A group of Fordham Law students participating in the Federal Litigation Clinic claimed a recent victory when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in their favor in a discrimination case.

The clinic’s client had previously brought a Fair Housing Act pregnancy discrimination claim in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, which had been dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim.

The Second Circuit Court vacated this part of the prior judgment and permitted re-pleading before the Eastern District Court. In a footnote to the summary order, the Second Circuit judges wrote, “We commend the Fordham Law School clinic for its fine advocacy in this case and believe it would be beneficial for counsel to continue representing Palmer at the district court level.”

3L Jessica Engle was responsible for arguing the case before the Second Circuit Court on October 10. “Our main argument was that even though the complaints were inarticulate and confusing, they still presented sufficient facts to survive a motion to dismiss if you took the time to parse them,” Engle said. “A lot of our argument consisted of taking the judges through the facts that were in the record and demonstrating how they interacted with each other to raise a plausible, minimal inference of discrimination sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.”

Engle credits the countless hours of preparation from the entire clinic team—the Fordham professors, students, and alumni involved—with helping her put forth an impressive showing in court.

“Nervousness suddenly hit me as I walked up to the podium,” she said, “but once I took a breath and started my argument I felt very focused and confident. My team had done a great job of helping me prepare, so I knew exactly what I wanted to say in response to each question I received.”

That team consisted of Professors Michael W. Martin and Ian Weinstein, the supervising attorneys of the clinic, as well as a group of students and recent graduates: Katherine Wentworth-Ping ’18, Anita Carrol ’18, and 3L David Lacker worked on the main brief for the case last spring; 2Ls Doug Bresnick, Joanna Heinz, and Natalie Hoehl drafted the reply brief over the summer; and 3Ls Eunice Lee, Michael Mazzullo, and Jennifer Rosenblatt helped Engle prepare her argument.

Mazzullo, Engle’s primary mooting partner leading up to the case, was also present for the argument.

“Jessica did a wonderful job. She was articulate, poised, and thorough,” Mazzullo said. “I wasn’t surprised, because I had seen her rehearse argument numerous times. Perhaps most impressive was her ability to respond to the judges’ thoughts and questions on the spot, which are impossible to fully predict.”

The Second Circuit judges were impressed as well; after Engle concluded her argument, Judge John M. Walker leaned into the microphone and told Engle to come back again soon. Judges Debra Ann Livingston and Guido Calabresi chimed in with their agreement.

Wentworth-Ping, who worked as a pro bono scholar with the clinic last year and is now an associate at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, was present from the beginning of Fordham Law’s involvement in this case. As the primary drafter of the brief, Wentworth-Ping worked closely with Carrol, Lacker, and Weinstein to craft the document, ultimately filing the brief a day before she graduated.

“My time with the Federal Litigation Clinic was invaluable in preparing me for a firm like Quinn, where young associates are encouraged to partake in case theory discussion, client facing tasks, and case management generally,” she said.

Bresnick, whose role involved sitting in on negotiations between Weinstein and opposing counsel about possible settlements before filing the brief, as well as reading through it several times, found the process exciting and motivating.

“In law school, you rarely get a chance to witness practical lawyering,” he said. “Being on this case I was able to watch how Professor Weinstein negotiated with the other side in trying to attain the best possible settlement for our client. It was fascinating to see how quickly he had to think on his feet, always keeping the best interest of the client in mind.”

“Working in this clinic reaffirmed my aspirations to be a lawyer,” Bresnick added.

Upon graduating, Engle will be joining the New York City Law Department’s Special Federal Litigation Division.

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3L Stein Scholar Dana Kai-el McBeth appeared in a recent New Yorker article for two questions she posed to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner at a Fordham Law event. The magazine also mentioned the on-the-spot job interview McBeth had immediately following the event with Krasner, who was impressed by the depth of her queries. But the New Yorker piece only tells part of McBeth’s story.

McBeth has a background in public defense; during her 2L year she held externships with the Bronx Defenders in its reentry and community outreach department, and with the Legal Aid Society’s criminal appeals bureau. This past summer, she secured an internship with the highly competitive Equal Justice Initiative and currently serves as co-president of the Fordham Law student group Advocates for the Incarcerated.

These experiences made her a perfect fit for Krasner’s team—a DA’s office that has been at the forefront of a burgeoning national trend of embracing more progressive methods of prosecution. Krasner, McBeth noted, is “definitely interested in the more defense-minded attorneys. He’s looking for lawyers who are seeking actual justice and not just convictions.”

McBeth came to Krasner’s talk at Fordham Law with a healthy dose of skepticism. “I wanted to challenge this person who was being presented as one of the most progressive DAs in the country,” she said. While she had prepared five questions for Krasner, she was able to ask only two during the Q&A following his presentation.

McBeth’s well-informed questions, on balancing the perspective of victims in prosecuting cases and on Krasner’s plan to address recidivism, made any potential simple answers suspect, so McBeth was optimistic upon hearing Krasner’s thoughtful responses.

Although a job interview was far from McBeth’s mind when she initially asked her two questions, she found herself the subject of one not twenty minutes after the event concluded, in a conference room peopled only with Krasner and two of his colleagues—Nancy Winkelman, head of the law division at the Philadelphia DA’s office, and Robert Listenbee, first assistant DA to Krasner.

“It was a very conversational interview,” said McBeth, who was able to ask one of the other questions she had prepared for Krasner. What was expected to be a 15-minute interview turned into a full hour.

At one point, Winkelman asked McBeth for her thoughts on the mass Rikers Island bailout that had been reported that day, an organized effort by a team of human rights activists to identify and free female prisoners who could not afford bail. (More than 75 percent of the Rikers population is eventually released without being sentenced to prison.)

“I’m actually volunteering with that,” McBeth responded.

McBeth left the interview with a job offer, which she accepted. “It was a very informative, challenging, and helpful conversation,” she said. “It helped me understand his office and his vision more.”

The narrative that you typically hear about prosecutors, McBeth continued, “is how they want to go after the ‘bad guys’ and get justice for the victims. While I understand that narrative, I also understand the narrative that the person who is being accused or convicted of a crime can be a victim too. So how do you balance two victims?”

Addressing the root causes of recidivism is especially important for McBeth. Recidivism is highest among adults aged 18 to 21, and poverty and lack of education often play a large role. McBeth remarked that scientific studies have shown the human brain is not finished developing until around age 25.

Working in Krasner’s office, McBeth hopes to learn a lot from her colleagues. She wants to establish change on a local level that will eventually snowball into change on a national level.

“This isn’t an ordinary prosecutor’s office,” she said. “I want to help DA Krasner draw up a blueprint for other progressive DAs.”

“My ultimate goal is to learn how to be an effective change agent.”

The post A New Kind of Prosecution appeared first on Fordham Law.

