Fordham Law students on the international mediation team competed at the International Chamber of Commerce mediation competition in Paris, France this past month. The team won the Distinction in Public Speaking award. Alumni Maria Vankiotis ’15 and Steven Shuldman ’15 coached the team.
The post International Mediation Team Wins at ICC in Paris appeared first on Fordham Law.
Fordham Law students in the Center on Law and Information Policy’s Privacy Educators Program were featured in on CBS New York for their work educating New York public school students on online privacy for popular applications like TikTok.
The five-week program covers everything from privacy controls to navigating social media.
The program started back in 2013, teaching seventh graders, but administrators realized that was too late and are now focusing on fourth and fifth graders.
The law students said they are blown away by the youngsters’ capacity to absorb complicated information.
“They’re being introduced at such a young age that they’re really grasping it and learning it a lot quicker than I was anticipating,” Joseph Caruso said.
The post Fordham Law School Students Volunteer Time To Teach Children How To Stay Safe On The Internet appeared first on Fordham Law.
To celebrate Women’s History Month, Fordham Law Women sponsored an event at the Law School on March 5 honoring women’s contributions from the suffrage movement until today. The featured speaker, New York State Assembly Member Aravella Simotas, ’04, was the first woman elected to the Assembly from the 36th District in Queens.
Kimathi Gordon-Somers, Fordham Law School’s new assistant dean of student affairs and diversity, introduced Simotas. Dean Gordon-Somers said he is “reminded every day that women in our society are leaders.” He remarked that the 2020 national Women’s History Month theme of honoring women who fought for women’s right to vote in the U.S., and noted the “often overlooked contributions that women have made in U.S. history.”
Kimathi Gordon-Somers, assistant dean of student affairs and diversity
Simotas highlighted her work on the passage in 2019 of New York’s new sexual harassment law. According to Simotas, the law changed the standard for harassment from “the outdated severe or pervasive standard, which set an impossibly high bar for victims to meet” and prevented employers from using non-disclosure agreements to keep employees from making complaints to government agencies, among other measures.
Simotas said she is currently working on further legislation to help victims of sexual assault and harassment. One series of bills is named for sexual abuse survivor Marissa Hoechstetter, “who testified about her experience being sexually abused by former OBGYN Robert Hadden throughout her pregnancy.” Simotas noted that working with Hoechstetter “has made our legislation so much more thoughtful and useful to those who endure such trauma.”
Simotas told students in the audience to let their personal experiences inform their work. “As a woman and a first-generation professional, I understand how alienating the law school experience can be for people who come from less privileged backgrounds,” she said. “I encourage you to bring your whole, authentic self into your work, because doing so will make this school and the legal profession stronger.”
After the prepared remarks, Simotas took questions about her current legislative efforts from the audience, which included a mix of current students and alumni. Topics ranged from the passage near midnight the evening before of an emergency bill granting Governor Cuomo expanded executive powers and $40 million funding for prevention of the novel coronavirus, to a bill that would make it easier for youthful offenders to expunge their records.
Along with Fordham Law Women, the event was co-sponsored by the Black Law Students Association, Latin American Law Students Association, Asian-Pacific Law Students Association, Multicultural Law Students Association, Jewish Law Students Association, South Asian Law Students Association, OUTLaws, and Fordham First Generation Students.
Fordham Law Women provides mentoring, coaching, and guidance to students and seeks to raise awareness of issues facing women and society. Kristine Rose Itliong, ‘20, president of Fordham Law Women, noted, “Our hope is that such collaboration will raise awareness of intersectional issues and inspire women of various backgrounds to be leaders in the law.”
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The post Assembly Member Aravella Simotas ’04 Speaks at Women’s History Month Event appeared first on Fordham Law.
Nadav Ben Zur ’20 first learned about the distinction between legislative and nonlegislative rules in his 1L Legislation and Regulation (“Leg-Reg”) class. This is an important concept in administrative law because agencies are required by law to provide stakeholders with notice and the opportunity to comment on legislative rules, but they need not go through this often cumbersome process for nonlegislative rules.
Ben Zur said he thought the common standard that courts use to tell the difference “wasn’t particularly satisfying.” His interest in the subject eventually led him to write a note, “Differentiating Legislative from Nonlegislative Rules: An Empirical and Qualitative Analysis,” published in the Fordham Law Review in 2019.
For his note, Ben Zur recently became one of 15 law students nationwide awarded the 2020 Law360 Burton Award for Distinguished Legal Writing. This is the second year in a row that a Fordham Law student has received the award.
Established in 1999, the Burton Awards “honor the finest accomplishments in law, including writing, reform, public service and interest, regulatory innovation, and lifetime achievements in the profession,” according to the organization’s website. Law360 is the lead sponsor, and the American Bar Association is a co-sponsor. Ben Zur will accept the award at an awards ceremony and gala currently scheduled for June 8, 2020 at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
To write his note, Ben Zur qualitatively analyzed more than 240 cases from various Federal Courts of Appeal spanning nearly seventy years. He considered the various tests used by courts and divided those tests into those that focus on the action of the agency versus the effect of the rule on the public. Ben Zur concluded that courts using a public-focused test are more likely to find a given rule to be legislative, requiring notice-and-comment, and he proposed a more balanced test considering both agency action and effect on the public. “The APA strikes a balance between public participation on the one hand and efficient agency on the other,” noted Ben Zur. “This is interesting because it implicates both political theory and jurisprudence. And, it’s exciting because there’s a lively debate between academics and judges and the arguments on both sides are very compelling.”
Professor James Brudney, an authority on legislation and regulation, advised Ben Zur on the note. He said working with Brudney gave him a “leg up.” “What’s remarkable about him is that he recognizes the issues you are least certain about, guides you to areas of research you should explore, and then expects you to either clarify the uncertainty or recognize that an area of law is truly vague,” said Ben Zur of Brudney, who helped him tackle and unpack some of the more difficult concepts in his research.
Ben Zur currently serves as a senior articles editor for the 2019-2020 Fordham Law Review and is looking forward to working as a litigation associate at Patterson Belknap after graduation. A native of Israel, he earned his undergraduate degree from Columbia before coming to Fordham for law school. “My entire U.S. experience has been in New York.” Ben Zur called his time at Fordham “incredible” and says he has found “all the faculty to be immensely knowledgeable and very approachable.”
The post Fordham Law Student Nadav Ben Zur ’20 Wins National Legal Writing Award appeared first on Fordham Law.
Throughout the year, Fordham Law School provides a wide range of services and support to help students with their mental health and well-being. Though the Law School’s physical facilities remain closed for the rest of the semester due to the coronavirus outbreak, students can still access many of the same resources remotely.
Jordana Confino
Jordana Confino, director of the new Office of Professionalism, leads wellness programs for students at Fordham Law. She was recently one of seven speakers invited to the national ABA Well-Being Workshop Teleconference that took place on March 24 to discuss best practices for promoting wellness during the coronavirus crisis. “I represented one of only two law schools on the panel, which just shows how Fordham has really emerged as a leader in the law student well-being community,” she said.
Confino shared her best advice for how students can best cope with stress and anxiety during this unprecedented time.
Adjust and adapt as best you can: Your normal study habits and strategies may not be available to you in the same way now, but you can learn and develop new strategies for acclimating to your new environment. For example, Fordham Law’s Office of Student Affairs and Tutoring Program continue to operate remotely and provide academic support.
Speak with a counselor: “With the incredible stress, anxiety, and loss that will be generated by this crisis for so many people, mental health services are now more essential than ever. And they can be conducted remotely,” Confine said. (Fordham Law students may call Fordham Counseling and Psychological Service, 212-636-6225, to schedule an appointment or screening by phone, Zoom, Doxy.Me, or WebEx).
Stay connected: “Social distancing does not need to mean social isolation—reach out and connect with people,” Confino said. In terms of academics, professors are holding office hours for students to ask questions regarding classes and assignments, and even just to check-in and say “hello.” And, when you’ve done all your work for the day, Confino says it’s important to find creative ways to hang out with your friends and family—whether that’s having an interactive game night or a virtual Netflix Party.
Perform an act of kindness: Fordham Law students kicked off a Virtual Food Drive through Food Bank for New York City that has already raised more than $2,700. “But even the smallest acts of kindness, like extending a wave to someone that you pass by on the street, can make all the difference,” says Confino.
Take a deep breath (or a few): “We had just launched our pop-up Mindful March Meditation Series right before we left campus,” Confino said. “But, now there are all these great online apps for meditation sessions and even links to live-streamed meditations being offered in the legal community.”
