As part of the School’s ongoing diversity initiatives, Fordham Law held a lunchtime lecture on August 30 to educate the entering 1L class about the idea of implicit bias and its relevance to the legal profession. Professor Tanya K. Hernández, who delivered the talk, framed her comments around Blind Spot, a book written by two prominent psychologists that explores unconscious mental processes that may subtly influence judgments made about individuals based on their race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and other social-group status.

While the book makes no explicit reference to the law or legal professionals, Hernández, who serves as associate director of the Center on Race, Law and Justice, said the subject “has everything to do about lawyers.”

“Being a good lawyer is more than just learning the content and the rules,” she said. “As guardians of the law, we are required to adhere to codes of professional conduct, or risk losing our license to practice law.”

Among those codes of conduct are those promulgated by the New York State Bar Association, which prohibits unlawful discrimination in the practice of law, including in the hiring, promoting, and determining condition of employment. These particular rules of misconduct relate directly to implicit bias because these biases engender unconscious discrimination.

“Implicit biases predict behavior,” Hernández said. “Those who are higher in implicit bias have been shown to display greater discrimination in their actions.”

Hernández cited a number of studies that support the claim. In one example specific to the legal profession, 60 partners from 22 law firms of various sizes were given a memo written by two hypothetical third-year associates. Both associates were named Thomas Meyer. For half of the partners, Meyer was identified as black. The other half was informed that Meyer was white. The white associate received higher ratings overall than the black associate, even though the memos were identical.

The first step in ameliorating the discriminatory effects of implicit bias is recognizing that the bias in fact exists. A consortium of social psychologists and researchers called Project Implicit administers an implicit-association test (IAT) to measure automatic associations between individuals and ideas. According to the results of over a decade of testing from more than 6 million participants in the IAT, the majority of Americans have some form of implicit bias.

“With respect to race, the IAT testing reveals lingering suspicion of African Americans,” Hernández said. “Seventy-five percent of whites, Latinos, and Asians all show an unintentional bias for whites over blacks. Even blacks themselves have shown this preference for whites. We are all influenced by our social and cultural training and cues.”

To respond to implicit bias, the law ideally would identify and isolate the operation of implicit bias, according to Hernández. She gave an example from the world of classical music, where orchestral companies have taken to putting up a screen between hopeful musicians and their potential employers so that the latter cannot see whether the candidate is male or female.

1L Deanna Cohen poses a question about implicit bias.

During a Q&A following the presentation, students asked about implicit bias in various legal settings, including in courtrooms, police line-ups, and even closer to home—at Fordham Law School.

“What initiatives is Fordham University taking to progress or make this a better situation for African Americans and for all disparaged groups?” asked 1L Jeanine Botwe.

Hernández replied with steps the Law School is taking with regard to its admissions, the diversity-related projects of its centers and institutes, and awareness events similar to the very one she was speaking at.

“We’re not waiting until you graduate and take a continuing legal education course…to learn about implicit bias,” Hernández said. “We want you to know from the moment you walk in the building.”

The Fordham Law Real Estate Society launched Oct. 17 with an event featuring three industry leaders discussing the varied career opportunities available for students entering the field.

The Real Estate Society, founded by 2L Michael Pickett, seeks to “unlock the power of real estate” for students through an array of opportunities, including panel discussions, networking events with alumni, and externship projects in the field. These opportunities will help students better understand the real estate law basics they learned their 1L year, Pickett said.

“There are so many paths you can take in real estate law; you’re not beholden to the Big Law stereotypical path prescribed in law school,” said Pickett, a dual J.D./M.B.A. student who owned and operated a real estate company in Phoenix, Arizona, before entering Fordham Law. “It’s exciting to see how a project goes from conception, through red tape, to an actual building you can walk through. It’s a satisfying feeling.”

The Real Estate Society’s first event featured Fordham alumnus Stacie Trott ’06, a partner with Duval & Stachenfeld, and Christopher Jaskiewicz, COO of Gotham Development, the company responsible for constructing Fordham Law’s new building.

Pickett praised the Fordham Law community for its support of the Real Estate Society from its earliest stages. Through the process, he has learned that the Fordham Law Network Effect is more than just a slogan.

“When I started reaching out to and speaking with alumni, I was shocked at how much they cared,” Pickett said. “They looked at this as an opportunity to help the next generation of attorneys working in this city. They firmly believe in lending a hand.”

2Ls Adam Weinberg and Stephen Cugliari serve as the Real Estate Society’s vice presidents. Fellow 2L Alex Lipton serves as treasurer.

Registration for the Real Estate Society is ongoing. Any interested students are encouraged to contact Pickett.

Of the 124 LL.M. students who entered Fordham Law this fall, five are Fulbright scholars. The Fulbright Scholarship is a merit-based international academic exchange program created by J. William Fulbright and administered by the U.S. Department of State. Extremely competitive, the scholarship is awarded to American and foreign nationals to study, teach, lecture, and conduct research abroad. It aims to increase the mutual understanding between U.S. citizens and people from all over the world in order to create harmonious international relations.

Hailing from Panama, Israel, Switzerland, Latvia, and the Dominican Republic, the five scholars in Fordham’s entering LL.M. class strive to make the world a better place.

Agnese Gerharde

Agnese Gerharde, a Fulbright scholar from Latvia pursuing an LL.M. in intellectual property and information technology law, already knows the importance of cyber-law and international governance.

After earning her bachelor’s degree, Gerharde began working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia. Initially a member of the Security Policy Department, she joined just before Latvia’s first Presidency of the Council of the European Union, a position that calls on alternating national governments to manage the council for six months. During Latvia’s Presidency in the first half of 2015, Gerharde worked in Latvia’s capital of Riga; Brussels, Belgium; and Strasbourg, France representing Latvia in various working groups of the EU and the Council of Europe.

“It was the most emotional and busiest time of my life,” Gerharde said. “I have learned so much and grown both professionally and personally.”

While in Strasbourg, Gerharde participated in the drafting process of a new international legal instrument. This experience prompted her to switch to the ministry’s legal department, where she dealt with policymaking and international law.

During her time at the ministry, Gerharde realized that more attention ought to be paid to the emerging field of cyber-law. For over a year at the ministry, she worked on cybersecurity law issues on a daily basis, and she plans to pursue future work in this field.

After the program, Gerharde plans to remain in New York for post-degree training before returning to Latvia with her new knowledge and experiences.

Maroun Maa’louf

Maroun Maa’louf, a Fulbright scholar from Israel pursuing an LL.M. in international law and justice, seeks to become a voice for voiceless minorities.

Born and raised in Nazareth, Maa’louf grew up amidst the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During the Palestinian uprising in 2000, his society suffered a major economic collapse, and numerous work sectors were shut down across the country. Maa’louf recalls the frequent passing of warplanes in the sky above him, and his family’s occasional need to hide in shelters from rockets fired during the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese second war.

Despite his own hardships, Maa’louf stressed that he had been luckier than many other children in different areas in Palestine, Israel, and the entire Middle East. “My suffering was nothing compared to other kids living nearby,” he said. Many people, he said, to this day live in refugee camps or deal with shortages of food and water

With a burgeoning passion for social justice, Maa’louf became involved in international affairs. In the 11th grade, he traveled to the U.K. for a Model United Nations conference, where he was the only non-English speaker on the human rights committee. He ended up winning Best Delegate, the top award. Maa’louf hopes someday to become a U.N. diplomat.

Growing up as a minority himself—an Arab Christian in Israel—Maa’louf seeks to represent religious, ethnic, linguistic, and national minorities especially in the Middle East. Such minorities, he stressed, are often overlooked.

“I want to be their advocate,” he said.

Parveen Punjabi

Parveen Punjabi, a Fulbright scholar from Panama pursuing an LL.M. in banking, corporate, and finance law, aspires to improve her country’s corporate system.

From an early age and with the support of her family, Punjabi devoted herself to her studies. Recognizing her innate sense of justice and an interest in argumentative discourse, she decided to pursue a law degree at the Catholic University Santa Maria la Antigua. She graduated law school at the top of her class and earned the second highest average among all students at the university.

Punjabi has also been proactive in her pursuit of legal work. Among other jobs, she served in the corporate and compliance departments at Patton, Moreno & Asvat, where she was in charge of controlling the creation of corporations and foundations.

Despite having a full-time job, Punjabi continued her studies at night. “Persistence and patience are two virtues that are not easy to practice, but they will take us where we want to be and will help us accomplish all our goals,” she said.

After earning her LL.M., Punjabi may remain in the United States for a year of post-degree training. Ultimately, she plans to return to Panama to enhance the country’s corporate system. Combining her past experiences in compliance matters with the knowledge she will gain in pursuit of her LL.M., Punjabi aims to contribute to the improvement of control instruments for Panamanian corporations and foundations.

Manuel Silverio

Manuel Silverio, a Fulbright scholar from the Dominican Republic pursuing an LL.M. in banking, corporate, and finance law, strives to help citizens of his home country access banking.

Silverio stressed how the Dominican Republic has struggled through its fair share of hardships. In 2004, the country suffered its worst banking crisis. He recalls milk prices changing drastically on a daily basis.

Silverio noted how only 40% of his country’s citizens have access to banking institutions and credit. “People usually take banking for granted until they don’t have it,” he said. He admitted that much of his own early success stemmed from his mother’s ability to access credit and take out loans.

Due to instrumental restrictions, banks cannot help the other 60% of citizens. Silverio suggested that the system may need to change to allow non-banking services to help the financially underprivileged majority. He also suggested that Fintech, a term used to describe technological innovation in financial services, can help.

