Wide Spectrum of Science and Law Converges at Arizona State Center
by Erica Winter
Students take a lead role here too. It is "very much a student- and faculty-run center," says Executive Director, Professor Gary Marchant. There are 30 law students, in fact, who contribute ideas to the center's direction. Ten students from each class are selected each year to be Center Scholars. Each receives $1,000, a seat at meetings, and roles in conference planning and research assistant positions.
The center also hosts the peer-reviewed journal Jurimetrics, the journal for the ABA section on science law. And next year, the center and the law school will start the first LL.M. program in the nation in Biotechnology and Genomics. Marchant will head the program, which will include intellectual property law, biotechnology law, and forensics, among other topics.
Currently, there are 81 Arizona State J.D. students pursuing specialization certificates through the center, says Marchant. There are five specialty certificate programs: general law and science, health, biotechnology, intellectual property, and environmental law. Many students involved with the center have advanced degrees in the sciences, says Marchant, but "it is also exciting to see those who do not who are interested in the field" of science and law, he says.
The center hosts conferences every semester, including the Sixth International Conference on Forensic Statistics, which was held last week. This was the sixth meeting of this conference in 18 years and the first at Arizona State. Top international experts in the field came to present new research illuminating the growing study of how scientific evidence—such as DNA—can be used in courts and to what effect.
From global to local, the law center last fall hosted a conference called the Wildlife Water Development Workshop. Primarily for government agency officials, this conference was a follow-up session seven years ago, examining the impact of providing artificial water sources to wildlife. Participants discussed the issue and its intersection among policy, law, and science.
Not long ago, science and law rarely overlapped, says Professor Andrew Askland, Director of the center. Now, science is far more involved in a wide range of legal cases, he says, citing the Chakrabarty case of 1980, allowing for patenting of natural things (a modified bacteria), thus opening up the doors for patenting of genetic material.
Marchant concurs that there is a great need for lawyers who know science. Many firms represent technology companies or are involved in IP matters. Marchant, who has a Ph.D. in Genetics, was on the hiring committee for a large national law firm. "We were always looking for people who understood technology and law," he says.
Many law schools have science and law centers and/or specialty certificate programs—Boalt Hall has one for environmental law; Emory, for IP, for example. Not many law schools, however, have one center for several scientific topics together.
Accommodating all approaches to science, as well as a wide variety of legal inquiry, is a strength of the Arizona State center, says Askland. It encourages interdisciplinary scholarship. Also, there are benefits for students' legal careers that come from a multifaceted approach.
"No single thing in law school will get you that job," says Askland. Each aspect of a student's work is like "an arrow in your quiver… and you want as much in there as possible." Having a specialty certificate is one strong "arrow," he says.
On a larger scale, Askland says, it is good for a lawyer to know the issues that sit next to his/her specialty. An environmental lawyer, for example, may be working with a client whose issues intersect with IP law and health law. Having access to all these fields under one roof serves students well.
The range of topics covered at the center is good on both theoretical and practical levels, says third-year law student and Center Scholar Kindra Deneau. Separating the disciplines into separate groups might make them compete for funding, she points out. Since all scientific fields are important, it would not be fair to prioritize one over another, she says. On a scholarly level, it is good to have science and legal study moving forward collaboratively instead of competitively.
The wide range of topics covered by the center are tied together well by the journal Jurimetrics, says law student Amelia Morrow, Executive Editor of the journal and Center Scholar, also in her third year.
The center "bridges so many different disciplines," says Laura Lawless, another Center Scholar who is pursuing a specialization certificate in health law. Having a range of topics at the center allows for dialogue among them, she says. The center's not having one sole focus will allow her, she says, to provide "more dynamic representation for clients" in her future work.
Another manifestation of the interdisciplinary center is a course in mental health law—and the students who are taking it. The eight-student class, Lawless says, includes herself, one person with a child-advocacy focus, another with an interest in criminal law, and one who wants to learn about mental health issues in trusts and estates law. This mix is "amazing," she says, and demonstrates the wide range of legal arenas impacted by this one scientific topic.
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