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GW LAW BRIEFS: C-LEAF Update

An Intellectual Feast

Young Legal Scholars Exchange Ideas at Second Annual Junior Faculty Scholarship Workshop and Prizes


Professor Lisa Fairfax (center), coordinator of the Junior Faculty Scholarship Workshop and Prizes, flanked by second-place winner Zachary J. Gubler, an associate professor at Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, and third-place winner Urska Velikonja, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland Carey School Of Law

Dave Scavone

GW's Center for Law, Economics & Finance (C-LEAF) hosted its second annual Junior Faculty Business and Financial Law Workshop and Junior Faculty Scholarship Prizes.

Organized by Professor Lisa Fairfax, the event supports and recognizes the work of young legal scholars in accounting, banking, bankruptcy, corporations, economics, finance, and securities, while promoting interaction among them and senior faculty. By providing a forum for the exchange of creative ideas in these areas, C-LEAF aims to encourage new and innovative scholarship.

During the workshop, senior scholars commented on each paper, and a general discussion followed among all participants. The commentators included practitioners and business and law faculty members from GW and around the country. Students were also invited to attend the weekend's events.

C-LEAF received more than 80 paper submissions for the workshop, representing junior scholars from around the nation, as well as from six international schools. In total, 12 papers were selected for presentation at the workshop. The authors of the selected papers were Afra Afsharipour (UC Davis); Dan Awrey (Oxford); co-authors Mathew Cain (Notre Dame) and Steven Davidoff (Ohio State); Mira Ganor (Texas); Zachary J. Gubler (Arizona State); Tom Lin (Florida); Mohsen Manesh (Oregon); Tanya Marsh (Wake Forest); Mary-Hunter McDonnell (Northwestern); Alicia Plerhoples (UC Hastings); Tess Wilkinson-Ryan (University of Pennsylvania); and Urska Velikonja (Maryland).

"Lisa has once again done an amazing job pulling together such a fantastic group of scholars offering so many diverse, thoughtful ideas," said GW Law Professor F. Scott Kieff. "Our colleagues and students got to enjoy an intellectual feast while the presenters and commentators had the benefit of such a productive workshop environment."

At the conclusion of the workshop, three papers were awarded Junior Faculty Scholarship Prizes of $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000, respectively. Paper prize winners were Matthew Cain and Steven Davidoff (first place), Zachary J. Gubler (second place), and Urska Velikonja (third place).

Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, one of the leading law firms serving the financial services industry and known for its premier practice in the area of private investment funds and private equity M&A, sponsored the Junior Faculty Scholarship Workshop and Prizes and provides other financial assistance to C-LEAF.


GW Law Professor Lisa Fairfax organized the event.

Dave Scavone


Third-place winner University of Maryland Carey School of Law Assistant Professor Urska Velikonja, C-LEAF Executive Director and Professor Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr., and Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law and C-LEAF's Director of Academic Programs and Administration Professor Theresa Gabaldon

Dave Scavone

Striking the Right Balance

C-LEAF's spring conference, Striking the Right Balance: Investor and Consumer Protection in the New Financial Marketplace, focused on the impact of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act on our nation's financial regulation and policy.

Hosting the center's sixth major conference on the topic in the past two years, GW Law is now the national leader in bringing together the worlds of Wall Street and Capitol Hill in this era of increased financial market regulation.


The Legacy of Sarbanes-Oxley and Its Implications for Dodd-Frank featured panelists Steven Harris, a board member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board; James Cox, Brainerd Currie Professor of Law at Duke Law School; Lawrence Cunningham, Henry St. George Tucker III Research Professor of Law at GW; Harvey Goldschmid, Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School; Roberta Romano, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School; and Hillary Sale, Walter D. Coles Professor of Law and Professor of Management at Washington University.

Chris Flynn


Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, gave one of the conference's keynote lectures.

Chris Flynn


Martin J. Gruenberg, acting chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., delivered the luncheon keynote address.

Chris Flynn


Dodd-Frank's New Regulatory Regime for Derivatives featured David Zaring, assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at the University of Pennsylvania; Frank Partnoy, the George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance at the University of San Diego Law School; Jeffrey Manns, associate professor of law at GW; Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law; and Lynn Stout, the Paul Hastings Distinguished Professor of Corporate and Securities Law at UCLA School of Law.

Chris Flynn