Two Penn State Dickinson faculty receive Fulbright Scholar Awards

Laurel S. Terry and Nancy A. Welsh, professors of law at The Penn State Dickinson School of Law, have been awarded Fulbright Scholar grants for the 2005-2006 academic year, according to the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

As a Fulbright Scholar in Cologne, Germany, Terry will research the basis for, and response to, the European Union (EU) Commission's Report that concluded some regulation of lawyers in the EU (including Germany) may be anticompetitive. Her project will contribute to an important policy debate that is under way in the EU and Germany by comparing the regulatory principles that govern U.S. and German lawyers, particularly by antitrust authorities. By examining the line between state and federal regulation of lawyers and analyzing the boundaries of acceptable regulation, Terry's research will be fundamental in understanding issues that the United States will likely confront in the future.

Welsh will carry out her work in the Netherlands, where the government is preparing to launch a significant initiative to offer mediation in all of the nation's courts and legal advice services. Under her grant, she will research the design, implementation and outcomes of the Netherlands' mediation project, the needs it is meant to address and the civil law context within which it fits. She also will lecture to law students and researchers on how the United States has institutionalized mediation in state and federal courts and various agencies.

Terry and Welsh are two of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to approximately 140 countries for the 2005-2006 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program.