Commencement 2008: Graduates Pledge to Serve the Public Good

From the Steinway Brass Quintet to the conferral of honorary degrees on noted human rights activist Dolly Filartiga and The Honorable Roderick L. Ireland, the Class of 2008 commencement exercises on May 18 drew applause, emotion and a deep sense of accomplishment for the 135 students of the 3L graduating class, their professors and the CUNY School of Law. Shirley Lung was honored as outstanding professor of the year; Margaret Krebs, who keeps the student cafeteria well-stocked and student spirits well-stoked, received an award for community service; and Frederick Brewington was the distinguished public service awardee.

Commencement speaker Juan Gonzales, columnist for the New York Daily News, also delivered inspiring remarks.

See videos of the speeches and read bios of participants, here.

PILA Holds 15th Awards Ceremony

The Public Interest Law Association held its 15th awards ceremony and auction on Friday, April 11 at Hunter College. Among the honorees for the evening was Bob Rose (Class of 1994), a supervising trial attorney at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. While a CUNY Law student, he co-founded the Mississippi Project, a student organization that sends students to the Delta region to provide legal services to indigent clients. He is pictured above with recent Mississippi Project law students. To see more photos from the event, visit this link: http://share.shutterfly.com.

Prof. Bratspies To Speak April 12 and Launch New Book

Prof. Rebecca Bratspies will speak at the American Society of International Law in Washington, D.C. on April 12 as part of a panel that is a launch of her new book, co-edited with Russell Miller, entitled Progress in International Law.

A description of the panel, “The Politics of Progress in International Law,” follows: The idea of progress has been offered to justify international law to the discipline's skeptics, and to position international law as an engine for change. Manley O. Hudson's 1932 book Progress in International Organization offered a defining articulation of this progress narrative. Drawing its cue from Hudson, the new book Progress in International Law and this related panel attempt a survey of the field of international law for our times, providing a benchmark for another generation's consideration of international law's progress. The panelists are the editors and some of the contributors to the book.

The panel will be moderated by Tom Farer of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

Panelists include:

• Betsy Baker, Vermont Law School
• Rebecca Bratspies, CUNY School of Law
• Florian Hoffmann, Law Department at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
  
• Alexandra Kemmerer, University of Würzburg
• Russell Miller, Washington & Lee University School of Law
• Abraham Sofaer, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University