Juan Soto – Page 8 – University of Baltimore School of Law Magazine

Gaslevic, Billian Join Dean’s Suite, LCDO

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Baltimore Briefs, Baltimore Briefs 2022

Associate Dean Joy Gaslevic

Joy Gaslevic, J.D. ’99, joined the law school in August as associate dean for administration. Gaslevic brings a wealth of experience in higher education law and administration, with particular experience handling matters related to sexual misconduct and other types of discrimination and harassment, having led the Office of Institutional Equity at Johns Hopkins University.

As a lawyer in the Office of the Maryland Attorney General, Educational Affairs Division, she represented University System of Maryland clients, including the University of Baltimore.

Before joining UBalt Law, Gaslevic was senior counsel at the firm of Husch Blackwell, where she advised higher education clients on matters such as student and faculty affairs, compliance, policy development, training, and case management.

“I’m so excited to return to my Baltimore Law roots and help keep the law school strong and on track,” Gaslevic says.

Dina Billian came to the law school in July as assistant dean for career development. She joins the senior staff after serving as the deputy director of career development at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, where she counseled students on job search strategies, interview preparation and networking, managed the recruitment initiatives, and crafted innovative professional development programming.

Throughout her 30 years of connection to the Maryland legal community, Dina has worked on recruitment, professional development, diversity and pro bono initiatives at Miles & Stockbridge, PC, and as a member of the recruitment team at Saul Ewing LLP (now Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, LLP.) In addition to work in the private and education sectors, Dina has experience as a placement director in a legal staffing agency and worked for a brief time on the admissions committee of Darden Business School at the University of Virginia.

Share this story with your network:

Thinking globally, acting locally

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2022

By Mortimer “Tim” Sellers

In spring 2022, Prof. James Maxeiner was elected by his colleagues to the rank of Professor Emeritus at the University of Baltimore School of Law, in recognition of his global prominence as a scholar of comparative law, commercial law and the reform of legal institutions in the common law world.

Maxeiner has taught at the University of Baltimore since 2004, lecturing on Contracts, Comparative Law, European Union Law, International Business Transactions and Sales Law. He dedicated particular attention to the happiness and well-being of his students, devoting countless hours to advising and guiding their careers. This thoughtful dedication to students, and willingness to share so much of his time and the fruits of his professional and academic experience, has been an inspiration to colleagues and to the many beneficiaries of his kindness, who learned from his example not just the directly practical aspects of the law, but also the idealism and commitment to others that make the law worthwhile.

Supporting the personal and sometimes underappreciated commitment to students at the heart of legal education, Maxeiner possessed the learning, judgment and insistence on high standards that makes legal education useful not just to students, but to practitioners and to the world. Achievements in this area are more obvious, and in Maxeiner’s case, inspiring.

While at the law school, Maxeiner published well-received volumes with Cambridge University Press on American Methods of Lawmaking (2018) and on American Civil Justice (2011). He also published a detailed analysis of American Legal Education (2007) and 65 articles on legal subjects, with a wide readership and a vast influence.

As co-editor of the book series Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, Maxeiner has made a deep and lasting contribution to law and the legal profession. This Springer Verlag book series, which publishes its 100th volume in 2022, has become a primary locus for global scholarship on comparative law.

Maxeiner’s status as a leading practitioner and critic of the American legal profession has been recognized by election to the American Law Institute, and his global prominence as a scholar by election to the International Academy of Comparative Law in Paris. He has also been an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow and a Fellow of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg.

Maxeiner has been distinguished and exemplary in his learning, his scholarship, his teaching, his mentoring, and his years of service to the University of Baltimore, the School of Law, the Center for International and Comparative Law, the American Society of Comparative Law, and the legal profession in general.

He will be much missed by his colleagues and students.

Mortimer “Tim” Sellers is a professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

Share this story with your network:

Legal cannabis as a tool for social equity

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2022

By Christianna McCausland

In the November midterm election, Marylanders voted to legalize recreational cannabis in the state. Starting in July 2023, Marylanders 21 and over will be able to legally possess up to 1.5 ounces of marijuana and grow two plants at home.

Maryland will join 20 other states (as of this writing) and the District of Columbia in having legalized recreational cannabis use. In her fight to see the referendum succeed, Alex Hughes, J.D. ’09, made sure the ballot measure wasn’t overshadowed by the top ticket races for governor, comptroller and the like. Hughes was co-manager, with former Ravens player Eugene Monroe, of the campaign “Yes on 4,” which leveraged social media and text marketing to encourage voter turnout in November.

Hughes explains that her passion for cannabis legalization goes back to the nearly 15 years she spent working on criminal justice policy and seeing firsthand the impacts that low-level drug charges can have on people’s lives.

“What we know is that legalizing cannabis frees up public-safety resources to focus on more violent crime,” says Hughes. “In states that have legalized, simple-possession arrests are down over 70 percent. We also know that there are people who need access to medical cannabis that can’t get easy access because of bureaucratic red tape. Passing Question 4 will help mitigate these problems.”

But the devilish details have yet to be dealt with, and much of that work would be punted into 2023. Identical House and Senate bills, HB 837 and SB 833, will now go into effect, though not until January 1, 2023, when the state will start regulatory wrangling in advance of the July deadline.

The collective bills outline the amount of cannabis that can be legally possessed, but they also detail fines for public smoking, call for the creation of a Cannabis Public Health Advisory Council, and provide for those previously convicted of cannabis-only possession to have their criminal records expunged.

‘AN OPPORTUNITY FOR REPARATIONS’

Importantly, the bills attempt to address social equity problems that have dogged the state’s medical cannabis rollout. A Community Reinvestment and Repair Fund would provide money to communities disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition, and a Cannabis Assistance Fund would help small, minority-owned, and women-owned businesses enter the adult-use cannabis industry.

