any specific solutions or research or discussion related to the intersection of learning issues and foreign-trained lawyers and law students in US law schools. But I think if nothing else, it’s helpful and important to bring awareness to such students, as well as to faculty and administrators who work with them, that these issues are out there and are very much on law school’s radars these days in a way they were not at all back when I was a law student in the 1990s.

Here’s a Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode (474) titled “Thriving in Law School with ADHD (w/ Rawi Nanakul.”

In this episode they discuss:

  • >Rawi’s personal journey and ADHD diagnosis
  • >Identifying ADHD signs
  • >The difference between the help provided by a doctor, a therapist, and an ADHD coach
  • >A few specific scenarios that might play out for students struggling with ADHD
  • >The importance of self-care and professional help

Resources:

Note from the Law School Toolbox Podcat:

If you enjoy the podcast, we’d love a nice review and/or rating on Apple Podcasts (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/law-school-toolbox-podcast/id1027603976) or your favorite listening app. And feel free to reach out to us directly. You can always reach us via the contact form on the Law School Toolbox website (http://lawschooltoolbox.com/contact). If you’re concerned about the bar exam, check out our sister site, the Bar Exam Toolbox (http://barexamtoolbox.com/). You can also sign up for our weekly podcast newsletter (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/get-law-school-podcast-updates/) to make sure you never miss an episode!

Thanks for listening!

Alison & Lee

Note: The Georgetown Legal English Blog has no affiliation with the Law School Toolbox Podcast or its parent organization JDSupra. We just thought this was a helpful episode to share.

New: US law student + Ukrainian law student Legal English conversation project

Posted by Stephen Horowitz, Lecturer of Legal English

Very happy to share that I’ve just launched a new initiative to provide Legal English support for over 300 Ukrainian law students. It’s an expansion of the model I’ve been using to host and facilitate Legal English conversation sessions for Ukrainian law and Legal English faculty.

The faculty sessions, which I’ve run for about two years now, involve me hosting a weekly Zoom session and sending a calendar invite to a list of Ukrainian faculty and a list of US/EU faculty who have indicated interest in participating. (I’ve been able to reach and connect with so many Ukrainian faculty members thanks to Artem Shaipov, Legal Advisor and Team Lead for Legal Education Reform for the USAID Justice for All (Ukraine) program.)

Each week I log in to Zoom, and then as faculty members join, I pair them off into breakout rooms for 45 minutes of conversation in English about whatever they want to discuss. Sometimes it’s a 1-to-1 ratio, and sometimes there are 2 or 3 Ukrainian faculty members talking with one US/EU faculty member.

The number of faculty members and faculty volunteers who have signed up to participate is much bigger than the number who actually show up for a given Zoom session. And the numbers seem to work out each time. Faculty members join when they’re able. And if they miss a session, or can only join for one total session during the semester, that’s fine. The model essentially plays the percentages and has worked well 99.9% of the time.

The new initiative, connecting Ukrainian law students and US law students, is the same model, but there will be many more people involved, and many more Zoom sessions happening each week.

So far over 300 Ukrainian law students have signed up, and close to 100 US law students have also signed up. Of the US law students, about half have indicated that they would be willing to be a host for Zoom sessions. And that means there will be up to 50 different student-led Zoom sessions going on each week, each on different days and times. Having this range of options will hopefully help ensure that all of the Ukrainian and US law students can find one time each week to join when they’re able.

This is definitely experimental, so I assume there will be some bumps along the way. But hopefully those bumps will help to identify some protocols and best practices that will make things run more smoothly in the future. (Also, thanks to one of the US law student volunteers, I learned that a similar model is already in use by an organization called Ladies Let’s Talk. Immigrant women in the US are paired with English speakers for the purpose of practicing English conversation.)

And in the bigger picture, as Ukraine’s legal system shifts more towards the West and the EU, and as Ukraine’s law schools begin teaching all of their courses in English, the Ukrainian law students will find themselves better prepared and able to adapt. And also the connections formed now will lead to deeper connections in the future between the legal communities of Ukraine, the US, and other parts of the world.

Get Involved

If you are a US (or English speaking) law student and would like to volunteer, you can sign up just using this Google Form for US/English speaking law students. At some point you will receive calendar invites from the US law students serving as hosts/facilitators.

If you are a Ukrainian law student and would like to participate, you can sign up using this Google Form for Ukrainian law students.

And you can click here for more info and blog posts about the work that I and others in the Legal English/Legal Education field have been doing to support Ukrainian law schools, their faculty, and their students.