Fordham Law School’s Dispute Resolution Society launched its fall 2018 campaign in spectacular fashion with a regional championship at one competition and two award recipients at another.

The 2L team of Maria Lathouris and Sydney Rosenblum were named co-champions out of 24 team contestants at the annual American Bar Association Negotiation Competition regional held at NYU Law School on Nov. 2-3. Lathouris and Rosenblum will compete at the national competition in Chicago in February.

Fordham Law also excelled at the American Arbitration Association’s Arbitration Competition held Nov. 2-3 at the headquarters of the New York International Arbitration Center. 2Ls Andrew Calamari, Sophia Dauria, and Madison Gaudreau won the team award for best witness preparation. Calamari also took home best advocate for his performance as a witness.

“Winning competitions enhances the Law School’s reputation in the field of dispute resolution,” said Professor Jacqueline Nolan-Haley, director of Fordham’s ADR & Conflict Resolution program. “Fordham Law is synonymous with producing champions in these competitions.”

Nolan-Haley, who attended a session of each competition, praised the students for their remarkable professionalism and incredible hours of practice time they dedicated to their craft. She also credited the success to the efforts of their coaches and the students who worked behind the scenes to moot the competitors.

“This is a shared victory for the whole Dispute Resolution Society,” Nolan-Haley said.

Lathouris and Rosenblum each expressed gratitude to their teammates for the amount of moot preparation they received in the three weeks leading up to the competition and to 3L Coach Brian Fried and DRS Managing Editor Marisa Rametta for feedback they shared. They also credited Fordham’s other regional competitors—Adam Weber, Allie Shapiro, Alicia Serrani, and Brandon Rutter—for helping with additional overnight prep once they learned after the competition’s opening round that they would be competing the following day in finals.

Lathouris and Rosenblum did not know one another before DRS coaches assigned them to compete as a team, but they quickly developed a strong partnership. The duo each cited the “Fordham method” of having two competitors play predetermined roles as integral to their success. Rosenblum made offers in the employment law negotiation, while Lathouris focused on “soft” issues and asking questions.

“To the judges, it looked like we were passing an invisible baton to each other,” Lathouris said. “Having predefined roles helped us show the judges how prepared we were and ensured we knew when the other person would speak.”

“It was an honor to represent Fordham in such a positive light,” Rosenblum added.

Heading into the week of the AAA competition, Calamari expected to support his teammates in a backup role. An unexpected change put him in the witness seat, however, and resulted in him winning the best advocate award.

Calamari praised his teammate Taylor Solomon, who was initially supposed to play the witness role, for laying out all the commercial dispute case information in a way that made his job easy. The team’s best witness preparation award went hand in hand with his individual award, he said. Thus, he celebrated the efforts of Sophia Dauria and Madison Gaudreau, who played lawyers during the competition, and backups Solomon and Monique Lara. He also thanked Head Coach Dave Gallo and 3L Coach Alexandra Lane.

“It would have been impossible to do all this research myself,” Calamari said. “Having the larger team give me the right answers, help me practice my delivery, and fine-tune my arguments was a major reason for my success.”

Fordham DRS team that competed at the ABA Negotiation Competition

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Native New Yorker Akilah Browne selected Fordham Law School to acquire the legal skills necessary to fight for a cause that is deeply personal to her: housing justice. Beginning in fall 2019, the 4L evening student will put her skills to use as a Skadden Fellowship recipient working with the New Economy Project to combat affordable housing instabilities in low-income communities such as the South Bronx and Washington Heights.

Over her two-year fellowship, Browne will play a major role in the New Economy Project’s support of community land trusts (CLTs), a community-centered planning model that allows local residents to take ownership of how their areas and homes are designed, operated, and re-sold. While hundreds of CLTs exist across America, New York has featured only one, in Cooper Square, until now. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s housing plan, calling for around 200,000 affordable housing units, means the moment is ripe for the tax-exempt CLTs, Browne explained.

The New Economy Project is co-leading the New York City Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI), which is hosting informational learning exchanges that will provide the foundation to launch CLTs. As a fellow with the New Economy Project, Browne will provide legal representation to the CLTs to help create the groundwork for permanent, democratically governed affordable housing in her hometown.

“It’s really an opportunity to make sure that, as New York City grows, its housing is permanently affordable, sustainable, and equitable for everyone,” Browne said. “That’s really important for me.”

The Skadden Foundation is paying for Browne to undertake her project proposal at the New Economy Project. Browne is the first Fordham Law student to receive the prestigious fellowship since Marni von Wilpert in 2011.

Browne’s desire to create sustainable affordable housing opportunities for her fellow New Yorkers derives from her own past and present experiences reaping the benefits of affordable housing—she and her husband, both from low-income backgrounds, are beneficiaries—and her up-close observations of the tribulations associated with housing instability. Her father was evicted from his Brooklyn apartment in which he lived for close to 20 years, despite consistently paying his $850 rent on time, because the new building owner decided to convert the rent-regulated property and charge market prices.

Affordable housing instability continues to permeate Browne’s social networks, she said, noting her mother-in-law, a public safety officer and longtime resident of Fort Greene, had to leave New York City for upstate New York in search of more permanent affordability. This address change has resulted in Browne’s mother-in-law moving further away from the community in which she raised her children and helped to keep safe during a time of disinvestment, in addition to increasing her commute time to work in the Bronx.

“Right now, there are people being pushed out, but I’m most concerned for the people in the margins who are not being protected by affordable housing,” Browne said, explaining that affordable housing is not being built for the city’s lowest income residents, thus increasing their fragility and hastening a path into homelessness. Decisions about who received housing stability in post-New Deal America have historically been rooted in racial discrimination, a fact that Browne discovered as a college student and that galvanized her interest in housing justice.

Browne has attended Fordham while working full-time as Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton’s senior pro bono specialist. In addition to her work and classes, Browne has served as student team coordinator for Fordham’s Community Economic Development Clinic, leading teams representing community development organizations in developing CLTs.

“I was able to learn a lot in a short time” about grassroots, community development advocacy and nonprofits, Browne said of the clinic. She credited Professor Brian Glick, the clinic’s supervisor, for supporting her interest in housing justice.

Many years before she attended Fordham Law, Browne participated as a teen in the Legal Outreach College Bound program, with which Fordham Law and its students regularly partner. These days, she hopes that her efforts will serve as an example for other current and future Fordham Law public interest students.

“I never saw my law degree as a means to make more money,” Browne said. “I saw my law degree as a means to advance justice.”

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The Fordham Law community is mourning the death of William Pickering Jones III ’20. Will passed away on Christmas day, Tuesday, December 25. He was 27.

“I came to know Will well during his time at Fordham. He had a passion for justice and for helping others. We are all stunned and deeply saddened by his death,” said Matthew Diller, Dean and Paul Fuller Professor of Law at Fordham Law School. “Will contributed a great deal to our community during his too brief time with us.”