State Sen. Jill P. Carter, J.D. ’93, a Democrat representing Baltimore City, has been outspoken in her calls for social justice and equity in the state’s legalization efforts. She points to research conducted in 2020 by the ACLU that indicates that 50 percent of the drug arrests in Maryland were for marijuana, and that Black people make up 92 percent of those arrested — even though numerous data sources report that Black people and white people use marijuana at the same rate.

“It is imperative that we legalize cannabis, ensure economic opportunities for individuals criminalized during prohibition, and reinvest in impacted communities,” Carter says. “Legalization creates an opportunity for reparations.” 

The particulars of the law, however, have yet to be worked out. “The state is setting up a brand-new field, and I think they’ve done a pretty good job of addressing potential issues in a serious and thoughtful way,” says Alan Nemeth, adjunct professor at Baltimore Law. Nemeth developed and teaches the law school’s first course in marijuana law.

Still, Nemeth says, watching the regulatory piece unfold will be interesting. How, for example, will the Cannabis Assistance Fund decide who gets grant money, and how much? What impact will recreational legalization have on Maryland’s existing medical cannabis laws? And the practicalities of executing criminal record expungement — which means sorting through decades of paper files — could create a bureaucratic juggernaut.

“There will be automatic expungement for cannabis possession-only cases prior to July 2023, but how will jurisdictions make that happen? Will they set up cannabis courts to speed up resentencing efforts without bogging down the rest of the court system? Or they could set up a task force at the jurisdiction level,” says Nemeth. “Parsing all that out will take a while.”

LEGAL QUESTIONS REMAIN

Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger, J.D. ’84, agrees that expungement is going to be both a Herculean task and one that, as of now, has not been worked out in the detail it deserves. Shellenberger, a Democrat, has heard both sides of the cannabis debate and says he will abide by whatever the voters decide. But he, too, has questions about what will happen in 2023.

“What remains unanswered are things like where it will be sold, and regulations for smoking in a car,” says Shellenberger. “If I’m driving and my friend is drinking a beer, I’m not drunk, but what if that friend is smoking cannabis in the car? Marijuana stays in the system longer [than alcohol]. What does that mean for impaired driving?”

Shellenberger notes that states with legal recreational cannabis have seen spikes in car accidents. Data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed a 6 percent increase in injury crash rates and a 4 percent increase in fatal crashes in California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington immediately after their legalization, though whether cannabis alone played a pivotal factor is not clear from the reporting.

What is clear is that Maryland’s medical marijuana industry has disproportionately left out minorities from a business that cultivates as much as $500 million in profits a year. Shellenberger wonders what’s to stop that happening again.

“The legislature has expressed that the easiest way is to let the medical cannabis people get the recreational licenses, but there’s already a lack of minority representation in the medical cannabis field,” he says. “Do we simply let the medical people become the recreational people?”

These are issues Carter had hoped to avoid. In a March 2022 tweet she stated, “Legalizing cannabis without addressing the centuries of injustice committed against Black and brown communities concedes to exploitation and perpetuates systemic racism. Passing empty policy to secure an electoral victory will adversely impact the most vulnerable communities.”

Her now-defunct bill, SB692, named the Cannabis Legalization and Reparations for the War on Drugs Act, would have legalized recreational cannabis (up to four ounces) starting in July 2022. It also allocated 60 percent of revenue from legalized cannabis directly to impacted communities through the Community Reinvestment and Repair Fund. While the senator was able to amend the other two bills to include portions of this fund, both only allocate 30 percent of monies.

Now, many of Carter’s priorities have to wait until next year. “We made significant strides towards legalization last session, but still have much to accomplish,” Carter states in an email.

“People are going to smoke regardless of whether this referendum passes,” Carter says, ahead of the November election. “It is safer for both the consumer and the community if it’s legalized… It’s time we move away from antiquated ideas and embrace a 21st-century economy and justice system.” 

Christianna McCausland is a writer based in Baltimore.

Share this story with your network:

Dean’s Letter – Fall 2022

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Dean's Letter 2022

The technology revolution is changing everything, including Baltimore Law. This magazine is now being published in an entirely online format, enabling the law school to produce two issues every year instead of one. This means we can share more news, more promptly. Also, readers can engage more deeply by linking to additional online content. We hope you enjoy our new and improved Baltimore Law magazine.

But don’t worry – this online magazine is being published by the same great in-person law school you once attended. After more than a year of COVID-compelled remote classes, we are again teaching the next generation of University of Baltimore students in the flesh in our state-of-the-art building on North Charles Street. The classrooms are full, the hallways are buzzing and both Bar Bowl and Barrister’s Ball are back on tap (literally). Professors are incorporating sophisticated online technology to enhance, not replace, their in-person classes.

COVID has taught us much about the promise — and the limits — of technology. As I wrote in a recent Maryland Bar Journal article, “The goal should be to accept the gift of technology without excessive reliance on it, to incorporate the lessons of the pandemic into post-pandemic law practice without losing the inherent advantages of in-person interaction.” I believe that to be true for the practice of law, and for legal education itself.

One thing that technology will not change is the deep involvement of UB Law alumni in the civic life of our community. For example, in this issue of Baltimore Law you’ll read about how Sen. Jill P. Carter, J.D. ’92, is leading efforts to promote racial equity in a newly legalized marijuana market. And you’ll enjoy a profile of Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess, J.D. ’88, who successfully prosecuted the man who murdered five employees of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis.

Technology helps us make sure that the education we provide to students is just as contemporary and exciting as the building in which that education takes place. And, as I said in the Maryland Bar Journal, UB Law students “are more than ready to put technology to use in service of tomorrow’s clients and to advance justice in a world that hungers for it.”