Before working in consumer education and helping individuals access banking, Silverio hopes, upon the completion of his LL.M., to teach lawyers in the Dominican Republic for a few years. Eventually, he hopes to become an ambassador for financial inclusion of his country.

Noemi Valloni

Noemi Valloni, a Fulbright scholar from Switzerland pursuing an LL.M. in U.S. law, aims to work in corporate law with an international focus.

Before enrolling at Fordham, Valloni was a member of the banking and finance team at Bär & Karrer AG, a leading Swiss law firm. She has also worked in the field of internal investigations in Zurich and in the field of corporate law in London. She decided to continue her studies in the United States to broaden her professional and cultural horizons.

“Working hard, combined with the necessary portion of luck, will allow you to achieve all the goals you want,” she said.

Valloni has chosen to study U.S. law at Fordham because the flexible curriculum allows her to take advantage of a wide range of courses.

After earning her LL.M., Valloni plans to return to Switzerland to work in a prominent law firm. She also aspires to earn her Ph.D. in the field of corporate law. In the spirit of her Fulbright scholarship, she desires to maintain an international focus.

“In our globalized world,” she said, “it becomes steadily more important to understand the different cultures and backgrounds people come from, in order to successfully understand and develop international relationships.”

The Fordham Urban Law Journal hosted its 2017 Cooper-Walsh Colloquium, “Taking a Bite out of the Big Apple: A Conversation About Urban Food Policy,” on Oct. 20. The colloquium, which addressed the American public health crisis surrounding diet-related diseases, featured panels on food policy analysis and developments in urban communities.

The morning panel “Foraging Food Justice through Cooperatives in New York City” addressed the unequal access to healthy food among New Yorkers. Surbhi Sarang, fellow at the Environmental Defense Fund, and Natalie Bump Vena, assistant professor of urban studies at Queens College (CUNY), suggested that the formation of co-ops could help members of vulnerable communities achieve food-based justice.

“As cities design policies to achieve food justice, they should consider solutions that address the root issues,” said Sarang.

According to Sarang and Vena, probable benefits of establishing co-ops include cheaper food prices, higher job compensation, increased job quality, and economic reinvestment in local communities. Potential challenges include the acquisition of affordable spaces, limited time and energy for overworked lower-income families, and the threat of gentrification if the co-ops do form.

The panel’s respondent was Jonathan Brown, director of the Food and Beverage Law Clinic and adjunct professor of law at Pace University. Brown discussed other alternatives besides co-ops that could promote nutritional justice among low-income families, including nonprofit food businesses.

Panelists Surbhi Sarang, Natalie Bump Vena, and Jonathan Brown. Photo by Lindsey Pelucacci.

The next panel, “Want to Increase Food Access? Ban It from Your Vocabulary,” proposed a different solution to unequal food access. Nathan Rosenberg, a lawyer and researcher in Iowa City, argued that justice will arise simply by giving money to impoverished individuals.

“The issue, we now know, is not proximity but poverty,” said Rosenberg.

Citing research that reveals how increasing food retail in “food deserts” does not much increase the consumption of healthy food, Rosenberg showed how people rank money, by far, as the largest factor preventing their purchase of desired food. He discussed how programs like SNAP have been proven to increase the health and success of children who receive it.

The panel’s respondent was Nevin Cohen, associate professor at CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy and CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute. Cohen claimed that policy makers should not discard discussions of food access but should discuss it in light of critical race theory. He asserted that people need to make alternatives to conventional grocery stores seem desirable.

An afternoon panel, “Food Law Gone Wild: The Law of Foraging,” addressed a particularly unconventional means of acquiring food. Baylen Linnekin, adjunct professor at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, proposed that the American government should allow all foraging unless problems arise.

For centuries, the American government has imposed strict anti-foraging laws. Linnekin explained how such laws, as in the case of colonists’ conflicts with Native Americans, formed because of racial and class biases. Today, strict laws continue to reign, and they could (and did) result in fines for picking and eating dandelions. Given the benefits of foraging (free, healthy, environmentally friendly), Linnekin recommended that regulations against the activity should be reduced.

The panel’s respondent was Joshua Galperin, research scholar, lecturer in law, and Environmental Protection Clinic director at Yale Law School. He agreed with Linnekin’s proposal but argued for maintaining some regulations according to science-based standards and citizen enforcement provisions.

“In fact, foraging does have ecological consequences,” Galperin said.

The Brendan Moore Trial Advocates achieved tremendous team and individual success in three national competitions during the first weekend of November.

A Moore team consisting of 3Ls finished runner-up, and its 2L counterparts advanced to the semifinals, in the Florida National Trial Advocacy Tournament hosted by the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. A second 2L team reached the semifinals at the ABA Criminal Justice Trial Competition at Quinnipiac Law School in Connecticut.

Meanwhile, Tom Sperber ’18 earned Best Cross Examination and Best Closing Argument at the Florida tournament and Leanne Fornelli ’19 claimed Best Closing Argument at the National Civil Rights Trial Competition at St. John’s Law School.

The 3L team of Sperber, Colette Carman, Greg O’Brien, and Katherine Peluso entered the fall semester preparing to travel south to compete, albeit at The Puerto Rico Trial Advocacy Competition. They ended up, however, at the University of Florida, on short notice, after Hurricane Maria prompted the Puerto Rico event’s postponement.

“It speaks to how experienced they are as student trial advocates and how talented they are,” said Adam Shlahet ’02, director of the Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center, of the team’s runner-up finish. Shlahet praised coaches Gabe Mendoza ’11 and John-Chris Record ’16 for getting the team ready to compete at a high level in less than a month. Shlahet also credited Professor James Kainen and Moore alumni for sharing their time and wisdom to the various teams in competition this month.

In his winning closing argument, Sperber, as prosecutor, asserted that a defendant charged with DUI manslaughter, in a case involving a self-driving car, had possessed the capacity to grab the wheel, and in doing so save the victim’s life. Sperber appealed to jury members’ common sense, he explained, with his contention that the defendant had not averted the tragedy due to his impairment. After the event, Sperber said he considered his success and the team’s success one and the same.

“You can’t make it to the finals in a national competition without everybody being on their game. It was so fun to see each one of my teammates put on the trial they expected to,” Sperber said, noting the team was “thick as thieves through every step of the process.”

Joining Sperber’s team in the University of Florida competition’s final four were a 2L team of Moores consisting of Tomas Barron, Phillip Jobe, Yena Hong, and Brendaliz Minaya Ruiz. Their coaches were Zachary Green ’14 and Haseeb Fatmi ’12.

Haseeb Fatmi, Tomas Barron, Phillip Jobe, Yena Hong, Brendaliz Minaya-Ruiz, Zach Green

Fellow 2Ls Tom Arning, Dmitri Gelfand, Caitlin Hickey, and Iris Velasquez reached the semifinals at the ABA Criminal Justice Trial Competition at Quinnipiac. Their coaches were Jason Tortora ’14 and Ben Bergin ’14.

Tom Arning, Iris Velasquez, Caitlin Hickey, Dmitri Gelfand

While the Moore team competing at St. John’s did not advance, Fornelli managed to win Best Closing Argument in her first competition. She credited her coaches, Fawn Lee ’14 and David O’Brien ’16, for instructing her to take advantage if an opponent failed to make a motion to preserve writings on a whiteboard.  Sure enough, such a scenario played out during the competition, and Fornelli scored points with judges by crossing out the opponent’s arguments and debunking them.

“It’s really a testament to the program and its structure,” Fornelli said of her achievement, noting that Lee worked with her one-on-one to perfect her argument. Dennis Donnelly, Emily Richey, and Mary Cate Simeone also competed with Fornelli at the event held at St. John’s.

Leanne Fornelli, Mary Cate Simeone, Emily Richey, Dennis Donnelly

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Right to the city scholars and activists shared historical perspectives and contemporary grassroots insights into the global phenomenon during an Urban Law Center event on Nov. 9.

The lunchtime discussion, “What Does it Mean to Have a Right to the City?,” featured presentations by Urban Law Center Fellow and Fordham Law S.J.D. candidate Thomas Coggin, Right to the City Alliance Executive Director Dawn Phillips, and Santi Mas de Xaxàs Faus of Plataforma d’Afectats per la Hipoteca (PAH) in Spain. The panel examined right to the city theory as well how people in the United States and around the world are breathing life into these movements.

“In the United States, we often talk about a right to housing, often more in the reach than in the honoring, but there’s a really interesting movement here and in much of the world that has a broader vision about access to urban resources and the use of urban space,” said Professor Nestor M. Davidson, faculty director of the Urban Law Center, in his welcoming remarks.

Coggin opened the proceedings with a speech that mapped out how the theory first described in the writings of French intellectual Henri Lefebvre in 1968 was subsequently adopted over the ensuing decades at a global level. Coggin also offered a critique of right to the city literature as well as thoughts on the possible intersection of the law and the aforementioned movement. His doctoral research project is a comparative study outlining jurisprudence for public urban spaces in his native South Africa, the European Court of Human Rights, and the United States.

“In legislating for the right to the city, there is potential for the notion to remain quite static, and for exercises in the right to the city to be delegitimized because they don’t accord with what the law says,” Coggin said. “But at the same time, I think there is some strength to enacting the right the city in law because it can act as a basis to guide policy and legislation going forward.”

Coggin highlighted Brazil’s City Statute, a federal law passed in 2001 that seeks to provide land access and equity in major urban areas. In addition, he stated that right to the city can act as a good philosophical reading of existing legal rights and provides judges space to consider tenants’ rights.

