CUNY Law Receives Membership in AALS

CUNY School of Law on Jan. 3 received membership in the Association of American Law Schools at the organization’s annual meeting in New York City.

CUNY Law joins roughly 160 other law schools that have attained membership standing with AALS. “CUNY Law’s membership in the AALS, which is the society of learned legal scholars, is strong validation of our commitment to research and writing that advances social justice for communities in need,” Dean Michelle J. Anderson said.

To attain AALS membership standing, a school is subjected to rigorous review of all aspects of its program, including admissions, academics, finances and other matters, according to AALS executives.

The AALS is a resource for the improvement of the quality of legal education by networking law school faculty, professional staff and deans to information and resources. It is heralded as a learned society of scholars.

It is the principal representative of legal education to the federal government, other national higher education organizations, learned societies and international law schools.

CUNY Law Invited to Join Prestigious Panel on Curricula

CUNY School of Law has been selected to join an elite group of law schools to make recommendations on the future of law school curricula.

For more see the following articles:
Training Law Students for Real-Life Careers, The New York Times (10/31/07).
Law Schools: A Fresh Look at Legal Education, The National Law Journal (10/29/07).

Carnegie Foundation Praises CUNY Law

A major report from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching proposes that law schools include a much stronger emphasis on teaching practical lawyering skills, along with legal doctrine and ethical concerns.

CUNY School of Law is one of a very small group of law schools praised in the Carnegie report for having achieved this balance in its innovative curriculum.

Not only is practical lawyering integrated into the CUNY curriculum from the beginning of the first-year, CUNY is also unusual in requiring that every third-year student include a clinical experience. This comprehensive lawyering approach has earned CUNY consistent recognition as one of the nation's top five clinical programs.

Professor Burton Authors Book Chapter on Judge Fritz Alexander II

Associate Professor Angela Burton has authored a chapter on the late Judge Fritz Alexander, II, for the book Judges of the New York Court of Appeals: A Biographical History, edited by the Hon. Albert M. Rosenblatt (Fordham University Press, 2007).

The first of its kind, the book features original biographies of 106 chief and associate judges, other important Court figures, hundreds of illustrations, full case citations, bibliographies, and a listing of judges’ progeny. According to Fordham Press, the book “fills a major gap in the literature that will be a resource not only for the New York legal community but also for scholars, students, and practitioners of the law around the country.” Noting the influential role that the New York Court of Appeals and its judges have played in shaping American law, Fordham Press observed that “this important reference work finally provides a comprehensive, authoritative guide to 160 years of this important legal legacy.”

Each entry features a full personal and professional biography, and concise coverage of landmark cases, key opinions, and a detailed context for understanding the legacy of each jurist. The entries range in length from concise portraits to extended discussions of such leading figures as Benjamin Cardozo and Irving Lehman, from the Court's first term under Chief Judge Freeborn G. Jewitt to the current term under Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye.

First Black on Court of Appeals

Judge Alexander, the first black American to be appointed to a full 14-year term on the Court, was nominated to the position by former Gov. Mario Cuomo. He served from 1985 to 1992, when he stepped down from the bench to work in the mayoral administration of his former law partner, David N. Dinkins.

Professor Burton became intrigued by Judge Alexander long before she wrote the chapter, one of the most extensive in the new book. Burton clerked for Alexander during the Court’s 1991-1992 term, after graduating from New York University School of Law. A primary reason for her decision to apply for a clerkship with Judge Alexander was that he, too, had graduated from NYU Law. According to Burton, the opportunity to work with an African-American judge in New York who was also a fellow NYU Law alum and a member of the state’s highest court “was, quite frankly, a dream come true – a dream that I hadn’t ever even contemplated.” The clerkship, Burton’s first post-law school job, provided her, she said, “an excellent opportunity to hone my research, writing, and analytic skills, and was a fantastic introduction to law practice from the other side of the bench.” She added, “I'll always cherish the experience of working with Judge Alexander, who taught me so much about clear legal thinking and writing.”

Both as she worked for the jurist and later, as she continued her work for the book, Professor Burton uncovered a number of interesting details about the judge. Like her, for instance, Alexander graduated from high school at the tender age of 16 and started college immediately thereafter. “We were both nerds at an early age,” Burton said.

She learned that Alexander was one of only four black students in his college class (the class that started at Dartmouth College in 1944). At Dartmouth, he was on the football and wrestling teams, was a member of student government, and wrote for the college's student newspaper. For an article for The Dartmouth in 1948, Alexander interviewed Duke Ellington and wrote an article about Ellington's upcoming performance on campus. The piece was called "Duke Promises Variety of Selections Tomorrow Night."

