Fordham Law alumna Adela Hurtado ’17 was one of 100 delegates selected from thousands of applicants to attend this year’s edition of the Yenching Global Symposium, which took place in Beijing, China, in late March. Delegates were awarded with an all-expense paid trip to Beijing to attend the event.

The Yenching Global Symposium is an interdisciplinary conference on China held annually at the Peking University of Beijing, the oldest university in the country. During the three-day event, delegates from all around the world attend lectures, panel discussions, workshops, and cultural excursions. This year, the theme of the symposium was “Women: Retelling the China Stories.”

“The Symposium brought scholars, business people and media personalities from around the world to discuss the theme,” said Hurtado. “We attended a variety of presentations and discussions covering women’s relationships with Confucianism, the status of women in the Chinese court system and politics, and women’s roles in Chinese cinema.”

Hurtado said she felt honored to be chosen as a delegate. Delegates are students and young professionals who pursue their passion for China in their work or research. “I was inspired by every delegate I met,” she added, “and the experience was unforgettable.”

The Fordham alumna has always been fascinated by China. She said her interest for the country dates back to when she was in 6th grade, when she read the Chinese classical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. She studied in China twice, first when she was an undergraduate student, and then when she was pursuing her law degree at Fordham. Her love for China motivated her decision to apply to take part in the symposium.

Born in Miami Beach to Peruvian parents, Hurtado pursued her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and East Asian Studies at New York University. After graduating from NYU, in 2014, she was admitted into Fordham Law. At Fordham, she studied public interest law, Chinese law, and business law. During her last semester, she was accepted into Professor Chi Adanna Mgbako’s International Human Rights Clinic, where she worked on a project in collaboration with Amnesty International.

“I’ve always wanted to learn about other cultures,” she said. “And I’ve always wanted to help people. The clinic was an invaluable experience of both.”

After graduating and passing the bar exam, Hurtado joined the International Service for Human Rights, a non-governmental organization based in Geneva and New York, where she is a Legal Fellow. “We advocate at the United Nations on behalf of human rights defenders from around the world and we help them bring their cases to the UN and international courts,” she explained.

Besides her work as a lawyer, Hurtado is also a talented photographer and animator, with projects focusing on China and Peru. She is also currently taking animation classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

“I hope that I can continue to help others while pursuing my career in law and the arts,” she said. “I am grateful for the experiences I’ve had so far, and I’m excited to see what’s next.”

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The Peggy Browning Fund has awarded a 10-week summer fellowship to Fordham Law student Maura Moosnick ’21. Moosnick will spend her fellowship working at Gladstein, Reif & Meginniss, LLP in New York.

Each year, the Peggy Browning Fund sponsors about 80 summer fellowships for law students at labor-related organizations around the country. The Fund’s mission is to “educate and inspire the next generation of law students to become advocates for workplace justice.”

Moosnick, one of this year’s winners, was born and raised in New York City. She graduated in 2016 from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. As an undergraduate student, she was involved in campus activism and helped raise awareness on issues affecting workers—something she continues to do at Fordham through the Workers’ Rights Advocates student group.

After college, Moosnick worked for two years as a litigation paralegal at Virginia & Ambinder LLP, where she supported the firm’s ERISA litigation practice representing multiemployer employee benefit funds, primarily in New York City’s building trades industry. One of the firm’s founding partners, Charles Virginia, graduated from Fordham Law in 1989.

After attending an event about the Peggy Browning Fund fellowship, Moosnick applied and was selected.

“Gladstein Reif has a very robust traditional labor law practice as outside counsel for labor unions in a wide variety of industries, from transportation to healthcare to journalism,” she said. “Their attorneys have an impressive breadth and depth of experience.”

A Fordham alumna, Amelia Tuminaro ’03, is one of the partners at Gladstein, Reif & Meginniss, LLP. At Fordham Law, Tuminaro was a Stein Scholar in Public Interest Law & Ethics.

Moosnick said this will be an opportunity for her to gain more experience in traditional union representation to build on her previous work in union employee benefits.

“I’m excited to gain substantive experience relating to proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board,” she continued, “and to learn more about the unions representing MTA employees.”