“Not only does deep breathing help you relax, but it can also serve as a calming mechanism by training your mind to focus on cultivating control and mindfulness over your thoughts and feelings. It’s a helpful strategy to stay grounded in the midst of all of this chaos, and it’s even been shown to boost our immune system,” Confino said.
Keep moving: Confino noted the many live-streamed classes available online for Zumba, yoga, cardio, and more. “Also, as springtime heads our way, there’s no reason not to go out there and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air—as long as you’re keeping your safe distance of six feet,” she added.
Communicate with others: For students who have people all around them in their home, Confino said it’s important to communicate and find ways to strike a balance respecting each other’s schedules and needs. And, for students who are living alone, she recommends reaching out to a classmate to set up a time to watch a class lecture online together and later discuss its content.
Be grateful: Though there may be a lot of negative information to dwell on at the moment, students can still think about things to look forward to and all the good that’s being done in the world. “Every time you wash your hand for 20 seconds, take that time to either focus on your breath and practice mindfulness or identify things that you’re grateful for,” Confino said.
Practice self-compassion, not self-criticism: “I think it’s really important for students to not expect things to be exactly as they were under usual circumstances because these are not usual circumstances,” Confino noted. “Go easy on yourself. Yes, try to devise strategies to adapt to this new temporary normal. But remind yourself that under these circumstances, simply getting through the day is a huge accomplishment, and applaud yourself for doing the best you can.”
Lastly, there is a silver lining: Said Confino, “While this is an enormously challenging time, students are learning critical professional skills, like virtual communication and presentation and less structured time and project management, that will serve them well in the workplace.”
The post Nine Ways Law Students Can Practice Self-Care During the Coronavirus Outbreak appeared first on Fordham Law.
By night, Dr. Maureen Zakowski ’20 is studying to earn her J.D. in Fordham Law’s evening program. By day, she is a pathologist at Mount Sinai Hospital, where healthcare providers are on the front lines treating Covid-19 patients. We spoke with her about what she’s seeing and how she’s coping as a law student and a physician.
You’re juggling law school while practicing as a physician. What is your specialty?
I’m a pathologist with a specialty in the lung, particularly lung cancer. I run the cytology division at Mount Sinai Hospital. What we do is we basically diagnose people who have different kinds of lung conditions as well as other conditions. We work very closely with chest surgeons, and we work very closely with pulmonologists. So, what my group is doing now is supporting the pulmonologists in obtaining specimens and interpreting specimens from the Covid-19 patients because we have to do this in order to get them the right diagnosis and the right care. But, as you can imagine, if a pulmonologist is putting a tube down somebody’s airway, and we’re there helping, there’s a lot of potential exposure to the Covid-19 virus. So, I’ve been spending a lot of my time trying to keep my people safe, making sure they have the kinds of equipment that they need, going with them when they need help in difficult clinical situations, organizing ways to handle the samples from Covid-19 patients to minimize exposing anyone else.
What are your days like lately?
I’ve already had a number of my people on my team get sick, and a number of their families sick and hospitalized. Some of the things that I’ve been doing are every single day checking on the number of patients and number of procedures and organizing people’s work hours to minimize them having to come in, with most having to use public transportation. I’m trying to distribute masks and protective equipment to people. Unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of our protective equipment stuff stolen. So we’ve had to try to replace it.
As a pathologist, I examine a lot of patient samples on glass slides under the microscope. In the process of making these pathology slides, the slides are handled by many staff which now presents a risk for spreading Covid-19. So, we brought in all kinds of equipment to clean things. We are also minimizing back and forth trips within the medical center. So, if someone has to go from one building to another, I talk to them first and I say, “Okay, let’s minimize the trips that we make. Let’s do it this way. Let’s do it that way.” Basically, coordinating the effort so that we can get all these diagnoses made as safely and as quickly as possible.
So, after a 12 hour shift, you are finishing up your education as an evening law student at Fordham. What’s that like?
I’m supposed to graduate next month. I’ve been in contact with lots of my classmates, asking them how they are and urging them to wash their hands. That’s the most important thing is to wash your hands right now. And keep out of public or crowded spaces as much as possible. Unfortunately, I can’t do that. I’ve been going into work every day. I’m no hero. I’m just doing my job.
How are you coping?
Well, I’m a little scared. I have a husband and a 24-year old daughter who lives with us. I’m a little worried about them. Honestly, I’m also a little bit distracted. It’s very hard for me to concentrate on my schoolwork. And, I’m very disappointed in what’s happened because in a selfish way, it has kind of ruined my senior experience, if you know what I mean. The reality is I’ll never be back as a student because it’s finished now. I miss my classmates. And I think it’s very difficult to concentrate on the last couple of weeks of law school in the middle of this and now the bar exam has been rescheduled.
You’ve been practicing as a physician for more than two decades. Why law school?
Fordham has this underlying kind of selfless do-good attitude which appeals to me. It’s really truly men and women for others. And, I think if I were younger, and I had more years to practice, I would want to do social justice work.
I wanted to go to law school to better understand the legal side of healthcare so that I could make a difference in health care policy, or provide guidance to hospital administration. As a pathologist, I’m pretty good at what I do, so I wouldn’t want to give that up entirely. I think I envisioned maybe staying in a hospital and having somewhat of a hybrid legal and clinical role, where I could still keep my hand in patient care, but also really educate the hospital and the doctors about what they need to do and how to safely do things.
You recently made a donation to Fordham Law’s Emergency Student Fund, which is providing support for students with unexpected costs due to the coronavirus outbreak. Why did you think it was important to support your fellow students who are experiencing hardships?
As I’ve been working as a physician for a long time, I just felt like there are students out there who are not as financially comfortable as I am at my stage in life I felt I could handle a small contribution and just thought it was the right thing to do. I just feel like I’m lucky. But, that’s not true for everybody and what they might be dealing with right now.
As a physician, do you have any advice for your fellow students?
Stay safe. Don’t go outside if you don’t have to and wear a mask if you go out, even if it’s not a medical-grade mask. Wash your hands continually, and If you go out and touch something, wash your hands and don’t touch your face. If you use good common sense, we’re going to beat it.
Since we spoke to Dr. Zakowski, she recently tested positive for anti-Covid-19 antibodies. She had a brief but intense bout of Covid-19 three weeks prior to her antibody testing. She is now planning to donate plasma to provide anti-Covid-19 antibodies to critically ill patients.
The post Physician and Law Student Maureen Zakowski ’20 is on the Front Lines of the Coronavirus Outbreak appeared first on Fordham Law.
The annual Irving R. Kaufman Memorial Securities Law Moot Court Competition, held at Fordham Law School, honors Judge Kaufman, a Fordham alumnus who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for many years, including seven as Chief Judge. The competition’s final round is presided over by a distinguished panel of judges, including Supreme Court Justices and commissioners of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was slated to preside once again on the panel.
This year’s competition—which was planned to be held at the Lincoln Center campus this month—was forced to cancel as an in-person event due to the coronavirus lockdown. However, Kaufman Editor Salvatore Cocchiaro ’20, in conjunction with the program’s student board and Fordham Law’s administration, worked around the clock to make sure the competition could go forward, with some modifications.
After much deliberation, Cocchiaro contacted the 28 participating law schools, explaining that the competition’s written component would still count since their briefs had already been submitted. However, the in-person oral argument component would be completely eliminated, leaving the top briefs to be determined solely on the written work that would be graded by Fordham Law faculty, alumni, and students.
“This competition has been in the works since July 2019 and has required hours upon hours of work in thinking through the issues, securing top-notch judges, and organizing the most talented young advocates like you,” Cocchiaro wrote to the competitors and coaches in early March. “Through it all, our goal has been to provide one thing, an experience: an experience to engage back and forth with judges in real-time; an experience to come together and meet like-minded students from all across the nation; an experience to network with practitioners and jurists to inform and inspire meaningful careers. We are canceling the oral arguments altogether for the same reason—because it has become clear that even if every possible detail of a virtual competition could be executed to perfection, we simply could not provide the experience that we strive for and that you all quite frankly deserve.”
This year’s competition problem featured a securities fraud private action involving an Italian liquor company’s launch of its new alcohol-spiked sparkling water. It raised two issues: a question as to the extraterritorial scope of the Exchange Act in light of the disagreement between the Second and Ninth Circuits, and a question involving the force and reach of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Lorenzo v. SEC given differing facts. The top three schools awarded Best Briefs—in descending order—were: William and Mary Law School, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, and University of Miami Law School.