Will was actively involved in criminal justice issues and took a lead role in two PIRC student groups – the Drug Policy Reform Project (DPRP), which he co-founded, and Advocates for the Incarcerated (AFTI), where he served on the board as the secretary.

Last winter Will worked with a team of students to help us plan a significant public program on closing the jail at Riker’s Island and this fall he worked on another major A2J project. As a leader of the DPRP, Will was deeply involved in a program scheduled for this winter. He also worked as a research assistant for Professor Deborah Denno focusing on issues relating to her Center on Law and Neuroscience.

“Will was one of the most passionate and dedicated individuals I’ve ever met—passionate about his causes, his family, and his friends, as well as an entire world full of discovery that he continually pursued in numerous disciplines, not just law,” said Deborah Denno, the Arthur A. McGivney professor of law and founding director of the Neuroscience and Law Center. “Will was an endlessly curious perfectionist, always delivering impeccable work that drew on his broad insights. Along with such ambition, however, Will was funny, warm, and humble, always shining a light on others.”

Will spoke with a reporter for the ABA Journal recently about how inspired he was by Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy. He paraphrased Stevenson saying, “The character of a society is not how we treat the privileged few, but how we treat the less fortunate, the mentally ill, those who are incarcerated.”

Will was focused on helping others not only through his involvement in access to justice issues, but also before that by coaching and mentoring students at the Yerwood Center Boys and Girls Club in Stamford, CT.

Before attending Fordham Law Will earned his bachelor’s degree from McGill University where he played varsity lacrosse.

Will brought great spirit, intellectual rigor, and passion to all he endeavored. He was kind and generous to those he knew well and those he’d only just met. He was a beloved big brother, son, and cherished friend. The Fordham Law community’s thoughts and prayers are with his parents, William P. Jones Jr. and Elizabeth Higgins Jones (Betsy and Bill); his sisters, Julia, Catherine, and Elizabeth Jones; and his large and loving extended family and group of friends.

Will’s funeral will be held at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church at 1986 Post Road in Darien, Connecticut at 11 a.m. on Saturday, December 29th. Our University President, Father Joseph M. McShane, S.J., will preside. The Law School will hold a memorial for Will in the spring.

The post Remembering William Pickering Jones III ’20 appeared first on Fordham Law.

Judge Milena Barreto Pontes Sodré

In her native Brazil, Federal Labor Judge Milena Barreto Pontes Sodré presides for eight to 10 hours each day over disputes that are destined to move slowly through a clogged appeals court system in a country lacking a culture of negotiation. This semester at Fordham Law, Judge Sodré, an LL.M. candidate, is not only absorbing knowledge in common law jurisprudence but also learning how and why so few civil labor cases reach American courts.

“In Brazil, you can’t take labor matters to alternative dispute resolution or to mediation or arbitration,” Judge Sodré said. “Everything is subject to lawsuit. In our universities, we’re not taught how to negotiate deals, we’re taught how to litigate. We’re making an effort to change this.”

Sodré has served as a federal labor judge in the 2nd Federal Region in São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous city and financial center, since December 2010. She is the second member of the 2nd Federal Region to attend Fordham Law this decade, following in the footsteps of her friend and colleague Glenda Regine Machado LL.M. ’13.

São Paulo (pop: 12 million) is home to two of Brazil’s 24 regional labor courts—appellate courts of the federal specialized court system. The 2nd Federal Region features more than 500 judges. Prior to attending Fordham, Sodré was responsible for one of São Paulo’s 124 labor divisions, and decided on more than 1,500 cases each year. She previously served as a federal labor judge in the state of Paraná and as a public attorney in São Paulo.

The labor issues that came before Sodré’s court raised questions about everything from sexual harassment, discrimination, and pregnancy issues to modern-day slavery, immigration, and punitive damages. The extraordinary breadth of issues Sodré weighed in on, and the real impact her judgments made on society, fueled her passion for labor law. It’s also an exciting time in Brazilian labor law, she noted, as the country continues to chart a course somewhere between a protectionist system and a more flexible approach.

Brazil’s federal labor judges are provided sabbatical time to pursue advanced legal degrees in their field of expertise before returning to the bench. Sodré received a glowing report about Fordham Law from Judge Machado. Sodré also had ample time to familiarize herself with New York during frequent visits to see her attorney husband as he obtained his LL.M. earlier this decade.

“I chose Fordham because here you’re not just comparing one system with the American system,” Sodré said. “You’re comparing it with 40 different systems, because of all the representatives of other countries studying at the Law School.”

Sodré praised the democratic nature of Fordham’s classes and the willingness of professors, such as James Brudney, to learn from students’ experiences. In these courses, J.D. students have an advantage because they are starting their legal education from scratch, but LL.M. candidates, hailing from civil law countries, possess experience their younger peers are lacking, Sodré observed. This multiplicity of experiences and viewpoints equals a perfect combination, the judge added.

“There are no limits to how far we can go in our discussions,” Sodré said.

The post Brazilian Federal Labor Judge Attends Fordham’s LL.M. Program appeared first on Fordham Law.

This past fall semester the Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center fielded teams at a number of prestigious interscholastic trial competitions across the country, earning winning results at many.

The Moore Advocates opened the season with a trip to Alabama for Faulkner Law School’s Mockingbird Trial Competition, which took place September 28­–30. 3Ls Christina Costello, Eliza Barrocas, Juliana Suleymanov, and Caitlin Hickey reached the quarterfinals of the competition.

Christina Costello, Eliza Barrocas, Juliana Suleymanov, and Caitlin Hickey

At the brand-new Martin Luther King Civil Rights Trial Competition, hosted on October 12 by the UC Hastings School of Law, 3L Lauren Riddell won an award for best direct examination. Competing alongside Riddell were 3Ls Ashwin Iyengar, Christopher Pedro, and Morgan Schaffer.

Ashwin Iyengar, Lauren Riddell, Coach Mike Higgins ’08, Christopher Pedro, and Morgan Schaffer

The center also fielded a stand-out team at the Queens County District Attorney’s Office Criminal Trial Competition, held October 27–28. At this tournament, teams were given a month to prepare a full trial for each side of a case: an opening, motions in limine, two direct examinations, two cross examinations, and a closing. The team went undefeated through the first two preliminary rounds of the tournament, submitted the top score in the semifinal round, and came within a hair’s breadth of winning in the final round, ultimately finishing in second.

For 3Ls Mary Cate Simeone and Valerie Sakellaridis, teammates on the Queens DA team, the competition was especially fruitful. Sakellaridis’ performance played a significant role in landing her a job as an assistant district attorney at the Queens County District Attorney’s Office.