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On the same day of his graduation from Fordham Law on May 20th, Casey Adams ’19 was honored with a Law360 Burton Award for Distinguished Legal Writing.

Each year, the Burton Awards, in partnership with the Library of Congress, choose ten winners among the “finest law school writers.” Adams has been selected for his paper entitled, “Home Rules: The Case for Local Administrative Procedure,” which analyzes and advocates for the importance of procedural statutes for cities in the United States.

“In my first year at Fordham, I took Legislation and Regulation with Professor Saiger,” said Adams. “The class taught me the basic concepts of administrative law that inspired me to dig more deeply into the topic when it came time to write my student Note for the Fordham Law Review.”

He had originally written the paper as a shorter piece on New York City administrative procedure for the Law of the City of New York course he took with Professor Matt Gewolb. In the award-winning version of the piece, he used New York, Seattle, and Philadelphia as his three case studies.

“Professor Nestor Davidson was my advisor for the Note-writing process, which was a great opportunity for mebecause he had already published an in-depth article on my subject entitled ‘Localist Administrative Law’ in the Yale Law Journal,” Adams explained.

An associate editor of the Fordham Law Review, Adams said he has “greatly enjoyed” his time at Fordham.

Originally from Connecticut, Adams completed his bachelor’s degree in History and Political Science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. The student, who has recently turned 30, has also had a decade-long career in politics.

He worked for both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns—in 2008, as a field organizer in Clay County, Florida, and in 2012 as the regional field director in Nevada. In 2013, he worked as the campaign manager for NYC council member Stephen Levin, who later appointed him to be his deputy chief of staff.

For the last few years, he’s been working at the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, where he is the director of city legislative affairs. His commitment to public service sparked his interest in pursuing a law degree.

“I wanted to get a better understanding of the junction point between the politics work I had been doing and the actual consequences of the legislation,” he said.

Adams chose to attend the evening program so that he could continue to pursue his career in politics: “The school does a great job at helping evening students feel that they are an integral part of the community,” he said. “Over my four years at Fordham, I had a lot of support from many professors, who knew that I had a unique schedule.”

At the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, he handles the legislative portfolio, while working in licensing, worker protection, and consumer protection.

“It’s a unique position—I study the law at night, and I participate in the actual process of lawmaking during the day,” he commented. While pursuing his degree and working a full-time job, Adams also found the time to continue learning Spanish and work on his cooking skills.

After graduation, he will be clerking with three different judges: Judge Paul Kelly at the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit; Judge Edward Korman at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York; and Judge Jenny Rivera at the New York Court of Appeals.

“I’ve always had an interest in public service, and I hope to continue on this track,” he concluded.

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Rebecca Rubin ’20 won first place in the Family Law Writing Competition of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and Hofstra University’s School of Law with an article on medical-legal partnerships.

The Family Law Writing Competition, which has reached its ninth year, is run in partnership with the editorial staff of the Family Court Review. In addition to a $500 cash prize, Rebecca Rubin’s winning paper will also be published in the Family Court Review in the fall.

Rubin first wrote the article—entitled Medical-Legal Partnerships: How Legal Services Can Dramatically Improve Health Outcomes—as a final paper for the Poverty Law course taught by Professor Clare Huntington. Professor Huntington encouraged the students in the course to submit their papers for the competition. Rubin described the course as “one of the most interesting classes I’ve taken so far at Fordham.”

Professor Huntington noted that “Rubin’s paper was a standout, both for the originality of the argument and the depth of the research.”

“I worked on medical-legal partnerships two years ago, while I was an AmeriCorps Legal Advocate at the Justice Center of Southeast Massachusetts,” Rubin said. “The article explains how social factors can have detrimental effects on someone’s health. Medical-legal partnerships train doctors to identify legal causes and solutions to health issues and then refer the patients to lawyers for follow-up legal work.”

Rubin, who started studying at Fordham Law in 2017, is a staff editor at the Fordham Law Review and the president of the Advocates for Sexual Health and Rights student group. She is also a member of the Dispute Resolution Society; in April, she traveled to Hong Kong for two weeks to participate in an international arbitration competition.

Before Fordham Law, she pursued a B.A. in Spanish and Psychology at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

“I am originally from New York, so after spending six years in Boston, I was ready to come home,” said Rubin of her decision to attend Fordham. “I was particularly drawn to Fordham’s Stein Scholars Public Interest Program.”

