Fall 2009 -- BLIP students have represented upwards of 50 clients and championed innumerable causes at the intersection of technology, law, and policy in the past few months. BLIP students Erik Dykema ’10, Christopher Vidiksis ’10, Jared Rosen ’10, Liberty McAteer ’10, Liam Barber ’10, Roozbeh Ashtyani ’10, and Warren Huang ’10 worked with StationStops to build its successful legal challenge in a copyright and trademark battle against the MTA. BLIP students Andrew Ellis ’10, Victor Cohen ’10, Sarah Nurbhai ’10, Chris Henry ’10, and Jacqueline Tate ’10, have been providing early-stage legal support for Brooklyn Brew Shop, a Brooklyn-based startup. BLIP students Chris Henry ’10, Andrew Ellis ’10, Victor Cohen ’11, Sarah Nurbhai ’09, Jacqueline Tate ’10, David Wheatley ’10, Matthew Hayes ’10, and Warren Huang ’10 have been providing legal support to PublicAdCampaigns, exploring avenues of civil redress to combat the City's failure to curb illegal commercial billboards. Students Shao-fei Moy ’09, Eric Barr ’09, and Christopher O'Brien ’09 won a motion for summary judgment on behalf of client TelTech in TelTech v. Florida, a case challenging constitutionality of Florida anti-caller ID spoofing law.

Under the supervision of Professor David Reiss, the Community Development Clinic is representing an art gallery that is converting from a for-profit to a not-for-profit structure. In addition to incorporating the not-for-profit and applying for a determination of tax-exempt status, the clinic is advising this client regarding a variety of tax and governance issues that relate to this conversion.

The Community Development Clinic is also representing the New York Asian Women's Center, which provides services to victims of domestic violence. The clinic is advising this client regarding the creation of a volunteer lawyer referral service for clients needing representation in contested divorce proceedings.

Working with the BLIP Clinic, the Community Development Clinic is representing the Social Transit Research Laboratory, Inc. (Str-Lab). Str-Lab intends to create a cell phone application that would allow people to coordinate local rides (e.g., share cabs, carpool). The CDC Clinic is incorporating this not-for-profit client and will help to establish a joint venture with a for-profit BLIP client.

The clinic is also assisting a broad range of clients with incorporation and applications for determinations of tax-exempt status. Representative clients include the Ghanaian Civic Association and the Society for The Advancement of The Caribbean Diaspora.

Spring 2009 -- Over the course of two and a half semesters in the Corporate and Real Estate Clinic, students worked with a low-income co-op to obtain an $800,000 rehabilitation loan from the City of New York. The loan will be used to update kitchens and bathrooms, remove asbestos and complete roof, masonry and intercom repairs. Because the City requires loan recipients to show a high percentage of owner occupancy, the first student team, Christina Browne and JP Anderson (both ’09), had to negotiate and prepare numerous contracts of sale for previously rented units. The next semesters’ students, Shalom Huber ’10 and Paul Schwartz ’09, conducted the closing for one of the units and worked extensively with the building manager to gather information required by the City for the loan closing. Josefina Colomar ’10, who worked in the Clinic in the spring and summer, prepared the opinion letter and resolutions, resolved title issues and conducted the loan closing on June 26, 2009.

Fall 2009 -- Occasionally the clinic encounters a situation where building residents believe they are living in a co-op but later discover that no official filing with the Attorney General was completed. For one ten-unit East Harlem building, Mark Jackson ’10 and Justin Singer ’09 prepared an application for a no-action letter which they submitted in April 2009. Final approval from the Attorney General arrived on June 1 and the clients were thrilled with the clinic’s rapid success. Fall clinic students Zia Al-Khalil ’10 and Jordan Weinstein ’10 conducted a shareholder meeting on October 22 to discuss possible amendments to the certificate of incorporation and by-laws and to issue share certificates.

Fall 2009 -- The Criminal Practice Externship is offering a new opportunity in the Sex Trafficking Unit of the Office of the Kings County District Attorney. Six students will be assigned to work with ADAs, detectives, officers from the NYPD Vice Squad, and advocacy organizations such as the Asian Women’s Agenda, to investigate and prosecute cases involving victims of sex trafficking.

Fall 2009 -- This fall was a time of family reunifications for clients of the Safe Harbor Project who have been granted asylum. After sustained and arduous work by successive students, the families of three clients are reuniting with their families after long separations. One client’s spouse and two children left refugee camps in Nepal to be with their father after four years apart. The daughter of another client, who had been forced into slavery and torn from her child, rejoined her mother after sixteen years. And two sons of a client living in a war torn West African country were finally reunited with their mother after many years. None of these victories came easily. Students had to work hard to obtain documentation of identity, advocate on behalf of our clients at USCIS and with consular personnel, arrange for DNA testing in two of the cases, and help one client obtain a grant from an outside organization to be able to afford the plane ticket to fly her daughter to the United States.