Seven CUNY Law faculty members facilitated or presented in dynamic sessions at this year’s all-virtual AALS Annual Meeting centered on the power of words.
Dean Mary Lu Bilek, Rebecca M. Bratspies, Ann M. Cammett, Eduardo R. Capulong, Andrea McArdle, Laura Mott, Yasmin Sokkar Harker, and Richard F. Storrow tackled themes of access, equity, community organizing, pedagogy, and lawyering against the backdrop of systemic oppression and white supremacy.
Professor Rebecca M. Bratspies
Founding Director of the Center for Urban Environmental Reform (CUER)
- “Section on Agricultural and Food Law: Law and Policy Measures to Achieve Equality in the Agricultural and Food System”
“Check out my talk if you are interested in how NYC is responding to its growing COVID-related hunger crisis and the role that mutual aid plays supplementing and amplifying government action. My co-panelists discuss how COVID reshaped factory farming, and how racist tropes shape food experiences.”
Class Description
The existing pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated existing inequities in the food system. This program highlights law and policy measures aimed at food system equality. The speakers for this panel will address a range of issues including the role American trade policy plays in supporting industrial and factory farming that promotes continued injustice and risk of disease; measures to slow line speeds and increase workplace protections for meat and poultry workers to reduce injury and illness; comprehensive measures targeted at race-based marketing to eliminate racial health disparities; and the role and promise of mutual aid societies in addressing food insecurity.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Moderator: Laurie J. Beyranevand, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School. Presenters: Sarah Berger Richardson, Assistant Professor, Univ. of Ottawa, Civil Law Section, Andrea Freeman, Professor of Law, University of Hawaii, William S. Richardson School of Law, Ernesto A. Hernández-Lopez, Professor of Law, Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law
- Section on Administrative Law, Co-Sponsored by Legislation and Law of the Political Process: New Voices in Administrative Law and Legislation
“I had the privilege of commenting on a fascinating work about ongoing energy injustice in Navajo land and how that situation made the population more vulnerable to COVID.”
Class Description
This program gives junior administrative law scholars and junior legislation scholars an opportunity to receive useful feedback on their work from senior reviewers before submitting the work for publication.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Mila Sohoni Professor University of San Diego School of Law (moderator) & Co-Moderator Jodi Short Associate Dean for Research and the Hon. Roger J. Traynor Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, along with over 40 other commentators and Works in Progress professionals.
Bio
Professor Rebecca Bratspies, an internationally recognized expert on environmental justice, the regulation of new agricultural technologies, and the human right to a healthy environment, teaches classes in property, climate change, environmental justice, administrative law, and environmental law. She has written scores of law review articles, op-eds, and other publications including four books. Her most recent book Environmental Justice: Law Policy and Regulation is used in schools across the country.
Her environmentally-themed comic books Mayah’s Lot and Bina’s Plant, made in collaboration with artist Charlie LaGreca-Velasco, have brought environmental literacy to a new generation of environmental leaders. Her current project involves helping students educate their families and communities about the importance of the census. To that end, she has recently published We All Count, as both a comic book and coloring book. Professor Bratspies holds a law degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.
Professor Ann M. Cammett
Professor Eduardo R. Capulong
Director of the Lawyering Program
- AALS Discussion Group: Race, Racism & the Language of Law School: Power of Words in Shaping Professional Identity
Professor Capulong’s Suggested Resource
Antiracism, Reflection, and Professional Identity, 18 HASTINGS RACE & POVERTY JOURNAL ___ (Fall 2020) (forthcoming)
Class Description
This discussion group explores the role of language in shaping legal professional identity and the ways in which law teachers can counteract the white normative language of law school. Drawing on the work of linguistic, ethics, professional identity, race, and other scholars, discussants examine our ethical obligation to promote antiracism; the limits of cross-cultural competence and diversity; the reproduction of race and racism through legal language; and concrete pedagogical changes and practices.