The distinguished panel of federal judges who were invited to participate this year included Justice Alito and Judges Pamela Chen, Richard Sullivan, Bernice Donald, and Paul Kelly. However, since the top qualifiers could not argue in front of them, Judges Chen, Sullivan, Donald, and Kelly sent the teams videos of congratulations and encouragement instead. Justice Alito, who has been the Chief Justice for several Kaufman Competitions, provided a written statement, which was read by Dean Matthew Diller to the students in a video.
Salvatore Cocchiaro ’20 and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. at the 2019 Kaufman Moot Court Competition
“I’ve sat on the final round of the competition in past years and have always been impressed with the enormous amount of work that participants have put in, and have enjoyed meeting the finalists. After all your preparations I’m sure it is a great disappointment for you to be deprived of the opportunity to come to New York and argue,” wrote Justice Alito. “Nevertheless, you should keep in mind most appeals are won and lost on the briefs, and I’m sure you have still learned a tremendous amount through this competition. I wish you all great success in your remaining time in law school and in your legal careers. And, after you enter practice, I hope you will have the opportunity to argue a real case before me.”
After going through this long, stressful experience during an unprecedented time, Cocchiaro highlighted the importance of students always putting their best work forward—whether it’s a first rough draft or a final submission. “This has been a valuable lesson for me and future attorneys alike to make sure that written work is top-notch because you simply never know when a decision will be rendered on that alone,” he said.
While the logistics will ultimately be determined by next year’s Kaufman Editor, Cocchiaro hopes to invite the 2Ls who participated to compete again next year and aspires to invite this year’s panel of judges and the three winning teams back next year in a prelude event to the 2021 competition.
The post Fordham’s 45th Annual Kaufman Moot Court Competition Goes Remote Amid Pandemic appeared first on Fordham Law.
In 1925, just seven years after Fordham Law School admitted its first women and one year after the first female graduated, Lillian Rosenbaum graduated from Fordham Law.
Ninety-five years later, her grandson, bankruptcy lawyer Peter Friedman, has made a generous gift to provide one summer fellowship a year for 10 years to Fordham Law students working in the public interest.
Rosenbaum was the child of immigrants and the first in her family to attend law school. Friedman hopes the fellowship can help other first-generation law students, as well as students working on issues like voting rights and immigration, which “our family cares about very much.”
Any Fordham Law student with a demonstrated interest in public service can apply for the fellowship. Friedman says he hopes the fellowships will provide key support to “launch someone into a career” in public service.
Friedman says his grandmother, who passed away in 2002 at age 98, was very proud of her Fordham Law experience. He believes there must have been challenges for a Jewish woman in law school in the 1920s, but says she was “not the kind of person who I think would’ve been intimidated.” Instead, he thinks “she would’ve been lively, sometimes feisty.”
According to family lore, Friedman’s great grandmother encouraged Rosenbaum to attend law school because she thought it would be a good place to meet a husband. Rosenbaum’s father had died when she was young, and Friedman believes she would have chosen Fordham to stay in New York near her mother and sisters.
“She ended up marrying a bellboy instead of a lawyer,” Friedman shared.
Though Rosenbaum did not end up practicing law, Friedman says he “always admired her intellect and thoughtfulness.” His grandfather, the erstwhile bellhop turned successful business owner, admired that about her as well.
Friedman, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of O’Melveny & Myers, says the legal profession has been “terrific” to him. “I’ve had a tremendous number of great experiences,” he says. As a bankruptcy lawyer whose clients have included the government of Puerto Rico, he says his experience has been “very public service oriented in private practice.”
In addition to Lillian Rosenbaum’s law school experience, Friedman says the fellowship was also inspired by his daughter Annabelle, who he notes “has many more opportunities than my grandmother would’ve had.” Friedman’s daughter is a sophomore public policy and global studies student at the University of North Carolina.
Friedman says his family is fortunate that his daughter is able to pursue her interest in public service, including a summer internship at a community justice organization in North Carolina. He hopes the fellowship can help a Fordham student “for whom it might be more of a financial barrier” to do public interest work.
With that legacy, Friedman notes that “our family was just really into giving back to the community,” and he is pleased to be able to do so at Fordham, “a great institution in New York City.”
The post Peter Friedman Founds Summer Fellowship to Honor His Grandmother Lillian Rosenbaum ’25 appeared first on Fordham Law.
Social distancing saves lives. But how are you supposed to guard against infection from the coronavirus if you’re trapped in an environment where social distancing is impossible?
For the past five weeks, students and staff at Fordham Law School’s Federal Litigation Clinic and Criminal Defense Clinic have been working to secure the release of inmates whose medical conditions make them vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus, as well as those whose sentences are almost complete and those who are being held while awaiting trial. They are arguing that all inmates are at risk of contracting COVID-19 because of how quickly it spreads in spaces where people are in close proximity to each other.
The Federal Litigation Clinic, which is supervised by Michael W. Martin, associate dean for experiential learning, Ian Weinstein, former associate dean of clinical & experiential programs, and Jennifer Louis-Jeune LAW ’08, scored two victories in recent weeks. In the first case, they worked with prosecutors to secure the release of a man convicted of financial fraud whose sentencing date had been delayed due to the pandemic-related slowdown in court proceedings. Waiting for his sentencing in a federal detention center, they argued, made him vulnerable to contracting COVID-19.
Michael W. Martin
By the time his sentencing date would have happened, he would have served more time waiting in prison than he was required to. An added wrinkle in the case was the fact that man is not a U.S. citizen, and has few ties to the country.
“Part of this process was finding an adequate place for him to stay and making sure he has adequate resources to survive in the interim. It takes some creative thinking and hard work, and the students were able to do that creative thinking and hard work to land this person in a compatriot’s home who had not known him before, and has been very generous to him,” Martin said.
In the second case, the clinic won a federal habeas petition on a faulty gun conviction that enabled a client facing deportation to win his immigration case, and thus release him from ICE custody. The students’ work not only assisted in releasing their client from custody, where their client was at risk for contracting COVID-19 every day he was still incarcerated, but also allowed him to remain in the country and return to his 8-year-old son. This reunion was particularly poignant as the son’s mother (the client’s fianceé) had died during the client’s incarceration.
“This is a client I’ve had for five years who really believed he had no chance of being reunited with his family, and today he’s with them, lying in his own bed, taking care of his son, which is really great news. The students knew it was important to get him out,” Martin said.
“Every lawyer should know what it is like to hear a released client tell him that the air never smelled so sweet.”
The clinic, which is staffed by 12 law students, has up to 15 clients at any given time. Martin said roughly a third of its current clients potentially meet the COVID-19 threshold the Department of Justice has put in place to determine if they’re eligible for early release. Those conditions include inmates who have only a few months left on their sentence; those whose crimes did not include physical violence; those with ailments that make them especially vulnerable to COVID-19, such as serious breathing or immunological conditions; and the elderly. His students have taken to the job with extraordinary zeal, he said.
“Their clients are literally in life-and-death situations at this very moment. There’s a certain level of exigency if your client is far more vulnerable to the pandemic than others, and frankly they are going to be far more vulnerable just because of where they’re placed,” he said.
Sophia Porotsky, a second-year student at the Law School, said working for the clinic has energized her and strengthened her desire to do civil rights work after she graduates. She said it became very apparent early on that the legal landscape in which they’d be working had shifted dramatically with the COVID-19 outbreak, as the federal authorities realized they couldn’t protect all inmates from harm.
Sophia Porotsky
“We were able to see on listservs that other lawyers were getting bail applications, and they were relying less on established law and more on the conditions we’re in right now,” she said.
“At first, it started out as, this is kind of a wild shot, but we have to try. But as we started to communicate more with the U.S. Attorney’s office, we started to see that actually both sides are working to try to reach the same goal.”
That shift in the government’s posture is far from uniform, she said, but it did contribute to the clinic’s two recent successes, which she said had surprised her.
“Every step of the process, there was a new hoop that we had to jump through or a new problem to solve, and every time we hit a wall, we found a way around it, or the U.S. Attorney’s office responded in a way that we didn’t expect,” she said.
“I’ve been surprised at how resourceful people in the clinic are, and how we’ve been able to put our heads together to solve problems, and not hesitate to reach out to the other side to help problem-solve.”
Martin agreed that the pandemic has illustrated the folly of assuming that one side of the criminal justice debate is strictly in favor of incarceration, while another is against it.
“Our criminal justice system has a lot of flaws and this pandemic is actually revealing some of them. But there’s no question that there are people within the system on all sides who at some level are trying to help,” he said.
