Symposium Line-up Announced

The UALR Law Review Ben J. Altheimer Symposium will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 1 in the Friday Courtroom. This year’s symposium is titled “A Question of Balance: 40 Years of the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act and Tenants’ Rights in Arkansas.”

In 1972 the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (URLTA). Besides being enacted in twenty states, it provided an impetus for the widespread adoption of the implied warranty of habitability and laws restricting retaliatory eviction.

Does anything remain undone? Currently the ULC is drafting revisions to the URLTA. Morning panelists  will discuss the work of the committee and current topics in residential landlord-tenant law.

Afternoon panelists will focus on Arkansas law and policy. What is the status of the URLTA in Arkansas? What are tenants’ rights with respect to safe and habitable premises? What is the nature of Arkansas’s criminal failure to vacate statute? What are tenants’ rights in foreclosure? Are there policy issues supporting changes in residential landlord-tenant law? Does current landlord-tenant law impact the health of tenants?

Dale Whitman, Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and national authority on real estate law, will be the keynote speaker. Panelists include:

  • Sheldon Kurtz, Percy Bordwell Professor of Law at the University of Iowa – The work of the ULC Drafting Committee on the Revised Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act.
  • Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod, Professor of Law, Florida International University – Eviction of tenants for actions or events outside of the tenant’s control.
  • Elena Marty-Nelson, Professor of Law, Nova Southeastern University – Whether it is time to redefine the terms abandonment and mitigation.
  • David Campbell, Professor of Law, Mississippi College – An empirical evaluation of the temporal and geographic differences in the interpretation of the implied warranty of habitability.
  • Douglas Smith, Instructor, Brandeis University – The real impact (or lack thereof) of the implied warranty of habitability.
  • Missy Lonegrass, Harriett S. Daggett – Frances Leggio Landry Professor of Law, Louisiana State University – Comparative landlord-tenant law, focusing on the EU.
  • Lynn Foster, Arkansas Bar Foundation Professor of Law at the UALR William H. Bowen School of Law – The report of the Non-Legislative Commission to Study Landlord and Tenant Law.
  • Marshall Prettyman, Director of Litigation, Legal Aid of Arkansas – Arkansas’s  eviction laws.
  • Christopher Albin-Lackey, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch – The human impact of Arkansas’s criminal failure to vacate statute.
  • Nate Willis II, MPA, MPH, Research Assistant, UAMS – Is there a connection between Arkansas tenants’ rights and public health?
  • Amy Johnson, Executive Director, Arkansas Access to Justice Commission – Arkansas landlord-tenant laws and public policy.
  • Dr. Patrick H. Casey, Harvey and Bernice Jones Professor of Developmental Pediatrics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Children’s Hospital – Housing and child health.

Free CLE credit in the amount of approximately five hours will be available. The symposium will be live-streamed at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville School of Law.

Register for the event online. The event is free.

For more information, email Symposium Editor Kitty L. Cone.

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