Co-Presenter(s)/Co-facilitator(s): Monte Mills- University of Montana Alexander Blewett III School of Law, Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director, Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic, Andrew King-Ries- Elizabeth Mertz- University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, Russell Pearce- Fordham University School of Law, Lucy Jewel- University of Tennessee School of Law, Rhonda Magee- University of San Francisco School of Law, Erin Lain- Drake University School of Law, Michalyn Steel- Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School, Jerry Organ- University of St. Thomas School of Law, David B. Wilkins- Harvard Law School, Lester Kissel Professor of Law
Bios
Professor Ann Cammett: Professor Ann Cammett directed the Family Law Practice Clinic from 2013 to 2017, until she assumed the position of Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, serving until 2021. She has also taught New York Domestic Relations Law, First-Year Lawyering Seminar, and Poverty Law & Social Change. She was named Outstanding Professor at CUNY School of Law in 2017. Her scholarship explores the intersectional legal issues of race, gender, poverty, mass criminalization, and the family. She is a recognized expert on the policy implications of incarcerated parents with child support arrears and other collateral consequences of criminal convictions.
Her work has been cited in two amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Turner v. Rogers, and excerpted for family law casebooks, articles, and other treatises, and twice cited in the Federal Register. Professor Cammett received her J.D. from CUNY School of Law and her LL.M. in Advocacy, with distinction, from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Professor Eduardo Capulong: Professor Capulong has taught seminars on race, racism, and law, and is co-author with Andrew King-Ries and Monte Mills of “Antiracism, Reflection, and Professional Identity,” 18 Hastings Race & Poverty L.J. 3 (2021), and “Race, Racism, and American Law from the Indigenous, Black, and Immigrant Perspectives,” 21 The Scholar: St. Mary’s L. Rev. on Race & Soc’l Justice 1 (2019). He directs the Lawyering Program at CUNY Law and taught previously at the University of Montana, NYU, and Stanford.
Professor Andrea McArdle
- Section on Academic Support and Real Estate Transactions Joint Program: The Changing Architecture of Legal Education: Real Estate Transactions as a Case Study
“Check this out if you are interested in why this is an apt moment to reconsider course and instructional design for Real Estate Transactions: the course bears the accumulated weight of Property Law’s long lineage, including a history of racially exclusionary policies and practices that must be addressed; it connects to the realms of legal doctrine, policy, and practice; and it implicates two distinct aspects of a skills-based curriculum: lawyering skills such as transactional drafting and academic skills, including close reading.”
Class Description
What knowledge and skills do legal employers expect and value in their new associates? How can we best incorporate these goals into curricular and course design? How can academic support resources be leveraged to accomplish these objectives? The Section on Real Estate Transactions and the Section on Academic Support seek to explore these questions and related issues at this joint session. Panelists will discuss law school curricular choices; course content and design; and teaching and pedagogy applications. In addition, all attendees will have the opportunity to collaborate and share ideas together.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Andrea J. Boyack Norman R. Pozez Chair in Business and Transactional Law and Professor of Law Washburn University School of Law, Speaker Joe Buffington Director of Bar Success; Assistant Professor Albany Law School, Commentator Jamie A. Kleppetsch Director of Bar Passage DePaul University College of Law, Speaker Call for Papers Robert Sein Director, Mattone Family Real Estate Institute St. John’s University School of Law, Speaker Call for Papers Karen J. Sneddon Professor of Law Mercer University School of Law
Professor McArdle’s Suggested Resource
Professor McArdle’s Slide Deck
Bio
Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law at City University of New York School of Law, takes an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and scholarship, holding law degrees and a Ph.D. in American Studies. She teaches property and real estate transactions courses with attention to academic and lawyering skills, and experiential seminars in urban land use and judicial rhetoric. Her articles and essays focus on housing, urban studies, climate governance, and community resilience, pedagogy, and the intersection of law and narrative, with special attention to issues of equity, access, and voice. She has co-edited and contributed to the anthologies Uniform Behavior: Police Localism and National Politics (Palgrave Macmillan 2006) and Zero Tolerance: Quality of Life and the New Police Brutality in New York City (NYU Press, 2001), reflecting her study of the community impacts of urban policing.
