Author of the Week: Matt Novak from University of Nebraska - Lincoln College of Law

Matt Novak is an associate professor and reference librarian at the Marvin and Virginia Schmid Law Library of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law. Prior to joining the Schmid Law Library, he was an Assistant Public Defender with the Missouri Public Defender System. In addition to his reference duties, Professor Novak co-teaches the legal research component of the First Year Legal Research and Writing Course. He has lectured on legal research and legal information technology issues. Professor Novak received his B.A. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, his J.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law, and his M.A. in Library Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is a member of the Nebraska Bar Association, the Missouri Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the American Association of Law Libraries, and the Mid-America Association of Law Libraries.​​

Lesson Viewed

Discovery Processes

This lesson is part of a series of lessons about Discovery. Discovery is the process through which the parties exchange information, documents, electronically-stored information, and sometimes even tangible things. This particular lesson focuses on the processes lawyers use to create, respond to, and have disputes about discovery.

Author of the Week: Professor Joseph M. Grohman from Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law

Joe Grohman joined the College of Law's full time faculty in August 1983. His primary teaching responsibilities involve Property, Real Property Closing Workshop and Real Estate Transactions and Finance. For the Center for Computer Legal Instruction (CALI), he was a member of the Board of Directors and continues as a member of the Editorial Board. As noted in the publications section of his curriculum vitae, he has authored and co-authored various articles, treatise chapters, and CALI interactive lessons for law students. For Nova Southeastern University he serves as the Executive Dean for Faculty Development and is active in the university's academic program review process, chairing NSU's Academic Review Committee.

Author of the Week: Professor Keith Rowley from UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law

Professor Rowley graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Baylor University in economics and political science. After earning his M.P.P. from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, he returned to Baylor to teach economics and public policy. He earned his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law, where he served as an executive editor of the Texas Law Review and as a judicial intern to then-Texas Supreme Court Justice Lloyd A. Doggett. Following a clerkship with Judge Thomas M. Reavley of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, he practiced law in Houston for five years, with an emphasis on commercial litigation in federal and state trial and appellate courts.

Professor Rowley taught at Mississippi College School of Law and Emory University School of Law before joining the Boyd School of Law faculty in 2001. He spent the 2007-08 academic year as the Charles E. Tweedy, Jr. Visiting Chairholder at the University of Alabama School of Law. His current and recent teaching areas are Contracts, Contract Theory & Policy, Economics and the Law, Law & Popular Culture, Payment Systems, Sales & Leases, and Secured Transactions. He has previously taught Bankruptcy and Other Forms of Debt Collection, Business Organizations, and Securities Regulation.  He was the founding host of the law school’s Law & Popular Culture Film Series.

Professor Rowley currently writes primarily in the areas of commercial law, contracts, and law and popular culture.

Professor Rowley is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Uniform Law Commissioner. As an ALI member, he actively consulted on the 2010 Amendments to UCC Article 9 and is actively consulting on the Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts and the Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance. As a Uniform Law Commissioner, he serves on the drafting committees for the Regulation of Virtual Currency Businesses Act and the Amended Tribal Secured Transactions Act, as well as a study committee on consumer debt, and a newly-formed academic liaison committee.

Professor Rowley is a Consumer Fellow to the ABA Business Law Section’s Consumer Financial Services Committee, where he also chairs a task force on the Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts and is incoming co-editor of the Annual Survey of Consumer Financial Services Law for The Business Lawyer.  He previously chaired the AALS's Section on Commercial and Related Consumer Law, the AALS’s Section on Contracts, and the ABA Business Law Section’s Uniform Commercial Code Committee’s Sale of Goods Subcommittee, and was the UCC Committee’s inaugural Developments Reporter.

Lesson Viewed

Diversity Jurisdiction

This lesson is designed to help students understand the basic principles of diversity and alienage jurisdiction in the federal district courts. It examines both the constitutional authority for diversity and alienage jurisdiction, U.S. Const. Art. III, § 2, and the statutory provisions that bestow diversity and alienage jurisdiction on the federal district courts, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(1)-(a)(3). It consists of both text and explanatory problems.

Lesson Viewed

Issue Preclusion

This lesson presents the elements of issue preclusion, sometimes referred to as "collateral estoppel", and exceptions to the doctrine. This lesson will explore the elements of collateral estoppel and the questions of who may be bound by, or take advantage of, the prior adjudication. Another lesson will address the question of whether an adjudication in one jurisdiction can preclude relitigation in a second jurisdiction.

Author of the Week: Professor David Welkowitz from Whittier Law School

Professor Welkowitz joined the Whittier faculty in 1983. Prior to that time, he practiced law as a litigation associate with Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in New York. At Whittier, he has taught numerous courses, to first-years and upper-level students alike. His primary teaching emphases have been Civil Procedure and intellectual property, particularly Trademark law. He has also created more than a dozen lessons for the Center for Automated Legal Instruction (CALI) in Civil Procedure, Trademarks, and Copyright. He was a CALI Fellow in Trademarks in 2003 and a CALI Fellow in Copyright in 2004. From 2006-2009, he served as the Director of the Whittier Law School Center for Intellectual Property Law. His scholarship has ranged from topics in Civil Procedure to various intellectual property issues, both domestic and international. He is the author of a treatise on Trademark Dilution law and a co-author of a casebook on Rights of Publicity. His articles have been cited by courts, treatise writers in both Civil Procedure and Trademarks, and numerous articles.​

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