Santi Mas de Xaxàs Faus, Thomas Coggin, and Dawn Phillips

Right to the city means far more than just housing, stressed Phillips, who heads the Brooklyn-based Right to the City Alliance and is co-director of Programs for Oakland-based Causa Justice Just Cause (CJJC). The work involves defending urban residents on a myriad of issues such as police brutality, environmental racism, and transportation equity, Phillips explained.

“The idea of right to the city is most important for us about the opportunity to envision transformation,” Phillips said, noting groups cannot organize successfully without this vision. “There’s a tremendous opportunity in the idea of right to the city to say this is what we want, this is how it should be, and this should be my role.”

That is exactly what members of PAH are fighting for in Barcelona, Madrid, and other cities across Spain, where more than 3.5 million homes sit empty as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. PAH formed in 2009 as a Spanish platform against evictions, and has quickly grown to 220 self-financed “nodes” that reject political affiliation, shun hierarchy, and engage in civil disobedience to advance its demands. Among the demands are debt cancellation by property return, rent control, ending evictions of family homes, and transforming empty houses held by financial institutions into social housing.

“We create a new narrative that politicians do not represent us any longer,” said Maus de Xaxàs Faus, who wore a green PAH hoodie. “No Democrats. No Republicans. You are the ones that created the problem. We are the civil society organizing ourselves to tell you how things have to be done.”

“The final victory will be when we are capable of changing the law,” the PAH spokesman added.

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Fordham Law School reached the finals in the regional rounds of the National Moot Court Competition, the country’s premier moot court event, on Nov. 16 at the New York City Bar Association.

The 3L team consisting of Samuel Ballard, Aviva Kushner, and Anna Wittman will return to the NYC Bar Association in January for the national rounds. At regionals, Ballard received the Best Speaker award and Kushner earned Runner-Up Best Speaker honors.

Professor Maria L. Marcus, the team’s faculty coach, observed that the team members were constantly building on their natural talents by seeking out ways to improve still more.

“They answered all the judges’ questions with intelligence and verve, and demonstrated star power at every stage,” said Marcus, moderator for the Law School’s interschool moot court teams and the Joseph M. McLaughlin Professor of Law Emeritus. “They were also expertly guided by the editor-in-chief of the Moot Court Board, Emilia Brunello ’18.”

Fordham won each of the five oral rounds in which it competed in regionals. It finished second overall to New York Law School, based on the score of briefs turned in before the competition.

Kushner and Wittman deserved much of the credit for the team’s success, Ballard said, noting they displayed great skill in breaking down a very technical issue into an understandable one for judges and others hearing it for the first time. This matter involved procedures governing First Amendment rights in retaliatory arrest suits under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. Kushner argued the case from the petitioner’s side and Wittman argued from the respondent’s side.

Ballard, meanwhile, argued both sides of the second issue in the case, which asked whether the driver of a rental car who booked and paid for the rental, but was contractually unauthorized to drive the car, had standing to sue over an unconstitutional vehicle search.

“We had achieved our biggest goal going into that final round, which was going to nationals in January,” Ballard said. “We were so excited to have accomplished that, and to also win the Best Speaker award was the cherry on top.”

Ballard also thanked Moot Court members, as well as family and friends, who attended the two-day competition for providing him and his fellow participants support and a “comforting presence.”

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Fordham Law School’s Dispute Resolution Society launched its fall campaign in outstanding fashion reaching the finals in two prestigious competitions in New York this month.

The 2L DRS arbitration team of Alexandra Lane, Praatika Prasad, and Lauren Riddell placed second in the third annual Judith S. Kaye Arbitration Competition at the New York International Arbitration Center. Riddell received Best Advocate honors. 3L Andrew Dunn, the DRS arbitration editor, and Fordham Law Adjunct Professor David Gallo, the faculty advisor for DRS, served as coaches.

The 2L DRS negotiation team of Kayla Giampaolo and Brian Fried also finished second in the regional rounds of the ABA Law Student Negotiation Competition at St. John’s University Law School. The team, coached by 3L Joseph Milano, has been invited to participate in the national rounds of the competition, which will take place at the ABA mid-winter meeting in February.

“One of the trademarks of our DRS teams is they work incredibly hard preparing for these competitions,” Professor Jacqueline Nolan-Haley said. “These students give up many of their weekends and nights to make Fordham look good.”

Nolan-Haley praised the efforts of the coaches, who used their arbitration and competition experience to prepare the students, and the DRS teams’ classmates who helped moot the competitors.

In the case of the DRS arbitration team, the teammates who did not compete in the Judith S. Kaye event played a major role in the team’s success. Natasha Butalia helped write the team’s brief and Jared Dub, an alternate witness, helped Riddell prepare, on two days’ notice, for extra witness roles, once the team learned it could have only three students participate.

Riddell played five witness roles in a case involving a dispute over whether a fracking company’s actions on a Pennsylvania family’s farm resulted in property damage and a property owner’s health ailments. Riddell played a fracking expert and the sick property owner for the claimant’s case, a CEO and expert for the respondent, and, in the final round, a person approached by the CEO. Riddell credited Dub, who had prepared to play the CEO and the respondent’s expert witness, for his instruction on what she should focus on and also the potential weaknesses of the witnesses.

“Jared was hugely important in our success,” Riddell said. “Technically I was not an advocate,” she added about her award, “but the Bar Association wanted to stress that witness prep is very important in arbitration.”

The post Dispute Resolution Society Off To Outstanding Fall Start appeared first on Fordham Law.

This semester, members of Fordham Law School’s Stein Scholars Program have utilized the legal tools and knowledge they obtained participating in domestic and international externships this summer to excel in the classroom, on trial advocacy teams, and in study abroad programs. Steins promoted the public good and advanced their legal aptitude over the summer in a variety of fields, including women’s rights, LGBT housing issues, and labor and immigration law.

Stein Scholars, a student-driven academic and service program, encourages students to maintain their commitment to, and prepares them for, the practice of law in service to the public through specialized academic requirements, summer externships, interaction with practitioners and academics, and opportunities to engage in community service.

Below is a sampling of what some of the Stein Scholars did this summer.

DeAnna Baumle – ACLU Women’s Rights Project

The ACLU’s public profile, bolstered by its role in fighting President Trump’s travel ban, reached unprecedented heights while DeAnna Baumle externed with the almost 100-year-old nonprofit this summer. The import of the ACLU’s work, particularly on behalf of women, is nothing new, however. Baumle experienced this firsthand in her work with the Women’s Rights Project and while attending the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in June.

This summer, Baumle worked on sex discrimination cases arising under the Constitution and Title VII and charted legislation on family leave and workplace protections for women. Baumle discovered during her externship that she enjoyed impact and appellate litigation, in particular developing case theory, researching past laws, and figuring out how to push the court to expand protections for various rights. She has continued honing the skills she developed over the summer in her Constitutional Torts class this semester, she said.

Baumle listed among her summer’s highlights attending the documentary premiere of Home Truth about the Supreme Court case Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales. The case’s namesake, Jessica Lenahan (formerly Gonzales), sued the town and its police department for failing to enforce a restraining order against her estranged husband in the hours before the man murdered Lenahan’s three daughters. The ACLU later represented Lenahan when she appealed the decision to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the landmark case Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) v. U.S.A.

“It was really inspiring to meet the women who brought the case and other activists in the domestic violence field,” said Baumle, who is in Fordham’s four-year M.S.W./J.D. dual degree program. She received her Master of Social Work in May.

Frank Kearl – ProDESC in Mexico City

A trial by fire in Mexico City. The words sound novel, but in Frank Kearl’s case, they describe his summer working on international labor law in Mexico, while learning about the country and Mexican legal system, as well as achieving Spanish language fluency, in a condensed period.

Kearl’s externship with ProDESC, an NGO dedicated to defending and promoting economic, social, and cultural rights, illustrated in real-world terms what he had previously learned in Professor James Brudney’s labor law classes: that laws alone don’t make large problems disappear. There must be activism, such as ProDESC’s work in the United States obtaining workers’ visas.

This fall, Kearl has both had the opportunity to build upon his work with ProDESC (via his participation in Professor Elizabeth Cooper’s Legislation and Policy Advocacy Clinic) and to rethink how his work challenged stock narratives about systems of power (via a Critical Race Theory course he is taking).

“My time in Mexico City gave me another window into what poverty in the U.S. can look like,” Kearl said. “I’m much more aware of the harsh realities of being poor in America, and how much this is compounded by being a person of color and a person who doesn’t have immigration status here.”

Kearl’s ideal career course would involve workers’ rights and labor organizing at the intersection of immigrant justice, he said. His work in Mexico City will continue to inform his thinking about organizing workers across industries and borders.

“It’s wrong to think that migrant Mexican workers and blue-collar American workers are not in alignment,” Kearl observed, noting that it’s vital to build effective coalitions that stretch across those lines.

Rachel Manning – NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Air. Water. Wetlands. Superfund sites. You name the environmental division and Rachel Manning worked on enforcing New York State’s laws there this summer. Her externship’s broad scope, working with different divisions within the general counsel, helped her identify areas of environmental law that might interest her in the future, she said.

Manning praised the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation for making her summer externship an experiential one, complete with a variety of field trips and hands-on activities to canals and creeks, a wastewater treatment plant, and a recycling plant. These trips provided networking opportunities with EPA interns and “made the work more tangible than sitting in an office,” Manning said.

This semester, Manning is taking Land Use and Environmental Dealmaking courses that touch on many of the areas she encountered over the summer, as well as additional issues she tackled during her fall internship at the EPA Region 2 in the Superfund branch. Her recent EPA experience narrows her focus to enforcing the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), which addresses hazardous waste contamination.

