A new award fund at the University of Kansas School of Law aims to encourage first- and second-year students to pursue careers in intellectual property law.
The Hovey Williams Award for Inclusion and Diversity in Intellectual Property is intended to support students interested in pursuing IP law and to promote diversity and inclusion in the field.
From left:Hovey Williams attorneys Joan O. Herman, Cheryl Burbach, Tracy Bornman and Crissa Cook, L’07. Robert Hovey, L’54. Photos courtesy of Hovey Williams.
Gifts from the Hovey Williams LLP law firm and Robert Hovey, L’54, established the award fund.
“Diversity is critical to the success of an intellectual property law practice, particularly when representing clients across the globe,” said Andrew Colombo, a partner at Hovey Williams, on behalf of the firm.
“However, there is a historical underrepresentation of women and minorities in the sciences and intellectual property law. It is our hope that this endowment will encourage KU Law students from various backgrounds to consider a career in this rewarding field,” Colombo said.
The first KU Law students to receive the award will be selected during the 2020-21 academic year.
Photo courtesy of Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries.
After 36 years at the University of Kansas School of Law, professor Ellen Sward is retiring after the spring semester.
“I like it here. I like the students, my colleagues on the faculty, the University and Lawrence. I just didn’t see any reason why I should leave,” Sward said. “I was happy here.”
“There were no computers in the classrooms when I started. People didn’t do that. They didn’t have laptops yet,” she said. “Students are much more tech-savvy now.”
Photo courtesy of Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries.
Sward joined the KU Law faculty in 1984. During her 36-year tenure, she taught Civil Procedure; Jurisdiction; Federal Courts and the Federal System; Legal Research and Writing; Advanced Litigation; Administrative Law and Bankruptcy Law.
“Civil Procedure, Jurisdiction and Federal Courts are my favorite classes,” Sward said. “I was happy to teach them.”
She is perhaps best known to her students for the marathon 8-hour take-home final she administers each year in her Civil Procedure course for first-year law students.
“I remember that final like it was yesterday. It was my second ever law school exam,” said Terra Brockman, a third-year law student. “My favorite part about taking the final is that it’s infamous. Whenever you meet an attorney who graduated from KU, it’s always asked if you had Professor Sward for Civil Procedure. It’s like we’re all a part of some elite club because we tackled the final. You instantly bond with someone when you find out they also experienced it.”
Photo courtesy of Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries.
A native Ohioan, Sward graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1970 with a degree in political science. After earning her undergraduate degree, she spent six years in the workforce.
She was inspired to go to law school after working as a copy editor for the book “Public Interest Law: An Economic and Institutional Analysis,” which was written by Burton A. Weisbrod in collaboration with Joel F. Handler and Neil K. Komesar.
“I was working for an economist at the University of Wisconsin who was doing an economic analysis of public interest law. There were a number of law professors on that as well,” Sward said. “When I started that job, I realized that kind of for the first time I felt surrounded by people like me. So I figured I’d become an academic. They let me actually write one of the chapters in the book, too.”
Photo courtesy of Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries.
Sward earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1979. While at Harvard, Sward was the case editor of the Harvard Law Review. She served on the Harvard Law Review alongside U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
After law school, Sward worked in private practice for five years. She was an associate at Michael, Best & Friedrich in Madison, Wisconsin for two years. Then, she spent three years as an associate Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin & Kahn in Washington, D.C. Sward said her favorite parts of private practice were working with new associates and writing briefs.
“I went to law school thinking that I would eventually teach,” Sward said. “I was a little surprised I lasted five years in practice, but I’m glad I did. I found that I really enjoyed showing the ropes to the new associates who were right out of law school.”
Professor Ellen Sward received the Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence from the University of Kansas in 2008. Sward is pictured with Dean Emeritus Gail B. Agrawal.Photo by Doug Koch/KU University Relations.
When interviewing for teaching positions, KU Law stood out among the rest to Sward.
“I actually came out of the interview process with KU at the top of my list because I liked the people. Apparently, they liked me too,” Sward said. “It was a great fit.”
Professor Ellen Sward is pictured in 2018.
Sward is a highly respected and beloved law professor at KU Law. She was named a Dean James Green Fellow from 1996-1999, in recognition of her service to the law school. She also received the Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence from the University of Kansas in 2008, the Immel Award for Teaching Excellence in 2018 and the Fred J. Moreau Award in 2020.
In addition to teaching, Sward served as KU Law’s associate dean for research from 2004-2006. She’s been a part of law school committees on academics; minority student affairs; curriculum review; faculty recruitment; long-range planning; and tenure and promotion standards.
Her focus for teaching and research has been on civil procedure and particularly the civil jury. She is author of “The Decline of the Civil Jury,” published by Carolina Academic Press in 2001.