Professor Laura Mott
Director of Academic Support for the 1L Evening Program at CUNY School of Law
- Building Community Across Social Distance: Workshopping Ideas, Innovations, and Inspirations
“Check this out if you’re interested in ways law schools across the country have been creatively implementing programs to support student learning and community in the time of emergency remote instruction.”
Class Description
This was part of an afternoon-long set of presentations focused on the topic “Serving the Law Students of Today and Tomorrow”, a Joint Program of the AALS Section on Student Services and AALS Part-Time Division Programs.
Co-presenter(s)/Co-facilitator(s): AALS Sections on Academic Support, Balance in Legal Education, Minority Groups, and PreLegal Education and Admission to Law School
Bio
Laura is the Director of Academic Support for the 1L Evening Program at CUNY School of Law. Laura teaches Skills, 1L Lawyering, and has served as a bar mentor in CUNY’s Bar Support program since 2012. She has also taught legal writing and academic skills courses in the New York State Court System’s Legal Education Opportunity (LEO) Program, a summer program designed to prepare incoming law students from underserved communities.
She’s presented on best practices in designing academic support programs for part-time and evening students and on issues related to associated general evening curriculum design and execution. Laura’s developing environmental research uses various social justice lenses to propose better public participation and consultation processes for national and international environmental decision-making. Professor Mott holds a J.D. from CUNY School of Law, and an LL.M cum laude in Environmental Law from Pace Law.
Professor Yasmin Sokkar Harker
Law Library Professor
- AALS Open Source Program: Critical Legal Research: The Next Wave (A Panel Honoring Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic)
“If you are interested in Critical Legal Research and its relevance to contemporary issues, check out Nicholas Mignanelli’s: Critical Legal Research: Who Needs It? and Nicholas Stump’s Critical Legal Research and Contemporary Crises: Climate Change, COVID-19, and the Mass Black Lives Matter Uprising.”
Class Description
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic are two of the most prolific scholars in the field of Critical Race Theory. Lesser known is their impact on legal information and law librarianship. This panel is an opportunity to examine how their “triple helix dilemma,” the theory that traditional legal research tools replicate preexisting ideas and inhibit law reform, has given rise to a movement called “Critical Legal Research” and continues to influence the way legal research is studied, taught, and practiced.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Moderator Ronald E. Wheeler, Director of the Fineman and Pappas Law Libraries & Associate Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law, Speakers: Richard Delgado, John J. Sparkman Chair of Law, University of Alabama School of Law, Julie Krishnaswami, Head of Instruction, Yale Law School, Grace Lo, Reference Librarian, Lecturer in Law, Stanford Law School, Nicholas Mignanelli, Librarian Assistant Professor, Reference Librarian (Instructional Services), & Lecturer in Law, University of Miami School of Law, Jean Stefancic, Professor & Clement Research Affiliate, University of Alabama School of Law, Nicholas Stump, Coord., Legal Research and Instruction, West Virginia University College of Law
Bio
Yasmin Sokkar Harker is a Law Library Professor at CUNY Law. Prior to joining CUNY, she was a reference librarian at Hofstra School of Law. She has also held various positions in the legal publishing industry. Her research interests include legal research pedagogy, critical information literacy, legal research and social justice, and information access issues.
Her chapter on critical information literacy appeared in Information Literacy and Social Justice: Radical Professional Praxis (2013) and her article Legal Information for Social Justice: The New ACRL Framework and Critical Information Literacy was published in the Legal Information Review in 2017. Professor Sokkar Harker received her J.D. from Case Western Reserve University, and Master’s Degree in library and information studies from the University at Buffalo.
Professor Richard F. Storrow
- Section on Family and Juvenile Law: Opting In and Opting Out, Trapped In and Locked Out of Family Law
“This panel was eclectic, with two of us discussing the evolving law of parentage as it is applied to single individuals and couples who want to use assisted reproduction to have children. I revamped my earlier views on constitutional paternity rights to argue that in the case of known sperm donors states may define those rights restrictively, even if achieving legal paternity would require the sperm donor to enter into a written contract with the recipient.”
