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 What's New? | Faculty in the News | News Archive | News Home
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Class of 2008 Public Service Awards Presented Barbour and Beets Receive Faculty Awards
Dean Joan G. Wexler expressed the Law School’s pride in the scope and impact of these students’ public service work. Camille Chin-Kee-Fatt, Director of the Office of Student Affairs and Elizabeth Kane, Director of the Public Service Programs Office, also made introductory remarks, and filmmaker Peter Kinoy screened his documentary on international human rights, “Building Justice.” A reception followed the ceremony. Brian Barbour was presented the Faculty Public Service Award by Professor Christopher Serkin. Fluent in Japanese, after college Barbour worked in Japan in the education sector and also organized a musical production which toured Niigata Prefecture to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity in Fiji. After three years, he moved to Nepal and continued working as an educator, initiating literacy programs, training teachers and librarians, and raising funds and awareness about several social issues. Then he moved to Rome to work at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization on a campaign to alleviate hunger and poverty. At BLS, Barbour is an Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Law Fellow, a member of the Moot Court Honor Society, and a BLSPI Fellow. He is also the president of the International Law Society, which he helped to revitalize, organizing a speakers program, developing language circles, and helping to identify international jobs and internships. He has spent thousands of hours creating the infrastructure to support many international human rights activities. During Law School, Barbour has been a legal intern at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and has participated in BLS’ Safe Harbor Project, where he helped win asylum for a refugee from Chad. He has worked at the Fair Housing Justice Center and the Environment and Natural Resources Division of DOJ in Washington, DC, and was also a research assistant for Professor Maryellen Fullerton. The presentation of the Faculty Award to Josie Beets was made by Professor Aliza Kaplan. Beets was voted a BLS student leader of the year in 2006-07 and received a Service Award from the Columbia Law School BLSA chapter at the Paul Robeson Conference in April 2007. Beets, who is also a Sparer Fellow, said that her direction in life changed during her first spring break in law school. She spent a week as a Student Hurricane Network (SHN) volunteer at the Tulane Criminal Clinic in conjunction with the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, assisting victims of Katrina who were languishing in prison due to lost records. The next summer she worked at the Orleans Public Defender’s office with Katrina victims. She went on to became a leader of the SHN, which provides opportunities for law students to volunteer across the Gulf south. As part of SHN’s Project Triage, she has organized New York City-area law student volunteers to review records of defendants, and through SHN’s Katrina-Gideon Interview Project, she has worked to enable law students from across the country interview hundreds of inmates waiting for trial. Beets was among a group of students who received a national pro bono award for SHN’s accomplishments. Beets has coordinated an event at the New York City Bar about legal needs of Hurricane Katrina victims, spoken at an ABA conference on racial and ethnic justice in New Orleans, and was a panelist on the ABA Criminal Justice Disaster Preparedness Conference. She has also worked at the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia in the Special Litigation Division, and volunteered with their reentry summit expungement project. With the La Salle Parish Legal Working Group, she provided assistance to the ACLU in their defense of the “Jena 6,” a group of black youth in Louisiana who were charged with beating a white student and whose treatment as defendants has been widely criticized as racially discriminatory. The general public service awards were presented for work during law school, ranging from 50 to over 1,000 hours, in either paid or unpaid public service positions. The awardees were: The Platinum Pro Bono Service Award for over 1000 hours of service: Leslie Archambeault, Mark DellAquila, Beth Baltimore, Basima Hafiz, Brian Barbour, and Dante Silveri. The Gold Pro Bono Service Award for 500-999 hours of service: Rebecca Blumenkopf, Sara Mader, Elizabeth Broderick, William B. Mason, Ashley Caudill, Cynthia Nagendra, Edward W. De Barbieri, Olga Anna Posmyk, Deanna DeFrancesco, Allison Callan Schwartz, Joan Fern, M. Masaya Seltzer, Dana Gremaux, Stefanie Shaffer, Jessica Hand, David Sugarman, and Erica Kagan. The Silver Pro Bono Service Award for 250-499 hours of service: Diana Abrishamian, Adrian Neil, Bradley A. Benedict, Claire Nicolay, Lenore Cutrera, Pamela Perel, Jonathan Hobfoll, Serena Richards, Margaret Hsiung, Johane Severin, Kate Kennedy, and Jean Wen. The Pro Bono Service Award for 50-249 hours of service: Courtney Gordon-Tennant,Youjung Park, Annette Graumann, Michael Passman, Sheryl Konigsberg, Eileen Schneider, Spensyr Krebsbach, Daniel Zweben, and Gail A. Montemayor.
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