Rubin said she is passionate about immigration law and litigation matters. She is also hoping to do more work related to medical-legal partnerships in the future.

Winning the competition, she said, has been a big honor for her: “It’s wonderful to see my work on a topic I care so much about getting recognition. It’s important to address some of the issues related to poverty in the United States. If this article can get more people interested in this beneficial model — that would be amazing.”

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Fordham Law is delighted to welcome 138 new graduate law students. These individuals include 120 new students in eight  LL.M. degree program; 16 new students in the in-person M.S.L. programs; and two new doctoral degree candidates, both of whom received their LL.M. degrees from Fordham, and who will be working under the supervision of Professor Martin Flaherty and Professor Chi Mgbako.  This new group of students joins the 58 LL.M., 26 M.S.L., and nine doctoral students who are continuing their studies for a total of 231 graduate students. This semester also marks the start of our online M.S.L. program in corporate compliance.

Orientation events for master students include introductory lectures on the U.S. legal system, study tips panels, a professor panel, an event at which incoming students have the opportunity to meet Dean Matthew Diller and other members of the senior administration of the Law School, a scavenger hunt, a welcome reception, and small dinner parties with graduate program administrators.

The graduate students come from more than 40 countries and often have significant work experience in their respective areas of expertise.

“Our graduate students enhance our community enormously,” says Assistant Dean Toni Jaeger-Fine, who leads the graduate programs. “They bring a level of diversity and experience to Fordham Law from which we all benefit greatly. This year is especially significant, because we are celebrating the 30^th anniversary of our LL.M. program.”

For more information about each of Fordham Law’s graduate programs, visit the LL.M. program page, the M.S.L. program page, and the S.J.D. program page.

The fall 2020 application cycle opens September 15 for all three degree programs. The spring 2020 application (LL.M. only) is available now.

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Abigail Sia, a current second-year student at Fordham Law, was interviewed by her undergraduate alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, about what it’s like being a law student at Fordham Law.

What made you choose Fordham Law? What do you see as the primary pros and cons of law school?

I chose Fordham primarily for its strength in the New York market and also based on an intangible feeling. I knew I wanted to stay in New York for law school and ultimately practice in New York. Fordham has a great reputation in New York and an incredibly strong alumni network; Fordham also gave me a very generous merit scholarship. As for that intangible feeling, it first arose after attending Fordham’s Admitted Students Day. I visited a couple of other law schools before and after finding out I had been admitted to Fordham, and I felt pretty neutral about attending school at those places. After visiting Fordham, I had this gut feeling that I would be really happy at Fordham. This same feeling steered me towards Hopkins back in 2011, so I had to listen to it for law school. I chose Fordham and haven’t regretted it for a second!

I think the pros of law school include the legal education and training itself, the countless opportunities that a legal education can open up for you, and the network that you get to build while in law school. Law school teaches you to be a really analytical thinker and a sharp writer.

It’s also really fun to be around a lot of motivated, driven, law-minded people. My law school peers are some of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and it’s a privilege to be able to learn alongside them.

I think the cons of law school are the cost, the three years you spend out of the workforce (unless you attend as a part-time student), and the stress. Law school is expensive, and if you go to school in an urban area then your living costs will be pretty significant too. Law school is also stressful! You spend a lot of time reading and preparing for class, and you have to begin studying for finals at least a month out. Also, grades are incredibly important for the job hunt, and your grade in almost every class will hinge almost exclusively on one final exam – no midterms! All that being said, Fordham students are really supportive of each other, so you never feel like you’re doing it all alone.

Read full interview.

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A paper in the Fordham Law Review by Lura Chamberlain ’20 was referenced in an Observer article on sex workers. Chamberlain discusses the negative and dangerous impact that technology and surveillance have placed on the sex worker community.

The impact of SESTA-FOSTA has been sweeping and unforgiving toward the sex working community, both in the United States, as well as globally. The law itself, along with the reactions of the general public, internet platforms and the sex working community, has had a profound impact. It has influenced not only the sex working community but arguably the entire American political landscape in 2019, as it is often the gateway topic to conversations around decriminalization of sex work as a whole.