Class Description
Societal groups can both opt-in and out of family law systems or without choice be locked in or out. The welfare system may limit the choices of the poor to create their desired family structure and limit their choices through bureaucratic and administrative systems that enforce and enact exclusion, social control, and surveillance. In ART contracts, parties may seek parentage that statutory schemes would not require (e.g., sperm donors who seek parental rights) or be required to legally establish parentage for both same-sex married partners. Following the panel, small groups will discuss the panelists’ ideas in more depth.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Moderator: Nancy J. Soonpaa, Professor of Law; Dean Richard B. Amandes Senior Scholar in Legal Practice, Texas Tech University School of Law. Speakers: Victoria L. Chase, Clinical Associate Professor, Rutgers Law School, Jessica R. Feinberg, Professor, University of Maine School of Law, Ann E. Freedman, Associate Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School, Jill Hasday, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Centennial Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
- Section on Trusts and Estates: New Developments in Trusts and Estates
“I had my students in Wills, Trusts & Estates conduct mock will execution ceremonies using the new remote witnessing rules developed by many states to make estate planning possible during the pandemic. In my presentation, I described the difficulty of interpreting certain states’ hastily written remote witnessing regulations but theorized that the widespread use of remote witnessing during the pandemic will inspire legislatures to legalize electronic wills in the near future. “
Class Description
Trusts and estates law, which has a reputation for evolving slowly, has entered a period of flux. Interdisciplinary scholarship has brought critical, empirical, historical, and sociological lenses to bear on the field. Technology has raised questions about topics such as the probate process, the definition of “property,” and the formalities required to transmit property after death. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented new challenges for courts, litigants, fiduciaries, and estate planners. This panel will explore these and related developments.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Moderator: David O. Horton, Professor, University of California, Davis, School of Law, Speakers: Eric C. Chaffee, Distinguished University Professor, University of Toledo College of Law, Thomas P. Gallanis, Associate Dean for Research & Allan D. Vestal Chair in Law, University of Iowa College of Law, Victoria J. Haneman, Associate Professor of Law, Frank J. Kellegher Professor of Trusts & Estates, Creighton University School of Law
Bio
Richard Storrow teaches in the areas of family law, wills, trusts and estates, and property at the CUNY School of Law. He concentrates his research in the areas of reproductive justice, the interpretation of wills, and immigration. He is a past Fulbright Scholar to Spain and recently received a Mayoral Service Recognition Award from the City of New York for his pro bono representation of an unaccompanied minor in deportation proceedings.
Dean Mary Lu Bilek
- “The Future of Legal Education: Keeping (Making) Law School Affordable”
“In this closed session for law school deans, I was heartened to learn that many deans are concerned about the role that law school sticker price plays in creating an obstacle to even considering the profession for many of the students from communities historically and currently excluded from the profession.”
Class Description
We are generally living in an era of shrinking budgets, which creates temptations to raise tuition. At the same time, potential law students are doing a cost-benefit analysis regarding whether it makes financial sense to attend law school. What options do deans have with respect to keeping costs down? The considerations are different at public and private institutions, but the stressors are familiar to leaders of both types of institutions. What can deans do?
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Leonard M. Baynes, Dean and Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center
Bio
Dean Mary Lu Bilek has served as dean of CUNY School of Law since 2016. Under her leadership, the Law School has been named “the premier public interest law school in the country,” tops the list of “the most diverse law schools in the country,” and most recently was named the #2 law school in the country for Racial Justice.
Having joined the faculty shortly after the school opened, Bilek served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for three deans and is credited with leadership in moving the school to accreditation, developing and implementing CUNY Law’s innovative curriculum, spearheading programs that increased the diversity of the Law School and the profession, and supporting the development of programs to address the justice gap.
Before CUNY Law, Dean Bilek served as dean of the University of Massachusetts School of Law from 2012-2016, charged to lead the Commonwealth’s new public law school to accreditation. Named as one of the Most Influential People in Legal Education by National Jurist in 2016, Bilek graduated summa cum laude from St. Mary’s College and cum laude from Harvard Law School.
