Law

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga will make his first trip to the U.S. since the election of President Barack Obama on Saturday, May 23, when he will make remarks and answer questions from the media from 9-11 a.m. at the Top of the Falls Restaurant on Goat Island in Niagara Falls, N.Y., and then give the University at Buffalo Law School commencement address 3 p.m. that day.

The University at Buffalo Law Alumni Association will honor five UB graduates and Justice Sharon S. Townsend, administrative judge of the Eighth Judicial District, at the 47th annual UB Law Alumni Association meeting and dinner at 6 p.m. on May 5 in the Hyatt Regency Buffalo.

Republic of Kenya Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga will deliver the University at Buffalo Law School commencement address in a ceremony that will include conferral of honorary degrees to Irene Zubaida Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International, and J. Mason Davis Jr., a practicing attorney who played a key role in the desegregation of Alabama in the 1960s.

The University at Buffalo Regional Institute has issued a detailed analysis of Western New York's voting patterns in the 2008 presidential election. Among the key findings are that the region's most populated areas -- urban and suburban -- voted for Barack Obama, although 85 percent of the region's municipalities voted for McCain. The region also voted more Democratic in 2008 compared to 2004, especially rural areas, while the region's rank of registered Republicans shrank.

Law students from around the country will sharpen their courtroom techniques during Saturday's annual National Criminal Law Moot Court Competition hosted by the University at Buffalo Law School's Criminal Law Society held this year in the Erie County Courthouse.

The public will get an opportunity to watch one of the state's most influential courts in action next month when the University at Buffalo Law School hosts a full day of appellate judge arguments beginning 10 a.m. on April 9 in the Francis M. Letro Courtroom in John Lord O'Brian Hall on UB's North (Amherst) Campus.

Political scientists from the University at Buffalo and Texas State University have presented the first-ever comprehensive ranking of American states with regard to public policies affecting individual freedoms in the economic, social and personal spheres.

In 2007, University at Buffalo computer scientist Sargur Srihari, Ph.D., one of the world's experts on pattern recognition and its application to fingerprints and handwriting, was selected by the National Academy of Sciences to serve with other national experts on its Committee on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Science Community. The NAS released the panel's findings in a report called "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward"

University at Buffalo researcher John Violanti, Ph.D., a specialist in suicide among police officers, is preparing to conduct a study on suicide risk among returning veterans. The U.S. Army yesterday reported a "stunning spike" in the number of soldiers taking their own lives.

Local governments are reeling from the current recession, but not far off is another fiscal crisis of potentially catastrophic proportions. Over the next 30 years, nine of the region's largest local governments will have to come up with nearly $4 billion to cover their retirees' non-pension benefits, according to the latest UB Regional Institute policy brief, "The End of Local Government as We Know It?"