She has published articles in the Harvard Law Review, Kansas Law Review, American University Law Review, Wisconsin Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, North Carolina Law Review, Seton Hall Law Review and Connecticut Law Review.
Professor Ellen Sward is pictured with law students from her Civil Procedure class in 2015. Sward encourages students to give to the Black Law Students Association’s annual Thanksgiving Food Drive every year.
Sward is a longtime advocate of the Black Law Students Association’s (BLSA) annual Thanksgiving Food Drive. BLSA created the “Ellen Sward Prize” this past November, recognizing Sward for her many years of motivating 1L small sections to give to the drive.
“I really just encourage the students and get them excited about it,” Sward said. “We have a number of competitions, like the Bluebook Relays and things like that. I always tell my students, ‘The one I really want you to win is the Thanksgiving food drive because we’re helping people. That’s important.’”
After nearly four decades of shaping the minds of Jayhawk lawyers, Sward is looking forward to retirement. She plans to spend time playing with her 20-month-old grandson, reading and traveling once quarantine is over.
“I am really looking forward to retirement. There are obviously things about it that I am going to miss, especially my students. I’ll miss my students the most,” Sward said. “But I’ve got other things I am looking forward to.”
I didn’t want to write this blog post about coronavirus. I had a whole spiel prepared about career paths and joy and risk and success. But as my friend Jake Schmidt laid out, everything is uncertain right now. It feels dishonest not to talk about the seismic shift that’s taken place in the lives of KU Law’s professors and students.
In just the past month, things have changed: We work and study and communicate from home now, where many professors and students also teach and care for families full-time. Our summer plans and work plans have shifted, for better or worse. We also miss our friends, and the shenanigans that always come with spring semester — Admitted Students Weekend, Pub Night, Barrister’s Ball, HALSA Salsa, and a dozen other events where we celebrate the warming weather and the end of a good years’ work.
In February, KU Law students participated in the Guardianship Assistance Program. The pro bono collaboration helps Wichita-area families set up legal guardianships for their adult children with disabilities. Photo courtesy of Ellen Bertels.
I’m sad to miss out on these events, because, as my friend Becca Henderson recently wrote, they are ridiculous, beloved traditions. But I am heartened by my professors’ generous, thoughtful leadership in this weird time. I’m grateful to live in a technological age where I can still see my friends and family on my computer screen. Most of all, I find a lot of joy and power in the way law students who have the time, health and energy — both at KU and across the nation — have responded to this crisis with wholehearted service. Here at KU, students were recently notified about an opportunity to assist attorneys as they draft pro bono estate plans for essential healthcare workers. Between Zoom classes, I’ve been completing pro bono legal work I started before spring break, including drafting petitions for KU Law’s Guardianship Assistance Project. Nationally, law students launched a pro bono organization that connects law students with attorneys doing coronavirus-related pro bono work across the U.S. and Canada. There are hundreds of law students on this email list — so many that openings fill in mere minutes.
I know it is an incredible privilege to even think about service right now. But I have the time, and the health and the energy, so I want to do what I can. And while I am sad to be missing out on so many things (shenanigans included), I am grateful others in the legal profession are committing free time to the public good. It reminds me every day of why I am doing all this in the first place.
In his Mediations, Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, had the following wisdom to share regarding human beings often fraught relationship with our own future:
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
Marcus Aurelius
In this time of great uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic, I find comfort in these words.
You, however, might be a bit more skeptical. “Jake,” I hear you saying, “those are the words of totalitarian ruler who has been dead for thousands of years. And what’s more, they are a meaningless platitude, especially given that our futures look fairly bleak right now. Why the heck shouldn’t that disturb us?”
Fair enough. I can’t argue that current state of affairs isn’t rife with uncertainty. For all the 0Ls considering entering law school in the fall semester, there is a chance you may be forced to take the unprecedented step of beginning your legal education remotely. No one knows for sure what that will look like. And for those of us already in law school or in the legal field, we face the prospect of an evaporating job market. No one knows for sure when it will get better.
But I am here to tell you that we need not let these uncertainties disturb us. We need not be disturbed because we are currently arming ourselves with the “weapons of reason” that will see us through these hard times and make us more capable lawyers in the long run.
In the recent KU Law In-House Moot Court Competition, Professor Pamela Keller made sure to remind us that though our competition had been turned on its head, it was a great opportunity to build skills for the future. Oral arguments over Zoom may very well may become more common, even after the pandemic is over, and thus our online competition prepared us to excel when that happens. So too in my Trial Advocacy class, as online court hearings and proceedings are bound to become more common as technology continues to advance. And for all of the future law students starting at KU Law in the fall, if classes are online for some or all of the semester, you are currently preparing for that contingency by mastering online learning and communication.