“I really like the idea of holding people accountable for environmental disasters that potentially impact large numbers of people, and in many cases impact low-income, minority communities,” said Manning, who will hone her litigation skills during her internship next spring with the New York City Law Department’s Environmental Division.

Isedua Oribhabor – Ella Baker Fellowship at Center for Constitutional Rights

Isedua Oribhabor’s “dream-come-true moment” walking into work for the first time at the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization she eyed for years, proved even better than she imagined. She marveled at the incredible diversity assembled in the room, both in terms of people hired and their individual perspectives; she eagerly listened as they expressed their wide-ranging legal passions. Her subsequent hands-on legal training only sweetened the experience.

Oribhabor addressed briefs and memos on ongoing domestic and international civil rights litigation, including most prominently those related to Palestinian rights. She also investigated how growing corporate interest in politics negatively impacts democracy in such areas as education and criminal justice, looking into which corporations fund the politicians most vocal on these issues.

Working with the CCR emphasized how important it is for a lawyer to have varied experiences, Oribhabor said. The business world insight she gained this summer combined with her public interest and human rights knowledge would make her a better civil rights litigator, she noted.

Oribhabor completed her Fordham requirements during her second year and is now pursuing her LL.M. in international and European business law at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, as part of Fordham’s double degree program. Her CCR internship provided her a clearer perspective on what she hopes to gain from her classes this semester and her future career.

“I had a great experience this summer being in the same space with civil rights lawyers whom I would like to work with over the next 10 to 15 years,” Oribhabor said.

Johanna Sanders – Brooklyn Legal Services, LGBTQ/HIV Advocacy Project

This summer, Johanna Sanders not only witnessed firsthand the impact a lawyer can have on her client outside a law school setting but also delivered this tangible service herself. During a social security disability hearing before an administrative law judge Sanders asked her client the questions that formed the basis of his case. This important moment in her client’s life—and her legal education—resulted from meetings with her client, research about what questions were asked in the past, additional preparation on how to ask the questions, and ultimately her writing of the scripted questions.

“It’s easy to read older cases about a slip and fall and feel disconnected from the specific client, but when you’re doing direct services work dealing with individuals, they’re no longer just abstract people,” Sanders said. These real-world consequences could be seen, she added, via Brooklyn Legal Services’ work for members of the LGBTQ/HIV community, some of whom were at great risk of eviction. “Some of our HIV community is extremely vulnerable and it’s up to us to represent them and make sure their interests are represented,” she explained.

This fall, Sanders competed as a member of the Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Competition Team. She noted that her proximity to lawyers advocating for clients over the summer laid the foundation for her work with the team.

Sanders also was excited to be a part of a unionized legal services organization this summer. She felt it deeply impacted the office culture and bettered the quality of life for all the employees, even the interns. The attorneys in her office earned a living doing fulfilling work that provided them a healthy work/life balance.

“Being in a union means having your voice heard,” she said. “It means a commitment to creating an environment where the sustainability of the work is also a priority. It was wonderful to be a part of an organization that held that commitment.”

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Though artists enrich society’s culture and its members’ imaginations, they are often deprived of justice. Fordham Law’s Artist Representation Society, a new organization of the Public Interest Resource Center (PIRC), aims to combat exploitation of artists and to educate artists about their legal rights.

Spearheading the group are Anna Cui and Andreas Moffett, 1L students who share a background in the arts. A dancer since childhood, Cui has participated on several dance teams and maintains professional representation. In her free time, she dances with EPIC Motion Dance Company, an award-winning organization that promotes individuality and innovation. Moffett is an experienced opera performer who sang on the stage for several years. Nowadays, he sings with Downtown Voices, a semiprofessional choir comprised of volunteer singers and members of the Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street.

The artistic pair met on one of the Law School’s elevators when Cui overheard Moffett talking about his Fordham application’s personal statement, in which he voiced his plans to create a group to advocate for artists’ rights. As she listened, Cui heard an echoing of her own personal statement. She introduced herself, and soon they began discussing ideas for the proposed group.

The Artist Representation Society (or ARS, which translates to “art” in Latin) stems from the pair’s witnessing a recurring mistreatment of artists. “The industry is rife with the exploitation of artists,” said Moffett. This exploitation, they explained, includes low and delayed payments, poor working conditions, tax filing misguidance, and manipulation of contract rights. They also acknowledged that, while artist unions exist to combat injustice, they sometimes restrict artists’ job options and require them to pay expensive dues.

“Most times the artists have no option but to take it,” said Moffett. “There’s not a lot of support on their side,” added Cui.

Many artists do not even know their rights, according to the two students. Taking advantage of Fordham Law’s alumni network and connection to Lincoln Center, the ARS plans to create and implement a curriculum that educates artists on their legal rights. After devising a curriculum, group members will reach out to arts schools and companies to propose their instructional panels. They hope to foster a relationship with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, including the Juilliard School.

The ARS also plans to reach out to Fordham’s Samuelson-Glushko Intellectual Property and Information Law Clinic. Since its founding nine years ago, the clinic has advised NYC artists on protecting their expression and avoiding infringing the copyrights of others. Artists typically discover the clinic through the web, through the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, or other organizations like Juilliard. The clinic’s past cases have involved representing a rapper accused of infringing his own music by his former manager, drafting agreements to help a cellist make a documentary, and helping an actor-turned-playwright navigate the border between fair use and copyright infringement in his new play.

Ron Lazebnik, director of the clinic, said that he looks forward to collaborating with the PIRC group.

“It’s an exciting project and I look forward to seeing it develop,” said Lazebnik. “It’s always great to see when our students are enthusiastic to interact with the law to help individuals without easy access to legal guidance.”

The ARS welcomes the participation of any law student who partakes in or values the arts. The group also seeks advisors in the fields of art law, tax law, employment law, and other related areas. For more information, those interested can contact Cui at or Moffett.

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The art of making it in the Big Apple

Alex Kirk was raised in Dallas, Texas, but she was destined for New York City. The daughter of a lawyer, she was raised with a deep appreciation for the law. “When I was growing up, my father often told me stories about great attorneys like Thurgood Marshall,” she said. He encouraged her to see the law as “a noble profession,” despite its many challenges.

“Ever since I can remember,” she said, “I wanted to be a lawyer.”

But Kirk’s father was by no means dogmatic on the subject, nor was he insistent about his daughter practicing the law. Rather, Kirk’s parents raised her to be imaginative and open-minded toward her pursuits, and they cultivated in her not only an appreciation for the law, but also a passion for the arts. She counts herself lucky to have had “parents who encouraged me to pursue my love of the arts from an early age.”

A study abroad trip her junior year of high school galvanized her fledgling interest in art.

“I knew that I wanted to study art history after I studied in England,” she said. “I took AP art history and visited some of the most renowned European art museums and historical sites.”

It’s no surprise that Kirk found herself, two years later, majoring in art history at Columbia, or that she spent two subsequent semesters abroad, in Florence and Venice, studying the Italian Renaissance—or that still later interned at Sotheby’s and Steven Kasher Gallery, in New York, as well as the Dallas Museum of Art.

Add the fact that Kirk’s sister, Catherine, is a dancer in Kyle Abraham’s company, Abraham in Motion, and you get a student with a unique passion for both art and law, not to mention a special calling to a city—and campus— that’s singularly suited to enriching her special blend of interests.

“New York is the epicenter of arts and culture in the United States,” she said. “Living in New York has afforded me unique opportunities in both my educational and professional life that are typically not available in other cities. Many of the best law firms with art law practice groups and law schools with art law programs are located in the city.”

But it’s not only the city’s many professional opportunities that make it an attractive place to study art law and intellectual property; Fordham, in particular, has encouraged Kirk to deepen her engagement with the city’s cultural and artistic offerings through the journals and student organizations with which she’s been privileged to participate.

Kirk has served, since 2015, as secretary of the Fordham Art Law Society, which hosts events designed “to promote an understanding of the intersection between the arts and the law, both at Fordham and in the larger legal community.” Bolstered by its proximity to Lincoln Center, New York City’s cultural core, the society has welcomed organizations including the Lawyers Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation and the International Foundation for Art Research.

“Since I first joined,” Kirk said, “we have hosted lectures on art restitution, the impact of international trade law on the arts, proposed regulations on the ivory trade and their impact on various communities, cultural heritage protection, and pursuing a career in art law.”

This exposure to diverse subjects and practices is particularly important to the intellectual property field, given the rapid rate at which the law must adapt to its ever-changing range of subjects. It’s now more important than ever that students and professionals keep up to date on current practices and ideas, Kirk said, “given the proliferation of emerging technologies, and concerns over privacy and data security.”

The benefits of the art law society haven’t been entirely intellectual, of course. The group has afforded Kirk and other students countless social and professional opportunities as well—many of which may overlap with their academic offerings.

“I wanted to find a like-minded community of students interested in the arts,” she said, “and have the opportunity to learn more about art law through this organization.”

Indeed, she seems to have found that intersection. Kirk said the society has provided “an invaluable platform for students to learn about emerging areas of the law,” as well as the opportunity to “interact with alumni and legal professionals working in those fields.”

Kirk is serving this academic year as editor-in-chief of the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media, & Entertainment Law Journal, where she has already worked as a staff member and published a student note.

Like her participation in the art law society, Kirk’s involvement with IPLJ has not only allowed her to deepen some of the classroom lessons she has learned over her two years at Fordham; it has also allowed Kirk to network with senior colleagues and practicing lawyers—forging connections that have proven to be among Fordham’s most valuable gifts.

