Forum of the Center for Transnational Litigation and Commercial Law

This is to announce the November session of the Forum of the Center for Transnational Litigation and Commercial Law, which will take place on November 28th, 2011, from 6.15-8.00 pm., in Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900, 245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012.

It is a great pleasure to be able to announce that Prof. Bo Rutledge has accepted the invitation to give a talk on the topic “International Civil Litigation in US courts in the last five years” that Mr. Alexander Layton and Professor Linda Silberman have agreed to act as commentators.

Professor Rutledge is a Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law.  His research interests include international litigation, international arbitration and the United States Supreme Court.  He is the author of several books and book chapters which have been published by Yale University Press, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and others.  His articles have appeared in a diverse array of journals including the University of Chicago Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review and the Journal of International Arbitration.  Professor Rutledge has filed more than twenty briefs and petitions in the United States Supreme Court and lower courts on topics such as arbitration, international litigation and criminal law.  Respected by his peers abroad, he also has lectured at a diverse array of institutions including Oxford University, Cambridge University, the London School of Economics, Stockholm University, the University of Mainz and the University of Oslo, among others.  This will be his first public lecture at New York University.

Mr. Alexander Layton is an English Queen’s Counsel (barrister) and a specialist in private international law, practicing from 20 Essex Street chambers in London. He has acted in a number of important cases in this field, including representing the United Kingdom government before the European Court of Justice in the well-known West Tankers case on anti-suit injunctions in support of international arbitration. He is the co-author of European Civil Practice, which has become a standard work on the European regime for  jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, and this year acted as an expert assisting the European Parliament with its legislative work on a revision of the Brussels I Regulation on this topic. He is also the author of various other papers and book chapters on private international law issues. He has recently completed a six-year term as the chair of trustees of the British Institute of International and Comparative law, where he has been instrumental in establishing the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. He is also a past-chairman of the British-German Jurists’ Association and of the Bar European Group.

Professor Linda J. Silberman is the Martin Lipton Professor of Law at New York University and Co-Director of the Center. She is a leading figure in the United States in private international law and transnational litigation, and her academic and scholarly interests range from numerous areas of commercial law to personal and family matters. At NYU Professor Silberman teaches a range of courses, including Civil Procedure, Comparative Procedure, Conflict of Laws, International Litigation/Arbitration and International Commercial Arbitration.  She is co-author of an important Civil Procedure casebook (now in its 3rd edition) and of a recent book on Comparative Civil Procedure.  She was the co-Reporter for the American Law Institute Project–Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments: Analysis and Proposed Federal Statute, and an adviser to two other American Law Institute projects: Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law and Judgments in Transnational Disputes and the Restatement Third on International Commercial Arbitration. Professor Silberman is also a Member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law and has been a member of numerous U.S. State Department delegations to the Hague Conference. Professor Silberman combines her scholarship and academic work with other roles, such as special referee, expert witness and consultant in a number of important cases. Her work was cited by the Supreme Court of the United States in two recent Supreme Court decisions.

Please note that all discussions taking place during the Forum are subject to the Chatham House Rule.

As only limited space will be available, those interested are kindly asked to rsvp by November 20th by writing to transnational@nyu.edu.