Prof. Carol Rose honored at 7th Annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference

The seventh annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference and presentation of the 2010 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize took place September 30 and October 1, 2010 at William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia. The 2010 Conference included various panel discussions focused upon private property rights as well as the scholarship of the 2010 prize recipient, Carol Rose.

The 2010 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize was presented to Professor Carol M. Rose, Ashby Lohse Chair in Water and Natural Resources at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law on September 30, 2010. Professor Rose is a graduate of Antioch College. She received a Ph.D. in history from Cornell and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. Before joining the faculty of the University of Arizona in 2005, Professor Rose held the position of Gordon Bradford Tweety Professor of Law and Organization at Yale Law School. Professor Rose has also held visiting professor and visiting scholar positions at a number of distinguished universities.

Professor Rose was awarded the prize on Thursday evening following a reception and dinner in the historic Sir Christopher Wren Building – America’s oldest academic building – on the William and Mary campus. William and Mary Law Professor Eric A. Kades, a former student of Professor Rose, spoke about Professor Rose, her scholarship and her teaching before the prize was awarded. In preparation for the event, Professor Kades solicited comments from fellow Yale law students who had taken Rose’s course. Interestingly, he also located the course outline – yellowed and crinkled from his time in Prof. Rose’s class.

The Conference began Friday morning with a panel discussion focusing upon the scholarship of Professor Rose. Panelists included Robert C. Ellickson, Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law, Yale Law School, Jedediah Purdy, Professor of Law, Duke Law School, Daniel J. Sharfstein, Associate Professor of Law, Vanderbilt Law School, and Henry E. Smith, Fessenden Professor of Law, Harvard Law School.

The second panel discussion, “Defining Just Compensation: How Do You Get There and What Does It Mean?,” presented three varying perspectives on just compensation from the view of academia, practicing attorney and presiding judge. The panelists who discussed Just Compensation included James W. Ely, Jr., Professor of Law Emeritus, Vanderbilt University, Joseph T. Waldo, Attorney, Waldo & Lyle, P.C., and The Honorable Robert W. Wooldridge, Jr., (Retired) Fairfax Circuit Court Judge and Senior Lecturer in Law, George Mason Law School.

Friday afternoon the Conference continued with a panel discussion entitled “Property Rights and the Commons.” The academics on this panel included Michael A. Heller, Lawrence A. Wien Professor of Real Estate Law, Columbia Law School, Mark Sagoff, Director and Senior Research Scholar at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland and Laura S. Underkuffler, J. Dupratt White Professor of Law, Cornell Law School. Thomas W. Merrill, Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School was scheduled to participate in this panel but was unable to attend the conference.

The Conference concluded with a panel discussion titled “The Uneasy Relationship Between Public and Private Property Rights” and focused upon the most recent takings case heard by the Supreme Court in 2009, Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep’t of Environmental Protection. James S. Burling, Principal Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation and John D. Echeverria, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School presented their views of this case from their individual and competing perspectives. Both gentlemen authored amici briefs in the case – Mr. Burling on behalf of the property owners and Prof. Echeverria in support of the government. The heart of their discussion focused upon the fact that although the Court did not find that a taking occurred in this particular instance it also did not rule upon the doctrine of judicial takings or whether a court can “take” property via adjudication. Eminent domain attorney Leslie Fields, Partner, Faegre & Benson LLP in Denver, Colorado, moderated the discussion and posed a series of questions to stimulate debate.

The Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference and Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize are named in recognition of Toby Prince Brigham and Gideon Kanner for their lifetime contributions to private property rights, their efforts to advance the constitutional protection of property, and their accomplishments in preserving the important role that private property plays in protecting individual and civil rights. Since 2004, the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference has recognized outstanding scholarly contributions to the field of property rights with the annual presentation of the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize.

The Conference was video taped and copies will be available for purchase from William and Mary Law School, contacting Kathy Pond at 757-221-3796 or ktpond@wm.edu to order.

Save the dates – October 14-15, 2011 – for the Eighth Annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference which will take place in Beijing, China. The 2011 conference will be held in conjunction with Tsinghua University School of Law in Beijing and promises to be quite amazing. More details, including the 2011 Property Rights Prize honoree, will follow as they become available.

Disclosure: Joseph T. Waldo, Leslie Fields, James S. Burling, Toby P. Brigham and Gideon Kanner are all members of the Owners’ Counsel of America and represent private property owners in eminent domain.

UPDATE: See “Joyful Property Professor” Carol M. Rose Honored with 2010 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to Receive 2011 Prize at Beijing Conference for more details and photos from the 2010 events.

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