Member of “Secret” Fraternity

Burton said she was also interested, though not altogether surprised, to find that Alexander was a member of Sigma Phi Pi, the oldest black Greek letter fraternity in the country. This once “secret” fraternity, also known as “the Boule”, was founded by W.E.B. DuBois; its members have included such influential African-American men as Ralph Bunche, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bill Cosby, Judge A. Leon Higginbotham (for whom Burton was a research assistant as a law student at NYU), Jesse Jackson, Dinkins and others.

Burton’s research and writing for her chapter of the book took place over the course of about nine months and was completed while she was on leave from the CUNY School of Law during the Fall of 2005. For Burton, the project brought back fond memories of her time with the judge, who died in 2000, and deepened her appreciation of the magnitude of his accomplishments. “All in all, it was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the judge, who was not only my employer, but a great mentor and role model as well, and, in this small but important way, to memorialize his legacy,” she said.

Prof. Jenny Rivera Appointed Special Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights

On December 19th, Attorney General-elect Andrew Cuomo and his Transition Committee announced the names of the four attorneys who will serve on his newly formed "dream team." CUNY School of Law Prof. Jenny Rivera was named as Special Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights.

Prof. Rivera will be joined by Robin Baker as Executive Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice, Eric Corngold as Executive Deputy Attorney General for Economic Justice, and Mylan Denerstein as Executive Deputy Attorney General for Social Justice.

Prof. Rivera, a member of the CUNY School of Law faculty since 1997, holds an A.B from Princeton University, a J.D. from New York University School of Law and an LL.M from Columbia School of Law.

A legal expert in civil rights and former administrative law judge in the New York Division of Human Rights, Prof. Rivera currently serves on the New York City Commission on Human Rights. She has published many articles on civil rights, domestic violence and women's rights issues in a variety of journals such as the Columbia Journal of Gender & Law and the Fordham Urban Law Journal.

In the Latino community, Prof. Rivera has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Puerto Rican Bar Association's Flor De Maga Award in recognition of her work on women's rights.

Prof. Rivera will be taking a leave of absence from the law school beginning in January 2007 when she assumes her new position.

Immigration Clinic Students Featured in New York Law Journal

The work of Immigration and Refugee Rights 3L Clinic students Andrea Siebert Llera and Laura Perez in finding attorneys for detainees in the Long Island Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids was the featured back-page story in the New York Law Journal on Friday, Nov. 9. The piece, by Thomas Adcock, starts on the back page of the Journal and jumps inside. It includes photos of the students and Clinic directors Sameer Ashar and Alizabeth Newman. The students also have been contacted by The New York Times and Newsday about their work in tracking down lawyers for more than 15 detainees and in maintaining contact with detainees’ families. Those newspapers, in fact, have wanted to tap directly into the work of CUNY School of Law students. Click here to see a Web version of the New York Law Journal story.

3Ls Place Second in ABA Trial Advocacy Competition

The team of third-year CUNY Law students Christine Back, Andrew Barnes, Leila Nelson and Biana Savkin placed second in the ABA Section on Labor and Employment New York Regional Employment Trial Competition held at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York over the weekend of Nov. Nov. 17-18, 2007.

Ten teams from New York area law schools, including Hofstra and Rutgers universities, competed. The Brooklyn Law School team won the jury verdict in the finals in a 2-1 decision. U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck presided over the trial with three lawyer evaluators (the jury) and an additional commentator.

The students received comprehensive feedback on their performances.

“CUNY Law School’s student ‘lawyers’ were terrific over the two-day competition,” said Professor Merrick Rossein, in whose trial advocacy seminar the students participated last year.

Each pair of students conducted two trials over the weekend, with one team representing a plaintiff, and the other a defendant employer. The opening and closing statements, the motions in limine (motions to the judge in chambers before trial), the objections, and the direct and cross-examinations were executed with “amazing professionalism and skill,” Rossein said. “The students put in a tremendous amount of work over the last month and worked very collaboratively.”

The claim in the case was that an employer discriminated against a born-again Christian because of his religion. The employer said it fired the man because he harassed people of other religious faiths as well as a lesbian woman. In addition, the employer said that the man was insubordinate and violated work rules.

CUNY Law alums Jennifer Hope, Mohammad Faridi, and William Sanyer provided critical support and feedback to the students during their preparation for the event, Rossein said.

CUNY Law School teams have been finalists for each of the last two years. Last year, the team won the event. To become a finalist means that a team progresses through preliminary rounds to vie for first or second place.

CUNY Central Features Ruthann Robson in New Article

CUNY Distinguished Professor Ruthann Robson is the subject of a new article on the CUNY Central Web site devoted to distinguished professors. The piece focuses on Professor Robson’s fiction and non-fiction works and on her philosophies as an expert in lesbian and gay jurisprudence as well as pedagogy. View the article on the CUNY website.