Coach Konstantin Yelisavetskiy ’13, Leanne Fornelli, Valerie Sakellaridis, Thomas Arning, Mary Cate Simeone, and Coach Johnny Johnsen ’16

“I’ve known I wanted to be an ADA since I came to law school,” said Sakellaridis, who serves as managing editor of the Moore Advocates. “It was thrilling and humbling to know that my future employers hired me, at least in part, because they saw me compete in their courtrooms.”

“Being a part of the Moore Trial Advocacy Program has been the most rewarding part of my time at Fordham,” said Simeone, who is currently editor-in-chief of the Moore Advocates. “This program takes everything you have learned in your first-year courses, criminal procedure, and evidence classes, and makes sure you know how to apply those skills in a courtroom setting.” As editor-in-chief, Simeone is responsible for overseeing the 95 students in the program, and making sure all the logistics (e.g., alumni relations, interschool competitions, travel accommodations, etc.) run smoothly. Simeone will be working as an ADA at the Manhattan DA’s office after graduation.

Competing alongside Simeone and Sakellaridis were 3Ls Leanne Fornelli and Thomas Arning.

At the Nov. 9–10 Buffalo-Niagara Trial Competition, the single largest trial competition in the country, 2L Michael Lovitch won best opening statement for the entire tournament. He was joined by 2Ls Sarah Stein, Katherine Ann Boy Skipsey, and P.J. Benasillo, making the quarterfinals as a group.

Coach Mike Hardin ’14, Sarah Stein, Katherine Ann Boy Skipsey, Michael Lovitch, PJ Benasillo, and Coach Zach Green ’14

“I was really proud to have been able to bring back some recognition for my teammates and coaches,” said Lovitch of his award. “And of course I was proud to represent Fordham and bring back a win for the School.”

Also notable was the center’s presence at the ABA Labor Competition – New York Regional, which took place November 17–18. The all-woman team, which finished in second place, was composed of 2Ls Nicole Rubin, Eartha Jn. Baptiste, Lauren Scully, and Ashley Meadows.

Coach Dave Mou ’13, Nicole Rubin, Eartha Jn. Baptiste, Lauren Scully, Ashley Meadows, and Coach Cassie Rohme ’14

Meadows noted that preparation for the competition was “substantive but also performative,” as participants in trial competitions are judged on tone and professional demeanor, in addition to the strength of their argument.

“To a large extent, likability and credibility come from performance,” said Meadows.

The post Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center Fall Competitions appeared first on Fordham Law.

A trio of Fordham 1Ls in the Sports Law Forum bested 40 teams from across the country to claim the championship trophy at Tulane Law School’s International Baseball Arbitration Competition, held in New Orleans Jan. 16­–18.

Nathaniel Liebes, Nick Reade, and Billy Sobel won seven consecutive rounds over teams consisting of 2Ls and 3Ls, culminating with a victory over Notre Dame in the finals on Jan. 18. 2L coaches Rob Pannullo and Michael Salik, who competed the previous year, guided the team to victory.

Fordham entered the competition as the field’s youngest team, but overcame its relative inexperience with intensive preparation, strong camaraderie, and shared baseball fandom. Each team member remarked that they were thrilled to represent Fordham for the first time.

“This competition was definitely the highlight of my 1L experience,” Sobel said. “The first semester is all about getting accustomed to the amount of work, reading, and stress of exams. It was exciting to do something outside the classroom that allowed us to use, in a tangible way, the legal skills and knowledge that we gained during our first year.”

“This was the first time I identified more with Fordham Law than with the university where I received my undergraduate degree,” Liebes added. “Going down there and trying something new was rewarding.”

The team’s coaches, Pannullo and Salik, reached the quarterfinals in the previous year’s competition at Tulane. But their true victory came from networking at the competition, from which they were able to secure work on salary arbitration matters with the Major League Baseball Players’ Association. Their experience proved a big selling point for recruiting competitors for this year’s team, the coaches said.

The 2019 competition dealt with three Major League Baseball cases: center fielder Aaron Hicks v. New York Yankees; shortstop Jose Peraza v. Cincinnati Reds; and starting pitcher Michael Fulmer v. Detroit Tigers. Generally, each competitor argued from an individual’s side, be it the player or the team. However, Reade pulled double duty, arguing on behalf of Fulmer in a play-in game—deemed necessary after a judge’s mistake erroneously eliminated Fordham after day one—and then on behalf of the Tigers in the semifinals.

Reade prepared three weeks to represent Fulmer’s case at the competition. The New York Mets fan credited the “depth and breadth of our preparation,” including drafting a 10-page brief, preparing exhibits, and two weeks of mooting, as well as his prior baseball knowledge, for reflexively helping him and his teammates home in on the best arguments in the short time they had in between rounds.

Sobel argued on behalf of the Cincinnati Reds’ position in the quarterfinals. After Reade’s semifinals performance advanced the team to the championship round, Liebes successfully advocated Hicks’ case against the Yankees. Both Liebes and Sobel are real-life Yankees fans.

Rob Pannullo, Nathaniel Liebes, Nick Reade, Billy Sobel, and Michael Salik

“We were so well-prepared and had practiced so much that we were ready for any curveballs the judges might throw us,” Sobel said. Likewise, the team was smooth in transitions between the first competitor who spoke for five minutes and the second who spoke the final 10. The second speaker also handled the 7-minute, 30-second rebuttal.

“They did a very good job using what they practiced in the weeks leading up to the competition,” Pannullo observed, emphasizing that the team achieved its desired outcome despite having limited time to practice rebuttal slides before the competition’s second day.

Despite an outstanding showing on day one, Fordham was not initially included in the eight teams selected for the second day. It was later determined, however, that a scoring error had cost them a match they won. Thus, the team was placed in a play-in game the following morning, and received its opponents’ slides at 11 p.m.

“The guys were practicing their arguments and creating rebuttals until 3 in the morning, and then won the play-in round on four hours of sleep,” Salik said. “It’s a credit to what these guys had to go through to win.”

“For them to not only go down there and compete—with all the rigors they are facing during their 1L year—but to compete and win against 2Ls and 3Ls was special,” Pannullo said.

The post Fordham 1L Team Wins Baseball Arbitration Competition appeared first on Fordham Law.

Fordham Law 1L student Mohamed Sidibay was interviewed by Forbes about his life as a Revolutionary United Front child soldier and what inspired him to become a lawyer.

What was your life like before the RUF attacked your village?

MOHAMED SIDIBAY: Our small village — that was my world. Everyone was always happy. People weren’t rich but at the same time, people were content. I had a sister and brother who were much older. All I did was play. I loved to run. Because running was fun. Either I was smart talking someone and they chased me, or I decided to run to do something.

Was your family home the day that the RUF came?

MOHAMED SIDIBAY: Everyone was at home. And it was complete chaos.