Cheryl Bader and Martha Rayner, associate clinical professors of law who co-supervise the Criminal Defense Clinic, faced a different challenge.
They supervise a cohort of pro-bono scholars who have recently taken the New York State Bar exam and are now spending their final months in law school providing full time representation to clients who have either been accused of misdemeanors in New York City courts or are serving long sentences in state prisons for felonies.
Cheryl Bader
But because the pandemic severely curtailed court operations, the clinic has had to think creatively about ways to make sure its four clients awaiting trial in criminal court are zealously represented. Their rights to a speedy trial, for instance, are at risk at the moment, as the normal efforts to locate and interview witnesses have been severely limited. In contrast to the holding pattern for criminal court cases, there has been added urgency for some of the clinic’s six clients who are currently incarcerated. This includes a woman who has only a few months left in a 25-year minimum sentence for a felony she committed, and whose release they are working to secure.
“She is really in the crosshairs of COVID based on her age and her underlying conditions, so the students have been working hard to try to secure her release earlier than her minimum sentence, which has proved to be challenging,” Bader said.
“This is somebody who has used her time in prison to better her life, and she came before the parole board, who found that she should be released back into society, and she will be reentering society in a few months. So, for her to be incarcerated during a time when it’s dangerous to be in prison, when she can’t socially distance herself, and she has underlying conditions that increase her risk of dying, makes no sense.”
While advocating on behalf of their incarcerated clients, it became clear to the students that a major source of stress for their clients was the lack of any official communication about the impact of the virus on the incarcerated population and on their loved ones on the outside. In response, students in the Criminal Defense Clinic are producing a weekly newsletter for their clients to keep them up to date on pandemic-related news. News is tightly controlled in prisons under even the best times, and accurate information has become even harder to come by now. Bader dubbed it an “abyss of the unknown.”
“It’s much worse for those in prison, because even though there are a lot of things about the pandemic we don’t know, we’ll eat up any news and any information that comes across our desks or screens and we at least know what we don’t know. There, they don’t even know whether there’s information that people on the outside know that they don’t have access to, and so rumors abound in prison” she said.
“Clients have been extremely appreciative about the information the newsletter provides and we know they have been sharing widely with other incarcerated individuals the four newsletters that we have sent so far.”
Martin agreed that it’s been very challenging to communicate with clients. In one case, he needed to tell a client whose release he was trying to secure that once he was out of federal custody, immigration authorities might come looking for him, and some would prefer to be in federal custody in New York City than in ICE custody in Pennsylvania or Mississippi.
Emma Lee Clinger, a third-year student and a Stein Scholar, said she’s been preparing to do the kind of work she’s doing in the Criminal Defense Clinic since she was an undergraduate. She didn’t expect to do it from Fort Myers, Florida, though.
Emma Lee Clinger
“I never thought I’d be sitting at my parent’s kitchen table every day, taking calls from corrections facilities in New York. Sometimes they just stand in the kitchen and watch me talk to a Department of Corrections employee and they’re like, ‘Who are you?’” she said.
In fact, she said, her situation grounds her further in the work of the clinic. Communication is the bare minimum of what’s needed to survive this pandemic, and it’s something her clients—unlike her and her family—lack.
The teamwork that the members of the clinic have displayed has also inspired her, as members have continued to put their clients’ needs first, even when they face challenges of their own.
“It fuels me to continue to do the work. When something is going on in one of our lives, we just pick up their work and keep moving and keep fighting, because we know whatever’s going on with us is just amplified in our client’s lives,” she said.
The post Law School Clinics Work to Help Prisoners Vulnerable to Coronavirus appeared first on Fordham Law.
As the coronavirus outbreak unfolds, students have concerns about how the job market will be impacted and, in particular, their plans for summer employment. Employee attorney and former Fordham Law Stein Scholar Alex Berke ’14—whose firm is immersed in rapidly changing employment laws and benefit programs related to coronavirus—spoke with Fordham Law students during a live, virtual discussion about employees’ workplace rights. Students were able to address their own summer employment issues through this training session.
The discussion, hosted by Fordham Workers’ Rights Advocates on April 16, covered issues from New York State Paid Family Leave to what an employee should do if an employer asks him/her to complete in-person training before Governor Andrew Cuomo’s executive order locking down New York State is lifted.
Alexandra Berke ’14
“I love coming back to Fordham for these kinds of talks because it’s a great way to stay in touch with students,” Berke said. “I was really impressed with how the session went because it was clear that the students were not only asking questions for themselves, but they were also thinking about how to be useful in their communities, and with their families and friends.”
Since some students are still trying to solidify their summer work plans, Berke reiterated that an employer can cancel a summer internship—even if a start date had been confirmed prior to the coronavirus shutdown. She also gave practical advice to those who are still in limbo about how to follow-up with their potential employers on the matter. For example, Berke suggested employees ask how their potential employers are doing at this time, applauding them if they’ve done anything in response to the coronavirus, and avoid focusing outreach inquiries around personal stress and anxiety.
“A lot of the places that you were planning to work at this summer might be doing layoffs, furloughs, or reducing pay. This is mostly legal,” Berke said to the attendees. “You’re allowed to know if you still have a job this summer. They’re allowed to not know what the answer is at this moment, but you’re allowed to check in with them. I think that it’s important to be human in your approach to this check-in.”
Berke’s firm, Berke-Weiss Law PLLC, has a coronavirus resource page for New York-based employers and employees, which includes blog posts that answer frequently asked questions and provide related links. Berke-Weiss Law is also offering free 15-minute consultations for those who have specific coronavirus-related workplace issues or questions. Berke also recommended that students should take advantage of CLE courses that are currently being offered for free by the New York City and New York State Bar Associations.
Fordham’s Workers’ Rights Advocates will be scheduling another “Know Your Rights” session with Berke on April 28, which will focus on sexual harassment, including novel issues during the coronavirus outbreak.
The post Alex Berke ’14 Hosts Training Webinar on Workers’ Rights During the Coronavirus Outbreak appeared first on Fordham Law.
As law schools around the country canceled their in-person events in response to the coronavirus pandemic, many students who had been preparing for trial advocacy competitions saw their hard work at risk of going to waste. Adam Shlahet, director of Fordham Law School’s Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Program (ranked ninth in the country by U.S. News and World Report two years running), said that six teams had been prepping for competitions that were abruptly canceled, leaving the 24 students on those teams frustrated and disappointed.
Fordham and UCLA Launch National Competition
Together with Justin Bernstein, the director of UCLA’s A. Barry Cappello Program in Trial Advocacy, Shlahet organized the first-ever National Online Trial Advocacy Competition. In lieu of typical in-person proceedings, each student was required to submit a video of an opening statement. “We had modest expectations,” Shlahet admits, but the competition received video submissions from 170 students from 67 different law schools nationwide. Nearly 400 judges signed up to adjudicate the virtual competition. Eighteen Fordham students participated in the competition, which based its case on the celebrity college admissions scandal. Of the 170 entrants, 30 were selected to advance to the semifinals. The top 10 finalists each had clips of their statements played during a Zoom session held to announce and celebrate the winners. The top five received cash prizes, including Fordham student Carolyn McGuigan ’21, who won third place.
Fordham Law student Carolyn McGuigan ’21 won third place in the national competition.
“We filled a real void for the law students who are disappointed and frustrated because their competitions were canceled,” said Shlahet. The virtual nationwide competition was so well-received that he believes these kinds of competitions will continue even after the coronavirus outbreak is over. “There was so much buy-in from competitors and judges that I am sure we will run similar programs in the future.”
Tendy Competition Goes Virtual
For the past ten years, every April, Fordham has hosted an intraschool trial advocacy competition, the William M. Tendy Federal Criminal Trial Advocacy Competition (named in honor of Bill Tendy ’49) at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Due to the timing of the event amid the pandemic, Shlahet, Professor James Kainen, and the two student Tendy editors, Arielle Burstein ’20 and Raina Duggirala ’20, opted to bring the competition online.
Adam Shlahet
Naturally, moving the competition online posed several challenges. The presentation of evidence, for example, is a very tangible element, difficult to adapt in a virtual setting. “Usually, when you’re handling evidence, you show it to the opposing counsel, you approach the witness and hand them something to look at before asking them questions about it,” Shlahet said. “That all has to be modified for online competitions. We needed to be creative, so we used Zoom’s screen-sharing function to share the exhibit.”