Of her participation with the Black Law Students Association, for example, Kirk said, “I was able to meet a diverse group of students outside my designated 1L group.” She said the opportunity to learn from a student mentor, as well as the occasion to get advice from senior colleagues, has proven indispensable.

“One aspect of Fordham that I have come to appreciate,” she said, “is how diverse the students’ interests are.” She added, “I enjoy learning from my classmates just as much as I do from my professors. I love that Fordham encourages you to pursue a career in all different types of law, no matter how obscure.”

It’s no wonder, given Kirk’s background and acumen, that she would make the most of Fordham’s diverse opportunities. She was raised not only to respect the law, but also to value the arts. And her passion for each— which she’s managed to shape almost seamlessly into one ambitious and promising career path—will no doubt serve her well as she navigates the heady current of art, law, and intellectual property on which she’s set her sights.

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For LL.M. student Wejdan Alhaid, studying corporate law is her own business.

As a young woman growing up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital and most populous city, Fordham Law School LL.M. student Wejdan Alhaid often questioned why certain societal rules defined how people lived, communicated, and interacted. “It’s the law” was the common, unsatisfactory refrain she received. The nebulous response failed to quell her innate curiosity.

“I said to myself, ‘Why not study it?’ and get deep into how laws start and why, and the reason small words have all this power over people,” Alhaid says. “Of course, without getting the education and learning the law, I wouldn’t be able to find these answers.”

Alhaid’s interest in legal education arose, fortuitously, at a time when reforms opened new pathways for Saudi women to participate in the legal system. She enrolled in the prestigious King Saud University in 2008—the same year the inaugural group of Saudi women graduated with law degrees. Her graduation in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in law came one year before the country granted women licenses to practice law in court. Legal career options were vague when she started school, she notes, but her studies file no time to mull over uncertainty.

Five years later, Alhaid persists in pushing the boundaries of what Saudi women can aspire to do with the law. In a culture where women lawyers generally focus on family law, Alhaid’s LL.M. concentration of banking, corporate, and financial law will position her as a kind of pioneer in Riyadh, the kingdom’s financial center and home to more than five million residents.

“We still don’t have enough female corporate professors and lawyers,” Alhaid says of her native Saudi Arabia. “I chose corporate law because of the deficiency in that field, and to prove that the corporate field isn’t only for men. Women can also be successful in it.”

Alhaid worked as a corporate lawyer in Riyadh for her first two years after graduation.

During this time, she also served 150 pro bono hours for women who could not afford attorney’s fees. In September 2014, she left corporate practice to become a teacher’s assistant at King Saud University. This career move ultimately put her on the path to the United States. An LL.M. and S.J.D. are necessary to become a law professor at King Saud University—a job title Alhaid aspires to once she completes her Fordham education.

Alhaid’s friend Yusra Alshanqityi, a Saudi native who is currently an S.J.D. candidate at Fordham Law, recommended she attend the School to gain a thorough understanding of American corporate law. “From the first day at orientation, I remember they told us we’re here as family,” Alhaid says. “I felt that sense from the first day, that Fordham was not just a school but a family for its students.”

Corporate law does not vary widely between the United States and Saudi Arabia, Alhaid says, but absorbing the differences between common law here and the civil law system back home has proven to be a challenge. Alhaid, who interned this summer for New York County Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Ramos, remarks that the courtroom experience is very different in the two countries. The American civil system moves cases along more expediently, and allows observers to sit in court. In Saudi Arabia, even though the law says cases are open, it can be difficult for anyone other than the defendant or plaintiff to gain admittance, she notes. Providing more opportunities to sit in court could encourage more students to study law, she contends.

Alhaid is the first person from her family to study or practice law. Her parents, she says, have supported her decision to study the law, but many in her family and in Saudi society disagree with her, or other Saudi citizens, studying the law in America.

“For starters, some of the society disagrees with the whole idea of women getting into the legal field,” she explains. “In addition, they don’t accept the idea of studying, practicing, or living abroad and being independent, especially when a woman is unmarried. I don’t like to pay attention to this nonsense, because it’s not related to religion, and it’s merely tradition.”

The government’s approach has been quite different, Alhaid continues, noting women are receiving an “equal chance” to study law as men in 2017. Young Saudi men and women are pursuing legal careers in greater numbers, she adds, calling the vocation “trendy” among her peers. At the moment, her colleagues are returning with high legal degrees from the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and other countries to fill the shortage of lawyers and law professors.

“Lawyers are becoming very active in educating society, and the people are becoming more aware of their rights,” she says, noting this combination of education and awareness is driving increased interest in the profession. Ironically, she cites American legal dramas as a source of her fascination with the law. Her favorites include TV shows such as Suits and The Good Wife, movies such as Conviction and The Lincoln Lawyer, and the Harper Lee classic To Kill A Mockingbird.

Such fictional portrayals of the law piqued Alhaid’s desire to drill beneath vague legal pronouncements of her native country. She intends to continue her S.J.D. studies at Fordham, if possible, and when her doctorate is complete, return to Saudi Arabia. She is optimistic that the role of and acceptance of women in the legal realm will continue to grow, and she is eager to use her real-life experiences and enhanced knowledge of American laws and courts to assist in the empowerment of her fellow citizens.

“I hope one day we’ll see female lawyers, scholars, and professors participating on the same side as the men in doing regulations and laws, and that they will be involved as a dynamic part in the creation of justice and fairness in the society,” Alhaid says.

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Twenty-Five Years of Service with the Stein Scholars Program

In the early 1990s, Professor Bruce Green observed an emerging core of Fordham Law students who were oriented toward public interest work but lacked a campus community that would nurture them. He devised a solution: a program that would provide 10 newly admitted students a specialized education in legal ethics and public interest law practice, a summer stipend for a public interest internship, and access to a built-in network of public interest law leaders in New York and beyond.

Then Fordham Law Dean John Feerick took this proposal to Louis Stein ’26, who was already at that time the main benefactor and namesake of the Stein Institute on Law and Ethics (later renamed the Stein Center for Law and Ethics). Stein, determined to make Fordham a legal ethics champion, gave Feerick his enthusiastic blessing. Months later, they conversed again about the forthcoming program. Green had received 17 “phenomenal” applications, Feerick told Stein. Again, Stein expressed his wholehearted support and agreed to fund their stipends.

From Green’s early vision and Feerick and Stein’s deep friendship, the Stein Scholars Program, 25 years later, has become a marquee attraction for Fordham Law students focused on public interest careers. Along the way, the program has also helped transform Fordham Law into an industry leader in the teaching of legal ethics.

The Stein Scholars community today includes more than 400 alumni who have excelled in government, nonprofit, and a broad scope of other public interest legal careers. At any given time, around 65 Stein Scholars are enrolled in Fordham Law School, with many holding leadership positions in the School’s vast array of student-directed public interest groups and within the Stein Scholars Program itself.

“The Stein Scholars often are the students leading the charge for public interest and pro bono work at the School,” said Dean Matthew Diller. “They form many of the student groups, they inspire their peers to get involved in important service work, and they organize events and host speakers on a wide array of critical justice-related issues. They live out the School’s service-oriented ethos.”

Fordham Law School keeps getting better and stronger all the time, but it rests on a foundation that goes back quite a long way. Lou Stein, with his extraordinary generosity, became an important builder of that foundation.
– John Feerick

Stein’s legacy, meanwhile, lives on through the program’s students and the work they do in the service of countless others. His name graces not only the center and the scholars program but also the Fordham-Stein Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in American legal education, as well as an endowed faculty chair, which Green holds. And visitors to the Law School cannot miss Stein’s name above the main entrance. Through the years, his daughters and his grandchildren have continued to be active in the Law School and to provide financial support for the Stein Scholars.

“Fordham Law School keeps getting better and stronger all the time, but it rests on a foundation that goes back quite a long way,” Feerick says. “Lou Stein, with his extraordinary generosity, became an important builder of that foundation. His family and what they created remains one of Fordham Law School’s anchors.”

In Good Graces

Stein’s desire to mold Fordham Law into an ethics powerhouse arose from the ashes of Watergate. The scandal not only resulted in the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974 but also led to indictments and prison time for numerous Nixon legal aides, including two Fordham Law alumni. Unsurprisingly, public opinion of the legal profession plummeted. In response to seeing his beloved profession sullied, Stein, then chairman and CEO of Food Fair Stores Inc., wanted Fordham Law to dedicate itself to service and ethics, says Feerick, who was a practicing lawyer and president of the dean’s alumni association when they met in the mid-1970s.

Just two years after Nixon’s resignation, Stein and Feerick collaborated on the creation of the Fordham-Stein Prize, an annual award given to a member of the legal profession whose work embodies the highest standards of the legal profession.

Feerick’s collaboration with Stein intensified when he became dean in 1982. Stein’s strong desire for Fordham to serve as an exemplar for legal ethics education in America resulted in the formation of the Stein Institute on Law and Ethics, first led by Professor Joseph Perillo, one of the nation’s foremost contracts law scholars, and then by the late Professor Mary Daly.

The first graduating class of Stein Scholars with Louis Stein and his wife, Bess, May 17, 1995.

Feerick often visited Stein at his homes in Florida and on the Jersey Shore, where Law School news dominated the conversation. On one such occasion, Feerick brought his young son to New Jersey to meet the businessman and philanthropist. Feerick’s son remarked to his dad that anytime Stein had something serious to say, a twinkle emerged in his eye.

“Lou Stein was like my grandfather,” Feerick recalls. “We got together a lot and talked about the programs we had. He was just so happy with everything going on at the School.”

Stein was “an extraordinarily moral and ethical” man who taught his children and grandchildren that if you earned a dollar, you should give away half, his granddaughter Sally Bellet ’76 says.

