Christopher Edley and Oliver Williamson React to Economist’s Nobel Win

The Berkeley Daily Planet, October 12, 2009 by Riya Bhattacharjee
http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-10-08/article/33909?headline=UC-Berkeley-Prof-Wins-Nobel-Prize-for-Economics-

“I am lucky,” said Williamson, to applause from his colleagues.

“I was quite surprised to hear my former student had won the Nobel Peace Prize, but I was not surprised to hear this,” said UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Christopher Edley. “For years he has been an anchor for regulating behavior and dealing with issues of authority and agency,” Edley said. “We could not be more pleased.”

Joseph Lavitt Thinks Storm Ruling Leaves Insurance Issue Unresolved

MSN Money, October 9, 2009 by The Associated Press
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=AP&date=20091009&id=10480434

Joseph Lavitt, a Berkeley Law School professor who teaches insurance law, said the Supreme Court disagreed with part of the 5th Circuit’s ruling but didn’t address whether insurers are liable for damage “when either the wind or the water could have caused the loss without the other and they acted at the same time. The Corbans’ battle is far from over. Either party may yet prevail under today’s ruling,” he said.

Christopher Edley, Stephen Rosenbaum, Susan Gluss Comment on Student Anti-Torture Initiative

The Berkeley Daily Planet, October 9, 2009 by Riya Bhattacharjee
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/issue/2009-10-08/article/33908?headline=Berkele

-Berkeley law school Dean Christopher Edley has … [said] … in a public statement that the university would carefully review the Justice Department’s internal ethics investigation findings regarding the authors of the torture memos upon its release.

-Berkeley law school lecturer Stephen Rosenbaum said he was looking forward to Tuesday’s panel. “Recent national studies have chastised law schools for offering curriculum that is short on professional skills and values,” he said. “This initiative appears to be a serious effort by Boalt students to examine ethical and policy issues in a conventional format—presentations by scholars and practitioners.”

-Berkeley Law spokesperson Susan Gluss told the Daily Planet that students were allowed to form whatever group they wanted at Boalt. “It could be to discuss all sorts of controversial issues—political, international, medical—UC Berkeley is the home of the free speech movement and we are a critical part of it,” she said.

Katherine Porter Explains Why Business Bankruptcies Are Rising Faster than Individuals

Bloomberg, October 8, 2009 by Bill Rochelle
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&tkr=MER:US&sid=aQZ6DBooLQAA

Katherine M. Porter said that … “bankruptcy is not effective for people whose mortgage payments are now higher than their incomes.” Porter, who’s a visiting professor this year at the University of California, Berkeley, added that bankruptcy isn’t useful for “outright poverty or income shortage.”