Where were you?

MOHAMED SIDIBAY: Playing. And even though the sound of chaos was coming from where home was, I still ran in that direction because as a kid when something scares you, you go home because home is your safe place. When I arrived, they’d already captured people and split them up into two groups. I was going to go where I saw my family sitting but someone shoved me to the other group that was mainly kids and very young people. The fighters picked up their AK-47s and shot all the people on the side where my family was. Then they put us in the back of a van and took us away.
…
When did you begin to believe that you actually had a future?

MOHAMED SIDIBAY: Once I started liking school, I discovered I wanted to be a lawyer, thinking law was a way to bring about effective change. What I’m hoping to gain from law school is to be able to go back and help my country develop a strong judicial system. Sierra Leone took everything away from me. I want to help make sure that she gives more than she takes from the next generation.

Read full interview.

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In the summer of 1924, Ruth Whitehead Whaley, the first black woman to enroll at and graduate from Fordham Law, deserved to be joyful as she was finishing her final year at the Law School with her classmates. Instead she was upset—and justifiably so. In a letter dated June 7, 1924, Whitehead Whaley wrote to famed civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois regarding the source of her displeasure:

These years have been for the most part pleasantly and profitably spent. However there is one incident which has marred for me the beautiful memory I had expected to carry away of Fordham Law School, its magnanimous spirit and lack of caste and discrimination.

The incident involved a set of law books that Whitehead Whaley should have been awarded due to her exemplary scholastic achievement. She never received the books. Thanks in part to Du Bois, her story was made public in the NAACP’s publication The Crisis.

Professors Tanya Hernández (in blue) and Robin Lenhardt (in green) unveil the Ruth Whitehead Whaley display, assisted by Dean Matthew Diller.

On Tuesday, Whitehead Whaley’s story was told again, at a Black History Month celebration event that saw Whitehead Whaley and fellow alumna Eunice Carter ’32 inducted into the School’s Alumni of Distinction display.

After Todd Melnick, director of the Maloney Library, related Whitehead Whaley’s story to a standing-room-only crowd in the School’s Bateman Room, Leah Carter, great-granddaughter of Eunice Carter, spoke of her formidable great-grandmother whose work as a state prosecutor helped bring down one of the mob’s most notorious gangsters, Charles “Lucky” Luciano.

Leah Carter

“Without Eunice, [Luciano] may never have been convicted of any crime whatsoever,” said Leah Carter, a Yale Law graduate, who helped her father, Yale Law Professor Stephen Carter, conduct research for the book Invisible that he wrote about Eunice.

Eunice Carter became one of special prosecutor Thomas Dewey’s famed “Twenty Against the Underworld”—a team of twenty lawyers Dewey selected to help him fight organized crime in New York City. Carter was the only member of the team who was not a white male. It was Carter who first observed that organized crime was likely involved in running major prostitution rings in New York City, and it was this revelation that was the first domino to fall on the way to Luciano’s ultimate conviction.

Dean Diller and Leah Carter unveil the Eunice Carter display.

The Alumni of Distinction event, part of the School’s 100 Years of Women celebration, was organized by the Maloney Library and the Center on Race, Law and Justice. The center’s faculty director, Professor Robin Lenhardt, urged the audience to consider the kinds of lessons a 21st-century audience can learn from past narratives involving race and gender.

“The stories of our honorees remind us that those of us who are part of the Fordham community have an obligation—an obligation to begin to provide answers to the questions about race and gender, about barriers that affect our community still,” Lenhardt said.

The Alumni of Distinction unveiling coincided with a walk-through visual display, “Lawyering Beyond the Shadows,” created by the Black Law Students Association. Guests were ushered through to the Costantino Room, where individual posters were lined up displaying accolades of and quotes from African-American woman graduates and students of Fordham Law School—20 in total. The exhibit also included a timeline of important dates in Black history in the United States as well as at Fordham Law.

BLSA’s walk-through visual display

3L Tanyell Cooke, the first Black woman to be elected Student Bar Association president at Fordham Law, was among those featured in the exhibit. She and classmate Melissa Romain, BLSA president, issued closing remarks at the Alumni of Distinction event. Romain spoke about the importance of contextualizing the accomplishments of legendary alumnae of color within a larger historical frame of struggle and triumph.

3L Melissa Romain speaks to the crowd as 3L Tanyell Cooke looks on.

“The timeline puts into perspective the gravity of Whaley’s and Carter’s achievements,” Romain said. “This does not only speak to their character or drive and determination to success but also as an inspirational message to Black students and alumni of Fordham Law.”

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The United States is in the throes of an opioid crisis. A recent report by the National Safety Council has revealed that it is statistically more likely for Americans to die from an opioid overdose than it is for them to die in a car crash. While everyone agrees that the ultimate goal is to save lives, legal professionals, policymakers, medical professionals, and community members do not always see eye to eye in terms of the most effective way to prevent opioid overdose deaths. These differences of opinion were manifest on Wednesday at a Fordham Law panel that explored the viability of supervised injection sites as a strategy to combat the crisis.

Community leader Terrell Jones spoke to the audience about the feelings of desolation and hopelessness that drug users experience due to society’s perceptions of them.

“Every time that you look around, they’re being dehumanized: by the media, by people in the their community,” said Jones, a former drug user who now works in outreach and advocacy for marginalized low-income persons who use drugs. “Individuals need a place that they come and feel that they’re wanted, feel like they’re needed, feel like their personal needs will be addressed.”

According to Jones, that place of support is the supervised injection site, also known as a supervised consumption site. These legally sanctioned sites allow individuals to consume pre-obtained drugs under the supervision of professional staff rather than using alone on the street. Supporters of the sites argue that overdose deaths are prevented due to the safety of the facility and the training of the staff. While there are more than 100 supervised consumption sites around the world, the United States currently has none.

Panelist Brandon del Pozo, chief of police in Burlington, Vermont, said the supervised sites may be effective in major cities with big municipal budgets, but in smaller communities like the one he polices, the sites would do little to stop opioid deaths.

“If we’re interested in solutions that serve vast swaths of America equally and devoting those resources in ways that are equitable, safe injection is not a good solution for rural drug use,” he said.

Del Pozo instead praised the life-saving benefits of buprenorphine, a medication used to treat opioid dependence and addiction. He gave examples of buprenorphine being distributed to drug-addicted persons in France, as well as in the Rhode Island prison system, and seeing their opioid overdose mortality reduce by 79% and 62% respectively.

“[Safe injection] would be one of the last things I would devote my resources to, because you cannot scale it up in a way that starts having a population-level effect on mortality reduction now, which is what we need,” he said.

Following del Pozo, moderator Serge Schmemann, New York Times journalist, turned to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner to ask him about a lawsuit recently filed by U.S. attorney William McSwain to try to stop the City of Brotherly Love from becoming home to the country’s first supervised consumption site.