Stein was fortunate to find in Feerick a dean who was overwhelmingly responsive to his thoughts, visions, and recommendations, Bellet adds.

“To my grandfather, John Feerick was number one, and the same was true in reverse,” shares Bellet, who remains actively engaged with the Fordham-Stein Prize and the Stein Center. “They just had an understanding and an enthusiasm for new projects, new thoughts, new opportunities. It was beautiful to watch them together.”

Flourishing

The Stein Institute ensured that Fordham Law’s legal ethics faculty and educational offerings were second to none in the late 1980s. At the same time, the Law School’s students began to undertake public interest ventures on campus and around the city via the Fordham Community Service Project, Fordham Pro Bono Project, and Fordham Student Sponsored Fellowship. These efforts caught the attention of Green. He, along with Daly and fellow professor Russell Pearce, elected to use the income from the Stein Institute to support a public interest program for students.

“Lou Stein used to say he wanted his law school to be the center for ethics, the place to which the bar association came for assistance when dealing with ethics issues,” Green says. “We wanted to achieve his vision,” Green adds.

The original framework of the Stein Scholars Program included extracurricular work, roundtable discussions on public interest law and ethics, and a $3,000 summer stipend for students to work in a public interest setting in the summer after their first year of law school. Green created a brochure and mailed it out to newly admitted students the summer before they started law school. “The main thing was we were always looking for students who had a sincere commitment to doing public interest work,” Green says, noting he defined public interest and public service broadly to attract students from a wide range of nonprofit backgrounds, including government service.
“If I had any wisdom, I had the wisdom to listen to Bruce and move ahead with his idea,” Feerick reflects. Green, a former assistant U.S. attorney and clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, set himself apart from other professors for his commitment to the organized bar in addition to his teaching and scholarship, according to Feerick.

Feerick credits the faculty associated with the Stein Scholars in its early days—Green, Pearce, Daly, and Diller—for creating a place where students who sought leadership roles could be mentored and challenged. In return, Green states that Feerick, who served as dean until 2002, deserves major plaudits for championing the program from its infancy.

“Everything we’ve wanted to do that made sense was supported by John and his successors as dean,” Green says.

Today, the program accepts around 20 students each fall plus a few more in the spring. Stein’s contributions, along with the continued support of his daughters and grandchildren, enable Stein Scholars to receive a $4,500 stipend for the first summer. Students who work in public interest settings their second summer receive an additional $5,000.

Lou Stein used to say he wanted his law school to be the center for ethics, the place to which the bar association came for assistance when dealing with ethics issues. We wanted to achieve his vision.
– Bruce Green

Young Leaders

During their inaugural year, the Stein Scholars provided Green with a pleasant surprise: They weren’t shy about seeking out additional responsibility in shaping the program’s direction. In the ensuing years, Stein Scholars designed a governing structure with different committees overseen by the Stein Council, including two students from each class. Stein Scholars also design their own projects for their capstone course, the Advanced Seminar in Public Interest Lawyering, another example of their shared ownership of the program.

In addition, Stein Scholars took on a “disproportionate role in the Law School generally,” Green adds, proposing and leading numerous public interest groups within the Public Interest Resource Council, assuming prominent roles in other aspects of the School, and presenting programs open to the entire student body.

For instance, Stein Scholars organized public debates and then crafted a proposal on loan forgiveness that proved influential in the Law School’s decision to begin the Loan Forgiveness Program. They also initiated conversations on mandatory pro bono work by law school students some two decades before then-New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman instituted a pro bono requirement for law students seeking admission to the New York State Bar.

The first Stein Scholars
application brochure.

“We were training students to be leaders in their public interest community, and we hoped they would be leaders in the Law School,” Green says. “I don’t think we fully envisioned the level to which they would become student leaders.”

Udi Ofer ’01, the first Stein Council president, salutes Green, Diller, and Pearce for generating space for students to consider difficult questions while pursuing a public interest career, and for allowing them to decide what projects they wanted to take on and which events to hold.

“I think the three professors saw their role as facilitators, helping create a community and empower students,” says Ofer, the American Civil Liberties Union’s deputy national political director and a 2007 recipient of the Stein Scholars Program’s Distinguished Graduate Award. The program, as a whole, helps students “see the forest for the trees,” Ofer continues, when it comes to promoting a vision of how students can use their law degrees in the public interest.

Many Stein Scholars come to Fordham with a vision of what type of public interest law they want to enter, says PIRC Assistant Dean Tom Schoenherr. That vision is often enhanced through participation in student groups, he adds, noting that in any given year, half of Stein Scholars serve in leadership roles in PIRC’s 27 groups. For instance, the Education Law Collaborative, one of the newest student groups, features two Stein Scholars, Kathy Walter ’18 and Anthoula Vasiliou ’19, who connected as a student mentor and a student mentee.

“It’s not surprising when you have law students who have experience in community organizing and grassroots work that they would bring that experience, sensibility, and goals to the project,” says Stein Scholar alumna Dora Galacatos ’96, who serves as executive director of Fordham Law’s Feerick Center for Social Justice.

Community Bonds

Public interest can be an isolating track at law schools that place a heavier emphasis on corporate law. Past Stein Scholars say the community that Green once envisioned has come to fruition at Fordham Law, providing them a support structure in addition to top-notch ethics and public interest training.

During her initial week at Fordham Law, Wilson Kimball ’00 received a call from her brother that her sister-in-law had been diagnosed with stage 4 bone marrow cancer and had six months to live. Kimball was working full time in Gov. George Pataki’s office and going to law school at night. Her sister-in-law’s diagnosis unleashed not only a torrent of emotions but also doubts about whether she should stick with law school.

“The Stein community created this cocoon around me and literally helped me get through that whole horrible ordeal,” recalls Kimball, who now serves as Yonkers’ commissioner of planning and development.

While Kimball, a conservative, and Green often disagree politically, she describes him as an “amazing resource” who brings a deep understanding of ethics to the School and its students. “Ethics are ethics, law is law, and rules are rules,” she says, noting ethics, unlike political motivations, aren’t up for debate.

Stein Scholar Sergio Villaverde ’97 attended evening classes at Fordham Law while working full time with the New York Police Department. The program, he says, included him in the same discussions and functions as full-time students, and connected him to Fordham Law School—and the University in general. Substantive legal ethics discussions in the classroom provided him important knowledge for when he opened his own firm. In addition, his summer internship in local government in the Bronx offered an “invaluable,” hands-on experience with legislative process that improves people’s lives.

Rhonda Cunningham Holmes ’97 attended Fordham Law with the intent of giving back to her community, particularly in the area of criminal justice. The Stein Scholars Program introduced her to nuanced discussions in that area, as well as numerous other topics, including housing conditions and affordability issues, homelessness, and tenant rights. The program featured less competition between students and more collaboration on getting the job done to support the community with concrete legal services, she notes.

“That experience showed me a lot of different avenues and ways to give back to the community as a lawyer,” says Holmes, deputy director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee. “What it’s ultimately done is provide me a greater sense of urgency to provide that assistance and a greater compassion. It’s allowed me to understand better how we can assist the community.”

A Network of Leaders

Stein Scholars alumni are quick to note that the community they share at Fordham does not end when they graduate. Instead, it is a bond that strengthens over time—one that yields a formidable network. In recent years, graduates have played an increasing role in the program, visiting classes, participating as speakers in programs, and mentoring individual students through the Stein Alumni Networking Initiative.

Green cites the mentoring connection between Marni von Wilpert ’11 and David Knight ’03, a trial attorney with the Justice Department’s Disability Rights Section, as one example of the impact of the networking initiative. Knight mentored von Wilpert, who was awarded a two-year Skadden Fellowship to work at the Mississippi Center for Justice from 2011 to 2013. While there, von Wilpert established Mississippi’s first medical-legal partnership through a collaboration with the University of Mississippi’s Medical Center, providing free legal representation for people living with HIV/AIDS and faced with discrimination in housing, employment, and access to healthcare.

The Stein Scholars Program is not only instrumental in preparing students for careers through legal education and summer internships. Megan Essaheb ’11 says the myriad ways the Stein Scholars Program aided her career development, including practice interviews and networking events, could not be overstated.

“It was a rough market, but I had a lot of support from professors, particularly those affiliated with the Stein program,” says Essaheb, the assistant director for immigration and immigrant rights at Advancing Justice.

“People understand that when a Stein Scholar is applying for jobs, it signifies serious commitment to public interest work and serious training,” Green adds.

This serious commitment to public interest work is why there is “a natural affinity for other Steins” that stretches beyond graduating classes, Holmes says. She has hosted Steins when the Equal Justice Works Conference is held in Washington, D.C.

“I am extraordinarily proud to have been a Stein fellow,” Holmes says. “This program contributes greatly to making sure we use the gift of a legal education for the betterment of mankind. The notion I started with when I was thinking of going to law school was to do something for more than myself. I’ve been able to participate in the kind of work that promotes those values throughout my career.”

For Ofer, chance encounters with other Steins in New York City offer opportunities to reminisce.

“Here we are 16 years out of law school and we’re remembering the education we received together at Fordham,” Ofer says. “At the end of the day, it’s about community, friendships, and camaraderie.”

 

The 2017–2018 Stein Scholars

Twenty-five years into the Stein Scholars Program, Bellet says she would have expected the need for ethics training to diminish. Instead, she says its importance continues to grow. And with it, so does the legacy of her grandfather and the Stein Scholars Program.

