1/22/03—Boston College Law School is pleased to announce that Professor Aviam Soifer has been awarded a U.S. Speaker and Specialist Grant, provided by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Information Programs (IIP). The grant will allow Professor Soifer to deliver three important lectures during a three-day seminar in Barcelona, Spain entitled "Marbury v. Madison 200 Years Later."

The School of Law at the Autonomous University of Barcelona is commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that introduced judicial review of legislation. The seminar is divided into three two-hour sessions. The first session will focus on the history of the decision, and its political and historical context. The second session will focus on the judicial implications of the decision. Finally, the third session will give participants the opportunity to discuss political and constitutional consequences of the decision.

During the seminar, which will occur from May 12-14, 2003, Soifer will also deliver lectures at other venues, which will be open to the public.

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In other news, Professor Soifer has been asked to serve as an appellate Hearing Examiner in connection with hearings mandated by the Federal September 11 Victim Compensation Fund of 2001.

The Federal September 11 Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 was enacted into law after the September 11th terrorist attacks as a program that creates a federal statutory compensation scheme for those eligible claimants victimized by the tragedy. Families of those killed on September 11 or victims who were physically injured may be eligible for financial relief without resorting to the courtroom.

As a Hearing Examiner, Soifer will assist Kenneth R. Feinberg, Special Master of the compensation fund, in reviewing hearings of claimants of the fund.

Aviam Soifer has taught and written primarily in the areas of constitutional law and legal history. Before beginning his service as dean of Boston College Law School from 1993-1998, he was a professor at Boston University School of Law and at the University of Connecticut Law School. Soifer's extensive publications include Law and the Company We Keep (Harvard University Press, 1995), which was awarded the triennial Alpha Sigma Nu National Jesuit Book Prize in professional studies in 1998. In 2002, he received Boston College’s university-wide Distinguished Senior Research Award and he recently was named a Distinguished Scholar at the University of Wisconsin’s Legal Studies Institute.