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In July 2020, Oregon Law will hold its 7th annual Summer Sports Institute. Director Rob Illig’s award-winning institute brings together some of the nation’s best sports law faculty to provide students a deep dive into the world of sports law. JD students from around the country come together to explore topics such as China and the NBA, race relations, college athletes being paid, gender pay equity, Brexit’s potential impact on soccer, and drug testing.
The Oregon Law Commission met at the University of Oregon School of Law on October 18 to discuss its current work group projects and projects in development. The Commission is an independent, nonpartisan law reform body that plays a unique role in Oregon law and policy. Created in 1997 by the Legislative Assembly, the fifteen-member Commission is tasked with conducting a continuous program of substantive law revision, reform, and improvement pursuant to statute.
The Commission has five work groups that are either active or in development. One of the Commission work groups currently is reviewing the Oregon Limited Liability Company Act (ORS Chapter 63) and considering provisions relating to the registration and management of limited liability companies. A second work group is assessing notarial acts pertaining to remote notaries.
Two University of Oregon School of Law students will serve as Commission Fellows this year. The Commission Fellowship provides an opportunity for law students who are interested in pursuing a career in legislation to see the legislative process first–hand. This year, the Fellows will conduct research on e-hearsay for a Commission work group that is being developed.
For more information about the Oregon Law Commission, please contact Sandy Weintraub, Director, Oregon Law Commission at sandymw@uoregon.edu.
The University of Oregon School of Law is proud to be the new home of the Oregon Law Commission.
Created in 1997 by the Oregon Legislative Assembly, the Law Commission is a legislatively supported venue for comprehensive law reform projects in the state. Composed of 15 leaders in the Oregon legal community (including judges, law school deans, and representatives of the Governor and Attorney General), the Law Commission reviews proposals submitted by the Oregon State Bar, individual practitioners, and the academic community, and carefully pursues the most compelling or meritorious projects.
The Law Commission forms work groups composed of experts in the applicable substantive law, which work alongside the Legislative Counsel’s Office to draft bills for consideration during a legislative session. The work groups also publish comprehensive reports that detail their work, and serve as legislative history moving forward.
The University of Oregon School of Law has a rich tradition of working on Law Commission projects, and faculty members have served, or are currently serving, as Commissioners, on Law Commission workgroups, and as Commission work group reporters. Over the past four years, Professor Susan Gary was the Reporter for a successful modernization of the Probate Code, and Professor Andrea Coles-Bjerre was the Reporter for a project that created the Oregon Receivership Code, now codified as Title 37 of the Oregon Revised Statutes. The Law Commission also completed a high-profile project on Workplace Harassment in the State Capitol that led to a comprehensive set of recommendations that is being used as a platform to positively change the workplace culture of the legislature.
The Law Commission is currently embarking on several new projects, including a limited liability company law modernization project.
The Law Commission is also in the process of forming a fellowship program that will allow current UO Law students to engage in the law reform process, including legal research and other direct participation in the development and enactment of legislation.
This July, Oregon Law will host its award-winning Summer Sports Institute for the sixth consecutive year. The Institute brings together the nation’s best sports law faculty to provide 20-30 students with a five-week in-depth study of the world of sports law.
According to Professor Matthew Mitten, who is Executive Director of the National Sports Institute and former President of the Sports Lawyers Association, the Institute has grown to be “the premier summer sports law program in the United States, perhaps in the world.” The Institute has welcomed students from 57 different law schools and guest speakers from as far away as Brazil, Spain, Germany, and Australia.
The Institute’s secret sauce has been to invite more than a dozen of the leading sports law professors from across the nation to discuss antitrust, labor and employment law, intellectual property and other aspects of business law in the context of the sports industry, with a unique mix of classes, lectures and career panels. The sessions also address the important issues of gender and race discrimination as well as off-the-field violence by and against athletes.
Professor Robert Illig, the Institute’s founder and director, said, “Although not every student who is interested in learning about sports law will actually go on to practice in that field, many of them will go on to practice business law. By using the sports industry as a case study, the Institute provides students with an opportunity to explore business law in a sports-law context.” Students also explore appropriate dispute resolution strategies in sports by participating in sports licensing contract negotiation courses offered by the Oregon Law Appropriate Dispute Resolution Center.
In addition to of course being the home of the Ducks, Oregon is the headquarters of Nike and adidas, the heart of American track and field. Oregon’s deep sports heritage has enabled the Institute to host a number of important guests, such as lawyers from Nike, adidas, and Columbia Sportswear, in-house counsel from the Seahawks, Diamondbacks, Sounders, Angels, and Trail Blazers, and league and regulatory counsel from the NCAA, USATF, and Pac-12. For more about the Institute, take a look at the YouTube piece here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mAv1mNM5pg.