Stein made an imprint on many of the early students in the program, including Villaverde. The former police officer turned lawyer notes that Stein “put his money where his mouth was with this program.” For instance, when he saw the space for students was unacceptable, he provided support for the first student lounge on the Lincoln Center campus. Villaverde has, in turn, tried to emulate Stein’s service ethic, maintaining a rank of commander in the Coast Guard Reserve and providing pro bono services for indigent litigants in the Bronx, in addition to operating his own practice.

“No matter where you are, you can still do good,” Villaverde says. “That’s something Lou Stein exemplified.”

To this day, Kimball takes more ethics programs than legally required. Ethics are more important than ever, she says, as is the Stein Scholars Program in addressing those questions and dilemmas.

“New York City and this whole area are so fortunate to have the Stein program, especially now,” Kimball adds. “We need this program more than ever.”

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After years of research and preparation, students in the Immigrant Rights Clinic have helped an African man secure asylum in the United States. The man had suffered punishment for his sexual orientation and faced threat of further persecution if forced to return to his home country of Chad.

The clinic’s work for the Chadian man began with a referral from Immigration Equality, the nation’s leading LGBTQ immigrant rights organization. The clinic swiftly assembled students to begin work on the case. Asylum cases, often tortuous, demand teams of students who can affirm a case’s viability, collect ample evidence, draft legal documents, and prepare the client for interviews.

Summer research assistants 3L Christopher Guerin and 2L Saul Schuster worked to keep application materials up-to-date. Guerin, who worked on the case in summer 2016, researched the current political climate in Chad and neighboring countries.

“I was sad to see how other countries view gay rights,” said Guerin, whose future plans include a career in corporate law and pro bono work in immigration, and who said the asylum victory was both a joy and relief. “I was very happy for him and for everyone who worked on the case.”

Schuster, who worked on the case the following summer, also researched evidence to help prove the client’s past persecution and risk of future punishment. Like Guerin, Schuster was moved by the man’s circumstances, noting his own conflicting emotions: When reading reports of the country’s treatment of LGBTQ people, Schuster was upset to learn how many people suffer torture under similar circumstances and thus eager to obtain evidence in the client’s defense. For Schuster, the work was also personal.

“I owe a duty to my legacy,” said Schuster, whose grandfather had survived the Holocaust and similarly sought refuge in the United States, and who plans to pursue a career in immigration law.

After receiving a government notification about the client’s scheduled asylum interview, students who worked most recently on the case had two weeks to prepare. Anne-Charlotte Lagrandcourt, an LL.M. student from France, served as translator during preparation interviews and for various documents.

“It was both a legal and a human experience,” said Lagrandcourt, whose past legal work includes translating for refugees in Baltimore, and whose future career will involve international human rights law.

The clinic team that prepared for the interview faced a number of last-minute challenges, including the need to change the affidavit during a preparation interview and to deal with an emotional conflict that arose with the client’s family. They also had to craft a persuasive cover letter to the immigration officers—a daunting task considering that, on the day of the interview, the document would serve as their only form of advocacy for the man.

According to 3L Andrea Rodriquez, the interview itself went smoothly given the time-consuming circumstances. While the demeanor of the interviewing officer was professional and the client was calm, confident, and focused, the entire process was a lengthy one: eight hours total in the asylum office, five of which were spent in the actual interview.

After the October interview, students anxiously awaited news for four months about their client’s future—hoping for the best but fearing the worst. When the good news came, they were ecstatic.

“It was such a relief,” said Rodriquez. “We’re all just so thrilled to have helped this wonderful human being.”

The Immigrant Rights Clinic allows students to represent clients from around the world in their fight to gain or maintain U.S. legal status. Students help clients win asylum, earn legal status independent from abusive partners, or keep their lawful permanent residences while plagued by criminal records. Learning about the often dismal conditions from which the clients seek refuge offers students a new perspective on their own lives.

“The clinic gives students the opportunity to be faced with the reality of what people experience for reasons that don’t make total sense to us as U.S. citizens,” said Gemma Solimene, the clinic’s director. She added that students also gain appreciation for the law and for their powerful legal education.

“I learned how rewarding it is to be a lawyer and change lives,” said Rodriquez. She said that, after learning the positive outcome, she cried for joy.

Anticipating the demands of a changing legal profession and deepening our commitment to service are two of the six objectives of the Law School’s strategic plan, Fordham Law Forward.

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“I’m a big believer in paying it forward,” said 3L Khasim Lockhart, a community-minded individual who, in all his professional activities, seeks to promote the success of black and diverse law students. In recognition of this dedication, Lockhart won the Chapter President of the Year award at the Northeast Black Law Students Association (NEBLSA) awards gala on Jan. 27. The gala celebrated the Northeast Region’s 31 law school chapters and the 50th anniversary of the National Black Law Students Association, an organization committed to increasing the number of culturally responsible black and minority attorneys who excel academically, succeed professionally, and positively impact the community.

“To be a leader means to make everyone feel they are leaders as well,” said Lockhart, who heads the Fordham Black Law Students Association (BLSA) and is associate editor of the Fordham Law Moot Court Program.

As president of BLSA, Lockhart strives to be the organization’s face by emulating prominent figures of the past and modeling an identity that befits the black law students of tomorrow. Lockhart stressed how, given the unique challenges and anxieties faced by students from diverse backgrounds, programs like BLSA are pivotal in helping such students cope and ultimately achieve their greatest potential.

Many of BLSA’s recent initiatives, which have included academic workshops and mentorship programs for 1L students, are tailored to empower the next generation of diverse Fordham lawyers. One such example is the Legal Empowerment and Academic Development (LEAD) program, which welcomed new and diverse students to panel discussions for three days last August. The students listened to helpful words from senior students and professors, who offered advice about smoothly transitioning into their legal education.

Lockhart also stressed the importance of mentoring diverse children and teenagers. He identified his own early role models: his mother, whom he commended for her underappreciated altruism, and his eighth grade teacher and current mentor, Dudley Irvin, whose guidance has been instrumental in challenging Lockhart to reach his potential. Seeking to inspire young people in a similar way, Lockhart and the other BLSA members often invite elementary and high school students to campus for daylong programs. This Friday, BLSA will welcome students from Lockhart’s former elementary school, P.S. 127. The students will partake in a tour, talk with law students, and listen to a panel discussion.

In the future, in addition to working for Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP, Lockhart aspires to start a mentorship program for young black and Latino students.

Above all, Lockhart expressed gratitude for his fellow BLSA members. “I’ve been blessed with an excellent board,” he said, describing his team members as go-getters who, in addition to the work they perform for BLSA, contribute to several law journals and have won various legal competitions. Together, they share a mission of empowering future diverse students to make a positive impact on the legal world and beyond.

“We represent black law students coming after us,” said Lockhart. “We all understand it’s bigger than us.”

Fostering a diverse and inclusive community is one of the six objectives of the Law School’s strategic plan, Fordham Law Forward.

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3L evening division student Michael Benison, a certified public accountant, has won second place in the 2018 Donald C. Alexander Tax Law Writing Competition, sponsored by the Federal Bar Association Section on Taxation and named in honor of a former Internal Revenue Service commissioner. Benison’s paper, “The Potential Implications of Marinello in Section 7212(a) Prosecutions,” addresses the current U.S. Supreme Court case Marinello v. United States, which will determine whether a person can be convicted for attempting to obstruct proper tax law administration if the person was unaware of a pending IRS investigation or proceeding.

Benison’s award, which includes a monetary prize, was presented at the FBA’s annual tax law conference in Washington, D.C. on March 9, where he received an honorary plaque and a complimentary, one-year membership with the FBA Section on Taxation. One of the panels at the conference, in fact, was devoted to the pending Marinello decision.

In his award-winning paper, Benison describes both the petitioner and respondent’s positions. Benison takes a minority stance on the Supreme Court case. While the majority of U.S. appeals courts has argued that conviction of the omnibus clause of Section 7212(a) does not require the defendant’s knowledge of a pending IRS investigation or proceeding, the Sixth Circuit rendered a dissenting judgment. It is with the Sixth Circuit that Benison agrees.

“The conviction should not be allowed if a defendant does not know that an IRS investigation is occurring,” said Benison, whose professional background includes over five years in public accounting specializing in real estate taxation.

In his paper, Benison argues that the Supreme Court’s ruling with the majority could result in an increased risk of prosecutorial overreach for vulnerable citizens who may not be aware of all of the intricacies of the internal revenue laws. Such a ruling, claims Benison, would necessitate safeguards to protect innocent taxpayers from being charged with a felony obstruction charge under the Section 7212(a) statute. According to Benison, anyone with incomplete records risks felony charges if the government can prove that the individual has satisfied the “corruptly” mens rea of the statute.

Benison observed how, recently, the government has wrought an increasing number of charges against people in violation of the statute.

“There have been more and more charges by the U.S. government,” said Benison, citing how a tax attorney/ former inactive certified public accountant was recently charged in the Southern District of New York. According to Benison, the increasing number of charges, along with the Supreme Court’s pending decision, makes his argument more urgent.

“It’s a hot topic to consider,” he said.

Benison’s paper was a product of his independent study with tax law Professor Jeffrey M. Colon. Benison said that the study helped both him and Colon consider unique legal issues to a complex area of the criminal tax code, and Benison urged his fellow classmates to pursue one-on-one research work with Fordham Law faculty.

“I suggest students do independent studies with their professors,” he said. “It’s an excellent way to examine novel legal issues with the School’s own outstanding experts.”

Increasing our scholarly impact is one of the six objectives of the Law School’s strategic plan, Fordham Law Forward.