…

Sex workers have been surveilled long before the use of facial recognition technology, before algorithms and before data collecting. Sex workers come from every corner of society because people of all identities have traded sex to survive. However, sex workers of color, queer sex workers, sex workers who use drugs and those who work outdoors are at higher risk of surveillance and violence from the criminal justice system. SESTA-FOSTA has contributed to a long history of sex working communities being othered from the greater society, targeted for surveillance and being carelessly put at risk for violence, this time in the name of “anti-trafficking” efforts.

According to Lura Chamberlain in her Fordham Law Review paper “FOSTA: A Hostile Law with a Human Cost,” “Within one month of FOSTA’s enactment, 13 sex workers were reported missing, and two were dead from suicide.” Within a single month, FOSTA-SESTA’s passing had a tangible impact on the sex working community, yet according to sex worker, writer, and activist Lorelei Lee, “there’s been no criminal prosecutions using the law in the 18 months since it passed.”

Read the full article.

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Fordham Law’s faculty, students, and Legislative and Policy Advocacy Clinic are mentioned in an article for Law.com, highlighting today’s law student-led protest against the taxation of menstrual products.

Law students across the country are taking on the so-called tampon tax on Nov. 20.

Aspiring attorneys from two dozen law schools in states that tax menstrual products plan to purchase those items and send in tax refund claims to their respective state taxation agencies as both a form of protest and a bid to raise awareness about what they view as the unfairness of such taxes.

…

Fordham University School of Law’s Legislative and Policy Advocacy Clinic took the lead in organizing law student participation in the action, which also includes writing to state lawmakers and state departments of revenue about the unconstitutional nature of tampon taxes. Currently, 33 states have a tampon tax on the books, including Texas, Georgia and California, although the Golden State has adopted a temporary reprieve from collecting taxes on menstrual products.

Read the full article.

Additional media coverage on this topic:
Afternoon Briefs
Law School Students Protest Over Tampon Taxes

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S.J.D. candidate Mohamed Sweify, who is also a teaching fellow at Fordham Law, wrote an essay for the New York State Bar Association discussing how diversity and inclusion have become important parts of the legal field and in the practice of ADR.

Diversity and Inclusion are relative concepts. Speaking of DI means speaking of the compositions of teams and institutions. Diversity should have a positive, not a repellent, meaning. Diversity should mean difference. This difference is the value diverse stakeholders bring to the institution or team.

…

How do we get the ADR field to be more successful at DI? Whose responsibility is it: the system itself or the practitioners? Diversity is not about checking a box to include a group of few minorities nor making a group only for minorities. The first step of diversity is having diverse people of different cultures, experiences and backgrounds in different levels in the ADR practice. While this might seem easy, it requires an action plan. Who is in charge of this action and how do we execute the plan? These are the real questions. Different institutions are responsible for making this happen, including law schools, law firms, corporations, professional institutions and associations.

I will try to provide some answers followed by some recommendations from a practical perspective. These observations are drawn largely from my experience as a teaching fellow at Fordham Law School where I teach a tutorial course on the U.S. legal system and ADR practices. All of my students are international and come from diverse backgrounds, including legal, cultural, geographical, experience, gender, etc. During my encounters with these diverse students, I have noticed how fearful they are of the U.S. legal market. Students do not consider their diversity to be assets for the legal market. I tried to help them understand that being diverse is a true asset they bring to the market. However, my advice to these students seemed to be mere words that did not change their beliefs with regard to the importance of diversity.

Read the full essay.

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Students in Fordham’s Entrepreneurial Law Clinic (ELC), directed by Professor Bernice Grant, conducted their second pop-up small business legal clinic at Community Capital New York.  Collaborating with Will Malpica ’00 and two of his colleagues in Martin LLP’s business and corporate group, students provided valuable legal services to nine underserved small business owners, in English as well as Spanish.