Eight teams participated, with Fordham Law students acting as witnesses and Moore board members (students graduating in 2020) serving as bailiffs. The competition also had an all-star panel of former U.S. Attorneys for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and sitting and former federal judges, including Judge Cathy Seibel, Mary Jo White, Robert Fiske, Judge Barbara Jones, Judge Frank Maas, Charles Carberry, Benito Romano, Sheila Tendy, Krystyn Tendy, and Travis Atkinson.
Typically, as the Tendy Competition is held in New York, only local program alumni are able to attend and participate. This year, however, Moore alumni who have moved far afield were able to participate virtually in the proceedings. “During the semifinals, one of the presiding judges was one of our alumni, Ramon Pagan ’00, a circuit court judge out in Oregon,” Shlahet explained. “Another alumna, Leila Morgan ’04, who is a longtime federal defender in San Diego, was able to preside over a semifinal round. It was this really nice silver lining to be able to involve people on the west coast, who would never have been able to be involved otherwise.”
Shlahet commended the Tendy participants, noting, “It’s already a simulation in that it’s a mock trial. If all the people weren’t engaged in trying this case like a real trial, it would feel like a charade. But everyone was 100 percent committed, and it showed in the quality of their performance.”
Burstein agreed, observing, “The judges and the other people watching the trials said, tech issues aside, there were moments they forgot it was on Zoom and not a real trial.”
“The credit that Professor Shlahet and the student organizers and participants bring to Fordham as we showcase the work of our Brendan Moore Advocacy Center to the distinguished Tendy Competition judges is amazing,” said Professor James Kainen, Fordham Law’s Brendan Moore Chair in Advocacy.
The panelists were effusive about the virtual edition of the annual Tendy Competition.
James Kainen
“I actually liked the technology as I found myself more engaged with the trial,” observed Barbara Jones, a former U.S. District Judge for the SDNY and First Assistant District Attorney of NY County. “In all of my years judging Moot Courts I have never seen better Advocates. Everyone performed like a pro. And that is a lot of years and a lot of very talented students. Bill Tendy would have been enormously proud of them.”
“The students performed extremely well, as all the judges commented,” added Robert Fiske, Fordham Stein Prize winner, Davis Polk Senior Partner, and U.S. Attorney for the SDNY and Special Prosecutor. “But, great credit should also go to those who produced the online capability and set up as well as those who wrote the case that was imaginative and very well balanced.”
Online Competitions Are a Harbinger of the Future
Part of what made the online national and Tendy competitions so successful is that it turns out that many elements of competent trial advocacy are surprisingly translatable to an online format.
“The foundation of the advocacy—asking smart questions, writing persuasive opening statements, and making creative arguments—all of that is still there, even though you’re sitting in front of a laptop screen,” Shlahet explained.
While conducting competitions online brings with it a new host of issues, the skills that the students learn—including awareness of camera angles and lighting—might serve them well as social distancing shapes the future of the legal field. “In the current climate and in the future, there will be legal proceedings, hearings, and maybe even trials that happen entirely online,” Shlahet projected. “So, we’re training our students to be ready for that.”
The post Fordham Law Takes Trial Advocacy Online appeared first on Fordham Law.
On May 18, Fordham Law School will host its 113th annual diploma ceremony. Due to the coronavirus outbreak and the cancellation of all in-person events at Fordham University, this year’s ceremony will be held as a virtual celebration for the very first time in the Law School’s history.
The ceremony will include an invocation from Fr. Michael McCarthy and remarks by Law School Dean Matthew Diller.
Robert A. Katzmann, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, will address the graduates. Judge Katzmann has served as chief judge of the since 2013 and is one of the nation’s leading jurists. He is also a force in the access to justice movement and has launched several initiatives designed to address the shortfall in legal services for our country’s most vulnerable individuals.
The president and vice president of the Student Bar Association will announce awards for Teacher of the Year and Adjunct of the Year. Professor Daniel Capra will present the Eugene J. Keefe Award and awards to students.
The program will incorporate video messages from students and from faculty. The ceremony will also feature an announcement of the 565 names of the graduating students.
Visit law.fordham.edu/DiplomaCeremony at 11 a.m. EDT on May 18 to stream the virtual diploma ceremony.
An in-person celebration of the achievements of the class of 2020 will be held in the fall.
The post Fordham Law to Host First-Ever Virtual Diploma Ceremony appeared first on Fordham Law.
As work has transitioned from the office to the home during the coronavirus outbreak, sexual harassment will continue to be a workplace issue—even in a virtual setting—according to Alex Berke ’14, an employment lawyer at Berke-Weiss Law PLLC. Berke spoke with Fordham Law students about the potential for digital sexual harassment—and the importance of reporting such incidents—in a live training webinar.
“We haven’t been getting a lot of calls frankly about this issue right now at our office, but I expect that, in the coming months, we will start to receive those calls,” Berke said. “We’re all on Zoom and communicating with our colleagues digitally. You can still be sexually harassed, even if you’re not being touched—somebody texting you, messaging you, sending you photos. … The general universal understanding of sexual harassment is that it is something physical. That is not the case.”
The online discussion, hosted by Fordham Workers’ Rights Advocates on April 28, provided an overview about sexual harassment law—specifically what employees’ rights are and what an employee should consider when reporting an incident. Students asked questions regarding the current status of filing complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and how to document evidence for potential claims during the pandemic.
Alex Berke ’14 speaking with Fordham Law students
Berke explained that printouts of digital records, like emails, phone call logs, and messages with timestamps and people’s names, can be valuable evidence when a client comes to her firm for legal representation. She noted that some companies may have policies in place that restrict the forwarding or printing of emails and that employers may be able to access private Slack messages. “You want to know if your company has that policy because you do not want to call attention to yourself too soon and you don’t want to violate any policies,” Berke continued. “With that said, if they don’t have a policy about it, you should definitely be screenshotting everything.”
However, Berke also noted that context can pose a problem if the evidence doesn’t seem harassing at face value. “Something that’s very challenging, I think, in employment law is that, oftentimes to really understand the situation, there is a lot of context. … If you have to get too far into it, it can be challenging,” she said. “But if you are going to make a complaint to human resources, you want to give them all the tools to investigate the complaint.”
Berke-Weiss Law PLLC has a coronavirus resource page for New York-based employers and employees, which includes blog posts that answer frequently asked questions and provide related links. The firm is also offering free 15-minute consultations for those who have specific coronavirus-related workplace issues or questions.
The post Training Webinar Highlights Sexual Harassment in the Age of Telework appeared first on Fordham Law.
Congressman Thomas Suozzi ’89 recently met by videoconference with Fordham Law’s Democracy and the Constitution Clinic. The second-term congressman gave the students feedback on their proposals for reforms to the country’s institutions and its democracy.
Rep. Thomas Suozzi ’89
The meeting touched on projects the clinic has worked on over the past year, including reforms to the way special counsel investigations are conducting, changes to the presidential primary process, reforms related to the Supreme Court, and regulation of public officials’ uses of social media.
“These are all very heady and complicated topics,” Suozzi told the students. “It’s great to know there are people spending so much time analyzing these issues in a very thoughtful way, using great intellect and effort.”
One of the student projects discussed focuses on a requirement that all voters be allowed to vote by mail in this fall’s presidential election. The reform anticipates that many voters will hesitate to cast ballots in person amid COVID-19’s continued spread.
Responding to the pandemic has been Suozzi’s primary focus since the start of the outbreak, which has ravaged the greater New York area, including his Long Island district. Suozzi was recently named to a bipartisan White House task force on reopening the economy. He told the students that he is simultaneously working on the two main aspects of the crisis: healthcare challenges and economic impact.
“I don’t agree with the president on so many different things, but my obligation is to the country and that’s why I’m serving on this bipartisan task force,” Suozzi said.
The roots of the congressman’s dedication to public service trace back to his time at Fordham Law. He recalled then-Dean John D. Feerick ’61 encouraging him to take up his first “real public service project.” Feerick, who co-teaches the Democracy Clinic, was part of the meeting. Suozzi praised Feerick for encouraging him to put his “idealism into practice.” He also told the students that he once portrayed Dean Feerick on stage during the “Fordham Follies,” a yearly skit show produced by Fordham Law students.
Rep. Suozzi delivers masks to Huntington Hospital.
The April 29 meeting was the second time Suozzi joined the Democracy Clinic in conversation. Students in the clinic met with him in person last March in Washington, D.C., at the Capitol to discuss their reports, which have since been published on the Law School’s website. Both meetings were arranged with the assistance of Conor Walsh ’15, the congressman’s legislative director, who took classes with Dean Feerick while he was a Fordham Law student.
