Rory Dean Smith has been named associate dean for research at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

Smith will be responsible for data collection, analysis and synthesis as it pertains to institutional policies, program planning and internal and external reporting. Smith also will be a liaison to the business community. He begins his duties June 29, 1998.

"We welcome Rory Smith to John Marshall. As we close out our first century, we are certain Rory's insights will give us the tools we need to chart our next century of successes," said Dean Robert Gilbert Johnston.

Smith is an adjunct professor at The John Marshall Law School, and has been a founding member of the advisory committee for the LL.M. in Real Estate Law, and a member of the Kratovil Lecture Advisory Committee at the law school.

"I am particularly honored to join The John Marshall Law School staff," Smith said. "The law school holds special meaning to our family because my father, Lawrence E. Smith Jr., received his law degree from John Marshall in 1948."

Smith received a J.D. and a Master's of Management from Northwestern University. He is currently a principal with Albert, Whitehead & McGaugh, P.C., in Chicago. He continues with the firm in an `of counsel' status.

Smith previously was associate regional counsel at The Prudential Insurance Company's Chicago Realty Group Office in Chicago, and attorney and real estate officer for Continental Illinois Bank and Trust Co.

He holds memberships in the Illinois State Bar Association and the American Bar Association. Smith has served as president of the board of directors for Minority Legal Education Resources, Inc., and helped facilitate the establishment of the Howard Bar Support Program at Howard University School of Law. He was chair of the board of directors of Cabrini Green Legal Aid Clinic, and is a member of the Lambda Alpha International, an honorary land economics society. He serves on the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Chicago of the Episcopal Church.

Smith, 41, lives with his wife, Yvonne, and their two daughters in Flossmoor, Ill.

The Smith family is establishing a memorial fund at The John Marshall Law School in the memory of attorney Linda Smith, Rory's sister, who died suddenly June 18.

A unified Korea is the ultimate dream of Seung-Hun Baik, secretary general of the Lawyers for a Democratic Society of Korea. For now, however, he is working to restore human rights in South Korea where the National Security Law forces many dissidents to remain silent.

"Under the National Security Law, North Korea is our enemy," Baik explained during a June 24 meeting with faculty at The John Marshall Law School. "We were one country for 2,000 years, and now our school books tell our children they should hate the North Koreans."

"Just expressing an ideology is difficult," he said through a translator. Baik is in the United States as a guest of the United States Information Agency.

The activist said he is encouraged that the country's labor leaders were beginning to voice their concerns for human rights, but now that South Korea no longer guarantees employment for life the economic crisis in Asia has forced many to limit their activities.

The Korean Constitution does guarantee economic rights, he explained. These include the right to an education, employment and housing. But there are no sure guarantees of free speech, assembly and representation by an attorney as in the United States Constitution, Baik added. He has done pro bono work for the needy, but says it is difficult to give fair representation to all. There are only 6,000 attorneys in South Korea compared to the 11,000 attorneys in Illinois alone.

Some in South Korea argue things were better under the previous military dictatorship, but he disagrees. "Political rights have come a long way," Baik noted. "We need economic strength to begin a dialog." Because South Korea's economic situation is tenuous now, Baik admits taking on the poorer North Korea may create more problems. There also are "great concerns that the capitalists from the South would gobble up the North," Baik said. "We have to give this serious consideration, although the issue (of unification) is very important."

New Alumni Association Officers

Newly elected 1998-99 officers of The John Marshall Law School Alumni Association were sworn in to office June 17. Officers are (from left) President Carol M. Green of McHie, Myers, McHie, Enslen & Green of Hammond, Ind.; Second Vice President Philip F. Maher of Philip F. Maher & Associates; Secretary E. Steven Yonover of E. Steven Yonover & Associates; Treasurer Celia G. Gamrath of Schiller, DuCanto & Fleck, Ltd.; Third Vice President William Bates, Jr. of Seaway National Bank; and First Vice President Mary S. McDonald Pascale of the U.S. District Court-Northern District.

Addressing Concerns in Minority Education

Guest speakers at the Midwest Law School Admission Council Academic Support Conference were the Honorable Ann Williams (second from left), of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Illinois, and Priscilla Dixon (second from right), of Minority Legal Education Resources, who led a discussion on improving bar passage rates for minority law school graduates. The two-day program was organized by Professor Corinne Seither Morrissey (left) and Professor Kevin Hopkins (right), both of The John Marshall Law School which hosted the event.

Professor Michael Closen

Activities

He was interviewed and quoted about the unauthorized practice of law by notaries in an article in the National Notary Magazine, July 1998, at 25.

Publications

His article "Conflicts of Interest of Attorney-Notaries" has been accepted for publication in the National Law Journal and is tentatively scheduled for inclusion in the July 6 issue.

The article reviewing civil procedure decisions of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals by Professor Michael Closen and Dean Robert Johnston [57 Chicago-Kent Law Review 97 (1981)] has been cited in 38 Santa Clara Law Review at 742 (1998).

Professor Maureen Straub Kordesh

Activities

She organized the annual meeting of the Association of Legal Writing Directors held on June 17 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Approximately 80 directors of Legal Writing and Lawyering Skills programs attended the meeting. The program topic was: "ABA Site Visits: What Every Director Needs to Know."

She was also inaugurated as the President of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. She completed her vice-presidency this year and will serve as President for the 1998-99 term. Her goal is to educate the legal academy about the scholarly activity of legal writing professionals.

She presented at the biennial conference of the Legal Writing Institute. Her panel presentation was: "So You Want to be a Legal Writing Director?" She made the presentation with Professor Jan Levine of Temple University and Professor Grace Tonner of the University of Michigan.

Professor George B. Trubow

Activities

He visited Taiwan the week of June 22 at the invitation of the Information Industry Institute and spoke at "Internet `98" about international questions of law and policy in Internet transactions. While there he visited the Central Police University, with which JMLS has an agreement of cooperation. He spoke to the faculty and student body in the CPU graduate program in Information Management and was a guest at a luncheon hosted by Dr. Zui-Chi Hsieh, University President.