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IPIL Clinic alumni reminisced about how much they enjoyed working with their clients and how it was one of their favorite parts of law school. IPIL clinic alumni are, from left to right: Chawick Boswell ’16, Prof. Ron Lazebnik, Mazwell Friedman ’17, Nora Choueiri ’14, and Erica Palaia ’14. The Clinic, directed by Ron Lazebnik, was originally started up and funded by a grant from Pamela Samuelson and Robert Glushko, who have funded similar clinics across the country.  The Dean gave a brief history of the Clinic and remarked that without the help of Joel Reidenberg and Fordham Adjunct Professor Tom Halket, this clinic could not have happened. Pam Samuelson said, “The idea of technology law clinics was a novelty 20 years ago, but the idea has caught on at many law schools, including Fordham.  It offers students an opportunity to learn more about this dynamic field and to grow into the roles they will be playing as lawyers.”

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Students in the Criminal Defense Clinic (CDC), supervised by Professor Martha Rayner and Kaela Economos, the Clinic’s Social Worker, travelled to the correctional facility in Otisville, NY to attend a day-long Parole Summit. The extraordinary thing about this conference is that it was sponsored and planned by the Lifers and Long-Termers Organization — incarcerated persons at this facility. According to Rob Wasserstein and Bernie Olshansky, two of the students, it was both an intellectual and emotional experience. When they first arrived, the students sat in the gym in small groups with the incarcerated men and women and talked with them about their core mission: the Four Rs — Responsibility, Remorse, Reconciliation, and Rehabilitation. Later, the conversation shifted around getting people to think about the issue of parole. A moving dramatization put on by members of the organization followed in which they played real roles that addressed issues of showing remorse and forgiving yourself. The students said this part of the agenda was “particularly remarkable.”

The afternoon session centered around speakers and open discussions about Restorative Justice. Several people involved in the criminal justice system spoke or attended, including a judge of the Court of Appeals, the Brooklyn District Attorney, Chair of the Board of Parole, a Member of the Board of Parole, and a representative of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

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A taxpayer received a Notice of Deficiency for approximately $300,000 and contacted the Fordham Tax Clinic, directed by Professor Elizabeth Maresca, for assistance. She came to the U.S. from the Caribbean and had limited English proficiency. She focused her life on caring for her two children, one of whom had a severe disability and subsequently passed away. The client had limited her work to babysitting and housekeeping to maintain a flexible schedule to care for her disabled daughter.

The IRS claimed the taxpayer did not report $1,000.000 of income. This money stemmed from her spouse’s business. He had bad credit and in order to obtain financing, he ran the business under her name and social security number. Her involvement with the business was limited to signing documents at his request. She generally did not understand the documents or the implications of her signature. Notably, the client experienced abuse during the marriage that influenced her signing the documents. The taxpayer separated from her husband, who simply stopped filing returns for the year at issue. Since the business was operated in her name, the IRS asserted that all of the income from the business was attributable to her.

In the summer of 2018, students Alex Lipton ’19, Daniella Villatoro ’19, and Daniela Calabro ’20, began gathering more information about the business, including sending subpoenae to multiple individuals and companies that worked with the business. The information showed how the business was structured and confirmed that the taxpayer was not involved and did not receive the income that was unreported.

The following semester, the students prepared a memorandum of law which analyzed the evidence and summarized the law. The case was docketed in the U.S. Tax Court. After receiving the memorandum of law and hundreds of pages of documents in support, the IRS office of Chief Counsel attorney conceded that the client had not earned the income. Students in the Tax Clinic helped absolve the taxpayer of the $300,000 liability.

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“Most of the people who come seeking help from the Civil Legal Advice and Resource Offices (CLARO) are low and moderate-income New Yorkers working more than one job, whose wages just haven’t been able to keep up with the cost of living,’ explains Dora Galactos, adjunct professor of law and executive director of the Feerick Center.

Since the mid 2000’s, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers have been sued in collection cases, with filings peaking in 2008, when more than 300,000 debt collection cases were brought in NYC’s civil court alone. Now the numbers are on the rise again. Stagnating wages and thin margins have left many New Yorkers vulnerable to subprime lending, that is, credit cards with abusive terms that can trap them into a vicious debt cycle.