Conducting meetings and interviews is central to the clinic’s work on developing and promoting democracy reforms. The clinic met this academic year with more than 25 experts and stakeholders, including Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, former White House Counsel Robert Bauer, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, Georgetown Law Dean (and former Fordham Law Dean) William M. Treanor, Jesse Wegman of the New York Times editorial board, and New York Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas ’02. Fordham Law professors have also offered their expertise, including Bruce Green, Jed Shugerman, Andrew Kent, Abner Greene, and James Brudney.
Suozzi used part of his meeting with the clinic to impart pointers on policymaking. He urged the students to look beyond the current moment in designing reforms. “What happens is we try to think of ways to reform the system based on what’s right in front of us,” he observed. “But we don’t think of the unanticipated consequences.”
Suozzi concluded the meeting by offering to connect the clinic with other members of Congress and asking the students to stay in touch to continue sharing their ideas with him.
The post Rep. Thomas Suozzi ’89 Meets with Democracy Clinic appeared first on Fordham Law.
Two members of the graduating class of 2020, Emma-Lee Clinger and Maura Tracy, have been awarded prestigious postgraduate fellowships from Equal Justice Works (EJW), an organization dedicated to transforming passionate law students into committed public service lawyers.
They are two of 78 recipients of this year’s EJW Fellowship for 2020, selected from a pool of 432 applicants nationwide. Both will continue the work they began during their years at law school by partnering with New York-based organizations on public service initiatives. Both graduates also participated in Fordham Law’s Stein Scholars program, where they honed not only their legal acumen, but their career goals while embodying the Law School’s motto: “In the Service of Others.”
“Emma-Lee and Maura are both incredible advocates, and we have been so fortunate to have them as public interest leaders in the Fordham community. We are so excited that their devotion to social justice work and tremendous experience have been recognized with the award of an Equal Justice Works Fellowship,” remarked Aisha Baruni, director of the Stein Scholars Program. “These fellowships are a tremendous honor and opportunity. Through their fellowship projects, both will provide critical, much-needed services directly to the vulnerable communities they have been working with during their time as law students.”
Tracy will complete her fellowship with The Door, an organization that provides comprehensive support for young people, where she will work specifically with Spanish-speaking immigrant youth who are survivors of trafficking or gender-based violence. She says that two visits to aid asylum-seeking families in the South Texas Family Residential Center, on behalf of Fordham’s Feerick Center for Social Justice and Immigration Advocacy Project, were particularly formative. “I participated in one of the service trips to Dilley, Texas, during the spring break of my 1L year,” she explained. “It was such a transformative and amazing experience because I was able to remind myself why I came to law school. I witnessed a lot of the terrible things that are happening in detention centers near the border.”
Tracy worked with The Door the summer before her final year of law school, and she looks forward to partnering with them again. “I’m really excited to be an attorney representing young people who are in crisis and working with them to navigate a difficult period in their lives,” she said. “I hope also to help them achieve meaningful immigration status and connect them to different social services.”
Clinger will be working with The Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Practice alongside their Special Litigation Unit’s “Set the Record Straight” Project, which assists juveniles and adults with delinquency charges. While some of the charges are relatively minor, they often carry many long-term consequences when applying for jobs or educational opportunities. “Part of my job during my fellowship will be to counsel individuals on their juvenile records-related rights and what they don’t have to disclose, whether to an employer, a police officer, or whomever,” said Clinger.
Legal Aid’s comprehensive approach to client support was a highlight of Clinger’s past work with the organization. “It’s not just providing direct representation in a narrow area of the law, it will take a more holistic approach,” she explained. “That’s something I really loved doing both my summers at Legal Aid. Our work went beyond representation in a criminal case. It extended to advocating for welfare benefits or assisting on their family or civil case that ran concurrently.” Like Tracy, she enjoys connecting with her clients. “I’m really excited about doing direct service work. I just love talking to people, hearing their stories and advocating with them standing there right beside me.”
The EJW Fellowship not only offers its recipients an auspicious first job after graduation, but it cultivates the next generation of public service advocates—nearly 85 percent of Fellows remain in public service, working to aid underserved communities.
“Equal Justice Works is proud to facilitate opportunities for passionate public service leaders to tackle pressing injustices in our country today,” said Mia Sussman, director of Fellowships at Equal Justice Works. “We look forward to seeing the impact that Fellows Maura Tracy and Emma-Lee Clinger will have on the communities they serve in New York City over the next two years.”
The post Two Stein Scholars Awarded Equal Justice Works Fellowships appeared first on Fordham Law.
On Monday, May 18, Fordham Law School will celebrate the accomplishments of the 565 members of the Class of 2020 in its first-ever Virtual Diploma Ceremony (stream the videocast starting at 11:00 a.m. here). Below, read about three outstanding members of the graduating class, featured as part of Fordham Law’s instagram series #futurefordhamlawyers.
Yazmine Nichols ’20
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
“I was born and raised in a low-income neighborhood in Brooklyn, where I experienced and witnessed a lot of injustice and consequently started asking questions about God’s goodness. I decided to study religion while attending Williams College and started doing a lot of work around mass incarceration inspired by ‘The New Jim Crow.’ During my senior year, I began to wonder, ‘How can I take this religious education and begin to speak about modern-day problems?’ That became the focal point for me in understanding human suffering because so much of incarceration has a personal suffering element. I intended to go to law school, but I wanted a more faith-based practical experience beforehand, so I went to seminary school. There, I studied how we use ethics and morality to address modern-day crises, especially the issue of criminalization. I received my Master’s in Theology and Ethics in 2017. While my educational journey may seem random, it made the most sense for what I wanted to pursue at Fordham Law. I’ve taken some amazing classes here, geared toward exploring relationships between religion and law. Fordham is a place where people do not shy away from talking about the connections between the two disciplines. I believe that law is about learning how to work within systems of power and how to use the language of power in ways that can help people. Theology and religion can be the counterforce to legal discourse or, at least, the reflective lenses that elucidate its shortcomings. Law without morality, to me, is empty. As for what I’ll do next, I’ll be working in civil rights. Plus, I’m in the process of writing a book: ‘Faith, Politics, and Law: Responses to 21st Century Crises,’ which will include theory work and interviews. I’m excited to have it published by winter 2020!”
Andrew Kim ’20
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
“Growing up, I knew I wanted to build a career around public service. I was motivated and influenced by my personal experiences—seeing my two immigrant parents navigate their way through the different systems and seeing my older brother struggle when venturing out into the world. He didn’t graduate high school, and as the younger one, something felt off because I knew how brilliant my brother was. I worked with Teach for America for four years after graduating from college and got the sense of just how vast the impact of criminal law can be in our society. At a very young age, students can be affected—one way or another—by the criminal justice system. These experiences pushed my desire to be at Fordham Law School, and I knew coming in as a first-year student that I wanted to get involved in criminal law. It was intimidating because I was the first in my family to go through an undergraduate program and seek higher education. But, as I turned the various corners throughout my Fordham Law experience, there was always someone who was willing to help, befriend me, and guide me. One conversation that sparked my passion and involvement at Fordham Law was with Professor Deborah Denno during a 1L lunch. She encouraged me to make the most of my three years. That conversation made me appreciate the value of every class that I was taking, the brilliant professors here, and every extracurricular from the law review, to the trial advocacy program, to the clinical program. These, among others, are all things that I was excited to dive into with full-on passion and I am so grateful for the friends, colleagues, and faculty who embraced me at every step of the way. I’m so blessed and privileged to be working at the Manhattan DA’s office after graduation—my dream job as a 1L student. Prosecutors have a unique, incredible responsibility and opportunity to shift the conversation in the criminal justice system and to consider factors that pertain to the greater community as a whole. I can’t wait to get started.”
Emma-Lee Clinger ’20
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
“I grew up in Fort Myers, Florida. I’m the first one in my family to really venture out on my own and live outside of the state. Even as a kid, I always had this dream of living in New York City but as a performer on Broadway, not necessarily a lawyer. I went to college for music, but took an international relations class my freshman year and fell in love with civil service. That’s kind of what steered me towards the law. After college, I took two years off and did Teach for America in Oklahoma City. And now, here I am at Fordham. I’m really excited about doing direct service work. I just love talking to people, hearing their stories and advocating with them standing there right beside me. I did my internships at Legal Aid Society, and that’s where I’m going for a two-year Equal Justice Works Fellowship after I graduate. I’ll be working on a project called Set the Record Straight which helps youth and adults who were charged with delinquency crimes. I think one of the reasons the fellowship is going to be a great opportunity is because it’s not just providing direct representation in a narrow area of the law, it will take a more holistic approach. That’s something I really loved doing both my summers at Legal Aid. Our work went beyond representation in a criminal case. It extended to advocating for welfare benefits or assisting on their family or civil case that ran concurrently. And, just being there for people, talking to clients and their families, giving them an opportunity to share their story is so powerful. Too often, no one really wants to hear what they have to say, especially in a court system. And I love being able to do that.”