Seven CUNY Law faculty members facilitated or presented in dynamic sessions at this year’s all-virtual AALS Annual Meeting centered on the power of words.
Dean Mary Lu Bilek, Rebecca M. Bratspies, Ann M. Cammett, Eduardo R. Capulong, Andrea McArdle, Laura Mott, Yasmin Sokkar Harker, and Richard F. Storrow tackled themes of access, equity, community organizing, pedagogy, and lawyering against the backdrop of systemic oppression and white supremacy.
Professor Rebecca M. Bratspies
Founding Director of the Center for Urban Environmental Reform (CUER)
- “Section on Agricultural and Food Law: Law and Policy Measures to Achieve Equality in the Agricultural and Food System”
“Check out my talk if you are interested in how NYC is responding to its growing COVID-related hunger crisis and the role that mutual aid plays supplementing and amplifying government action. My co-panelists discuss how COVID reshaped factory farming, and how racist tropes shape food experiences.”
Class Description
The existing pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated existing inequities in the food system. This program highlights law and policy measures aimed at food system equality. The speakers for this panel will address a range of issues including the role American trade policy plays in supporting industrial and factory farming that promotes continued injustice and risk of disease; measures to slow line speeds and increase workplace protections for meat and poultry workers to reduce injury and illness; comprehensive measures targeted at race-based marketing to eliminate racial health disparities; and the role and promise of mutual aid societies in addressing food insecurity.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Moderator: Laurie J. Beyranevand, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School. Presenters: Sarah Berger Richardson, Assistant Professor, Univ. of Ottawa, Civil Law Section, Andrea Freeman, Professor of Law, University of Hawaii, William S. Richardson School of Law, Ernesto A. Hernández-Lopez, Professor of Law, Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law
- Section on Administrative Law, Co-Sponsored by Legislation and Law of the Political Process: New Voices in Administrative Law and Legislation
“I had the privilege of commenting on a fascinating work about ongoing energy injustice in Navajo land and how that situation made the population more vulnerable to COVID.”
Class Description
This program gives junior administrative law scholars and junior legislation scholars an opportunity to receive useful feedback on their work from senior reviewers before submitting the work for publication.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Mila Sohoni Professor University of San Diego School of Law (moderator) & Co-Moderator Jodi Short Associate Dean for Research and the Hon. Roger J. Traynor Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, along with over 40 other commentators and Works in Progress professionals.
Bio
Professor Rebecca Bratspies, an internationally recognized expert on environmental justice, the regulation of new agricultural technologies, and the human right to a healthy environment, teaches classes in property, climate change, environmental justice, administrative law, and environmental law. She has written scores of law review articles, op-eds, and other publications including four books. Her most recent book Environmental Justice: Law Policy and Regulation is used in schools across the country.
Her environmentally-themed comic books Mayah’s Lot and Bina’s Plant, made in collaboration with artist Charlie LaGreca-Velasco, have brought environmental literacy to a new generation of environmental leaders. Her current project involves helping students educate their families and communities about the importance of the census. To that end, she has recently published We All Count, as both a comic book and coloring book. Professor Bratspies holds a law degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.
Professor Ann M. Cammett
Professor Eduardo R. Capulong
Director of the Lawyering Program
- AALS Discussion Group: Race, Racism & the Language of Law School: Power of Words in Shaping Professional Identity
Professor Capulong’s Suggested Resource
Antiracism, Reflection, and Professional Identity, 18 HASTINGS RACE & POVERTY JOURNAL ___ (Fall 2020) (forthcoming)
Class Description
This discussion group explores the role of language in shaping legal professional identity and the ways in which law teachers can counteract the white normative language of law school. Drawing on the work of linguistic, ethics, professional identity, race, and other scholars, discussants examine our ethical obligation to promote antiracism; the limits of cross-cultural competence and diversity; the reproduction of race and racism through legal language; and concrete pedagogical changes and practices.