Students in Professor Marcella Silverman‘s Consumer Litigation Clinic (“CLC”) get hands on experience providing full legal services to low-income consumer defendants in federal, state and local trial and appellate courts. Students take primary responsibility for every aspect of a case.  Thomas Kendris ’20 is currently working on a case in which a woman was asked by her ex-housband to co-sign a loan for a used BMW.  Years later, when he defaulted on the loan, she discovered she was the sole signatory. Now she is being sued for more than $16,000 which is “money she doesn’t have, for a car she never meant to own, never wanted, and never drove,” explains Kendris who found several deficiencies in the case from the contract violating the Truth in Lending Act, to dealer misconduct, to the over-inflated amount contained in the lender’s document to reclaim the car. “Some cases are so factually complicated and legally complex that there is no way a person can win without being fully represented by a lawyer,” notes Silverman. “Those are the cases we bring back to the clinic.”

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Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Court met with former dean John Feerick, and Professor John Rogan and students in the Democracy and Constitution Clinic.  He offered his insights on legislative reform and the judiciary. The clinic conducts research to develop reforms to strengthen the nation’s institutions and its democracy.

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J.D. candidate Nicholas Sawicki wrote an article for America magazine outlining the fundamental differences between an impeachment in the Senate and a criminal trial.

When Americans conjure up the image of a trial, many will undoubtedly draw on cultural mainstays like “Law & Order,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “My Cousin Vinny”: prosecution and defense attorneys arranged before a judge seated aloft and a jury of peers awaiting the evidence against the accused as argued by the attorneys. A trial by the U.S. Senate in the case of impeachment looks similar in many ways. Evidence is presented, there is a prosecution and a defense, witnesses may be called, and there is a presiding officer.

Despite the conceptual similarities, a Senate trial, formally referred to as a Court of Impeachment, is fundamentally different from a standard trial. For one, it is not a trial that is legal in nature. That is to say, it is not a criminal proceeding but a constitutional one reserved to the legislative branch of the federal government. An individual who is facing impeachment is not facing prison or financial penalties as a result of the proceeding itself but rather removal from office and a potential ban from future office-holding.

Read the full article.

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“Professional and leadership skills are crucial to success as a lawyer,” says Fordham Law Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Linda Sugin. “Law schools are just starting to recognize that we have a really important role to play in teaching students how to foster inclusion, communicate effectively, and navigate differences with sensitivity, empathy, and skill.”

Associate Dean Linda Sugin

As part of Fordham Law’s commitment to making professionalism a core part of legal education, the Law School recently held its first ever spring orientation for first-year law students returning from their winter break. In preparation, every student completed a set of online modules developed by Open Mind, an organization dedicated to fostering understanding across differences by teaching concepts from moral and social psychology. In the class session, students focused on recognizing cognitive distortions and constructively engaging with each other on contemporary legal issues, including artificial intelligence, LGBTQ rights, immigration, abortion, incarceration, and drug decriminalization. Students practiced identifying the moral foundations underlying their positions and crafting arguments that appealed to the moral foundations of students who disagreed with them. The session was designed to teach students how to disagree for understanding, and how to make more compelling legal arguments by expanding their moral foundation perspective.

Rosevelie Márquez Morales ’02

Rosevelie Márquez Morales ’02, adjunct professor and East Coast diversity director at Sidley Austin LLP, taught the session on cultivating inclusive environments, opening with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story.” She offered students strategies for interrupting bias and becoming an inclusive leader. Professor Morales offered recommendations for allyship, and introduced students to “imposter syndrome,” which is felt by many law students, as well as 65 percent of the legal profession. Students practiced recognizing situations in which people were treated with bias, by analyzing a series of hypotheticals about lawyers and law students. They left armed with tools for fostering greater inclusion in their classrooms and work places.

Why hold an orientation at the start of the spring semester? “Fall orientation is just too early,” Sugin explained. “Now, the students know each other well enough to have the difficult conversations that people in a community should have. They recognized some of their differences in background, identity, and politics, but were able to come together and seek common ground.”

Dean Matthew Diller

Rounding out the day’s events was an open discussion with Dean Matthew Diller. After the tumult of the first semester of law school and before diving into the second, the forum was an opportunity to take a moment to ask, “What does the law school experience mean as a whole?” Dean Diller also asked students how the first semester did or did not meet their expectations, inviting them to share what surprised them. The freewheeling discussion then turned to the rule of law, a persistent theme in current headlines.

