Boys and girls in Durham are learning a new sport - rugby - from Duke University students and volunteers.
 
About 30 youths, most ages 9 and 10, have been learning the game since August in an in-house fall league at the John Avery Boys and Girls Club at 808 E. Pettigrew St.

"It has been a pretty good response for such a new program," said James Gillenwater, a second-year law student who formed the league as his N.C. Albert Schweitzer Fellowship health-based project, which is to promote youth fitness through sports.  

Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer will visit Duke Law School on April 14.

Breyer, a member of the nation's high court since 1994, will take part in the law school's "Lives in the Law" forum  with Dean David F. Levi and Professor Walter Dellinger.

The conversation will begin at 12:15 p.m. in Room 3041 of the Law School. A light lunch will be served on a first-come, first-served basis, according to a Duke news release.

The event is intended for law students and undergrads and is not open to the public because the venue isn't large enough, a Duke law school spokeswoman said.

A Harvard Law graduate, Breyer received his AB from Stanford University and a BA from Magdalen College, Oxford.

It's always a big deal when a sitting justice visits a law school. Duke has had plenty over the years, including at least two chief justices, William Rehnquist in 2002 and Earl Warren in 1962,

In the last decade, the law school at UNC-Chapel Hill has hosted associate justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Connor.

And N.C. Central University's law school scored a coup last year when sitting chief justice John Roberts came to town.

Nominated by President Clinton, Justice Breyer took his seat on the Supreme Court on August 3, 1994. From 1980 to 1990, he served as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and as its chief judge from 1990 to 1994.

Dellinger, Duke's Douglas B. Maggs Professor Emeritus of Law, is chair of appellate practice at O'Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C., and a frequent Supreme Court advocate. He served as acting U.S. solicitor general for the 1996-1997 Supreme Court term.

In less than two months, Raleigh will have its first law school.

Campbell University is putting the final touches on its new law school facility, which is moving from the university's bucolic Buies Creek main campus to the hustle and bustle of the capital city.

The university is spending $15 million to renovate a downtown facility, and classes are expected to start there Sept. 14.

Read more here.

The law school at the University of California at Irvine, which launches next year under the leadership of former Duke law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, wants to provide full scholarships for its entire inaugural class, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The full story is here, though it requires a Chronicle login and password.

Each scholarship is expected to be worth about $100,000, enough to cover tuition for three years, the Chronicle reports. The school hopes to have 60 students in its first class.

Chemerinsky's move west from Durham last year was a bit bumpy. Read more about that here and here.