The Red Velvet Lawyer

How I Conducted the Research Acknowledgments: First, I want to thank Qatar University College of Law and my Dean Dr. Mohammed A. Al-Khulaifi for their generous support of this research. I also appreciate the help of Dr. Yasser Khalaileh, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Dr. Faouzi Ahmed Belknani, Associate Dean of Research, Dr. Yassin El Shazly, Associate Dean of Outreach and Engagement, and Dr. Conrad Sturm. Finally, I want to thank the many faculty and ADR colleagues who gave me the opportunity to interview them. They generously gave of their time. The Interviews: The report reflects about 20 hours of interviews, including the interviews of several QU professors, ADR professionals, law firm attorneys, government attorneys, and a judge sitting on the Qatar International Court and Dispute Resolution Center (QICDRC). At this point in the process, I have interviewed people who live and work in Qatar, but I have also interviewed two people living in Dubai. I...

Scaling Up.  Working at an International Level When I decided to move to Qatar, I had hoped to scale up my ADR teaching, training, and practice.  In the U.S., I held the state-wide leadership positions in the Virginia Mediation Network and positions on Virginia Supreme Court-sponsored mediation ethics committees and grievance boards .  I loved those opportunities to serve my community.   However, because of the financial constraints of my law school, I could not actively participate at a national level in leadership of the Section of Dispute Resolution of the ABA or of the Association for Conflict Resolution . Towards the end of my stay in the U.S., my law school was not even funding my attendance at the annual conferences of these organizations.  By moving to Qatar and joining the faculty of a well-funded university, I hoped to grow professionally and scale up to a more international ADR practice.   I was lucky, in hindsight, ...

Best-Laid Plans  of Mice and Men . . . . This week, I had planned to take students through a second CREAC exercise to get them ready for the CREAC Test later in the week. I wrote a new exercise that was more similar to the problem the students would analyze on the test.  They would apply Qatari trade name and trademark law to two restaurants using a very similar trade name: "The Oryx Diner" and "The Oryx Diner on-the-Go."   At the beginning of the week, I ran through about 50 of the slides I had prepared. Before you gasp in horror, please know that 50 percent of each slide is a photo or other image.  I still had about 20 more slides to discuss before students would feel more confident about the CREAC Test. In the meantime, many of the students had four or more exams this week.  They were feeling overwhelmed, over-worked, and a little hopeless.   Because of some scheduling issues, students in my afternoon class had exams scheduled du...

Conclusion, Rule, Explanation, Application, and Conclusion I've talked about it for three weeks.  CREAC this and CREAC that.  Now, it's time for the students to write their first legal analysis using this format.  Baby steps. We will do it together. I have an exercise, based on the post-9/11 U.S. Patriot Act, that involves the effort of our "client" to bring onto an aircraft two sharpened pencils, knitting needles, and nail polish remover.  Are they prohibited dangerous weapons?  At the start of class, students are skeptical. How can these household items be weapons?   Then, in a dramatic demonstration, I light the nail polish remover on fire, jab the pencils towards the eyes of the nearest student (safely of course), and hold a thin knitting needle near the sternum of another student. Oh! Now the analysis becomes real.  The fun part is teaching them how to do the Application, where students compare the facts of the "illustrati...

Working Harder to Create Student Engagement Qatar University has a very rigorous faculty evaluation program.  Once a year, we must upload a boat load of class-related data to a platform called Digital Measures.  The grousing among faculty members during this "upload" week is extensive, me included. As part of the process, we must submit a reflection on the past year -- something I enjoy. We also must submit a plan for professional development in the coming year. This year I promised to use the peer-evaluation process offered by OFID (Office of Faculty and Instructional Development).   Dr. Chris Stryker typically makes these class room visits and evaluations.  Chris, an American with a long history at QU, was great in providing feedback, both in writing and in our conversation after class. I am thankful that most of the feedback was very positive. But he dinged me on creating student engagement. "Ask more, tell less!," as his evaluation notes say...

Getting Students to Think Like Baby Lawyers In lab this week, students conducted an interview of our client.  As I noted in my last posting , my good friend, Jessica, played the role of Fatma Alhamad, the co-owner of three gourmet chocolate shops in Qatar. She and her husband, Mohammed, want a competitor to quit using the same trade name, "The Chocolate Drops," and a similar trademark in his own chocolate shop business.  That's the basic outline of the simulation. To supplement these facts, I have provided students with memos either from me or the "senior associate" about the client, the alleged infringer, and the chocolate industry. With this background information, I required them to draft ten questions for the client.   The exercise helps students develop listening, note-taking, summarizing, strategic planning, and questioning skills.  The students in the male section met first with the client.  I was excited to see that mos...

Meeting with the "Partner" This week I began distributing to students legal memos on "firm" letterhead. The firm name is: Suliman, Alwahaibi & Young, LL.C.  The first memo, one of three to date, described my initial meeting with the "clients," Fatma and Mohammed Alhamad.  They own a specialty chocolate shop at three different locations in Doha.  A competitor is using the same trade name and a similar logo.  The trade name is "The Chocolate Drops." The second memo provided some background information on the competitor and the competing product line, store, trade name, and trademark.  The third memo asked the students, playing the role of "junior associates," to attend a meeting with me, playing the law firm "partner." You see, I need to give them their legal research and writing assignments.  Next week, the will get another memo from the "senior associate," Maryam, who will describe the ...