Through direct negotiations with counsel for the nation’s largest broker-dealer, the Investor Rights Clinic (IRC) student team of Bailey Somers ’11 and Alexander Nguyen ’12 was able to bring to settlement a client’s case. The matter was scheduled for trial at FINRA in April, 2011. The students represented an individual alleging that his broker had executed a trade without prior authorization. The respondents’ counsel vigorously defended their clients for over a year. However, Somers and Nguyen developed and executed a solid negotiation strategy and, with patience and persistence, achieved a strong settlement for their client.

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In the midst of December finals, two student teams from the Corporate and Real Estate Clinic represented low income cooperatives in closings, which resulted in $1.3M in loans to prevent foreclosure. Thanks to the efforts of Amy Handler ‘11 and Steve DeMizio ‘11, a 51-unit low-income cooperative in the Bronx received $800,000 to pay delinquent real estate taxes.

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On January 28, a team of Investor Rights Clinic (IRC) students completed a three-day hearing before an arbitrator at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), representing a senior, retired couple in claims brought against their broker and the nation’s largest broker-dealer. The team of Christopher Amore ‘11, Alfonso Iriberri ’11, and Bailey Somers ’11 handled all aspects of the case including the hearing itself. Two weeks following the hearing they learned that they had prevailed, and that their clients won back their retirement savings.

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Human Rights First, an organization that aims to ensure rights and dignity for all people, recently spoke on the importance of law school clinics for the success of their refugee protection program. The group named Brooklyn Law School's Safe Harbor Clinic as an exemplar for providing support to clients seeking asylum and ultimately gaining U.S. citizenship, particularly in the case of a young woman who fled a forced marriage in the Middle East and potentially faced execution. Jane Li '12, Laura Zaccone '11, and Melissa Livingston '11, led by Professor Stacy Caplow, were able to win their client asylum after presenting her case to the Department of Homeland Security.

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Congratulations to Cailin Burke '12, Ratko Caricic '12 and Mallory Elizondo '12 for their successful representation of a journalist from a west African country in his quest for asylum through the Safe Harbor Clinic. Their client had been arrested several times and severely beaten for his attempts to report on government improprieties and then targeted for exposing an act of torture. Under Professor Dan Smulian’s supervision, the students’ hard work throughout the semester gave their client hope that there was a way through the fear and despair in which he was living. This hope bore fruit last week. The Safe Harbor Project will now seek derivative asylum for our client’s family, so they can join him in his new life in the United States.

The hard work of Safe Harbor Clinic students Mary Margaret Anderson ‘11, Nabilah Hossain ’12, and Laura Zimmerman ‘11 paid off as their client’s Non-immigrant Status Petition was granted. Their client, a woman from China, is in removal proceedings and had been battered by her partner. She had gone to the police for help and cooperated in the prosecution of her abuser. As this type of case was a departure from the Safe Harbor’s usual asylum work, the students had to learn the law dealing with the protection of battered spouses and partners and decided that the petition they filed was the best remedy.

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