“When you have crazy people in the federal government, and they put crazy people in charge of federal law enforcement, then you get crazy,” said Krasner, unafraid to air his opposition to the lawsuit and to show his support for supervised consumption. Krasner went on to talk about the importance of the supervised site in Vancouver, North America’s oldest such site, and how it allows individuals to seek help without feeling shame.

“The reality is that what is killing people who are suffering from an addiction to opioids is stigma,” said Krasner. “And the reason that they are taking the drugs is because they are a symptom of something else.”

Bridget Brennan, special narcotics prosecutor for New York City, expressed concern for what supervised consumption signals to the community.

“What are supervised injection sites? It’s the government saying it’s OK to shoot up. It’s the government saying in some way this is safe,” she said. “I don’t think that that is a message that is going to help us in terms of preventing people from falling into this horrible, horrible problem.”

Brennan stressed that she believes in prevention for a problem that she boiled down to the danger inherent in drugs. “There are no safe drugs out there on the street,” she said.

Kimberly Sue, M.D., medical director of the Harm Reduction Coalition, approached the issue from the perspective of a doctor doing everything she can to help prevent patient deaths.

“We have a medicine that is a miracle; it literally reverses overdoses,” she said, in reference to buprenorphine. “Wouldn’t you want me to be there in a place where I could take of my patient? Wouldn’t you want someone who is trained to reverse an overdose with compassion 24 hours a day in a safe clean space where we can enable people to live?”

“Dead people don’t recover,” Sue stressed.

The panelists also discussed various legal issues related to the opioid crisis, including the federal statute known as the crack house statute, which Krasner feared could be used to prosecute “idealistic, young medical students.”

The panel was organized by the School’s A2J Initiative, the Fordham Law student-run Drug Policy Reform Group (DPRG), the Opioid Center of Support, and the Justin A. Solak Foundation, which was founded by Fordham Law Assistant Dean Vera Bullock following the 2016 death of her son of an opioid overdose.

Prior to the panel, a memorial service was held for William Pickering Jones III, a Fordham Law student who died on Christmas Day in 2018, following his own battle with opioids. Jones, a member of DPRG, had been instrumental in putting together the panel. Among the friends and family members of Jones who spoke at the memorial was his father.

“I’m learning that in many cases Will was right—right on the human side of things. He was a good person,” William Jones II said of his son. “Good people make good institutions. Fordham Law School, we have learned, is full of good people. It was a good place for William.”

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For the first time in its history, the Fordham Law Review Online has published an all-woman authored issue of the publication, in honor of the School’s celebration of 100 Years of Women. The issue was posted on March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day.

All pieces in the issue were written by women associated with Fordham Law School. Five pieces were penned by Fordham Law professors, two by Fordham Law alumnae, and four by current students.

In her foreword to the issue, Professor Elizabeth Cooper praises the wide range of woman voices contained in the publication.

“It is difficult to imagine a more diverse and fascinating collection of legal scholarship than that produced by these ten authors in this Issue of the Fordham Law Review Online,” writes Cooper. “I expect the women students entering Fordham Law School in 1918 would have anticipated nothing less than the excellence reflected in this collection.”

Following are the women and subject matter included in the issue.

• Professor Elizabeth Cooper, 100 Years of Women at Fordham: A Foreword and Reflection
• Jennifer Butwin ’19, Putting Students First: Why Noncitizen Parents Should Be Allowed to Vote in School Board Elections
• Professor Leah Hill, Disturbing Disparities: Black Girls and the School-To-Prison Pipeline
• Professor Clare Huntington, Family Law’s Exclusions
• Professor Robin Lenhardt and Professor Kimani Paul-Emile, “All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave”
• Bina Nayee ’19, The Efficacy of New York’s Qualified Prohibition on NDAs and Reforms That Can Protect Sexual Harassment Survivors
• Professor Jacqueline Nolan-Haley, Mediation, Self-Represented Parties, and Access to Justice: Getting There from Here
• Praatika Prasad ’19, More Color More Pride: Addressing Structural Barriers to Interracial LGBTQ Loving
• Bronwyn Roantree ’18, Gender and Religious Dress at the European Court of Human Rights: A Comparison of Sahin v. Turkey and Arslan v. Turkey
• Tracey Tomlinson ’19, Negligent Disruption of Genetic Planning: Carving Out A New Tort Theory to Address Novel Questions of Liability in an Era of Reproductive Innovation
• Catherine Tremble ’18, Don’t Bring a CAD File to a Gun Fight: A Technological Solution to the Legal and Practical Challenges of Enforcing ITAR on the Internet

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A team of Fordham Law students from the Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center won the New York Regional of the American Association for Justice Student Trial Advocacy Competition, which took place the weekend of March 2. As a result of the victory, the team advances to the national rounds, to be held in April.

The team, consisting of students Annette Favetta, Kyle Flemming, Lauren Scully, Sarah Stein and coached by alumni Gabe Mendoza ’11 and Graham Amodeo ’13, went undefeated in the preliminary rounds and were the #1 seed entering the semifinals. After defeating Brooklyn Law School and St. John’s, they were named champions.

Gabe Mendoza ’11, Sarah Stein, Lauren Scully, Annette Favetta, Kyle Flemming, and Graham Amodeo ’13

“Sarah, Lauren, Annette, and Kyle showed what it means to be a Moore Advocate: peerless on evidence, unrivaled in preparation, and totally professional,” said Adam Shlahet, director of the Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center.

Fordham Law fielded a second team that came away with a 6th place finish in the competition. That team consisted of students Michael Lovitch, Ashley Meadows, Nicole Rubin, and Fabiola Villamil and was coached by Cassie Rohme ’14 and Reza Rezvani.

Ashley Meadows, Michael Lovitch, Cassie Rohme ’14, Nicole Rubin, Reza Rezvani, and Fabiola Villamil

In the 2020 edition of U.S. News and World Report, Fordham Law’s trial advocacy program is ranked #9 in the country.

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For 1L Luna Garzón-Montano, public interest work is a natural inclination. “I feel like I have a sense of purpose when I do this kind of work,” she says.

Garzón-Montano, a native New Yorker and Vassar alumna, chose Fordham Law for its supportive network and emphasis on public service; she is a Stein Scholar in Public Interest Law and Ethics and a board member of the Fordham Law Defenders. This summer, she will spend ten weeks interning for the Southern Center for Human Rights as a recipient of the prestigious Haywood Burns Memorial Fellowship for Social and Economic Justice.