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On April 24, the Fordham Law Historical Society will co-host with the Feerick Center for Social Justice an event on presidential succession, which will feature a discussion of the New York court system and its history. The Hon. Albert M. Rosenblatt, who served on the New York Court of Appeals for seven years before retiring in 2006, will deliver a lecture and former Dean John D. Feerick ’61, who assisted Congress in drafting the 25th Amendment in 1967, will discuss the issue of presidential succession.

Fordham’s Historical Society, the first of its kind among New York City law schools, formed following the push from the Historical Society of New York Courts to enhance legal history understanding among law students, said 2L Yena Hong, who helped establish the Law School’s society and write its bylaws with alumnus Christopher LaVigne ’09. Prior to attending Fordham, Hong worked as a paralegal at Lankler Siffert & Wohl LLP with LaVigne, a Historical Society of the New York Courts member.

“The Historical Society will help provide students context on why what we’re learning about the law is relevant today, and how it can progress in the future,” said Hong, who co-chairs the society with fellow 2L Kara Krakower.

The Historical Society previously co-organized an event with Fordham Law Women and the Fordham chapter of Black Law Students Association to attend a showing of the documentary Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbossed at the City Museum of New York on Jan. 24. The society also encourages students to attend events connected with the Historical Society of the New York Courts.

The Fordham Law Historical Society is hoping to collaborate with Fordham Law Women, Fordham Law Federalist Society, and Fordham’s American Constitution Society for Law and Policy next year in celebration of the 100th anniversary of woman attending Fordham Law, Hong said. Krakower is on the 100 years of Women at Fordham executive committee.

The connections between New York’s history and the legal world are not always obvious, Krakower said, such as the history of judges and courthouses or the events and movements key in the development of laws.

“We’re hoping to bring a historical perspective to some of the things we talk about in Law School, both at an individual level, profiling people in legal history, as well as New York legal history in general,” Krakower explained.

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Fordham Law’s Dispute Resolution Society seeks to wrap its spring campaign in victorious fashion this week when it participates in the American Bar Association’s 19th Annual National Representation in Mediation Competition in Washington, D.C.

The 2L team of Robert Beecher and Alexa Gomez will compete in the national finals, scheduled for this Wednesday and Thursday, among a field of eight regional winners. Fordham Law finished first in the regional it hosted on Feb. 24–25. 3L Tara Tegeleci coaches the team.

This year marks the sixth time in the past eight years Fordham has reached nationals. The Law School won the national title in 2011 and has reached the semifinals in 2007 and 2013.

Beecher and Gomez received their problems for the two preliminary rounds of nationals on Friday, March 23. Since then, the team has performed two 75-minute moots per day to prepare. In the process, Beecher, Gomez, and Tegeleci passed up their spring break plans for a shot at the national title.

“We both competed in sports growing up,” said Gomez, who played soccer, of herself and Beecher. “This is a whole new type of competition, but you’re still getting that thrill.”

“Any opportunity to win is a thrill,” agreed Beecher, who played basketball and swam as a youth.

A successful mediation team must take a collaborative approach, rather than an adversarial one, with its opponent, the teammates explained. Beecher and Gomez employ their opposing strengths when acting as clients—she acts as client in serious problems, he acts as client when more emotion is required. They also attributed their regional success to their ability to perform astute self-analysis, a 10-minute exercise following 75-minute rounds that counted toward the overall score.

Beecher and Gomez will receive their first place regional award this week during the national competition, which is held in conjunction with the ABA Section of Dispute Spring Conference.

“Hopefully we’ll be getting two trophies,” Beecher said with a smile.

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Fordham Law won the championship as well as the best brief award in the south region of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, held Feb. 21–24 in New Orleans. The team consisted of 2Ls Miyoshie Lamothe-Aime (captain), Lauren Gorab, Reece Pelley, and Tomas Barron.

Professor Maria L. Marcus, the team’s faculty coach, noted: “The competition problem was very complex, and ‘red herrings’ were scattered in it. While opposing teams became distracted by these irrelevant issues, Fordham’s team members avoided all the traps. Their level of preparation was magnificent.”

The competition case involved the fictional countries of the People’s Democratic Republic of Anduchenca and the Federal Republic of Rukaruku. Anduchenca had discovered off its coast an autonomous underwater vehicle from Rukaruku. The presence of this vehicle, along with Anduchenca’s possession of a submarine purporting to carry nuclear weapons, raised claims that international law had been breached. Rukaruku instituted international arbitration proceedings against Anduchenka.

Assuming the roles of representatives from the two countries, competitors engaged in dialogue and debate in order to reestablish peace. On Fordham’s team, Lamothe-Aime and Barron were agents for applicant Anduchenca, while Gorab and Pelley were agents for respondent Rukaruku. Though representing different countries, all four students worked together to achieve their collective team victory.

“The best part of our team is that we are all there to help each other,” said Gorab.

The team started their research last semester. Over winter break, they began writing briefs—or “memorials” as they are called at the international level. In mid-January, they commenced mooting.

“I was so fortunate to have these people on my team and not against me,” said Lamothe-Aime.

The team faced a range of challenges throughout the entire competition process. They had to make time for many hours of rigorous work within their already-busy schedules, and the necessary research was extensive. The team members were not without doubts.

“Constantly going back and second guessing yourself was stressful,” said Pelley, who also received an individual award for seventh-best oralist.

Despite the initial trepidation, their hard work paid off. During the competition, they spoke with confidence, even going so far as to correct a judge who misidentified an article number.

The team members also had support. They expressed gratitude for their bench team of fellow 2L students, and for their coaches, 3Ls Tina Milburn and Ashna Pai, who also served as student editor. The coaches, they said, played the pivotal roles of assisting with research strategies and boosting group morale.

“I’m very proud of us and glad to have shared this experience with my three teammates,” said Barron.

“We support each other inside and outside the moot court,” said Lamothe-Aime. “We don’t feel just like a team but also like a family.”

The team competed again during the first week of April in Washington, D.C. The final leg of the competition, which is the oldest and largest international moot court competition worldwide, brought together law students from 100 countries across the globe. Although the team members did not advance, they found the rounds a very exciting learning experience.

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Fordham Law’s Brendan Moore Trial Advocates, which contributed to the recent ranking of the School’s trial advocacy program as No. 12^th in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, won victories in several noteworthy competitions. Three teams advanced to semifinals; one team won second place; and one team’s member achieved a top defense advocacy award.

In the Florida State National Civil Mock Trial Competition, 3Ls Shaunna Lazzaro and Lawton Wakefield and 2Ls Mary Cate Simeone and Dmitri Gelfand won second place. The case argued was matter of civil racketeering, in which a plaintiff who suffered a car accident got caught up in a five-year-old scam. The team lost by a narrow margin, ultimately taking home silver, along with a $1000 check.

Matt Stein ’12, Shaunna Lazzaro ’18, Dmitri Gelfand ’19, Mary Cate Simeone ’19, Lawton Wakefield ’18, and Rishi Gupta ’13

“We were very proud of them,” said Matt Stein ’12, who co-coached the team with Rishi Gupta ’13. “They all exceeded expectations.”

Like the Florida team, all of the teams were coached by alumni who mentor students and share their expertise.

“We wanted it for them as much as they wanted it for us,” said 2L Leanne Fornelli of her coaches and teammates. Along with 2Ls Lauren Riddell, Daniel Humphrey, and Valerie Sakellaridis, Fornelli competed in the American Association for Justice Student Trial Advocacy Competition, New York Regional, under the coaching of Zachary Green ’14 and James Moore ’15. The team’s case involved a plaintiff who, after a car crash, sued the other driver’s doctor for failing to report his seizures. A testament to the team’s dedication and professionalism, Sakellaridis competed while suffering from the flu, winning both of her preliminary rounds. The team advanced to the semifinals.

The team of 2Ls Megi Belegu, Yena Hong, and Aishling Fitzpatrick, along with 3L Miranda Onnen, competed in the Capitol City Challenge hosted by American University’s Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. Their coaches were Gabriel Mendoza ’11 and Graham Amodeo ’13. Their case involved a contract dispute, in which a film producer sued an actor for leaving, though the defendant maintained she left because abusive conditions made the job intolerable. Belegu bested 95 other competitors to win Best Overall Defense Advocate.

Gabriel Mendoza ’11, Miranda Onnen ’18, Yena Hong ’19, Megi Belegu ’19, Aishling Fitzpatrick ’19, and Graham Amodeo ’13

At the Texas Young Lawyers Association National Trial Competition, New York Regional, 3Ls Elias Laris and Tom Sperber advanced to the semifinals. They were coached by Jeff Briem ’05, Brittany Russel ’13, and Mike Hardin ’14 for a civil case involving a man who was electrocuted while illegally collecting grain from a train car.

Tom Sperber ’18, Elias Laris ’18, Brittany Russell ’13, and Mike Hardin ’14

“Our coaches were such a help,” said Laris. “They took so much time out of their schedules to work with us.”

Finally, the team of 3Ls Christina Awad, Colette Carman, Elizabeth Moore, and Katherine Peluso competed in the ABA Criminal Justice Trial Competition, one of the most prestigious and selective trial competitions in the country, in Chicago. They were coached by Molly Gallivan ’01 and Kate Flatley ’15. Arguing a case that involved an apparent attempt to bomb a federal building, the team advanced to semifinals, narrowly losing a split-decision ballot by two points to the eventual champion of the tournament.

Christina Awad ’18, Colette Carman ’18, Kate Flatley ’15, Katherine Peluso ’18, Molly Gallivan ’01, and Elizabeth Moore ’18

“All four of the women were exceptional and such a pleasure to coach,” said Gallivan. “Their performance was a wonderful testament to the team’s talent, but also to Fordham’s trial advocacy program.”

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