The CUNY School of Law Foundation welcomed three new members during the past year, Muhammad U. Faridi ‘07, current student Yadira K. Hernández Pérez, and Joey Lipton. The Foundation is actively bringing on the next generation of leaders who add strengths and diversity to its ranks. Achieving the law school’s dual mission requires need-based and targeted scholarship support, programs to prepare students for public interest legal careers through internships, and dedicated time to prepare for the bar.
The pandemic magnified the need for the Law School to address food insecurity, mental health, and student emergencies. The 22-member board is poised to build a base of support for students from powerful groups subjected to intersecting oppressions and concentrate on a long-term strategy to best serve as stewards of the Law School and its mission.
Muhammad U. Faridi ‘07
Muhammad U. Faridi is a Partner in the Litigation Department at Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler.
He is a go-to litigator on complex commercial matters involving claims related to breaches of contract and commercial torts, and he recently secured a $2 billion jury verdict on behalf of an enterprise software company in a trade secret misappropriation trial in Virginia.
Outside of his firm, he serves the City and profession in a multiplicity of ways. In 2022, he was appointed to the New York City Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary. In 2021, he was elected to the American Law Institute, the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to modernize and improve the law.
He has also served as the Chair of the Executive Committee of the New York City Bar Association, as well as the Chair of its Committee on Capital Punishment. Patterson, Belknap has served as pro bono counsel to CUNY Law’s Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) on several matters.
He is the recipient of numerous awards. Muhammad teaches commercial litigation as an Adjunct Professor at Fordham University School of Law, and he has also written extensively on commercial litigation.
Muhammad received his BA from John Jay College in 2004 and his JD from the CUNY School of Law in 2007. He serves on the John Jay College Foundation Board. He is married to Leila J. (Nelson) Faridi ‘08 who served as an Associate at Paul Weiss before joining Cardozo School of Law as its Employer Outreach Coordinator.
“The CUNY system has been a leading engine for empowerment for people from my type of background. I am a product of the CUNY system. I received my undergraduate degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which is part of the CUNY system. So continuing to CUNY Law was natural for me.
There is no other law school that I wanted to attend more than CUNY Law. Its mission resonated with me. I wanted to give back to the community that I came from. And I thought—and still believe—that CUNY does a great job in equipping its graduates with the training necessary to do that.”
Yadira K. Hernández Pérez
J.D. Candidate, CUNY School of Law, June 2024
Student Director, CUNY School of Law Foundation
Yadira Hernández is a rising 2L CUNY School of Law Student with a bachelor’s in sociology with concentrations in both philosophy and labor studies from UCLA. She currently served as 1L Student Representative.
Yadira is an Indigenous immigrant from Puebla, Mexico. Yadira is a seasoned changemaker already, awarded the Change Agent Award for the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American High Education’s 2021 Social Justice and Equity Awards. This summer, Yadira is interning at the Chambers of the United States Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo, United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
As a UCLA alumna, she founded the Undocumented Alumni Association (UAA), the first of its kind, at UCLA in 2017. This organization advocates for and provides career opportunities to undocumented graduates.
She has served on several committees, including UCLA Alumni Board Nominations Committee and the UCLA Alumni Diversity Advisory Committee, to address campus climate issues that impact Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.
Yadira cites passions for critical race theory, immigration, criminal law, Indigenous rights, and human rights. In her own words.
“As an Indigenous woman living in poverty throughout my life, I lived and witnessed countless injustices that my community, family, and I experienced by the law.
“When accompanying my father to court, I noticed courts were inundated with people who look, speak, and are like me. Yet, I rarely saw an Indigenous lawyer, let alone a Woman of Color. I want to use my law degree as an advocacy tool to make structural changes, but in the meantime reduce the harm of punitive laws and policies and uplift people’s humanity and experiences in the courts and beyond.
“CUNY Law has provided me with the critical theoretical frameworks and zealous legal training to serve the community most impacted by the law. Also, the CUNY Law community is not afraid to name injustices and actively seeks to create the necessary tools for our collective liberation and healing through the fierce student advocacy that challenges the long histories of white supremacy.”
Joey Lipton
Joey Lipton is the head of the Cybersecurity and Global Security Legal Team at JPMorgan Chase.
He serves as counsel to the firm’s chief information security officer and chief security officer and manages a team responsible for providing advice and support to the firm’s security, cybersecurity, and technology controls programs.
Previously, Joey spent five years in JPMorgan Chase’s Legal Government Investigations and Regulatory Enforcement Group.
Joey also worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, mostly as a federal prosecutor in New York and Washington, D.C.
Joey holds a BA from Washington University and a JD from Chicago-Kent College of Law. He lives outside of New York City with his wife and two children.
Created in 1994, the Foundation provides support for CUNY Law students and advances the mission of the law school. For the year ending June 30, 2021, Foundation assets totaled $7.2M, and $1.9M supported our programming: student grants; clinics and projects operated by Main Street Legal Services; and centers, including the Sorensen Center for International Peace and Justice, designed to enrich and support the core mission of the law school. Denise A. Holzka ’96 serves as its Chair, and Elizabeth Dickinson serves as its Executive Director.