Update Oct 19, 2024: Here’s some feedback from some of the Zoom sessions that have already happened:

  • Thank you so much for such opportunity! It was a pleasure to discuss law systems of the US and Ukraine with [NAME1], so I really appreciate it a lot!!
  • I loved meeting all the Ukrainian students and getting to know them!
  • [NAME2] was great at explaining everything, so it was fun to listen to her answers and answer her questions myself)))
  • [NAME3] is such a nice person. It was interesting to talk to him and to get know something new.
  • [NAME4] is awesome!
  • Thank you for great opportunity to talk, get to know each other and develop!)
  • that was a great meeting, I really enjoyed it (especially the part with “only in ohio” lol)
  • I love this lessons
  • Just thank you 🙂

Questions? Feel free to contact me at sh1643@georgetown.edu or via Twitter/X at @gtlegalenglish.

Supporting the Rule of Law in Ukraine: The role of the English-Ukrainian legal dictionary translation project

Posted by Stephen Horowitz, Lecturer of Legal English

I and others on the Georgetown Legal English faculty have been very involved over the past two years in providing Legal English support to Ukrainian law schools in connection with a larger rule-of-law initiative.

What we hadn’t realized until my colleague Prof. John Dundon saw the below post on the Forensic Linguistics listserv is that there’s a fantastic English-Ukrainian legal dictionary translation project that has also been well underway and is also connected to rule of law efforts. We were extremely excited to learn that such a project exists and have already been in touch with the organizers to figure out if there might be any ways to collaborate or provide support.

Below is the text of the original announcement. It’s for an in-person event in the UK. But if you contact the organizer, you can also get access to a Zoom link.

***************

Supporting the Rule of Law in Ukraine: The role of the English-Ukrainian legal dictionary translation project

Tuesday 15th October, 10:00-14:15 Lloyd Suite, Edgbaston Park Hotel, University of Birmingham, UK

Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to invite you to a research event showcasing a UKRI funded English-Ukrainian Legal Dictionary translation project. Legal and linguistic experts from Ukraine’s Constitutional Court, the Department of Constitutional Law at Ivan Franko National University Lviv, and the University of Birmingham Law School, have combined their extensive expertise to develop an ‘English-Ukrainian’ Legal Dictionary.’ Through historical and legal analysis, this first of its kind dictionary will rectify the acute problems that continued application of post-Soviet legal terminology cause for understanding the rule of law in Ukrainian jurisprudence.

By providing correct translations of over 5,000 English-language legal terms, we seek to further embed the rule of law in Ukraine, support Ukraine’s development as a constitutional democracy and advance Euro-Atlantic integration. We invite you to attend this showcase event to meet the lead researchers and practitioners who have developed this unique handbook for scientists, human rights defenders, lawyers, judges, parliamentarians, and everyone who deals with international legal documents. Join us and lend your support to this interinstitutional initiative to help establish the rule of law in Ukraine and enshrine Ukrainian independence from Russian-dominated legal interpretation.

Register here: https://forms.office.com/e/afjpm7rNRT

Full event schedule below. 

Kind regards

Hannah Lowe

Global Partnerships Manager (Europe)

University of Birmingham

***************

Event Schedule

10:00-10:30

Coffee and registrations

10:30-10:40

Welcome

Professor Robin Mason, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International), University of Birmingham

10.40-11.05

The Case for an English-Ukrainian Legal Dictionary

Mr Serhiy Holovaty, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Legal Terminology of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. Head of the Ukrainian Academy of Legal Sciences. (Former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine)

11.05-11.30

The Dictionary’s impact and real-world application in the Ukrainian legal context 

Professor Serhii Riznyk, Justice, Constitutional Court of Ukraine

Professor Olena Boryslavska, Head of the Department of Constitutional Law, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv

11.30 -11.50 

Coffee break

11.50-12.15

Compiling the Dictionary’s 5000 terms and translations: linguistic, legal and phonological principles Associate 

Professor Nataliia Hrynia, Department of Foreign Languages for the Humanities, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv 

Professor Bohdan Azhnyuk, Director of the O. O. Potebnia Institute of Linguistics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv

12:15-12:40

Validating terms, translations and English Case Law examples: the British-Ukrainian collaborative process

Professor Lisa Webley, Head of the Centre for Research in Professional and Legal Education, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham

Student researchers, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham

12.40-13.15

Q&A/Panel discussion 

13:15-14:15

Lunch and networking

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