The post Meet the #FutureFordhamLawyers appeared first on Fordham Law.
On May 18, 2020, Fordham Law School celebrated the Class of 2020 with a first-ever virtual diploma ceremony. Over 2,000 people tuned in to watch a live videocast of the online celebration (the entire event is available for viewing here).
“I know this isn’t what you imagined for your diploma ceremony,” acknowledged Dean Matthew Diller in a video addressing the 565 graduates, “and I certainly never envisioned giving you this speech from my Brooklyn apartment.”
Dean Matthew Diller addressing the graduates via videocast
Noting the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the Law School to cancel its traditional in-person graduation celebration, Diller told the Class of 2020 that “there has not been an event that has touched the fundamentals of life in the U.S. in this way since World War II.”
Diller also acknowledged that, like World War II, the world that emerges from the pandemic would be forever changed. “But, undoubtedly there will also be new opportunities as the experience changes our society, economy, and culture on a long term basis,” he reminded the graduates. “Your challenge will be to find a footing in this new world… COVID-19 has cast a sharp spotlight on many issues of justice in our society—the sharp disparities in illnesses and deaths along racial and social lines bring to the fore the yawning chasm in our society between those with resources and those without—gaps in health care, in living conditions and in the workplace have major ramifications across many dimensions of people’s lives.” Lawyers would be vital in addressing these issues, he stressed.
Judge Robert Katzmann
Diller then introduced Judge Robert A. Katzmann, this year’s commencement speaker. Judge Katzmann was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1999 by President Bill Clinton, where he has served as chief judge since 2013. Not only has he authored many important decisions and court opinions (such as Vance v. Trump and Altitude Express v. Zarda, both of which are currently before the Supreme Court), but his 2007 Marden lecture (on the lack of immigrant representation in deportation proceedings) at the New York City Bar Association sparked a movement that eventually established the Immigrant Justice Corp. Dean Diller noted that Judge Katzmann will be presented with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at a future in-person celebration for the Class of 2020.
Katzmann, too, spoke to the particular resilience of the current class of graduates, noting that the skills they have gained by navigating the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic will serve them well in their future careers. “Addressing you today is a special privilege because I have the conviction that not only will you succeed in whatever you do—as lawyers in private practice, or in government, or in business, or in non-profits, or in academia,” he expressed, “but you will also point all of us to a better way, having endured the current crisis.”
Student Bar Association President Juan M. Carillo ’20
Juan M. Carillo, president of the Student Bar Association, presented the Teacher of the Year Award to Professor Joseph Landau. Carillo praised Landau for demonstrating “an amazing, unique ability to adapt to the circumstances without sacrificing any of the course content.” Carillo added: “He was also able to manifest a sense of calm and caring that was much needed, and the energy he brought to lectures was unmatched.”
Professor Joseph Landau
Landau, in accepting the award said, “This award means so much to me, and here’s why: There’s a lot I love about getting to be a law professor—I get to think, I get to write, and I get to be part of the lifeblood of this incredible institution. But it’s getting to know you, our students, both in and out of class, that is by far the best part.” He then asked graduates to examine their growth—as scholars, lawyers, and humans—since the start of their law school experience, and lauded them on their academic accomplishments. “You are the future, and through your intellect, your energy, and your vision, you are going to help guide this country and this world through the challenges that it faces today.”
Professor Paula Franzese
Vice President of the Student Bar Association Deanna R. Cohen presented the award for Adjunct Teacher of the Year to Professor Paula Franzese, who echoed Dean Diller’s sentiments on the social and economic disparities laid bare by the pandemic. “You will enter the immense chasm between what is and what needs to be with the fortitude of heart… the strength of your spirit, and the mightiness of your beautiful intellects. Use all of those acuities to narrow that gap,” she said. She cautioned them to remain optimistic, especially in our current climate. “In a world fraught with uncertainty, remember that you remain in charge of two things: your focus… and how you treat others.”
Professor Daniel Capra followed Franzese, presenting a host of awards to graduates for their academic achievements, moot court victories, and service.
Professor Joel Reidenberg
The academic year was marked by personal losses within the Fordham community. In his remarks, Diller noted that the ceremony was marked by the absence of two members of the class of 2020, William Jones and Michael Aaronson, both of whom passed away before completing their J.D. degrees. Additionally, two pillars of the Fordham faculty were lost during the 2019–20 academic year: Professor Joel Reidenberg and Laurence Abraham, head of Instructional Services at the Maloney Law Library. Both were honored posthumously with the Eugene J. Keefe Award for service to Fordham Law School. In his remarks, Professor Olivier Sylvain praised Reidenberg as an innovative legal scholar who earned worldwide renown in legal, intellectual property, and computer science circles. “One of the more heart-wrenching things about his passing is that he has not been able to comment and engage on our current policy debates about information law and policy. He would have a lot to say about Zoom… We are the worse for his passing.”
Laurence Abraham
Director of the Law Library Todd Melnick spoke next, and he remarked on Abraham’s empathetic and personalized approach to librarianship. “It was a job of smiles, kind words, well-timed compliments, and disarming jokes offered at just the right moment to cut the particular tension of law school life,” he recalled fondly. “It was a librarianship that modeled genuine pleasure in learning and knowing, in solving difficult legal problems and in finding a meaningful life in the legal profession.” He remarked on Abraham’s old-fashioned approach to librarianship, and his emphasis on books, rather than tech. “His contributions to Fordham Law School are incalculable, and we will miss him enormously.”
Members of the faculty recorded a video offering well wishes and advice to the graduates, including a humorous and heartfelt poetic sendoff from the clinic faculty. A video featuring graduating students followed with reflections on their memories of their time at Fordham Law.
Following the video, the names of 565 graduates were announced.
Students submitted photos and messages to personalize the graduation announcements.
Despite an academic year of unprecedented upheaval and loss, the 113th annual diploma ceremony projected a message of resilience, optimism, and hope. Former Dean John F. Feerick offered uplifting words of advice to the Class of 2020, “Dream big and follow your passion and bliss. You can make more differences in the world than you now realize.”
The post Fordham Law Celebrates the Class of 2020 appeared first on Fordham Law.
A critical report on recent restrictions on the right to protest in the United States was released by PEN America this month, developed with research conducted by Fordham Law School students at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice. The increasingly polarized political environment in the United States has brought large numbers of people out into the streets to exercise their rights to speak, to assemble, and to march in response to a number of issues, including the environment, criminal justice, and racial and ethnic inequality, among others. State legislatures across the country have responded to the increased political activity by introducing bills to suppress or restrict the right to protest beyond limitations on time, place, and manner of such speech.
The Leitner Center for International Law and Justice collaborated with PEN America to conduct an analysis of all relevant state legislative proposals to constrain the right to assembly beginning with the 2015 legislative session and to develop a database of these bills alongside a typology of anti-protest bills. PEN America drew on this research to draft Arresting Dissent: Legislative Restrictions on the Right to Protest examining where and how these efforts aim to restrict the right to protest. The report concludes that whereas prior to 2017 the number of restrictive protest bills was almost negligible, from 2015-2019, 116 bills were proposed to limit protest rights in state legislatures across the United States. Of those, 23 have become law in 15 states, and nearly one-third of all states have implemented new regulations on protest-related activity in the past five years. These anti-protest bills ultimately chill First Amendment rights and target specific social movements.
The post Leitner Center Research Contributes to PEN America Report on the Right to Protest in the United States appeared first on Fordham Law.
As she was finishing her first year at Fordham Law School, Mariam Zein-El-Abdin ’22 added to her already packed schedule by helping to organize relief efforts for Sudanese immigrants whose health and livelihoods have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Mariam Zein-El-Abdin ’22
Zein-El-Abdin is no stranger to supporting her community through volunteer work—it runs in her family. Her father, who immigrated from Sudan, is an active member of Houston’s Sudanese community and helped found the Sudanese American Public Affairs Association (SAPAA). SAPAA works in a coalition of nearly 50 other outreach organizations to offer support to the Sudanese community. That coalition was galvanized by the 2018 revolution that removed President Omar al-Bashir from power. “The American diaspora really plays a role by getting money and supplies back to Sudan,” Zein-El-Abdin explained. “Many Sudanese Americans are now a part of the government including the new head of the Ministry of Health, who is a doctor from Virginia.”