Co-Presenter(s)/Co-facilitator(s): Monte Mills- University of Montana Alexander Blewett III School of Law, Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director, Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic, Andrew King-Ries- Elizabeth Mertz- University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, Russell Pearce- Fordham University School of Law, Lucy Jewel- University of Tennessee School of Law, Rhonda Magee- University of San Francisco School of Law, Erin Lain- Drake University School of Law, Michalyn Steel- Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School, Jerry Organ- University of St. Thomas School of Law, David B. Wilkins- Harvard Law School, Lester Kissel Professor of Law
Bios
Professor Ann Cammett: Professor Ann Cammett directed the Family Law Practice Clinic from 2013 to 2017, until she assumed the position of Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, serving until 2021. She has also taught New York Domestic Relations Law, First-Year Lawyering Seminar, and Poverty Law & Social Change. She was named Outstanding Professor at CUNY School of Law in 2017. Her scholarship explores the intersectional legal issues of race, gender, poverty, mass criminalization, and the family. She is a recognized expert on the policy implications of incarcerated parents with child support arrears and other collateral consequences of criminal convictions.
Her work has been cited in two amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Turner v. Rogers, and excerpted for family law casebooks, articles, and other treatises, and twice cited in the Federal Register. Professor Cammett received her J.D. from CUNY School of Law and her LL.M. in Advocacy, with distinction, from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Professor Eduardo Capulong: Professor Capulong has taught seminars on race, racism, and law, and is co-author with Andrew King-Ries and Monte Mills of “Antiracism, Reflection, and Professional Identity,” 18 Hastings Race & Poverty L.J. 3 (2021), and “Race, Racism, and American Law from the Indigenous, Black, and Immigrant Perspectives,” 21 The Scholar: St. Mary’s L. Rev. on Race & Soc’l Justice 1 (2019). He directs the Lawyering Program at CUNY Law and taught previously at the University of Montana, NYU, and Stanford.
Professor Andrea McArdle
- Section on Academic Support and Real Estate Transactions Joint Program: The Changing Architecture of Legal Education: Real Estate Transactions as a Case Study
“Check this out if you are interested in why this is an apt moment to reconsider course and instructional design for Real Estate Transactions: the course bears the accumulated weight of Property Law’s long lineage, including a history of racially exclusionary policies and practices that must be addressed; it connects to the realms of legal doctrine, policy, and practice; and it implicates two distinct aspects of a skills-based curriculum: lawyering skills such as transactional drafting and academic skills, including close reading.”
Class Description
What knowledge and skills do legal employers expect and value in their new associates? How can we best incorporate these goals into curricular and course design? How can academic support resources be leveraged to accomplish these objectives? The Section on Real Estate Transactions and the Section on Academic Support seek to explore these questions and related issues at this joint session. Panelists will discuss law school curricular choices; course content and design; and teaching and pedagogy applications. In addition, all attendees will have the opportunity to collaborate and share ideas together.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Andrea J. Boyack Norman R. Pozez Chair in Business and Transactional Law and Professor of Law Washburn University School of Law, Speaker Joe Buffington Director of Bar Success; Assistant Professor Albany Law School, Commentator Jamie A. Kleppetsch Director of Bar Passage DePaul University College of Law, Speaker Call for Papers Robert Sein Director, Mattone Family Real Estate Institute St. John’s University School of Law, Speaker Call for Papers Karen J. Sneddon Professor of Law Mercer University School of Law
Professor McArdle’s Suggested Resource
Professor McArdle’s Slide Deck
Bio
Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law at City University of New York School of Law, takes an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and scholarship, holding law degrees and a Ph.D. in American Studies. She teaches property and real estate transactions courses with attention to academic and lawyering skills, and experiential seminars in urban land use and judicial rhetoric. Her articles and essays focus on housing, urban studies, climate governance, and community resilience, pedagogy, and the intersection of law and narrative, with special attention to issues of equity, access, and voice. She has co-edited and contributed to the anthologies Uniform Behavior: Police Localism and National Politics (Palgrave Macmillan 2006) and Zero Tolerance: Quality of Life and the New Police Brutality in New York City (NYU Press, 2001), reflecting her study of the community impacts of urban policing.