“Professionalism is the most important thing students need, and it is the biggest hole in law school curriculum,” emphasized Sugin. “At Fordham, we are committed to helping students develop into lawyers who can work effectively with everyone.”

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Ethan Cramer Gibbs, Kevin Darby, and Pamela White, all Fordham first-year law students from the Sports Law Forum, bested 40 other law schools at Tulane Law School’s International Baseball Arbitration Competition. The competition, which was held in New Orleans Jan. 16-17, dealt with three Major League Baseball cases: Aaron Judge vs. the New York Yankees, Jon Gray vs. the Colorado Rockies, and Josh Hader vs. the Milwaukee Brewers. Each competitor took on one of the cases and presented against the other teams in front of guest arbitrators. The team, coached by Nathaniel Liebes, Rob Pannullo, and Nick Reade, took on Pace Law School in the championship round and sealed Fordham Law’s second straight victory.

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On January 23 and 28, Fordham Law first-year law students met with representatives of 60 New York legal employers in a pair of on-campus receptions hosted by the Law School’s Career Planning Center (CPC). 

The two-day event served as a meet-and-greet for students and employers, giving them a chance to interact with one another in an informal, low-stakes environment. All the employers in attendance will participate in Fordham’s Fall On-Campus Interview Program, through which Fordham Law’s current first-year students will seek jobs for the summer following their second year of law school. CPC Senior Manager of Legal Recruiting Mitchell Weitz explained, “The goal is for employers who participate in our fall on-campus recruiting program to introduce themselves to first-year students, and it’s a fantastic way for the students to learn more about the firms firsthand.” 

Jaycee Yao ’22

For many students, the event was the first time they experienced direct personal interactions with law firms. “It’s nice to see the different firms, talk to them, and get a feel for them,” said Becca Spendley ’22.

Fordham Law alumni attended in droves as representatives of their respective firms, eager to counsel current students.

For Jaycee Yao ’22, the reception gave her a new perspective on working at a firm. “I’d always thought about doing public interest work, but after talking to people at the reception, I’m really impressed with their work, and it’s given me some great insights on how to pick the right firm,” she noted. “I feel very welcomed by the Fordham alumni here.”

Zachary Cronin ’14

Not all participants were law firms, either. Representatives from the Manhattan and Bronx District Attorney’s offices, the Legal Aid Society, and the New York City Law Department also attended.

The event also allowed firms to get to know the students. “It’s great for the firms, because when you conduct on-campus interviews, an interview can sometimes be more constructive when you have previously met the student (at a reception or event, for example). It also shows that the student has a demonstrated interest in the firm,” said Zachary Cronin ’14, associate at Milbank LLP. “Every law firm here tracks that kind of thing. In fact, it’s among the top criteria when evaluating applicants—that they are actually interested in that law firm.”

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Professor and co-director of the Criminal Defense Clinic Martha Rayner and third-year student Alex Garber co-wrote an article for the New York Law Journal examining the modification to Criminal Procedure Law §150.20 that will significantly impact New Yorkers.

This alteration constitutes a sea change in arrest procedures in New York state, where until now, the police have had discretion regarding when to issue an appearance ticket and when to arrest. In 2018, in New York City alone, 128,194 individuals were arrested for misdemeanor offenses, and countless more were arrested for violations. Under the new CPL 150.20(1)(a), a large majority of these individuals can no longer be arrested. Although the meaning of the law is plain and unequivocal, nobody—not the Governor, legislators, or criminal justice stakeholders—have addressed its implementation or ramifications.

The question then becomes, if officers are not permitted to arrest an individual when there is probable cause that a low level crime was committed, then what level of intrusion is permitted before the officer issues an appearance ticket? Drawing from People v. DeBour, which defines the levels of police intrusion, police will be able to ask the suspect questions implying criminality (DeBour level 2) and will be able to forcibly stop and detain the individual (DeBour level 3). Prior to the change in law, it was common police practice to either handcuff individuals or to transport them to a precinct before issuing appearance tickets. However, both of those actions constitute arrests and therefore are now prohibited by 150.20(1)(a) for most low level offenses.

Read the full piece.

The post How an Unheralded Change to Criminal Procedure Law §150.20 Will Overhaul Arrest Procedures in New York appeared first on Fordham Law.