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D'Amour Library to Host February Concerts

Posted February 9, 2010

Western New England College’s D’Amour Library will host a series of free concerts during the month of February as part of its Athenaeum Arts Series. All shows are free and open to the public.

On Thursday, February 18 at 12:45 p.m., singer/songwriter Heather Maloney will perform. A native of Turners Falls, Maloney has performed with Grammy nominee Hui Cox in Manhattan and will be touring throughout the Northeast this spring.

On Thursday, Feburary 25 at 12:45 p.m., jazz pianist Miro Sprague will perform. Sprague is a recent graduate from Manhattan School of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree in jazz piano performance. He is the leader of the Miro Sprague Trio, which has won several awards at the Berklee School of Music 2002 and 2003 Jazz Festivals.

On Friday, February 26 at 7:30 p.m., oboist Kirsten Lipkens will perform in a faculty recital. Lipkens will be accompanied by flutist Ellen Redman, clarinetist Lynn Sussman, bassoonist Rebecca Eldredge, and pianist Ellen Gilson Voth for an evening of chamber music. A member of the Western New England College music faculty, Lipkens has toured internationally and is an active performer and teacher throughout New England.

All three performances will be held in D’Amour Library room 319. The concert series is sponsored by the College’s Department of Humanities and D’Amour Library.

School of Law Claims Top Honors in National Law Student Tax Challenge

Posted February 9, 2010

Western New England College School of Law students swept the top awards in a national American Bar Association contest designed to give students an opportunity to research, write about, and present their analyses of “real life” tax planning problems.

Professor of Law Frederick Royal served as coach of both Western New England College teams, which competed in the competition’s juris doctor division. Brendan Sponheimer of Orange, CT, and James Murtha of Manchester, CT, were awarded first place overall at the American Bar Association Section of Taxation’s 2009 Law Student Tax Challenge in San Antonio.

A second Western New England College team, Neill O’Brien of East Longmeadow, MA, and Casey Nunez of Princeton, MA, were honored for the best written submission.

"I am extremely proud of the accomplishments of our students,” said Royal. “Out of all of the teams that entered this national competition, only six teams were chosen to compete in the final rounds. Two of these six teams were from our Law School. It is truly remarkable that our teams won both the overall competition and also won the best written submission. Our students’ success demonstrates once again that our Law School excels at preparing students for the practice of law."

This is the second time in the competition’s nine-year history that Western New England College School of Law students have been named overall champions.

The Law Student Tax Challenge was developed to reflect everyday tax issues that might arise for practitioners. Students compete in two-person teams, researching the tax issues involved and submitting technical memoranda and client letters with their solutions. The teams’ written submissions are judged by tax practitioners across the country, with the six teams with the best written submissions chosen to present oral arguments before a panel of distinguished tax lawyers attending the Taxation Section’s Midyear Meeting in San Antonio.

Forty-three teams from 34 law schools across the country competed in the J.D. division, tackling a complex tax planning problem that involved individual and business entity issues. “Students were asked to advise a fictional client on how to handle partnership tax matters, as well as tax issues that may arise in divorce proceedings,” said Stuart M. Lewis, Chair of the ABA Tax Section. “The students greatly benefited from the feedback and counsel they received from some of the best tax lawyers in the country.” Judges included the Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service and the Chief Judge of the United States Tax Court.

The American Bar Association Section of Taxation is the largest professional association of tax lawyers, with approximately 23,000 members nationwide. Its goals include helping taxpayers better understand their rights and obligations under the tax laws and working to achieve a simplified tax system that is equitable and efficient. A complete listing of the teams entered in the 2009 competition, along with samples of entries, is available on the section’s Web site at: http://www.abanet.org/tax/lstc.

Clason Speaker Series to Explore Military Detentions

Posted February 8, 2010

Western New England College School of Law’s Clason Speaker Series will host a talk by Robert Chesney on Thursday, February 18 at noon in the Blake Law Center Commons. The talk, entitled “The Emerging Law of Military Detention: Guantanamo and Beyond?” is free and open to the public.

When the Supreme Court established in Boumediene v. Bush that federal judges can entertain habeas corpus petitions from military detainees at Guantanamo, it failed to address the bounds of the government’s military detention power or the rules through which the courts would carry out a review. With neither Congress nor the President proposing legislation to address these questions, the task has fallen to the judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “For good or ill, this is our emerging law of military detention,” observes Professor Robert Chesney, who will examine the impact of Boumediene v. Bush.

Chesney is a specialist in national security law, having published a number of works on the topic. He currently serves as the Charles I Francis Professor of Law and the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. He recently served on the Detainee Policy Task Force in the Justice Department and is a member of the Advisory Committee of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security. Chesney served as Chair of the Section on National Security Law of the Association of American Law Schools, is a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the American Law Institute.

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