As an undergrad at Vassar, Garzón-Montano had already been considering a legal career, but it wasn’t until her junior year, when she took a course taught in a correctional facility, that she discovered her passion for public criminal defense. Before entering Fordham Law in the fall of last year, she worked for the Federal Defenders of New York, where she provided legal and emotional support for prisoners on death row who were appealing their sentences and convictions. She felt drawn to the interpersonal nature of the work, and realized she had an innate ability to connect with clients, many of whom suffered incredibly under the dehumanizing conditions of their incarceration.

“There’s this focus on what someone has done and this desire to punish them—to do to them what they did to someone else—but it’s shining a spotlight on one particular area of their life,” she says. “There’s no consideration for their lives, which are often just as devastating as whatever they’ve done.”

She knew she wanted to delve further into capital work this summer and focused her energies on programs in southern states with the death penalty. She chose the Southern Center for Human Rights for the size of its intern program and its emphasis on hands-on work. Garzón-Montano is eager to broaden her understanding of what it means to support what she considers society’s most underserved group and to hone her legal abilities during the ten-week program. “I think that historically—and still today—the death penalty has been a tool of racial control.”

The National Lawyers Guild formed the Summer Projects Committee in 1973 to provide legal support to the vital progressive movements of the day and to give legal students a challenging and rewarding educational experience outside the confines of the classroom. The fellowship has expanded and gone on to place hundreds of law students with public interest and civil rights organizations providing legal aid to vulnerable groups. In 1996, the NLG changed the name of the Summer Projects program to honor the legacy of Haywood Burns, the civil rights lawyer, professor, and former NLG president.

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This winter, two of Fordham’s moot court teams triumphed in media and international law competitions.

On March 17, Fordham’s team won the national championship in the Cardozo/BMI Entertainment and Media Law Moot Court Competition. The issues were centered on two questions: 1) Is a website featuring a user-submitted photograph immune from state right of publicity claims under the Communications Decency Act, and 2) Is the act of embedding a copyrighted work a violation of the copyright holder’s exclusive right of display under federal law?

2Ls Lisa Cordara (captain) and Dorothy L. Newman argued a total of six rounds, guided by faculty coach Professor Maria L. Marcus and student editor Vikram Paul. They argued on the side of the respondent, the owner of the copyrighted photo, that if the state’s right of publicity cannot be used against websites, it may as well not exist, and on the second issue, that technicalities invisible to the user should not be deployed to deprive copyright holders of their exclusive display rights. The subject matter was particularly challenging because it was so dependent on technical terminology, and Cordara noted, “These topics can be difficult to explain in a persuasive manner because they are either too complicated or too dry.”

The team prepared for the competition by conducting over 30 moots, all organized and advised by Paul. Said Newman, “Each moot was an opportunity for us to refine our arguments, improve our style, and solidify our command of the relevant law.”

“They never ducked a hypothetical,” said Professor Marcus. “Hypotheticals are thrown at teams, and sometimes, they have nothing to do with what actually happened in the competition problem.” Cordara and Newman prevailed by acknowledging how these tangential issues related to their case before skillfully directing things back to the argument at hand. Particularly after the semifinal and final rounds, Marcus said, “I knew right away that they were going to win. And they did.”

Editor Taylor Norton, Nigel Frank, Katherine Boy Skipsey, Professor Maria L. Marcus, captain Michael Bruno, Gregory Jacobs, and researcher Nicole Price competed against 680 teams from all over the world and placed in the top 32.

A Fordham Law team also made the finals in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. 

This year’s issue concerned a herd of yaks that migrates between a developing country and an industrialized one. The indigenous tribes in the developing nation hunt the yak as they have for generations—for sustenance and in accordance with their religious beliefs. Meanwhile, scientists in the industrialized nation have discovered an enzyme in the yaks’ gallbladders that can be developed into a powerful diabetes treatment, and the industrialized nation has begun to hunt the yak to produce the medicine. Both sides have agreed to submit their dispute to the International Court of Justice.

Team members Michael Taylor Bruno (captain), Nigel Frank, Gregory Jacobs, and Katherine Anne Boy Skipsey (all 2L students) argued and filed briefs on opposing sides of the case, but worked together as a cohesive team to proceed to the finals and secure the second place position and to win the coveted best brief award. Marcus added that they very clearly brought to the fore the heart of each side of the matter while conforming to page- and word-count limitations. “A good argument isn’t a speech that’s shouted at judges—it’s a conversation,” Marcus noted. “It’s a conversation between intellectuals about a really interesting topic that is wide open on every side.”

Their success as oralists lay in their research and lengthy daily moots—aided by their editor, Taylor Norton, researcher, Nicole Price, and coach, Professor Marcus—ensuring the team was prepared for any and all issues that could be thrown at them in competition. Michael Taylor Bruno put it simply, saying, “We are a family. We have worked together on this problem since September and spent hundreds of hours making sure our memorials and oral arguments are perfect. We support one another and push each other to be better.”

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Fordham Law School was the first to be profiled in an article in the spring 2019 issue of PreLaw Magazine. It identifies 10 law schools that are at the forefront of the access to justice movement through their work to provide legal help to those who cannot afford it.

We start with Fordham Law School in New York City because it is home to the National Center for Access to Justice. Fordham’s own Access to Justice Initiative includes a teaching component that offers students classes in poverty law, consumer protection law, disability law and more.

Fordham Law has 15 clinics that give students opportunities to provide hands on legal services to people in need. For example, the school’s Lincoln Square Legal Services represents low-income clients in immigration, family law, consumer protection and other matters. The Public Interest Resource Center helps student groups complete public service hours, planting the passion for access-to-justice work. The initiative also supports scholarly research and advocacy and hosts a national conference of access-to-justice leaders.

Jonathan Lippman, a co-chair of Fordham’s Access to Justice Institute, said that law students have completed a tremendous amount of pro bono work and that he hopes they’ll continue to do so throughout their careers.

“If the people of our city, state and country aren’t able to access the courts, then everything we do really lacks meaning,” said Lippman, former chief judge of the state of New York and a current of counsel with Latham & Watkins. “The bottom line is: There can’t be two systems of justice, one for those with resources and one for those who don’t have resources.”

Read full article (starts page 34)

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Fordham Law student Daria Schieferstein along with classmates Elaina Aquila, Gaby Kornblau, Rachel Smith, and Sam Zuckerman wrote an op-ed featured in Times Union, Albany’s daily newspaper, discussing the recent amendment to a New York State tax law that they worked to enact through Fordham Law’s Poverty, Tax, and Justice Clinic.

Since 2014, the state has mandated that the Department of Taxation and Finance suspend the driver’s license of any individual owing $10,000 or more in past-due taxes and related interest and penalties.
…
The recent amendment helps to put an end to this unjust practice, creating an exemption from license suspension for those who receive public assistance or Supplemental Security Income, or who are experiencing undue economic hardship. Under this provision, financially struggling New Yorkers can keep their driver’s license, their dignity and their jobs, and increase the likelihood of working their way towards solvency.