The coalition also works to support the Sudanese Ministry of Health. The country has more than 1,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, mostly in Khartoum and the surrounding cities. Their campaign to raise funds for personal protective equipment and medical supplies raised $164,981 in under three weeks.
When the coronavirus pandemic began to spread across the United States, often disproportionately affecting immigrant communities, the coalition was already primed to spring into action. The effort began as a call to cover burial costs for the Sudanese Americans in the New York City area who had lost their lives to Covid-19, and it grew from there, organized primarily by Alla Yoonis of SAPAA and Dr. Nuha Abrahim of Sudan NextGen. Sudan NextGen, an organization in the coalition that supports Sudan’s growth and development, launched a Covid portal with access to different resources, including a hotline for Sudanese Americans to call and request various types of support.
“People can either reach out via the website, Facebook Messenger, or they can call the hotline,” Zein-El-Abdin said. “And, an intake person will try to direct their call based on their need, whether it be medical, grief counseling, psychological, financial, or legal. So, it’s this huge coalition of volunteers—doctors, lawyers, and people in the financial sector who are part of these different organizations that are coming together and volunteering their time.”
Zein-El-Abdin is involved on the legal side of things behind the scenes, working to protect volunteers on issues of consent and privileged information. “Beyond that, I am trying to be a resource for these organizations, especially since I’m based in New York,” she said.
All of the volunteers speak Arabic, as many older Sudanese immigrants feel more comfortable using their native tongue. Since the hotline launched on April 28, it has received over 100 calls from all over the United States. Zein-El-Abdin says she is pleased with how quickly word has spread about the hotline to Sudanese communities all over the country: “At a very base level, it’s a support organization for Sudanese Americans where they can speak to someone in Arabic and it’s not a daunting experience to ask for help.”
The post Mariam Zein-El-Abdin ’22 Gives Back to Sudanese Community Impacted by COVID-19 appeared first on Fordham Law.
As the coronavirus outbreak unfolded, not only did it disrupt the Law School’s traditional in-person curriculum, it also threatened crucial networking opportunities for students seeking to enter the job market. Nonetheless, nearly 90 Fordham Law alumni have stepped up to provide mentoring through an innovative new remote mentoring program launched by the Law School’s Career Planning Center (CPC).
“Even though the world changed and the rug was pulled out from under us, we didn’t want the networking to stop because relationship building is so important for law students,” said Assistant Dean of Career Planning Jayne Schreiber, who leads the CPC. “Fordham has an amazing alumni community that’s willing to sit down with students, listen to them, and give them advice.”
To date, 98 students have signed up and have had 382 networking conversations with alumni working at small, medium, and large-sized law firms and in public interest law. One silver lining of the program, which many participants have noted, is that these networking sessions are easier to organize and are more flexible, unlike being limited to an on-campus reception in the middle of a weekday.
Melissa Aziz ’20
Recent graduate Melissa Aziz ’20, for example, wanted to speak with Mary Kate Brennan J.D. ’12, LL.M. ’17 because Brennan was a Dean’s Fellow with the Fashion Law Institute after she graduated from her J.D. program. “I never had an opportunity to meet her, although I could’ve cold emailed her in the past,” Aziz explained. “When I saw her name on the remote networking list, I used this opportunity to finally reach out to her since I would like to pursue a career in fashion law/intellectual property generally.”
They scheduled a phone call together in which they discussed navigating the job search as a 3L and brainstorming a career path with fashion as an ultimate interest. “Currently I work at a firm where many of my clients are in the fashion industry, but that wasn’t my first job out of law school,” the associate at Dentons and co-chair of the Recent Graduate Committee said. “After my fellowship with Professor Susan Scafidi ended, I worked in the litigation department at the Port Authority. Based on my personal experience, I recommended being open-minded towards job opportunities, conducting a broad search, and thinking outside of the box because one job can ultimately lead to another.”
Mary Kate Brennan J.D. ’12, LL.M. ’17
Brennan said she wanted to serve as a mentor because this kind of networking did not exist when she entered the job market. “Neither I, nor any of my close friends had secured jobs before graduation, and I remember putting a lot of pressure on myself at the time. I think that it helps current students and recent graduates to talk to young alumni who recently survived graduating during a bad economy,” she continued. “My hope is to help our students and recent graduates feel calmer and confident regarding their future job prospects. When talking with Melissa, I could happily share that all of my Fordham friends are gainfully employed now.”
Zulkifl Zargar ’21 spoke with graduates from 2018 and 1995, one who is a current judicial law clerk and the other a former high-level official in a state Attorney General’s office respectively. “In addition to wanting to speak with lawyers from under-represented backgrounds, I wanted to learn about their clerkship experiences and about networking tips broadly, whether in the workplace context or in a professional, affinity-oriented bar association context,” he explained.
After having 40-minute phone calls with each, Zargar said he deeply appreciated their time and advice, especially during what is undoubtedly an uncertain time for many law students. “I thought the advice was candid and it helped me focus on a few points in thinking about how to navigate the start of my legal career,” he added.
Jennifer Rosa ’04
Jennifer Rosa ’04—an active Fordham Law Alumni Association board member and litigation partner in Mayer Brown’s New York office—has spoken with seven students since the program’s launch. “I love participating in anything that keeps me connected to the school, and particularly things like this where you’re really talking to a student one-on-one and forming a mentoring relationship with them,” she noted. “And I’ve told them all that I’m happy to continue talking to them because I don’t view this as a one-time thing where they ask their questions and that’s it. I would love to get to know them more and be able to help them as they progress through law school and their career.”
In addition to giving insight into her work in the areas of banking and financial services litigation, Rosa has also provided job-hunting advice to her mentees. This included how students could best use their time to refine their networking skills using LinkedIn and at the now-popular virtual networking events being hosted by bar associations and various legal organizations.
Gabriele Forbes-Bennett ’21 signed up for the program because she wanted advice from alumni who currently work in areas of practice that she is interested in, such as intellectual property and litigation. She also wanted to learn about how to get involved in areas where she has developed an interest, but lacks experience, such as compliance. So, Forbes-Bennett reached out to Fordham Law Alumni Association board member Michael K. Stanton Jr. ’86, who is a partner with Ferguson Cohen LLP, to have a better understanding about what it is like to work in a mid-sized firm. During their initial phone call and in follow-up emails, he was able to help connect Forbes-Bennett with alumni at other firms. “When speaking with the students, I like to listen and get a sense of what their goals are and what areas of law they would like to work in,” Stanton said. “From there, I can point them in the right direction to other people and firms I know, just as another way that I can try to help in any way that I can.”
Michael Goldberger ’87, the Chief of Civil Rights at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York, decided to become a mentor because he wanted to give back and share his knowledge and experiences with students who will soon become alumni themselves. He also believes it is important for students to hear from working attorneys and to obtain as much practical advice from them as possible. “This is a great program and one I wish we had had when I was at Fordham Law,” Goldberger said. “I think a lot of people don’t always have the perspective of, say, having lawyers in their families who can help them understand the bigger picture of what it takes to get through law school. So hearing the experiences from somebody who’s been there, done that, and is working in the field that they’re interested in is always helpful.”
Gabriele Forbes-Bennett ’21
Forbes-Bennett highly recommends fellow classmates to sign up for the program, if they have not done so already. “I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn about these different practice areas and experiences had it not been for this program. Sometimes it’s difficult, as a student, to know who to reach out to because the pool is so large,” she explained. “This remote format narrows it down to people who are working in an area that you may be interested in, and proves that the alumni are willing to talk to you in return.”
In the same vein, Aziz said this mentoring experience has been “one of the best programs that CPC has created for graduating students.”
A number of alumni in the database, including those listed above, will continue to be available for mentoring and networking throughout the summer. “This is a nice way for mentors to have open dialogues and to start relationships in a really friendly way. I’m talking to more students now virtually than I would have if I had to set up in-person meetings,” Brennan said.
“I certainly think that this program creates good habits for students as far as staying in touch and following up with alumni—and vice versa,” Stanton added. “I think it’s a great idea to connect people in a different way during recent circumstances because students will need all the help they can get.”
The post New Remote Networking Program Fosters Alumni-Student Relationships appeared first on Fordham Law.