To see a list of all distinguished professors, and read profiles of many of them, visit the CUNY Distinguished Professors page.

Dean Gomez-Velez Featured in Puerto Rican Bar Association Newsletter

Associate Dean Natalie Gomez-Velez is the featured personal profile in the Nov. 7, 2007 newsletter of the Puerto Rican Bar Association (PRBA). The story hinges on the dean’s recent appointment in academic affairs at CUNY Law and explores her journey to become a lawyer and a dean. “I hated my first semester as a student at NYU Law School and I almost quit,” Dean Gomez-Velez told the newsletter. “There was a lot of pressure to pursue a career in corporate law and I realized that my passion was not there.” She said she survived with the help of peanut butter sandwiches and the encouragement of friends in the Puerto Rican Bar Association, graduating from NYU Law in 1989. She also discusses her passion for the CUNY Law mission of training lawyers to serve in the public interest.

The PRBA has grown from a handful of attorneys since its 1957 founding to more than 500 members representing the interests of attorneys, judges, law professors and students of Latino descent.

To read the article on the Dean (on page 3 of the newsletter), click here.

To read more about the Dean on the CUNY Law Web site, click here.

Princeton Review Ranks CUNY Law Near Top for Faculty Diversity

The Princeton Review, publisher of test preparatory books and college and graduate school ranking guides, has again placed CUNY School of Law highly in two critical categories: faculty diversity, for which the school placed fourth, and most welcoming of older students, for which it placed first.

The rankings are included in the 2008 edition of Top 170 Law Schools, a guidebook (Random House/Princeton Review, $22.95) based on feedback from 18,000 students. The 80-question survey asks students about their school's academics, student body and campus life, themselves, and their career plans.

Like its guidebook ranking business schools, the law school compendium has 11 ranking lists of top 10 schools in various categories from "Best Professors" to "Best Career Prospects."

The Princeton Review has posted the ranking lists and information on how they are compiled at www.PrincetonReview.com where the lists can be searched by school or by category. Other ranking categories report the top 10 schools with the best professors, the most conservative or most liberal student bodies, and the greatest opportunities for minority students.

Said Robert Franek, vice president and publisher of The Princeton Review, "We compile our ranking lists in multiple categories based on what students report to us about their schools to help applicants decide which of these academically outstanding schools is best for them." The schools in The Princeton Review guidebooks are not ranked academically nor are they ranked hierarchically in any single category.

Professor Bilek Named Fellow on Teaching Ethics and Professionalism

Professor Mary Lu Bilek has been named a 2007 Fellow of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism (NIFTEP). The institute was established in 2005 as a consortium of five nationally-recognized centers on ethics and professionalism:

• The Louis Stein Center for Law & Ethics at Fordham University
• The Mercer University School of Law Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism
• The Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough Center on Professionalism at the University of South Carolina
• The Stanford Center on Ethics
• The W. Lee Burge Endowment for Law & Ethics at Georgia State University
  

NIFTEP conducts annual workshops that bring together leading academics and practitioners involved in promoting the teaching of ethics and professionalism. NIFTEP is also sponsored by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Professionalism and the Georgia Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism.

Professor Bilek applied for the fellowship several months ago. The fellowship work, which will take place over a weekend, is an opportunity for exchange among thoughtful academics and practitioners whose focus is on professional responsibility, Bilek said. The fellowship, she added, “gives me the opportunity to refine and develop ideas about the teaching of professionalism and the nurturing of professional habits and values that can be integrated into our program.”

The professor also was one of 55 educators who participated in a conference, “Legal Education at the Crossroads,” from Nov. 2 thru Nov. 4, 2007 hosted by the University of South Carolina School of Law in Columbia.

This invitation-only conference was designed by Professor Roy Stuckey, lead author of the Clinical Legal Education Association's study, “Best Practices for Legal Education,” and Judith Welch Wegner, Burton Craige Professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law and co-author of the Carnegie Foundation lawyer education study.

Their goal is to bring together inspired leaders from across the range of legal educators in order to explore the possibilities for reform incorporated into these two studies, and to consider fresh forms of peer collaboration that might enhance individual institutions' own efforts to engage in innovative, high-quality education.

Alum Paula Bosco Named Rising Star in Compliance Field

Paula Bosco, (CUNY Law ’2000), 34, has been named one of 20 Rising Stars of Compliance by Institutional Investor, a heralded magazine in the business world.