Importantly, the law does not forgive tax debt. The government is free to continue using its other channels of tax collection to obtain what is due.

Read full article.

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Fordham Law student, Shaoul Sussman ’19, was featured in a New York Magazine article talking about his recent paper, in which he argues that Amazon’s business practices violate antitrust laws.

With its ever-growing dominance of online retail, Amazon has long drawn accusations that it is a monopoly — or at least a monopoly in waiting. When the company acquired Whole Foods last year, that scrutiny only intensified. But maybe “monopoly” isn’t quite the right word for what Amazon is up to. Shaoul Sussman, a Fordham University law student, has a different perspective. In a paper for the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement and in a blog post on the ProMarket website, which have generated buzz in academic circles, he writes that Amazon may be throwing its weight around in a way that consumers might not immediately notice, but which will end up harming them nonetheless. Intelligencer spoke to him about his theory.
…
I argue that for many years, Amazon was operating with a negative cash flow, which means that the firm was receiving less money than it was spending. But this business model, which shareholders and investors on Wall Street really love now, doesn’t fit within the way antitrust regulation or law conceives of firms.

Conservative antitrust theory has said that predatory pricing — underpricing goods so that other firms can’t compete — is irrational and unsustainable, because shareholders will punish firms that are unprofitable. But with the rise of big unprofitable companies like Amazon and Uber, this kind of market-disciplining effect no longer exists. Traditional orthodox antitrust theory does not map onto current corporate reality.

Also, when a firm operates with a negative cash flow, there is simply no way for us as outsiders to tell whether they’re spending money on fixed assets and R&D and legitimate investments in technology and innovation, or whether they’re using that money to subsidize products to consumers at below cost to corner the market. In other words, we just can’t tell what a firm is doing when it’s spending more than it’s making.

Read full article.

See additional media coverage on this topic:
Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws? This Law Student Thinks He Has Evidence
How low prices could make for an antitrust case against Amazon

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Robert Chislett ’21 had an eventful first year at Fordham Law. While attending the School’s evening program, he received an honorable mention for the Peter Fugiel Scholarship, co-founded a tech start-up, and has recently been appointed to become the next president of the Fordham Information Law Society. All of this while working a full-time job and becoming a parent for the first time.

Born in 1982 in New Jersey, Chislett served in the U.S. Army for a decade before enrolling in Fordham Law. During his active duty service as an infantry non-commissioned officer, he was deployed twice in Iraq, and earned awards for combat, valor, merit, and good conduct; he also traveled to 40 countries, mainly in Europe, the Middle East, and South America. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Ranger School and the Airborne School.

While he was stationed in a U.S. base near Venice, Italy, he began pursuing an associate degree through the education center of the base.

“My very first class was a criminal law class,” he recalls. “The professor had a law degree and practiced law. When I read my first court case, the language stood out to me, and I thought: ‘This is where I want to go.’”

He completed the degree, pursued a bachelor’s, and moved to Brooklyn, NY, where he took an administrative position with the military. In 2016, he enrolled in New York University’s M.P.A. program in Public & Nonprofit Management & Policy as a part-time student.

“I was still working in the military,” he says. “I’d take off my camouflage, put on my jeans, and take the train to school.”

At NYU, he focused on international development. “Much of the lectures were about the economics, finance, and structures of innovation that create social impact and address issues such as poverty, or inadequate human rights,” he explains. During the program, he worked on a project with the United Nations Development Programme in Swaziland.

“The program was a great bridge into law studies, and it gave me new knowledge of the economic and financial policies that can be implemented, in the U.S. or other countries.”

Together with a fellow combat veteran, he also co-founded a start-up company called X-Urb, a tech platform that provides information services to promote food equity and security. Chislett is personally managing the company’s trademark, copyright, and LLC legal filing.

But law turned out to be Chislett’s ultimate aspiration. So he joined the evening program at Fordham Law in the fall of 2018, one year after separating from the military.

The day before Chislett started at Fordham, his wife, Raigan, gave birth to their daughter, Scarlett Siena. Within hours, he’d become both a father and a law student, while working full time as a program fellow at the Volcker Alliance.

His research at the Volcker Alliance ultimately contributed to a report on state budgeting published in December of 2018. For that report, Chislett was awarded by the National Federation of Municipal Analysts (NFMA) with an honorable mention in the 2018 Peter Fugiel Scholarship. Every year, the NFMA awards students who pursue research in municipal administration.

“Being a lawyer means using your skillset to think differently and see issues that others may not see,” Chislett says.

At Fordham, he particularly enjoys doing pro bono legal work. Through Fordham Law’s Feerick Center for Social Justice, he is volunteering at the Civil Legal Advice and Resource Office (CLARO) of Richmond Civil Court in Staten Island.

“When I grew up, there were people who helped me and my family. Doing pro bono work feels like paying back,” he says. “It’s rewarding to give other people guidance and help, so that they don’t get taken advantage of.”

Chislett was also recently named president of the Fordham Information Law Society. He has declared Intellectual Property and Information Law as his concentration. This coming fall, he will transition into the full-time program, so that he can fully focus on his studies; he says he is looking forward to taking Prof. Olivier Sylvain’s course on Information Law and Prof. Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid’s course on artificial intelligence and blockchain.

“Leaving the military and establishing a new career is a very challenging process,” Chislett says. “I see my law degree as providing a path for me to create a new career that can be as rewarding as my military career.”

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Daniel Katter ’20 has won the 2019 edition of the Hartrick Scholar Writing Competition of the Institute for Energy Law. In addition to receiving a $2,500 prize, the Fordham Law student was also invited to attend the Institute’s 70th Annual Oil & Gas Law Conference in February.

Katter’s winning paper, entitled Two Birds, One Stone: How Incidental Take Permits Can Strengthen Bird Conservation and Alternative Energy, was originally inspired by an article published in the New Yorker about the dangers that wind turbines pose to birds. After reading the article, Katter started thinking about ways to expand wind power while also conserving avian life.

“There are laws in place to prevent that, specifically the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA),” Ketter said. “The Obama Administration actually sued two big wind farms in Wyoming for killing about 500 protected birds. Today, the Trump Administration is no longer enforcing the MBTA at all.”

Katter continued, “Looking at the MBTA, which is the primary law here, I make a case for allowing wind farms to buy permits that would allow them to accidentally kill a set number of birds per year. The Department of the Interior would periodically visit wind farms and work with developers to figure out the right number. At the same time, the MBTA would be used to crack down on the fossil fuel industry, which kills 5-10 times more birds per year than wind.”

At the annual Oil & Gas Law Conference, which took place in Houston, Katter said he met several people who are interested in creative regulation of the petroleum industry.

Given his interest in global warming and energy law, Katter said: “I’d really like to work in renewable energy.”

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