So don’t let the future disturb you. The COVID-19 pandemic and its many consequences are out of our control. But those things that are within our control, those weapons of reason that we are sharpening day by day, will see us through to the other side and will allow us to excel in the new legal landscape.
University of Aberdeen School of Law student Ioanna Tsingi is pursuing a LL.B. degree at KU Law this semester through an exchange program between the law schools. Photo by Ashley Golledge.
Ioanna Tsingi is calling Lawrence, Kansas home this semester as she pursues a LL.B. degree. Tsingi is a third-year law student at the University of Aberdeen School of Law in Aberdeen, Scotland, who is participating in an exchange program with the University of Kansas School of Law.
KU Law has hosted an exchange program with the University of Aberdeen for five years. The University of Aberdeen is a historic and prestigious Scottish university, which is ranked fifth in the United Kingdom for law.
Tsingi studies law in the United Kingdom, but she is originally from Famagusta, Cyrpus. She enjoys the opportunity to observe different cultures and perspectives through her studies in both Scotland and the United States.
“Studying in the U.S. gave me the opportunity to be more open and see the different perspectives that the law can give and be in reality,” Tsingi said. “I can see generally the differences between the Scottish, the Cypriot and the U.S.’s legal systems.
At KU Law, Tsingi is taking courses on Media Law and the First Amendment; Copyright in the Digital Age; Public International Law; and a Careers and Professional Skills course through KU’s School of Business.
“My favorite subject is Media Law and the First Amendment because it is interesting to perceive the American approach of the Freedom of Expression and compare it with the European standpoint,” Tsingi said.
Tsingi noticed differences in the curriculum at KU Law and Aberdeen. She views her exchange program experience as an opportunity to have a well-rounded legal education.
“In Scotland, we discuss more about the logistics of the law, but here it’s more about what we think the law should have been,” she said. “Studying here gave me the opportunity to think more critically and express my opinion. Before, I was a bit afraid to say what I think. But here, I understand that you can develop your opinion based on the law.”
Tsingi hopes to use the knowledge and critical thinking skills she gained from her legal studies in Scotland and the U.S. to pursue a career in public international law.
“Ideally, I think I will stay in the U.K. and become a lawyer there. Eventually, I would like to work at the legal service of the European Commission, consulting the legislative texts of the proposed legal instruments,” Tsingi said.
— By Ashley Golledge
Editor’s Note: In light of the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19), Tsingi is en route to return to her home country of Cyprus. She will continue her studies with KU Law this semester in an online format.
I remember hearing the phrase, “K through J.D.” during law school orientation. It took me a couple of minutes before realizing it meant “Kindergarten through J.D.” and applied to my path to law school. I never took time off from school other than summer and winter breaks. I couldn’t imagine taking a lot of time off before coming to law school. I remember briefly considering whether I wanted to work for a year before law school, but I knew it would be hard to find a job I enjoyed with a political science degree. So, straight to law school it was. This decision came with advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages
School mindset
One of the main reasons I went straight from undergrad to law school was because I was afraid of not being able to get back in “school mode.” School was such a routine in my life that I was afraid of becoming an ineffective learner by spending too much time off. I think that attending law school within months of graduation worked well for me, and it made the transition much easier because I was used to reading, doing research and writing. Further, I was easily able to connect with professors for advice on the law school application process because I was still in college.
Photo courtesy of Sim Johal
Youth
My age serves as an advantage and a disadvantage in law school. Although I’ll be able to graduate and look for a job by the age of 25, most of my classmates are older than me and have more life experiences than I do. I knew that going into law school that most of my classmates would be older than me, but it wasn’t much of a concern. I see pros and cons of attending law school at 22, but at the end of the day, I don’t think age really matters much because everyone’s end goal is to get their J.D.
First-year law students Sim Johal, Heidi Wolff-Stanton and Minha Jutt participate in a Women in Law & Leadership event. Photo courtesy of Sim Johal.
Disadvantages
Resume building
One of the main disadvantages for me was my lack of professional career experience. I did not have a professional job, was not used to doing job interviews, and did not have money saved up from working before law school. This made certain things like job interviews and establishing professional credibility a little more difficult. However, my lack of professional experience did not have a substantial effect on any internship opportunities. If anything, it just led to some internal doubts.
Take time to decide if law school is right for you
I knew I wanted to go to law school from a young age, but I think it is valuable to take time before rushing into it. Going straight to law school as a K-J.D. is probably not the best idea unless you are sure that it is for you. I would suggest exploring career opportunities, meeting with attorneys, and enjoying your life before investing a significant amount of time and money into law school.
Overall, I am happy with my choice to attend law school as a K-J.D. It is not for everyone nor is the opportunity accessible for everyone. I am thankful that I was able to begin law school at 22, even with all the ups and downs that came with it.