Professor Laura Mott
Director of Academic Support for the 1L Evening Program at CUNY School of Law
- Building Community Across Social Distance: Workshopping Ideas, Innovations, and Inspirations
“Check this out if you’re interested in ways law schools across the country have been creatively implementing programs to support student learning and community in the time of emergency remote instruction.”
Class Description
This was part of an afternoon-long set of presentations focused on the topic “Serving the Law Students of Today and Tomorrow”, a Joint Program of the AALS Section on Student Services and AALS Part-Time Division Programs.
Co-presenter(s)/Co-facilitator(s): AALS Sections on Academic Support, Balance in Legal Education, Minority Groups, and PreLegal Education and Admission to Law School
Bio
Laura is the Director of Academic Support for the 1L Evening Program at CUNY School of Law. Laura teaches Skills, 1L Lawyering, and has served as a bar mentor in CUNY’s Bar Support program since 2012. She has also taught legal writing and academic skills courses in the New York State Court System’s Legal Education Opportunity (LEO) Program, a summer program designed to prepare incoming law students from underserved communities.
She’s presented on best practices in designing academic support programs for part-time and evening students and on issues related to associated general evening curriculum design and execution. Laura’s developing environmental research uses various social justice lenses to propose better public participation and consultation processes for national and international environmental decision-making. Professor Mott holds a J.D. from CUNY School of Law, and an LL.M cum laude in Environmental Law from Pace Law.
Professor Yasmin Sokkar Harker
Law Library Professor
- AALS Open Source Program: Critical Legal Research: The Next Wave (A Panel Honoring Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic)
“If you are interested in Critical Legal Research and its relevance to contemporary issues, check out Nicholas Mignanelli’s: Critical Legal Research: Who Needs It? and Nicholas Stump’s Critical Legal Research and Contemporary Crises: Climate Change, COVID-19, and the Mass Black Lives Matter Uprising.”
Class Description
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic are two of the most prolific scholars in the field of Critical Race Theory. Lesser known is their impact on legal information and law librarianship. This panel is an opportunity to examine how their “triple helix dilemma,” the theory that traditional legal research tools replicate preexisting ideas and inhibit law reform, has given rise to a movement called “Critical Legal Research” and continues to influence the way legal research is studied, taught, and practiced.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Moderator Ronald E. Wheeler, Director of the Fineman and Pappas Law Libraries & Associate Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law, Speakers: Richard Delgado, John J. Sparkman Chair of Law, University of Alabama School of Law, Julie Krishnaswami, Head of Instruction, Yale Law School, Grace Lo, Reference Librarian, Lecturer in Law, Stanford Law School, Nicholas Mignanelli, Librarian Assistant Professor, Reference Librarian (Instructional Services), & Lecturer in Law, University of Miami School of Law, Jean Stefancic, Professor & Clement Research Affiliate, University of Alabama School of Law, Nicholas Stump, Coord., Legal Research and Instruction, West Virginia University College of Law
Bio
Yasmin Sokkar Harker is a Law Library Professor at CUNY Law. Prior to joining CUNY, she was a reference librarian at Hofstra School of Law. She has also held various positions in the legal publishing industry. Her research interests include legal research pedagogy, critical information literacy, legal research and social justice, and information access issues.
Her chapter on critical information literacy appeared in Information Literacy and Social Justice: Radical Professional Praxis (2013) and her article Legal Information for Social Justice: The New ACRL Framework and Critical Information Literacy was published in the Legal Information Review in 2017. Professor Sokkar Harker received her J.D. from Case Western Reserve University, and Master’s Degree in library and information studies from the University at Buffalo.
Professor Richard F. Storrow
- Section on Family and Juvenile Law: Opting In and Opting Out, Trapped In and Locked Out of Family Law
“This panel was eclectic, with two of us discussing the evolving law of parentage as it is applied to single individuals and couples who want to use assisted reproduction to have children. I revamped my earlier views on constitutional paternity rights to argue that in the case of known sperm donors states may define those rights restrictively, even if achieving legal paternity would require the sperm donor to enter into a written contract with the recipient.”
