Christian Legal Scholars’ Symposium Schedule

11:30 AM—1:00 PM
Luncheon & Vocation Keynote: The Law Professor’s Christian Vocation

Professor Michael P. Schutt
Director, Institute for Christian Legal Studies and Asst. Professor, Regent University School of Law

Professor Schutt directs the Institute for Christian Legal Studies (ICLS), a cooperative ministry of the Christian Legal Society and Regent University School of Law. ICLS seeks to encourage Christian law students, professors, and lawyers to seek and study biblical truth as it relates to law and legal institutions. Schutt is an associate professor at Regent University School of Law and also serves InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as the national coordinator of its Law School Ministry. His passion is encouraging and equipping Christians in the legal profession to live lives of integrity that reflect a conscious commitment to continually seeking God’s direction regarding the substance of their callings and a commitmentloving their neighbors in and through the law.

Schutt is the author of Redeeming Law: Christian Calling and the Legal Profession (InterVarsity Press 2007), an exhortation to students and lawyers on Christian integrity. Before joining the Regent Law faculty, he practiced law in Fort Worth, Texas. He is an honors graduate of the University of Texas School of Law.

1:15-3:15 PM
Panel I: Stories of Christian Vocation

Professor Kwame Frimpong, Ghana
Frimpong is a graduate of the University of Ghana and Yale Law School. He is a Professor of Law and a qualified barrister in Ghana. He taught at the University of Botswana from 1984 to 2007. Prior to that he taught briefly at the University of Ghana from 1978 to 1984. Professor Frimpong is a former Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (1990-92) of University of Botswana. He served as the United Nations Legal Adviser (Observer) to the Commission Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation (popularly known as the Goldstone Commission) under the United Nations Mission to South Africa (UNOMSA), during South Africa’s transition to democratic rule (1992-1994).

Kwame Frimpong has both a Masters and Doctor of Law degree from Yale Law School. He has taught law for 15 years in Botswana and is a gracious, energetic brother who organized several national lawyers’ fellowships.

Professor Li-ann Thio, National University of Singapore
Dr Thio read jurisprudence at the University of Oxford, holds a Masters degree from Harvard Law School and completed her doctoral dissertation on the international protection of minorities at the University of Cambridge. She is a Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore (NUS) where she teaches and researches constitutional and administrative law, public international law and human rights law. She is a Barrister (Gray’s Inn, UK) and is currently a Nominated Member of the Singapore Parliament (Eleventh Session, 2006-2009). She has taught at the law faculties of the University of Melbourne and Hong Kong and has served as an expert witness before the Federal Court of Australia and as consultant to the University of Warwick (academic freedom issues, 2005). She was formerly the Chief Editor of the Singapore Journal of International & Comparative Law and is currently General Editor, Asian Yearbook of International Law and on the editorial / advisory board of the New Zealand Yearbook of International Law, Journal of East Asia and International Law, Australian Journal of Asian Law and International Law and Human Rights discourse. A leading Singapore constitutional scholar, she co-authored Constitutional Law in Malaysia and Singapore (Butterworths, 1997, with Kevin YL Tan), is the corresponding editor (Singapore) for Blaustein & Flanz's Constitutions of the Countries of the World and the International Journal of Constitutional Law. She has been ranked an NUS Excellent Teacher twice and received the NUS Young Researcher award in 2004 for excellence in scholarship.

Dr. Vilma C. Balmaceda, Peru
Professor of political science and law at Nyack College, NY, Dr. Balmaceda was the co-founder of the Christian Legal Society, Peru. She has taught in Peru and the United States, among other countries. She earned her law degree at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and her doctorate in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

3:45-5:00 PM
Jurisprudence Keynote: Christian Perspectives on Jurisprudence

Dr. J. Budziszewski
University of Texas

Dr. Buziszewski received his Ph.D. from Yale University and is a professor in the departments of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin. Professor Budziszewski specializes in political philosophy, ethical philosophy, and the interaction of religion with philosophy. Among his research interests are classical natural law, virtue ethics, moral self deception, and the problem of toleration. His books include The Resurrection of Nature: Political Theory and the Human Character (Cornell, 1986), The Nearest Coast of Darkness: A Vindication of the Politics of Virtues (Cornell, 1988), True Tolerance: Liberalism and the Necessity of Judgment (Transaction, 1992), Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law (InterVarsity, 1997), The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man (Spence, 1999), What We Can't Not Know: A Guide (Spence, 2003), Evangelicals in the Public Square: Four Formative Voices (Baker Academic, 2006), and Natural Law for Lawyers (Blackstone Fellowship, 2006).

8:30 – 9:45 AM
Panel II: Religious Freedom

Professor Zhang (“John”) Shoudong, China
University of Political Science and Law China University of Political Science and Law

Professor Zhang (LLB, LLM) is Associate Professor of Law, China University of Political Science and Law, instructor of Chinese History of Law and Comparative Constitutional Law. He served as an elder at Beijing Shouwang Church. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Notre Dame, Harvard, and Columbia, and has served as Adjunct Professor of Chinese Constitutional Law of Handong International Law School. Professor Zhang has had his own challenges with the limited religious freedom in China as he and his wife operate an unsanctioned house church out of their home, while both of them teach in a state law school.

