This program is a recording of the Live Webcast Seminar held on August 12, 2025.

If you attended the live webcast and received credit, then you cannot claim credit for watching this recorded program.

Summary:

Professors Avi Soifer and Nick McLean will discuss updates on the cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court following this year's term.

Speakers:

Professor Emeritus Avi Soifer, University of Hawaii at Manoa, William S. Richardson School of Law 

Professor Soifer received his law degree from Yale Law School in 1972. He also holds B.A. cum laude (1969) and Masters of Urban Studies (1972) degrees from Yale. While in law school, he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal, a director of the Law School Film Society, and a director of the Legal Services Organization. He helped to found the C.V.H. Project, representing people in Connecticut’s largest mental hospital. He clerked for then-Federal District Judge Jon O. Newman in 1972-73.

Soifer began his law teaching career at the University of Connecticut in 1973, received a Law and Humanities Fellowship at Harvard University in 1976–77, and taught at Boston University from 1979–1993. He served as Dean of Boston College Law School from 1993–1998, and continued to teach at BC until 2003, when he became Dean of the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii.

Soifer received Boston College’s Distinguished Senior Research Award and he was appointed as a Distinguished Scholar at the University of Wisconsin’s Legal Studies Institute. His book, Law and the Company We Keep (Harvard University Press, 1995) was awarded the Alpha Sigma Nu Triennial National Jesuit Book Prize in professional studies.

He has an extensive record of scholarly publications, presentations, and public service activities and he continues to teach primarily in the areas of constitutional law, legal history, legal writing, and law and humanities.

Nick McLean, Assistant Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa, William S. Richardson School of Law

Nicholas M. McLean joined the faculty of the William S. Richardson School of Law in August 2024 as an assistant professor of law. He teaches Constitutional Law, Professional Responsibility, and Appellate Advocacy.

Professor McLean’s scholarship explores contemporary issues in constitutional and public law, with particular emphasis on state constitutionalism, the intersection of poverty and constitutional doctrine, and the constitutional regulation of punishment and economic sanctions. His work on the history and original meaning of the Eighth Amendment’s excessive fines clause has been widely cited in state and federal courts. His scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, and the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, among others.

Professor McLean is also an experienced appellate litigator. Before joining the Richardson Law faculty, he served as First Deputy Solicitor General in the office of the Hawaii Attorney General. In that role, his work focused on constitutional litigation in matters involving public health, public safety, and consumer protection. He also practiced law at firms in Honolulu and New York.
Professor McLean graduated magna cum laude from Yale College and earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an essays editor of the Yale Law Journal. After graduating from law school, Professor McLean clerked for Judge Richard Clifton on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In 2020, he was appointed to serve a three-year term as a lawyer delegate to the Judicial Conference of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii.

Duration: approximately 1 hour

Credit: This seminar qualifies for 1 CLE Credit.

NO REFUNDS WILL BE GIVEN FOR ONLINE SEMINARS. 

This seminar will be available in your classroom to view for 1 year from the date of purchase OR until August 12, 2027 which ever comes sooner.  

ADA Accommodation: In Accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you require accommodation for a disability, please contact us by email at cle@hsba.org; or by phone at 537-1868 and ask for the CLE Department before purchasing the program. 

Questions? Please contact HSBA CLE Department at 537-1868 or CLE@hsba.org.