In its 2nd annual Rising Stars of Compliance article, dated Oct. 22, 2007, the magazine presents up-and-coming professionals from various fields of regulatory compliance whose skills, dedication, and industry and academic participation are likely to have an impact on securities compliance.

Bosco, who earned a B.A. in political science at State University of New York and an M.B.A. in finance at Pace University, is the chief investment advisory compliance officer for Lehman Brothers in New York City. She is the only “rising star” who holds both a J.D. and an M.B.A., the magazine said in a press release.

She oversees advisory activities within the private investment management compliance department, which consists of 10 compliance officers. She is in charge of meeting SEC compliance program requirements, including conducting annual compliance reviews. She joined the firm in July 2007.

“In compliance, we struggle with the sometimes competing visions of those we serve, such as our business clients, compliance and legal department colleagues, and external regulators,” Bosco told Institutional Investor. “Creating sustainable partnerships with these groups allows me to understand, interpret and communicate their visions. It also allows me to act as a catalyst for change.”

Nominees come from a variety of financial services firms—large and small—across the United States and the United Kingdom and represent alternative investment managers, clearing firms, institutional and retail broker-dealers, investment advisory firms, and mutual fund companies. The nominees’ specializations include anti-money laundering, audit, financial crime, information technology, international regulation, and risk management.

Other noteworthy points about the 20 “Rising Stars”:

• 55% have a J.D. and 20% have an M.B.A. (including one who has both);
• 50% are chief compliance officers;
• 50% work at investment management firms, including hedge funds and mutual funds, or are in charge of investment management compliance exclusively at a dually-registered broker-dealer;
• 50% work in New York City; 10% in London and 10% in San Francisco;
• 25% of nominees have been employed by self-regulatory organizations or the Securities and Exchange Commission, including a former assistant district attorney;
• 25% are women;
• 10% are fixed-income compliance officers;
• The average age of nominees is 35 (the youngest being 29 and the eldest being 40).

Nominees are solicited from industry peers and honorees are selected by the editorial staff. The “stars” are 40 years old or younger, show a consistent career record and a dedication to promoting and protecting the industry via the work performed in their firms or with regulators and other trade groups, the magazine said.

View an online version of the article here: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ii/20rs-compliance07/index.php

You can turn the pages of the online magazine in the bottom-right corner. Click on an article and it will enlarge or reduce automatically.

Professor Rossein Quoted and Cited on Work in Employment Law

Professor Rick Rossein’s treatise, Merrick T. Rossein, 2 Employment Discrimination Law And Litigation (2007 ed.) was cited by two federal court decisions (Fifth Circuit and Southern District of Mississippi.) published in September, 2007. The Fifth Circuit decision, Palasota v. Haggar Clothing Co., --- F.3d ----, 2007 WL 2503997 (5th Cir. Sept. 6, 2007), cited the treatise multiple times, both in the text and footnotes. The case involved issues of damages and cited Professor Rossein’s work on the commencement of liability and the continuing violation theory, which allows civil rights litigants in certain instances to introduce evidence outside the statutory time limit.

The case in the Southern District of Mississippi is Durham v. Advance Stores Co., Inc., Slip Copy, 2007 WL 2903206 S.D.Miss., Sept. 30, 2007. The text of the decision cited the Professor’s treatise in a motion to dismiss or, alternatively, for appropriate sanctions where there were allegations that plaintiff's counsel directly violated Rule 4.2 of the Mississippi Rules of Professional Conduct by communicating with two former store managers of the defendant employer without the consent of defense counsel.

Meanwhile, Professor Rossein was quoted Oct. 5, 2007 in Employment Law360, a daily news service distributed to more than 20,000 legal professionals, on the settlement of an age discrimination suit affecting 32 former partners at the intercontinental law firm, Sidley Austin LLP, which has more than 1,700 lawyers in 16 offices on four continents. The lawyers argued that they had been forced to retire or were otherwise dismissed because of their age. Professor Rossein said that the law firm’s admission that it had improperly categorized the status of the partners as owners who were not protected by Age Discrimination Employment Act provisions might lead to future litigation at other firms.

Professor Rossein on Oct. 15, 2007 also was quoted in an article in The New York Post, “Taking a Chance on Love-Rethinking Office Romance.” Rossein told the newspaper, in an extensive story, that his advice to companies is to issue a strong prohibition against sexual harassment and provide "strong, interactive" training during which employees can discuss their feelings about being approached for dates, and how to clearly say no.

The Professor has been busy on television, too. He appeared live on Oct. 3, 2007 on “Fox and Friends” discussing the Isaiah Thomas/Madison Square Garden jury verdict, explaining what is unlawful harassment and retaliation.

He also was quoted by ABC News on Sept. 21, 2007 concerning the lawsuit by Dan Rather against CBS News.