On Saturday, April 6, Laura Kessler, Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, participated in a panel discussion titled “Negotiating Vulnerability in the Workplace” at Emory Law School. In addition to Kessler, panelists included Professor Dianne Avery, SUNY Buffalo Law School; and Professor Kristin Bumiller, Department of Political Science, Amherst College. The panel examined the employment conditions of marginalized workers, including servers at restaurants such as Hooters and employees with criminal records working in our economy’s most undesirable jobs. The panel was part of Emory’s Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative’s conference on Work and Vulnerability. According to the program materials, the conference “explored the concepts of vulnerability and resilience in relation to the employment relationship as it is being redefined in the 21st century.”
Additionally, this fall, Kessler was appointed by the president of the Law and Society Association to serve on the Association’s Article Prize Committee. The Law and Society Association is an interdisciplinary association of scholars interested in the place of law in social, political, economic, and cultural life. As a member of the Article Prize Committee, Kessler helped select the winner of the Association’s prize for a journal article or book chapter demonstrating exceptional scholarship in socio-legal studies. This prestigious prize will be announced at the Association’s annual meeting in Boston in May 2013. The other members of the Committee were Leti Volpp, Professor of Law, University of California Berkeley Law School; Eleanor Brown, Associate Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School; and Anders Walker, Associate Professor of Law, Saint Louis University Law School.