Class Description
Societal groups can both opt-in and out of family law systems or without choice be locked in or out. The welfare system may limit the choices of the poor to create their desired family structure and limit their choices through bureaucratic and administrative systems that enforce and enact exclusion, social control, and surveillance. In ART contracts, parties may seek parentage that statutory schemes would not require (e.g., sperm donors who seek parental rights) or be required to legally establish parentage for both same-sex married partners. Following the panel, small groups will discuss the panelists’ ideas in more depth.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Moderator: Nancy J. Soonpaa, Professor of Law; Dean Richard B. Amandes Senior Scholar in Legal Practice, Texas Tech University School of Law. Speakers: Victoria L. Chase, Clinical Associate Professor, Rutgers Law School, Jessica R. Feinberg, Professor, University of Maine School of Law, Ann E. Freedman, Associate Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School, Jill Hasday, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Centennial Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
- Section on Trusts and Estates: New Developments in Trusts and Estates
“I had my students in Wills, Trusts & Estates conduct mock will execution ceremonies using the new remote witnessing rules developed by many states to make estate planning possible during the pandemic. In my presentation, I described the difficulty of interpreting certain states’ hastily written remote witnessing regulations but theorized that the widespread use of remote witnessing during the pandemic will inspire legislatures to legalize electronic wills in the near future. “
Class Description
Trusts and estates law, which has a reputation for evolving slowly, has entered a period of flux. Interdisciplinary scholarship has brought critical, empirical, historical, and sociological lenses to bear on the field. Technology has raised questions about topics such as the probate process, the definition of “property,” and the formalities required to transmit property after death. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented new challenges for courts, litigants, fiduciaries, and estate planners. This panel will explore these and related developments.
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Moderator: David O. Horton, Professor, University of California, Davis, School of Law, Speakers: Eric C. Chaffee, Distinguished University Professor, University of Toledo College of Law, Thomas P. Gallanis, Associate Dean for Research & Allan D. Vestal Chair in Law, University of Iowa College of Law, Victoria J. Haneman, Associate Professor of Law, Frank J. Kellegher Professor of Trusts & Estates, Creighton University School of Law
Bio
Richard Storrow teaches in the areas of family law, wills, trusts and estates, and property at the CUNY School of Law. He concentrates his research in the areas of reproductive justice, the interpretation of wills, and immigration. He is a past Fulbright Scholar to Spain and recently received a Mayoral Service Recognition Award from the City of New York for his pro bono representation of an unaccompanied minor in deportation proceedings.
Dean Mary Lu Bilek
- “The Future of Legal Education: Keeping (Making) Law School Affordable”
“In this closed session for law school deans, I was heartened to learn that many deans are concerned about the role that law school sticker price plays in creating an obstacle to even considering the profession for many of the students from communities historically and currently excluded from the profession.”
Class Description
We are generally living in an era of shrinking budgets, which creates temptations to raise tuition. At the same time, potential law students are doing a cost-benefit analysis regarding whether it makes financial sense to attend law school. What options do deans have with respect to keeping costs down? The considerations are different at public and private institutions, but the stressors are familiar to leaders of both types of institutions. What can deans do?
Co-presenter(s)/facilitator(s): Leonard M. Baynes, Dean and Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center
Bio
Dean Mary Lu Bilek has served as dean of CUNY School of Law since 2016. Under her leadership, the Law School has been named “the premier public interest law school in the country,” tops the list of “the most diverse law schools in the country,” and most recently was named the #2 law school in the country for Racial Justice.
Having joined the faculty shortly after the school opened, Bilek served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for three deans and is credited with leadership in moving the school to accreditation, developing and implementing CUNY Law’s innovative curriculum, spearheading programs that increased the diversity of the Law School and the profession, and supporting the development of programs to address the justice gap.
Before CUNY Law, Dean Bilek served as dean of the University of Massachusetts School of Law from 2012-2016, charged to lead the Commonwealth’s new public law school to accreditation. Named as one of the Most Influential People in Legal Education by National Jurist in 2016, Bilek graduated summa cum laude from St. Mary’s College and cum laude from Harvard Law School.