Dean Kenneth Starr
Dean and Professor of Law, Pepperdine University School of Law

Dean Starr has argued twenty-five cases before the United States Supreme Court, including some of the major religious liberty cases. Following graduation from Duke University School of Law, he clerked for The Honorable David W. Dyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, and for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. While in private practice, he was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. In addition to working in the private sector, he has served as Counselor to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith, Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, Solicitor General of the United States, and Independent Counsel on the Whitewater matter. Dean Starr is a member of numerous professional organizations and boards, including the American Law Institute, the Christian Legal Society, Advocates International, the Supreme Court Historical Society, and the American Inns of Court. An enthusiastic writer and scholar, he has authored many law review articles. His latest book is First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life published in 2002.

Professor Jónatas E. M. Machado
Professor of Constitutional Law and International Law in the University of Coimbra

Before coming to the University of Coimbra, Professor Machado taught at the Autonomous University of Lisbon (1988 to 2005). He is the author of several books and articles concerning constitutional and international law, particularly in the domains of freedom of religion and freedom of speech and media regulation. He is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Center of the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra, and he has lectured on religious freedom issues in the United States, Brazil, Bulgaria and Cape Verde. His publications include Liberdade Religiosa Numa Comunidade Constitucional Inclusiva, Dos Direitos da Verdade aos Direitos dos Cidadãos, Coimbra (1996); Liberdade de Expressão, Dimensões Constitucionais da Esfera Pública no Sistema Social, Coimbra, (2002); “Law and religion in Portugal: from Libertas ecclesiae to religious freedom,” European Journal for Church and State Research, 9, 127 (2002); “Droit et Religion au Portugal”, Conscience et Liberté, 64, 2003; “Media and Religion in Portugal,” The Portrayal of Religion in Europe: Proceedings of the Conference of Cardiff 2004, (ed. Norman Doe), Leuven, (2004); and “Freedom of Religion: A View from Europe,” Roger Williams University Law Review, 10, 2 (2005).

10:00 – 11:15 AM
Panel III: Jurisprudence and the Culture of Life

Professor Teresa S. Collett
Professor of Law, St. Thomas University School of Law

A passionate advocate for the protection of human life and the family, Professor Collett (J.D. University of Oklahoma College of Law) is a nationally sought-after scholar and speaker on the topics of marriage, religion and bioethics. She has published numerous legal articles and is the co-author of a law casebook on professional responsibility and co-editor of a collection of essays exploring "catholic" and "Catholic" perspectives on American law .

She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and has testified before committees of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, as well as before legislative committees in several states. Most recently she represented Congressman Ron Paul and various medical groups in the defense of the federal ban of partial-birth abortion, and the Governors of Minnesota and North Dakota defending the requirement of state parental involvement prior to performance of an abortion on a minor before the United States Supreme Court. She has served as special Attorney General for the States of Oklahoma and Kansas , as well as assisting other state Attorneys General in defending laws protecting human life and marriage. Prior to joining St. Thomas in 2003, Professor Collett taught at the South Texas College of Law where she established the nation's first annual symposium on legal ethics.

Professor Santiago Legarre
Professor of Law, Universidad Católica Argentina

Professor Legarre received his training at the University of Oxford (M.St. (2004), Universidad de Buenos Aires (Ph.D. 2003), and Universidad Católica Argentina (LL.B. 1991), where he graduated first in his class. He has been a visiting professor at Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University, and formerly as Professor of Law and Chair of the Constitutional Law Department at Universidad Austral (1995-2006). He was a law clerk for the Argentine Supreme Court from (1992-1994). Professor Legarre has written extensively on both Argentine and American constitutional law and the police power. He has published two books and more than twenty articles in international publications.

Dr. Gabriel Mora-Restrepo, Columbia
Associate Professor of Law & Director of the Department of Legal Philosophy and Constitutional Law, Universidad de La Sabana, Chía - Colombia

Professor Mora-Restrepo received his Ph.D., summa cum laude, from Universidad Austral Law School, Argentina, and his J. D., with honors, Universidad de La Sabana (Bogota, Colombia, 1995).  He has also complete graduate studies in Constitutional Law, Universidad de Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia, 1997).  He has written extensively on constitutional interpretation and jurisprudence, and he is the author of Theory of the Legitimacy of Constitutional Decisions from the Perspective of Practical Reasoning (forthcoming in 2008) and Ciencia Jurídica y Arte del Derecho. Estudio sobre el oficio del jurista [Juridical Science and Legal Art. A study about the jurist practice] (Bogotá, Gustavo Ibáñez, 2005), in addition to many essays, articles, and book chapters.